Customer Reviews

Humans

5 star:		(4)
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3 star:		(1)
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This is a terrific novel that's both really funny and pretty dark. I'm a huge fan of Donald Westlake's work. I've probably read at least a dozen of his novels in the five or six years since I first discovered his books. Nearly all of them share some qualities that I've come to associate with his work: great characters, sharp dialogue, a strongly satirical tone and a twisted plot. Humans is no different. When God becomes angry with the Earth's inhabitants, he sends his chief angel down to gather a diverse group of eccentrics who will bring about the end of the world. Satan, who needs mankind's sins in order to stay in business, sends his minions to save mankind. It's a wild story with a lot of surprises. I highly recommend it, and I really hope some talented director decides to bring it to film - it would make a terrific movie.

this book would be unavailable as the millennium approaches. Westlake's best effort outside the mystery genre is a brutal, funny, and somehow charming epic. I hope someone reprints this book. It's a sad sign for civilization that awful movies like End of Days and Stigmata have been produced while this novel sits just begging to be turned into a screenplay.

I'm a huge fan of Westlake's work. I'm particularly a huge fan of his comic capers and although this is not one of those, it does add the odd bit of humour every now and then to this survival of mankind thriller. However compared to the majority of Westlake's work, Humans just lacks something. The plot is a great idea, it certainly reminds me of one of my other favourite authors, Christopher Moore, however Moore does write that genre better than Westlake did here. The main fault with this book is that the characters just aren't that interesting, and at times outright boring, therefore you just don't care about them, in fact with the Russian Chernobyl firefighter guy chapters, I found a struggle to push through.

If this novel could be found on the shelves of your local library, by all means pick it up (and if your a fan of Westlake's work you're going to want to) but the fact remains Humans (written in 1992) has now joined the ranks of his classic comic capers from the 60's, 70's and 80's and unless you stumble across a copy at a garage sale or being sold on ebay by someone who doesn't know its worth, you're going to be paying a collectors' price for it. It is worth that collectors' price? Simple answer, no! However so many of Westlake's other novels are so I'd grab one of those instead.

Basic plot of Humans is that God is over his creation. He could wipe it out himself but decides to let humans use the free will he gave them to do it themselves. He sends an angel to earth to manipulate a few key humans who should bring about the earth's demise. Of course Satan has found humans quite entertaining throughout the years and doesn't want his entertainment to end so sends forth his own minions to save the planet.

If you haven't already done so also check out Westlake's comic capers. The best four comic capers at an absolute masterpiece level are, Smoke, The Spy in the Ointment and a New York Dance (also published as Dancing Aztecs) and Cops and Robbers. Other great comic capers worth checking out too are Gangway!, God Save the Mark, Who Stole Sassi Manoon?, Help I am Being Held Prisoner, the Fugitive Pigeon, Enough, Somebody Owes Me Money and High Adventure to name just a few!

Of course Westlake doesn't just write comic capers and if you never read anything else, you've also got to check out his absolute masterpiece which is about the ultimate solution to unemployment, The Ax!

Humans by Donald Westlake might finally reconcile the problem of an omnipotent creator and human free will - or maybe not. It does contain a supreme novel with a unique view of divine concepts and is loaded with interesting characters. (It's impossible to separate the good guys from the bad. You'll be surprised who you're rooting for.) Very original!

Having read Donald Westlake with tremendous enjoyment for years, I have to say that he has more than scored with this one. His usual ironic humor revs into high gear and serves to enhance a truly wondrous story about humans, with all their flaws and strengths, charm and hatefulness, creativity and destructiveness, compassion and cruelty. What the angel finds after God sends him to correct his "mistake" makes for both laughter and great poignancy--often at the same time--in an entertaining thriller format. Underneath the ever-present Westlake humor and view of human frailties is a powerful argument regarding the value of the human species. This is a book I will read over and over. And, in the wake of 9/11 and the Gulf Coast Hurricane Katrina disasters, HUMANS has had even more meaning for me.