Customer Reviews

Mercury Falls

5 star:		(158)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The end is nigh. The lawyers have reached an agreement, the paperwork is in order, the Antichrist has been named, and the Four Attache Cases of the Apocalypse have been unleashed. It's business as usual for the angels and demons involved, until things started to get just a little crazy.

The stakes are obviously very high in Robert Kroese's debut novel Mercury Falls. It's Apocalypse time, baby. At least it's supposed to be. The arrangements for the final battle between good and evil have been made, but various rebels and conspirators on both sides are doing their best to make the end of the world work for their own ends. The only real "free agents" are Christine, a human reporter assigned to the apocalyptic cult beat, and Mercury, a happy go lucky angel who'd rather be perfecting his ping-pong serve than keeping the end of the world at bay. Can this unlikely duo manage to thwart everyone's apocalyptic designs and keep them from, you know, annihilating the human race?

Not since Kevin Smith's Dogma has such a heavy theological concept been portrayed so hysterically. Actually, Mercury Falls reads a bit like Dogma if it were scripted by Christopher Moore or maybe Chuck Klosterman. Kroese balances his apocalyptic subject matter with razor sharp dialogue and abundant pop culture references that had me glued to the book with a big grin on my face the whole time...when I wasn't laughing out loud, of course. How many books can accomplish that? Whether holding forth on intraplanar mass transit and the heavenly bureaucracy or the best way to get red wine out of a cashmere sweater, Kroese's words flow in an absolutely compelling manner. Each sentence seems like an effortlessly constructed work of satirical genius that without a doubt requires additional reading(s).

Mercury Falls is self-published*, but don't let that deter you. The fact that a major publisher hasn't wised up to this book is a crime. This book was an absolute blast from start to finish, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good story and has a sense of humor.

*Update - Mercury Falls has since been picked up by Amazon as part of its Amazon Encore line. They obviously recognize a good book when they see it.

*Update 2 - The sequel to this book, titled Mercury Rises, is now available, and is well worth reading if you enjoyed this one.

For a hilarious book! My brother is hospitalized with lymphoma and undergroing chemotherapy. To keep up his cognitive skills I read to him. Well he took over reading to me on most of this book and it had him laughing so hard he couldn't speak straight. It also brought his blood pressure down. Laughter IS the best medicine! Please keep writing!

Recalling Christopher Moore at his drollest, and Eric Dezenhall at his most irreverent, Robert Kroese hits the nail squarely on the head. Some of the dialogue is so witty, so Wildean, that you think you must have read those jokes before, but you haven't. It's all original.

The first chapter does indeed recall Douglas Adams, but here Kroese falls down a bit. I can't help feel that he was edited into this voice for the first few pages, which is unfortunate because by the second and third chapters he starts rolling like a madman in a stolen tank.

Any concern that the narrative takes a backseat to pithy one-liners is quickly forgotten by the third or fourth chapter. The man can tell a story and will have you flipping pages well past "lights out."

The final chapter is quite upbeat, which is a tonal break with the rest of the story. Again, I felt an editor's hand at work and I hope that in Kroese's next effort he'll feel free to bookend his spectacular prose with intros and outros that are more fitting.

Highly recommend. We need more books like this.

First, the good news: I enjoyed the premise, and the author gets huge gold stars for a wicked sense of humor and a sharp wit. Also, I adore his use of language, and I'm picky that way.

However, I got completely bogged down in the heavy dialog. Let me qualify that by revealing that this is most likely a personal problem, or at the very least, a strong preference. I have a very short attention span and will scan and flip whenever I see more than one or two paragraphs of one character explaining something to another. And that happens more than once in this story.

(Seriously, I've never make it all the way through Hitchhiker's Guide or a Discworld book, and that's pretty much heresy for someone of my generation. I even flipped through entire segments of LOTR. I know!)

So, while the story is funny and sharp and original, the talk-to-action ratio did not fall within my preferred range. Making it through to the end took a bit of self-discipline.

But I could well be full of crap. You should read it and post a five star review about how wrong I am.

I really don't want to review this book because I was unable to finish it, but maybe I can give some advice.
Try to read the first 30 or so pages via some sort of preview service.
I was unable to finish it because the authors attempts at a kind of off-beat humor were so frequent and overbearing that I just couldn't continue reading.

Maybe for someone who really likes this type *and density* of humor will like this book.
It has that general sense of a Douglas Adams style humor, but it's as though it was an attempt to cram all the humor in HG2G into a few dozen pages.

Hope this helps... better yet... preview before buying.. because if you like the humor and frequency, you'll be in a better position to like this book.

UPDATE:
Seems like my opinion is not well received here.
This review pulled *7* unhelpful ratings and one comment over the course of just a few hours (this is an unusually high rate). Those with an opinion are interested and watching? :)
My recommendation is "try before you buy". I don't like the humor or rate of humor, but I think it's reasonable that another reader would.

To the commenter: I agree with your statement (if I may paraphrase) that what my review means is that I didn't like the humor/rate/density.

That is the whole point of the review... it is just my opinion of the book. Yes, I didn't finish it, but I read a third of the book and it didn't change it's humor sufficiently from the first thirty pages for me to continue reading.
Other people will love it and finish it. But I still recommend "try before you buy" on this one. Amazon has a feature for it even. :)

I'm not going to withdraw my review, though it would certainly help my helpful/unhelpful rating. The humor doesn't suit my personal taste and if more reviews had suggested that might be the case, I would've used the 'try before buy' option.

Update:
Note to other reviewers. Be careful when posting low ratings on this product. This review was linked to in a negative context by the author on his twitter feed and a sizable contingent of his followers subsequently rated it unhelpful. It doesn't matter why the author chose to do this, it's an attempt to have undue influence upon the Amazon rating of his product. (Any influence whatsoever of an author upon reviews of his/her product is undue influence.)
I'm really sorry I left a review here, though I cannot remove it in good conscience at this point.

.....(And I Feel Fine)

Mel Brooks meets Dan Brown - who is inhaling great amounts of laughing gas - in Mercury Falls (July 2009, St. Culain Press), a witty romp through a bevy of characters - including angels and demons - who are trying to get the Apocalypse just right, which includes being on time and under budget.

In an inviting layout of 337 pages and a punchy 47 chapters, author Robert Kroese - through his "alter ego," Ederatz - takes grand delight in shining the spotlight on a terrific trio who are riding one wild roller coaster. Stepping into the fracas is magazine reporter Christine Temetri, who has the quirkiness of Carl Kolchak and the tenacity of a British Bulldog, but has a boss - Harry Giddings - who would make William Randolph Hearst flee the office in terror. The tyrant of the last days is BattleCraft ace Karl Grissom, whose daily routine includes keeping his mother appeased so he can continue living in the attic of her home. And then there is Mercury - an angel with the swagger of a big-league slugger on steroids, but whose work ethic is oftentimes less than desirable - who is slated to orchestrate the end of the world.

"The Apocalypse has a way of fouling up one's plans. To its credit, humanity has done its best to anticipate the End of Days, but lacking any basis for a reliable timetable, they've jumped the gun on more than a few occasions," writes Kroese. "The Apocalypse's stubborn refusal to arrive on schedule has caused no end of trouble for the people who have volunteered to announce its arrival. Those waiting at the metaphorical arrival gate for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are forced to eat a lot of metaphorical crow. And pay for a lot of metaphorical flooring."

The romp includes a demon as a home invader, harlots masquerading as virgins, Lucifer obtaining an official logo for a slick marketing campaign, an agent in hot negotiations so the end can finally begin, a cameo appearance by Mutual Assured Destruction and a venerable grab bag of tricks and treats through historical facts and characters; (a "French-er") Peter Gabriel, Neil Peart, Kevin Costner, General Mayhem, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the Warren Commission and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

And what about that sweet science? Kroese climbs into the ring and delivers an overhand right to the jaw, but with the power behind the punch coming from the tongue being firmly planted in the cheek: "Mundane scientists have never found any evidence of the existence of interplanar energy channels. Furthermore, if they were ever to come across evidence of the existence of such channels, the scientists would, of course, insist that the channels are simply another phenomenon that has not yet been fully explained. They would patiently explain that the existing model of the Universe simply needed to be updated with this new information and that eventually the rules governing the channels would eventually be discovered."

With an eclectic mix of tunes tossed into the jukebox - the Allman Brothers Band, R.E.M., 1990's pop songs and a dance remix of the Guns N' Roses classic "Sweet Child O' Mine" - the site of the final battle field is revealed, but cash may be the only currency accepted in the gift shop, as visitors are positioned at the point of no return.....from the crafty high jinks delivered by Kroese, that is.

This is one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. More than that, though, there are layers to this story that make you think deeper about some long-held truths. It's an interesting contrast when one is laughing to the point of tears AND thinking to the point of headache...but that's what happens if you read Mercury Falls with half a brain open.

It is unusual to find a book that blends hilarious and cleverly written prose with thoughtful truths about human nature. Bureaucratic red tape and lack of communication in the higher realms aid our heroes in their quest to save the world.
A fun and oddly satisfying journey with fresh quirky characters of both earthly and heavenly origin.

I could not make any connection with any of the characters in this book or with the author's style of writing. I read the book over a period of three months hoping every time I picked it up that something would finally click and I would begin to enjoy it. I didn't find it humorous, even though it is obviously meant to be humorous. When Mercury made his first appearance on page 73 I hoped his addition would provide the lift to the story which I had been searching for. The fact that I did not find any of the characters compelling left me with little to look forward to in the reading. The style choice the author made of having almost the entire story told from dialogue between the characters became quite irritating for me after a very short time. In short, this style of novel did not appeal to me. It might be a good idea to make sure you take advantage of a preview of this book before deciding whether or not to read it. I believe that opportunity is available on Amazon.

I tend to measure my comedy, whether written, on screen, or on stage, by the number of laugh-out-loud moments it produces. "Mercury Falls" made me laugh out loud from start to finish. First-time author Rob Kroese seems to be channeling the spirit of the late Douglas Adams, with all sorts of twisted lunacy and creative nonsense that somehow combine to make a riveting story. Five stars!