Outrageous Fortune [Kindle Edition]

Tim Scott (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Scott's diverting debut, a zany tale of a slippery future shaped by bogus reality and prefab memories, Jonny X67, an architect who designs custom-made dreams for paying clients, returns home from work one day to find that his house has been stolen. Shortly thereafter, he's chased by a motorcycle gang planning to assassinate God; imprisoned by his society's comically Orwellian security network; and rescued by a guardian angel encyclopedia salesman. After several long and discursive screwball scrapes, which always seem to bring him back to the same point of desperate obliviousness, Jonny senses that his tribulations may be a consequence of his work on the Dream Virus Project, an experiment to craft dreams that target a victim's DNA. Given the extent of Jonny's outrageous experiences, the novel ends a little too abruptly. Readers may forgive Scott, however, if only for his delightfully droll sense of humor, which keeps his story going longer than would seem possible. (June)
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From Booklist

Dream architect Jonny X67 enjoys the rewards of designing prepackaged nighttime reveries for the rich and powerful—until the worst day of his life. First his house is stolen via the latest house-shrinking technology; then a persistent encyclopedia saleswoman badgers him all the way to his favorite watering hole. While he deconstructs his misfortunes over Long Island ice tea, a quartet of motorcycle thugs, each nicknamed for one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, kidnaps him and spirits him away to an abandoned hospital. After a riotous rescue by the saleswoman segues into a Kafkaesque incarceration by the omnipotent traffic police, Jonny's increasingly surreal journey takes him into and out of wisecracking elevators, cities subdivided by musical category, and a succession of dreams holding clues to his destiny's denouement. Rarely does a first sf novel have as much energy and creativity as Scott's madcap, mischievously irreverent depiction of a definitely post-postmodern future. Consider this the opening salvo of one of the genre's most promising and original new voices in years. Hays, Carl

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 465 KB
• Print Length: 434 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0553589857
• Publisher: Spectra (May 29, 2007)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000R38A6G
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #528,708 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Keep Wishing, July 23, 2007

By 

D. L. Wetovich "Lit. Grad" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Outrageous Fortune (Paperback)

Yes, he might be cabable of more if he wasn't a Douglas Adams want-to-be. What makes it worse is that, he may have the fantastic worlds part down (the talking elevators and trendy bar) but the plot and the character development lack the imagination of a true atrist. Also, expletives should be used in moderation and for emphasis, not as the bulk of the story. Doesn't Scott have a vocabulary? Douglas Adams is rolling over in his grave. My advise, read the original, toss this drivel. Find your own voice Mr. Scott, I'm sorry I spent the $12.00.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great premise, but painful massacre of a thought, November 13, 2008

By 

B. Morton "Salty320th" (Maine) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Outrageous Fortune (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow, this book was a drain on my intelligence. What a waste of money. He tries to write like Monty PythonThe Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus; All the Words Volume One without understanding the jokes. You read through the whole painful, unexplained book, hoping to find out some great truth or humerous ending, only to find out that the joke is on you. Its like getting the needle of novacain... it hurts, but you know it is going to lead to better things. Only with this book, they jab you with the needle, refuse to actuate the plunger, leave the syringe hanging from your mouth, and send you out the door without fixing the cavity. And the door is on the 15th floor and the elevator is broken. Yep, painful reading, this book.
With some of the characters and some of the thoughts, this book could have gone somewhere. Although, in retrospect, most of the humerous parts of the book have been stolen from other humor writers. The 4 biker horsemen from Pratchett and Gaimen's 'Good Omens'Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (Discworld), the confused elevator and funky bar from 'Hitchhiker's Guide'The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story (Deluxe Edition), and I am sure many other interesting themes were hijacked in an effort to make the book humerous.
Seriously folks, don't buy. If the author starts working on his own stuff and writes a book to be funny, rather than to sound like people who are funny, he might go somewhere. But don't buy anything from him until you hear better reviews. I want my $9.50 back.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little too Outrageous, October 11, 2008

By 

J. Laydbak - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Outrageous Fortune (Mass Market Paperback)

There is a fine line between Outrageous and Ridiculous. Unfortunately, the author crossed it too many times. From a literary standpoint, he completely missed what he was going for.

This doesn't stop it from being entertaining and a good read, if one ignores the fact that it is, at times, annoying and irritating. Who the hell drinks Long Island Ice Teas and goes surfing constantly? Is this how Brits see us Americans? The entire concept for Inconvenient the Bar just annoyed me. It was an amusing idea that the author did not realize that he took too far.

This book was alright. It was funny and amusing, yet irritating. The ending was fair to poor and left a lot of holes. I walked away thinking that it was completely implausible. Good scifi is interesting because it could possibly happen in the future. Bad scifi leaves you saying, "Yeah right."

I guess my answer to this book is - "yeah right."