Customer Reviews

Surfing Samurai Robots

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Detective Zoot Marlowe, endlessly quipping geek from the planet T'toom, faces his first case on earth. Can he unravel this gnarly mystery in time to keep his endless-summer gang of Malibu beach buddies from losing the Surf-o-rama? Are the suit-wearing gorillas behind it? Or maybe the guy with his brain in a lobster?

Mel Gilden blends surf movie satire with just plain, good, detective mystery plotting to achieve a highly humerous and engrossing novel.

This book really is a genre of its own.

This is an excellent book! How do you combine aliens with surfers and biochemistry and Sam Spade (excuse me, Phillip Marlowe) and make it funny? I have no idea, but Mel Gilden does it effortlessly. Filled with outrageous situations and larger-than-life characters, this book is a delight to read. Highly recommended.

I bought this bok used based on the title. Being a fan of Raymond Chandler novels, I plunged ahead. While I found the bok fun to read, I can best describe the bok as ... cute.

There were moments when I guffawed out loud, but mostly I just smiled in spots. Trouble was, some of the tongue-in-cheek humor kept distracting me because it was just too over-the-top. If villains with names like Sam Andelilah and Knightenday make you laugh, you will very much enjoy this book. If they make you cringe, you may want to pass this one by. For myself, I fall somewhere in the middle. Those kinds of jokes make me laugh--I am a Bond fan, after all (Tiffany Case, Moneypenny, etc.), but a little goes a long way...and this way was just too long or me.

In my opinion, Surfing Samurai Robots wasn't a bad book...it was just not a great book either.

My introduction to "Surfing Samurai Robots" was many years ago, when I was strolling through the public library and the cover caught my eye. Any book that depicted a camel-nosed alien standing next to a posing surfer robot had to be interesting, at least. I wasn't disappointed. Mel Gilden's blend of the absurdly humorous characters is excellent, yet he also delivers a rather gripping tale of intrigue.

This is just the right book for those wishing to while away a hot summer at the beach, or an evening at home during the depths of winter. Reading this book will not make you rich, but it might just make you want to try yoyogurt after that birthday party binge. ^_^

Surfing Samurai Robots is a delightful, reverent homage to the time-honored literary craft that is noir detective fiction, except for the surfing samurai robots, of course, and the alien Zoot who imagines himself to be a noir detective due to listening to radio broadcasts of the period from sixty light-years away (they must have really nice antennas there) and the surfers that Zoot finds himself in the company of attempting to solve mystery (not much of one, but oh, well) with the aid of hallucinogenic yogurt. 1 Zoot is not handicapped by his alien appearance, though very different-looking from humans, as the surfers note:

"`Dig that bitchen schnoz,' one of them said. The rest laughed, but as far as I could tell, it was nervous laughter. It was just something to do until the shock went away.

I said, `I have to explain this all the time. I was born funny.'

`You mean a birth defect?' the Earthperson holding the sneeve [frisbee]said.
Birth defect? It had a nice ring to it. I could use that phrase. `Yes,' I said, `a birth defect.'"

T'oomians are mostly nose. Zoot finally acquires a fedora, a gat , a Chrysler, and Chandleresque patter:

"Without looking at me, Whipper Will said, `Gotterdammerung. They're a motorcycle-punk club that
likes to inspire terror in people on the beach.'
`Not much of a challenge for them,' I said. `Is it a job or a hobby?'"

and a murder case.
Well, not really, but I like writing stuff like that.

Unsurprisingly, there are sequels: Hawaiian UFO Aliens and Tubular Android Superheroes, which are on my "to read" stack right now, as soon as I finish Newton and the Counterfeiter, which is pretty engrossing just now.

1. A Bulwer-Lytton opening sentence if ever I wrote one.
2. Not really, but I like writing stuff like that.