The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad (Paperback)

by Minister Faust (Author) "CUE THEME MUSIC: "FE FE NAA EFE" BY FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI. Badass Nigerian horns and Afrobeat drumming funk-James Brown's Jurassic DNA blasted balls first into..." (more)
Key Phrases: Alpha Cat, Coyote Cave, Whyte Ave (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
What do Edmonton, D&D, cannibalism, Star Wars, comic books, ancient African mythology, black culture, drugs, organic food, magic, and television shows have in common? They all play important roles in The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, a zany, stylish, and fun novel. Coyote Kings, the debut by Edmonton writer, teacher, and radio host Minister Faust, has a large cast of characters but mainly follows two roommates--Hamza, a former graduate student who's been reduced to working as a dishwasher, and Yehat, a video store clerk who invents insane gadgets in his spare time. They're stuck in a rut of self-pity and going nowhere real slow when a mysterious woman shows up and seduces Hamza by quoting his favorite comics and sci-fi films. (The only problem: she may not be human.) Before long, the three are caught up in a quest for a magic artifact, but they're not the only ones. Arrayed against them is a wide assortment of characters--including an old romantic rival of Hamza's, drug dealers who peddle a mystical high, and a former Canadian Football League player with aspirations of immortality--all with their own plans for the artifact. The action takes the cast through the streets of Edmonton and to Drumheller, where an ancient, startling secret is revealed.

The originality of the plot of Coyote Kings is only half the appeal of the book. It's also strong on characterization--the story is told entirely in first person, from the perspectives of all the major players involved--and culturally hip without being pretentious. For instance, the characters are introduced with D&D-style character sheets listing their vital stats--Hamza's alignment is "SF (general), ST (original series), SW, Marvel, Alan Moore +79." You can't help but appreciate style like this, even if you're not a geek. But if you are a geek, it doesn't get any better than Coyote Kings. --Peter Darbyshire

From Publishers Weekly
Black Canadian media personality Faust blends pop culture, Egyptology, SF and gaming in his clever and often amusing gonzo debut. Hamza and Yehat, slackers, roommates and soul brothers (aka the Coyote Kings), work respectively as a dishwasher and a video-store clerk, but Hamza also writes poetry and Ye invents things. When Hamza meets the beautiful, mysterious Sherem, even love can't blind him to her oddness. She, along with Hamza and Ye's old pals Kev and Heinz, is searching for a jar with inexplicable properties. The Coyote Kings find themselves on the side of the ancient House of the Jackal, charged with keeping the artifact safe, or at least out of the hands of Kev and Heinz. Hamza has a skill the bad guys want to literally eat his brain to get, and only he may have what it takes to find the artifact. The dense writing, the ponderings on the nature of reality and a complex plot that all comes together at the end (if thanks to long inserts that finally provide background and context) will remind some readers of Neal Stephenson. If Faust isn't yet Stephenson's equal as a stylist, he nonetheless represents a sharp-edged new voice in the genre.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345466357
• ISBN-13: 978-0345466358
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #645,129 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Canadian Geek Homiez Grok Multiversal Jimpification, January 26, 2006

By	doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

I was not aware that Edmonton, Alberta features a vibrant black and immigrant community (my own poorly-traveled ignorance), and that's the setting for this riotous fantastical pop-cultural novel. Minster Faust gives us a fast-moving, brainmelting story populated by a wide variety of multicultural geeks and goons in E-Town. The events rotate around two excellent main characters, Hamza and Yehat, a moody writer and a brainy engineer respectively, who are down-and-out working dead-end jobs and reveling in a realm of comics, movies, sci-fi nerd TV, role-playing games, and all other forms of geekitude. The brokenhearted Hamza soon falls stoopid in love with the beautiful and mysterious Sherem, who claims to be an archeologist just returning from an expedition to Egypt where she learned about ancient languages and old African kingdoms, hence blowing poor Hamza's mind with exotic trivia. It turns out that Sherem wishes to recruit Hamza and train him, a la Obi Wan and Luke, to fight a millennia-old archeo-narcotic cannibalistic conspiracy. Faust's construction of this eviltacular nogoodnikery gets a little bit out of hand, and some dark passages in the build-up to the story's climax don't mix too well with the lovable humor of the rest of the novel. However, rest assured that Faust is a master of bodacious language, with a lot of heart and hipness and laughs, and his characters are uniformly fascinating. This especially applies to Sherem's true nature and the deep, complex friendship between Hamza and Yehat as the self-styled Coyote Kings. This has gotta be the most creative and offbeat debut novel to come along in a while. [~doomsdayer520~]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A joy!, February 12, 2006

By	Robert J. Sawyer "Science Fiction writer" (Mississauga, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Every closet geek and every secret Trekker should read this book, but so should everyone who enjoys a stylistic tour de force. The characters are unforgettable, the slang infectious (I'll be calling chumps "jimps" for the rest of my life), and the whole thing is just incredibly charming. People say _I'm_ blatantly Canadian, but Minister Faust takes Canuck SF to a whole new level. E-town, here I come!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I want to be a Coyote Queen, February 15, 2005

By	Adora Nwazota (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I love, love, love this book. Its incredibly entertaining, funny as hell (who actually lol? i did, by the time i reached the tenth page i had laughed about three times and was starting to get strange looks from my fellow commuters but i couldnt help it), and just a lot of fun to read.
I've started pacing myself now that i'm in the final few chapters of the book because I dont want it to end. What other book is gonna give you a desert princess/assasin, a slew of psycho Fan Boys part of a drug ring that induces telepathic ability, two quirky best friends with a ton of issues and a suit of R-mer (lol), vendettas, a romantic story line, murders, caniballism...this book has a little something for everyone.

I can't really do Mr. Faust justice though, because the strongest part of the book is his writing ability/style. It's obvious he is a poet because the way he strings words together on a page, and some of the actual words he comes up with...are singular. his style is great, the story is entertaining, and i guarantee that you'll be singing this book's praises too by the time you finish the second chapter.