Tag: humor

Review of Primordial Chili by Tom Gerencer

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Science Fiction Audiobook - Primordial Chili by Tom GerencerPrimordial Chili
By Tom Gerencer; Read by Tom Gerencer
MP3 Download -14 Minutes 58 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: www.telltaleweekly.com
Published: 2004
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Food /

Have you ever had one of those days when everything just seems to go right? Even when it’s wrong? Primordial Chili is a laugh-out-loud thrill-ride of culinary perfection, taken to cosmic proportions. The planets align, the gods speak, and supper turns out pretty good, too.

A substantially superlative and surpassingly silly short story about chili. Gerencer’s tale of the creation of the greatest chili ever made easily passes through the awkward Carrot Top kind of silly, bypasses altogether the elegantly silly Douglas Adams kind of silly, and heads straight towards the very silly indeed kind of silly, the Monty Python silly. The prose is ground to a fine consistency and layered with silliness atop silliness that climbs over itself to new heights of silliness. Gerencer’s narration doesn’t do too much here other than straight read it. I don’t know if Gerencer’s humor would work in novel length, it’d be worth trying, but the more I hear of his short stories the more I’m finding I wouldn’t much care about the novels just as long as his short stories continue to be this good – oh and of course keep coming. Primordial Chili was first published in Science Fiction Age magazine’s November 1999 issue. Did I mention this was the first audiobook to make me really hungry?

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis

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Science Fiction Audiobooks - To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie WillisTo Say Nothing Of The Dog – Or How We Found The Bishop’s Birdstump At Last
By Connie Willis; Read by Steven Crossley
15 cassettes – 21.25 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2000
ISBN 0788755498
Themes: Science Fiction / Time-travel / Comedy / Romance / Mystery / 19th Century /England / Near Future /

The story involves Coventry Cathedral (old, new and burned down), pen wipers, a breach in the space-time continuum, boating on the Thames, evolution, and bulldogs.
– Connie Willis in a Science Fiction Weekly Interview

For such a stunningly popular Science Fiction author Connie Willis has some very unusual obsessions: Churches, England, a neurotic lead character and cats. But then again if you take away the churches and the England all you’ve got left is Robert A. Heinlein, so don’t complain. Now before I get all reviewing let me first say that the Science Fiction elements in this novel are truly paper thin. The closest we come to real SF meat is the many characters thinking about time travel paradoxes and how to prevent them. The plot resolution, without giving anything away, centers around the reason time travel works the way it does in these Connie Willis time travel books and that revelation felt not just un-science fictiony but also down-right un-scientific. But on the other hand it has a neatly tied up happy ending, and we all need a nice happy ending now and then.

This is the third time travel story set in a near future where an Oxford history don named Dunworthy sends his undergraduates back in time to visit historical English churches. But unlike Fire Watch and Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog is also a romantic comedy and a mystery. Instead of sending his students to WWII London (as in Fire Watch), or Middle Ages England (as in Doomsday Book), Dunworthy sends them to 19th century Oxford for a little R&R, and while they are there would they “mind finding the bishop’s birdstump?” – whatever that is. Now don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed this novel, quite a lot in fact! It’s just that Willis is such a very strange writer…. her characters, for example, they think a lot, no strike that. They think way too much. They are always overthinking every possibility of what could go wrong and then thinking it again just for luck, which is truly infuriating. Thankfully, this characteristic is slightly less apparent in this novel than it was in Doomsday Book and this book benefits from that slight reduction. No doubt this was due in part to the first person perspective. Keep writing first person Connie!

The mystery element is also rather weak. Are we really supposed to care what happened to the bishop’s birdstump? We don’t even find out what the damn thing is until about two thirds of the way through the book! What really saves this novel from becoming utterly unlistenable is the author’s attention to light humor and the characters. These are nice people, and the situations they are in are for the most part quite cute. The romantic angle is also sweet, and the text is rife with evidence that Willis really researches the heck out of the settings she writes about. I don’t recall ever laughing out loud, though many sections were quite amusing, or ever being so caught up in the romance that I couldn’t stop listening if I needed to, though I did like the way that all played out – it snuck up on me. What I liked most about To Say Nothing Of The Dog – Or How We Found The Bishop’s Birdstump At Last was the literary references included. There are characters who act like they’re in a P.G. Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster story, the mystery element is obviously quite Dorothy L. Sayers inspired and Willis even named the novel after the biggest influence, Jerome K. Jerome’s Victorian comic novel Three Men In A Boat – To Say Nothing Of The Dog! Narrator Steven Crossley has the prototypical English accent you associate with Masterpiece Theater and costume drama. He’s called upon to stretch only a little with this one, playing mostly upper and middle class English gentlefolk from the 21st and 19th centuries. Nicely done too. Recorded Books has chosen some neat art for the cover, depicting an hourglass and a bulldog. As usual the packaging is absolutely top notch, you won’t find a more durable or attractive case for an audiobook from another publisher.

So with such a mixed review can I recommend this book? Absolutely I can, for of all Connie Willis’ weirdness, she is as gosh darned friendly and smart as you and me, just maybe a little smarter and definitely a little weirder, and I would never ever hesitate to recommend a novel that can trace its origins back to one line in Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel. To Say Nothing Of The Dog – Or How We Found The Bishop’s Birdstump At Last is recommended as a tonic for the weary traveler, or just as a lighthearted vacation from Hard SF.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Comic Book: The Movie

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Science Fiction AudiobooksComic Book: The Movie
Written & Directed by Mark Hamill; Performed by a Full Cast
DVD Video Special Feature – 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED
AUDIO DRAMATIZATION]
Publisher: Miramax
Published: 2004
UPC: 786936230635
Themes: / Superhero / Comics / Fantasy / Humor /

The fictional Golden Age superhero Commander Courage is without doubt the greatest hero in comics for obsessed High School teacher Don Swan (Mark Hamill) in the mockumentary called Comic Book: The Movie. While the movie itself is well worth viewing it is one of the extra features on this 2 disc DVD set that is the most interesting for us: An original radio script supposedly first broadcast in the mid-forties, entitled “The Origin Of Commander Courage”. As most of the cast of Comic Book the movie is made up of animation voice talent they decided to do a dramatic “re-creation” of the script during a panel at the 2002 San Diego Comic Con. This brief origin story tells how Commander courage first got his unique super powers. The voice talent includes: Gary Owens (Roger Ramjet, Space Ghost), Maurice Lamarche (Pinky and the Brain, Futurama), Bob Paulsen (Animaniacs, The Tick) and Jim Cummings (The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Shrek)! Video of the recording session is provided as well but we’re asked to imagine sitting with our families gathered around an old Philco Radio, tuning in to the first ever broadcast of the “Commander Courage Radio Show”‘. The script is ridiculous, but then so were most of the origin stories of 1940s superheroes. The live audience laughs as the casts takes liberties with the script and improvise their own sound effects. Well worth a look and a listen!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Trailer Trash Savior by Tom Gerencer

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Science Fiction Audiobooks - Trailer Trash Savior by Tom GerencerTrailer Trash Savior
By Tom Gerencer; Read by Tom Gerencer
MP3 Download – 10 Minutes 9 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: www.TellTaleWeekly.com
Published: 2004
Themes: / Fantasy / Humor / Demons /

So the millennia have passed, and the time of the reckoning is once more nigh … not to mention that you’ve got a busted velvet-Elvis and the oil heat isn’t working. Find out what happens when the owner of a mullet and a used AMC Gremlin becomes “the chosen one,” and has to battle demons, various and sundry. First published in Brutarian magazine. Read by the author.

An underpaid trailer park resident is all that stands between the Earth and its total obliteration. Told in first person perspective, this odd clash of superhero style violence and the trailer park aesthetic works surprisingly well in this short story. The denizens of hell and worse planes of existence always seem to spring up during mealtime and if that isn’t bad enough our hero is forced to fight the unnamable forces of evil in a tackily decorated mobile home. This reading, by the author Tom Gerencer, isn’t bad at all – there is some backround hiss in the mp3 and the misnaming of a trailer park vehicle are all that mar the experience. Gerencer’s narration works pretty well here, and I think that has to do with it being a first person perspective tale – he isn’t forced to do different character’s voices – something best left to professional readers. This is the kind of story you recommend to a friend who’s in need of a really good laugh. Trailer Trash Savior is a full 4.6 Megabytes of downloadable MP3 for just four bits ($0.50 USD)! If you liked Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but maybe thought it was a little unrealistic for a teenage cheerleader to be the chosen one, and that say Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys would have made a better choice, have no fear the Trailer Trash Savior is here.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey

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Science Fiction Audiobooks - To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey by Cory DoctorowTo Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey©
By Cory Doctorow; Read by Cory Doctorow
FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD – 23 Minutes 37 Seconds [UNABRIDGED]
LINK: http://www.craphound.com/audio/Doctorow_-_Billy.mp3
Publisher: www.craphound.com
Published: 2001
Themes: / Science Fiction / Dystopia / Humor / Satire /

Billy Bailey was the finest heel the sixth grade had ever seen — a true artisan who kept his brand pure and unsullied, picking and managing his strategic alliances with the utmost care and acumen. He’d dumped BanginBumpin Fireworks (a division of The Shanghai Novelty Company, Ltd.) in the _fourth_ grade, fer chrissakes. Their ladyfingers were too small to bother with; their M-80s were so big that you’d have to be a lunatic to go near them.

First published in Interzone, To Market, To Market: The Branding of Billy Bailey© is set in a world in which advertising has taken over every institution. This dystopic tale is a fun little story. Billy Bailey® is a 6th grader, who’s something like a smarter Dennis The Menace®, but that’s probably selling Billy short. Dennis The Menace® is just a fictional character. In this REAL world, REAL people are by far the more profitable brands. If you’re a 6th grade boy in elementary school, you want to wear Billy’s© shoes, drink what Billy© drinks and say what Billy© says. Billy Bailey® is at the top of the brand list. Everything Billy Bailey© does is predicated on what he thinks will most benefit his brand. The Billy© brand is all about playing the rake, the prankster who always beats the authority figure, which in this case is Billy’s school principal. But when Billy® gets tarred with a pathetic M-80 down the toilet prank in his Pepsi Elementary© girls bathroom, Billy® must fire his agent and come up with a whole new corporate strategy – he better re-brand his image if he wants to keep his sponsors.

Doctorow does this as a plain reading. I don’t expect all authors to be gifted readers – that’s why they pay the professional narrators – but that isn’t the problem. The problem here is with the recording. It isn’t terrific. It sounds as if was cobbled together from more than one recording. Apparently it was recorded using the built-in microphone on his iBook©, but in the multiple sessions it took to record it must have been at different distances from the mic, because the sound is inconsistent. You can also hear the pages as they turn, and what sounds like a squeaking computer chair with other occasional background noises. Despite this, it’s more than worth the money – it is after all completely FREE!

Doctorow’s story is interesting and original. It tackles the invasion of capitalism into children’s lives, and does it with a biting satire. See, even in our world, a corporation has only corporate legal responsibilities and no moral ones. Seeing as corporations have all the legal status of persons in our capitalist society it is no small wonder that people might come to think of themselves as corporations. Heck, our celebrities really are corporations! This is a very sad world. Everyone uses catchphrases to define their personal “brand”, and everyone is jockeying for sponsors. Morality has been completely subverted by marketing. Those who are successfully marketed are good and those that aren’t…. well, they aren’t even worth thinking about – just has-beens or never-will-bes.

On Cory Doctorow’s website he says he’s planning to read all of his stories and release them as free downloadable MP3s. This is a wonderful idea, and I’ll be sure to listen in however he does it, but maybe he should take a page from James Patrick Kelly’s FREE READS website and consider recording in a professional studio. Apparently it costs about $200 per session, but the sound quality and consistency in one makes the recording archive quality. Kelly’s stuff is free too, but he does ask for PayPal donations.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Callahan’s Con by Spider Robinson

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Science Fiction Audiobooks - Callahan's Con by Spider RobinsonCallahan’s Con
By Spider Robinson; Read by Barrett Whitener
8 CDs – Approx. 10 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: 2004
ISBN: 0786183470
Themes: / Science Fiction / Humor / Crime / Time Travel / Immortality / Telepathy / Florida /

Jake Stonebender, our favorite intergalactic barkeep, rivets us to our stools with yet another wild and wooly yarn about the goings on of his Key West cantina. This time though, it isn’t the end of the world that is the trouble. Instead, it’s a mountainous mole-hill of a thug named Tony Donuts Jr. who wants to make his bones by fleecing Jake and his neighboring businesses for “protection money”. Jake could solve this problem with straight-on firepower, but that’d only bring down more government attention on him and his hippie clientele. And more heat is what he doesn’t need – because wouldn’t you know it – a dedicated bureaucrat from the Florida family services department has been sniffing around to find out why Jake’s only daughter has not been to school since she was born some thirteen years ago! So Jake and his extended family set about concocting a sting so devious it will make Florida Swampland real estate look good. The grift involves, among other things, time-travel, the Russian Mob, and the Fountain of Youth!

Full of brain-smearing puns and gawdawful song parodies Callahan’s Con is guaranteed to entertain anyone who enjoys Robinson’s Hugo award winning fiction. Myself, I come for the jokes and stay for references. In this case a nice homage to literature’s most unlucky master criminal: John Dortmunder. Callahan’s Con is proof that not only can Robinson like to write in the style of Heinlein – as he did in the previous installment, Callahan’s Key, – but also that he can write in the style of Mystery Writers Of America Grandmaster Donald E. Westlake! Interestingly this means that that Jake’s first person perspective is stretched-out to include multiple viewpoints – as is the Westlake’s Dortmunder novels. I’m not sure how Robinson did it, but he managed to convey other character’s perspectives in a way I can only describe as fictionalizing the fiction. I should also note that in a break with tradition Robinson hasn’t merely added to the seeming ever growing entourage surrounding Jake – for a major of character in the series dies. Though this could be troubling it is handled with grace and a few tears.

Reader Barrett Whitener, in this third Blackstone Audio Callahan audiobook does his familiar and fun vocal gymnastics routine – spouting off one liners in a dozen comic voices. Whitener, an Audie Award winner, is well matched with comic material – it really and truly is his forte. Blackstone Audio has been known to use a mix of art from the hardcover or paperback and their own original cover art. Their own art has been steadily improving and I’m pleased to say this is the nicest original cover so far!

Posted by Jesse Willis