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By the estimable Mr. Mark Gatiss (who just happens to be one of my favourite comedy and Who writers).
I was generously offered a free copy of this in return for reviewing it on my LJ, just in case my regulars are confused by my sudden launch into book reviewery. So, like the notorious doxie and book-ho I am...
This is a very funny book. Laugh out loud Funny aamof, and I did, on average, about thirteen times an hour.
There’s a distinct, 60’s feel to it all; something to do with the cleverly-copied Aubrey Beardsley, Yellow Book look of the thing and the outrageousness of the rather-hard-to-follow plot. If this book were a film it would look like The Wrong Box or Casino Royale (the Peter Sellers movie, not the latest, hard-core version, obviously) and Peter Cook would be playing Lucifer Box.
The comedy is definitely the high-point of the novel, unfortunately, it’s also what made it such a frequently annoying read. Whilst the deliciously clever, Wilde-ishly witty, hilarious asides are highly entertaining, they don’t half detract from the story - but since the story isn’t up to much anyway (the mind does tend to wander, I found, during all those elaborately Bond-esque cracks on Box’s life), I detached my brain from all attempts at a plot and went for enjoying the funnies and the gay-sex instead.
NB. Of special interest to m'flist: The gay-sex in particular, whilst not in any way explicit, is deliciously titillating and thoroughly Good.
Charlie Jackpot (I almost forgot to mention, every character has a ludicrous name and there are an awful lot of characters. This also makes things a little hard to follow, but you get used to it after a while and, since I was already ignoring the plot by the time it would have started to get annoying, I failed to find it as irritating as I no doubt would have, had I still been trying to follow the story – if you get my drift.
(Where was I? Oh yes, Charlie Jackpot...) is a delightful companion and it’s overwhelmingly because of him that I’ll be picking up the next book in this series.
So, well worth a read, for sure, just don’t worry too much about what’s going on because that way lies madness.
(Cross-posting this review to GoodReads and Amazon).
I was generously offered a free copy of this in return for reviewing it on my LJ, just in case my regulars are confused by my sudden launch into book reviewery. So, like the notorious doxie and book-ho I am...
This is a very funny book. Laugh out loud Funny aamof, and I did, on average, about thirteen times an hour.
There’s a distinct, 60’s feel to it all; something to do with the cleverly-copied Aubrey Beardsley, Yellow Book look of the thing and the outrageousness of the rather-hard-to-follow plot. If this book were a film it would look like The Wrong Box or Casino Royale (the Peter Sellers movie, not the latest, hard-core version, obviously) and Peter Cook would be playing Lucifer Box.
The comedy is definitely the high-point of the novel, unfortunately, it’s also what made it such a frequently annoying read. Whilst the deliciously clever, Wilde-ishly witty, hilarious asides are highly entertaining, they don’t half detract from the story - but since the story isn’t up to much anyway (the mind does tend to wander, I found, during all those elaborately Bond-esque cracks on Box’s life), I detached my brain from all attempts at a plot and went for enjoying the funnies and the gay-sex instead.
NB. Of special interest to m'flist: The gay-sex in particular, whilst not in any way explicit, is deliciously titillating and thoroughly Good.
Charlie Jackpot (I almost forgot to mention, every character has a ludicrous name and there are an awful lot of characters. This also makes things a little hard to follow, but you get used to it after a while and, since I was already ignoring the plot by the time it would have started to get annoying, I failed to find it as irritating as I no doubt would have, had I still been trying to follow the story – if you get my drift.
(Where was I? Oh yes, Charlie Jackpot...) is a delightful companion and it’s overwhelmingly because of him that I’ll be picking up the next book in this series.
So, well worth a read, for sure, just don’t worry too much about what’s going on because that way lies madness.
(Cross-posting this review to GoodReads and Amazon).
amused