An Empire of Geese and Hats - Alan Daley

   2021; 246 pages.  Full Title: An Empire of Geese and Hats: A Tale from the Someplace Else.  Book 1 (out of only 1 so far) in the “Tales from the Someplace Else” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Dimension-Hopping; Humorous Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Being a high school History teacher might sound boring to some, but for Morton Plonsky it's a satisfying career.  He tries to be warm and friendly with the mass of students that flows through Rutherford B. Hayes High School, and has a reputation among them for being a “nice” teacher.

 

    Right now, in between classes, Morton is thinking about one of his star students, Ashley Smith.  She’s probably the most intelligent student he’s ever taught, raises her hand a lot in class, but has some rather disturbing views, such as thinking Hitler was too passive in his leadership.

 

    Well look who just appeared in the doorway; if it isn’t Ashley herself.  She probably wants to make one last point about the spirited discussion about FDR they had in class today.  Nope, it's something a bit more sinister.  She pulls a knife out and stabs Morton in the neck.  Then brings out a second knife and stabs herself right in the eye.

    I don’t think either of them are going to make their afternoon classes.

 

What’s To Like...

    The action starts right away in An Empire of Geese and Hats, and chronicles the humorous misadventures of Morton Plonsky as he undergoes a forced midlife career change from humdrum high school teacher to emperor of, well, Someplace Else.  The tale's divided into two sections: “On Arrival and Ascension” (first 12 chapters) and “Decisions and Downfall” (last 8 chapters), which already tells you it’s going to be a “rise and fall” type of storyline.

 

    Morton is my kind of hero – confused, reluctant, capable of making wrong choices, and mostly wanting to just return to his old boring life again.  He’s got a couple of sidekicks to assist him in his kingdom-ruling, among them an ex-emperor, a telepathic automaton, and a 472-year-old deadly assassin who obviously could easily be mistaken for a student.

 

    There are two main groups in “Someplace Else” that Morton has to deal with: a bunch of “goosemen” who fly though the air on sturdy “war geese” and live in the forests, and a bunch of humans who wear their hats religiously and live in Emperor City.  Morton’s destiny is to rule the latter, at least until someone else assassinates him and inherits his responsibilities.

 

    I liked the innovative way Alan Daley handles the dimension-hopping.  It entails the use of an “inter-dimensional dagger”, and I’ll let you read the book to see how that works.  The “placidifier” was also a neat gizmo, and the philosophical concepts of “tribldalt” and “scroom” were quite catchy.

 

    There’s a nice variety of otherworldly beings to supplement the hatters, goosemen, and inter-dimensionals; including Gooblians, tree gators, doom apes, t-bots, and a giant talking cherry pie.  The overall tone is light-hearted, but there are some subtle insights woven in as well, such as how to get two sides embroiled in a generations-long war to stop fighting each other.  That's something our present-day world sorely needs to learn.

 

    The ending is a satisfying resolution of Morton’s tale, even if it’s not particularly twisty or exciting.  The epilogue gives a glimpse of the coming sequel, which apparently will involve camels.  See below for more details.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 15 ratings and 7 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.25/5 based on 8 ratings and 1 review.

 

 

Excerpts...

    “Morton, this is real.  This is your new home.  You will find it much like your old home once you adjust to a few small differences.”

    A goose the size of an automobile passed overhead.  A man wearing a hooked spear rode atop.

    “That’s a war goose.  They are really like geese from your world, except larger, more intelligent, bred for combat strength…” she said, trailing off.  (loc.124)

 

    Morton set down Tranquility and sat.  At the table’s center was a cherry pie the size of a truck tire.  It was exceptionally constructed, with a rich, red filling peeking out between ornate layers of crisscrossing crust.

    “Is this…is this Pi?” Morton said, his tone one of utter confusion.

    “It doesn’t look like any creature I’ve yet seen,” Tranquility said.

    “It looks like a pie.  A big pie.  This is food where I come from.  Are they worshipping an inter-dimensional dessert?  Maybe they’re stupider than we thought?”  (loc. 868)

 

Kindle Details…

    An Empire of Geese and Hats goes for $2.99 at Amazon right now.   To date, this appears to be Alan Daley’s only publication, although rumor has it there’s a sequel in the works, with the enigmatic title: Plague Stage Capitalism.

 

“I was recently murdered.  It puts life and death into a new perspective.”  (loc. 175)

    An Empire of Geese and Hats has some weaknesses, the most notable of which is a huge array of typos and grammar gaffes.  There were dozens of spellchecker errors, to the point of where it became distracting.  The most salient one was peaked/peeked which crops up at least five times.  Punctuation mistakes were also common, especially the lack of commas in dialogue when mentioning the person being directly spoken to.  The lack of adjectival hyphens (book worm/bookworm) was also a recurring problem.

 

    There were a couple continuity issues, such as when the character Jamburger is told “You’ll be Empress soon enough.”  Point in fact, she was already empress by then.  And I never did see any reason for the character Tranquility being referred to in both singular and plural terms.  All that did was to make things confusing.

 

    There was an excessive amount of cussing (24 instances in the first 10%), and a bunch of references to adult situations, such as “crusty prick”, “vagina-like entry points”, and “fellate his wrist laser”, which made me wonder who the target audience is.  There’s too much sex-and-cussing for this to be a YA read, but a “goosemen-vs-hatters” scenario may sound too juvenile for many adult readers.

 

    6 Stars.  Despite those drawbacks, I found An Empire of Geese and Hats to be a fun and fascinating read.  Another round of proofreading can eliminate all those typos, grammar goofs, and continuity issues.  Excessive R-rated verbiage is common in indie author efforts, but it can be remedied through polishing and improved writing.  The world-building concept here is refreshingly original, and the clever mixing of flying goosemen, mad hatters, and a reluctant Chosen One makes this the start of a series that could be really good.