2016; 209 pages. New Author? : No. Full Title: You
Are A Ghost (Sign Here Please): The Hotly Unanticipated Sequel. Book 2 (out of 7) in the “You Are Dead” series. Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire. Overall Rating : 7*/10.
It’s time for Round Two in the epic confrontation between the lately departed Nathan Haynes and the embodiment of the Afterworld bureaucracy, Director Fulcher. Round One was won by Nathan, who used the clever ploy of refusing to sign Form 21-B, thereby turning down the usual offer of eternal existence in the hereafter. You can read all about that confrontation here.
This time around Director Fulcher has
come up with a strategic counter-loophole.
He might have to keep sending Nathan back to our world, but that doesn’t
mean he has to supply our hero with a flesh-and-blood body.
Nathan will be forced to be a ghost
instead. Nobody will be able to see him; he won’t be able to reach out and touch anything; and pretty soon Nathan will
be on his knees, begging to be allowed to take up eternal residency in the Afterlife.
Prepare to die, Nathan Haynes! Oops, you’ve already done that.
What’s To Like...
As its subtitle notes, You Are A Ghost (Sign Here Please) is the second book in Andrew
Stanek’s hilarious “You Are Dead”
series. Nathan Haynes once again stymies
the entire Hereafter hierarchy by asking deep questions such as “Why?” and
“What If?”, but this time he has to do it
while learning to be a ghost, which takes some getting used to.
The settings for this story are
the same as before: just the Hereafter, and Dead Donkey, Nevada. Most of the secondary characters are also
repeats: Director Fulcher, Brian, Travis, and Questor Delroy, but there are
some faces as well, including Fulcher’s boss, Overdirector Powell; Lord
Wesley Benediktus, and the amazing
co-pilot, Rex.
Nathan only dies twice here in YAAG(SHP), although one is a repeat from the previous book: dying due to a stroke, while also being mauled by a badger, while also being crushed by a bathtub. What are the odds??
I enjoyed learning about the
equiclops (which is often mistaken for a horse),
as well as a bunch of useful phrases in "faux-French". There were some neat trivia tidbits
along the way, such as the interrobang (so aptly
named), the Voynich manuscript (Wiki
it), and the mysterious arrow in the FedEx logo (once you’ve seen it, you cannot unsee it).
The ending is ridiculous and
over-the-top, which is entirely appropriate for a book of this genre. It could’ve had a bit more tension built into
it, but that was true in the first book as well.
Things close with a short teaser for the Book 3 in the series, You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please), which I have on
my Kindle.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.1/5
based on 370 ratings and 92 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.01/5 based on 308
ratings and 29 reviews
Excerpts...
“It’s just all so depressing,” Ern
continued. “All I do is kill, kill, kill
and I’m really not paid enough. If you
chip in an extra twenty dollars, I’ll kill you.”
Now Nathan was getting seriously
annoyed. He sat back down heavily in one
of his less green chairs and crossed his arms.
“I’m not going to pay you anything to kill
me.”
Ern shrugged his shoulders and holstered
his pistol.
“Fine,” he said. “Then I won’t do it. Stay alive.
See if I care. Oh, but please do
me a favor, and if anyone asks, say you’ve been killed. That will make things much easier for me in
the future.” (loc. 134)
“Do you have a moment to talk about
atheism?” she asked him brightly.
“No,” Brian said. “I am chasing a very dumb ghost who is
probably getting himself lost at this very moment.”
“Particularly Cynical Atheism has the power
to change your life,” the woman insisted.
“Did you know that existence is a slow, absurd, and meaningless march
from the cradle to the grave?”
“Of course I know that, I’m a bureaucrat,”
Brian said, and shoved the flier back into the woman’s hands. (loc. 1252)
Kindle Details…
You
Are A Ghost (Sign Here Please) sells for $0.99 at Amazon, the same
price as for all the other books in the series, and indeed, just about all of Andrew
Stanek’s e-books, other than his Felix Green
Mysteries series, which are priced at $2.99
apiece. From time to time, he has been known to discount some of his
books to free.
“You have been
beaten by a braindead ghost with a pelican.
Unacceptable.” (loc.
3429)
I couldn’t find much to quibble
about in You Are A Ghost (Sign Here Please). The writing is admirably clean: just seven
cusswords in the entire book (six ‘damns’ and
one ‘hell’) and one drug reference, to amphetamines.
The storytelling is both
ludicrous and straightforward, but if you’re reading these books in order (and
why wouldn’t you, since they’re all identically priced?), you already know this
since Book One is in the same style of writing.
As with most indie-author books, there are a couple of typos, including principle/principal and by in large/by and large. But I was impressed by just how few of these errors were present.
A bigger quibble was that I didn't see much progression in the overarching storyline. I’m now getting the feeling that that might be
true for the whole series: seven episodes with minor variations of the same plotline. Sort of like the classic sitcom Bewitched, where the plot each week was just mother-in-law Endora
turning Darrin into some kind of animal.
But hey, I loved watching Bewitched,
and all those similar episodes kept me entertained because the witty dialogue and madcap antics had me laughing whole
way through. That’s how I feel about YAAG(SHP).
The humor is zany and it’s my kind of silliness, the characters are
likable (even the baddies), and
Andrew Stanek’s views on things like bureaucracy, religion, and
badgers-with-attitudes were both thought-provoking and entertaining.
7 Stars. Add one star if you think Bewitched was a great TV show.
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