You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please) - Andrew Stanek

   2016; 245 pages.  New Author? : No.  Full Title: You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please): The Legally Required Third Installment.  Book 3 (out of 7) in the “You Are Dead” series.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Absurdism.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Fresh from a successful parrying of the evil plans of the Afterlife bureaucrats, Nathan Haynes is moving on from his hometown of Dead Donkey, Nevada.  He’s boarded a bus, eager for adventure, and is headed to Las Vegas.  But he needs to watch out for Afterworld hitmen, who may even be on the bus already, disguised as fellow passengers.  After all, Nathan has been murdered eight times over the last couple days.

 

    Let’s see now.  The bus driver is a big, burly sour-tempered guy, so that seems normal.  To Nathan’s right, a little boy and girl are engrossed in video games.  Behind him, two old ladies are knitting together.  Actually one is knitting while the other one unknits her efforts.  There’s also a crazy man in a poncho who says he’s a serial killer.  And a wild-eyed fisherman who keeps saying “storm’s a-comin’ ”.  There's also a lumberjack carrying a huge axe.  Nearby are an engineer and a philosopher, who can, and do, argue about life, the universe, and everything else.  Finally, there’s an economist who can, and will, tell you why anything that happens is bad for the stock market.

 

    All in all, just a bunch of normal people heading to Las Vegas on a bus.  Nathan’s got nothing to worry about, right?

 

What’s To Like...

    You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please) is the third book in Andrew Stanek’s You Are Dead series, and takes place immediately after the events in Book 2, You Are a Ghost (Sign Here Please), which is reviewed here.

 

    The plotline structure is pretty much the same as in the previous two books.  The bureaucratic executives of the Afterworld, Director Fulcher and Overdirector Powell, once again try to trap Nathan into signing the infamous Form 21B.  Killing Nathan (Book 1) didn’t persuade him to sign; neither did turning him into a ghost (Book 2).  This time they use a “Doom” curse on him.

 

    Once again, the strengths of the storyline are the witty dialogue, Nathan’s unflappably optimistic outlook on life, and Andrew Stanek’s keen insights into all sorts of topics, among which are the necessity of committees, memorandums, and the filling out forms to do anything in the universe.

 

    I liked that the author is also not afraid to render opinions on hot topics, such as anti-vaxxers, nuclear stockpiles, global warming.  The friction between Particularly Cynical Atheists the Slightly Less Cynical Atheists, and the American Society of Skeptics had me chuckling out loud.  Being a chemist, I liked the musings on the bureaucracy exhibited by Hydrogen atoms.  Ditto for the use of physics (Newton’s Third Law of Doom) to counter Nathan’s curse.

 

    The ending is fittingly ridiculous, with a plethora of convenient circumstances and bureaucratic loopholes all leading to Nathan yet again avoiding signing off on Form 21B.  This is not a criticism since the book’s tone is unashamedly Absurdist.  Gregor Samsa of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis would totally empathize with Nathan's situation.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 401 ratings and 45 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.06/5 based on 212 ratings and 14 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “But Director,” he said, wringing his hands helplessly, “if your superior catches me trying to steal from her, she’ll turn my skull into a cane!  I should explain that Overdirector Powell turns the skulls of her enemies–“

    “Yes, I know that already,” Fulcher said, cutting off one of Ian’s lengthy tirades before it started.  “But she’ll also turn our heads into skulls if we fail to get Haynes’ file in order, and for that we need the backdating device.  You, Ian, are my most loyal subordinate–“

    “No I’m not,” Ian said, terrified.

    “Alright, then.  Allow me to rephrase.  You, Ian, are my most expendable subordinate.”  (loc. 1008)

 

    “I heard you saying that you’d like to be a flight attendant a minute ago, and it would really mean a lot to me.”

    “Sure, I’d love to help,” Nathan said cheerily.  He stood up.  “What should I do?”

    “Well, first, you need to stop the captain from sneaking into the liquor supply.”

    “Hey, if people didn’t want me to guzzle the alcohol, they should have made drinking and driving illegal,” the pilot said.

    “They did,” Brian said, his voice now slurring as he drank down more cola.

    “More illegal, then,” the pilot said.  (loc. 3165)

 

Kindle Details…

    You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please) sells for $0.99 at Amazon right now, the same price as all the other books in the series.  Andrew Stanek has several more fantasy series for you, and just recently published a non-fiction biography of his father.  All his e-books are priced at $0.99, and occasionally discounted to free.

 

“Have you found anything to indicate there might be any positive economic impacts from the bus falling off the cliff?”  “Yes.”  (loc. 3395)

    The profanity in You Are Doomed (Sign Here Please) is pleasantly sparse, which was true for the first two books in the series as well.  I noted just seven cusswords in the whole book, most of them “hell”.

 

    There were a few typos, such as effect/affect, payed/paid, filed/filled, but not enough to be distracting.  The (presumably) erroneous reference to Overdirector Fulcher, which occurred twice, did make my reading mind stumble a bit, though, as I don’t think he was promoted.

 

   My biggest quibble was with the thin plot.  Nathan is tasked with finding a way to counter the Doom curse, and then carrying it out.  This turns into a “needle in a haystack” challenge, which he overcomes without even seriously impacting his journey to Las Vegas.  Yes, this is forgivable since this is an Absurdist tale, but still, the book would be even better if there was a more engaging plotline.

 

    Nonetheless, I enjoyed YAD(SHP).  Its wit and musings override the plotline quibbles, and kept me entertained from beginning to end.  It is an ideal beach- or airport-read, fast-paced, yet manages somehow to be both thought-provoking and humorous.

 

    7 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point a transportation device called a Suborbital Rocket-Powered Unicycle is utilized.  I need to get me one of those!

You Are A Ghost (Sign Here Please) - Andrew Stanek

   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.

You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) - Andrew Stanek

   2015; 204 pages.  New Author? : Yes. Book One (out of 7) in the “You Are Dead” series.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Nathan Haynes is having a bad day.  A serial killer has broken into his house and just shot him.  Dead as a doornail.  Oh well, at least he was a polite killer.  Somehow that makes it all bearable.  Plus Nathan’s gets to discover what the afterworld is like.

 

    Sadly, it’s not much different from the land of the living.  Lots of hustle and bustle, and a huge amount of bureaucratic red tape.  Tons of forms (literally) to fill out.

 

    For some reason, Form 21-B is of particular importance.  Actually, there’s nothing to fill out; he just has sign it, and he gets to spend eternity in the afterlife, for better or worse.

 

    But inquiring minds - such as Nathan’s - want to know what happens if you don’t sign Form 21-B?  He’s already dead, so what else can they do to him?  Nathan’s about to learn an important lesson.

 

    Bureaucracy doesn’t like inquiring minds.

 

What’s To Like...

    If novels that throw lots of complicated plotlines at you are not your cup of tea, then you’ll love You Are Dead (Sign Here Please).  The only plotline is Nathan refusing to sign Form 21-B, and the director of the Afterlife and his minions trying their best to coax or trick him into doing so.  Nathan meets some interesting characters along the way, but you won’t have any trouble remembering who’s who.  We don’t get to cross paths with Horace Pickelfern (see below), but I found Travis Erwin Habsworth and Quaestor Dominique Delroy both fun guys to meet-and-greet.

 

    Andrew Stanek uses “cutaways” –  pseudoscientific digressions about various technical matters – to break up the prolonged “will he sign or won’t he?” issue, and I thought that worked quite well.  Those side topics include things like Cosmology, Deep Sea Oceanography, Molecular Biology (all of which we are assured are scams) and Quantum Physics.

 

    There are only two settings in the tale – you’re either in the Afterworld or Nathan’s home town of Dead Donkey, Nevada, a godforsaken Podunk town where the chief recreational pastime is something called "Muleball".  And despite being in the middle of the desert, Dead Donkey has a city seaport that's fitted out with a luxury liner, which is sadly inoperable due to sand in the propellers.  You may scoff at this, but here in Phoenix, Arizona - surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, our airport is called “Sky Harbor”, and you get a lovely view of the harbor as you land or take off.

 

    We are introduced to some neat gizmos, such as Dieting Spoons and Xylophone Fences, and the Meaning of Life is revealed late in the book (which is not “42”).  Australia's Ayer’s Rock gets a mention, and I chuckled at the acronym “FBN”, which stands for “Faster-car, Bigger-house, Nicer-restaurant-goers”.  This is the second time in less than a year where a badger plays an important part in the book  I’ve read (the other one is reviewed here ***), that's got to statistically odd.  And I don’t remember any other novel where there were four different Atheist Churches (isn't that an oxymoron?) competing for parishioners, and we’re not even counting the weirdos from the Pluto Liberation Front.

 

    The book ends at a logical point.  I wouldn't call it exciting, but it's delightfully clever and zany.  Most of the loose plot threads are not tied up, but I suspect they are addressed in subsequent books in this series.  Be assured that You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is a standalone novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.8/5 based on 855 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.48/5 based on 1,564 ratings and 263 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Everyone has their own theory about what happens.  The Christians believe in heaven and hell.  The Hindus believe in reincarnation.  Horace Pickelfern of 289 Timbercrest Road, Anchorage, believes that after death everyone is hugged by a giant spirit bear, and if you fail to hug him back then he mauls you to double-death and you have to progress to the after-after-life, which is on the whole less pleasant.  (loc. 36)

 

    “Do you hear voices?”

    “Lots of voices.”

    “Whose voices do you hear?”

    “Yours, for example.”

    “I see.  And do you ever feel that other people are watching you?”

    “I suspect that lots of people are watching me all the time,” Nathan said.

    “And why is that?”

    “I don’t know, but they somehow manage not to bump into me when I walk through crowds of them, so I think they must be looking at me.”  (loc. 1603)

 

Kindle Details…

    You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) normally sells for $0.99 at Amazon, but occasionally Andrew Stanek generously discounts it to free.  The other six books in the series are likewise priced at $0.99.  The author offers a couple dozen more e-books, some in other series; some as standalones.  They range in price from free-to-$2.99, with the majority of them going for $0.99.

 

“I was mauled to death by an unmarried badger.”  (loc. 1585)

    There’s not much to quibble about in You Are Dead (Sign Here Please).  Like other reviewers, I thought the writing style and humor were a bit "juvenile" at the beginning, but things seemed to get better as the story went on.  Maybe Andrew Stanek was getting more polished; maybe I was getting acclimated to his writing and storytelling.

 

    For me the storyline seemed to drag a bit.  Instead of steadily progressing somewhere, it was just a do-loop of Nathan getting killed and being cajoled into signing Form 21-B, again and again.  As a plot device, that's pretty good, but I was disappointed that it lasted 200 pages or so and didn't lead to anything else.

 

    This begs the question: who is the target audience – adults, teens, or both?  My gut feeling is that the answer should be “teens”.  Some YA books appeal to readers of all ages, but here adults may find the writing style and storytelling a bit too simplistic.  Maybe that's just me though.

 

    It should be noted that You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is a very clean book; there's no sex or drugs, and I only counted four bits of cussing in the entire book.  That's another indication that Amazon should call this a YA tale.

 

    7 Stars.   Add one star is you’re 10-16 years old; you’re going to love this tale.  I used to be hooked on Hardy Boys mysteries at that age, and You Are Dead (Sign Here Please) is far better than those.  For adults, this book is a calculated risk, but at 99 cents, not a very costly one, and I'm now curious if Andrew Stanek’s writing style evolves as the series progresses.