Thursday, June 11, 2020

The Missing Link - Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas


   2011; 349 pages.  New Author(s)? : Yes and Yes.  Genres : Fantasy; Satire; General Humorous Fiction.  Overall Rating : 5*/10.

    It’s been a horrible morning for Brent Porter.  The server at TriuTek is down (again), and there’s a big corporate meeting scheduled for this morning.  Since Brent is TriuTek’s IT geek, his coworkers are expecting him to fix it, and do so pronto, since they have lots of Internet things to do, none of which are work-related.  But that’s not the worst part.

    Everybody’s cellphone, including Brent’s, isn’t working this morning either.  That might mean the phone company’s Internet is also down, which could be a sign that the power outage area is a lot larger than just TriuTek's office.  But that’s not the worst part.

    An ugly-looking monster just walked out of the server room, chewing on Ethernet cables.  It’s child-sized, mud-colored, and with a mouthful of super-sharp teeth that warn Brent to keep his distance.  But that’s not the worst part.

    That little gremlin has just stolen Brent’s very own personal router.  And that’s why things couldn’t get any worse.

What’s To Like...
    The Missing Link is a mash-up of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale Alice In Wonderland with a post-apocalyptic scenario where all electronic devices are dead.  Both of those concepts have been done before (a review of one is here; and of the other is here, but combining the two is a novel idea.  You can call the genre Fantasy or Spoof, but don't call it Science Fiction which is what Amazon labels it.

   There are three plotlines to follow.  1.) Brent and his security-guard pal Mickey start in Denver and go dimension-hopping to all sorts of other places, bashing monster heads along the way.  2.) Molly, Brent’s internet girlfriend, experiences warped-&-updated versions of the Alice in Wonderland adventures.  3.) The Downriver Boys, a bit of a misnomer since one of them is a woman and another is a beagle, start in Chicago, and, well, pretty much stay in Chicago, bashing monster heads in clever, makeshift ways.  All three storylines eventually come together, which is not a spoiler since you know that’s going to happen.

    The emphasis throughout is on humor, although it’s the “snarky parody” type, which is not to everyone’s taste.  Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas take jabs at Greepeace Hippies, Facebook, cellphones, iPads, Twitter, anti-virus programs, Starbucks, writers, music piracy, and much, much more.  The barbs have a right-wing tone to them, but I think a more accurate adjective would be “Luddite”.

    I liked the critters.  In addition to the main characters encountered in Alice In Wonderland, the authors showcase an interesting menagerie of Sparrowheads, Goblins (sometimes called Gremlins), Gobliguanas (sometimes called Iguoblins), Hobblits, and even Musical Bars.

    There are music nods to Poison and Britney Spears (how’s that for an odd combination?) and, having taken two years of Mandarin Chinese myself, I enjoyed it getting a brief mention.  I would point out, however, that if you are ever in Hong Kong, and wish to communicate with the locals, it would be best to try Cantonese instead.

    The ending is logical, reasonably exciting, although not very twisty.  I liked the way the “technological outage” was resolved, and think a follow-up novel about that could be quite interesting.  The Missing Link is a standalone novel, and I don't think it's part of any series.  If the title references anything in the story, I missed it.

Kewlest New Word ...
Goblobotomy (n.) : removing the prefrontal lobe of a goblin’s brain  (a made-up word, and way-kewl.)

Excerpts...
    “You should be angry.  The capitalist world is using up the environment like toilet paper.”  He dropped his gaze to the turd which was appropriately swallowing Molly’s foot.  “And, hey, come to think of it, toilet paper kills trees.  We should all use leaves.”
    Molly’s face was flooding in bright red streaks.  “Leaves are from trees, you idiot!”  (loc. 1103)

    “The probability of your escape, human, is precisely 2.653 times less likely than being struck by lightning in the next twelve seconds.  This mathematical calculation is based upon not only the current sunshine and annual projected weather patterns, but also on the presence of the six malnourished, carbon-based life forms of pitiful socio-economic status that have just entered the room.  While you no doubt hope that these transients will prevent your immediate expiration, allow me to offer assurance that such an event will not occur.”  (loc. 6349)

Kindle Details…
    The Missing Link sells for $5.99 right now at Amazon.  As a team, Brandon Meyers and Bryan Pedas have another dozen or so e-books on Amazon, ranging in length from short stories to novelettes to novels, and in price from $1.99 to $5.99.  Both authors also have solo works available for your Kindle.  Their most recent effort as a writing team seems to have been in 2016.

“Sir, my dog eats bananas.  I’m pooping for my sexy friends.  Did you help?”  (loc. 2940 )
    There are a number of things to quibble about in The Missing Link, the first and most serious of which is the heavy overuse of cussing.  I counted 18 instances in the first 5%, and things didn’t let up after that.  A little cussing to set the tone is okay, but here it’ quickly becomes annoyingly distracting.

    I thought the storytelling was weak.  For most of the book, our three parties of protagonists wander around trying to figure out what’s going on, but not getting anywhere.  The story opens with Agnes Butterton destroying the Internet (so we are told), but she then disappears never to be seen again.  Twiddledee and Twiddledum serve no purpose except to make fun of Twitter.  It was funny the first time, it was old and irritating the fiftieth time.

    The target audience seemed to be Junior High and High School male readers who will titter nervously at all the cussing and wisecracks.  But this book would appeal to a wider audience if it had less foul language and more polishing.  OTOH, some reviewers criticized the writing itself as being overly simplistic, but if the target audience is indeed teens, then I think the writing style is appropriate.

    5 Stars.  Add 1½ stars if you’re a teenage boy looking for a fast, easy “beach novel” for a book report due in a couple days.  That was me once, and I probably would have enjoyed this way back then.

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