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.