Robert KroeseBesprekingen

Listened to the audiobook that came with the Kindle Unlimited copy. The performance was fun and kept interesting by the different voices for each character (impressive considering how many there were).

The book was a very fun book with a pretty in-depth roundabout story. Just when you have it all figured out or assume it's almost over, some wrench gets thrown in for Rex and Sasha to overcome. It's funny, campy, and cheesy ... just how I like them. So glad to see this is a series so I can get into more of them!

Wonderfully, whacky-lly plotted. Filled with lots of wink-wink, nudge-nudge allusions to other stories and movies in the grand SF tradition. I loved this and seriously hope there will be other novel-length Rex Nihilo adventures in the future.

[AUDIOBOOK NOTE: I very much liked the reader, Kate Rudd. She brought the perfect level of dryness to the narrator character, Sasha, the robot.]

II really wanted to like this book. I gave it way past my 100 page rule. It had some genuine funny moments but ultimately it just kept dragging on without feeling like it was getting anywhere. I picked it up and put it down a bunch of times before about 60% of the way through the book I just didn't care anymore. I am quite sure others will like this but it was time for me to move on.

Occasionally amusing is as apt a description as I can apply to this silly book. I think what the author was going for was something more along the lines of consistently hilarious in the vein of Douglas Adams. Alas, it is somewhat wide of that mark.

One area of shortcoming is the cast of characters. Instead of the hapless every man Arthur Dent, we get the wallflower journalist Christine Temetri, reporting on apocalyptic cults for a religious tabloid. Despite being the purported protagonist, you hardly notice she's even there after the first several chapters. Instead of the almost too cool Ford Prefect, the stranded alien from Betelgeuse, we have the randomly absurd Mercury, an angel of dubious reputation. He turns out to be not so much our sometimes charming guide through this absurd take on the end of the world as a sometimes charming instigator. And instead of the overconfident sometimes Galactic President and starship thief Zaphod Beeblebrox, we get the reticent full-time slacker and purported Anti-Christ Karl.

But if the reader allows themselves to overlook the underdeveloped characters, the contrived plot, Scripture twisting, and sometimes stilted dialog, the story and pop culture references are occasionally amusing.

Awful... just.... awful. I picked it up because in one review it was compared to "The Princess Bride". Oh. My. No. It's just awful. Admittedly this is just my personal taste. I'm sure somebody likes it.

Not as funny as HHGTTG but not bad either.


Here's a couple of the best bits

“DNA scrambling is the worst. Last time I had an ear growing between my shoulder blades. People
acted like they didn’t notice it, but I could hear them talking behind my back.”

I was taken to the cannon and given an electronic copy of the plans, which was encrypted to prevent copying. Copy protection is one of those stupid ideas from the twentieth century that never seem to die, like nonalcoholic beer or karaoke bars. People think that you can make it impossible to copy something if you encrypt it, but anything that can be read can be copied.

3.5 stars. Humorous, satirical fun. The accidental heroine, Christine Temetri, is correspondent for a religious news magazine, and is responsible for a column on the Apocalypse, aptly named End Times. She is joined by the disgraced angel, Mercury, to try and thwart the end of days, battling angelic and human foes with differing agendas. Together, they stumble through adventures and misadventures and lots of funny happenstances, like the linoleum salesman, who is creating portals to different planes. Good for a laugh.

This was a bit of Sci-Fi humor, in the same mostly-untapped vein as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

In spite of the cover's old-timey pulp look, I recognized many more references to the original Star Wars movie than any other Sci-Fi property. The story isn't terribly compelling, and the humor often made me smile rather than laugh, but I still liked it.

The Wrath of Cons: A Rex Nihilo Adventure
Starship Grifters, Book 3
By: Robert Kroese
Narrated by: J. D. Ledford

Boy, this book has a boat load of parodies! But once past that more normal Rex and Sasha action happens! This adventure has the gang dealing with planet terraforming bombs. This was great until an enemy wants to use the same bombs on already terraformed and civilized planets to kill off all life!
This has new characters and old favorites! Still hilarious and witty! The narration is excellent! I hope there is plenty more Rex and Sasha books to come!

Out of the Soylent Planet: A Rex Nihilo Adventure
Starship Grifters, Book 0
By: Robert Kroese
Narrated by: J.D. Ledford

I have the book and the audio version! The audio is so good thanks to the wonderful and talented performance of this narrator! She can do any voice or sound effect! Amazing! She makes an already hilarious book even funnier with her timing and voice inflections.

The book tells how Rex and Sasha, an android/robot, get together. There first adventures which land them in plenty of trouble which Sasha should get use to if she is going to stay with the crazy nut! Rex has nothing but dangerous and hair brain schemes to get money and he doesn't seem to care if he runs afoul the mob, the law, crooked agents, or other con men.

In this adventure they end up making friends with a crippled military robot and a sentient plant. They are almost executed a couple of times. Slaves for a while. Sasha losses an eye for a while and so much more fun! This was hilarious as the others I have read have been. I am glad to know how the two got together.
Now, on to the next book!

Aye, Robot
A Rex Nihilo Adventure - Starship Grifters, Book 2
By: Robert Kroese

Oh my gosh! Anyone that loves humor and/or science fiction needs to start this series! I have read and listened to the audio and listening is definitely better! The narration is remarkable! It's so funny and the narrator performs all the voices perfectly and does the comedy just right!

Rex and Sasha are in a real mess that Rex has gotten them into! They have to deal with a super cult, mind wipe, agents that are crooked, and Rex decided to become a pirate, and they end up saving the galaxy! At the end of the Audible book the is a short story about Pepper too! She is a popular character in here.

This book is full of puns, snark, fun, crazy dialogue, silly situations, great characters, unusual plots, and a heck of a ride! I know I will have a good time when I start these books! Sasha the robot is my favorite! Can't wait to start the next book!

Starship Grifters
(Rex Nihilo #1)
by Robert Kroese

This is a hoot and a half! This author is so funny! Rex is a real low life but a funny one at that. He has a robot named Sasha that is hilarious but doesn't mean to be. She is my favorite in the book! Rex gambles away nearly everything but then makes a comeback and wins a planet! The guy who lost it seemed awful happy about losing. Seems the planet came with a lot of debt. Which comes with those wanting to be paid.
It is a wild and funny romp with a great cast of unusual characters, funny situations, ( I am giggling just thinking about some of them), and terrific dialogue! I giggled my way through this book!
I am definitely going to follow this series! It's too good to pass up!

Mercury Falls
(Mercury #1)
by Robert Kroese
This is such a witty and fun book! Mercury is an Angel, one that has an assignment but he wasn't paying too much attention during the briefing. He knows it is about the Apocalypse but the details are fuzzy because he doesn't take good notes. He meets a reporter that is sick to death of the jobs she is sent on, "End of the World" type crackpots.
Through some hilarious adventures, they find the anti-Christ who happens to be a real loser named Carl. Carl really couldn't rule the world if he had to. The angels are trying to kill him and the fallen angels are trying to, well it's had to tell. They are not very organized. But they made bombs!
It's a fun read and very clever!

Laughing loudly and frequently

Had some very funny bits, but not as many as expected...

Funny, irreverent satire...what's not to like?

Preposterous, silly, crazy and still I liked it. Must be the pandemic.

The book has a great title and is an homage to noir. It starts off auspiciously with plenty of wisecracks and some send-ups of the Nero Wolfe type of mystery, but I found it hard going after the first few casual deaths that apparently didn't bother anyone. It is theoretically set in the future, but there wasn't much futuristic about it except for a sort of formulaic cloning plot. The end is excruciatingly badly written with people holding guns on one another and explaining the whole situation, and it ends with a cliffhanger. Oh, well.

I seem to be reading a lot of humor books capturing the essence of economics lately. It's almost as if economics is funny.

AND MAYBE IT IS. :)

The Last Iota certainly takes electronic currencies on a wild spin. It throws us in a wild cyberpunk future mixing clones, lawless zones in the heart of LA with high-tech military action and gives us a sociopathic genius as the other MC, the main one being a tactically brilliant hands-on guy who we follow and love to see clash with his partner.

So wait. Is this a great high-tech thriller or is it a comedy?

It's both, maybe neither. It's a noir mystery with overtones of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock just wanted to see the world burn and he thought an Ex-Seal Team murderer might be a good choice to serve as his conscience. It's certainly funny as hell. Weird, huh? It works. Especially when you hunted a lost sheep in the heart of the city in the previous book and a worthless limited edition coin representing electronic currency in this one. :)

See the disconnect?

Oh yeah. It's pretty awesome.

:)

Thank goes to Netgalley!

Perhaps I should say double-thanks? The novel more than lived up to all expectations and perhaps a great deal more. In fact, from the outset, I didn't really get the sense of a lot of promise. It seemed to be a pretty standard Private-Eye (sorry, Phenomenological Inquisitor) with a pretty heavy SF bent, full of light humor and quirky intent.

What it became, after a while, was anything but standard and anything but simple. In fact, even being a long-time reader of both genres, I thought I had things pretty well figured out by page 30, revise - page 80, revise - page 120, revise - oh hell... it did SEEM to lead me to the right, even cool conclusion! But no, I was reliably and enthusiastically proven wrong.

Can I tell you want a delight this is? It gets even better, too! The writing is crisp and it knows what it's about. Strong voice, clear plot developments, interesting characters, and tons of truly interesting twists that made great use of both mystery standards AND a couple of armloads of beautiful SF tropes while never feeling stale.

Indeed, I came out of this read feeling as if the one initial promise, that this was some sort of PKD successor, was entirely on the mark. It took a while to realize it, from a straight textual progression, but the entire novel, taken together, IS absolutely worthy.

I might even say that it's a better read than PKD, if I were to be so heretical. It's not quite as philosophical or religious, but it certainly has the bat-s*** crazy down. :)

The only thing that it took a bit to get used to was the humor. I just didn't think the banter was all that funny at first, but it did grow on me as the complexity of the tale grew.

Hell, I think the really funny jokes are all plot-driven, not limited to a line-by-line hit parade.

If you are looking for something with a lot of panache and crazy cool happenings in a great one-to-one genre mashup of Mystery/SF that leaves you feeling refreshed and elated, then by all means, GO GET THIS BOOK. :)

You cannot imagine how many spoilers I wanted to give away. There were SO many great scenes to discuss and laugh about, with tons of in-jokes I could be sharing with you... right this instant.

This is so aggravating. :) : ) :)

It was the worst of times

I swear the narrator/author rolled a d20 and took the worst possible choice at every turn.

Warning: puns show up at odd intervals. It is never truly safe.

Reminds me of “Phule’s Company”.

You may be disappointed, but you’ll definitely be entertained.

Overly verbose

I tried. 84% of the book before I threw in the towel.

It’s really well written. To the point that you want it to get sloppy just to make something happen.

One significant flaw: the MC repeatedly says time flows slower in the shadow realm, but then describes it as flowing faster.

It was the worst of times

I swear the narrator/author rolled a d20 and took the worst possible choice at every turn.

Warning: puns show up at odd intervals. It is never truly safe.

Reminds me of “Phule’s Company”.

You may be disappointed, but you’ll definitely be entertained.

Overly verbose

I tried. 84% of the book before I threw in the towel.

It’s really well written. To the point that you want it to get sloppy just to make something happen.

One significant flaw: the MC repeatedly says time flows slower in the shadow realm, but then describes it as flowing faster.

STARSHIP GRIFTERS BY ROBERT KROESE

In a world of calamity, ineptitude, and moral horror, its good to have light reading. Starship Grifters by Robert Kroese fits the bill for those looking for a beach read or temporary distraction. The novel chronicles the adventures and misadventures of Rex Nihilo and his robot sidekick Sasha. Sasha (short for Self-Arresting near-Sentient Heuristic Adroid) narrates Starship Grifters, aided in part by her inability to lie. This comes in handy, since Rex is unable to tell the truth.

Rex is a con artist, gun runner, and scoundrel. When he’s not gambling, he has a martini in hand and witty rejoinder. If he wasn’t messing up things in the 31st century, he’d most certainly either be a big-shot Hollywood producer or President of the United States.

Starship Grifters main plot revolves around Rex aiding the Revolting Front. These heroic revolutionaries struggle against the oppressive Malarchian Empire. Through hook and crook, Rex ends up convincing the Malarchian regime he knows the existence of a planet (which actually doesn’t exist) and turning over the much-coveted cloaking technology (which also doesn’t exist). There hasn’t been this big of a kerfuffle over non-existent WMDs since Gulf War 2: Dubya’s Bogus Iraqi Adventure.

Along the way we meet General Issimo, the Revolting Front’s bombastic military genius. We also come across Pepper Mélange, a buxom bounty hunter on the Bad Little Kitty. (To be fair, Rex and Sasha fly around in Flagrante Delicto.) There’s a prison planet named Gulagatraz and the Revolting Front makes their home on the world of Schufnaasik Six. It’s all a bit silly. Yet it is silly in the best way. The plot (and various subplots) creak away like the best Wodehouse. Bertie Wooster and Rex Nihilo both have the same inverse ratio of confidence to intelligence. Both also swill more martinis than an entire Mad Men season.

By novel’s end, there have been numerous twists and turns. Kroese ties up everything in a nice little bow. It also left me wanting for more. Starship Grifters is the second novel of the Rex Nihilo series. It falls between Out of the Soylent Planet and Aye, Robot.

The dialogue is sharp, the action fast-paced, and almost everyone is heroically ill-equipped for the task at hand. Starship Grifters makes for fast and fun reading. Highly recommended.