Tonia Brown, Mistress of Occult Fiction
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Lamb, by Christopher Moore and Fisher Stevens

3/31/2015

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LAMB: The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
written by Christopher Moore
narrated by Fisher Stevens

Buy it here!


Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more (except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdalan) and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight

Important deets:
  • Genre: Humor
  • Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins 
  • Unabridged Audiobook

Tonia's Review

While I like humorous books, Lamb was a bit of a departure for me because I don’t usually read religious books. I know Lamb appears to be as religious as the instructions for a dishwasher, but once you get into it, you realize that every dish is holy and even the soap will inherit the Kingdom, no matter how it wears its foreskin.

Even though I am Wiccan now, I was raised Baptist.
Once upon a time, the idea that Christ had a childhood friend not mentioned in the God written word of the Bible would’ve made my eyes explode in shock. As it is, I got a bit wiggly just from lingering Christian guilt at treating Christ like a regular person and not something completely different.

But when it comes down to it, wasn’t that the whole point of sending Him here? So He could live as a regular person?

The story:

Moore immediately removes my years of Baptist angst by referring to the Son of God as Joshua instead of Jesus Christ. I appreciated this. It meant I didn’t cringe every time I heard JC say fuck, nor did it shock me when he instructed a young girl to give the bird to the temple priests. And I don’t mean a dove.

Biff as the pov narrator was great. He became the everyman Joshua wanted to be. Biff lied and stole and fought for Joshua so Joshua didn’t have to, yet Joshua wore the burden of those actions as if he did them himself. It was an interesting relationship. The bits about teaching Joshua about sex was fun and funny. I loved how bacon became a salient point of entering the Kingdom.

The bulk of the tale is about Joshua and Biff’s younger years. How they went into the orient in search of the three wise men. I won’t ruin it with a lot of detail, just suffice it to say Judaism isn’t the only religion you’re gonna learn a lot about in this book. It's filled with slyly hidden gems of multifaceted, multifaithed wisdom. I am going to recommend it to my church’s book club for that very reason.

I admit, I got a bit lost here and there and felt like I was missing out of some of the in jokes. It’s been a while since I picked up a bible, and I have never studied the Jewish faith, so at times I felt behind in the story.

The end was harsh, especially because you know what’s gonna happen. Well written but rough stuff.

The narration:

As for the narration, Stevens did a great job. I wasn’t sure at first when he introduced the prologue, but I settled in quickly to enjoy his cadence and pacing. He has great comedic timing, which is of course accentuated by the wonderfully funny material. Every time he would say aloud the things Joshua did, things you wouldn’t imagine him doing or felt kind of blasphemous for the Son of God to do, I felt like Stevens had set his jaw and puffed out his chest and was about to say, “Yeah, I went there. Moore went there. We said that. Whatcha gonna do about it?”

My only real issues are with the audio. Occasionally some music would creep in and while as a pace setter it was okay, I could’ve done without it. Especially when he had to start reading over the music and it seemed like it would never go away.

The other thing is the Audible platform. Normally the chapters have good head and foot room between chapters. This one had barely a split second between the last chapter and the next one. The words rolled over the top of each other, or in some cases were out entirely.

Overall:

In the end I give the audiobook three and a half zombie hands. I really enjoyed it, but the story would get away from me, the music was distracting and the Audibles format kept cutting off the ends of the chapters.

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Hard Day's Knight, by John G Hartness and Nick J Russo

3/16/2015

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Hard Day's Knight: Black Knight Chronicles, Book 1
written by John G. Hartness
narrated by Nick J. Russo

buy your copy here!
Lots of Vampires. No Sparkles. Serious Snark.
Children are missing.
The police are stumped.
Halloween is coming, and an ancient evil is on the horizon.
The vampires are the good guys.
This is not your ordinary fall weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. Vampire private detectives Jimmy Black and Greg Knightwood have been hired to save a client from being cursed for all eternity, but end up in a bigger mess than they ever imagined.
Suddenly trapped in the middle of a serial kidnapping case, Jimmy and Greg uncover a plot to bring forth an ancient evil. Soon, they've enlisted the help of a police detective, a priest, a witch, a fallen angel, and a strip club proprietor to save the world. This unlikely band of heroes battles zombies, witches, neuroses, and sunburn while cracking jokes and looking for the perfect bag of O-negative.


Important deets:

  • Genre: Horror/Humor
  • Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins 
  • Unabridged Audiobook

Tonia's Review

The story:

I don’t care for vampires. They are on the bottom of my monster list. Yes, even the ‘scary’ ones are at the bottom of the barrel of things I consider frightening. Considering this novella was all about the vamps, Mr. Hartness had a hard row to hoe with me on this one.

All things considered, he did very well.

Hard Day’s Knight was a fun read. The characters were charming, the banter witty and the concepts were traditional enough to make me gag yet different enough to keep me interested. Every writer needs to make the monster his own, which can be difficult when you’re building your own lore around centuries of ingrained legends. I liked how John didn’t info dump his vampire tradition all at once, nor did he beat you over the head with explanations at every turn. He kept the ideas streamlined into either dialogue or narrative.

Humor is a hard sell, but I for one love a funny story. John has a wicked sense of humor, as evidenced by his writing. His quick wit shines through almost every page. True, some jokes fall flat, and you can almost hear the eye rolling wah-wah-wah of a tuba somewhere in the background for a few of them, but even these lines will appeal to someone out there. In short, he is hella funny and this book reflects that.

I have to admit, I love the idea of nerdy vamps. The lead tries not to be the nerd he is, while his bromance sidekick embraces it with an embarrassing amount of zeal. As a fellow nerd I can relate to the love of all things weird and unusual. I understand Jimmy is meant to be the heartthrob, but Greg had far more charm and humanity, making him sympathetic and likable. At times I found myself not caring if Jimmy pulled through or not. His tendency toward being a bit of an asshole left me with a bad taste for him. I understand the need for the balance though. They both can’t be bumbling nerds. Someone has to be quasi normal.

My only real complaint about the story is the sudden love interest there at the end. I see the appeal of it and understand it provides a lot of potential plot and character advancement, but to me it kind of seemed tacked on at the last minute. She showed little interest in him, then suddenly she’s all over him? Maybe I missed something. Then again, I don’t like vampires, and maybe the character has a thing for them. Who knows?

The narration:

Nick Russo did a fantastic job with this one. He settled into the tone of the story early on and kept a tight grip on the tension throughout. His characters were well done and very distinct. Nothing is worse than not being able to tell characters apart when listening to a book. I loved his ladies too. They were feminine without being redonkulous. I will say that I didn’t care for the Mike character’s voice. It was too, I don’t know, breathy for me. I know he was meant to sound gentle and kind, but somehow it came off like he was whispering all of his lines. And the angel was a little too dramatic. These two aside, again, I think Nick did a fantastic job.

Overall:

I would totally recommend this one to both vampire lovers and loathers. I look forward to listening to the next one.

4 out of 5 zombie hands for this funny book.


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