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shonaningyo's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't really know what to expect. I thought I would get maybe personal accounts by the author on his life, or maybe some ramblings about life and the current state of humanity with weird examples taken from obscure places.
But this was a montage of short stories of varying lengths which dealt from everything from a world where technology exists that turns all of your waste into waves so you no longer have to use the bathroom to a unrequited love story of Sneezy pining for Snow White.
Needless to say, it was weird.
Good weird, but still weird.
The reason I rated it 3/5 was because I only read a few of the stories because the others didn't interest me or they droned on a bit. Between each story was an "intermission" where your "host" --that is, a talking skull with flesh hanging off of him--taking you the reader through the paces and making very self-aware comments about himself and everything around him, which entails breaking the fourth wall so badly that I thought this was a transcript to something said and done in actual real life. I imagine the host to look like FaceBones from Metalocalypse:
The constant 4th-wall-breaking for the Intermissions made me uneasy. Simply because I'm not used to so much "official" tongue-in-cheek lampshade hanging (look that up on TV Tropes if you don't know what it is) , and to me it was like someone had written the novel equivalent of a movie. To me it can't be done, and it was less believable (what is there to believe anyways?) and I enjoyed it less because of that.
But that's just me. I don't like it when it's constantly pointing out things like that, but I'm sure many others do. It's not you, Mr. Casper, it's me. I didn't expect it to be written like that, and I didn't enjoy it because it's just not what I'm into literature-wise. This is a very good book if you like snarky 4th-wall-breaking and weird stories full of humor and "oh yeah! that's so true!" .. I just didn't enjoy it as much as people who like that stuff would...
But this was a montage of short stories of varying lengths which dealt from everything from a world where technology exists that turns all of your waste into waves so you no longer have to use the bathroom to a unrequited love story of Sneezy pining for Snow White.
Needless to say, it was weird.
Good weird, but still weird.
The reason I rated it 3/5 was because I only read a few of the stories because the others didn't interest me or they droned on a bit. Between each story was an "intermission" where your "host" --that is, a talking skull with flesh hanging off of him--taking you the reader through the paces and making very self-aware comments about himself and everything around him, which entails breaking the fourth wall so badly that I thought this was a transcript to something said and done in actual real life. I imagine the host to look like FaceBones from Metalocalypse:
The constant 4th-wall-breaking for the Intermissions made me uneasy. Simply because I'm not used to so much "official" tongue-in-cheek lampshade hanging (look that up on TV Tropes if you don't know what it is) , and to me it was like someone had written the novel equivalent of a movie. To me it can't be done, and it was less believable (what is there to believe anyways?) and I enjoyed it less because of that.
But that's just me. I don't like it when it's constantly pointing out things like that, but I'm sure many others do. It's not you, Mr. Casper, it's me. I didn't expect it to be written like that, and I didn't enjoy it because it's just not what I'm into literature-wise. This is a very good book if you like snarky 4th-wall-breaking and weird stories full of humor and "oh yeah! that's so true!" .. I just didn't enjoy it as much as people who like that stuff would...
jonathan_lee_b's review against another edition
3.0
More Stories About Spaceships and Cancer is the best book which's table of contents is a joke instead of an actual table of contents.
whatmeworry's review against another edition
5.0
I came to this after seeing Kelly's wonderful viral video 'Too Many Cooks' and enjoyed it enormously. It's a collection of short stories, which I guess you would call science fiction, but that label isn't particularly helpful. The stories are all extremely funny and inventive, surreal but engaging. Think Philip K Dick (but funnier) or Kurt Vonnegut or David Wong. I loved it.
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