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lindamoore's review against another edition
Inter-galactic travel written in real time; since I'm not in a state of suspended animation, I think I need to take a break from this one.
5wamp_creature's review against another edition
4.0
I climbed the mountain. I don't regret it.
As many others note, it's too long.
Ending of the novelization of the film inside the novel seemed to end abruptly.
Also, considering what happened in space and in the desert, I can't believe Noelle and Morton never got it on! Was that the one bit that was edited out? ;)
But it's so packed full of commentary and homage I smiled while near drowning in it.
Weird shit happens and that's my kind of book.
As many others note, it's too long.
Ending of the novelization of the film inside the novel seemed to end abruptly.
Also, considering what happened in space and in the desert, I can't believe Noelle and Morton never got it on! Was that the one bit that was edited out? ;)
But it's so packed full of commentary and homage I smiled while near drowning in it.
Weird shit happens and that's my kind of book.
kbyanyname's review against another edition
2.0
AUTHOR WRITES ENTIRE NEW BOOK OVERNIGHT, SAYS HE DOESN'T NEED EDITORS
Author Rick Moody wrote more than 725 pages last night, completing his novel one hour before his last deadline this morning. Moody heralded the work as a victory for procrastinators everywhere.
“This has been a really long time coming,” said Moody. “I’m so glad I could eventually get around to meeting my publisher’s deadline. I totally forgot that was supposed to hit the presses today, so I paused Rock Band, just knocked back about six red-eyes and started hitting the keyboard.”
Moody’s furious typing woke up neighbors, the clattering achieving new land speed records for total amount of wordy, dense pages of pure blocks of unwieldy text per hour. The experience was a burst floodgate of creativity totally unrestrained by editing he said.
“I had to make a 700-page count, so I just followed my oldest creative writing exercise that I used in college, the one where you just freewrite at first and then follow every possible single thought or emotion experienced by a character back to its root whether it’s relevant or not. I did at least remember to inject about two pages of interesting plot and character interaction for every 10 of aimless wandering to make sure people remembered there was a story.”
Moody’s characters billowed under pounds of paper of backstories and useless rhetorical questioning of the story and motivations through the night. Where once there was blank white, characters grew from a pulpy reiteration of a 1960ish B horror movie “The Crawling Hand,” which happened to be on TV at the time. They were unsteady and routinely contradicted themselves in both personality and wandering style.
“I made it a point to mention when they did that usually, because if they’re aware that they’re not adhering to much continuity it makes them more ‘real’ I’ve been told,” said Moody. “Though some of them professed to be quiet and/or simple, almost all of them managed to be verbose enough to explain a sad past story about a sad memory over at least two pages of difficult, oblique copy.
“About 200 pages in, I decided it was going to be a farce, because the character development kept ending up in dark comedy funny predicaments, and I kept making up things about the future world that were darkly comedic, though maybe the commentary ran a little wild, too. I’m not really certain. I think I had a couple nosebleeds about that time.”
Near the breaking of dawn, Moody was left almost 200 pages short with a tepid thriller dystopian future sci-fi story with characters that went everywhere and achieved little, if not forgetting entirely what they had a page ago expressed a life-defining fervency to do. There were a few dozen page-long arcs of poetic and literary brilliance, but on the whole, the story would be entirely unusable, he said.
“But then I had a flash of genius,” he said. “I hammered out a framework story about an egomaniacal, ineffective writer in the future writing this novel in the future, where, in this alternate future, he had a sad story too, and would go on at length about this, so the whole thing itself was the joke, and the joke within the joke, and sometimes there was the dark comedy on top of the stereotype on top of the joke – Did I already do the joke within the joke part?”
Moody’s publisher had called repeatedly for the better part of the morning, and around the fifth left voicemail at 11:37 a.m., Moody picked up. The book was barely on time, and had no time to be edited at all before being sent out for printing.
“I knew this didn’t need any editing, especially with this brilliant new ‘bad writer’ framework, so we’d be totally fine,” he said. “I mean, I had a page count to hit, and who wants to read more than 700 pages of that? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go unpause Rock Band and five-star this song before my caffeine buzz wears off.”
Author Rick Moody wrote more than 725 pages last night, completing his novel one hour before his last deadline this morning. Moody heralded the work as a victory for procrastinators everywhere.
“This has been a really long time coming,” said Moody. “I’m so glad I could eventually get around to meeting my publisher’s deadline. I totally forgot that was supposed to hit the presses today, so I paused Rock Band, just knocked back about six red-eyes and started hitting the keyboard.”
Moody’s furious typing woke up neighbors, the clattering achieving new land speed records for total amount of wordy, dense pages of pure blocks of unwieldy text per hour. The experience was a burst floodgate of creativity totally unrestrained by editing he said.
“I had to make a 700-page count, so I just followed my oldest creative writing exercise that I used in college, the one where you just freewrite at first and then follow every possible single thought or emotion experienced by a character back to its root whether it’s relevant or not. I did at least remember to inject about two pages of interesting plot and character interaction for every 10 of aimless wandering to make sure people remembered there was a story.”
Moody’s characters billowed under pounds of paper of backstories and useless rhetorical questioning of the story and motivations through the night. Where once there was blank white, characters grew from a pulpy reiteration of a 1960ish B horror movie “The Crawling Hand,” which happened to be on TV at the time. They were unsteady and routinely contradicted themselves in both personality and wandering style.
“I made it a point to mention when they did that usually, because if they’re aware that they’re not adhering to much continuity it makes them more ‘real’ I’ve been told,” said Moody. “Though some of them professed to be quiet and/or simple, almost all of them managed to be verbose enough to explain a sad past story about a sad memory over at least two pages of difficult, oblique copy.
“About 200 pages in, I decided it was going to be a farce, because the character development kept ending up in dark comedy funny predicaments, and I kept making up things about the future world that were darkly comedic, though maybe the commentary ran a little wild, too. I’m not really certain. I think I had a couple nosebleeds about that time.”
Near the breaking of dawn, Moody was left almost 200 pages short with a tepid thriller dystopian future sci-fi story with characters that went everywhere and achieved little, if not forgetting entirely what they had a page ago expressed a life-defining fervency to do. There were a few dozen page-long arcs of poetic and literary brilliance, but on the whole, the story would be entirely unusable, he said.
“But then I had a flash of genius,” he said. “I hammered out a framework story about an egomaniacal, ineffective writer in the future writing this novel in the future, where, in this alternate future, he had a sad story too, and would go on at length about this, so the whole thing itself was the joke, and the joke within the joke, and sometimes there was the dark comedy on top of the stereotype on top of the joke – Did I already do the joke within the joke part?”
Moody’s publisher had called repeatedly for the better part of the morning, and around the fifth left voicemail at 11:37 a.m., Moody picked up. The book was barely on time, and had no time to be edited at all before being sent out for printing.
“I knew this didn’t need any editing, especially with this brilliant new ‘bad writer’ framework, so we’d be totally fine,” he said. “I mean, I had a page count to hit, and who wants to read more than 700 pages of that? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go unpause Rock Band and five-star this song before my caffeine buzz wears off.”
cynireads's review
1.0
Alright, so I've been slowly working my way through this novel....extremely slowly. I honestly did not know what to expect from this novel nor was I really looking for anything in particular. In saying that, I did not finish the work. Therefore my review may not be altogether satisfying or warranted.
Again, all I know is how far I've read into this novel. In saying that, I only made in about a quarter of the way through. I stopped approx 50 pages after jizz was floating in the air of the spaceship on the way to Mars. Granted the last time I picked up this book was about 3 months ago so it's no wonder that's the only scene I in particular remember.
For me Moody's style just isn't what I like in a novel and so therefore couldn't bring myself to devote the amount of time needed in order to really understand and appreciate his style for what it is. It was far too messy for me. I've never read any of his work before and was so unawares of what that entailed.
From what I read I could understand why some may find this novel appealing...I just couldn't tear myself away from my studies and other novels that needed reading for classes to really get into the novel. I did appreciate the depth to which he created his characters and I like the unsettling landscape of Mars that pervaded each and every person whilst they were there. I loved how each person also changed at an almost microscopic level from the person they were on Earth.
In all honesty, I love a lengthy novel that will preoccupy my time for weeks, however, this one was just too bulky for a style I was unfamiliar with and for the time I was willing to commit to it. This novel may by all means be someone else's cup of tea; as for me, I don't think I'll ever be picking this one back up.
Again, all I know is how far I've read into this novel. In saying that, I only made in about a quarter of the way through. I stopped approx 50 pages after jizz was floating in the air of the spaceship on the way to Mars. Granted the last time I picked up this book was about 3 months ago so it's no wonder that's the only scene I in particular remember.
For me Moody's style just isn't what I like in a novel and so therefore couldn't bring myself to devote the amount of time needed in order to really understand and appreciate his style for what it is. It was far too messy for me. I've never read any of his work before and was so unawares of what that entailed.
In all honesty, I love a lengthy novel that will preoccupy my time for weeks, however, this one was just too bulky for a style I was unfamiliar with and for the time I was willing to commit to it. This novel may by all means be someone else's cup of tea; as for me, I don't think I'll ever be picking this one back up.
mimischuyler's review
1.0
I picked up this book because of the title but after reading the introduction I had to stop reading it. I just did not catch my attention.
pagesandpints's review
2.0
When I first discovered this book, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Space travel! Deadly bacteria infections! Apocalypse! The ideas the novel explores are creative on their own, but the story is so disjointed and rambling at times that I know longer had any of that initial enthusiasm after I got about midway through "book one". I essentially had to force myself to finish this and am hesitant to attempt another book by Rick Moody in the future.
kdrmbroms's review
4.0
A mindless, manic (and occasionally very funny) romp but.... when you take a look back you notice fairly profound statements on urgent matters of the day including teenage angst and ennui, homelessness, the (latest) conspiracy of the military/industrial complex, chronic unemployment, survivalism and much more. Well worth the read, but requires some effort.
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