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A review by mjoyner
Ten Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery by Fred Van Lente
2.0
I suspect Van Lente didn't really account for the difference between hearing stand-up and reading it. With live stand-up, viewers get swept up in the comic's charisma so that jokes that would fall flat on their own transform into the height of hilarity. But reading those same jokes on a page brings them back to their flat realities. There definitely is a way to convey humor in writing; it's just a different art, one Van Lente has not mastered. Thus, Ten Dead Comedians just isn't funny. Not one line in the book made me laugh, regardless of whether it came from the narrative or the excerpts from the characters' standup routines that appear between chapters (and were super unnecessary anyway).
Van Lente appears to be satirizing modern comics through his characters. I don't know enough about the comedy world to confirm this myself, but I'm seeing a lot of other Goodreads reviews mentioning Larry the Cable Guy, Carrot Top, Gallagher, Pee Wee Herman, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all these references fairly niche or just outdated? How did this even get published? (I know how - Quirk Books, a company that prides itself in publishing the weird titles of this world, took on Ten Dead Comedians, even though its quirk doesn't save its story)
The one satire I did catch onto involved Ruby Ng, who in the book is an insufferable feminist with a totally exaggerated desire to destroy the patriarchy. Frankly, I found myself insulted by all the stereotypes packed into her character. She's a lesbian, a podcaster craving fame, a hypocrite who preaches love while tearing everyone down every time they make a mistake, and a feminist who notably does not shave her legs. Yes, all of those are real traits found in real people, but it is so unnecessary to put all that on one character. It's unsubtle, it's unfunny, and the bit about not shaving her legs was just too much.
The good news is that even those who have read the original Ten Little Indians won't be able to predict the ending, at least not all of it.
The bad news is the ending felt unearned. I remember the Christie version being particularly fascinating because the victims were all guilty and thus deserved their deaths to an extent. But Van Lente's one-dimensional comedians really did not. They are supposedly being punished for bad comedy and minor bullying, but neither of these are crimes worthy of such creative murders.
In short, it was dumb and not worth the time.
Van Lente appears to be satirizing modern comics through his characters. I don't know enough about the comedy world to confirm this myself, but I'm seeing a lot of other Goodreads reviews mentioning Larry the Cable Guy, Carrot Top, Gallagher, Pee Wee Herman, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all these references fairly niche or just outdated? How did this even get published? (I know how - Quirk Books, a company that prides itself in publishing the weird titles of this world, took on Ten Dead Comedians, even though its quirk doesn't save its story)
The one satire I did catch onto involved Ruby Ng, who in the book is an insufferable feminist with a totally exaggerated desire to destroy the patriarchy. Frankly, I found myself insulted by all the stereotypes packed into her character. She's a lesbian, a podcaster craving fame, a hypocrite who preaches love while tearing everyone down every time they make a mistake, and a feminist who notably does not shave her legs. Yes, all of those are real traits found in real people, but it is so unnecessary to put all that on one character. It's unsubtle, it's unfunny, and the bit about not shaving her legs was just too much.
The good news is that even those who have read the original Ten Little Indians won't be able to predict the ending, at least not all of it.
The bad news is the ending felt unearned. I remember the Christie version being particularly fascinating because the victims were all guilty and thus deserved their deaths to an extent. But Van Lente's one-dimensional comedians really did not. They are supposedly being punished for bad comedy and minor bullying, but neither of these are crimes worthy of such creative murders.
In short, it was dumb and not worth the time.