Saturday, March 10, 2012

Night of the Living Fanservice

While perusing the local library (Which is a fun word by the way, perusing. say it with me 'pear-ooze-ing'. Makes you feel fancy, don't it?) I found a book that I was not sure should exist, but that I knew I had to check out anyways. That book was Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall.


I first thought of the book like a literary PB&J, two great tastes that taste great together (not that I eat PB&J's, but the simile stands). Then I started reading the book.

Don't get me wrong, the authors are very adept writers and the premise is interesting enough, but instead of a delicious word sandwich, I felt like I was being forced to eat a pound of super rich chocolate. It would have been good in little bits, but taken in one sitting it was too much.

The problem was the fan service. It is one thing to have a little bit of sly tongue in cheek geek references, but it is another to do what the first half of the book does. You don't have to prove you're a geek on every page of a book, because after a few chapters of it I am going to stop thinking it is cute or funny. After a few chapters of it, I am going to start thinking you are having a metaphorical nerd pissing contest with your reader, and that is pretty far from enjoyable.

That being said, once the book got into the swing of things it got better. It stopped being up its own butt, and started being a legit sci-fi horror novel. From that point it started being something approaching great.

I am glad I didn't give up on it, because in the end it was pretty darned good.
Plus the book trailer was pretty funny too.


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