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To Cure The Humans!
After wrecking his car on the way to work, Dr. Benjamin Cotter's day gets worse when he is abducted by Cyril, an alien bounty hunter. Cyril has landed on Earth in pursuit of Peter, a resourceful fugitive alien who just happens to possess a device (the BAT) than can cure any disease in any species.
When Peter innocently uses the BAT on humans, he draws the wrath of dangerous and powerful adversaries - a pharmaceutical start up, a major health insurance corporation, and a super-secret governmental agency. Their attempts to capture Peter and steal the BAT are thwarted when Peter receives help from a cynical liberal-arts major administrative assistant and her retired steel-worker father. When Dr. Cotter escapes Cyril's clutches, he joins forces with Peter. But in the end it takes a more powerful force to save the BAT - and to cure the humans!
When Peter innocently uses the BAT on humans, he draws the wrath of dangerous and powerful adversaries - a pharmaceutical start up, a major health insurance corporation, and a super-secret governmental agency. Their attempts to capture Peter and steal the BAT are thwarted when Peter receives help from a cynical liberal-arts major administrative assistant and her retired steel-worker father. When Dr. Cotter escapes Cyril's clutches, he joins forces with Peter. But in the end it takes a more powerful force to save the BAT - and to cure the humans!
- GenresHumorScience Fiction
456 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 31, 2013
1 person is currently reading
569 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Lewis
1 book10 followersDouglas Lewis grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, where his sense of humor was honed by being raised in a middle-class family, attending public schools, and being told at a young age that his hometown was #3 on the list of Soviet nuclear targets. He was first published in high school, where his dark, ironic, angsty poetry was included in the school's yearly literary magazine. Flush with royalty money, he attended Texas Christian University, where he graduated in 1984 with a degree in biology, a minor in philosophy, and unwarranted optimism. Four years later, Douglas graduated from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston - internationally recognized as a medical school with a name that seems a bit too wordy. For well over four years, he has written and performed stand up comedy. By 2012, his three children had more-or-less reached adulthood and, taking advantage of the time he used to spend fielding calls from upset school administrators, he began writing To Cure the Humans! He lives and works in Austin, Texas, where he can still occasionally be found onstage performing stand up, when they let him.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 20, 2016
In Doug Lewis’s debut novel To Cure the Humans, we are introduced to Peter and Cyril, a pair of aliens who have made their way to Earth. Cyril is a bounty hunter pursuing Peter, who has inadvertently stolen an advanced device (called a BAT) that’s capable of instantly diagnosing and curing all diseases and ailments. Peter, being a nice, um, Blutaarkian, can’t help but heal the humans he encounters while on the run, which brings him to the attention of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, who will stop at nothing to possess the BAT before it makes them obsolete. Throw in pout models, the men in black, secret prisons and an intergalactic army and watch the sparks fly!
The basic premise of the book is fairly simple and fairly absurd, but that only makes To Cure the Humans that much more fun to read. It helps that Lewis gives readers a wealth of very memorable supporting characters and an extraordinary sarcastic jokes-per-page percentage. It reminded me very much of Rob Kroese’s Mercury series as well as some of Christopher Moore’s novels. The dialogue is another highlight. The book dragged a bit in the middle, and the ending was somewhat abrupt, but those are minor complaints in what was otherwise a very enjoyable, laugh out loud funny reading experience.
I know self-published books can be hit-and-miss, but sometimes taking a chance on one can pay off in a big way, and this is one of those cases. If you enjoy absurdly funny stories featuring aliens, insurance companies and flying suitcases (or just lots of funny jokes and great characters), I highly recommend To Cure the Humans. Fans of Rob Kroese, Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore in particular ought to get a kick out of this one.
The basic premise of the book is fairly simple and fairly absurd, but that only makes To Cure the Humans that much more fun to read. It helps that Lewis gives readers a wealth of very memorable supporting characters and an extraordinary sarcastic jokes-per-page percentage. It reminded me very much of Rob Kroese’s Mercury series as well as some of Christopher Moore’s novels. The dialogue is another highlight. The book dragged a bit in the middle, and the ending was somewhat abrupt, but those are minor complaints in what was otherwise a very enjoyable, laugh out loud funny reading experience.
I know self-published books can be hit-and-miss, but sometimes taking a chance on one can pay off in a big way, and this is one of those cases. If you enjoy absurdly funny stories featuring aliens, insurance companies and flying suitcases (or just lots of funny jokes and great characters), I highly recommend To Cure the Humans. Fans of Rob Kroese, Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore in particular ought to get a kick out of this one.
June 24, 2014
I got this book on the Kindle market during a sale when it was 99 cents. This is one of the first books I have read on an e-reader and at first I was hesitant at Kindles, but it was a great experience.
First I got to say, definitely worth the full price!
Second, this book is everything I wanted at the right time – well-developed characters, great humor (I love the one liners), and a plot that held my interest. I think what hooked me into this book was the characters and the humor. Cyril must be the most annoyingly well-written character I have come across since Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. Every time he appeared and talked in the book, I wanted to pull my hair out!!! Definitely a sign of a good writer.
Maybe it was the timing – I read a couple of serious/more dry classics before picking up this one (Emma, Pablo Neruda, Heart of Darkness) – and the humor and writing style simply made me happy. I found myself smiling throughout the novel and laughing out loud on occasion. Further, I love scifi and the technology in the book / names of aliens / alien characteristics were hilarious! To Cure the Humans! was a fun read!
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fun and humorous books in general. You do not need to be in love with scifi to enjoy this one!
First I got to say, definitely worth the full price!
Second, this book is everything I wanted at the right time – well-developed characters, great humor (I love the one liners), and a plot that held my interest. I think what hooked me into this book was the characters and the humor. Cyril must be the most annoyingly well-written character I have come across since Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. Every time he appeared and talked in the book, I wanted to pull my hair out!!! Definitely a sign of a good writer.
Maybe it was the timing – I read a couple of serious/more dry classics before picking up this one (Emma, Pablo Neruda, Heart of Darkness) – and the humor and writing style simply made me happy. I found myself smiling throughout the novel and laughing out loud on occasion. Further, I love scifi and the technology in the book / names of aliens / alien characteristics were hilarious! To Cure the Humans! was a fun read!
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fun and humorous books in general. You do not need to be in love with scifi to enjoy this one!
November 7, 2013
At a time when healthcare is big in the news, this book takes a satirical look at the health insurance industry. An alien named Peter by accident gets an artifact that allows him to cure all diseases in a being. When he gets to Earth he starts using it on humans, which gets an alien bounty hunter named Cyril on his tail. A big insurance company also comes after Peter to take the artifact for his own purposes.
Like any humorous story there are some jokes that land and others that don't. Which do and do not probably depends on your sense of humor. The writing is solid enough and for a while the story is fun. It's just way too darned long. At 456 pages it needs to be about 33% shorter. Much of this could have happened if all the stuff about Area 52 had been cut out since it wasn't really that necessary.
Anyway, except for the length this is a good book if you like Douglas Adams or similar authors.
That is all.
Like any humorous story there are some jokes that land and others that don't. Which do and do not probably depends on your sense of humor. The writing is solid enough and for a while the story is fun. It's just way too darned long. At 456 pages it needs to be about 33% shorter. Much of this could have happened if all the stuff about Area 52 had been cut out since it wasn't really that necessary.
Anyway, except for the length this is a good book if you like Douglas Adams or similar authors.
That is all.
November 27, 2013
The joy of reading humorous fiction is more in the prose than in the story. To Cure the Humans is no exception. Author Douglas Lewis draws from many sources familiar to fans of this sort of thing, not least of which are the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Like Adams, Lewis uses humorous sci-fi as the foundation; but the writing flows so smoothly and the humor occurs so naturally that he could just as well have written in any other genre and still have been just as entertaining. To Cure the Humans has the rare quality of being a book it is easy to keep reading, and I'll bet it has the even rarer re-readability that the Hitchhiker's books do. I'm looking forward to testing that one out.
January 3, 2014
*received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads
I found this book clever and entertaining. It was not my favorite genre but it still kept me engaged and was very reminiscent of 'The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy'. There was a good deal of social commentary as well as numerous literary and pop culture references that quite appealed to me. At times I felt the humor was a bit forced and I had to push myself through the plot but I felt the ending was satisfactory and the journey to get there was fun.
I found this book clever and entertaining. It was not my favorite genre but it still kept me engaged and was very reminiscent of 'The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy'. There was a good deal of social commentary as well as numerous literary and pop culture references that quite appealed to me. At times I felt the humor was a bit forced and I had to push myself through the plot but I felt the ending was satisfactory and the journey to get there was fun.
June 25, 2014
I received this book in a giveaway through Goodreads First reads. I really enjoyed this book. It was fun, funny (I'm sure I missed a few jokes/puns), a nice easy interesting read. I loved the writing style. I think it would have been better without the last chapter though. I recommend this book to anyone and everyone.
January 28, 2014
I loved this book. It was funny and creative. After all, how much trouble can you get into when you crash on earth with a device that will cure someone of all the diseases that they have, instantly. A lot it seems. Especially when you have a intergalactic bounty hunter, a failing pharmaceutical company executive, and a psychotic insurance company owner after you.
January 20, 2014
A humourous story that is difficult to put down. The characters are well written and easy to relate to, or to get annoyed by, Cyril for example.
June 24, 2014
An interesting story. I'm looking forward to reading more and such.
February 13, 2017
To Cure the Humans by Douglas Lewis popped up on Goodreads as a suggestion for something I might like. I’ve said it before, but the machines are getting closer to taking over, because they were spot on. I did like it!
The story is well paced and filled with a cast of well-developed characters, this rather long novel (456 pages) kept me entertained from beginning to end. It’s funny without trying too hard (for the most part). The length took me by surprise (I didn’t look at how long it was before I grabbed it), so I was about half-way through when I thought the plot was wrapping up, only for it to take off in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
The story mostly revolves around an alien, Peter from Blutaark who has stolen a device (the BAT) that can cure pretty much every malady in the universe. Peter, being a nice guy, uses it on everyone he meets, much to the annoyance of its developers. Cyril, a particularly unlikable bounty hunter, is on his tail.
Ben, a human, gets abducted by Cyril on the pretence that he could thwart Cyril’s plans by going to the authorities. Along the way, evil health insurance executives join the chase when they learn they could quickly be out of business thanks to the meddling Peter, and a dodgy pharmaceutical company who want the device to make squillions of dollars.
So they, along with a bumbling secret government department responsible for monitoring aliens, are all working against each other in their attempts to find Peter and the BAR.
The story rockets along at a good pace, and I found myself quickly absorbed in its nonsense. The Douglas Adams-esque universe Mister Lewis has created is fun without being over-the-top alien.
A fun read that doesn’t need a whole lot of brain energy.
The story is well paced and filled with a cast of well-developed characters, this rather long novel (456 pages) kept me entertained from beginning to end. It’s funny without trying too hard (for the most part). The length took me by surprise (I didn’t look at how long it was before I grabbed it), so I was about half-way through when I thought the plot was wrapping up, only for it to take off in a direction I wasn’t expecting.
The story mostly revolves around an alien, Peter from Blutaark who has stolen a device (the BAT) that can cure pretty much every malady in the universe. Peter, being a nice guy, uses it on everyone he meets, much to the annoyance of its developers. Cyril, a particularly unlikable bounty hunter, is on his tail.
Ben, a human, gets abducted by Cyril on the pretence that he could thwart Cyril’s plans by going to the authorities. Along the way, evil health insurance executives join the chase when they learn they could quickly be out of business thanks to the meddling Peter, and a dodgy pharmaceutical company who want the device to make squillions of dollars.
So they, along with a bumbling secret government department responsible for monitoring aliens, are all working against each other in their attempts to find Peter and the BAR.
The story rockets along at a good pace, and I found myself quickly absorbed in its nonsense. The Douglas Adams-esque universe Mister Lewis has created is fun without being over-the-top alien.
A fun read that doesn’t need a whole lot of brain energy.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews