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Dangerous Dames
An omnibus edition of The Plutonium Blonde and The Doomsday Brunette
Double your pleasure, double the laughs with this omnibus edition featuring Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last freelance PI on Earth. It's 2057, and Zach is partnered with an experimental A.I. named HARV. In what is both an homage to and parody of the great heyday of pulp fiction, they solve cases involving androids, future tech wizards, and of course, the occasional nuclear-powered, genocidal fembot...
Double your pleasure, double the laughs with this omnibus edition featuring Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last freelance PI on Earth. It's 2057, and Zach is partnered with an experimental A.I. named HARV. In what is both an homage to and parody of the great heyday of pulp fiction, they solve cases involving androids, future tech wizards, and of course, the occasional nuclear-powered, genocidal fembot...
672 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
4 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
John Zakour
124 books67 followersFrom the Author's Website
John Zakour is a humor/sf/fantasy writer with a Master's degree in Human Behavior and slowly plugging away at his Ph.D. He has written zillions (well, thousands) of gags for syndicated comics and comedians (including: Rugrats, Grimmy, Bound and Gagged, Dennis the Menace and Joan River's old TV show.) John also writes his own syndicated comic, Working Daze for United Media. John has been the regular cartoonist for Geek.com and has sold cartoons or gags to hundreds of journals and magazines. John is also a contributor to Nickelodeon magazine writing Fairly Odd Parents and Jimmy Neutron comic books. Recently he has started writing Simpsons comics for Bongo.
John’s first humorous SF mystery book, The Plutonium Blonde (DAW 2001, co-written with Larry Ganem and started of as an interactive web story for the Sci Fi channel) was named one of the top 30 SF books of 2001 by The Chronicle of Science Fiction who called it, “the funniest SF book of 2001”. His second novel, The Doomsday Brunette (DAW Feb 2004) has made the Locus best sellers list. The third book in the series, The RadioActive Redhead, also made the SF best seller list.
Besides his novels John has sold numerous short stories to anthologies and magazines. John has written the dialog and song lyrics for Frogwares Software computer game Around the World in 80 days. For something a bit different John writes skits for the Harlem Rockets basketball team.
In the past, John has written and helped develop the first year and season of the comic book and animated series: Caramel Crew, for Mobtoons. John also has written for the independent SF TV show, “Realm of the Mind”. John also helped develop an animated sf horror series, called Prime Squad for MUV Technologies in India. His romantic comedy, Skin Deep about an ordinary guy who can’t believe the hottest girl on campus is actually in love with him has won a couple of writing awards. John has also written for Ebru tv.
John use to be a database programmer / web guru / science writer for NYSAES.
When he's not writing or studying John likes to play softball, watch TV and hang out with his wife and son. He use to do judo and karate, but those have been replaced by tai chi and archery.
John Zakour is a humor/sf/fantasy writer with a Master's degree in Human Behavior and slowly plugging away at his Ph.D. He has written zillions (well, thousands) of gags for syndicated comics and comedians (including: Rugrats, Grimmy, Bound and Gagged, Dennis the Menace and Joan River's old TV show.) John also writes his own syndicated comic, Working Daze for United Media. John has been the regular cartoonist for Geek.com and has sold cartoons or gags to hundreds of journals and magazines. John is also a contributor to Nickelodeon magazine writing Fairly Odd Parents and Jimmy Neutron comic books. Recently he has started writing Simpsons comics for Bongo.
John’s first humorous SF mystery book, The Plutonium Blonde (DAW 2001, co-written with Larry Ganem and started of as an interactive web story for the Sci Fi channel) was named one of the top 30 SF books of 2001 by The Chronicle of Science Fiction who called it, “the funniest SF book of 2001”. His second novel, The Doomsday Brunette (DAW Feb 2004) has made the Locus best sellers list. The third book in the series, The RadioActive Redhead, also made the SF best seller list.
Besides his novels John has sold numerous short stories to anthologies and magazines. John has written the dialog and song lyrics for Frogwares Software computer game Around the World in 80 days. For something a bit different John writes skits for the Harlem Rockets basketball team.
In the past, John has written and helped develop the first year and season of the comic book and animated series: Caramel Crew, for Mobtoons. John also has written for the independent SF TV show, “Realm of the Mind”. John also helped develop an animated sf horror series, called Prime Squad for MUV Technologies in India. His romantic comedy, Skin Deep about an ordinary guy who can’t believe the hottest girl on campus is actually in love with him has won a couple of writing awards. John has also written for Ebru tv.
John use to be a database programmer / web guru / science writer for NYSAES.
When he's not writing or studying John likes to play softball, watch TV and hang out with his wife and son. He use to do judo and karate, but those have been replaced by tai chi and archery.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 16, 2017
A light and fun book series that doesn't take itself too seriously.
March 25, 2021
What types of crimes does the last free-lance investigator on earth need to solve? Fantastic ones of course. This two story set pits Zachary Nixon Johnson and his AI HARV against two fantastic villains - an android bombshell, BB Star, in story one, and the Quad, four DNA-enhanced women with powers far beyond those of moral men. Suffice it to say, that the stories are tongue-in-cheek and way over the top. This is a fairly humorous, diverting read that plays against the old pulp detective stories and serial movie thrillers.
September 5, 2022
Zakour and Ganem create an interesting future, one that makes reading the adventures of Zachary Nixon Johnson, last P.I. on Earth, thoroughly enjoyable. (The pun in his name is not lost on me either) I love the blend of pulp fiction detective noir with science fiction, it is something I didn't know I needed in my life until now. The Pultonium Blonde was a fantastic first installment and the story line of The Doomsday Brunette, while still very "pulpy", did expand on the universe nicely.
I feel as though I need to find the other books in this series and complete my collection.
I feel as though I need to find the other books in this series and complete my collection.
March 20, 2009
This is an omnibus edition of the first two books in an ongoing series. The books are: The Plutonium Blonde and The Doomsday Brunette. I've reviewed both of the books here at GoodReads, but here are the reviews in their entirety for the omnibus:
The Plutonium Blonde: OK, I saw one of the later books in this series on the shelf, thought it looked interesting . . . but still didn't buy it, mostly because it was pretty deep into the series. In fact it was so deep in the series that I sort of decided that I could let the series pass. Besides, it was SF and I mostly read fantasy.
But then I caved and bought the omnibus of book 1 and 2 called Dangerous Dames, which includes this book, The Plutonium Blonde and the second in the series, The Doomsday Brunette. I've just finished book 1 . . . and I have to say that I really enjoyed the read.
The book is about a privite detective, the last free-lance private investigator on Earth. It's set in 2057, and for the most part is an SF tongue-in-cheek version of the grand noir detective novels from the 50s, and it knows it. Zachary Nixon Johnson is the main character and he's definitely fun to follow. The book picks up on and plays with many of the cliches of what we all think of as the "near future" and uses them as part of the plot.
And speaking of plot, I have to say that it caught me a little by surprise. As a writer myself, I have a tendency to "figure out" the main part of the plot long before the characters reach it, and in one sense I did with this book. But not really. Meaning, that part of what I thought the ultimate solution to the case was true . . . but not in the way I expected. This was definitely a pleasant surprise on my part--because I was right! . . . and yet I wasn't--and that's hard to do. So the writing was definitely good enough to impress me.
That said, it is more of a light read. A very fun, laugh-out-loud kind of light read. There were a few little quirks that did annoy me. One was the cliche of having everything in the future named the same as it is now except with "new" put in from of it, such as New Seattle or New Cuba, etc. The characters actually made jokes about this (which is what you should do when you're using a cliche and know it), but the jokes came almost at the very end of the book and probably should have been done earlier. Another quirk has nothing to do with the author really: there were a significant number of typos throughout the book. But notice that both of these "annoying" factors were extremely minor. Again, I want to emphasize that this was an extremely fun, light read.
Meaning that I'm definitely glad I picked up the omnibus edition. I plan on reading the rest of the series as well. (There's a new omnibus of books 3 and 4 coming out shortly called Ballistic Babes.) In fact, I've already bought them.
I strongly suggest people check these books out.
The Doomsday Brunette: This is the sequel to "The Plutonium Blonde" which I really enjoyed. The premise is that the main character is the last private detective in the world, so it's set in the future, but it has that noir detective kind of feel to it. So SF detective noir. I'd seen the books in the series on the shelf a while ago but hesitated to buy them.
I should not have hesitated. The first book rocked, and the second one does as well. It continues the adventures of Zach, with a new case, this time dealing with four genetically engineered superwomen, each of which is nigh-invulnerable! So if their nigh-invulnerable, how did one of them end up dead? That's what Zach is hired to find out, more or less. *grin*
I love the characters, I love the tongue-in-cheek glimpse of the future, and I love the writing. The first book had an annoying habit of naming everything "New" something, such as New New York, kind of a gimick, but that wasn't present here. The sequel is also much more . . . settled I guess. The authors are more comfortable with their characters and world and it shows in the writing. I do admit that there was a long section at the beginning of this book where the pacing and such lagged tremendously. The first book was fast, fast, fast all of the time. This one was more like a detective novel, in that we're introduced to the main suspects one at a time when Zach goes to visit them . . . and that's the part that dragged on a little. But not enough to make me stop reading.
I'd definitely recommend this series to everyone. Each book is it's own case (as far as I know) so you don't have to read them in order, although they do reference back to older cases for some of the jokes and such.
The Plutonium Blonde: OK, I saw one of the later books in this series on the shelf, thought it looked interesting . . . but still didn't buy it, mostly because it was pretty deep into the series. In fact it was so deep in the series that I sort of decided that I could let the series pass. Besides, it was SF and I mostly read fantasy.
But then I caved and bought the omnibus of book 1 and 2 called Dangerous Dames, which includes this book, The Plutonium Blonde and the second in the series, The Doomsday Brunette. I've just finished book 1 . . . and I have to say that I really enjoyed the read.
The book is about a privite detective, the last free-lance private investigator on Earth. It's set in 2057, and for the most part is an SF tongue-in-cheek version of the grand noir detective novels from the 50s, and it knows it. Zachary Nixon Johnson is the main character and he's definitely fun to follow. The book picks up on and plays with many of the cliches of what we all think of as the "near future" and uses them as part of the plot.
And speaking of plot, I have to say that it caught me a little by surprise. As a writer myself, I have a tendency to "figure out" the main part of the plot long before the characters reach it, and in one sense I did with this book. But not really. Meaning, that part of what I thought the ultimate solution to the case was true . . . but not in the way I expected. This was definitely a pleasant surprise on my part--because I was right! . . . and yet I wasn't--and that's hard to do. So the writing was definitely good enough to impress me.
That said, it is more of a light read. A very fun, laugh-out-loud kind of light read. There were a few little quirks that did annoy me. One was the cliche of having everything in the future named the same as it is now except with "new" put in from of it, such as New Seattle or New Cuba, etc. The characters actually made jokes about this (which is what you should do when you're using a cliche and know it), but the jokes came almost at the very end of the book and probably should have been done earlier. Another quirk has nothing to do with the author really: there were a significant number of typos throughout the book. But notice that both of these "annoying" factors were extremely minor. Again, I want to emphasize that this was an extremely fun, light read.
Meaning that I'm definitely glad I picked up the omnibus edition. I plan on reading the rest of the series as well. (There's a new omnibus of books 3 and 4 coming out shortly called Ballistic Babes.) In fact, I've already bought them.
I strongly suggest people check these books out.
The Doomsday Brunette: This is the sequel to "The Plutonium Blonde" which I really enjoyed. The premise is that the main character is the last private detective in the world, so it's set in the future, but it has that noir detective kind of feel to it. So SF detective noir. I'd seen the books in the series on the shelf a while ago but hesitated to buy them.
I should not have hesitated. The first book rocked, and the second one does as well. It continues the adventures of Zach, with a new case, this time dealing with four genetically engineered superwomen, each of which is nigh-invulnerable! So if their nigh-invulnerable, how did one of them end up dead? That's what Zach is hired to find out, more or less. *grin*
I love the characters, I love the tongue-in-cheek glimpse of the future, and I love the writing. The first book had an annoying habit of naming everything "New" something, such as New New York, kind of a gimick, but that wasn't present here. The sequel is also much more . . . settled I guess. The authors are more comfortable with their characters and world and it shows in the writing. I do admit that there was a long section at the beginning of this book where the pacing and such lagged tremendously. The first book was fast, fast, fast all of the time. This one was more like a detective novel, in that we're introduced to the main suspects one at a time when Zach goes to visit them . . . and that's the part that dragged on a little. But not enough to make me stop reading.
I'd definitely recommend this series to everyone. Each book is it's own case (as far as I know) so you don't have to read them in order, although they do reference back to older cases for some of the jokes and such.
May 14, 2008
The Zack Johnson books have been described as part parody, part homage to the old pulp detective novels. It's fifty years in the future. Zach Johnson is the last licensed P.I. on Earth. He's a bit of a celebrity, which means he gets some interesting cases. In book one, Zack and his partner HARV (supercomputer extraordinaire) must track down a homocidal plutonium-powered android superbabe. Book two sets Zach and HARV out to learn who murdered a genetically enhanced superbabe. (There's a bit of a superbabe theme to these books, if you haven't noticed...)
I'll admit that the first few chapters worried me. I really wanted to enjoy the books, having heard good things about them. But the first chapters felt like they were trying too hard to be funny, giving backstory and shooting off jokes without really starting the story.
Fortunately, the chapters are short, and the book soon drew me in. The stories are a lot of fun to read, and kept me turning the pages long after I meant to put the book down. Some jokes worked better than others -- I couldn't quite buy everyone swearing by "Gates" and "DOS", for example -- but then, that's going to be the case whenever you write humor. The story is good enough to draw you along regardless of whether you appreciate every last joke.
I thought the second story was stronger than the first, and I've been told the series continues to improve. The silliness sometimes threatens to cross the line, but it never felt over-the-top enough to throw me out of the story. Not even the attack toaster or the pixie/nymphs.
Will you like the book? That depends a lot on your taste and sense of humor. Personally, I think the world needs more humorous SF/F. So if you're looking for a fun, light read, I'd give it a try.
I'll admit that the first few chapters worried me. I really wanted to enjoy the books, having heard good things about them. But the first chapters felt like they were trying too hard to be funny, giving backstory and shooting off jokes without really starting the story.
Fortunately, the chapters are short, and the book soon drew me in. The stories are a lot of fun to read, and kept me turning the pages long after I meant to put the book down. Some jokes worked better than others -- I couldn't quite buy everyone swearing by "Gates" and "DOS", for example -- but then, that's going to be the case whenever you write humor. The story is good enough to draw you along regardless of whether you appreciate every last joke.
I thought the second story was stronger than the first, and I've been told the series continues to improve. The silliness sometimes threatens to cross the line, but it never felt over-the-top enough to throw me out of the story. Not even the attack toaster or the pixie/nymphs.
Will you like the book? That depends a lot on your taste and sense of humor. Personally, I think the world needs more humorous SF/F. So if you're looking for a fun, light read, I'd give it a try.
July 15, 2010
So far I am very happy with this series. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading it, but the first two books in this omnibus edition have hooked me.
I am a big fan of comedic sci-fi. I love watching Futurama and Douglas Adams will forever be one of my favorite authors of all time. That being said, when I picked up this book, I had no idea it was going to be futuristic comedic sci-fi wrapped up in a mystery pulp noir action adventure setting. I never thought these multiple genres could fit well together, but so far in the first two books, they work great.
I figure if any book can make me chuckle heartily out loud in the first two pages, then I'll give it a shot, and this one certainly did. In fact there were many times where I had to have a good laugh before reading further.
It's not heavy reading by any means, but it is worthwhile. The chapters are short, which I've always frowned upon. But these authors seem to know what they want to convey. A lot of stuff happens quickly in these books and the chapters lend themselves to being short. It worked well overall, I thought.
The humor, action and light-heartedness of these books work great together, and I'm looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
I am a big fan of comedic sci-fi. I love watching Futurama and Douglas Adams will forever be one of my favorite authors of all time. That being said, when I picked up this book, I had no idea it was going to be futuristic comedic sci-fi wrapped up in a mystery pulp noir action adventure setting. I never thought these multiple genres could fit well together, but so far in the first two books, they work great.
I figure if any book can make me chuckle heartily out loud in the first two pages, then I'll give it a shot, and this one certainly did. In fact there were many times where I had to have a good laugh before reading further.
It's not heavy reading by any means, but it is worthwhile. The chapters are short, which I've always frowned upon. But these authors seem to know what they want to convey. A lot of stuff happens quickly in these books and the chapters lend themselves to being short. It worked well overall, I thought.
The humor, action and light-heartedness of these books work great together, and I'm looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
March 23, 2010
Very silly fun. Every time I thought it had already gone over the top- it did so again. This is a omnibus of the first 2 books in the series, and far more fun than the fourth one, which I read previously.
July 5, 2015
This book was totally fun. Cheesy, full of cyborgs and crazy women out for revenge, and a hard boiled detective that would fit in the 1920s (if it wasn't for the guns, body armor and android, ai PDA)!
January 17, 2013
Detective pulp satirizing everything. With lots of references to the greats at doing exactly that. This book is hilarious, with a good story and a great narrator. Science fiction detectives with computers in their brains never narrated their own actions so well. And indeed, dames walk into offices.
Want to read
January 26, 2009Lib. p/b shelf. Maybe?
September 18, 2009
This was a fun mix a noir thriller with a sci-fi vibe. A big book, but it moves along so nicely that it feels like a much shorter story.
February 5, 2012
Not usually a fan of comedy styled books, but these two were great! I couldn't put them down and even ended up staying awake past bedtime to finish reading the second one.
May 11, 2012
An interesting twist on a future private eye.
December 7, 2012
Totally enjoyed this book. Nice plot twists, great take on the hard boiled detective, fantastic computer!
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews