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Monkey Business
Ron and Willy are stranded on a tropical island and they really want to get home. Unfortunately they have no real resources, no good plans, and no idea what the hell they're doing. What they do have is an army of foul-mouthed monkeys who want them dead, a beautiful woman who wants some answers, a sex-crazed tribal chief, a caffeine-addicted demigod who wants to be worshipped, and a telepathic skull who just wants a little excitement.
Through nonstop comedy and good old-fashioned adventure these guys are facing some long odds but do Ron and Willy give up? No they don't. They get down to business.
Monkey Business.
Through nonstop comedy and good old-fashioned adventure these guys are facing some long odds but do Ron and Willy give up? No they don't. They get down to business.
Monkey Business.
- GenresHumor
276 pages, Paperback
Published May 24, 2016
23 people are currently reading
455 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 8, 2018
After a 2 1/2 week reading hiatus, I decided to ease back slowly by trying something light and humorous.
Oh, did I pick the right book.
Thank you, Landon Crutcher, your story rocks!
I loved the author’s goofball humor, his similes, his metaphors, his creative wordsmithery. (I’ve been told that wordsmithery is not even a word. However, it most certainly should be.)
Any who....
P.S. Mr. Landon Crutcher is also a paramedic. I never met a paramedic who wasn’t brilliant. Thank you sir for your fun adventure story and for all your hard work saving peoples lives.
Oh, did I pick the right book.
Thank you, Landon Crutcher, your story rocks!
I loved the author’s goofball humor, his similes, his metaphors, his creative wordsmithery. (I’ve been told that wordsmithery is not even a word. However, it most certainly should be.)
Any who....
P.S. Mr. Landon Crutcher is also a paramedic. I never met a paramedic who wasn’t brilliant. Thank you sir for your fun adventure story and for all your hard work saving peoples lives.
June 1, 2016
"Monkey Business" opens with our two heroes, Ron and Willy, stumbling back to shore after another failed attempt to escape the deserted island where they've been marooned since their plane crashlanded. It paints a seductive picture of this tropical island paradise, juxtaposed with just how fed-up Ron and Willy are with all aspects of your typical tropical island paradise. They soon discover that the monkeys on the island can talk, a result of an island god wanting someone to monitor television broadcasts....
The humour begins with a sort of gentle sarcasm reminiscent of Douglas Adams, and the situation grows increasingly ludicrous as the story progresses. The build-up is gradual enough to feel natural: list the elements of the story at end, and it seems like a mixed bag of nonsense--but follow the build-up of the story, and it's hardly that at all.
As for the characters, they all seem pretty distinct, well-drawn, and consistent. Ron is clearly an "engineer" type; Willy is the perennial arts student. Jessup, the one talking monkey who joins their party (on account of being an outcast) is perhaps a little less monkey-like ... but then how exactly is a talking monkey meant to be portrayed, anyway?
Light as it is, "Monkey Business" seems ideally suited to lazy summer days in the sun; perhaps in exactly the sort of island paradise described within its pages. It's not a book meant to challenge one's philosophy. It's frothy, good-natured entertainment; my greatest complaint is that it ends too soon.
The humour begins with a sort of gentle sarcasm reminiscent of Douglas Adams, and the situation grows increasingly ludicrous as the story progresses. The build-up is gradual enough to feel natural: list the elements of the story at end, and it seems like a mixed bag of nonsense--but follow the build-up of the story, and it's hardly that at all.
As for the characters, they all seem pretty distinct, well-drawn, and consistent. Ron is clearly an "engineer" type; Willy is the perennial arts student. Jessup, the one talking monkey who joins their party (on account of being an outcast) is perhaps a little less monkey-like ... but then how exactly is a talking monkey meant to be portrayed, anyway?
Light as it is, "Monkey Business" seems ideally suited to lazy summer days in the sun; perhaps in exactly the sort of island paradise described within its pages. It's not a book meant to challenge one's philosophy. It's frothy, good-natured entertainment; my greatest complaint is that it ends too soon.
August 5, 2016
I loved this book right from the moment I read the sample chapters on Inkshares. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and I wasn't disappointed. From start to finish I was entertained. It's fun, light and easy to read. It made me laugh out loud so many times. I even screamed "agh you fecker" at the author when I got to the end as I was expecting to read another chapter. The banter between Ron and Willy is just hilarious and very organic. The introduction to the monkeys isn't what I was expecting so that was an awesome surprise and then there's the skull, hahahahahaha!! Read it to find out more.
September 9, 2016
This book breaks narrative rules. I mean, the narrator staggers drunkenly from one side of the fourth wall to the other. Sometimes he plops down on the couch next to you and starts eating your cheetoes. And he/she/it/disembodied-narrator-voice isn’t even part of the story. Chats all over the place in a familiar storytelling manner as if he was someone involved, someone there, but he’s (I’ll settle on the masculine pronoun) not. He’s just a voice. It comes off like some dude, maybe your bartender, telling you this really long yarn about a couple of nut-jobs living out a trippy mashup of Gilligan’s Isle and Castaway…
And it works beautifully!
Monkey Business is pure, cut-loose fun. Any lessons about life, love and how to be are purely coincidental. (But present all the same.)
The story is a buddy adventure about two guys trying to escape a tropical island. It’s also about angry monkeys, indigenous dudebros, the fragile, shifting borders of reality and exploding fish. It kicks off in the aftermath of a failed attempt at escape. The most recent of several. No appendages were lost in this failure, and the protagonists’ frustration has an accepting, fatalistic edge. The protagonists are longtime friends, caught on this island for some time, but the author deftly skips all the backstory and jumps us right into that special kind of humor born from watching other peoples’ pain and ineptitude. Exposition creeps in naturally… along with the monkeys. This is a big plus for me, as massive expository blobs make me want to fling massive excretory? blobs.
What really stuck with me with this story was its frenetic edge-of-reality scenes. If you’ve ever seen the psychadelic trip-scenes from Simpsons and Futurama – yeah, Monkey Business has parts like that, just as vivid, scenes that burst like a vomiting kaleidoscope inside my brain. The characters blur across the ragged edge of sanity as the world gets weirder and weirder around them, as if some ancient disgruntled god (probably that asshole narrator) is absently messing with them. The slippage of reality works beautifully to pull you in and keep you reading as the story gains more of a fantastical flavor. By the end of it Monkey Business has the feel of an American tall tale, with mundane reality shoved off into the wings to make room for a good story – Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Big Fish, Monkey Business.
Happy reading.
Or, As Pratchett might have written:
Oook.
And it works beautifully!
Monkey Business is pure, cut-loose fun. Any lessons about life, love and how to be are purely coincidental. (But present all the same.)
The story is a buddy adventure about two guys trying to escape a tropical island. It’s also about angry monkeys, indigenous dudebros, the fragile, shifting borders of reality and exploding fish. It kicks off in the aftermath of a failed attempt at escape. The most recent of several. No appendages were lost in this failure, and the protagonists’ frustration has an accepting, fatalistic edge. The protagonists are longtime friends, caught on this island for some time, but the author deftly skips all the backstory and jumps us right into that special kind of humor born from watching other peoples’ pain and ineptitude. Exposition creeps in naturally… along with the monkeys. This is a big plus for me, as massive expository blobs make me want to fling massive excretory? blobs.
What really stuck with me with this story was its frenetic edge-of-reality scenes. If you’ve ever seen the psychadelic trip-scenes from Simpsons and Futurama – yeah, Monkey Business has parts like that, just as vivid, scenes that burst like a vomiting kaleidoscope inside my brain. The characters blur across the ragged edge of sanity as the world gets weirder and weirder around them, as if some ancient disgruntled god (probably that asshole narrator) is absently messing with them. The slippage of reality works beautifully to pull you in and keep you reading as the story gains more of a fantastical flavor. By the end of it Monkey Business has the feel of an American tall tale, with mundane reality shoved off into the wings to make room for a good story – Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Big Fish, Monkey Business.
Happy reading.
Or, As Pratchett might have written:
Oook.
May 30, 2017
I read a lot of horror and every once in awhile, I like to take a break and take my mind to a happier place. And this book hit the spot exactly!
It's got everything you could want in a book. Two dudes stranded on an island, talking monkeys, a skull that also talks (and won't shut up), fish that blow up, an island god who is addicted to both coffee and TV, and general mayhem and shenanigans.
You would THINK all these things combined into one book would be confusing or beyond the scope of your imagination. But you'd be wrong. It was very easy to suspend my disbelief and just fall right into the story. The hilarious dialog between men and monkey makes for a laugh a minute and even the fight scenes (there a few), while action packed, never sways from the hilarity of the situation.
The book didn't take too long to read and was just what I needed after reading five horror books in a row. Don't get me wrong.....I LOVE horror, but who doesn't like to laugh also? I'd definitely recommend this book for that purpose!
It's got everything you could want in a book. Two dudes stranded on an island, talking monkeys, a skull that also talks (and won't shut up), fish that blow up, an island god who is addicted to both coffee and TV, and general mayhem and shenanigans.
You would THINK all these things combined into one book would be confusing or beyond the scope of your imagination. But you'd be wrong. It was very easy to suspend my disbelief and just fall right into the story. The hilarious dialog between men and monkey makes for a laugh a minute and even the fight scenes (there a few), while action packed, never sways from the hilarity of the situation.
The book didn't take too long to read and was just what I needed after reading five horror books in a row. Don't get me wrong.....I LOVE horror, but who doesn't like to laugh also? I'd definitely recommend this book for that purpose!
August 21, 2018
Fantastic, thrilling, and silly
This crazy tale had me hooked from the first pages when our heroes woke up on the beach. It's full of crazy and witty jokes, talking monkeys, skulls that speak, ancient and forgotten gods, and loonie Islanders... amounting to an insane but funny story that will keep you flipping through page after page, late into the night. I picked this up on a whim and I am very happy that I did. I sincerely hope the author continues writing.
This crazy tale had me hooked from the first pages when our heroes woke up on the beach. It's full of crazy and witty jokes, talking monkeys, skulls that speak, ancient and forgotten gods, and loonie Islanders... amounting to an insane but funny story that will keep you flipping through page after page, late into the night. I picked this up on a whim and I am very happy that I did. I sincerely hope the author continues writing.
January 25, 2020
Seriously!? I can't believe I paid money for something a frat boy wrote that sounds like a story he and a bunch of stoned guys came up with up around the bong. There is potential here, but it would take a lot of editing.
June 6, 2017
Ridiculous fun!
August 6, 2017
It's not a perfect book, and I suppose not destined for literary awards, but inventive and funny enough that it those things don't matter.
August 28, 2017
This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Laughed so hard I almost wet myself. I hope he keeps writing books like this. It lifts your spirits.
September 26, 2017
Loved this one. How much did I love it? My quote is on the cover! Funny and fantastical. A good summer read. Or fall/winter/spring read. Why should summer get all the fun?
January 19, 2020
Self aware and unfunny
March 20, 2017
Monkey Business is an outlandish, irreverent, rollercoaster of ridiculousness. I highly recommend it!
March 16, 2017
I loved this book and I really didn't want to read it. I know the author, which is why I bought the thing then I didn't read it for the longest time. Finally I saw another friend say something about it that got me a little bit interested so I gave it a shot. I'm glad I did. It's ridiculous in every way but the characters are really likable. The dialog between them is almost always funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny. The book moves fast and it's exactly what it should be, a fun, light read that will keep you smiling all the way through.
July 10, 2016
I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next person, but I rarely find myself seeking out books in the humor category, opting instead for more “serious fare.” I don't know why. I loved Lamb, had an exceedingly good time with Asteroid Made of Dragons, and have a leather bound and much loved collection of Douglas Adams's famous Hitchhiker's Guide series. And those are off the top of my head. Point is, I probably ought to laugh more. So when I spoke to Landon Crutcher about his debut novel— the first to be published by Inkshares’s Quill imprint — I decided it was past time for me to read a book that’d make me laugh.
And laugh I did.
Monkey Business is just like Landon described it in our chat: a zany, shenanigans-filled Will Ferrell-style comedy on paper. I was of two minds when I initially heard that description, as I wasn’t sure how that kind of slapstick, occasionally scatological humor would translate, but Landon did an excellent job of threading a well-paced adventure among his many jokes, the great majority of which landed with great success.
In particular, the strength of Monkey Business is in its banter. The character’s quick-witted retorts and dry humor make an otherwise tragic scene—being marooned on an island—hilarious. Another thing he does well in Monkey Business is physical humor, which I think is rather impression, given the difficulty of transmitting one-to-one the exact blocking of a scene in such a way that the readers see exactly what you intend. I had a hard time not laughing at the vision of a character, screaming at the top of his lungs at sentient trees (which were not, in fact, sentient) and hacking at them with an axe. Or when another character smokes a dubious flower and goes on the wackiest spirit quest imaginable, culminating in his discovery of of a new friend in the form of a long-deceased man’s skull. Perhaps you had to be there. Either way, it was lots of fun.
The book isn’t without its issues, which I think is due in large part to less editorial attention than books receiving full funding support from Inkshares. It feels like it’s firmly between a self-published book and something a little more formally produced, which I believe is more-or-less the purpose of the Quill imprint. I’m curious to see how the imprint develops, with some twenty-five books already slated to be published under it. The machine can only be tuned to run more smoothly, I assume.
If you don’t mind a bit of dirty humor, and feel like giggling at banter between two dehydrated men, a talking monkey, and a dead man’s skull, do yourself a favor and pick up Monkey Business.
And laugh I did.
Monkey Business is just like Landon described it in our chat: a zany, shenanigans-filled Will Ferrell-style comedy on paper. I was of two minds when I initially heard that description, as I wasn’t sure how that kind of slapstick, occasionally scatological humor would translate, but Landon did an excellent job of threading a well-paced adventure among his many jokes, the great majority of which landed with great success.
In particular, the strength of Monkey Business is in its banter. The character’s quick-witted retorts and dry humor make an otherwise tragic scene—being marooned on an island—hilarious. Another thing he does well in Monkey Business is physical humor, which I think is rather impression, given the difficulty of transmitting one-to-one the exact blocking of a scene in such a way that the readers see exactly what you intend. I had a hard time not laughing at the vision of a character, screaming at the top of his lungs at sentient trees (which were not, in fact, sentient) and hacking at them with an axe. Or when another character smokes a dubious flower and goes on the wackiest spirit quest imaginable, culminating in his discovery of of a new friend in the form of a long-deceased man’s skull. Perhaps you had to be there. Either way, it was lots of fun.
The book isn’t without its issues, which I think is due in large part to less editorial attention than books receiving full funding support from Inkshares. It feels like it’s firmly between a self-published book and something a little more formally produced, which I believe is more-or-less the purpose of the Quill imprint. I’m curious to see how the imprint develops, with some twenty-five books already slated to be published under it. The machine can only be tuned to run more smoothly, I assume.
If you don’t mind a bit of dirty humor, and feel like giggling at banter between two dehydrated men, a talking monkey, and a dead man’s skull, do yourself a favor and pick up Monkey Business.
February 26, 2017
Holy crow, what can I say about this book? I started giggling at the beginning and by the end my face hurt. It was absolutely absurd and I hope to God that Landon writes a sequel.
February 24, 2017
Terrific book! Lots of fun. I throughly enjoyed the misadventures of Ron, Willy, Jessup, and Irving.
A few minor hickips in editing, but over all a solid tale! I highly recommend it...bro! ;)
A few minor hickips in editing, but over all a solid tale! I highly recommend it...bro! ;)
January 8, 2018
Glad I took a chance on this one!
Start with two guys stranded on an island. Then add a talking monkey and an enthusiastically vocal skull. That, in itself, made this an interesting read. Add in a more aggressive lot of talking monkeys, a beautiful island woman, a self-centered village chief, and an exhausted island God and the story turns into a fantastic and hilarious tale.
The story moves along at a good pace and the banter between the characters is funny without being over-the-top ridiculous.
For my taste, the ending seemed like it was a little rushed. This didn't take away from the fun of the journey though. It did leave room for a sequel and I wouldn't hesitate to pick that up and give it a read as well.
I highly recommend this one.
Start with two guys stranded on an island. Then add a talking monkey and an enthusiastically vocal skull. That, in itself, made this an interesting read. Add in a more aggressive lot of talking monkeys, a beautiful island woman, a self-centered village chief, and an exhausted island God and the story turns into a fantastic and hilarious tale.
The story moves along at a good pace and the banter between the characters is funny without being over-the-top ridiculous.
For my taste, the ending seemed like it was a little rushed. This didn't take away from the fun of the journey though. It did leave room for a sequel and I wouldn't hesitate to pick that up and give it a read as well.
I highly recommend this one.
November 8, 2016
Loved this slightly crazy story about two guys stranded on a tropical island.
Lots of laughs, talking monkeys, and a cantankerous demi-god.
It's not a kids book, not that it claims to be, but just in case the monkey on the cover appeals to a younger reader, there is some swearing (cursing, I think is the American word) and it gets a bit racy at one point, but I won't spoil it for you. If it was a film, I guess it would be PG or 15?
The ending is a great twist, and sets up the possibility of a sequel without leaving you hanging from a cliff.
I gave this four stars on Amazon but so nearly gave it five, so I'm giving it five stars here to balance it out.
Lots of laughs, talking monkeys, and a cantankerous demi-god.
It's not a kids book, not that it claims to be, but just in case the monkey on the cover appeals to a younger reader, there is some swearing (cursing, I think is the American word) and it gets a bit racy at one point, but I won't spoil it for you. If it was a film, I guess it would be PG or 15?
The ending is a great twist, and sets up the possibility of a sequel without leaving you hanging from a cliff.
I gave this four stars on Amazon but so nearly gave it five, so I'm giving it five stars here to balance it out.
October 21, 2016
This is the funniest novel I've ever read... granted, I haven't read very many novels that fall under the umbrella of comedy, but still... it's hilarious. And not just because of the wackiness of the story. Crutcher has an inherently funny way of writing that can turn the most mundane descriptions into something chuckle-worthy. I highly recommend this book, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the author's next.
June 7, 2016
Two guys, a talking monkey, a telepathic skull, and some not-so-deserted islands. Quite possibly one of the most absurd premises I've ever read, and executed brilliantly.
Last page of the book teases a sequel. I really hope that's not idle boasting.
Last page of the book teases a sequel. I really hope that's not idle boasting.
August 4, 2016
Many reviews state that the reader is hooked within the first pages. That was true for me too. Monkey Business is a fast paced grand adventure with just the right amount of juvenile humor. Loved it. I want more.
June 1, 2016
Not generally my sort of book, but Monkey Business turned out to be a light easy read and damned funny!
February 1, 2017
A fun, faced-paced, laugh-out-loud adventure. Highly original story. Nothing out there quite like it.
September 13, 2016
A hilarious and entertaining read about talking monkeys! What more do you need to know?
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March 27, 2017Pretty darn good
Some what reminded me of Christopher Moore easy fun read and totally off the wall recommended for fans of the bazaar but probably not for everyone
Some what reminded me of Christopher Moore easy fun read and totally off the wall recommended for fans of the bazaar but probably not for everyone
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews