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Gagged:
(a thriller with jokes) [Paperback] Asplin, Richard
576 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 10, 2025
The best I can say about this book is that it wasn't actively trying to insult me like some 1-star books. And some jokes and commentaries about the business of making TV series were somewhat amusing. But as for the rest? The plot wasn't interesting, I didn't care about the characters, most of the humour fell flat... and honestly I don't know why I didn't DNF it.
September 27, 2016
I am delighted that I picked up this book from a charity shop. Not because it meant I got to read this book, but because at least that way it only cost me 2 quid; and Oxfam can hopefully use that money to improve levels of human happiness somewhere in the world, and in so doing offset the misery and suffering I endured thanks to my (inexplicable) decision to plough through this novel to the end.
Let's start with a relative strength of the book: the plot. This is out of the Blues Brothers mould, whereby a diverse range of people and groups (ranging from actors, reporters, mafia wiseguys, comedians) are all caught up in the same farcical-criminal tangle, initially unaware of each others' interests, and all coming together at the climax. The twists and reveals, such as there were, were generally easy to see coming from 100 pages out, but at least there was enough complexity of plotting to achieve a moderate page-turning quality.
Now for the bad. Characterisation was toe-curlingly shallow. If there is a cliche or stereotype in the world, these characters embodied it perfectly. Hollywood execs take coke and screw naive actresses in "casting sessions"; young Californian men look like surfers and say "man" and "dude" in every sentence while their valley girl counterparts go shopping and say "like" too often; cops are lazy and eat donuts; Mafia guys talk about "New Joisey, capische"; Mexican guys talk "like theeees, my fren'"; people from the US South dress like cowboys and listen to Tammy Wynette; reporters are upset if people die only because they didn't catch it on camera; I could go on and on.
It's so lazy I can't even find the energy to find it offensive. Presumably the author thinks he is parodying or satirising these stereotypes, but with no aspect of subversion, exaggeration or surrealism injected into these two-dimensional cliches, I fail to see how he is doing anything with the stereotypes except trotting them out.
The main protagonist, meanwhile, is a bland, limp beta male too dismal to generate any empathy. From the outset you basically want him to shut up, grow up and sort his life out. It's therefore very difficult to remotely care for his safety or root for his success as he gets drawn into the danger and conspiracy.
If there's anything worse than the characters it's the jokes. Here's the thing. The basic conceit of the book is our main protagonist is an aspiring stand-up comic / sitcom writer, who is awful, and the secondary protagonist is a Hollywood exec who commissions awful TV comedy. We are therefore treated to excerpts of deliberately bad comedy, which we are supposed to laugh at in a "haha, that joke is so lame" kind of way. However, the book in itself is still supposed to be actually funny. Unfortunately, the gags in the narration are every bit as weak, flat and try-hard as the "in-universe" naff jokes.
Compare: "Bakery insurance fraud? What was it? Did you knead the dough?" - deliberately, 'satirically' painful. Someone takes their mind off splitting up with their boyfriend by playing miniature golf: "So Al sat, forty-eight years old, unemployed, gay and alone. Playing with his balls" - just plain old painful.
The writing is, for the most part, merely mediocre, but occasionally crosses into jarringly dire. Try this line on for size: "The costume was exactly three sizes too small and about five hundred rediculitres units too ridiculous". OK, inventing a surreal unit to quantify ridiculousness, not a bad concept for a joke. But wouldn't such a unit derived from the word "ridiculous" be "ridiculitres", not "rediculitres"? And wouldn't it be "ridiculitres", not the leaden, unnecessary "ridiculitre units", let alone the outright ungrammatical "ridiculitres units"?
This isn't the only example of editing as poor as the writing: words are used to mean things they don't mean, punctuation is misused, one character changes name from Rob to Bob and back to Rob within a few pages. It's like the editor couldn't even be bothered... and I can hardly blame them.
I originally wrote this review for Amazon, having never reviewed anything on there before (or since), but this book stood out as so especially dismal I felt it a necessary public service to warn unsuspecting readers. Overall, this is definitely one of the worst books I have ever read. I can't decide whether to give it straight back to the charity shop, so that they can get another two quid to help the poor and starving, or whether it would be a greater service to humanity to burn it and spare anybody else the misfortune of reading it.
Let's start with a relative strength of the book: the plot. This is out of the Blues Brothers mould, whereby a diverse range of people and groups (ranging from actors, reporters, mafia wiseguys, comedians) are all caught up in the same farcical-criminal tangle, initially unaware of each others' interests, and all coming together at the climax. The twists and reveals, such as there were, were generally easy to see coming from 100 pages out, but at least there was enough complexity of plotting to achieve a moderate page-turning quality.
Now for the bad. Characterisation was toe-curlingly shallow. If there is a cliche or stereotype in the world, these characters embodied it perfectly. Hollywood execs take coke and screw naive actresses in "casting sessions"; young Californian men look like surfers and say "man" and "dude" in every sentence while their valley girl counterparts go shopping and say "like" too often; cops are lazy and eat donuts; Mafia guys talk about "New Joisey, capische"; Mexican guys talk "like theeees, my fren'"; people from the US South dress like cowboys and listen to Tammy Wynette; reporters are upset if people die only because they didn't catch it on camera; I could go on and on.
It's so lazy I can't even find the energy to find it offensive. Presumably the author thinks he is parodying or satirising these stereotypes, but with no aspect of subversion, exaggeration or surrealism injected into these two-dimensional cliches, I fail to see how he is doing anything with the stereotypes except trotting them out.
The main protagonist, meanwhile, is a bland, limp beta male too dismal to generate any empathy. From the outset you basically want him to shut up, grow up and sort his life out. It's therefore very difficult to remotely care for his safety or root for his success as he gets drawn into the danger and conspiracy.
If there's anything worse than the characters it's the jokes. Here's the thing. The basic conceit of the book is our main protagonist is an aspiring stand-up comic / sitcom writer, who is awful, and the secondary protagonist is a Hollywood exec who commissions awful TV comedy. We are therefore treated to excerpts of deliberately bad comedy, which we are supposed to laugh at in a "haha, that joke is so lame" kind of way. However, the book in itself is still supposed to be actually funny. Unfortunately, the gags in the narration are every bit as weak, flat and try-hard as the "in-universe" naff jokes.
Compare: "Bakery insurance fraud? What was it? Did you knead the dough?" - deliberately, 'satirically' painful. Someone takes their mind off splitting up with their boyfriend by playing miniature golf: "So Al sat, forty-eight years old, unemployed, gay and alone. Playing with his balls" - just plain old painful.
The writing is, for the most part, merely mediocre, but occasionally crosses into jarringly dire. Try this line on for size: "The costume was exactly three sizes too small and about five hundred rediculitres units too ridiculous". OK, inventing a surreal unit to quantify ridiculousness, not a bad concept for a joke. But wouldn't such a unit derived from the word "ridiculous" be "ridiculitres", not "rediculitres"? And wouldn't it be "ridiculitres", not the leaden, unnecessary "ridiculitre units", let alone the outright ungrammatical "ridiculitres units"?
This isn't the only example of editing as poor as the writing: words are used to mean things they don't mean, punctuation is misused, one character changes name from Rob to Bob and back to Rob within a few pages. It's like the editor couldn't even be bothered... and I can hardly blame them.
I originally wrote this review for Amazon, having never reviewed anything on there before (or since), but this book stood out as so especially dismal I felt it a necessary public service to warn unsuspecting readers. Overall, this is definitely one of the worst books I have ever read. I can't decide whether to give it straight back to the charity shop, so that they can get another two quid to help the poor and starving, or whether it would be a greater service to humanity to burn it and spare anybody else the misfortune of reading it.
October 27, 2008
This is without a doubt, by far, THE worst book I've ever been unfortunate enough to pick up. I was looking for a novel that featured intelligent, witty humour. What I got was a pile of stale, lame, completely unfunny crap. It's billed as 'wacky' and 'hilarious' - I'd like to wack it, alright. It's actually painful to read, even from the beginning, but I wanted to give it a chance, see if it got any better - so I plodded on.
It doesn't get better. =\
None of the jokes were funny; the only time you'll laugh is at realizing the idiocy of what the author's trying to pull. No well-read booklover would even crack a smile. The writing style is garbled, the characters are flat, and the plot is far too unintelligible and convoluted. I kept being astonished that this set of words actually got approved by a publisher.
Don't waste your time picking up this one, or God forbid, your money on buying it! Unless you want to give it to someone you dislike.
It doesn't get better. =\
None of the jokes were funny; the only time you'll laugh is at realizing the idiocy of what the author's trying to pull. No well-read booklover would even crack a smile. The writing style is garbled, the characters are flat, and the plot is far too unintelligible and convoluted. I kept being astonished that this set of words actually got approved by a publisher.
Don't waste your time picking up this one, or God forbid, your money on buying it! Unless you want to give it to someone you dislike.
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November 2, 2013Abandoned when I got my hands on the last Ian Rankin.
I will come back to it as the TV refernces to 70's and 80's UK Tv struck a chord.
I will come back to it as the TV refernces to 70's and 80's UK Tv struck a chord.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews