Robots versus Slime Monsters: An A. Lee Martinez Collection

by A. Lee Martinez, Sally Hamilton (Illustrations)

A. Lee Martinez delivers his first short story collection, featuring ten original tales based on his previous fantasy and science fiction novels. If you're a Martinez fan, this collection is surely something you've been waiting for. If you're simply Martinez curious (and who isn't?) this is a great sampling of strange worlds of fantasy featuring talking gorillas, sensible housekeeping kobolds, cosmic monster gods, and world-conquering space squids. These all-new, all-different tales are available for the first time. Within you'll find tales of werewolf versus bigfoot, ogre versus wizard, and rock alien versus romantic entanglement. You'll experience a terrifying descent into madness via pizza delivery and the existential angst of the gods of death. You'll discover why it's a bad idea to feed the pixies and why it's a good idea to always bring along a magical broom on your adventures. A collection eight years in the making (and worth every year), Robots versus Slime Monsters might not actually have any stories where a robot fights a slime monster, but it does feature a gorilla wrestling a lion. And in the end, isn't that almost as good?

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Humor, Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Supernatural

204 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2013

About the author

A. Lee Martinez was born in El Paso, Texas. At the age of eighteen, for no apparent reason, he started writing novels. Thirteen short years (and a little over a dozen manuscripts) later, his first novel, Gil's All Fright Diner, was published. His hobbies include juggling, games of all sorts, and astral projecting. Also, he likes to sing along with the radio when he's in the car by himself.

Reviews

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A. Lee Martinez is one of those guys who might threaten you with a plastic sword, only for you to realise later that it doesn't scratch but actually cuts deeply. Yes, his stories contain certain truths beneath all the comical ludicrousness.
Best sampler, as far as his work is concerned, would be this book. It contains the following stories:
1. Bigfoot Dreams
2. Wizard Bait
3. Penelope and the Willful Blade
4. Greyback in Blue
5. Death, Dust, and Other Inconveniences
6. Work Ethic
7. My Dinner with Ares
8. Pizza Madness
9. Cindy and Cragg
10. Imogen's Epic Day
This was one of the most irreverent and yet enjoyable collections that I had read recently. It contained stories that broke several tropes, created fresh and lovable characters, all the while forcing us to appreciate several untold things and themes. I laughed out loud, chuckled, groaned, smacked my lips, and eventually felt restless as the collection ended.
Recommended.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author returns to the worlds of his previous novels for a collection of short stories, often focusing on secondary characters. I'd read all of the books before, but in some cases pretty long ago, so I might have missed some references, but I still enjoyed the tales. "Bigfoot Dreams," set in the world of Gil's All-Fright Diner, uses the premise that sasquatches are actually spirits of a sort, explaining how they can be giant creatures who leave no trace of themselves. "Greyback in Blue," following up on The Automatic Detective, stars a mutant gorilla detective who takes a case for a simian femme fatale. The Monster prequel "Work Ethic" is about a young girl who starts feeding pixies in exchange for their doing household chores, but then can't get rid of them, so has to call in pest control. "My Dinner with Ares," a follow-up to Divine Misfortune, has the god of war chatting with Ogbunabali, the Igbo god of death, who takes pity on a mortal. I don't remember Chasing the Moon all that well, but "Pizza Madness" works on its own, a humorously creepy tale about a guy who gets a job delivering pizzas to a monster. And "Cindy and Cragg," from the universe of Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain, is about a woman going on a date with a rock man from Saturn.

[Jorge Rosas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A glimpse at the world and characters of the main novels, this collection of short stories allow us to know the essence of each book through the eyes of secondary characters that get their own change of being the main. I loved the stories related to “in the company of ogres”, “A nameless witch”, “Monster” and Death in the “Divine Misfortune” A few were not as good or could not be fully appreciated without the in book knowledge. It was fantastic and it makes me want to read more books of this author.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to revisit characters from his other novels. Super fun stories as always.

[Heather Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

*10+ stars*. Boy do I love A. Lee Martinez! I have read quite a few of his books and these short stories are all written about the secondary/side characters from those books. What a great idea! This collection of stories are funny, weird and heartfelt….just like the original books. I think that this anthology can be read as a standalone but having read the books that all these characters are from only improves the reading experience immensely. Just fantastic and hilarious and FUN!! Definitely one of my favorite short story collections of the year!!!!!

(From the book blurb): “A. Lee Martinez delivers his first short story collection, featuring ten original tales based on his previous fantasy and science fiction novels. If you're a Martinez fan, this collection is surely something you've been waiting for. If you're simply Martinez curious (and who isn't) this is a great sampling of strange worlds of fantasy featuring talking gorillas, sensible housekeeping kobolds, cosmic monster gods, and world-conquering space squids. These all-new, all-different tales are available for the first time. Within you'll find tales of werewolf versus bigfoot, ogre versus wizard, and rock alien versus romantic entanglement. You'll experience a terrifying descent into madness via pizza delivery and the existential angst of the gods of death. You'll discover why it's a bad idea to feed the pixies and why it's a good idea to always bring along a magical broom on your adventures. A collection eight years in the making (and worth every year), Robots versus Slime Monsters might not actually have any stories where a robot fights a slime monsters, but it does feature a gorilla wrestling a lion. And in the end, isn't that almost as good?”

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved all of A. Lee Martinez's books so when I saw this collection of short stories, I grabbed it so I could visit with all of his wonderfully humorous creations again. What a delightfully fun, light read on a rainy day.
Can't recommend his books enough, especially if you haven't laughed in a while.

[Erik M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read all of the books given side stories, sequels, prequels, etc, but that didn't impact my enjoyment one bit. If anything, it makes me more eager to go out and buy more of his books! I hope he revisits this concept again with another collection of short works - and maybe he'll introduce some new universes!

[Nancy Bagato · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what a short story collection by one of your favorite authors should look like. Spotlights minor characters and adds to the body of works with the same flavor as the full-length books. Enjoyable even if you haven’t read all the author’s works as well. Only flaw is the typos. (Hey, Martinez, next time look me up; I volunteer to proofread!) (Disclaimer: I do not know the author personally.)

[Leonca · Rating 4 out of 5]

People who have read Martinez’ books will probably get more from this, but I did enjoy the two from stories I’m not familiar with. My favorite was My Dinner with Ares, which features gods of death and war discussing philosophy while their influence seeps into the world around them.

[Schuyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun collection of short stories that continue the world(s) captured by the author in his other books. Good, but like the problem with many short stories, it is hard to get an awesome feeling about it since it is over so quickly...

[Tym Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun stuff. I have more that I want to read now!

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed his other book more, but this one had its moments.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! My husband and I LOVED it. The short stories were perfect to read to each other during any free time.

[Brandon Mehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent series of before and after stories from all of his previous works. I thoroughly enjoyed each bite-sized piece. I only wish a few were longer.

[Chad Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love A. Lee Marrtinez a bunch. Every one of his books has made me happy. This is a collection of short stories and made me happy. Happiness is good.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sure do enjoy this author. I've read most of his books. Just a few more to locate and read. Although I'm not a huge fan of short stories, I figured I'd give him a go. Always fun!

[Hotrats · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short story spin-offs from Martinez novels was a very fun read. To appreciate, you need to read the novels first, but that's not a hardship, people. This is a really funny and creative writer that too few people know about. I recommend.

[Ginger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read for the warped mind! One of my favorites! :-)

[Jonathan Scotese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. This is a collection of short stories taking place in the setting from A. Lee Martinez's previous novels. They are not sequels, many of them focus on side characters and at least one takes place before events in the novel. You will get more out of these stories if you read the novels first, and some things in them may be considered spoilers, but you can read this collection first and still enjoy it.

My favorites are Penelope and the willful blade a story about an animated broom and flying sword going on a quest to rescue their wielders, Pizza Madness which combines the style of Poe, a Cthulhu Mythos-ish setting and Pizza delivery, and Work Ethic which is one of the most twisted yet mundane stories about pixies I have ever read. A. Lee Martinez is a master of mixing the fantastic with the mundane for comedic effect. The closest to his style I can think of is Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short stories based on A. Lee Martinez's previous books.

A. Lee Martinez is one of my favorite current authors and I love his sense of humor. It is both a good thing and a sad thing that he, so far, has refused to write sequels to any of his book so this collection was a real nice treat. It was great to have additional stories in the universes he has created, and I loved that many of them didn't deal with the main characters from the previous books but explored a little beyond them.

This was a fun, fun book and made me want to go back and reread some of my favorites, I'm not sure that it would appeal quite as much to someone who hasn't read the original stories but I do think they were still approachable enough and gave a good example of his writing style so that if someone were to pick it up before reading any others they could still find some of it enjoyable.

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can read (or can you? I'm not sure how this works) my status updates to get my impression of each story. Overall, a solid collection for the fans of his books. I think A. Lee Martinez is bold in that he doesn't write novel length sequels. Each of these stories is set in the world of each of his books, making them sort of sequels. His next book, which comes out next year, I believe, will be the first of a trilogy. He's with a new publisher and perhaps writing a series was part of the new contract. Publishers love series (this word really needs a different plural form) because people generally buy the next book in the series even if they only moderately liked the last book in the series. If a book interests me that is book 2 or 3 or later in a series, I will go back and buy the preceding books even if the books supposedly stand alone.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of these stories are quite short, you aren't going to get to really sink your teeth into your favorite Martinez worlds with these reunions, but they're fun little stories, I enjoyed all of them. The book is only $2.99 on Smashwords (the same on kindle I assume), which is great for a 119 page book (at least the Smashwords edition was, over 40,000 words) of ten short stories. You can download the main formats (ePub, mobi, PDF, rtf) all DRM-free from Smashwords very easily for use with pretty much any eReader or desktop. I'm glad I participated in the Kickstarter project that helped make this happen, it was fun to anticipate, and it's fun to see it come to fruition and to be able to enjoy the results.

[Ben Mariner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Lee Martinez is the best. I've loved all his books to date, and it was a lot of fun to go back and revist some of the characters/universes for new stories. They were all really fun to read, but the story with Ace the roc pilot was definitely my favorite, which is no surprise since In the Company of Ogres was my favorite of his books. I think one of the things I liked in particular about this collection of short stories was the brief introduction from Martinez to each story. It's always neat to get a little insight into a writer's mind about what they're writing. There were a few typos but what can you really expect from something that was essentially self-published. It certainly didn't take away from any of the stories. Overall, it was a great read, and I'm glad he put it out.

[Jc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book made for fans who have already read A.L.M.'s novels. A collection of short "sequels" for each of his novels up through 2013, it is not intended to be a stand alone book for first time readers of ALM. It took me a while to finish it, as I wanted to read each novel first before reading the related short story. And the stories are not all technically sequels, and don't even all speak of the same characters; but they do speak of the same universes that one first meets in the novels. So, not for the general reader, but if you ARE a fan of ALM, and have read his novels but hunger for a little bit more, this is for you (and the stories are, of course, fun little reads of their own).

[Isabell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you liked Martinez books, you will be delighted to return to their worlds with these short stories. Either somply set in the world, following a character you've already met or simply telling a new story about your favorite people.
Even though I haven't read all of his books, I liked all of the stories. I don't think you have to have a deeper knowledge about the original book. If you like short stories, especially quirky once, you'll love these!

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martinez is one of my favorite writers and this is just another gold star on the chart for him. This collection of stories features characters from his other books and new adventures. They bring back good memories of the other titles and introduce new stories that are just as full of humor and wit as anything else he has done before. Had to order this especially since it was self printed!!!! This is a great addition to your Martinez collection or a great place to start. Highly recommend.

[Fred · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories revisiting supporting character's from Martinez's previous 10 books. Enjoyable, but not quite essential material for superfans and newbies alike. A Whitman's Sampler, if you will, of the Martinez style with micro-adventures starring a giant rock-man from Saturn and a sentient witch's broom in 2 of the best examples.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of short stories from all of the author's previous novels. Exploring these old worlds and revisiting with some of the characters was nice and made me want to go back and re-read some of my favorites. I only wish there was more.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of fun. A good book filled with short stories based on characters from his previous novels.