What do you think?
Rate this book
51
The events at Roswell have long been one of the U.S. government's best-kept secrets. But what if Area 51 contains something so bizarre that it bears little resemblance to UFOs, aliens, or anything imagined in even the most detailed conspiracy theories? In Patrick O'Leary's long-awaited, witty, and moving new novel, a cruel government experiment and an unthinkable betrayal are set into motion by real life friends, not-quite-imaginary friends--and a series of very confused American presidents.
"[O'Leary's] voice is fresh and funny.'"
--New York Times
Adam Pagnucco has no idea that stopping to help a homeless man is an absolutely terrible idea. He doesn't even recognize Winston Koop, his extremely charming--and extremely drunk--ex-best friend from college. Koop and Nuke had been inseparable, but then life happened. Nuke finally quit drinking, and Koop--well, Koop was at the center of a conspiracy so massive, and so strange, that the U.S. government faked the existence of UFOs at Roswell.
While covering up the unlikely experiments on the even more unlikely inhabitants of Area 51 for over sixty years, Koop has surreptitiously stolen the memories of hundreds of people--if they were lucky.
As Koop makes a tormented confession of his misdeeds, Nuke discovers that listening is more than dangerous--it's devastating. Not only is Nuke is depending on Koop to keep his own past safe and locked away, time is running out for both of them. The strange inhabitants of Area 51 desperately need both of their help, and a rebellion is coming.
"[O'Leary's] voice is fresh and funny.'"
--New York Times
Adam Pagnucco has no idea that stopping to help a homeless man is an absolutely terrible idea. He doesn't even recognize Winston Koop, his extremely charming--and extremely drunk--ex-best friend from college. Koop and Nuke had been inseparable, but then life happened. Nuke finally quit drinking, and Koop--well, Koop was at the center of a conspiracy so massive, and so strange, that the U.S. government faked the existence of UFOs at Roswell.
While covering up the unlikely experiments on the even more unlikely inhabitants of Area 51 for over sixty years, Koop has surreptitiously stolen the memories of hundreds of people--if they were lucky.
As Koop makes a tormented confession of his misdeeds, Nuke discovers that listening is more than dangerous--it's devastating. Not only is Nuke is depending on Koop to keep his own past safe and locked away, time is running out for both of them. The strange inhabitants of Area 51 desperately need both of their help, and a rebellion is coming.
296 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2022
13 people are currently reading
1874 people want to read
About the author
Patrick O'Leary
13 books21 followersPatrick O'Leary (Saginaw, Michigan, September 13, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author and ad copy writer.
O'Leary's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series. He wrote the poem "Nobody Knows It But Me" which was used in the popular 2002 advertising campaign for the Chevrolet Tahoe and read in the commercial by James Garner.
Works: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?P...
O'Leary's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series. He wrote the poem "Nobody Knows It But Me" which was used in the popular 2002 advertising campaign for the Chevrolet Tahoe and read in the commercial by James Garner.
Works: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?P...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 8, 2022
The Men in Black on acid
Wow, I can't even begin to describe this book other than it's unique, hilarious, and well worth reading.
Highly recommended if you have a warped personality.
I received this book from Tachyon Publishing through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
Wow, I can't even begin to describe this book other than it's unique, hilarious, and well worth reading.
Highly recommended if you have a warped personality.
I received this book from Tachyon Publishing through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
February 13, 2022
What did I just read? I have no idea, but I LOVED it.
May 30, 2021
Wow. Now I’m going to read all of O’Leary’s books. How have I never heard of him?! What a mind—-what a writer!
January 23, 2022
There is no one good way to describe Patrick O'Leary's new novel, 51, just as there was no one good way for O'Leary to tell the story itself. Between Lavie Tidhar's THE ESCAPEMENT and this novel, I've had an interesting time getting my head around stories recently. 51 defies a reviewer to say "51 is this meets that". It's more like "51 is this meets that meets the other thing meets something else", and even that's simplifying the issue.
People have been fascinated for decades about Area 51. The U.S government runs an Air Force facility at Area 51, and its operations are not made public. From Wikipedia, "The base has never been declared a secret base, but all research and occurrences in Area 51 are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information". This has led the general public to believe that the government is hiding the existence of aliens and UFOs there. Which brings us to the story of 51.
In 51, O'Leary posits that the story of aliens and UFOs is itself a cover up for something more sinister and frightening. Yes, there's a conspiracy going on there, something secret and foreboding. But it's something different than we've ever seen before - at least that I've ever seen before. And the cover up has been going on for decades.
The story starts off with Nuke (Adam Pagnucco) driving home from an AA meeting in a brutal winter snowstorm. He encounters an old homeless guy on the road, and, in an act of humanitarianism, pulls over to get him out of the cold. As they talk, Nuke realizes that it's his old college buddy Winston Koop. Nuke takes him home, cleans him up, and in return Koop begins to tell him the most bizarre story about Imaginary Friends. Imaginary Friends that came through a portal called the Door to Anywhere that opened up, most likely, at the site of the Trinity nuclear bomb test back in the neighborhood of World War II.
And that's just the start of it. Koop's story is woven back and forth through time, back to the 1940s, of course, through the present day across a number of varied locations. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, jumping around in a seemingly nonsensical way but which ends up supporting the weirdness of the tale itself.
And the tale is indeed strange. Koop is hired - more like selected - by the government to erase the memories of people who have encountered IFs (Imaginary Friends) by a process that apparently was taught to him by his own IF (see what I mean about this being strange?). Every U.S. President is told about the Door to Anywhere, of course, and Koop is present at every one of these meetings (it should be pointed out that an IF is along for the ride to actually make the revelation to the President) because, after all, he needs to make the President forget about it.
No, we're not done yet.
There's something else going on here, involving Koop, Nuke, and Koop's ex-wife and getting the IFs back to where they belong and closing the portal behind them. But of course there's more to it than that, and to say any more would be spoiling it (And no, what I've written here so far doesn't even scratch the surface of what's going on, so I'm not spoiling much of anything - trust me).
O'Leary packs a lot into this relatively short novel, but it doesn't feel rushed or cramped in anyway. He also finds time to make this a story of friendship and growing old, among other things. Koop and Nuke are in their 70s at the time of the story, and yet the two of them, loyal to each other, go on one last adventure together to save humanity. We all should have someone like Koop and Nuke have each other, to tell weird stories to and have adventures with. I'd like to think that those stories and adventures would be just as weird as the tale O'Leary tells us in 51. I think I would like to live that kind of life.
People have been fascinated for decades about Area 51. The U.S government runs an Air Force facility at Area 51, and its operations are not made public. From Wikipedia, "The base has never been declared a secret base, but all research and occurrences in Area 51 are Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information". This has led the general public to believe that the government is hiding the existence of aliens and UFOs there. Which brings us to the story of 51.
In 51, O'Leary posits that the story of aliens and UFOs is itself a cover up for something more sinister and frightening. Yes, there's a conspiracy going on there, something secret and foreboding. But it's something different than we've ever seen before - at least that I've ever seen before. And the cover up has been going on for decades.
The story starts off with Nuke (Adam Pagnucco) driving home from an AA meeting in a brutal winter snowstorm. He encounters an old homeless guy on the road, and, in an act of humanitarianism, pulls over to get him out of the cold. As they talk, Nuke realizes that it's his old college buddy Winston Koop. Nuke takes him home, cleans him up, and in return Koop begins to tell him the most bizarre story about Imaginary Friends. Imaginary Friends that came through a portal called the Door to Anywhere that opened up, most likely, at the site of the Trinity nuclear bomb test back in the neighborhood of World War II.
And that's just the start of it. Koop's story is woven back and forth through time, back to the 1940s, of course, through the present day across a number of varied locations. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, jumping around in a seemingly nonsensical way but which ends up supporting the weirdness of the tale itself.
And the tale is indeed strange. Koop is hired - more like selected - by the government to erase the memories of people who have encountered IFs (Imaginary Friends) by a process that apparently was taught to him by his own IF (see what I mean about this being strange?). Every U.S. President is told about the Door to Anywhere, of course, and Koop is present at every one of these meetings (it should be pointed out that an IF is along for the ride to actually make the revelation to the President) because, after all, he needs to make the President forget about it.
No, we're not done yet.
There's something else going on here, involving Koop, Nuke, and Koop's ex-wife and getting the IFs back to where they belong and closing the portal behind them. But of course there's more to it than that, and to say any more would be spoiling it (And no, what I've written here so far doesn't even scratch the surface of what's going on, so I'm not spoiling much of anything - trust me).
O'Leary packs a lot into this relatively short novel, but it doesn't feel rushed or cramped in anyway. He also finds time to make this a story of friendship and growing old, among other things. Koop and Nuke are in their 70s at the time of the story, and yet the two of them, loyal to each other, go on one last adventure together to save humanity. We all should have someone like Koop and Nuke have each other, to tell weird stories to and have adventures with. I'd like to think that those stories and adventures would be just as weird as the tale O'Leary tells us in 51. I think I would like to live that kind of life.
July 12, 2022
First let me say, this book will not be for everyone. But for those that get it - man, what a wonderful story this is! I couldn't put it down, read it in a day and now regret that I consumed it so fast!
It begins with a man driving through the city, seeing a homeless man on the street and stopping to give a helping hand. It turns out that he knows this homeless man and so he brings him home. After a bit of time, the homeless man begins to tell his old friend about his life and from there, the whole story is flipped on its side.
See, this old friend worked at Area 51 in his youth. And he's got some interesting tales to tell.
The story bounces around through time. There are multiple POV's which are sometimes misleading. I felt a bit like a magician was performing a slight of hand trick on me at times and marveled at the effect once I caught on.
There were several times where I felt overwhelming emotions from the story and had to stop and take a breath to get my feet under me again. So many times where I laughed out loud and then wondered if the author meant that passage as sarcasm or if there was a different message altogether he was trying to impart that skimmed just over my head.
If you, your sibling or your child have ever had an imaginary friend, you will find this even more deeply emotional.
At the heart of this 'alien' story is Love. Love in all its forms. Love from one human to another, from a child-self to adult-self, from one species to another, love for life, love for knowledge, love for humility, and on and on. But that in no way describes this tale.
The best I can offer is that this strange, beautiful, humorous, confusing, fantastic sci-fi/mystery/love story/literary fiction is a must read!
And upon finishing the last page, I immediately wanted to start again to capture all the nuances I know I must have missed the first time through!
It begins with a man driving through the city, seeing a homeless man on the street and stopping to give a helping hand. It turns out that he knows this homeless man and so he brings him home. After a bit of time, the homeless man begins to tell his old friend about his life and from there, the whole story is flipped on its side.
See, this old friend worked at Area 51 in his youth. And he's got some interesting tales to tell.
The story bounces around through time. There are multiple POV's which are sometimes misleading. I felt a bit like a magician was performing a slight of hand trick on me at times and marveled at the effect once I caught on.
There were several times where I felt overwhelming emotions from the story and had to stop and take a breath to get my feet under me again. So many times where I laughed out loud and then wondered if the author meant that passage as sarcasm or if there was a different message altogether he was trying to impart that skimmed just over my head.
If you, your sibling or your child have ever had an imaginary friend, you will find this even more deeply emotional.
At the heart of this 'alien' story is Love. Love in all its forms. Love from one human to another, from a child-self to adult-self, from one species to another, love for life, love for knowledge, love for humility, and on and on. But that in no way describes this tale.
The best I can offer is that this strange, beautiful, humorous, confusing, fantastic sci-fi/mystery/love story/literary fiction is a must read!
And upon finishing the last page, I immediately wanted to start again to capture all the nuances I know I must have missed the first time through!
September 14, 2021
Extremely well written. The conversations and observations alone were worth the price of admission. Finished it today and ordered two more of his books. I would have given it a positive review just for his observations on alcoholism. Definitely a keeper
January 18, 2022
My thanks to NetGallery and the publisher Tachyon Publications for an advanced copy of this science fiction novel.
Sometimes a book exceeds every expectation that you have for it. Patrick O'Leary in his book 51 surprises amazes, confuses, delights, scares, awes and makes the reader question everything from the last chapter to the next, with a skill that has been missing for quite a while in science fiction and fantasy. Maybe it is the time that this book took to create, Mr. O'Leary mentions this in the end notes. This book is so good, so full of ideas that at the end the reader not only wants to start again and see where and how everything fits, but asks how do I hook this book right into my veins.
A man, Adam, coming from a regular meeting at AA stops to be a good Samaritan to a poor guy who falls in the street in front of his car. Adam is surprised to find that he knows this man, Kopp, who he lost touch with years ago. He thinks. Bounding over their previous problems with alcohol and failure, Kopp starts to tell a tale of his life. And things get weird.
This book is crazy in the best of ways. The story seeps out, and what seems at the beginning to be possibly a been there read that book about little green men at Area 51 in Groom Lake, becomes something more. An amalgamation of the Invaders, Cthulu and every possible conspiracy featured on The X-Files as directed by David Lynch and Christopher Nolan, in black and white, and music by the Velvet Underground and the Flaming Lips remixed by Harry Partch.
The book has narrative flips, untrustworthy narrators, POV changes, art, science, math, passages on the unique sadness on alcoholism and why people need addiction, failed dreams, love, imaginary friends, the price that children pay because of adult failure, and much more. I could tell more of the plot, but why take the beauty of this book away from future readers. If books that make you think, and take you by surprise, in a good way, are rare and wanted in your life, try this one. Just give it time, and if you start to go I don't get this, you won't in the beginning, Maybe not even at the end. However it is a great trip to take.
I've not read anything else by Mr. O'Leary, but I plan to remedy that. This book is perfect for these confusing end times we seem to have let ourselves allow to happen. However there is hope in this book. And even redemption. One of the best books I have read in along time. One I can't wait to reread.
Sometimes a book exceeds every expectation that you have for it. Patrick O'Leary in his book 51 surprises amazes, confuses, delights, scares, awes and makes the reader question everything from the last chapter to the next, with a skill that has been missing for quite a while in science fiction and fantasy. Maybe it is the time that this book took to create, Mr. O'Leary mentions this in the end notes. This book is so good, so full of ideas that at the end the reader not only wants to start again and see where and how everything fits, but asks how do I hook this book right into my veins.
A man, Adam, coming from a regular meeting at AA stops to be a good Samaritan to a poor guy who falls in the street in front of his car. Adam is surprised to find that he knows this man, Kopp, who he lost touch with years ago. He thinks. Bounding over their previous problems with alcohol and failure, Kopp starts to tell a tale of his life. And things get weird.
This book is crazy in the best of ways. The story seeps out, and what seems at the beginning to be possibly a been there read that book about little green men at Area 51 in Groom Lake, becomes something more. An amalgamation of the Invaders, Cthulu and every possible conspiracy featured on The X-Files as directed by David Lynch and Christopher Nolan, in black and white, and music by the Velvet Underground and the Flaming Lips remixed by Harry Partch.
The book has narrative flips, untrustworthy narrators, POV changes, art, science, math, passages on the unique sadness on alcoholism and why people need addiction, failed dreams, love, imaginary friends, the price that children pay because of adult failure, and much more. I could tell more of the plot, but why take the beauty of this book away from future readers. If books that make you think, and take you by surprise, in a good way, are rare and wanted in your life, try this one. Just give it time, and if you start to go I don't get this, you won't in the beginning, Maybe not even at the end. However it is a great trip to take.
I've not read anything else by Mr. O'Leary, but I plan to remedy that. This book is perfect for these confusing end times we seem to have let ourselves allow to happen. However there is hope in this book. And even redemption. One of the best books I have read in along time. One I can't wait to reread.
March 29, 2022
It was the year after the reality TV star took the Whitehouse. In Detroit, seventy-three year-old Adam Pagnucco drives home from an AA meeting and picks up a freezing homeless man to take him to a Salvation Army hostel. But it turns out he knows him. The man is Winston Koop, Adam’s best friend at college, a charismatic athlete with a genius for languages and mathematics, Winston could do just about anything. In the end, he went to ‘Nam and became an interrogator. He married. She left him. He drank a lot. Old story.
They get reacquainted and Adam or Nuke, as Winston calls him, finds out that his old friend has been busy. It turns out that the mystery of Area 51 is not what it seems. All that stuff about aliens and UFOs is a smokescreen to hide the real secret. Spoiler Alert: An early nuclear bomb opened a door to anywhere and also revealed thousands of IFs, Imaginary Friends. Many children around the world have Imaginary Friends and they used to disappear when the child outgrew them or go on to another child.
After the bomb, thousands of IFs became real. Also, they feel compelled to visit the door that the bomb opened. The IFs are useful to the U.S. military in developing new hardware. All this is top secret but secrets inevitably leak. Like the ‘Men in Black’, Koop has a talent for making people forget what they have seen. That’s his job.
The plot elements make it sound like a pulp fiction thriller but it isn’t. Far from it. The mature characters are well-drawn and you want to find out what happens to them. There’s a love story because Koop and Nuke both adore Katey, a senior officer at Area 51. However, the book is more about the friendship between the two men. It’s about buddies.
There are many amusing moments. The Presidents are usually invited to the top secret base to meet the Pope, the IF in charge, and most do. These episodes are amusing and shown in chronological order so you keep wondering what the last President will do, the reality TV star. His reaction doesn’t disappoint. In general, I’d agree with the author’s assessment of Presidents, though obviously, any resemblance to real people or events here is purely coincidental. It says so at the front of the book.
The narrative jumps around all over the place as Koop tells Nuke his story and deeper truths are slowly revealed. Life interrupted my reading, so I lost the thread a bit but it didn’t matter too much. After all this meandering, the action-packed climax was a pleasant surprise and the denouement, too.
In an afterword, author Patrick O’Leary reveals that it took him ten years to write and he made it up as he went along, as he always does. It’s not a bad technique. Works for Stephen King. If you’re expecting an SF or fantasy adventure, you’ll be disappointed but if you like the works of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, then this will indubitably give pleasure. I enjoyed it.
They get reacquainted and Adam or Nuke, as Winston calls him, finds out that his old friend has been busy. It turns out that the mystery of Area 51 is not what it seems. All that stuff about aliens and UFOs is a smokescreen to hide the real secret. Spoiler Alert: An early nuclear bomb opened a door to anywhere and also revealed thousands of IFs, Imaginary Friends. Many children around the world have Imaginary Friends and they used to disappear when the child outgrew them or go on to another child.
After the bomb, thousands of IFs became real. Also, they feel compelled to visit the door that the bomb opened. The IFs are useful to the U.S. military in developing new hardware. All this is top secret but secrets inevitably leak. Like the ‘Men in Black’, Koop has a talent for making people forget what they have seen. That’s his job.
The plot elements make it sound like a pulp fiction thriller but it isn’t. Far from it. The mature characters are well-drawn and you want to find out what happens to them. There’s a love story because Koop and Nuke both adore Katey, a senior officer at Area 51. However, the book is more about the friendship between the two men. It’s about buddies.
There are many amusing moments. The Presidents are usually invited to the top secret base to meet the Pope, the IF in charge, and most do. These episodes are amusing and shown in chronological order so you keep wondering what the last President will do, the reality TV star. His reaction doesn’t disappoint. In general, I’d agree with the author’s assessment of Presidents, though obviously, any resemblance to real people or events here is purely coincidental. It says so at the front of the book.
The narrative jumps around all over the place as Koop tells Nuke his story and deeper truths are slowly revealed. Life interrupted my reading, so I lost the thread a bit but it didn’t matter too much. After all this meandering, the action-packed climax was a pleasant surprise and the denouement, too.
In an afterword, author Patrick O’Leary reveals that it took him ten years to write and he made it up as he went along, as he always does. It’s not a bad technique. Works for Stephen King. If you’re expecting an SF or fantasy adventure, you’ll be disappointed but if you like the works of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, then this will indubitably give pleasure. I enjoyed it.
April 29, 2022
On the way back from his AA meeting, Adam Pagnucco stopped to help a down-and-out stranger who turned out to be Adam’s best friend from collage, Winston Koop. Their lives couldn’t have been more different since school. Adam became a photographer and sobered up. Koop became entangled in a conspiracy that became a massive government coverup. Koop revealed that he collected people’s stories then erased their memories, but Adam could still sense that Koop was hiding something. Now on their way to Roswell, Adam feels it was a bad idea to have stopped and helped Koop in the first place.
51 is the surreal new science fiction novel by Patrick O’Leary. Spanning over fifty years, the timeline jumps around enough to make one’s head spin, with endings as clear as a kaleidoscopic daydream. It is a quirky, offbeat take on a popular plot. O’Leary takes the Roswell conspiracy and sets it on its ear. This outlandish paranormal chronical pushes science fiction in a new direction. O’Leary’s bizarre, hallucinogenic narrative is the Naked Lunch for a new generation. In fact, 51 has all the elements of a cult classic in the making.
This review was originally published at https://manhattanbookreview.com/produ...
51 is the surreal new science fiction novel by Patrick O’Leary. Spanning over fifty years, the timeline jumps around enough to make one’s head spin, with endings as clear as a kaleidoscopic daydream. It is a quirky, offbeat take on a popular plot. O’Leary takes the Roswell conspiracy and sets it on its ear. This outlandish paranormal chronical pushes science fiction in a new direction. O’Leary’s bizarre, hallucinogenic narrative is the Naked Lunch for a new generation. In fact, 51 has all the elements of a cult classic in the making.
This review was originally published at https://manhattanbookreview.com/produ...
July 29, 2022
So this was pretty original but really strange and confusing. There was some poignant writing going on about alcoholism, divorce, love etc... and some of that was REALLY dark, especially if you've been through a divorce, and/or maybe if you're an alcoholic (I haven't experienced that so can't really comment).
The biggest problem I had with this book was the lack of dialogue tags. There's a LOT of dialogue in this book. There are a couple of "action" scenes but otherwise it's just two guys talking, and one guy telling stories. I often couldn't tell who was saying what. There was even a time when one character says "That's where the nickname 'Nuke' came from." But he was talking about himself, BUT he wasn't Nuke. So I was totally lost and thought it must just be a typo or something.
The frustrating confusion about who was talking and what was going on, was evenly balanced with some "deep" and imaginative writing. Hence the 3 stars. If it would have been another 50 pages it would have been too long and gotten 2.
The biggest problem I had with this book was the lack of dialogue tags. There's a LOT of dialogue in this book. There are a couple of "action" scenes but otherwise it's just two guys talking, and one guy telling stories. I often couldn't tell who was saying what. There was even a time when one character says "That's where the nickname 'Nuke' came from." But he was talking about himself, BUT he wasn't Nuke. So I was totally lost and thought it must just be a typo or something.
The frustrating confusion about who was talking and what was going on, was evenly balanced with some "deep" and imaginative writing. Hence the 3 stars. If it would have been another 50 pages it would have been too long and gotten 2.
March 25, 2023
Kinda X-files vibe.
Jumps around in time a lot, which may account for a lack of feeling propulsion, like we're getting somewhere. Narrators not always clear, which will bother some.. actually, if you you're looking for clarity, this is not the book for you.
It's about a feeling, it's about what we give up - when we grow, when we love. But also about aliens in Nevada who may have already made us all forget something we knew, so what we know isn't what was but we're left with after....
2 and half rounded up cause I like the X Files. If you don't, probably skip this.
For the rest of us, let's read it and see if it feels familiar (which might mean we've already read it but our minds were wiped by... well, I wouldn't tell even if I could remember)
Jumps around in time a lot, which may account for a lack of feeling propulsion, like we're getting somewhere. Narrators not always clear, which will bother some.. actually, if you you're looking for clarity, this is not the book for you.
It's about a feeling, it's about what we give up - when we grow, when we love. But also about aliens in Nevada who may have already made us all forget something we knew, so what we know isn't what was but we're left with after....
2 and half rounded up cause I like the X Files. If you don't, probably skip this.
For the rest of us, let's read it and see if it feels familiar (which might mean we've already read it but our minds were wiped by... well, I wouldn't tell even if I could remember)
February 11, 2022
It was hard to track at first but then I just let myself give up the idea that it would be a regular book. It became more enjoyable then. There were a few odd sentences that didn't make sense to me - in the dialog it was sometimes unclear who was saying what to who but I figured it out the best I could. I would recommend this book to anybody who likes cool stories that don't need to make sense and those who have a sense of adventure or a curious mind.
The version I had made it unable to save any notes or highlight sections and for that I am truly saddened. I may reread it in another format to be able to highlight and note.
The version I had made it unable to save any notes or highlight sections and for that I am truly saddened. I may reread it in another format to be able to highlight and note.
June 21, 2022
This science fiction (or fantasy?) novel is so strange that it is literally cannot be described. There are two narrators, both extremely unreliable. The story jumps around in time. It is at least partly about imaginary friends, and evil government conspiracies, but it is also about alcoholism, love, memory, murder, jazz, Motown, and the atomic bomb. The unreliable narrators are even more confusing because sometimes one is recounting a story about the other and the meaning of “I” varies in mid-story. It was strange and hard to follow (but that is intentional) and also really wonderful. No character has clean hands but everyone’s heart is understood.
February 24, 2022
An oddly tear worthy science fiction novel
I began reading sci fi over 50 years ago. I don't remember one that touched me emotionally as much as this story did. It is an exploration of imaginary friends. I never had one but my son did. It was his " boss" and boss rode his horse behind my little blue AMC Hornet when we went grocery shopping. I had to wait while my four year old tied horse to the back bumper before we could go into the store. Thank you Mr. I'll sry for giving me back that memory today.
I began reading sci fi over 50 years ago. I don't remember one that touched me emotionally as much as this story did. It is an exploration of imaginary friends. I never had one but my son did. It was his " boss" and boss rode his horse behind my little blue AMC Hornet when we went grocery shopping. I had to wait while my four year old tied horse to the back bumper before we could go into the store. Thank you Mr. I'll sry for giving me back that memory today.
March 25, 2023
While the writing in itself was good (although it felt a bit disjointed, but I think that was intended), I felt that the story just did not grab me. I didn't really care about the creatures captured at Area 51, and while part of Koops past (and how it all connected with current events in the end) was interesting, it all felt a bit underbaked. There's a potential for something here, but there was just too much missing for it to really interest me.
While I'm not entirely sure what I wanted from this book, but what I got was not it.
While I'm not entirely sure what I wanted from this book, but what I got was not it.
May 8, 2022
If you read Catch 22, and you were amazed at how Heller captured the fractured madness of war in the 2nd half, stand by to be equally astounded by O’Leary’s incredible patchwork of memory fragments shattered by a military secret weaving together into something that leaves you reeling and just needing to stop and think for a bit when you finish 51. Highly recommended.
August 15, 2022
I like weird books. Different books. John Dies, Echopraxia and The Madness Season are some of my favorites. Pure craziness. This book wanted so desperately to be one of those books, but the investment and payoff were never there.
I don't know who added the humor tag, this book was depressing as hell.
Not my favorite narrator either.
I don't know who added the humor tag, this book was depressing as hell.
Not my favorite narrator either.
March 4, 2023
A science fiction story about imaginary friends being real creatures. It is written as a person telling another person stories of their life. This makes it a largely flash back book, with the stories jumping all over the place. It made the story disjointed. The idea of the story is interesting, but I'm not a fan of flashbacks, so this just wasn't a book for me.
February 9, 2022
Recommended.
Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:
https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...
Review posted at Tzer Island book blog:
https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2...
January 31, 2023
This is one strange book. I found it intreguing bordering on incoherent. I finished reading the book and I'm still not sure whether I enjoyed it or not.
August 28, 2023
Very curious and kept me guessing the whole book.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews