Status Updates From Swashbucklers

This is the level of descriptive imagery in this book:

Then Jake cried out as zombies, skeletons and werewolves began crawling from the land, loping towards them, and the three were forced to shoot and punch their way through the masses in order to reach the next wall, before leaping over to suddenly find themselves riding horses in a painting.

There's an undercurrent of dry humor in every one of Christopher Moore's books, but the dialogue, the character development and even the supernatural plot is written for adults. There's vivid description, elegant prose and complex lore. This is just childish jokes, sound effects and references to 80s movie plots strung together with conversations. Fun Times at the Bloodbath is SO much better.

It strikes me that this is much more Little Monsters than Ghostbusters or Goonies. There could be some depth to a re-imagining of those stories, but this is a children's comic book adapted into 310 pages of a novel.

How did the author want us to picture this exactly:

She tucked into a roll and went sliding through a bunch of homework, the sword whistling over her head.

A "bunch of homework"? Like a burlap bag full of Santa's letters in Miracle on 32nd Street? A stack of stapled worksheets seems more likely, but how does someone slide through it? Maybe an arrangement of craft projects? Thanks for nothing with this imagery.

Continually baffling. All the buildup about them being ghostbusters and goonies and monster squad and then they get to the scene with their proton packs--after two chapters of building suspense--to fight Henry VII who throws drumsticks and student desks.

So, he may not be called "Rockbiter," but we've essentially got the stone giant from Neverending Story warning someone about Hook from Peter Pan. And I bet he'll be nowhere near as fun as Robin Williams. To call this derivative is generous, but it's pretty incongruous with the opening homage of monster amnesia and Georgie and Doc and mentions of a magnum opus, no matter how you feel about this section.

The seams are widening.

The premise behind the weapons is incredibly cool and were it fleshed out, could probably carry this action-adventure, but right now, it's a lot of pressure on our tenuous suspension of disbelief to insist on these "weapons" affecting real-world objects.

“Wait for my signal. Cisco, you and I are going to make a run for it. We’ll be the bait. Keep firing at Father Christmas, weaken him a bit more, and as soon as we’ve drawn him into the shadow of the wheel, I’ll punch out the supports underneath.”

...Oh and do you guys remember the car full of kids we left vulnerable and unsupervised in a parking garage a couple pages ago? Nah, me neither. Let's blast 'em!

This first action scene has syfy-channel depth: all sound effects, bright flashes and catch phrases.

Little bit lacking in character development and transitions here. Stories like Fun Times at the Bloodbath and Meat Bees capture a similar spirit without being facile and reductive.

There are some serious concessions to sentimentality here, but overall, this is still an inspired re-imagining of The Losers' Club that captures the tone of that novel better than any other imitation I've seen.

NOT THE PARAMOUNT! You slimeballs!
...
IYKYK

"...there had apparently been a whole magical part of that story that had fallen out of his brain."

Just dawned on me that his kid's name is George.

"Yes, a bit like in that book. You’d be surprised by how many stories you humans read that contain little trails leading back to the truth of the world you live in."

"...I’m the one who believed it was real, so I had to go. Although…” he laughed, “…obviously it didn’t help! I well and truly anchored myself to the past, forgot the present, and ended up in between. I absolutely limboed myself.”

"Then you grow up. You discover life doesn’t work out for most people, you’ll fuck up, you’ll have regrets, the nightmares you had will never truly leave you, but those friendships you treasured will. And that magic you remembered so well? It’s just a memory now. A feeling you can’t really explain and can’t ever get back."

A touch on the sentimental side, but the plug for Cobra Kai is enough to overlook it.

Oh, he's clearly Mike Hanlon! These are brilliantly subtle nods. So many other tv shows (Stranger Things) and books (Chalk Man) just superficially imitate (Summer of Night) King's brilliant masterwork of cosmic horror. I'm not far enough in to know for sure, but at this point, it feels like a labor of love, loyal to its homage where other fanboys fall short.

Bicycle, always made the best sound.

A character named Doc and a touch of Derry amnesia. I like where this is headed.

Yet it felt good. As though he hadn’t laughed in years. Which come to think of it he probably hadn’t. He hadn’t found anything this funny in a good long time.

She liked going out with her friends all the time, he preferred binge-watching TV shows on Netflix. All the usual stuff you discover far too late, before realising you should have been listening to that gut feeling that kept nagging you all that time – even if that gut feeling had always been searching for someone it wasn’t even sure existed.

"Why did he often find himself lying to his son to get out of answering a perfectly reasonable question. I don’t have the energy for the technicalities of a discussion that could spawn a thousand more questions and last forever, came the well-worn reply from his brain."

Actually a rather appropriate follow-up to the heartbreakingly brilliant Pinfeathers.

The treadmill just keeps going. And if it’s smeared with crap you don’t get a chance to step off for a moment and clean everything up… you just have to keep running, getting messier and messier, until you are only age and shit, and there is nothing else left of the person you used to be.

"All those classic 80s movies had led him wrong for so long. Saving the day wasn’t always met with a happy, heroic ending for the teenagers, before the credits played out to some great power ballad."

I knew I had been saving this one for a reason. Hanks needs to publish his next book soon.