Picture of author.

M. T. McGuire

Teoksen Few Are Chosen tekijä

13 teosta 75 jäsentä 10 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Includes the name: T. McGuire M

Image credit: M T McGuire and her enormous marrow

Sarjat

Tekijän teokset

Few Are Chosen (2010) 33 kappaletta
Escape From B-Movie Hell (2015) 13 kappaletta
The Wrong Stuff (2012) 7 kappaletta
One Man: No Plan (2014) 5 kappaletta
Looking for Trouble (2014) 5 kappaletta
Small Beginnings (2019) 3 kappaletta
Unlucky Dip (2011) 2 kappaletta
The Tale of Spam City 2 kappaletta
Nothing to See Here (2020) 1 kappale
Too Good to Be True (2021) 1 kappale
Close Enough (2020) 1 kappale

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Kansalaisuus
UK

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

I would caveat this review by stating upfront that I'm not the principal audience for this type of fiction, as I don't tend to read humorous fiction and like it a bit more on the dry and wordplay side - Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series for example. However, I do read science fiction.

Protagonist Andi Turbot becomes embroiled in intergalactic politics when Eric, her friend at college, reveals he is actually a tall lobster-like creature with 7 eyes on stalks who needs to be smeared with marmite smelling goo in order to breathe. His human appearance has been a projection all along, but he has confided in her because the Earth is about to be devastated by meteor collision in order to allow its colonisation by alien life, on the assumption that humans aren't sentient (despite having a civilisation of sorts). Andi has to help Eric and his husbands (his species are all male) to prove that she and her fellow humans are sentient AND prevent the meteor collision, which is made more difficult by its being steered towards Earth deliberately and protected by a forcefield. Meanwhile, the identity of the real villain of the piece is not necessarily the obvious one.

I liked Eric and his relationship with Andi, though we don't see a lot of Andi's alternative side as a standup comedian. Eric and his fellows are quite nicely alien with their physiological differences and telepathy, though there are one or two things that are brought into the story - such as they seemingly can go and talk to their deity in person? - which are not really developed into a payoff. Also sometimes I found the pacing a bit slow. I did also wonder about the aliens being a bit militaristic when it seems they have an inhibition against actually killing anyone (at least, anyone they deem to be sentient). However, it was a lighthearted and amusing romp with some tension around the fate of the Earth, so I would award it a well-deserved 3 stars.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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kitsune_reader | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Nov 23, 2023 |
If Arthur Dent was a modern lesbian undergrad romping through the golden age of science fiction – cheesily bad special effects and all.

Andi's just your average, ordinary undergrad. Until one day she accidentally thinks someone else's thought. And then her best friend Eric reveals himself to be not exactly the Norwegian exchange student she thought he was. Oh, and the world's about to end.

My ADHD brain had a tough time with some of the overly long paragraphs and it possibly could have done with another pass by the editor. But on the whole, it's well structured and has clearly had at least one round of editing.… (lisätietoja)
 
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clacksee | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Dec 12, 2022 |
This is, unfortunately, a kind of humor I really don't enjoy. The story is actually pretty interesting, and it's well-written, but it's clearly expecting me to be rolling in the aisles about the lobster aliens, telepathy, last-minute save of Earth, plots and counterplots... I found the legal discussion somewhat amusing, but it got a mild smile from me rather than tears of laughter. It just didn't work for me. If you love Red Dwarf or think Marvin is the best character in Hitchhiker's Guide, please grab this book - you'll probably love it. I don't see the humor in either of those, either.… (lisätietoja)
½
 
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jjmcgaffey | 2 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Sep 23, 2020 |
This is a cross-genre story that feels like it should be classified somewhere between Doctor Who and Discworld. I’m calling it science fiction rather than fantasy because at one point the ‘magic’ is described as the clever application of the strange effects of quantum mechanics. This is no more outlandish than the Doctor’s TARDIS, although instead of the unlikely time travel of Doctor Who, this story includes travel between our reality and an unlikely alternate dimension.

It’s an interesting place.

This alternate Earth is run as a police state, and our reluctant hero, The Pan of Hamgee, is a Goverment Blacklisted Indivdual. His existence is therefore illegal, and the fact that he has survived as a GBI for five years, which is about four and a half years longer than normal, proves that he is very good at not being caught. This talent comes to the attention of Big Merv, a major crime boss, who recruits him as his new getaway driver. For the Pan of Hamgee, this is good news for two reasons. As a GBI, no legitimate employer will hire him, and Merv’s other option was dumping him in the river - with cement overshoes - but these are details we don’t need to go into here.

This story has flying car chases, a bad guy you love to loath, likable gangsters, and a hero you can really identify with since, like most of us, he’s not terribly heroic - at least not intentionally. He reminds me a bit of Rincewind in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. He’s a professional coward whose talent for getting into unintended trouble is only exceeded by his talent for escaping from it. All he wants is a simple, normal life, but the universe seems to have another fate planned for him. The book also has a few laughs, a lot of smiles, and even a bit of political and religious satire. There are far too few books like this. Great characters, interesting setting, humor, and cultural satire, with a genuinely good plot providing a framework holding them together is a hard blend to achieve and an even more difficult one to do well. This book does.

The prose is well executed with just enough description for the reader to visualize the scenes. Backstory, where needed, is integrated seamlessly into the narrative. Dialog is believable and suitable to the characters and to the situation. Grammar, spelling, formatting, and other of technical requirements of the storyteller’s trade that sometimes pose a problem for the independent writer are executed professionally in this book.

It passes my personal 5-star test. In addition to all the basics needed for a well-told tale, it has that something extra that would prompt me to read it again. I enjoyed following the misadventures of The Pan of Hamgee, a likeable sod thrown into an uncomfortable situation in an imaginative world that has certain parallels to our own. I highly recommend it to readers of lighthearted speculative fiction or anyone who may be looking for something a bit different and a lot of fun.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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DLMorrese | 4 muuta kirja-arvostelua | Oct 14, 2016 |

Palkinnot

Tilastot

Teokset
13
Jäseniä
75
Suosituimmuussija
#235,804
Arvio (tähdet)
4.0
Kirja-arvosteluja
10
ISBN:t
12

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