Beyond the Beyond

Rating:
Summary: Beyond Believability
Review: Charlie Willis is back in another TV mystery, this time about the misadventures of a new network attempting to revive a Star Trek-like show from the sixties, called Beyond the Beyond, and a rogue talent agency. Charlie, now a security chief for his old studio, is assigned to protect a studio writer who is being threatened by the talent agency who wants to sign him.

Things get waaaaay out of hand when the actor who once played Beyond the Beyond's Captain, now a psychotic recluse, orders his fans to kill the new cast. In order to figure out what's going on, Charlie has to go undercover as the NEW captain in order to draw out the assassins.

This is an amusing farce and I read the whole book in a single sitting, but I can understand why Goldberg didn't keep writing about this cast of characters - there's only so much about TV you can make fun of...it's already a joke.

Rating:
Summary: Too bleeping funny!
Review: Goldberg nails Hollywood in a book so over-the-top laugh out loud funny, you know a lot of it has gotta be true!

Rating:
Summary: Scattershot and way, way over the top
Review: Serious Star Trek fans should take a pass on this novel. Hits a bit too close to home. Silly Star Trek fans (like me) should grab it, head for the nearest easy chair, and settle in. Lee Goldberg is merciless on...well, just about everyone Charlie Willis, studio security guy, comes across. You have to understand that the reason Charlie IS the studio security guy is because a remarkably Angela Lansbury-esque actress playing a remarkably Jessica Fletcherish role gut shot him for trying to give her a traffic ticket. His new job is the studio's way of saying, "Sorry!" and keeping their temperamental Sunday night anchor out of jail. That happened in Lee's previous novel, My Gun Has Bullets, and it was tame compared to Beyond the Beyond. If you're looking for angst and deeply drawn character, you'll be disappointed. If you thrive on the outrageous and irreverent, you'll be hooked. You know who you are. Get reading.

Rating:
Summary: Over the top funny Star Trek parody
Review: Stop me if you've heard this one before: An old science-fiction television series about the adventures of a starship crew traveling through space -- long canceled but still popular with fans -- is revived to form the backbone of a newly created network.

So far, so good. Sounds like "Star Trek" to me. But television producer and writer Lee Goldberg has taken that story, thrown in seriously twisted agents, actors and sci-fi fans, hit the frappe button, and spun out "Beyond the Beyond," an over-the-top melange of ultra-violence, sick humor and black comedy.

Everyone wears a target in "Beyond the Beyond." Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are mutated into the Endeavor's Captain Pierce and Mr. Snork, whose fans emulate the latter character's elephant nose. There's a network boss who creates shows like "Siamese Cops" about a police officer with two heads, and a superagent who uses any tactic to keep his talent under contract.

So when "Beyond the Beyond" is revived for The Big Network, it lets loose a tractor-trailer load of nuts and flakes, especially when the actor who played Captain Pierce, Guy Goddard, attempts to reclaim his role, aided by a group of equally demented fans.

As the body count rises into the stratosphere, it is up to studio security agent Charlie Willis to sort out the problems. Willis is more than up to the job, and comes across as sane (he's only one of two characters with any redeeming qualities) and realistic enough about Hollywood to keep his other job as owner/manager of a storage facility.

So whether you would enjoy "Beyond the Beyond" depends entirely on your taste for humor that knows no boundaries for taste. This is a book that should come with an advisory for mature readers. It's Mel Brooks with a laser blaster. Its humor is so wide-ranging and so scattershot that there's something to offend every reader, especially those who take "Star Trek" and its ilk seriously.

Rating:
Summary: Over the top funny Star Trek parody
Review: Stop me if you've heard this one before: An old science-fiction television series about the adventures of a starship crew traveling through space -- long canceled but still popular with fans -- is revived to form the backbone of a newly created network.

So far, so good. Sounds like "Star Trek" to me. But television producer and writer Lee Goldberg has taken that story, thrown in seriously twisted agents, actors and sci-fi fans, hit the frappe button, and spun out "Beyond the Beyond," an over-the-top melange of ultra-violence, sick humor and black comedy.

Everyone wears a target in "Beyond the Beyond." Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are mutated into the Endeavor's Captain Pierce and Mr. Snork, whose fans emulate the latter character's elephant nose. There's a network boss who creates shows like "Siamese Cops" about a police officer with two heads, and a superagent who uses any tactic to keep his talent under contract.

So when "Beyond the Beyond" is revived for The Big Network, it lets loose a tractor-trailer load of nuts and flakes, especially when the actor who played Captain Pierce, Guy Goddard, attempts to reclaim his role, aided by a group of equally demented fans.

As the body count rises into the stratosphere, it is up to studio security agent Charlie Willis to sort out the problems. Willis is more than up to the job, and comes across as sane (he's only one of two characters with any redeeming qualities) and realistic enough about Hollywood to keep his other job as owner/manager of a storage facility.

So whether you would enjoy "Beyond the Beyond" depends entirely on your taste for humor that knows no boundaries for taste. This is a book that should come with an advisory for mature readers. It's Mel Brooks with a laser blaster. Its humor is so wide-ranging and so scattershot that there's something to offend every reader, especially those who take "Star Trek" and its ilk seriously.

Rating:
Summary: Scattershot and way, way over the top
Review: The problem with Beyond the Beyond is that it's three books in one. The story about a Trek-like show, its makers, cast, and fans was the story that originally interested me, but it could have been better done. There's certainly more than enough material to work with, as the recent Trekkies documentary shows.

The second story is an over-the-top satire about Hollywood business practices. And this is way over the top for anything but farcical satire: casual murders, agents who eat human flesh, and so on.

The third is a tough guy private eye novel, one of the hundreds of PI novels over the last few years that try to be original by placing the PI in a somewhat different milieu from that explored by the likes of Chandler and Hammett; in this case, the TV side of showbiz.

Unfortunately, the three books in one never really gel. There are dramatic changes of tone. Absurdly over-the-top satirical passages alternate with more-or-less serious pages about the private eye falling in love. This really should have been three different books.