Rating: 
Summary: Cosmic Banditos
Review: I have know Alan Weisbecker for a couple of years now. He writing credits include scripts for Miami Vice, Crime Story, and STAT. He is also an award winning photographer whose articals and pictures have appeared in magazines such as American Photo, Popular Photography, Surfers Journal, and The BWI Inflight Magazine. It wasn't untill the summer of 1996 when learned about Cosmic Banditos. After many attempts, I finally accuired a copy from Alan to borrow. Needless to say, I still havent retured it. I have read it about twenty times, and seven of my freinds have read it. It is the most outrageous, insane, laugh out loud, hilariously funny book you will ever read.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most imaginative books in the history of fiction
Review: Who would of thought that any one person could have been imaginative enough to mix international drug smuggling with quantum mechanics. The story starts with the mugging of a Berkeley physics professor in South America by drug dealers in hiding and ends in a quest to San Francisco to discuss quantum mechanics with the very same professor. In between is a story filled with some of the most original humour ever seen in modern fiction
Rating:
Summary: Philosophy, physics, drugs, grades, and a dog
Review: I love this book, and recommend it to anyone and everyone I meet, though the hard part is finding a
copy. If you can find a copy, read it, love it,
and cherish it. This is a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the funniest novel ever written.
Review: I completely agree with the one reader review
already here for this remarkably insane, yet
imminently intelligent, laugh-fest. I've never
read anything like it. While many novels have
made me chuckle or even bark a little, this is
the only novel I've ever read that had me falling
out of my chair bellowing laughter. I, too, have
no idea why more people didn't find this novel.
But I do know that everyone I've ever lent my two
copies to has agreed with me. It's well worth
trying to find through whichever means you can.
Plus, it also has the best author bio I've ever
read at the back of the book: "Not much is known
about A.C. Weisbecker, and A.C. Weisbecker wants
to keep it that way." I re-read this every couple
of years, especially when I'm feeling down. It's
a written anti-depressant of the highest order,
and it's only side effect is laughter.
Rating:
Summary: If Hunter S. Thompson were a nice guy and could write...
Review: What more can I say? I'm in shock to find that it's out of print, but why should I be...the 2 best books I've ever read were from the remainder bin. This one and Marian Cockrell's "Mixed Blessings".One thing I'd like to know...what good is Amazon's search engine if it couldn't find me this book when I searched on the subject "quantum physics and Mexican drug dealers"?
Rating: 
Summary: LaughingBandito
Review: Anyone who has read the intro to this edition will appreciate my first exposure to Cosmic Banditos. I whipped it out in the airport on my way to the Gulf. Yes, I can see the appeal to military folks. I can understand just wanting to forget where you are for a little while. Weisbecker offers a vacation to Never-Land with the help of witty humor, the transcendental quality of a primer on physics, and characters who have decided to follow there own rythms in a very believable central american world. I just bounded along all the way as it spun farther and farther out of control. Weisbecker wields narration format the way Harry Potter handles a new wand. The characters refused to be confined to the page; they lept out in pandemonium and started reading over my shoulder. Too much of this book may give you a hangover. Best to read it once or twice, and immediately pass it on to a friend.
Rating:
Summary: I want a dog named High Pockets
Review: What's really cool about this version is that he sent a bunch of copies (of the original version) to "any soldier" in the first Iraq war and writes about how that spawned new interest, and this reprinting.
It is a wild ride...
Our troops, may god keep them safe, and send them home as they were promised!!!!, no more extended tours, a deal is a deal. Anyway, they might like this, I am sending my copy to "any soldier" at the government provided address. Keep your heads down boys there might be some "Cosmic Banditos" roaming about.
Rating:
Summary: I'd give it 10 stars if I could!
Review: My journey with Cosmic Banditos started when I was a sophomore chem major in college. I was dating a bi-sexual, heroin shooting, alcholic guy who was 6 years older than me. He had been a Geology/music double major in the same college. It was finals week in the middle of my sophomore year from hell (Calc III, Orgo, and physics all in one semester, Fall 1996) and I was hunkering down to not be seen for a while studying when my boyfriend showed up with a photo-copied, 3-ring binder bound copy of Cosmic Banditos. (It was the perfect shape to read a book of it's scope as I fondly recall.) He told me he would hunt me down if I didn't give it back to him when I was done reading it because it was very hard to get a copy of it. I was immediately intrigued by the quotes inside and stopped my study schedule to read this gem. I actually managed to do pretty well on my exams and I credit Cosmic Banditos for it. My boyfriend left me for another guy and I missed the Cosmic Banditos more. On the education front, that one reading of the book got me through p-chem (physical chemistry for those not chemistry geeks) relatively sane and I actually understood most of it. I proudly attribute owning my "Honk if you passed P-chem" bumper sticker to Cosmic Banditos.
When Amazon had their out-of-print search available (sometime in 1998 or so) I signed up for a copy to be sent to me if it ever turned up. Three years later, nothing turned up. By that time I was a grad student in Boston. My best friend and I went to a used book store on Newbury St and on a lark I looked for the book after trying to explain to my friend what it was all about. It had been 5 years since I read it. My memory didn't do it justice. Anyhoo, I found a FIRST EDITION with all the spelling mistakes and typos for $12.95!!!! Needless to say I bought it immediately and read it in one sitting. Then I gave it to my friend to read on pain of death that she give it back to me. She did and she absolutely loved it too. When I saw that Allen had a web site and was making this book into a screenplay with John Cusack's production company and more importantly the book was being reprinted I got really excited. I ordered it for my friend and it now also holds an honored space on her bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: One of my top two books
Review: I came upon this book in the bargain bin at Waldenbooks years ago. The introdutory quotes from Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking intrigued me. I flipped through pages and found the lyrics of a Jimmy Buffet song. Ok. I was sold. I bought the book and took it home and learned about quantum physics. Now for a guy who was a science major for several of my eleven years in college, this book taught me more about quantuim physics then I ever learned in a class. A.C. Weisbecker takes the theory of quarks and puts them in language that anyone could understand. And in a way that everyone will enjoy. Several years ago, I loaned the book out. It wasn't returned for nearly a year and I then swore never to lend it again. It is too valuable and too hard to find. Buy this book! You will not be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: LaughingBandito
Review: Anyone who has read the intro to this edition will appreciate my first exposure to Cosmic Banditos. I whipped it out in the airport on my way to the Gulf. Yes, I can see the appeal to military folks. I can understand just wanting to forget where you are for a little while. Weisbecker offers a vacation to Never-Land with the help of witty humor, the transcendental quality of a primer on physics, and characters who have decided to follow there own rythms in a very believable central american world. I just bounded along all the way as it spun farther and farther out of control. Weisbecker wields narration format the way Harry Potter handles a new wand. The characters refused to be confined to the page; they lept out in pandemonium and started reading over my shoulder. Too much of this book may give you a hangover. Best to read it once or twice, and immediately pass it on to a friend.
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