Rating: 
Summary: Puff whatever Chris is smoking
Review: My only regret is that I've reached seventy without getting a puff of whatever Christopher Moore is smoking. Get the book, sit back, and light up. There's a dragon who will keep your fire going. ...and passages you can only marvel at. After this fifth book, Moore is on his way to God knows where, but I'll gladly go along.
Rating: 
Summary: Drive-by post modern expressionism lives!
Review: Okay, I'm not done with the book yet, but I'm enjoying it *way* too much to pass up a chance for a review. Read the book and you'll understand my one-line summary! My mom and I have been trading back and forth liners from Lust Lizzard that we've thought are worth laughing over together even if we aren't reading this book at the same pace (she let me know that she's already done with it as of today, but with little kids and all I'm only half-way through). Christopher Moore has done a brilliant job in all of his books in making the reader laugh and also, if not more importantly, consider where we are coming from and where we might go - Cyote Blue is the best example of this. Lust Lizzard is probably his funniest work yet, if not only for his one-liners. I'm sure there is a message that I'll get, but right now I'm having too much fun reading it. Ultimately, he offers a different reality, thought-provoking, fun, and a great break from our everyday world.
Rating: 
Summary: He can do much better than this.
Review: Chris Moore is way talented, but you'd never know it from reading this book. "Lust Lizard" seems to have the look and feel of someone producing a book because he was on schedule, and not because he had any really original ideas. I've read his previous books (4 of them, yes?) and have thoroughly enjoyed his works; "Bloodsucking Fiends" I've given as a gift on several occasions and all have said it was hilarious and kept a thread.This book does have it's moments but overall it's ideas, characters, and scenes seem introduced more to shock than to entertain. That, and there are too many of them; leading to an unfocused feeling from reading the story. While it holds together, it does not enthrall. I did like several of the characters and did think some of the plot devices quite funny, I just wish Chris Moore had provided a deeper image of a few characters in lieu of skimming the surface over several. Two final notes: While not a sequel, those who have read "Practical Demonkeeping" get a leg up on everyone else. That, and, I cannot wait for his next novel. This guy is wicked.
Rating:
Summary: Christopher Moore does it again! Hilarious
Review: How long can Chris Moore keeping putting out wacky, wierd, hilarious and off the wall books like this. This is book number five for him,and in my book that makes five in a row that hit my funnybone. Almost a sequel to "Practical Demonkeeping", but better. Hope Chris keeps them coming like this for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Another terrific book from Christopher Moore
Review: It was a difficult decision, do I read the book in one sitting or read it slowly and enjoy every chapter. The small town of Pine Cove has more than its share of interesting characters - Theo Crowe, the pot-smoking constable; Molly Michon, the town's crazy who was the star of B movies; Mavis Sand - the owner of the Head of the Slug Saloon; Catfish Jefferson, a Blues singer; Valerie Riordan, the town shrink who heavily medicates a good portion of the town's population; and Gabe Fenton, an animal bioloist. Add a sea monster named Steve who terrorizes the community, causing an outbreak of horniness among the residents, and you have a rollicking adventure.
Rating:
Summary: I'm new to Chritopher Moore . . .
Review: . . . but I sure like his stories.
Take an ancient sea creature who decides to spend some time topside, a town psychiatrist who decides to replace her patients' medicine with sugar pills, a retired Zena The Warrior Princess actress, and a law enforcement office with his own "special" stash, an old blues singer. . . toss them together with a cast of even more zany characters and you have the main course for THE LUST LIZARD OF MELANCHOLY COVE.
Moore's view of the world is cynical, irreverent, and very insightful. He has the ability to strip a character down to its purest essence, be it good or evil or just plain stupid. I laugh a lot while reading his work, although sometimes the plot twists and turns are a little swift. But, maybe that's Moore's way of keeping his readers on their toes.
I'll read whatever Moore publishes. I hope success does not spoil him. He's an original. It's trite, but he truly is "a breath of fresh air."
Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Makes me giggle
Review: I love a book that I can sit on my couch and read and everytime I giggle my husband looks at me with a strange look on his face. This happened constantly with this book and has with all the books I have read by this author. They are very quick reads....I read 4 of his books in two weeks, but they are great and I just keep wishing there were more.
Rating: 
Summary: A wild roller coaster ride
Review: This wild roller coaster ride of a book is like a spoof of my favorite type of horror story -- the kind where the menacing monster comes to terrorize the isolated small town. In this case, the small town is on the California coast, and the monster is a gigantic prehistoric sea monster-slash-dragon, with a long memory and an unquenchable lust for just about everything, from gasoline trucks to former B-movie actresses. When the "lust lizard" comes to town, he makes the entire population go [excited], bringing together some very unlikely couples. As in all good small-town horror stories, we get to know a variety of kooky characters (including one kooky dog), who all must work together in the end to defeat (or do I mean save?) the monster. Only this time, the horror story isn't horrific, but uproariously funny.
Rating:
Summary: A new outlook on love in a trailer park
Review: Christopher Moore has a fluid and yet compact writing style that is descriptive enough to flow swiftly without tedium. What separates him from the rest of the pack are the fantastical events he unfolds in his comedic tales.
A great Sea Beast awakens from his slumber, feeling a bit randy and ready to emerge. When he finds a tanker truck refueling at a gas station in Pine Cove, he mistakes its purring engines for a come-on signal from a female. However, mounting a gas tanker may have dire consequences, and our Sea Beast is badly burned in the process.
He makes his way to a nearby trailer park, where he alters his outward appearance to look like just another trailer while he heals from his tanker encounter. He parks himself next to Molly Michon's trailer, an ex B-Movie queen with mental problems. She is the only one who knows the trailer is alive, and promptly names him Steve.
The town of Pine Cove is a small, usually quiet tourist town, until Bess Leander, seemingly the queen of domestic bliss, commits suicide. Local psychiatrist Val Riordan blames herself for not paying enough attention to her clients, and promptly takes her entire patient list off of their antidepressants, while stoner constable Theophilius Crowe realizes there is something suspicious about Bess's death and decides to investigate despite the warnings of the county sheriff to just let it go.
`Lust Lizard' is rich with colorful characters, fantastical delusions, a crusty bartender, some wonderful tie-in's to Moore's `Practical Demonkeeping', blues music, and a tasty peek into the mind of a lustful Sea Beast named Steve. And when Steve's feelings of lust bleed out into the human population, feelings explode into passionate actions. While through all of this, Theo must not only discover why everyone is behaving strangely, but what is behind the death of Bess Leander.
One of the things I loved about `Lust Lizard' was Moore's addition of a character named Gabe Fenton, who is a scientist doing studies of the rat colonies around Pine Cove. Some of the similarities between Gabe's rats and the human colonies that surround us are worthy of pondering, comparing the behavior of one species as a herd to our own was very tongue in cheek and yet hilarious once noted and accepted.
All in all, The Lust Lizard Of Melancholy Cove is a very funny romp into the human mind and the antics of an ancient creature named Steve. A worthwhile read. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, but Just Shy of Unique
Review: This is one weird book, but I really enjoyed it. However, I honestly do not think I would have continued reading had it not been for the quirky, small-town ambience and personas so aptly sketched in the first few pages. The book is quite vulgar in places, and my interest in over-sexed lizards is rather minimal. Call me prude. But I am a big fan of Small Town pastiche and imagery. The flavor here hints of television's Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, or perhaps the obscure film Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Yeah, weird.
Moore's way with characters almost seems prodigious, in a warped sort of way. The book stews together a colorful gumbo consisting of a lackluster but loveable sheriff, an eccentric scientist who tracks the local rat population, a bionic bar maid, Skinner the Dog, a pharmacist with a fish fetish, a blues singer who "ain't got the blues on him", a former actress reliving her glory days as the star of foreign Xena-type films, one emotionally needy psychologist, and . . . a lizard of sorts.
When residents of Little Pine Cove begin to disappear, local sheriff and pot-head, Theophilius Crowe begins to think there might be a problem. Slow to grasp the obvious, Crowe fails to realize that a lizard from the deep sea has come to shore, preyed upon the libido of non-antidepressant-taking residents, transformed himself into a trailer house, and commenced to eat people. Well, duh.
As Theophilius begins putting the pieces together, a suicide investigation turns into something more, dovetailing not only with the Lizard Chronicles but a tale of deceit and corruption within his own ranks. With the help of the Xena-like crazy lady, a romantically involved biologist and psychologist, and priceless cameos by Skinner the Dog, Crowe helps put a stop to the ensuing mayhem. But I'm not telling how.
This is a very funny read whose colorful characters, zany plot, and hilarious interludes deliver delightfully for those who are seeking escape . . . from whatever. It is a shame, however, that the humor is so closely tied to vulgarity. The vulgarity does not necessarily detract from the humor in absolute value terms, but it does merit deducting a star. It is the base and common vulgarity which prevents this book from being truly unique.
|
