Rating: 
Summary: a good fun read
Review: "Escape from Kathmandu" is a lively and entertaining book. It is laugh out loud funny in places as its two main protagonists engage in some way out adventures.
Beneath the far fetched plot lines there are actually many accurate and interesting insights into life in Nepal. Corruption in the government, widespread poverty, the inefficient beauracracy are all touched on in a sensitive and intelligent manner. Although if you don't know much about Nepal you might find it difficult to distinguish where the fantasy ends and reality begins in places.
All in all it is a worthy book, a great combination of comedy, adventure and travel writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Hiking in Nepal?
Review: After 30 days on the Annapurna Circuit, I decided to torture my body further by hiking to Everest Basecamp. What kept me sane? This book! It is hilarious - especially when you have been to places mentioned in the book. Throw away all your travel guides and take only this book. This is a totally irreverate look at Nepal.
Rating:
Summary: Hiking in Nepal?
Review: After 30 days on the Annapurna Circuit, I decided to torture my body further by hiking to Everest Basecamp. What kept me sane? This book! It is hilarious - especially when you have been to places mentioned in the book. Throw away all your travel guides and take only this book. This is a totally irreverate look at Nepal.
Rating:
Summary: A fun change
Review: I enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's shorter works, but had mixed feelings about the Mars trilogy, so when I found a copy of this book at the local used book shop, I was not sure what to expect. Hard science was absent in this modern day tale of hash smoking expatriates set in Nepal. Using Yeti's and other local lore while taking big swipes at China, governmental corruption, NGO's and other likely targets, this book did not cover new territory. However, this book is FUN. As an old Asian expatriate hand, and as a jaded NGO representative, I am typically unimpressed by writers touching on these topics. This enjoyable read had me laughing out loud.
The writing itself was fairly crisp and to the point. No overall plot to speak of, parts of this book could have served as independant short stories. Put this on your "just for fun" list but do read it!
Rating:
Summary: A yeti in a dogers cap? hey it works
Review: I found this book at a friends house and got addicted. the book is split up into diffrent storys but the first is the most bizare. Every few pages you hafta stop and say: "good god! this...sould be crap?" but its not.
Rating:
Summary: funny, unusual, a good read
Review: I found this book in a hotel lobby and started to read it while waiting for a friend. It was so funny I had to find a copy so I could finish it. The book consists of 4 long stories. the first story is a hilarious meeting between a yeti, a couple of trek guides, and former president Jimmy Carter in a Kathmandu hotel. In the second story, the hero accidently climbs Mt. Everest. The third story involves the real location of Shangrila (Shambahla) on the dangerous Nepal/Tibet border, disputed by India and china. The pace is fast, with a lot of surprises, and I rationed myself to one story a day so I wouldn't finish it too soon. However, in writing the fourth story, the author seems to have lost interest. It's tedious, repetitive, and suddenly ends without any resolution. I think the author just quit writing or couldn't see how to complete the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Cheech & Chong & the Temple of Doom
Review: I have offered an alternate title for Kim Stanley Robinson's Escape from Kathmandu. As all us hard sci-fi fans know, KSR is a serious writer, the James A. Michener of sci-fi, even. Now we know what he does for fun. I had a marvelous time with this book, laughing out loud upon occasion. I think I may have gone to college with the 2 expatriate heroes, but like them, I have some brain damage and cannot recall. Whether you are a die-hard KSR fan or in need of a good beach book, this one has it all: Wonderful characters, cliff-hanger plotlines, humor and (gasp!) redeeming social value. Read and have a blast.
Rating:
Summary: Cheech & Chong & the Temple of Doom
Review: I have offered an alternate title for Kim Stanley Robinson's Escape from Kathmandu. As all us hard sci-fi fans know, KSR is a serious writer, the James A. Michener of sci-fi, even. Now we know what he does for fun. I had a marvelous time with this book, laughing out loud upon occasion. I think I may have gone to college with the 2 expatriate heroes, but like them, I have some brain damage and cannot recall. Whether you are a die-hard KSR fan or in need of a good beach book, this one has it all: Wonderful characters, cliff-hanger plotlines, humor and (gasp!) redeeming social value. Read and have a blast.
Rating:
Summary: One of the funniest books ever
Review: I will never forget the first time I picked up this book. I was wandering through the shelves of my local bookstore and, seeing the title (which was uncannily similar to the title of a heinously bad '80s movie), I decided to glance through it.
The last thing I expected was one of the funniest, cleverest, most absorbing books I'd read in ages. I have to say that this and Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog vie for supremacy in my mind for the funniest work of speculative fiction. The second story, especially, made me laugh so hard I had to put the book down and take deep breaths. The characters are marvelous, and the situations they find themselves in are deliciously outlandish.
Go out and buy this book! I promise you won't be disappointed, as long as you leave your expectations for the genre at the door. Escape from Kathmandu is nothing if not unconventional.
Rating:
Summary: Romp through the Himalayas
Review: I'm ambivalent about some of Robinson's longer works, but I found this relatively short 4-part novel totally delightful. Somewhere between Hunter S. Thompson and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser in tone, it reads less like fiction and more like a thinly fictionalized (but broadly embellished) autobiography. Told in the first-person voice of one hardy, happy-go-lucky George Fergusson, Escape from Kathmandu drags you through jungles, through the offices of local bureaucrats (much more challenging than jungles), OVER a certain notable mountain, and into encounters with a range of mystical beings, both human and sort of human. It's a definite eye-opener for Robinson fans (who may not even recognize it as the work of the man who wrote the "Colored Mars" trilogy), and a must for fans of dryly told stories that fall on the border between adventure and fantasy. Don't expect the pretense and angst that usually comes with a Robinson novel--he gave them a miss on this one.
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