Lunatics: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A very entertaining romantic fantasy. 4.6 stars
Review: _____________________________________________

Each month, when the moon is full, Jack strips naked and waits
outside for Lily. If he doesn't, she has trouble finding him on her flight
down from the Moon. The Austin police are not pleased. . . but , as
one of his friends observes, Jack's a few bubbles off level. His friends,
thirty-something engineers and academics, are pretty kinky too.
There's Halle, a software engineer, "as straightforward a woman as I've
ever been shat on by," says a former boyfriend. Halle keeps a chart of
who's slept with whom - blue lines are long-term relationships, red
lines are "short affairs, brief mistakes, and one-night stands." Even
numbers are women,

"....and men, of course, are odd." . . . Carolyn
pointed to number 100, which had so many red and blue lines
converging on it that it was surrounded by a solid purple ring. "My
God," she said, "who's the slut?"

Halle made a throat-clearing noise. "Actually," she said, "that's me."

* * *

This month, Lilith the Moon Goddess has gotten confused by the
Austin city lights, and makes a hard landing on Guadalupe St --

Halle ran into the street after her and was nearly run over by a silver
Lexus whose driver leaned out his window and called her a stupid
c*nt. She ignored him and ran on to where Lily sat on the
steps, looking dazed . . . "Why did he say c*nt as if it were a bad
thing?" she asked. She sounded shaken.

"Because he meant it as a bad thing," Halle said . . . "We should get
out of here. I'll help you up."

But Lily was still looking at the Lexus. She scowled, and it gave Halle a
chill. "Nobody should say c*nt as if it were a bad thing," Lily said.

She wiggled her finger at the Lexus as the light turned green, and when
the car began to accelerate, both of its rear tires exploded. The Lexus
groaned to a halt in the middle of Eighth Street, and then the front tires
exploded as well.

Halle stared as a flatbed truck came roaring along Eighth Street. ran the
red light, and hit the right rear fender of the Lexus . . . The driver of
the Lexus emerged just as one of Lily's loose feathers wafted onto the
windshield. When the feather touched the glass, the car's alarm began
whooping. The driver stood there gaping at his wrecked automobile
as if it were a beached whale.

"I've given him scrotum boils, too," Lily said.

* * *
I had occasional suspension-of-disbelief problems - Jack, in particular,
gets a little too loopy at times, and Lily can get pretty weird - but I'm not
a regular fantasy reader, and this is a minor quibble. The ending?
Well, see what you think . . . "soon to be a major motion picture"?

This is Denton's fourth novel; I've previously read, and enjoyed,
"Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede" (a Campbell award-
winner) - similarly quirky, similar amusing Tejano background,
similar problems. I expect urban-fantasy fans would like both books a lot.

Serious Denton fans will want to check out his interview in the Jan 97
Locus - where you'll learn (surprise!) that he is a thirty-something who
lives in Austin, plays in a rock 'n roll band, & hangs with science-
eng'g-academic folks. His BA is in astronomy & English. When he
mentioned this to his wife-to-be, she said, "Oh. What are you going to
do with that - write science fiction?" "YES."

Actually, I'd like to see Denton combine his technical background and
his wonderfully quirky characters in a REAL sf book . .

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