Rating: 
Summary: You can run but you can't hide
Review:
Moore does an excellent job of blending the legend of Coyote, Crow history and folklore, and reservation life into this funny and lighthearted tale about Sam Hunter, who runs away from his Indian heritage and invents a new life for himself until Coyote, the Indian God trickster shows up to wreak havoc on his life, putting into action a series of events that cause Sam to face his past.The story moves fast and I enjoyed the writing style. I read The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, and this book is MUCH better. Well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast and Fantastic
Review: A friend lent me this book, insisting that I would love it. He was right. From the spurious pronunciation guide at the beginning to the chapter titles ("Chapter 15 - Like God's Own Chocolate, I'd Lick Her Shadows Off a Hot Sidewalk"), every word of it felt exactly right. I paused for a moment, once, to admire a particularly effective bit of alliteration, but I was having too much fun just reading to stop and mull things over for very long. Seeing religious themes expressed with such irony, obscenity, and outright humor shocks you into paying attention. Coyote Blue hit me in just the right place at just the right time, and I enjoyed it more than I've enjoyed my first reading of just about any other book.
Rating:
Summary: Something Moore to howl about.
Review: After leaving his Crow reservation in Montana at age fifteen, Samson Hunts Alone changed his name to become Sam Hunter, a "hardworking, intelligent, and even likable" (p. 15) Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a townhouse, and a "steady, level, and safe" life (p.16). Although his yuppie lifestyle seems perfect on the surface, Sam suffers from "Coyote Blue," the constant fear that something might go wrong to upset his "world of one" (p. 117). After meeting Calliope Kincaid, a free-spirited woman with the power to inspire men "to art and madness" (p. 64), and a mysterious, shape-shifting Indian (none other than Old Man Coyote) shortly after his thirty-fifth birthday, Sam nearly loses everything--his Mercedes, his money, his career, and his condo, only to discover himself in the chaos of his new life. Filled with unforgetable scenes such as a coyote humping a leather sofa "like a furry jackhammer" (p. 50), Moore's second novel, COYOTE BLUE, is a quirky, entertaining novel, that will leave you howling with laughter. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Clive Barker meets Kurt Vonnegut
Review: After reading all of Vonnegut's books, and all of Barker's books I was fortunate enough to discover Christopher Moore. While "Lamb" (which I highly recommend) was much more a work of satire, "Coyote Blue" is a comic adventure of absurd fantasy. The book does have some glaring continuity omissions (notably, how one could live under an alias for 20 years and still have a nice car, credit cards and a townhouse is not explained). It's probably best just to ignore this and enjoy the book. Coyote Blue certainly has some laugh out loud moments, and is peppered with clever puns, some I missed then caught it while I was on the next page. Very exciting, if totally absurd, plot development. I like this guy's writing and I'm sure I'll read all his current published offerings soon enough. I'm working on it...
Rating:
Summary: mostly fun
Review: Amazon.com has been recommending Coyote Blue to me for some time now, presumably due to my generally high ratings for Tom Robbins. This book is sort of a Robbins-Lite. We've got an enjoyable puree of natural and supernatural, without Robbins' mastery of the metaphor. Now, Moore's writing is clever and funny, but Robbins' makes me smile at least once per page. In Coyote Blue we get a man facing up to his past (at the insistence of an ancient Native American god) and falling in real love for the first time. The best bits were the Native American myths told from a 20th Century point of view. The worst bits came at the end of the book. I won't give it away, but I will say that it's too much deus ex machina, even for a book about gods. Everything up to that point had made sense in its own way, but this was too much. I will read more Moore, but I won't expect brilliance - just fun.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Blending modern and ancient forklore in the Blender of Comedy, C. Moore has scored another hit against the modern world's belief in it's on sanity. Outrageously funny satire in the style of Douglas Adams and backhanded social commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Howling For Moore
Review: Christopher Moore has a knack for combining humor, horror and heart in varying but always synergistic proportions. In this, what I consider his best book, the humor and heart tend to dominate. You'll learn about modern Native American life, get a peek into the secrets of the insurance industry, and remember what it was like to fall in love for the first time. Sam Hunter, an insurance salesman running away from a horrible but justified crime he committed in his youth, is chased down by Coyote, a common Native American folklore figure. He seems to ruin Sam's life, but the plot twists and turns several times before the big finish. Moore takes a few swipes at bikers, druggies, and Southern California in general before it's all over. You'll laugh out loud, alright, but you may wipe a few tears away too.
Rating:
Summary: Coyote Blue will leave you "howling" for more Moore!
Review: Christopher Moore's novels have an underlying theme to them. They are vehicles that poke fun at various "legends" of the paranormal-vampires (Bloodsucking Fiends), Godzilla (Lust Lizzard) and so on-while concomitantly poking fun at the "California Lifestyle" of type-a personalities espousing New Age psychobabble. In Coyote Blue the legendary figure being skewered is Trickster, an ancient Native American god know generally for bollixing up the works in whatever situation he inserts himself. The "works" targeted by Trickster here is the life of Sam Hunter, the Southern California makeover of the former reservation baby known as Samson Hunts Alone of the Crow reservation in Montana. The plot involves Sam's involvement/Tricksters interference with Calliope, a classic, comic version of the hippie child of hippie syndrome so common in LA, the setting for this farcical tale. The book continues in the vein of Moore's works in general--looping, fantastic flights of fancy, complex yet entertaining plots, and frequent wise guy humor that leaves the reader laughing out loud. This book differs from his other efforts only in that the story line is more controlled and more thoroughly constructed than is usual. It gives the book the feel of an actual, complete novel in the traditional sense. However, one does not read Moore to experience novelistic integrity-one reads Moore to laugh one's head off. This novel, like all his others, scores a bull's-eye on that score. If what you are looking for is a lot of laughs and a rollicking good time, Moore is your guy and this book will satisfy those cravings in droves.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone Needs a Good Bad Example
Review: Coyote Blue is laugh-out-loud hilarious. As Moore warns in the pronunciation guide, don't try reading this in public. With each book of Moore's, I become more amazed at his ability to be obscenely funny and satirical, yet somehow respectful to the deepest truths underlying the story. The characters in this book are a little thinner than usual, but that may be due to so many of the characters being attributes in human form. The minor characters like Adeline Eats were very well portrayed. The storyline seemed a little jumpier to me than usual also, with major shifts in time and place, but that may be because I was reading so fast, since Moore's books always pull you along like a crazy amusement park ride.
Rating:
Summary: A truly funny book, and a bit more
Review: Coyote Blue is the first novel of Christopher Moore's I have read, and it is easy to see why he is so popular. The whole book is a crazy, zany, wild ride for the reader and main character alike, and ultimately reaches a higher quality that transcends the goofiness. Moore presents a completely hilarious character, the Crow god Coyote. Coyote and a number of Crow legends (I have no idea how historically accurate they might be) are always invoked in significant ways in the story, however, and force thoughtfulness and serious consideration on the reader. In other words, I was laughing as much as I ever have with a book, while at the same time mulling over some serious issues about life in general. Coyote Blue is a wonderful book!
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