Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing From Mars (©1990)

Book One in the Outrageous New Series! The funniest thing about the book is the title, which when I think about it is outrageous! Our hero is Kent Montana an unemployed actor, who also happens to be Scottish nobility. A take off on the alien invasion movies, it plods along, and the author introduces more charactes than you can shake a tentacle at.

It's cute in it's own way, but I wouldn't say it's all that funny. Oh well, it's not completely crappy either. I've already got most of the books in the series, so I'll be reading them on the bus for the next little while. I bought them, I may as well read them.

Reviewed November 25, 2001

Kent Montana and the Reasonably Invisible Man (©1991)

Once again the funniest thing about the book is the title. Although, this one is better than the first one, and was enjoyable enough as bus reading fodder. There's a saying about comedy being hard, and it's true. It's one thing to put funny stuff in a book, it's another to say your book is funny. "You'll laugh! You'll groan! You'll cry! But remember it's only a novel ... it's only a novel ... " exclaims Craig Shaw Gardner. The reader kind of expects the book to be funny.

The plot this time out involves a disenfranchised country and western singer who upon being dropped from his record label turns himself into a mad scientist and in the process turns himself mostly invisible. A plot for revenge follows, which Kent figures into. There's a blind accordion player, an unexplained subplot involving a fat tailor and his zombie like girlfriend, and a lot of general nothingness. Why read them if they're so bad? Well, they aren't that bad, and besides if it was adapted for T.V. it would be more entertaining than a re-run of Three's Company.

Reviewed November 23, 2001

Kent Montana and the Once and Future Thing (©1991)

We again meet up with our illustrious hero, in this the third installment in the Kent Montana saga. This time it's off to Louisiana where he more or less meets a swamp thingy, and an evil plan to do evil. This one is probably the best of the lot so far, and is almost good. A couple of the puns made me smile. Not highly recommended, but it's sort of growing on me.

Reviewed December 4, 2001

668: The Neighbor of the Beast (©1992)

This one was pretty funny, and was actually worth a couple of groans. While not laugh out loud funny, it does deliver on silly over the top light humour. I’ll give it three stars, not because it’s good – it’s okay. But you must be wondering how I can keep reading book after book in a series that is just “okay” there must be something appealing about the books. Either that or I’m a blithering moron. More on (ar ar) that later … so I’m giving it three stars ‘cause I’ve enjoyed them warts and all.

Kent Montana, our everyman Scot hero, who is a sometime actor, and member of the Scottish nobility once again, finds himself on the brink of great personal fortune, or (gasp) world disaster.

The premise as best as I could figure it out.

1. Acquaintance of dies leaving his estate to Kent with a minor stipulation
2. Sleep in the house overnight and get the inheritance
3. Address of said house 668
4. A very colourful collection of exotic and dangerous neighbours – especially NEXT DOOR
5. A very bad magic book called the Boogernomicron – no that’s wrong it’s Bingomomicron
6. Some bad alien older Deity thing called Bog-Muggoth who is hungry
7. A lot of terrible flat soap opera puns and situations
8. Conflict resolution
9. Room for a sequel that never got written

I’m pretty sure that the author never assumed he was writing War and Peace – he was after a quick, fun, avenue of escape. In that context I’ve groaned and rolled my eyes in all the right places.

Reviewed July 10, 2003