TTHe book was just good pulpy fun. If you go in expecting more than that you will be disappointed. If you want some laughs and a squishy bad/good guy,read on. ( )

Starts out charming, but after about 2/3rds in, it just doesn't really go anywhere, and the shtick goes from fun to silly and a little tiresome. The Audible version features an amazing narrator, however, who manages to come up with a different voice for every major character and most minor ones, seamlessly and consistently. ( )

The plot is pulp sci-fi at its finest, cliché after cliché, but padded out with enough dry humor to make the whole thing not just palatable, but actually enjoyable.

Let me be clear, though: there is no way I would have enjoyed this book quite so much if it wasn't an audiobook.

A lot of books translate perfectly acceptably when read aloud, neither gaining or losing from the conversion. Some become utterly destroyed, like trying Virginia Woolf in spoken form (I don't know what I was thinking, really. What works magnificently as a voice inside your head fails utterly outside it).

This book is all about Emperor Mollusk's voice, and so it should be little surprise that it was the narration of that voice which won me over. If it weren't for the main character's over-the-top delivery, the pure B-Movie joy infused into otherwise dead conversations, I don't think I'd have managed to make it through this. ( )

This was FUN! ( )

Totally satisfying. :)

I was just saying to myself... I need something hilariously funny SF filled with an extra-heaping dose of a tentacled-monster-crazy-mad-scientist-genius in a tricked-out exo-suit. Hell, I needed a huge dose of quick-fire funny SF tropes skewering all the old Flash Gordon and 30's adventures, and I needed it all from the PoV of the mastermind villain. :)

I didn't even know that I needed this so much. But I did. And it filled my soul right after it removed my brain and added a few modifications to it before returning it safely in my meat-suit.

I mean, what else can you expect? Ennui after successfully conquering earth?

Screw that. Earth is too much trouble. I mean, sure, I've grown a bit fond of them after the years and my younger clone wants a shot at them, but no, they're MINE. :)

And that's just how it starts. :) What we actually get is a rip-roaring adventure of Emperor Mollusk of Earth finding him in the unenviable position of having to become a *gasp* hero and save the terrans from The Sinister Brain. (That happened to come from the future knowing everything that the Emperor would do and spoiling his every move.)

Ennui? Hell, no time for that! No one is smarter than the Emperor Mollusk!

But don't worry if you would prefer not to stay on earth. Every planet has their race of Alien Monstrosities and death rays and galactic empires, and can't they Just Stay Out of his problems? No, no, of course not. Enemies become friends, and smart adventure abounds. :)

Totally popcorn. Totally delightful. I read this with a grin plastered across my face the entire time. :)

*jiggledance*

I think, perhaps, that A. Lee Martinez might be one of the smartest, most delightful B-Movie humorists out there. Just a pure entertainer. :) ( )