FORMAT: HARDCOVER (REVIEWED), DIGITAL | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Nate Crowley has an incredible talent for writing things that are both funny and weird. We utterly adored his criminally under-rated list parody book 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed). His surreal yet hilarious book The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack combined both Moby Dick and zombies in a way that is impossible to forget. His new book, Notes from Small Planets, may seem deceptively mainstream, but it’s just as brilliant.
As the name suggests, this is a travel guide to fantasy lands. The premise is simple; privileged idiot Flloyd Watt has gained access to the infinite worlds of fiction and has decided to turn his trek across the multiverse into a travel journal. His exasperated editor, Eliza, provides more balanced commentary. Watt is utterly unsuited to this sort of adventure, as becomes readily apparent, and his thoughts on these worlds function as both an explorers guide and parody.
Each world is instantly recognisable to anyone who’s been exposed to pop-culture; there’s a super-hero world, space opera world, a classic fantasy world, a world in which an elite school of wizards tries to stay hidden from the mundane modern populace, an atomic wasteland etc. Flloyd is not so much an unreliable narrator but a down-right hazardous one and the result is engaging, fascinating and very, very funny. It’s one of those very quotable works where you can pull out pretty much any chapter and find something to read out aloud and giggle until you’re red in the face.
They are of course, info-graphics, maps, charts and even a guide to robot rhyming slang. Part Fear and Loathing, part Naked Gun and part Hitch Hikers Guide , this is mostly Nate Crowley’s uniquely weird (but always entertaining) style. It is frenetic and clever throughout. It’s a very well considered critique of the entire science fiction and fantasy genre in a way that will have you smiling throughout.
We strongly advise that if you’re fond of the fantasy and sci-fi genres and are in need of a good laugh that you add this to your to-be-read book shelf as soon as you can.
