Fool

I’m a big fan of Christopher Moore.  He is probably one of the few authors of whom I can say that I have read all of his books.  More impressive is that I have enjoyed them all.  Fool is no different.

It is Shakespeare’s King Lear told from the perspective of the king’s fool, twists the story a bit and tells it as a comedy.  A dark black tragic comedy, but a comedy nonetheless.  It is not Moore’s best work, Lamb still holds that distinction in my opinion, with The Stupidest Angel coming next, but Fool is a good read and worth the time.  And don’t worry if you don’t know the tale of King Lear, it won’t spoil the book for you.

The Stupidest Angel

Keeping with the Zombie Wednesday theme and considering the time of year, I thought I’d throw out an old style review (no rating) of a book I read before I started reviewing books on the site: The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.

If you have read other books by Christopher Moore, you’ll see lots of familiar faces here. In fact, I think characters from every book up to the release of this one are in it. But that’s beside the point, if you don’t know the characters you can still enjoy the book, there just may be a sentence or two that doesn’t make as much sense to you as it would to someone who has read all the books.

The story here is about an angel named Raziel. If you’ve read Lamb, you’ll know he’s the one who showed up late, by a few years, to explain to Joshua that he was the son of God and what he was supposed to do. Anyway, the angel comes to town to grant one Christmas wish. The child he picks happens to have witnessed a murder earlier, and the victim, a power hungry developer, was dressed as Santa Claus. So the child’s wish is to have Santa brought back to life. Since “Santa” was unceremoniously dumped into a grave in the graveyard, the angel goes and brings him, and because he’s not careful the other corpses, back to life. The zombies then decide to eat the entire town of Melancholy Cove.

Zombies, Christmas and comedy. You just can’t go wrong.

Anyway, the book is a delight to read and totally worth the money to pick up a copy. I only regret not reviewing it sooner, and not getting to it before Christmas so people might get one and enjoy it snuggled up in their beds on Christmas Eve. There’s always next year…

Coyote Blue

Christopher Moore is an excellent writer. I really loved Lamb and The Stupidest Angel, as well as Bloodsucking Fiends, so I’ve decided to read all his books, ending hopefully with the new one that just came out. I wanted to start with the first book, but Jodi gave it away, so instead I started with number 2, Coyote Blue.

The first thing I have to say is, the book is good, its funny, but not near as funny as his more recent books. Mr. Moore has really honed his craft. This one is about Indians, not the ones from India but the Native Americans. In this case we are dealing with one who has run off and become a white man while trying to hide from his past, at least until his past, in the form of his spirit guide, Old Man Coyote, a trickster god of the Crow people, shows up to screw up his life.

Like I said, its funny, but not so much with the laughing out loud as I was with Lamb and Angel. Still an excellent read. Now on to Island of the Sequined Love Nun…