THE SWORD OF SAMURAI CAT

Fourth in a series that has already achieved a certain notoriety. Our nero is a supercharged mutated sword-wielding orange feline Miaowara Tomokata-and if you find that amusing, the rest should have you rolling in the aisles. Rogers's approach is to fix up various well-known science- fiction/fantasy plots with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle doings carried to the nth degree, add a sprinkle of knowing references to sf/f yarns, movies, TV in general, and what-all, and round off with a certain amount of character-author interaction (``Considering what a dangerous situation we're in, is there any point in reminding [the author] that he's a hack?''). The upshot is mostly indescribable, but one episode involves the ``plot'' of Red Dawn and features the invading Russians as rotting vampire ghouls chanting Stalinist slogans; the whole thing is being dreamed by Tomokata's nephew/sidekick Shiro...who is being dreamed by an alien whatzit... Irresistibly hilarious or depressingly imbecilic, depending on the viewpoint of the beholder.