A super-silly, whirling first episode that will leave gay superhero fans scratching their heads–and eager for the next...
A sexually insatiable gay male hairdresser doubles as a crime-fighting superhero in this pseudo-graphic, Hawaii-based spoof.
Flipping the handcuffs off the bed from his latest dalliance, former decorated Navy Seal and champion defender of everything Jayms “I talk like Oscar Wilde and kick ass like James Bond” Blonde (6 feet 4 inches, 235 pounds, 2 percent body fat) receives an assignment from Mama, his superior at the clandestine environmental protection agency S.T.O.P. (Stop Terrorizing Our Planet) located beneath the Jayms Blonde International Salon. Three secret agents have been killed in half a day’s time, and Mama wants answers. Together with his trusty 20-year-old sidekick/pedicurist Precious Needmoore and gadget guru Harry Hardware, Blonde battles arch nemesis ZENRON, the subterranean “international cartel of oil and energy” largely responsible for the Earth’s atmospheric deterioration, and ZENRON’s beautiful and deadly owner Zaroya. Armed with an arsenal of beauty products that double as weapons, Blonde and his cohorts are in near-constant turmoil trying to outsmart the menacing Zaroya and her lesbian sidekick Vichyssoise, who are both determined to kill Blonde at any cost. Hit-and-runs in Hong Kong, mauling tigers, killer ninjas and a kidnapping attempt aren’t nearly enough to knock this gay superhero out of action. There’s even time to foil Zaroya’s airborne-virus conspiracy. While not quite a graphic novel, it comes close with generous illustrations throughout, enhancing the action and providing a sleek visual aide to Blonde’s heavily embellished heroics. At the end of the day, the protagonist is happy to just lie back, spout all the sexual innuendo he can muster and relax until the next dastardly villain crosses his rose-colored path. Cabell makes the over-the-top zaniness and mock action-hero antics fun, and everything congeals into a wildly enjoyable ride for readers who enjoy the adventures of a muscle-bound, crime-fighting queen in tights.
A super-silly, whirling first episode that will leave gay superhero fans scratching their heads–and eager for the next installment.Pub Date: July 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-42474-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bold but flawed debut novel.
There’s a mystery, a coming-of-age, abundant melodrama and even more abundant medical lore in this idiosyncratic first novel from a doctor best known for the memoir My Own Country (1994).
The nun is struggling to give birth in the hospital. The surgeon (is he also the father?) dithers. The late-arriving OB-GYN takes charge, losing the mother but saving her babies, identical twins. We are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1954. The Indian nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, was a trained nurse who had met the British surgeon Thomas Stone on a sea voyage ministering to passengers dying of typhus. She then served as his assistant for seven years. The emotionally repressed Stone never declared his love for her; had they really done the deed? After the delivery, Stone rejects the babies and leaves Ethiopia. This is good news for Hema (Dr. Hemalatha, the Indian gynecologist), who becomes their surrogate mother and names them Shiva and Marion. When Shiva stops breathing, Dr. Ghosh (another Indian) diagnoses his apnea; again, a medical emergency throws two characters together. Ghosh and Hema marry and make a happy family of four. Marion eventually emerges as narrator. “Where but in medicine,” he asks, “might our conjoined, matricidal, patrifugal, twisted fate be explained?” The question is key, revealing Verghese’s intent: a family saga in the context of medicine. The ambition is laudable, but too often accounts of operations—a bowel obstruction here, a vasectomy there—overwhelm the narrative. Characterization suffers. The boys’ Ethiopian identity goes unexplored. Shiva is an enigma, though it’s no surprise he’ll have a medical career, like his brother, though far less orthodox. They become estranged over a girl, and eventually Marion leaves for America and an internship in the Bronx (the final, most suspenseful section). Once again a medical emergency defines the characters, though they are not large enough to fill the positively operatic roles Verghese has ordained for them.
A bold but flawed debut novel.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-41449-7
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity.
Hailed as heroes on a stateside tour before returning to Iraq, Bravo Squad discovers just what it has been fighting for.
Though the shellshocked humor will likely conjure comparisons with Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five, the debut novel by Fountain (following his story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, 2006) focuses even more on the cross-promotional media monster that America has become than it does on the absurdities of war. The entire novel takes place over a single Thanksgiving Day, when the eight soldiers (with their memories of the two who didn’t make it) find themselves at the promotional center of an all-American extravaganza, a nationally televised Dallas Cowboys football game. Providing the novel with its moral compass is protagonist Billy Lynn, a 19-year-old virgin from small-town Texas who has been inflated into some kind of cross between John Wayne and Audie Murphy for his role in a rescue mission documented by an embedded Fox News camera. In two days, the Pentagon-sponsored “Victory Tour” will end and Bravo will return to the business as usual of war. In the meantime, they are dealing with a producer trying to negotiate a film deal (“Think Rocky meets Platoon,” though Hilary Swank is rumored to be attached), glad-handing with the corporate elite of Cowboy fandom (and ownership), and suffering collateral damage during a halftime spectacle with Beyoncé. Over the course of this long, alcohol-fueled day, Billy finds himself torn, as he falls in love (and lust) with a devout Christian cheerleader and listens to his sister try to persuade him that he has done his duty and should refuse to go back. As “Americans fight the war daily in their strenuous inner lives,” Billy and his foxhole brethren discover treachery and betrayal beyond anything they’ve experienced on the battlefield.
War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-088559-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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