Had really high hopes for this based on the first chapter, but it didn't quite live up to itself. The writer for sure has potential - lots of lines were hilarious and some were quite meaningful - but mostly the quips just felt like distractions from the plot and the themes of the novel.

90% of the book is spent preparing for a challenge our protagonist knows next to nothing about, and I was disappointed that that didn't seem to be the point. The story had spent so long hinting at Cryptofauna being something esoteric and nebulous and something written into the very core of our existence, so the climax being a fistfight with an eco terrorist was a real let down. Not helped by the Dickensian wrap-up chapter afterwards.

Also, while the humour started as biting, it just became boringly offensive before too long. There's so many immortal characters we meet, but they only seem to exist for the author to make incredibly dated jokes without criticism. It's not in service to anything else in the story, so it's just pointless. Plus the French is Google Translate level.