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A review by porge_grewe
The Stranger Times by C.K. McDonnell
2.0
I am a bit reticent to review this one given how subjective comedy is, and I will admit that, as someone who has greatly enjoyed several Pratchett novels, which this book is glowingly compared to at various points on front and back cover, the comedy did not hit for me.
McDonnell in this novel has taken on a more fraught proposition than Pratchett does in most of his stories in that McDonnell is setting his book in some version of the real world. This means that characters who are broad stereotypes (cantankerous old boss, disaffected youth, kind motherly receptionist, etc.) do not come with the distancing of a fantasy setting - These are supposed just to be people living in the actual world and that makes their depiction feel more directly and obviously mean-spirited.
Also reduced to stereotypes are the 'loonies' who bring stories to the eponymous newspaper - A lot of the book is devoted to Douglas Adams-style (though rarely Douglas Adams-quality) jokes poking fun at superstition and sci-fi tropes colliding with the mundane, everyday lives of the people who bring the stories - All so much tried and true formula for comedy, but the book just feels so... mean. Its tone looks down on those bringing the stories, there's a certain... off-putting, middle-aged above-it-all-ness to the comedy which means it relies largely on doing down others, unlike, for example, Discworld which, despite some mis-steps, focuses much more on caring for the people depicted.
The story is well-constructed, if a bit slow, and the world clearly been crafted with care, but this does not help much when a book which is supposed to be fun chooses at so many points not to be.
And relatedly, and what pushes this book down from three stars to two for me - I understand that in a book where everyone's pretty snide you need a way to show that your villains are truly vile, but please, in your fun, comedy book, please leave out the racial slurs? And the homophobic slurs? The slurs in general?
Content warnings for
McDonnell in this novel has taken on a more fraught proposition than Pratchett does in most of his stories in that McDonnell is setting his book in some version of the real world. This means that characters who are broad stereotypes (cantankerous old boss, disaffected youth, kind motherly receptionist, etc.) do not come with the distancing of a fantasy setting - These are supposed just to be people living in the actual world and that makes their depiction feel more directly and obviously mean-spirited.
Also reduced to stereotypes are the 'loonies' who bring stories to the eponymous newspaper - A lot of the book is devoted to Douglas Adams-style (though rarely Douglas Adams-quality) jokes poking fun at superstition and sci-fi tropes colliding with the mundane, everyday lives of the people who bring the stories - All so much tried and true formula for comedy, but the book just feels so... mean. Its tone looks down on those bringing the stories, there's a certain... off-putting, middle-aged above-it-all-ness to the comedy which means it relies largely on doing down others, unlike, for example, Discworld which, despite some mis-steps, focuses much more on caring for the people depicted.
The story is well-constructed, if a bit slow, and the world clearly been crafted with care, but this does not help much when a book which is supposed to be fun chooses at so many points not to be.
And relatedly, and what pushes this book down from three stars to two for me - I understand that in a book where everyone's pretty snide you need a way to show that your villains are truly vile, but please, in your fun, comedy book, please leave out the racial slurs? And the homophobic slurs? The slurs in general?
Content warnings for