Practical Demonkeeping Book

Holy crap,
this book. was. bad.

so effing bad there must be a logical explanation for it. the logical explanation is: christopher moore, you used to be a very stinky writer. i'm not sure what happened between "practical demonkeeping" and "a dirty job", but i'm guessing it was nothing short of an earth quaking, baby shaking, holy sweet mother of pearl miracle.

all the raw elements are there. the slightly deranged yet interesting menagerie of characters, the twisting, intercoursed plot lines, a couple of very, very sparse wiz-bang laugh out loud moments. fantastical happenings, interesting details... they're there, if you look hard enough, twitching and screaming under the surface of a couple horribly concoted plot line and a sense of suspense so bad it could be mistaken for the author's contstipation. the build up of this story could be likened to that ring of lime you get around the bathtub... flaky, course, and practically crawling with a thousand miniscule little problems that, once under your skin, are sure to cause itchiness, bloating, and a generally rashlike redness caused by wondering: "why the hell am i still reading this book"? and more importantly "christopher moore, if you can get this published, my journal from 6th grade MUST have a shot...".

I can't fault the guy that much. He was just starting out, and in a way it was really enouraging to read something that lacked the finesse and wit of his later novels. You could actually see the talent there, and it gave one a certain sense of satisfaction knowing that later he got his shit together and ironed out all the problems. and i can never be too mad at him for taking up my time with "practical demonkeeping", because this is the man who later gave me toaster eating demon dogs from hell.

but still. i have to wonder what wonderful things could come from this book if he rewrote it now. specifically, a climax, or perhaps a build up to the climax, or even well developed characters. ok, ok, i'm done.

(you could have just written "and they dreamed it all!" at the end, and it might have gotten about the same level reviews of say, j-lo's gigli movie.)

ok, now i'm done.