Literature / Go, Mutants!

"No one understands me!"

It came to Earth... and now its spawn goes to high school!

Go, Mutants! is the second novel from Larry Doyle, author of the critically acclaimed I Love You, Beth Cooper. It's a science-fiction story set in The '70s of an Alternate Universe, where the creatures of B-movie legend walk the streets along with ordinary humans. The story centers on J!m Anderson—teenage son of the late Andi Ra, an evil alien that once tried to conquer the human race—as he struggles through high school and life in an alien-unfriendly society. Rounding out the cast of creatures are J!m's friends, a radioactive biker ape named Johnny Love, a gelatinous blob posing as a fat kid named Jelly, and Marie Rand, an Ordinary High-School Student—and the love of J!m's life.

Apparently, it's being optioned for film. The author says he's writing the screenplay for Ron Howard, but he's likely joking about that.

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Contains examples of the following tropes:

• Affectionate Parody: Of cheesy 1950's B-movies.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Inverted, ENIAC becomes sentient, but decides not to tell anybody. When it does try to warn humanity of disaster, it gets shut off.
• Aliens Speaking English: Andi Ra' learned English by watching the BBC. As a result, his way of speaking is very British, accent and all.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: The backup plan of the Government Conspiracy to whip up anger against the aliens, monsters, mutants, and robots.
• Alien Space Bats: The main divergence point from Real Life is Andi Ra coming to Earth in the 1950s.
• All-Ghouls School: About 10 percent of the students of Manhattan High are the children of monsters or aliens.
• Alternate History: The entire story is set in an Alternate Universe where in addition to B movie monsters running wild, many things are very different including...
  • Nixon beat Kennedy in the famous presidential campaign, though he was later assassinated by none other than John Glenn.
  • Kennedy, on the other hand, became fat, renounced Catholicism and later decided to attempt another run for the presidency, emphatically denying he had any carnal relationship with his running mate Norma Baker, who is a space cow.
  • Ronald Reagan is also in the presidential race, though his chances have been hurt severely upon the public discovery that his wife Nancy is really Si-Tchun of the Fulong, a race dedicated to the eradication of men.
  • Albert Einstein, while still a Nobel Prize winning scientist, is ridiculed as a crank and a traitor for having befriended J!m's father.
  • Elvis Presley and his older twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, survived to the present day, and continue to sing as a duet.
  • Stanley Lieber never went into writing comics, and is instead a philosopher-poet.
• Ambiguously Gay: Tubesteak. He seems to have a total thing for Russ and takes way too much pleasure in pantsing J!m.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Apparently a lot of girls thought that J!m was very well endowed. Until they all find out that it was just a tail he was hiding in his jeans and he actually doesn't have a dick at all.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: J!m, ever so much.
• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: J!m's species apparently can mate (after all, where do you think he came from?) despite their lack of external genitalia.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Ends with aliens invading Earth.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The series gets a lot of its humor from describing in-universe mundane circumstances that would be very odd to us. For example after a description of Marie's lawn, including her lawn gnomes...
  The robognomes let her pass, for it was not time for her to become her Courtesan Queen.
• The Cameo:
  • The book features plenty of famous B-movie monsters — from Godzilla and King Ghidorah to Gort. There's also Them!, The Blob (1958), the Thing, and the Fifty Foot Woman, who left her husband to date Godzilla.
  • This also applies to the main characters, who are basically the kids of said Fifty Foot Woman, The Son of Kong, and the son of The Blob, among some humans and other alien species.
• Cat Girl: J!m's mother, Miw.
• Chekhov's Gun: Quite a few of them, but most notably J!m's severed hand, who ends up saving Marie from Russ.
• Distinction Without a Difference: On the government's possible abuse of the PLEX system:
  The government was not in the business of keeping files on all its citizens; it was more of a hobby, really.
• Elvis Lives: A variation; in the book, both Elvis Presley and his stillborn twin brother, Jesse, survived and became a famous singing duo.
• Everybody Lives: This novel has a surprisingly low body count. Except for a couple of Mooks, no one dies throughout the novel. In fact several characters thought dead actually turn out to be alive, leaving the body count at the end less than what it started with.
• Expy:
  • J!m may remind one a bit of another alien living on our world, and his species bears a strange resemblance to the main character in the movie Mega Mind.
  • Andi Ra' bears quite a resemblance to Klaatu.
• Expy Coexistence: Andi Ra' coming to Earth to warn humanity is based on Klaatu from The Day The Earth Stood Still though Klaatu is mentioned as a separate character and his robot master Gort makes a cameo cutting some grass.
• Fantastic Racism: Due to interactions with aliens, mutants, monsters, and robots in the past, humankind has become quite xenophobic in this timeline. Despite it being in the seventies, there doesn't seem to be any Civil Rights issues present. Perhaps white and black really did team up on green in this timeline.
• Flash Sideways: J!m can see into alternate timelines.
• Friend to All Living Things: Marie sort of fits this trope, as she is pretty much the only human to be nice to everyone, wether they are alien, mutant, robot, or even Russ.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Alien Security Service. Think about it.
• Gender Equals Breed: Seems to be the case with Venusian Succubix. The only case we see has a human son and Succubix daughter.
• Girl Nextdoor: Marie and to some extent Rusty.
• Government Conspiracy: It turns out the president is a madman locked up in an underground base, J!m's father is still alive, and Rusty's grandfather General Ford is running the conspiracy to cover up what really happened when aliens landed and keep humanity xenophobic.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Rusty and Russ, half human, half Venusian Succubix.

• Heterosexual Life-Partners: J!m and Johnny. Russ and Tubesteak.
• Historical In-Joke: The House Un-American Activities Committee was really formed to root out aliens in Hollywood.
• I Come in Peace: What J!m's father, Andi Ra', came to Earth to do... only for his efforts to go horribly wrong. Surprisingly though it wasn't caused by the human populace in general, but rather a Government conspiracy. Later we learn that the first alien to land on Earth was considered a Communist for his pacifist ways and tortured to death.
• Kaiju: Godzilla, King Kong and other kaiju make their epic cameos.
• Intelligent Gerbil: Miw's species, which are intelligent cats, Cowgirls from Alpha Tauri, and an intelligent chicken
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Marie to Dr. Rand.
• My Brain Is Big: As shown in the book cover above, J!m has a rather enlarged brain for a head, and it's later revealed this applies to his entire species.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: The PLEX can determine if someone is menstruating or not.
• Narrator All Along: It turns out J!m's father, Andi Ra', is narrating the entire book.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: J!m, after his metamorphosis. He is now Immune to Bullets, and can take plasma bolts without flinching.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • J!m Anderson, on the cover, looks suspiciously like an alien James Dean.
  • Read Deputy Furry's dialogue and try not to think of Sarah Palin.
• Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: J!m, half Leonian, half Regulan.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: General Walter Ford, who seems to be Rusty and Russ' harmless old xenophobic grandfather at first, turns out to be the Big Bad and organizer of the Government Conspiracy.
• One of the Boys: Rusty seems to only have male friends, but it seems like she also wants to date all of them.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Essentially, they are created when a Regulan screws up in reanimating the recently dead.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: It hasn't died out completely but religion got a lot less popular after people found out that aliens exist.
• Parental Incest: Russ comes into the She bar to make love to a hot Venusian Succubix. Turns out it's his mother. And after her initial shock, she's willing to go through with it.
• Power Perversion Potential: Almost immediately after learning that what she thought was a birth control was actually a suppression pill, and learning the dire effects if she ever goes off it, Sandra Jane immediately wants to try experimenting with the dosage to see if she can make her breasts grow and everything else stay the same.
• Purple Prose: The book suffers quite a bit from this at the beginning, but clears up admirably after the first three or four chapters.
• Quote Mining: "[Nobody's saying] YOU MUST GET RID OF YOUR NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR BE DESTROYED!"
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Due to James Dean being drafted into a war with martian ants, his movie career never took off apart from a few B Movies when he was older.
• Shock and Awe: Another of J!m's post-metamorphosis powers. Combine that with his Nigh-Invulnerability and his ability to access the Internet PLEX and gain its power, and J!m basically becomes a Physical God.
• Raygun Gothic: Affectionately parodied.
• Shout-Out: Tons, mostly to literature and culture of the time.
  • It is mentioned that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Succubi and Incubi: The entire Venusian Succubix race, including Rusty and Russ. The former revels in her Succubix heritage, the latter is more than a little disturbed by it.

• This Is a Work of Fiction:
  This book is a work of fiction. The public figures, historical events, and popular entertainments referred to in the text are from a different universe, one with no libel or copyright laws.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Sandra Jane's parents are essentially the incredible shrinking man and the fifty-foot woman.
• A True Story in My Universe: In this world Godzilla (1954) being a documentary and King Kong (1933) being based on a true story.
• Understatement: Having learned English from watching the BBC, Andi Ra' has also gained a very British sense of humor.
  Andi Ra': "I Come in Peace. (Beat) A bit awkward. Is this a bad time?"
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: Andi Ra', J!m's father, came to Earth in genuine peace, only to be met with hostility from the humans. Surprisingly though, it wasn't caused by the human populace in general, but rather members of a Government conspiracy. Later we learn that Andi Ra''s predecessor was the first alien to land on eart, but was considered a Communist for his pacifist ways and tortured to death.

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