76.20.252.117
Since: Dec, 1969
03/03/2010 00:00:00
Much of what you say is subjective, thus fine. I disagree with most of it, and really need to post my review of the book, which I loved.
But when you start trashing an author for specific "impossibilities" in a story, you should perhaps double check the specifics you're criticizing before hitting the post button.
Look up "Human Echolocation" on Wikipedia. I think you'll be surprised. Tim Byrd clearly knew what he was writing about, as over the top as it might seem.
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Too over-the-top for my tastes
(Review of the first book)
This is a book in which a man - who happens to be a brilliant scientist, fluent in many languages, have rippling muscles that Schwarzenegger would be jealous of, and has a massive laboratory, his own private jet and Cool Car, and the police happily ignoring all his traffic violations - throws his son out of a window while armed with climbing equipment and tells him to go catch an alien frog and bring it back for study. And the reason he did that? His son wanted to go. He argued with his sister that it was his turn.
It only gets more absurd from there.
Basically, this is a parody of Doc Savage, but with Tagalong Kids added. If Doc Savage was "raised from birth to be the pinnacle of human physical and mental achievement", then Doc Wilde is even more so, and is raising his kids the same way. 10-year-old Wren quotes books back and forth with one of Doc's friends, then drops everything to help her dad and brother fight off mutant frog men. The gadgets the family owns are simply insane: 12-year-old Brian looks for a missing companion and wears shoes that automatically eject "crumbs" that give off powerful ultraviolet light that can only be seen with a special visor... that Doc has, of course. The survival skills shown are outrageous. Wren gets lost in a pitch black cave, so she uses echolocation - that's right - to find her way around, making clicking noises in her throat and then determining where everything is based on them.
To put it another way - if Doc Savage can be considered over-the-top, then Doc Wilde somehow tops even that.
This is not the type of book to read if you're looking for a straight adventure with genuinely exciting suspense and threats and action. Instead, every single aspect of the pulp adventure has been ratcheted Up To Eleven. The sheer hyperbole of how smart, how skilled, how Crazy Prepared and just how -everything- the characters are is just impossible to parody. It's like trying to parody a Bad Ass by creating a Badder Ass. Eventually, how can you?
Unfortunately, the sheer ridiculousness - albeit intended for humor - of it all brings up the adage that "if anything can happen, then nothing is interesting." And sadly, that's just how I feel about this book.