Line #61 Literature/GoMutants


1	[[quoteright:316:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Go_Mutants_659.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:316:"No one ''understands'' me!"]]
3
4	->''It came to Earth... and now its spawn goes to high school!''
5
6	''Go, Mutants!'' is the second novel from Larry Doyle, author of the critically acclaimed ''I Love You, Beth Cooper''. It's a [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] story set in {{the Seventies}} of an AlternateUniverse, where the creatures of [[BMovie 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.
7
8	Apparently, it's being optioned for film. The author says he's writing the screenplay for Creator/RonHoward, but he's likely joking about that.
9	----
10	!!Contains examples of the following tropes:
11
12	* AffectionateParody: Of cheesy [[TheFifties 1950's]] [[BMovie B-movies.]]
13	* AIIsACrapshoot: Inverted, ENIAC becomes sentient, but decides not to tell anybody. When it does try to warn humanity of disaster, it gets shut off.
14	* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Andi Ra' learned English by watching the Creator/{{BBC}}. As a result, his way of speaking is very British, accent and all.
15	* AliensStealCattle: [[spoiler: The backup plan of the GovernmentConspiracy to whip up anger against the aliens, monsters, mutants, and robots.]]
16	* AlienSpaceBats: The main divergence point from RealLife is Andi Ra coming to Earth in the 1950s.
17	* AllGhoulsSchool: About 10 percent of the students of Manhattan High are the children of monsters or aliens.
18	* AlternateHistory: The entire story is set in an AlternateUniverse where in addition to B movie monsters running wild, many things are very different including...
19	** Nixon beat Kennedy in the famous presidential campaign, though he was later assassinated by none other than ''John Glenn''.
20	** 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 [[IntelligentGerbil space]] [[CuteMonsterGirl cow]].
21	** UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan 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.
22	** UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein, while still a Nobel Prize winning scientist, is ridiculed as a crank and a traitor for having befriended J!m's father.
23	** Music/ElvisPresley and his older twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, survived to the present day, and continue to sing as a duet.
24	** [[Creator/StanLee Stanley Lieber]] never went into writing comics, and is instead a philosopher-poet.
25	* AmbiguouslyGay: Tubesteak. He seems to have a total thing for Russ and takes way too much pleasure in pantsing J!m.
26	* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Apparently a lot of girls thought that J!m was very well endowed. [[spoiler: 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.]]
27	* BizarreAlienBiology: J!m, ever so much.
28	* BizarreAlienReproduction: J!m's species apparently can mate (after all, where do you think he came from?) despite their lack of external genitalia.
29	* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:Ends with aliens invading Earth]].
30	* BreadEggsMilkSquick: 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...
31	--> The robognomes let her pass, for it was not time for her to become her Courtesan Queen.
32	* TheCameo:
33	** The book features plenty of famous [[BMovie B-movie]] monsters -- from Franchise/{{Godzilla}} and King Ghidorah to [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 Gort]]. There's also Film/{{Them}}, Film/TheBlob1958, Film/{{the Thing\|1982}}, and the Fifty Foot Woman, who left her husband to date Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
34	** This also applies to the main characters, who are basically the kids of said [[Film/AttackOfThe50FootWoman Fifty Foot Woman]], Film/TheSonOfKong, and the son of [[Film/TheBlob1958 The Blob]], among some humans and other alien species.
35	* CatGirl: J!m's mother, Miw.
36	* ChekhovsGun: Quite a few of them, but most notably [[spoiler: J!m's severed hand, who ends up saving Marie from Russ.]]
37	* DistinctionWithoutADifference: On the government's possible abuse of the PLEX system:
38	--> The government was not in the business of keeping files on all its citizens; it was more of a hobby, really.
39	* ElvisLives: A variation; in the book, both Music/ElvisPresley and his stillborn twin brother, Jesse, survived and became a famous singing duo.
40	* EverybodyLives: [[spoiler: 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.]]
41	* {{Expy}}:
42	** J!m may remind one a bit of [[Franchise/{{Superman}} another alien living on our world]], and his species bears a strange resemblance to the main character in the movie WesternAnimation/MegaMind.
43	** Andi Ra' bears quite a resemblance to [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 Klaatu]].
44	* ExpyCoexistence: Andi Ra' coming to Earth to warn humanity is based on Klaatu from ''[[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 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.
45	* FantasticRacism: 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.
46	* FlashSideways: J!m can see into alternate timelines.
47	* FriendToAllLivingThings: 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.
48	* FunWithAcronyms: The Alien Security Service. Think about it.
49	* GenderEqualsBreed: Seems to be the case with Venusian Succubix. The only case we see has a human son and Succubix daughter.
50	* GirlNextdoor: Marie and to some extent Rusty.
51	* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: 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.]]
52	* HalfHumanHybrid: [[spoiler: Rusty and Russ, half human, half Venusian Succubix.]]
53	%%* HelpingHands
54	* HeterosexualLifePartners: J!m and Johnny. Russ and Tubesteak.
55	* HistoricalInJoke: The House Un-American Activities Committee was really formed to root out aliens in Hollywood.
56	* IComeInPeace: [[spoiler:What J!m's father, Andi Ra', came to Earth to do... [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill 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.]]
57	* {{Kaiju}}: Godzilla, King Kong and other kaiju make their epic cameos.
58	* IntelligentGerbil: Miw's species, which are intelligent cats, Cowgirls from Alpha Tauri, and an intelligent chicken
59	* MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter: Marie to Dr. Rand.
60	* MyBrainIsBig: 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.
61	* MySensorsIndicateYouWantToTapThat: The PLEX can determine if someone is menstruating or not.
62	* NarratorAllAlong: [[spoiler:It turns out J!m's father, Andi Ra', is narrating the entire book.]]
63	* NighInvulnerability: [[spoiler: J!m, after his metamorphosis. He is now ImmuneToBullets, and can take plasma bolts without flinching.]]
64	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
65	** J!m Anderson, on the cover, looks suspiciously like an alien Creator/JamesDean.
66	** Read Deputy Furry's dialogue and try not to think of UsefulNotes/SarahPalin.
67	* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: J!m, half Leonian, half Regulan.
68	* NotSoHarmlessVillain: [[spoiler: General Walter Ford, who seems to be Rusty and Russ' harmless old xenophobic grandfather at first, turns out to be the BigBad and organizer of the GovernmentConspiracy.]]
69	* OneOfTheBoys: Rusty seems to only have male friends, but it seems like she also wants to date all of them.
70	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Essentially, they are created when a Regulan [[spoiler: screws up in reanimating the recently dead.]]
71	* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: It hasn't died out completely but religion got a lot less popular after people found out that aliens exist.
72	* ParentalIncest: Russ comes into the She bar to make love to a hot Venusian Succubix. [[spoiler: Turns out it's his ''mother''. And after her initial shock, she's ''willing to go through with it.'']]
73	* PowerPerversionPotential: 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 [[BreastExpansion breasts grow and everything else stay the same]].
74	* PurpleProse: The book suffers quite a bit from this at the beginning, but clears up admirably after the first three or four chapters.
75	* QuoteMining: [[spoiler:"[Nobody's saying] YOU MUST GET RID OF YOUR NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR BE DESTROYED!"]]
76	* RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman: Due to Creator/JamesDean being drafted into a war with martian ants, his movie career never took off apart from a few [[BMovie B Movies]] when he was older.
77	* ShockAndAwe: [[spoiler:Another of J!m's post-metamorphosis powers. Combine that with his NighInvulnerability and his ability to access the [[strike: Internet]] PLEX and gain its power, and J!m basically becomes a PhysicalGod.]]
78	* RaygunGothic: Affectionately parodied.
79	* ShoutOut: Tons, mostly to literature and culture of the time.
80	** It is mentioned that [[Literature/Fahrenheit451 paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit]].
81	* SuccubiAndIncubi: The entire Venusian Succubix race, including [[spoiler: Rusty and Russ. The former revels in her Succubix heritage, the latter is more than a little disturbed by it.]]
82	%%* TheyWalkAmongUs
83	* ThisIsAWorkOfFiction:
84	-->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.
85	* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Sandra Jane's parents are essentially the incredible shrinking man and the fifty-foot woman.
86	* ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: In this world ''Film/Godzilla1954'' being a documentary and ''Film/KingKong1933'' being based on a true story.
87	* {{Understatement}}: Having learned [[AliensSpeakingEnglish English]] from watching the BBC, Andi Ra' has also gained a very British sense of humor.
88	--> [[spoiler:Andi Ra': "IComeInPeace. ({{beat}}) A bit awkward. Is this a bad time?"]]
89	* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: [[spoiler: 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.]]

Context Literature / GoMutants