Saturday, October 8, 2011

3. "Monster" by A. Lee Martinez

In A. Lee Martinez' Monster, Monster Dionysus works as an animal control agent, sort of--he handles cryptobiological nuisances, and he prefers the night shift. When he's finished, he goes home to his girlfriend Liz, a succubus who leaves a sulfur smell on his clothes and scorches things around the house when she gets upset. Every time he wakes up, his skin is a different color, courtesy of a basilisk bite that also left him immune to cryptobiological venom.

One night, Monster encounters Judy, a supermarket clerk facing an influx of yeti. Not long after, he encounters Judy again, this time because trolls seem to be proliferating in her closet. Monster doesn't like Judy, and Judy doesn't like him, but they keep encountering each other because of the odd mystical animals that crop up wherever Judy does.

Meanwhile, an old woman named Mrs. Lotus keeps feeding her neighbors a special tea that turns them into cats. Mrs. Lotus knows that the universe has a special plan for Judy, and it's a plan Mrs. Lotus not only intends to thwart, but must thwart if she is to continue her own parasitical existence.

Monster is a fairly entertaining read, although the pieces of the plot take awhile to come together. It has nuances of A Wrinkle in Time, some of Terry Pratchett's work, and some of Tim Powers' novels but doesn't share their depth.

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