Doc Armstrong: Suburb at the Edge of Never

It's hard to know how to begin a review of a book like this, so I'll just end it here:This is a really, really funny book, especially for people who like that kind of thing.I suppose that kind of an ending compels curiosity as to how I arrived at it. Skimming some of the other reviews of this first DOC ARMSTRONG sci-fi-adventure-laugh-fest---and if you think that's not a legit sub-genre, then you haven't watched this book---I'm compelled to check off the *ditto* column again and again. So many other reviewers have cited specific merits and wacky-brilliant passages from this book, not to mention the amazing versatility of its force-of-surrealism author, Larry Blamire. It's all true. Larry Blamire is a master-of-all-trades and jack-of-none: writer, artist, filmmaker, playwright, actor---a renaissance man specializing in digging into humankind's unconscious and unearthing surprisingly funny and revealing things about what we love in our entertainment and culture. All the way down to what's funny about the tools we use to communicate, the actual words and phrases we use, themselves---what do they mean, when taken out of context?He can take suspense scenes and skew them slightly until they tumble into hilarity. (And not in the usual fashion of simply twisting an expression to pander the least common denominator, or taking an action to a predictable result; there's always genuine wit in Blamire's unexpectedly absurd turns. Yet, there are points at which you'll still find yourself actually hanging on outcomes---as when Doc climbs a building while physically menaced.) Like syncopation in prose...expressions that riff on themselves...like free-form jazz. I found myself occasionally reminded of prose humor by Richard Brautigan and Woody Allen.Absurdism and surrealism are Blamire's one-two punch, so you'll be pummeled into laughing or at least snorting out loud on every page---you begin to fancy it's funny even in the margins, like MAD Magazine. Verbal play abounds, as it does in the LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA films this book continues. Cliched metaphors and similes are turned on their ear, and then Blamire morphs that ear into a nose:"Doc Armstrong shifted like an abacus.""...with the chutzpah of a three-legged chair manufacturer""Doc moved with the lithe grace and panther-like agility of a trained mathematician."It's inde-con-structible humor.Blamire trains words into small wonders, and sometimes makes you wonder why words aren't used more often. For things like communication:"It was shrill and ominous, the kind of whistle that wouldn't take no for an answer, if you were arguing with a whistle."Like Larry Blamire's movies, this book is savvy about its narrative genesis in TV and genre cult films, referencing them slyly and often with both broad-spectrum and insider jokes. (One of my favorites, homaging KING KONG: "It looks like a member of the beetle family.") Satire and wise send-ups of general human foibles abound. At one point the book humorously distills the essence of practically the entire genre of TV sitcoms. An old professor wakes up to "elderly befuddled spluttering." The common courtesy of "nodding" to a speaker is exposed as "the fuel that allowed the other person's talking to continue."The plot? A science jam-up of botany-gone-mad, weird life-forms and clanking mechanical horrors invading from another dimension---a pleasing amalgam of sci-fi cliches poured into the Blamire Blender. Ludicrous atmosphere oozing like flapjack batter. Sometimes thicker. Characters you can sink your dentures into with confidence. Even in public. (Alas, though, for LOST SKELETON fans---no Animala!) Pacing that simply won't wait: Things keep happening, and then moving on without stopping---it's insane! And dialogue, endlessly humorous dialogue that sometimes can be as hard-boiled as Charlie Chaplin's shoe:"I'm about to open up a can of science on your posterior..."Did I say this book was FUNNY---?! You'll chortle like a person who chortles at funny books. And then you'll want to pay it forward to your similarly chortle-inclined friends (by encouraging them to pick it up for themselves, of course, so you could sit on long benches and run lines from the book).You could spend an entire review of "DOC ARMSTRONG: Suburb at the Edge of Never" just running hilariously wacky quotes---a Larry Blamire glib-fest. But that would be too easy, and unfair---a reductio ad absurdam that would sell this wonderful book short. It needs to be experienced in toto and in situ. Two places that have to be experienced first hand. And at the popular price of this one little book.And with that ending, I return now to the beginning of this review:This is a really, really funny book...

Fellow Lost Skeleton fans: Get this book, you will not be disappointed! You will see this planet earth through the eyes of a Marvan without having to do any surgery!As expected the book is filled with little twists of phrase and made-up nonsense words (e.g. Betty's cooking). You can only hold out so long before you sadly get a little numb to the humor. But what keeps you engaged is the elaborate plot. It is a really interesting story which comes together at the end in a brilliantly sci-fi/horror kind of way.Hopefully someday there will be an audible edition. If Larry Blamire were to make an audible version it would be the best thing since sliced strawberry filled jelly donuts.

This affectionate tribute to the DOC SAVAGE-style pulp adventures carries a crushing amount of baggage, since it must use characters from two obscure cinema send-ups of ultra-low-budget 1950s monster films. The author brings aboard almost all the main characters from these two generally unknown films, and the result is generally disastrous to pacing. For example, there is an entire chapter concerning the home life of Kro-Bar and Lattis, aliens from the planet Marva, who are perpetually totally baffled by earth customs. It is dreadfully unfunny, and kills what little momentum the narrative has built up stone dead, with no way to recover. The main plot, to use the word loosely, involves a mad scientist who intends to turn the earth into a hothouse of unrestrained plant growth. A bit of suspense is built up in the battle with that stereotypical villain, but that's a very thin payoff for the crushing amount of whimsy (not parody or satire) that the reader has to wade through. Recommended only for the few who saw and liked THE LOST SKELETON OF KADAVRA and THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN, films that most critics found nearly unwatchable. [Check the internet for reviews.]

Everything one enjoyed about Blamire's films can be found here in novel form, and in between the nonsense names and ridiculous dialogue that he excels at Blamire manages to summon up some moments of disquiet, especially towards the climax of the book. Ridiculous as the monsters in the book are, for instance, Blamire gives them some somewhat...disturbing...descriptions, and as shown in his collections of Western-horror stories the author has a certain talent for the disturbing.

Amazing the only word to describe it.

Wer Larry Blamires Filme liebt, der wird auch dieses Buch lieben. Paul und Betty Armstrong müssen zusammen mit ihren befreundeten, außerirdischen Nachbarn Kro-Bar und Lattis ein neues Abenteuer bestehen. Diesmal in ihrem Vorort, wo absonderliche Dinge passieren.Blamire hat den Stil seiner Filme perfekt in eine schriftliche Form übertragen. Die Dialoge sind wie immer fantastisch und die Beschreibungen sind gefüllt mit irrwitzigen, verrückten oder dummen Metaphern. Ich habe mich köstlich amüsiert. Ich konnte mir die Geschichte sehr gut wie einen Film vorstellen.Ich habe allerdings einen Punkt abgezogen, weil der Stil auf Dauer etwas ermüden kann und ich beim Lesen auch mal eine Pause brauchte. Dennoch würde ich jederzeit einen weiteren Roman über die Abenteuer von Doc Armstrong lesen!

You will not be unimpressed with this movie in book format which is better than the movie that it is not! If you are a fan of Larry Blamire's 'A' Grade B-movies - if you aren't then time to get off the sidelines and join the fans - then you will thoroughly enjoy this movie in book form. All the main characters from the movies are here - except Animala unfortunately so you get to catch up with them again after getting to know them before in the movies which this is not. I frequently read passages out loud to my better half - a fan already - and interrupting her reading. Go Larry and write another one!!