Michael BoatmanCritiques

I almost stopped reading several times. Fairly derivative and hard to care about the protagonist in the first half. ..or ever.
Some interesting concepts, all to the idea that humans have (almost) outgrown their need for gods.
girl talking to a god: "you tell me that toy are real, but also that you were never what we believed you to be. ..that we have looked too long in the wrong direction. "
Unlike American God's, which is deities fighting for that last of human belief, the idea here is that humanity's first demon, fear itself, tries to destroy all other gods and in so doing, lead to humanity's destruction. The elder gods, led by Yahweh, fight for the freedom of humans to choose for themselves.

An attempt at a collection of splatterpunk stories - with a Foreward by David J. Schow, no less! - most of the stories in this collection either miss the mark or come awfully close, but could have used a bit more polish, especially when to comes to pacing and delivery. Not a bad attempt, but the bad art scattered throughout doesn't help.

I give this a little above a meh, mainly on the basis of style points. I tend to like these types of stories a bit darker and scarier. I read a ton of horror and this novel/novella didn’t really have anything that for me made it stand out from the lots of other similar stories out there.

3.5/5 stars. A quirky and funny look at what happens when God up and quits and other gods from defunct pantheons want to take over his job. (Provided by publisher)½

Didn't care for disrespect of other gods. Only read a few pages--even though I was stuck in a Greyhound station with nothing else to read.

I would like to thank Angry Robot Books & NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book to review. Though I received this e-book for free, that has no impact upon the honesty of my review.

Goodreads Teaser: "Lucifer is enjoying his retirement in an obscure corner of Limbo when he learns of a plot by Gabriel, the current ruler of Hell, to use humanity's greatest weapon against it - Television!

Cue the hottest reality game-show ever conceived:Who Wants To Be The Prince of Darkness? Gabriel orchestrates an "Infernal takeover" of Earth by stealing unwitting mortal souls and sending them to a mostly empty Hell, hoping to reinvigorate the Infernal Realm.

Now Lucifer must find a champion to seize control of Hell and free millions of stolen mortal souls before the theft becomes permanent. But who would ever want to be Hell's champion?"

Upon reading this book I rapidly came to the conclusion that the teaser is misleading. Lucifer doesn't look for a contestant to participate in the game show, but he does find a champion. The problem is the champion is completely clueless and for some of the time an unwitting player. But of course we are talking about Lucifer, so it's not much of a surprise that things aren't as they seem.

Gabriel is bitterly angry at Lucifer, and channels his anger into completely revamping Hell once he is the uncontested ruler of the realm after Lucifer's retirement. One of the more popular aspects of his overhaul is in modeling Hell after Earth. And since demons want to experience living on Earth more than anything, Gabriel finds a way to start slipping more in. Through the agency of an obscenely popular TV game show his nefarious plan works brilliantly. It begins with a trickle of demons replacing the human souls, but rapidly becomes a flood when they see how oblivious humanity is to the growing threat. Without doubt this is a not so subtle commentary on the mind numbing, thought-deadening qualities of TV.

Quite the creative and entertaining story, filled with ridiculous quirks of all kinds, as well as characters of all kinds - quite literally. The story begins in such a way that it seems it may be a parody of a parody, functioning as a way to set the stage for the story to come. After the first few chapters we meet one Manray Mothershed, self help guru to the modern world, though he prefers to refer to his teachings as self actualization. It's through Manray that the story is brought into the present and begins to move forward. As he stumbles into some sort of understanding of his new situation he begins meeting other characters that also become pivotal to the story.

The characters are entertaining, though sometimes a tad confusing. With everyone from Hell having a reversed morality and thus reversing things like swearing and blaspheming it can be challenging to figure out which sentiments belong to who. But those few bumps aside the concept of the book is more than solid, and the creativity is delicious. As Manray and company become fleshed out so to does the plot, both pulling the other forward and flinging the story along, rather like being the whip at the end of an ice skating line. And there are plot twists aplenty, though the tale is strange enough not to really need them. Certainly not your average tales about Hell!

You know God’s getting tired of this crap.

But who thought He’d want to be a stand-up comedian?

Michael Boatman, apparently; an actor familiar to many from shows like China Beach and Spin City, Boatman’s debut novel is a fantastical and funny look at what it must be like to be a god for such unfunny people.

In this particular case, God has abdicated and headed down here, winding up as a black man named Lando Calrissian Cooper.

Yeah, that’s right. He’s named after the black guy in Star Wars. And his various struggles with human life are amusing, added to the outright hilarity of his set comedy pieces.

But that’s not all. There’s an action-adventure element in play as well. His abdication has left a power vacuum up above, and various figures from Earth’s pantheons—and not just the Western Civ pantheon—begin to make a play for the throne. Then there’s the complication of a certain fallen angel, once sentenced to Hell, who has also shown up on Earth in a human incarnation, with plans that are not at all clear.

This novel would easily strike the humor-impaired as blasphemous. For the rest of us, it’s irreverent and funny, though a bit uneven in tone. All in all, it’s a very satisfying read that bodes well for Boatman’s future as a writer.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/87091801471/a-god-with-a-sense-of-humor-last-god-...

After presiding over humanity for over 2000 years, God has decided to abdicate and live as a human. No, this isn't like when Jesus was born of a virgin; this time his only motive is to simply let humanity get on with it. With Yahweh out of the way, humanity's now lesser deities like Zeus want to step into his shoes and become powerful again. The battle lines are drawn and now God, stuck in the body of Lando Calrissian (yes, that Lando Calrissian from Star Wars) Darnell Cooper has a war on his hands that he might no longer have the ability to fight.

Last God Standing has a very interesting concept. With all of the horrors in recent history it is hard for some to believe that there is an all knowing being up in the sky directing the hot mess we currently live in. From the concentration camps, to natural disasters, global warming, environmental decay and income inequality, even the most optimistic amongst us has to believe that humanity is in trouble. As far as a premise goes, Michael Boatman picked a winner. Unfortunately, that is the last good thing I can say about Last God Standing.

At times, Last God Standing made absolutely no sense whatsoever. The entire plot was incredibly rushed and even with that, I found myself struggling to get to the end. At about the 1/3 I sincerely considered DNFing this book for it's sheer incomprehensibility. The characters had absolutely no development and felt like cartoons rather than representatives of real people. Last God Standing is little more than a long winded joke, which when finally coming to end, has no damn punch line. My deepest regret is that I will never retrieve the hours I invested reading this story hoping that it would at some point live up to its premise.

Not only is Last God Standing poorly written, it is offensive on almost every level you can think of. It quickly became a written guide to homophobia with f@g appearing constantly without any indication that such hate speech is problematic. When the word gay was not being used as a pejorative, it was operationalized as the punchline of many jokes. Last God Standing heavily implied that real men most certainly were not gay or effeminate. In one passage, Herb refers to gay as a "lifestyle", something that irresponsible men of colour are free to engage in like the "White Man's children," now that African-Americans have made some civil rights gains. For almost the entirety of this novel, there were no GLBT characters, that is until "Barbara declared herself a "Happy Lesbian," sold her taverns and moved to the Pacific Northwest with her therapist to open a rehabilitation facility." Boatman filled his novel with homophobia and no GLBT characters until page 300, as though this could somehow redeem the problematic language he engaged in throughout the book. Just no. No. No. With passages like the following, there can be no doubt that Boatman means his homophobia to pass as comedy.

“It’s OK,” I said. “No reason to be embarrassed.”“Embarrassed? You think I’m effeminate, don’t you, Lando? That it? You think McFarlane’s a big flamer?”I laughed. McFarlane didn’t. He glared at me, his steel gray eyes suddenly as cold as a frost giant’s netherhole.“Are you calling me a fag, Lando?”“No!”McFarlane’s face turned orange, then bright red. Then he punched me in the stomach.
You would think that because Boatman is a Black man that Last God Standing would at least not be racially insensitive, but you would be wrong. Lando is constantly told to get his hair cut because he looks like a "spear chucker." Of course his afro looks unkept, everyone knows that natural hair cannot possibly look good /snark. When Lando isn't being called a "spear chucker", he is being called a "bush baby" and this is all supposed to be comedy. I understand people wanting to reclaim words to steal power from the oppressor but this is all about turning these offensive comments into comedy, as though there is no historical pain associated with them.

Read More½

I don't use star ratings, so please read my review!

(Description nicked from B&N.com.)

“When God decides to quit and join the human race to see what all the fuss is about, all Hell breaks loose.

Sensing his abdication, the other defunct gods of Earth’s vanquished pantheons want a piece of the action He abandoned.

Meanwhile, the newly-humanized deity must discover the whereabouts and intentions of the similarly reincarnated Lucifer, and block the ascension of a murderous new God.

How is he ever going to make it as a stand-up comedian with all of this going on…?”

I’ve admired Boatman’s work as an actor (I adored his character on Spin City), and I have to give him props for having the guts to try writing. And I have to give him even more props for tackling the subject of God and his interference (or lack thereof) in human life. He creates his version of God as an interesting dichotomy: on the one hand, he’s still running around with a certain amount of reality-altering powers; on the other hand, he seems curiously inept in his own personal dealings. It’s like he’s not quite sure what to do with this world that he created, and it’s amusing to see him fumbling around.

The problem that I found in this book is that there are too many things that just don’t add up. God supposedly wanted to experience life as a human, but he still has the power to do basically whatever he wants. At the start of the book, he actually resets time so that a huge god-fueled disaster doesn’t kill a bunch of people. That doesn’t exactly translate to the normal human experience. On that same note, God’s profession is stand-up comedy… again, not really indicative of how the masses get through life. Now, if he’d gone into retail, that would have been cool.

Actually, the whole stand-up comedy angle doesn’t fit well into the novel. It doesn’t really play a part in the plot—except for possibly a bit near the end—and so it feels like the entire pitch for this book is misleading. Much more of the book revolves around God’s relationship with his girlfriend (and if that concept doesn’t break your brain, nothing will) and his quest to figure out the identity of the new god that’s threatening to take over the world.

Boatman’s best work is with the characters, especially the secondary characters. The mortal incarnation of Buddha is my favorite, and he comes across as laid-back but still fairly world-wise. He’s the kind of guy you’d love to have a conversation with. I also liked Connie, a Native American goddess who is sort of God’s conscience (wrap your brain around that!). She’s not in the novel all that much, but I enjoyed seeing her when she did appear.

Another positive part of the book is that there’s some great action as the novel moves into its second half. With both God and Lucifer out of the picture, other gods try to muscle in on their turf and some epic battles occur. There’s also a couple of surprising events that caught me off guard and had me reading faster to see how things played out.

I think this novel was on the cusp of presenting something original and humorous, but it got in its own way by trying to be too clever. Still, it’s not bad for a freshman effort and I’ll be interested to see if Boatman continues writing. Last God Standing held my attention through the entire book, but there were some obvious issues that made it not work as well as it could have.

This review originally appeared on Owlcat Mountain on January 29, 2014.

The Revenant Road is very entertaining. It's funny, gross, macabre, imaginative, brutal, silly, and all those other adjectives that describe a good read. Urban fantasy is so very often so very serious, centered around some doomed love between our beautiful heroine and the even more beautiful abusive boyfriend she comes to worship. It tends to be tiresome and disappointing, especially because I associate the genre with people like Charles deLint and Emma Bull who tell great stories. The Revenant Road meets at the intersection of urban fantasy and horror and it's a fun place to be.

Our hero, Obadiah Grudge (best name ever), learns while on book tour that his father has died. The funeral follows with a series of uncomfortable revelations and even more uncomfortable new friends - dead and alive. Here be monsters, lots of monsters, and our hero and friends battling it out with them to save the world - cuz that's what heroes do, right? They save the world.

Despite a few missteps, The Revenant Road is all fun and games - until someone gets their eye put out - then it's just plain fun.

Dark Fuse Publishers knows how to present a book. What a great cover for this first novel from Michael Boatman, yeah, that Michael Boatman. The same man who played Carter Heywood for the entire run of the Spin City TV series. No, he hasn't given up acting, he's still busy as an actor, but he's been writing Dark Fiction for a number of years and is now a published novelist.

Revenant Road is a strong debut, the story of a reluctant monster hunter and his introduction into life on the road. In the protagonist's own words, "My name is Obadiah Grudge...This is a chronicle no one will ever believe...I'm rich, black, thirty-eight years old...Let me tell you about a demon I once met."

At the outset the story bounces around a bit, but once the various pieces of the overall tale have been established, Boatman does a good job of weaving the pieces together into a cohesive work filled with likable characters who play their parts well. Obadiah's mother, Lenore, for one, "she can decapitate a man at twenty paces with one slash of her tongue" and Neville Kowalski, for another.

Obadiah learns of Neville and his father's partnership after his father's funeral. What he learns changes the direction of his life and as much as he protests draws him into the family business.

There are plenty of creatures, blood and some snarky dialog, "'Shouldn't we call the police?' I whispered. 'And tell 'em what?' Kowalski said. 'That an ancient Chinese forest spirit that walks like a man and devours human beings only to vanish mysteriously, leaving behind a skunklike stench and a haunting scream is stalking an abandoned Lutheran church in Northwest Seattle?'"

Although bumpy at times, Revenant Road is worth the trip, particularly if you love a good monster story.

For more on titles from Dark Fuse you can visit them online at DarkFuse.com. Revenant Road is available now, in various formats, from Amazon.com. BTW, if you are a member of Amazon Prime, this is one you can borrow for FREE through the Kindle Lending Library.

Another read I can definitely recommend.