Braineater Jones

Actual rating: 3.21245684975 stars. When all you have to say about a book you already mentioned in your pre-review… Okay, let’s see then, what other fascinating facts could I possibly tell you about this story? Well, I guess I could start at the beginning and stuff. So Braineater Jones is about a guy called Braineater Jones. So far so good? Yay and stuff, let’s keep going. Braineater Jones is not his real name (and thank fish for that), by the way, and the poor guy has no bloody shrimping clue what he may have been called back when he was alive. Oh wait, did I forget to mention he was slightly dead? Oops. So I guess I should have started with the beginning of the beginning, when Braineater Jones woke up naked at the bottom of a swimming pool with a fairly good-sized hole in his chest. Sorry, what? You think this is a slightly awkward? Nah. Slightly awkward is when the guy starts itching, rotting, having to fish out maggots from his body (fun times), getting his head somewhat backwards and generally looking like a colander. I know right? Anyhoo and stuff, so Jonesy wakes up deadly dead and off to try and figure out how he got that way and why he is. Spoiler spoiler spoiler happens, Jonesy kinda sorta becomes a kinda sorta reluctant P.I., and the story turns into a Noir Fiction Meets Zombies Type Thingie (NFMZTT™). Which could have been slightly scrumptious, only the whole thing fell kind of flat. Mostly because instead of playing with Noir tropes—the way Glen Cook does in his Garrett Files series—Kozeniewski just delivers them the way it’s been done since the 1940s. Which is a shame and stuff. I mean, if you’re going to write a hardboiled detective-type story in the 2000s, at least try to get a little creative with it and stuff. Same goes for the zombie extravaganza: it’s just your Standard Zombie Fest (SZF™). Yeah, more or less The weird thing is, the book is strangely reminiscent of Sandman Slim, too. Not sure what it is that reminds me of my boyfriend Jimmy Stark here: the tone that the author tried to set for his novel—dark with black humor thrown in—or the fact that the MC’s sidekick is a corpseless head 👋 waves at Alcibé and Kasabian 👋. In any case, the problem is that the story just doesn’t compare with my Jimmy’s utterly yummilicious adventures. Worse, it feels kind of very bland. It’s dark, but not nearly enough too much, and there’s some black humor, but it’s pretty tame. Maybe if the author had taken things up a notch or twenty, the book would have been more entertaining, but he didn’t so it wasn’t. ➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): Sorry, what? You wanted to know more about the story itself? And find out what the plot is about? Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it? 😬 [Pre-review nonsense] This could have been a Most Glorious Sandman Slim/Garrett P.I. Kinda Sorta Mashup Thingie (MGSSGPIKDMT™). Only that neither Richard Kadrey nor Glen Cook co-authored it, so it wasn't. Bloody shrimping bummer and stuff. Yeah, pretty much. ➽ Full review to come and stuff.