Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain by A. Lee Martinez

This book was kind of cute, kind of funny, kind of clever. It had a lot of good comic-booky, pulpy gags and settings. It had battle mechs controlled by disembodied brains, lizard people from Venus, a lost world-type island with ridiculous dinosaurs, the lost city of Atlantis, etc, etc.. You get the idea.

It moved along at a fast enough clip, but it wasn't a page-turner really. Because it was a farce, and all of the characters were cartoonish, and because you never got the sense that the villain/hero would ultimately do anything but triumph, there was little, if any, real suspense or emotional investment to keep you compulsively flipping the pages.

I can certainly respect this writer for the quality of the writing and for what he was trying to do here, but it was pretty clear that he wasn't doing it for me. I'm just not the target audience.

Why did I pick this up, if this isn't my cup of tea?

Well, I've heard a lot of good things about this author and he dedicates the book (in part) to Victor von Doom.

I do love Doctor Doom. 

Read this book!