Sign in with Facebook
Charles's Reviews > Bad Monkeys
Bad Monkeys
by
by
Unreliable Narrator describes her work as an assassin for a Benevolent Vigilante Conspiracy putting down Bad Monkeys (evil doers such as undetected serial killers) and her subsequent involvement with her group’s Nebulous Evil Organisation mirror opposite.
My dead tree copy of the book was a modest 227 pages. It had a 2007 US copyright.
Matt Ruff is an American author of science fiction, thriller and comedic novels. He has written seven (7) novels. This is the second novel of the author's that I have read. The first being, Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy.
This book has languished on my hardcopy TBR pile for almost a decade. I found it while I was cleaning. I started reading it in an idle moment, and finished the first half in one sitting.
The best part of the story was within a series of doctor-patient interviews with flashbacks. Ruff did a good job of keeping me teetering back and forth in trying to decide if the protagonist (Jane Charlotte) was a psychopath, delusional, or a pawn in an existential battle between good and evil.
In the second half, the story jumped the shark. Jane’s monologue became a bizarre parody of the Action Girl trope. The nature of reality was now in question. The story was much better when she only could have had paranoid personality disorder and might be an agent of a vigilante organization. The story ended in a series of telegraphed switch, double switch, and switch again that felt rather half-hearted.
Prose as good. In places it was very good. The author had several interesting turns-of-a-phrase that left me chuckling. However, while dialog and descriptive prose were good, action sequences were weak. They felt very abbreviated in comparison to the dialog and descriptive prose.
Jane provided the story’s single POV. She’s a troubled woman whose life story is given through a series of flashbacks from her early teens to late middle age. It was an interesting litany of poor choices, spiced with peculiar rationalizations. Phil, Jane’s younger brother was an important non-character. For a large part of the story, he might have been Jane’s imaginary brother. That was frankly better for him. The folks from both the Existential Organizations borrowed heavily from The Men in Black trope. More interesting were the strange characters of the San Francisco demimonde sketched-out in the extended flashbacks chronicling Jane’s life. I thought the reprobates who were Jane’s victims were particularly well done.
I like stories with an unreliable narrator that’s identifiable up-front. Here it was quickly obvious that Jane was a sociopath, but possibly a psychopath. Then there was the challenge of deciding if she was also delusional, or there really was a vigilante organization for justice. One of Jane’s most compelling rationalizations was that a psychopath could be an ideal agent of Good. With the introduction of a parallel organization for Evil the story became less interesting to me. At that point it became about the existential conflict between good and evil and the nature of reality. I felt this was too heavy for the sometimes-comedic nature of the story's beginning. I’m also more interested in the more mundane mind game of, “was there a benevolent conspiracy employing psychopathic assassins”? The story devolved from there. I suspect Ruff meant to indicate Jane was becoming more delusional as the narrative became more Matrix-like . It ended in a predictable battle between good and evil, with an almost bewildering series of reversals that you could see coming. (view spoiler)
The story was well written. Its: prose, characters, plot (mostly) and world building (mostly) were good. In places it was funny. However, I’m less interested in the metaphysical than I am in psychosis. The smaller story of psychotic assassin for justice employed by a benevolent conspiracy was as metaphysical as I am willing to get. As the story got further OTT with the exploration of the nature of reality—I lost interest. At that point, I felt that the mind games that were entertaining in the beginning, to not be weighty, but to be dead weight. Thankfully, the story was brief. In summary, this story started out well, but ended badly for me when it became too overtly about the battle of good vs. evil and the nature of reality.
My dead tree copy of the book was a modest 227 pages. It had a 2007 US copyright.
Matt Ruff is an American author of science fiction, thriller and comedic novels. He has written seven (7) novels. This is the second novel of the author's that I have read. The first being, Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy.
This book has languished on my hardcopy TBR pile for almost a decade. I found it while I was cleaning. I started reading it in an idle moment, and finished the first half in one sitting.
The best part of the story was within a series of doctor-patient interviews with flashbacks. Ruff did a good job of keeping me teetering back and forth in trying to decide if the protagonist (Jane Charlotte) was a psychopath, delusional, or a pawn in an existential battle between good and evil.
In the second half, the story jumped the shark. Jane’s monologue became a bizarre parody of the Action Girl trope. The nature of reality was now in question. The story was much better when she only could have had paranoid personality disorder and might be an agent of a vigilante organization. The story ended in a series of telegraphed switch, double switch, and switch again that felt rather half-hearted.
Prose as good. In places it was very good. The author had several interesting turns-of-a-phrase that left me chuckling. However, while dialog and descriptive prose were good, action sequences were weak. They felt very abbreviated in comparison to the dialog and descriptive prose.
Jane provided the story’s single POV. She’s a troubled woman whose life story is given through a series of flashbacks from her early teens to late middle age. It was an interesting litany of poor choices, spiced with peculiar rationalizations. Phil, Jane’s younger brother was an important non-character. For a large part of the story, he might have been Jane’s imaginary brother. That was frankly better for him. The folks from both the Existential Organizations borrowed heavily from The Men in Black trope. More interesting were the strange characters of the San Francisco demimonde sketched-out in the extended flashbacks chronicling Jane’s life. I thought the reprobates who were Jane’s victims were particularly well done.
I like stories with an unreliable narrator that’s identifiable up-front. Here it was quickly obvious that Jane was a sociopath, but possibly a psychopath. Then there was the challenge of deciding if she was also delusional, or there really was a vigilante organization for justice. One of Jane’s most compelling rationalizations was that a psychopath could be an ideal agent of Good. With the introduction of a parallel organization for Evil the story became less interesting to me. At that point it became about the existential conflict between good and evil and the nature of reality. I felt this was too heavy for the sometimes-comedic nature of the story's beginning. I’m also more interested in the more mundane mind game of, “was there a benevolent conspiracy employing psychopathic assassins”? The story devolved from there. I suspect Ruff meant to indicate Jane was becoming more delusional as the narrative became more Matrix-like . It ended in a predictable battle between good and evil, with an almost bewildering series of reversals that you could see coming. (view spoiler)
The story was well written. Its: prose, characters, plot (mostly) and world building (mostly) were good. In places it was funny. However, I’m less interested in the metaphysical than I am in psychosis. The smaller story of psychotic assassin for justice employed by a benevolent conspiracy was as metaphysical as I am willing to get. As the story got further OTT with the exploration of the nature of reality—I lost interest. At that point, I felt that the mind games that were entertaining in the beginning, to not be weighty, but to be dead weight. Thankfully, the story was brief. In summary, this story started out well, but ended badly for me when it became too overtly about the battle of good vs. evil and the nature of reality.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Bad Monkeys.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
May 17, 2020
–
Started Reading
May 24, 2020
–
Finished Reading
May 25, 2020
– Shelved
