Well now if you’re a writer who aspires to be clever I can tell you firsthand that “The Gunseller” will most likely make you want to quit.  It did in my case.

This guy’s control over his effusive cleverness is uncommon to say the least.  I laugh out loud around twice a page. And I don’t mean the nauseating little abbreviation that people put next to the equally nauseating sideways smiley face when they’ve texted you something that they feel is inappropriate, completely not-funny or both.  I actually mean that I actually laugh out loud.

Incidentally, the plot just happens to rock as hard as a Ludlum novel (which of course he wryly alludes to early on) and not once do you feel like you’re reading a “first novel”. If you’ve read “Don’t Point That Thing at Me” and dug it, this is quite similar and I feel that it’s just as good.

“Soon I Will Be Invincible” has a great first couple pages but quickly becomes quite the opposite.  This book makes me want to write the book that the cover makes me wish that he wrote.  The story is basically a comic book story very similar to X-Men but told from the point of view of one of the supervillains and includes his entire life story.  This isn’t a novel idea in the world of graphic novels but it apparently is novel in the world of novel novels.

The guy is a good writer but I can’t help thinking that his editor could or should have made this book a more consistently enjoyable experience for me but just working a little bit harder.  I struggled through some Mojave Desert dryness and gave up for a while.  I’ll letcha know if it gets any better when I try it again.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR