Happy Jack and the Scary-Ass Book of Doom
by Rich Partain, JP Adams (Narrator)
DETAILS: Series: Shadows Over Earth-That-Was, Book 1 Publication Date: December 17, 2024 Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hrs., 50 min. (I made it 3.5 hours ) Read Date: April 16-17, 2025
What’s Happy Jack and the Scary-Ass Book of Doom About?
From Audible:
What happens when the geeks inherit the Earth? For starters, things get a little weird.
In the year 2475, the remnants of humanity have taken to the skies, inhabiting massive domed cities that hover five miles over the ruined ecological disaster of old Earth. The Powers That Be, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the few million people left deserved to live their best lives, so they gave each sub-orbital platform its own theme and legally enforced tech level. Named for afterlives and sacred places from all of the world’s great cultures, Elysia, A’Aru, Valhalla, Tian and the other orbitals range from cyberpunk metropolises to Tolkienesque medieval fantasy lands; from Victorian steampunk cities of glass and copper to snowbound Viking kingdoms.
Not content with merely cosplaying their days away, a significant portion of the population have become transhuman “cybernaturals,” electing to transform into creatures from myth through cybernetic enhancements and advanced genetic therapies; orcs, dwarves, elves, vampires and werewolves now exist through super-scientific means, not supernatural ones.
In the middle of this madness, Daniel Davidson, a pop culture archaeologist and mercenary of dubious repute and his band of foul-mouthed friends are charged with tracking down an ancient book that could, in the wrong hands, erase all of reality. It could be a huge payday and might even involve saving the known universe as a tidy bonus. That is, if they manage to NOT die at the hands of cannibal sex cultists, swashbuckling rogue vampires, prankster demigods, Templar knights, horrifying biblical angels, the angry star-spawn of elder things, and Satan himself. And possibly food and/or alcohol poisoning. Or suffocation in a sex dungeon.
It’s a filthy, hilarious, epic journey through an off-kilter future filled with bullets, blades, beasts, and boat drinks. If you like your profane sci-fi action comedies with a side order of urban and traditional fantasy, look no further.
I Do Have One Issue
Daniel Davidson makes too many late 20th/early 21st Century references. He uses the slang of these eras, talks about music, books, TV, movies, video games of this era. Yes, he explaines it. But I can’t buy that this kind of a geek–no matter his specialty–doesn’t make references to things outside of this time. Something from the intervening 300+ years would’ve snuck in.
His complaints about Evangelical Christians are also very 2020+–there’s no way that they wouldn’t have moved on to other ways to provoke the culture around them.
Listen, it makes sense for the Bobiverse’s clones to be stuck in contemporary references. That absolutely works. This just doesn’t. John Crichton might be full of references to Earth, but he also picks up the lingo and culture of those he interacts with once he joins Moya’s crew (see also Buck Rogers).
So, why didn’t I finish Happy Jack and the Scary-Ass Book of Doom?
It just never grabbed me. It was occasionally amusing. I thought the blue language was overdone, but it wasn’t as offensive as the Author’s Note at the beginning made it sound like it’d be. If you’re going to overuse some or all of The Nine Nasty Words be interesting with it, otherwise it just fades into the background like a dialogue tag.
I’m leaving the door open to returning to this–it didn’t anger me, offend me, or bore me. Like I said, I found bits of it amusing–even entertaining. But it just left me apathetic. I’d rather be annoyed by a book than totally uninterested. I’ll stick with a book to see if the author can make something good/decent out of something bad. But I can’t stick with something to see if I ever have a reaction.
I have no opinion on JP Adams, either. I don’t think James Marsters, Lorelei King, or Ray Porter could’ve done more with the material. So, I’m absolutely open to something else by him, too.
So, I’ll check out of this for now, and maybe return to in later.
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