I’m incredibly dissatisfied with this post. But I don’t think I’m possible of doing better. I want to, the book deserves better than this. But I’m punching above my weight-class with this. Give me a couple of weeks doing nothing else, 15-20 pages, and a few consultations with one of my old university professors, and I might come up with something I liked. Since that’s not going to happen, I’ll just go with this.
by Zephaniah Sole
DETAILS:
Series: The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters, Book 1
Publisher: Run Amok Crime
Publication Date: May 5, 2025
Format: ARC
Length: 204 pg.
Read Date: June 7-9, 2025
A Couple of Content Warnings
I don’t normally do these kind of things, but it seemed like a good idea for this book. First, there’s some active suicidal ideation at the beginning of the book. It’s (first chapter, so not a spoiler) not effective. Also, it’s rapidly moved on from, and if the characters bring it up again, it’s briefly (I don’t think they do, but I failed to track it). In some books, the way the characters leave it behind would be a problem, and worthy of some discussion. But here? It works.
Secondly, Sole gets pretty close to sacrilege with a number of religious figures—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist (and likely some others). Particularly with a certain Tibetan Buddhist. I tend to have a hair trigger on this kind of thing, but I think Sole landed pretty firmly on the right side of the line. If for no other reason than his depictions of the persons in question are so far from the way the religions think about them or they’re depicted in their texts, it’s hard to take the identification seriously.
(except for that Tibetan Buddhist, but even there, it’s a stretch)
What’s The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters About?
Jake and Joy meet one night under poor circumstances and do not get along at all. But then they find themselves in an unfamiliar and possibly hostile situation dressed in chicken suits (that not everyone sees but also they can’t get out of).
Before they can fully wrap their heads around that, they find themselves running for their lives and involved in a cosmic struggle for the fate of humanity. As they were prophesied to be.
No, really. That’s the plot.
Jake, Joy, and their new mentors/companions vs. Hip Gnosis* and his bickering subordinates. What follows is zany, action-filled, profound entertainment.
* Readers of Justice League comics of the late 80s may be interested to know that Gnosis reminds me of Lord Manga Khan, and his associate, Madelyn has a certain L-Ron quality to her, too.
The Book’s Humor
This book is hilarious—it’s more than that, but let’s start with that. But what kind of humor is it?
There’s word play—some very clever and sophisticated, and some painful puns. There’s some scatological humor (including one of the all-time greatest scatological jokes). There’s philosophical humor. There’s some jokes that are fit for an elementary school playground. There are some that are fit for a New Yorker cartoon.
Basically, the humor is all over the place. I mean that as a compliment and a description—definitely not a criticism. Primarily because every, and I stress every joke* lands. The book was so funny that you could miss everything else going on (and you shouldn’t) and you’d have a wonderful time.
* I should probably note that I may have mistaken a few lines for jokes that weren’t (but I laughed anyway), and I may have missed a few (which annoys me to admit).
That Hideous Strength
Somewhere along the way…either in the last two-thirds of the book, or maybe when I was finished (I can’t tell from my notes, and I can’t remember), it struck me that this book is a strange, non-Christian version of C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.
That’s not a spoiler—because Sole doesn’t resolve things in a way that resembles Lewis at all (and frankly, I think Sole’s is more narratively satisfying, which is odd for a book that is so messy). This isn’t a hill that I’d fight to possess, but I think the parallels are clear. In essence, you’ve got the same two opposing forces and similar groups to take action on Earth—for very similar ends. I’d be more specific, but you need to read the book to appreciate it. Do that and come back, and we can talk.
Maybe it’s That Hideous Strength mixed with Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency. I should take a day or two to develop that idea into a few paragraphs, but I won’t.
So, what did I think about The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters?
This book is just absurd—and I mean that in both the technical and the vernacular uses. I’m struggling to find words to describe it beyond that.
By page three, I was smitten with this book. By page 60, I wrote that, “This is either brilliant or the ravings of a madman. Possibly both.” And stuck with both of those reactions until the last sentence.
I talked about the humor above—and that would be enough to get me to recommend this book. But there’s so much more going on in these 204 pages. Things I haven’t begun to fully unpack yet. Things I’d probably need three or four reads to glimpse.
Sole doesn’t just play with narrative rules here. Nor does he simply experiment with them. He ties them up, tosses them in the trunk of his sedan, and goes for a joy ride. Less violently, you could say that Sole treats them as if he were Bugs Bunny after too many espressos and they were Elmer Fudd.
Then you throw in the prophecies, the philosophy, the semi-spirituality discussions, the action, the whale, teleporting via bathrooms/port-a-potties, the…I don’t know how to finish this sentence.
The plot is solid and interesting—but only somewhat important. The primary characters are three-dimensional, but only by the skin of their teeth. It’s not that important that they’re incredibly well-developed (as much as I hate to say something like that, it’s true here). What’s important is why things are happening and how Sole describes it.
Toss your suspension of disbelief in the trunk with Sole’s narrative rules, and dive in. You’ll be glad you did.
People who’ve read this site much know that I’m a huge Jo Perry fan. After I read the book, I noticed she’d provided a quote for the Publisher about it. As I’d fully expect, she put everything so wonderfully. I can’t match it, so I’m just going to close with what she said.
The Amazing Twin Chicken Freedom Fighters is the deep, learned, bookish, illogical, profound, effervescent, scatological, otherworldly, etymological and hilarious history of a shift in Joy’s and Jake’s (not their real names) ways of being and ours after they leap as one from a bridge and become heroic, pizza-eating—not just any pizza, but The Pizza Eternal-soul-yoked chickens. Enchanters, clicking and singing cetacean metaphors, the-down-and-out, lambs, assassins, the sorrowful, the faceless, the brain-on-fire, the ego-mad, the blind and seers inhabit Sole’s audacious and ambitious soul-adventure. This is a wild novel as sweet and hot as a from-the-oven lemon rosemary scone. Onward to Book Two.
Disclaimer: I received this ARC from the Publisher in exchange for my honest opinion and this post. They got short-changed in this deal.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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