Aphelion Review # 38 --That Darn Squid God--

That Darn Squid God

By Nick Pollotta & James Clay

Review by Dan L. Hollifield

Type of music/work:

Fantasy / Adventure / Humor
Another winner from Nick Pollotta!

Musicians/Performers/Author(s):

Nick Pollotta & James Clay
Cover Art by Fastner & Larson!
Wildside Press webpage for ordering Nick's books.
Published by WILDSIDE PRESS, LLC
Nick Pollotta's SFWA webpage.
ISBN: 1-59224-097-6
Price: $14.95 USD, Due out in November of 2004.
That Darn Squid God by Nick Pollotta (Trade Hardcover) This is Shocklines.com, an on-line book store that is accepting advance orders for the hardback. $34.95 USD. (ouch!)

  Now the good news:
   Fantastic Book Club - The Best in Fantastic Fiction!
  This is an on-line book club, very similar to the SFBC.  However, there is no minimum to buy, and it is free to join. 
  The book club hardback of "That Darn Squid God" sells for $18.95 USD.  Now, that's quite a significant savings in price!

General impressions of the album/book:

I couldn't put the book down, except when I was rolling on the floor, laughing. Nick has given us yet another wonderful novel to cherish.

Specifics:

How does one classify science fiction written with a humorous bent? "That Darn Squid God" is so far beyond the usual run of SF humor that it passes through into a class almost by itself. Nick Pollotta has very few peers in this field, and almost no equals. This is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read- and that's saying a lot! Nick muct have worked very hard on this novel, but the writing is so good that the reader doesn't stop to think about ho much work it must be. Nick makes it look easy. But don't be fooled, this is a finely crafted story. It only looks effortless because Nick is so talented.

From the first page, the reader is drawn into the story and whirled along in a complex adventure. The plotting is excellent, the characters are living and breathing, and the backdrops are vividly painted. In every technical aspect of fictioneering, this novel stands out as a new classic. Even if one were to extract all the humor, this would still be a great story!

If you've never read any of Nick's books, I highly recommend them to you. You'll thank me for it later.

Bio:

Nick Pollotta is a professional novelist specializing in Science Fiction, Humor, and Military/Thrillers, with over 70 books published worldwide (and more coming).

Happily married, Nick resides in northern Illinois with his beautiful wife, Melissa, 14,000 books, three computers and two mutant cats who plan to conquer the world any day now.

Review Copyright 2004 by Dan L. Hollifield




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