Independent Book Review

Sharing the editorial review from Independentbookreview.com for my absurdist comedy “Bullet’s Adventure: Chasing Sobekneferu.” It will go live within two months. 

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen: A madcap jaunt full of wacky characters, bizarre creatures, and fantastical places

Mr. Harmless Bullet was perfectly happy with his quiet life. Well, with his ex-wife, Martha, constantly showing up to ruin promising sexual dalliances with gorgeous women, he was almost happy. Or maybe he was more neutral, considering his quest to find his one true love, the beautiful Queen Sobekneferu, wasn’t going too well. But he was managing his life perfectly well—until he offended the bratty son of Flamingo Vegas, one of the richest, most ruthless men in the city of Rsa. Forced into parental leave for his own protection, despite his distinct lack of children, Bullet’s life begins to unwind.
Instead of escaping the notice of Mr. Vegas, Bullet is drawn into the household where he is recruited to solve the murder of one of the resident katydids. In the course of the investigation, Bullet finds a much more sinister plot that has a princess kidnapped from her kingdom. But when he tries to help, he gets caught up in a madcap jaunt that drags him far from his beloved city.

Bullet’s Adventure: Chasing Sobekneferu is an absurdist novel about one man’s search for love in a chaotic world. A philosophical undercurrent runs beneath the surface story, which only becomes more apparent later on. Author Victoria Ray gives a nod to the action movies of old in Chasing Sobekneferu. Bullet, an ordinary man working a dull job in the local museum, is whisked off on a seemingly impossible quest in exotic locations across the globe due to a series of misadventures, most of them involving beautiful and dangerous women.

The absurdist aspect sees all these parts amped up tenfold. There are gorgeous women galore, dozens of enemies, and new locations every few pages. Once the ball gets rolling, it really moves. There are a lot of quirky, amusing bits here. The names are imaginative and bizarre enough to be kind of hilarious. The euphemisms in these pages are a lot of fun, too. As the blurb says, this book is choc-full of adult humor, and the language used to describe that humor is entertainingly distinctive. The writing is rather sparse for ideas that are so complex though. There isn’t much description to help us understand the setting or, at times, what the characters are doing at a given time. Dozens of characters inhabit these pages, but few of them are developed beyond their names. There are a myriad of different settings that sound fantastical when spoken of but aren’t given much space for us to explore.

Chasing Sobekneferu is a fast-paced, imaginative adult romp through a brightly energetic world. Innovative writing makes it a thoroughly unique reading experience, but I did at times yearn for a sturdier ground to stand on.

Tags: absurd-fictionabsurdistadventureartBloggingBookscomedycreative-writinghumorkindle-bookssatiresurrealismwriting-style