20% or 52 pages in I give up DNF Maybe it s me but I find it exceedingly boring and would rather sleep English I received Damned Lies Things That Never Happened And a Couple of Things That Did by Dennis Liggio for free through Goodreads First Reads This is one fantasy filled crazy fun story It starts out with our narrator on a blind date and morphs into another world of creating a clone of riding the rails and getting immersed into a secret world of hobo boxing of getting saved by a crazy spiritualist in a walking house hitching rides only to discover government secrets the list goes on If a story could take a far out acid trip this is what it would be I had a great time reading this book and I look forward to the next installment The narrator and I have some unfinished business to attend to Kudos to Dennis Liggio on his way out imagination and great story telling English Weird quirky and geeky as Hell Damned Lies had me laughing out loud than once Liggio combines absurdist humour and the picaresque in a manner reminiscent of The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy Don t get me wrong this novel does have its flaws but overall it was a very fun read. The premise of the novel is referenced in the title the author is bed ridden after a traffic accident and decides to spend his newly freed time writing his memoirs Whether due to embellishment on his part or a recent concussion what emerges is a strangely supernatural ramble through the worlds of fantasy sci fi and horror fiction Ominous births crazy dates and metafictional brothers are all introduced and dismissed within the first fifth of the novel giving you a taste of what s to come Damned Lies primarily focuses on a bizarre summer journey which takes place the summer after the protagonist s high school graduation and the machinations of the clone he creates to stand in for him As you may have guessed by now this is not a novel that takes itself seriously. As usual I ll start with the good this novel is most definitely a product of the internet If you regularly frequent sites like TV Tropes 4chan or Reddit you re already familiar with the sarcastic style that Liggio adopts It s what is probably best defined as pastiche and refers to a style that lovingly imitates even as it mocks a given genre or text Many of the staples of Geek culture are here the zombie apocalypse scenario the anime style mech warrior unexplained encounters with insanity and the supernatural If you are a denizen of the net you will probably like this book. Of course the downside of online content is also reflected you get short bites of everything but large helpings of nothing Damned Lies is by nature a rambling narrative and there are times when this means that the narrative seems incomplete skipping from one story line to another without fully explaining what has happened to the supporting characters If you enjoy a novel of chance encounters with weirdness then this is precisely the novel for you If on the other hand you dislike leaving subplots unfinished you may want to brace yourself Damned Lies often abandons a subplot just as you re getting to enjoy a setting or set of characters and with the exception of those characters presented in the frame narrative none are ever really returned to This also means that you may leave one highly enjoyable narrative story line to be thrust into a tedious one for me this was the hobo boxing chapters. But wait I said I d discuss the good before the bad This novel appeals to my fetish for paratext the author includes a smattering of footnotes usually offering sarcastic commentary on the text itself This is no House of Leaves level of paratext mind you but seeing footnotes pop up here was encouraging I ve often wondered why e book publishers don t make better use of paratext given how easy they are to access when reading a novel on a Kindle It is one of the few ways that digital books have an advantage over traditionally published novels and in my opinion authors should take advantage of it either to add commentary as happens here or simply to screw with the reader introduce additional levels of narration as happens in HoL. One problem that may not be a problem is that the protagonist remains unnamed throughout the novel I m sure that this was intentional and is probably done ironically intent on memorializing his own life the protagonist ends up fictionalizing the majority of it and fails to even state his name Maybe it s the footnotes talking or my inner English student but I got a strong channelling Byron vibe from aspects of this novel Unfortunately I cannot recall whether Byron ever names himself as the narrator of Don Juan or Childe Harold but to the best of my memory the answer is no So it may be that Liggio is doing this ironically or that it s some shout out to a past master of the picaresque or that it s simply a happy accident In any case it may be read as a wise decision Unfortunately it also seems out of character for the narrator himself He seems like the sort of fellow who would at least give us an internet style pseudonym probably with a few pages description of why he chose the pseudonym and how it s far representative of his character than his birth name The protagonist is full of himself to say the least and while his is a hilarious generally non threatening level of narcissism he doesn t exactly come across as the type to leave his accomplishments unclaimed whether they be real or fictionalized. Unfortunately the biggest problem of all was copy editing I hate coming across books that need copy editing because it s such a tiny problem and yet it has such a substantial influence on the way the book is perceived In this case the issue was usually bad grammar or the use of words that were outright wrong in context To use a particularly noteworthy example From some well deep within the caverns of my being sometimes screamed in defiance a howl that rose from those depth and out through my being Emphasis added It s a tongue in cheek novel so the effect isn t as devastating as it would have been had the tone been entirely serious but these little errors still detract from the work s overall presentation I nabbed this copy of the book from Story Cartel so it is theoretically possible that these errors have been fixed in the published copy of the novel but if not they re really something that should be addressed The internet is notorious for its nitpickers and its grammar Nazis You don t want to turn your target audience against you with a few ill chosen words. Skip it if You re looking for a single serious sustained narrative and or you think that sarcastic nerdy fiction should stay on obscure internet forums English The best word to describe this book is wacky This is something difficult for books to achieve without completely overdoing it but when a book manages to hit the right level of wacky without being completely random and over the top it s an enjoyable and entertaining experience And while it s not my favorite book of all time it was definitely fun which is all I expected from it. Our protagonist is just fleeing a terrible blind date when he s struck by a car and ends up in the hospital Shocked by his own mortality he decides to write his memoirs but to liven them up by adding a few things that might not be true So what should be the banal story of an ordinary man s life is spiced up with giant robots hobo boxing an encounter with an angry god a vampire hunting nun and an incident involving a clone who may or may not be evil and who may just have plans to eliminate our protagonist once and for allThis is less a single cohesive story and a series of vignettes and far out scenarios loosely strung together There s no real point to any of it just one bit of random wackiness after another If you read this book expecting a coherent story you re going to be disappointed And to be honest the protagonist whose name is never given is a bit of an unlikable jerk though that may have been intentional on the part of the writer. All that said however the book is still pretty entertaining It s funny with a fun conversational tone and wacky hijinks and characters abounding And while it s pretty random at times it never felt forced or like it was trying too hard Besides what s not to like about a book that contains zombies sorcerers giant robots vampires cloning and eldritch gods with agendas of their own This isn t my favorite book of all time and I don t know if I ll continue the series but it was dang fun while it lasted Keep on writing Dennis Liggio English I loved this book from the start Damned Lies Things That Never Happened to Me and a Couple Things That Did is a cautionary tale involving as the description notes mad science ghosts zombies giant robots cursed swords epic confrontations clumsy violence cultists unanswered questions bemused footnotes good friends sworn enemies hidden references the secret of the universe and at least one very pissed off Lovecraftian God. It s the unlikely story of a New York City teenager who successfully clones himself to get out of a boring job and travel a bit during the summer after his high school graduation Problems ensue when the clone decides it wants a life of its own. But wait I m getting way ahead of the real story which is about the misadventures that befall the narrator whose name never quite enters into things It s not important We as readers are much interested in his long stint as a bare knuckles hobo fighter his brief interlude with a stranger who transports him to a parallel universe to fight an evil being who has left his mark on the narrator and the woman he almost escapes with except for one small problem she s dead. The breadth of author Dennis Liggio s far ranging imagination is staggering He weaves an impossible tale and yet makes it all very plausible There is great writing here and memorable turns of phrase Higher than a penthouse on Park Place finding gaps like a spaceship in an asteroid field and finally I m sure there could have been a spoiled breakfast sandwich created from their intermingling fumes. Liggio creates believable characters I very much cared about Some die some live the reader is never sure from one moment to the next what the fate of each character is going to be Indeed the book s only fault lies in not knowing what ultimately became of the vampire killing nun or the turbocharged truck driver or even the philandering clone that s one of the better scenarios but you ll just have to read about it yourself I found myself laughing out loud at some of the irreverent humor and Liggio s sharp edged wit and sarcasm seldom misses the mark if you don t mind a constantly wisecracking smart ass as the lead character Personally I loved it. I give Damned Lies a solid five stars English
Damned Lies are absurd tales told by a snarky narrator that doesn t believe truth should get in the way of a good story Damned Lies are the wild recollections of his exciting and entirely unlikely life Within the pages of this series you ll find mad science ghosts zombies giant robots cursed swords clones epic confrontations clumsy violence cultists unanswered questions bemused footnotes good friends sworn enemies hidden references the secret of the universe and at least one very pissed off Lovecraftian god If you re the right kind of strange individual this is exactly the series you ve been waiting for Damned LiesThe book that started it all Damned Lies is the true story of things that never happened It is a fictional memoir of fantastic events It is a chronicle of self cloning of adventure of magic of bare fisted hobo boxing tournaments of zombies and It s the autobiography of a wild summer adventure out beyond the fields we know It s the secret of what s hidden in a government bunker it s the story of helping a nun with a crossbow hunt a vampire it s the explanation of why you can t have that death ray you really wanted It s a cautionary tale of just why cloning yourself is a really terrible idea Damned Lies is a big fish story for those who don t fish It s a shaggy dog story for cat lovers It s the scifi fantasy humor memoir we ll all wish we dictated on our deathbed It s why we can t have nice things Damned Lies Strike BackDamned Lies Strike Back follows in the great tradition of sequels in that it is bigger bolder and dripping with franchise potential Like a good sequel it answers all the unanswered questions of the original except for the ones it doesn t It is exactly the sequel this world needs This time around our intrepid hero and friends battle the evil apocalyptic plans of his homicidal clone and a dangerous cult At the same time he is facing his clone in the present day he recounts the story of his first year in college where he formed a mystery gang to stop the nefarious plot of evil college professors It all leads to a climactic sword fight and then a desperate epic battle against a true evil that we all know well Damned Lies of the Dead 3DDamned Lies of the Dead 3D is not the zombie novel we need but it s the zombie novel we deserve In 1995 Austin Texas was nearly wiped out by a zombie outbreak This fact has been long suppressed but the truth cannot be silenced Now there is a firsthand account from our intrepid hero of just what happened and how he survived Only the dead know the truth It s grindhouse it s horror it s how humor novel characters deal with death in the inevitable third book in the series And it has zombies Everyone loves zombies right Damned Lies Damned Lies 1 Dennis Liggio is the author of sixteen books including I KILL MONSTERS the DAMNED LIES series THE LOST AND THE DAMNED and the books set in the city of New Avalon He is a veteran of the game industry enjoys long walks on the beach while thumbing through tomes of unspeakable evil and rumor has it that if you say his name three times in front of a mirror at midnight he will appear and give you Hostess Fruit Pies He writes primarily in the genres of geeky absurdist humor horror and urban fantasy He lives in Pflugerville Texas with his amazing wife awesome daughter and four cats that act like wieners. Overall Rating 4 5Read it if You re a self proclaimed geek looking for a modern satire: He begins hitchhiking and runs across a vampire killing nun a jet propelled semi tractor trailer and three hundred foot tall robots created for the cold war but never used. Damned Lies is the first of a series of books by Liggio all published originally in print and I assume only recently made available online If you ve got 3: 99 to spare and just want some good old fashioned escapist fiction with a bit of a sci fi twist download a copy You ll be glad you did.Absurd story that pushed all the right buttons English.
