SEARCH

Subscribe

RSS Feed

Sub by Email

Twitter Me

INTERVIEWS

Peter Higgins, author of Wolfhound Century

Myke Cole, author of Shadow Ops Series

John Brown John, translator of the Zamonia Novels

Jim C. Hines author of Libriomancer

Nick Harkaway author of Angelmaker (review here)

Martha Wells author of The Cloud Roads

David Tallerman author of Giant Thief

Mazarkis Williams author of The Emperor's Knife

Rob Ziegler author of Seed

Steven Gould author of 7th Sigma

Douglas Hulick author of Among Thieves (review here)

Mark Charan Newton author of Nights of Villjamur (review here)

Kameron Hurley author of God's War (review here)

Brent Weeks author of The Black Prism (review here)

Anthony Huso author of The Last Page (review here)

Brandon Sanderson author of The Way of Kings (review here)

Lou Anders Editor of Pyr Books

Ian Tregillis author of Bitter Seeds (review here)

Sam Sykes author of Tome of the Undergates (review here)

Benjamin Parzybok author of Couch (review here)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch author of Diving Into the Wreck (review here)

Ken Scholes author of Lamentation

Cherie Priest author of Boneshaker (review here)

Lev Grossman author of The Magicians (review here)

Character Interviews

Alexia and Lord Maccon from Gail Carriger's Soulless

Lord Akeldama from Gail Carriger's Soulless

Eva Forge from Tim Akers's The Horns of Ruin

Atticus from Kevin Hearne's Hounded

RECENT REVIEWS

The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn

Cold Days by Jim Butcher

Year Zero by Rob Reid

Alif: The Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

Scourge of the Betrayer by Jeff Salyards

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Control Point by Myke Cole

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
My BlogCatalog BlogRank Wikio - Top Blogs - Literature

REVIEW | The Ridiculous Race by Steve Hely & Vali Chandrasekaran (Henry Holt)

The Ridiculous Race is an aptly titled hilarious travel narrative of two friends racing around the world in opposite directions for an expensive bottle of scotch. The twist is no airplanes are allowed. Both authors are comedy writers on different major shows. Hely for American Dad and Chandrasekaran for My Name is Earl. Judging from the writing I would have thought they'd be writing for the opposite shows just based on how off-the-wall Chandrasekaran antic's are and how grounded Hely seems. Chandrasekaran is most definitely not against pulling something underhanded and starts off shamefully with a scene involving a pair of hand-cuffs. The Ridiculous Race grew out of one Steve and Vali's friendly get-togethers in which they always try to out do one another. One almost thinks that they actually wanted to write a book together before they decided what it would be. Nevertheless, the outcome is a hilarious journey around the world by two guys without a clue. The narrative switches between Hely and Chandrasekaran from their sometime immature points of view, which makes this a very breezy read. Chandrasekaran certainly causes a lot of comedic scenes along the way as it seems like he would love to cause an international incident, while Hely is a little too planned out at times although about halfway around the world he loses the drive in the race and decides to just have a good time. Not to say Hely is less funny than Chandrasekaran as Hely certainly has a way with words. When he described a sauce he tried as turtle mucus I couldn't stop laughing for a couple pages. Yeah it is that type of humor at times. If you've been in the mood for some traveling and can't get away this will give a good flavor of travel abroad as each author visits many wonderful places and describes them differently than most other writers ever would. I give The Ridiculous Race 7.5 out of 10 hats for the pure entertainment value. Also, if you are into humor it will certainly leave you chuckling here or there. Chandrasekaran certainly has a slapstick style of humor all his own. Book link: US UK Canada

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And yet another book that looks incredibly interesting that I would've never found out about if not for the Mad Hatter. I'm definitely going to check this one out.

The Mad Hatter said...

Thank you. I try to mix it up a bit. My reading is a bit erratic and sometime I get tired of what everyone else is reading. However, sometimes what everyone else is reading sounds so good I have to give it a try. You should see a few more non-ficiton reviews over the summer as well as I tend to read travel related books this time a year.