(OMG) Don Quixote and Candide Seek Truth, Justice and El Dorado in the Digital Age (LOL)

In the style of The Eyre Affair or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Don Quixote & Candide & their road-trip to Las Vegas is a funny, irreverent romp featuring a plethora of cameos from famous characters in history and fiction. The humor is very self-aware and meta, and while some sections certainly work better than others - Sherlock Homes' cameo made me laugh, the crew of the Enterprise less so - on the whole the story is a fun time.
All of the references & shenanigans become a bit too indulgent for my taste as the book went on, & there were some problems with the passive voice in the writing style, which is a large reason I'm not more over the moon about it, but I would definitely recommend to literary friends looking for a light summer read!

Candide—after he got tired of his farm—wanders into a bar where Don Quixote is entertaining German tourists with his stories. They feel a kinship and decide to explore this modern world together, with Candide’s ultimate goal to get back to El Dorado.
For someone who’s loved the book for decades, it’s more than a little weird listening to the thoughts of a grown-up and no longer-innocent/naïve Candide. Yes, at the end of that novel he’s lost that charm, but he’s far worse here. On the other hand, his luck hasn’t changed a bit; everything bad still happens to him.
“The conductor leaned in and pointed to his badge. ‘My real name is Cyrano.’” This is the first of many appearances by famous literary—and otherwise—figures. Started out enjoying the Sherlock cameo, until it became—can’t believe I’m saying this—too meta. Luckily there’s more of him later, though I do wish someone could write about him without shoving Moriarty into it too. The entire Star Trek scene was disappointing, anticlimactic; when you get Don Quixote calling Captain Kirk a coward, you know you’re in the wrong book. They appear again near the end, but that wasn’t much better. And those good ol’ Suthin boys Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn turned out to be much bigger jerks than Twain would have ever thought possible.
Proving I am much like Candide, the long philosophical conversations during travel, especially in cars, put me to sleep. This book would have been considerably shorter and tighter without them.
At one point I thought for sure Candide would run into every character from his book, and couldn’t wait to get to Cunegonde. When he did. . . well, it could have gone better, but I’ll bet he doesn’t regret it. Too bad the monkeys from the trip to El Dorado didn’t make it into this one.
I’ve seen the Who’s On First routine done with bands before, but never for this long.
Nuevo Mancha seemed a lot more realistic than Vegas.
There are no words more chilling than “You shall join the other eunuchs.”
So. . . that was longer and tougher going than expected. A silly romp through history and the world, with each new chapter seemingly sprouting at random. Same wacky adventures with a modern twist, featuring two of early history’s most talked-about travelers. Where else would you find so many fun historical characters together?
I’m not at all sure if watching Man of La Mancha a few months ago helped or hindered this reading. . .
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

I loved this. As a fan of both Candide and Don Quixote, I was prepared to be very critical indeed, but Stefan Soto has succeeded in blending the doomed search for the "best of all possible worlds" with the equally doomed "impossible dream" while at the same time mixing in his own satiric humour in a work that is both intellectually satisfying and at the same time funny as Hell! Brilliant!