Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish

Title: Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish Author: Andrew Buckley Format: ebook Source: NetGalley

From Goodreads: "From the Bahamas to Heathrow airport, to the rain soaked streets of London the dead have ceased dying.

This is inconvenient for a number of reasons but what’s the real reason behind the chaos?

In London we find Nigel Reinhardt, a disgraced, confused, and gifted London police constable who owns a prophetic goldfish. In Ireland the Angel of Death questions the value and position of his current employment. At Majestic Technologies Celina McMannis works diligently on a top secret project. At the South Pole there lives a very unhappy penguin.

When the Devil hatches a nefarious plot to take over the world by possessing a cute little kitty and seizing a factory of robotic Christmas elves it’s up to Nigel and his group of unlikely companions to save the world or die trying… or both."

My Opinion: If you like British humor, you will love this book! I was very surprised to find out that this was Andrew Buckley's first book because it is crazy, totally out of control, and in my humble opinion, very, very well written. I can't imagine how he kept track of everything that was gong on because it was hard for me to do it, and I was just reading it!

The Devil possesses a cat and convinces Death, over many drinks in an Irish pub, to quit his job. Thus, people stop dying, or do die but can't get into heaven or hell without going through Death, which is becoming quite a nuisance! To add to the fun, we have a goldfish who can predict the future and sends out messages telepathically, but he has an attention span of 3 seconds so once he sends it, it's gone from his memory! My favorite part is how after each message is sent, he swims around his fishbowl and discovers the castle in it, again, and again, and again, and it makes him so happy every time!

My other favorite character is the penguin turned human, who has a very interesting way of viewing the world!

There is also a detective, a bunch of evil elves, including Eggnogg the dancing elf, an AI genius of Scottish ancestry, and many more, too many to list here! I loved them all, but the Angel of Death was especially fun because he traveled in a cloak of magic that made everyone who saw him or interacted with him in any way completely forget him as soon as they turned away, which made ordering a drink at a local bar somewhat difficult!

Overall I thought this book was terribly funny in a way that reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I absolutely loved! There is a special kind of humor to these two books - what I've heard called throwaway humor, with one liners thrown this way and that, and each of them funnier than the one before. It is very entertaining and definitely worth your time to read. I recommend it to lovers of British humor, which is pithy and fabulous, and anyone who likes to reads Terry Pratchett, as this book brings his books to mind when you are reading it.

I give this book a very enthusiastic 5 stars :D

I received a copy of this book free of charge through NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Entertaining Silliness, With Style

You know that old quote - "Dying is easy; comedy is hard" - really applies to books like this. It is very hard to write a silly humor book that stays the course. The plot gets too manic, or the characters wear out their welcome, or the jokes start to repeat themselves, or the author only has so many tricks and you start to see the wheels turning in the background. Andrew Buckley's books are always a pleasure to me because his inventiveness and cleverness and ability to plot and to create characters is sustained and varied.

This book has the right number of engaging and appealing main characters. It has lots of entertaining supporting characters. It's plot is enough to drive the narrative without becoming inane or undisciplined. There is snappy dialogue, funny throwaway observations, tight little bits of business and then some more subtle slow build up jokes that result in nice payoffs later. The variety and the pacing keeps you invested in the book and the plot leaves a lot of room for improvised riffs.

In fact, some of the diverting asides, that have very little to do with the story as such, are among my favorite parts. For example - The Angel of Death has a built in magical protection that leads any living person who interacts with him to almost immediately forget the details or even the fact of the encounter. The problem is that when Death is on vacation and orders a drink from a cocktail waitress she forgets the order as soon as she turns away from him. I'm sorry, but that kind of clever little humorous grace note just cracks me up.

It also matters that this is a generous, cheerful and good-hearted book. Even when Buckley is needling a type or being a bit snarky it is clever and good humored snark. There is nothing mean or awkward about Buckley's humor or the targets of that humor. The fun is clever and wry. More than anything else I suspect that's why people are tempted to invoke Monty Python and Douglas Adams and the like when describing Buckley's books. This is knowing and aware and sophisticated humor at times, but always forgiving and generous.

So, a very nice find and a very nice addition if you need a touch of clever light humor. And who, from time to time, doesn't need that?

Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.

I absolutely loved it. I had no idea what was going to happen next. I will be recommending this for purchase to our collection. I have already recommended it to several people.

Death, the Devil and the Goldfish

Andrew Buckley

Curiosity Quills, December 2012

ISBN: 978-1-62007-125-0

Trade Paperback
Death has had enough. A pub in Ireland might have something to do with that, but still, he’s had enough. And the Devil is due for another sojourn on earth, his first in a few thousand years. One week outside the confines and agonies of Hell and he can’t wait. Being the Devil, he has a plan up his sleeve. I mean, why relax for a week when you can wreck havoc? He just hasn’t reckoned on the prophetic, telepathic powers of one goldfish called Jeremiah. The problem is, Jeremiah’s memory isn’t the greatest and…oh look, someone’s put a castle in his bowl.

I have to say, this book gripped me in the first page and didn’t let go until I found the last dizzying sentence. Anyone who can appreciate the sense of humour in the UK will love this book as it is delightfully hilarious with its absurd scenarios and the way everything flies in the face of logic. Admittedly, it was sometimes difficult to keep up with the story as it zigzagged from character to character but in the end, it was well worth it. The further on the story went, the easier it was to keep a hold on who was who and what they were supposed to be doing, or in some cases, not doing. I quite liked the whole storyline with Death and his new friend Gerald, formerly a penguin but now deposited in the body of a former Olympic swimmer who met an unfortunate end via a bus and a driver called Dante. See what I mean about the British humour?

There are a lot of laugh out loud moments so whatever you do, don’t drink tea when you’re reading this book. A visitor to the house who was doing some computer work with my husband even asked me what I was laughing at since I kept disturbing them with my loud and unpredictable cackle. At one point, I checked what page I was at and realised that I had ploughed through almost 150 pages without realising. Imagine my disappointment when I knew I only had forty pages left which has to be a sign of a good read. This story is brilliantly funny with a host of characters that are interesting and have enough quirks to keep psychiatrists in business for a millennia.

If you get the chance to read Death, The Devil and the Goldfish,
I heartily recommend that you do and judging from the ending and epilogue, there just might be another title coming our way. Lucky us!

Reviewed by Laura McLaughlin, February 2013 for Buried Under Books.

Yes, this book is just as weird as the title suggests. I have read the 200 plus pages with a big grin on my face for 100% of the time an laughed out loud at least 50% of the time. I hereby like to appologize to my fellow train travelers who must have thought there was a maniac on their train.

My first thought when I saw this book on Netgalley was "how did someone manage to put a glodfish in with Death and the Devil and in the end it is easier than you think.

This book has several characters having their own start in the story. It is clear from the beginning they are going to end up together in the end but you are not sure in which capacity. I loved Gerald and the Death the most. They are the most hilarious combination. One thing that did bother me was that the author named some of the characters alike. Neville and Nigel is really hard to get a grip on sometimes.

I must confess that I admired the many different ways the author found to describe the relationship between the goldfish and the castle.

Other than the characters the story is a chain of the most stupid situations a human being (or not so human being) can find himself stuck in combined with the thoughts of every other sane person hearing the story. As the author mentions in his book that dark lonley half collapsing house no person with a normal working brain would enter....

Are you confused after reading this review and wondering what I am babbling about than you should read this book. It is hilarious, funny and balancing just on the right site of morality and I have not laughed like this about a story in a long time.

The devil makes a deal with God - the devil can spend a week on earth in any body of his choosing. However, as it turns out, God is a bit of a trickster with a great sense of humour. The body the devil chooses suddenly becomes unavailable and he finds himself in a body of God's choosing - in a cat named Fuzzbucket (moral here: always read the fine print). Still, the devil is, if nothing, flexible, and is willing to change his plans for world domination to accomodate this unexpected glitch even if it means coughing up a hairball or two in the meantime. To begin his nefarious scheme, he convinces a drunken Death to quit his job - since people aren't used to the no death thing, it is the perfect distraction.

But God who is, by the way, a wine waiter in Brixton, has plans of His own which include a cop named Nigel, a scientist named Celina, and a penguin named Gerald. There is also a prophetically gifted goldfish named Jeremiah and a whole whack of criminally insane robot Christmas elves.

If all this sounds a little (no a lot) crazy, well, it is. The story is, to put it mildly, just a tad off the wall. In many ways, it is sort of like a group of silly vignettes, strung together to create what feels more like a Monty Python skit than a cohesive story. But what it lacks in plot, it definitely makes up in irreverence and humour. Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish is laugh-out-loud funny. It is definitely not one for the laughter impaired but, if you are a fan of British humour, you really have to check this story out - your funny bone will get one heck of a workout.