Finding pleasure in Horror & Fantasy

“Yeah, uh, I know this is going to sound kind of weird, but we’ve got, uh, like a yeti or something, I guess, in our store.” She winced. She should’ve just said they had a big rabid dog. They might’ve believed her then. “I know how that sounds, but this is not a prank, I…

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Monster * A. Lee Martinez (2009)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

“Yeah, uh, I know this is going to sound kind of weird, but we’ve got, uh, like a yeti or something, I guess, in our store.” She winced. She should’ve just said they had a big rabid dog. They might’ve believed her then. “I know how that sounds, but this is not a prank, I swear.”

Meet Monster. Meet Judy. Two humans who don’t like each other much, but together must fight dragons, fire-breathing felines, trolls, Inuit walrus dogs, and a crazy cat lady – for the future of the universe.

Monster runs a pest-control agency. He’s overworked and has domestic troubles – like having the girlfriend from hell.

Judy works the night shift at the local Food Plus Mart. Not the most glamorous life, but Judy is happy. No one bothers her, and if she has to spell things out for the night-manager every now and again, so be it.

But when Judy finds a Yeti in the freezer aisle eating all the Rocky Road, her life collides with Monster’s in a rather alarming fashion. Because Monster doesn’t catch raccoons; he catches the things that go bump in the night. Things like ogres, trolls, and dragons. Oh, and his girlfriend from Hell? She actually is from Hell.


OK, this book was a bit of a doozy to me.

A cat shrieked like a banshee as several imps descended on it. A large gray feline trumpeted as it batted aside several attackers. Monster and Chester tiptoed their way through the melee and stepped out into the other room. The clatter of a sasquatch smashing plates in the kitchen and the hungry eyes of the manticore at the top of the steps suggested that the house might not be the safest place.
Outside was safer. The marooned water horse had given up on trying to move and grazed on the lawn. It used its jaws like a steam shovel to scoop out a flower box.
A glittering phoenix picked through some nearby garbage cans. A hairy purple primate with two heads leaped at the bird. The bird responded by self-immolating in a golden flash, sending the ape scurrying away, yelping.
“This can’t be good,” said Monster.

I feel that I’ve been transported into an alternate universe where all the drugs have been compressed into one pill and I have taken it before reading this book. Or maybe that’s how it should be read: slightly high.

It’s funny in parts and outrageous in others. I was laughing when the guy took the black cat (Pendragon) back to the lady next door and he, himself, ended up becoming a cat. Or when the yeti went through the fridge and ate vanilla ice-cream. I liked it but not sure it vibed very well with the darker Halloween themed books I read this month.