I really have no idea what book the other reviewers read. I should have put this book away at the very beginning, but I just kept chugging along hoping that a clever twist or maybe a little character growth on the protagonist. Nope. Ultimately, I was left hollow like the caverns the zombies worked in.

Paul Trilby is an academic loser who couldn't complete his book, cheated on his wife and lover, and then kills a cat. I am supposed to sympathize with this guy? He actually gets into another relationship that seems to be based solely on sex, and all he can do is whine about his life and deny everything bad as a dream. On top of this screwed up protagonist, you are faced with a lack of suspense (unless you are as dimwitted as Paul Trilby), and a complete lack of any sense of real or imaginary action that could possibly happen. A barbecue grill going into water is supposed to make some kind of tidal wave and steam up a cavern holding 37 people... please!

I wasted 12 hours 10 minutes and 13 seconds of my life listening to this awful Recorded Books venture. Don't make the same mistake! ( )

Not as entertaining as his earlier publish or perish spoot about a failed academic stuck in a dead end bureaucratic job in Texas, but engaging enough. ( )

Kind of Carl Hiassen (with male protagonist) meets Chuck Palahniuk. Doesn't exactly fit a genre but don't want to spoil it. Fast moving with strong character development. This is one of the few books where an academic and writer can write about a failed academic without being morose and completely depressed (although it's there) about the university scene. About 2/3 of the way through I realized the book was going to end too soon--it could have gone another 200 pages without being dull, but the author or story ties itself off pretty fast, too fast for my taste. Enjoyable, clever, slow in the beginning but accelerates and leaves you wanting more, although some of the subject matter or characters seem a bit more juvenile than might be plausible, even in a Red-State government bureaucracy. ( )

KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE
By James Hynes

Speaking as a six-year veteran state employee, I’d like to say that James Hynes novel, Kings of Infinite Space, is pretty much true. Not the part about overbearing co-workers, ill-paid temps, or difficult parking. I meant he part about blood sacrifices in the unexplored network of pre-human caves under our offices.

http://fireandsword.blogspot.com/2007...

"...Paul Trilby would have to admit that he's having a bad life." (His wife, three girlfriends leave him)... He's fallen from academia to publishing, until he's finally fallen so far that he's reduced to working as a civil service tech writer for state government. How pathetic.

(Note to James Hynes: this is not exactly the tragic fall of a real "Down and Out" story....)