Friday, August 26, 2016

The Shootout Solution (Genrenauts #1), by Michael R. Underwood (author), Mary Robinette Kowal (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781427269669, November 2015

Leah Tang is doing open mic standup comedy, and the going is rough. On this particular night, when she finally gets a bit of a roll going, it'sat what should be the end of her time, and she winds up going over.

The club manager is annoyed.

An entirely unappealing audience member tries to pick her up in the bar afterward.

Then another audience member approaches her. An older, cultured black man. He says he's Professor King, and he has a job to offer her in the language lab he's running, focused on narrative forms in  genre literature. Dull, right?

But he makes her a good enough pitch that she decides to go along and at least check it out.

What's effectively her job interview takes her to Wild West World, an alternate dimension where life is dominated by the narrative tropes of the westerns. A story has gone off track, and that's dangerous; it has repercussions back in our "real world," causing outbreaks of violence which will continue to increase until the problem is patched and things are back on track.

This isn't dull. It isn't even safe.

But it is very exciting, and it uses her love of story.

Maybe this is a job worth taking--if she and the rest of the team get back to the "real" world alive.

This is a lot of fun, and I look forward to the further adventures of the Genrenauts.

I bought this book.

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