Ira Nayman's Random Dingoes was published by Elsewhen Press as e-book in April 2015. The paperback edition will be published in August 2015.
Information about Ira Nayman:
Ira Nayman once shot a man in 3-D to watch him dye.
Okay, okay, Ira Nayman is the author of three novels; he has also self-published five collections of Alternate Reality News Service (ARNS) articles in print. "The Weight of Information," the pilot for a radio series based on ARNS articles, can be found on YouTube. He updates his Web site of social and political satire, Les Pages aux Folles (www.lespagesauxfolles.ca), with new writing and cartoons on a weekly basis. Ira won the 2010 Swift Satire Writing Competition.
Oh, as you may have noticed, he is not above puns.
Information about Random Dingoes:
Being the third novel to attempt to document the trials and tribulations of the
Transdimensional Authority
Think back to a time in your life that you made a decision that you now regret. Oh, don't be so coy - everybody has one. Okay, maybe not Mother Teresa. Or, Bruce Springsteen. But, unless you're Mother Teresa or Bruce Springsteen - and we're pretty sure you're not - you have been in that position. What if you could go back in time and change that decision? What if you could make the other choice? Or, even better, choose a third option that you didn't even see at the time? Wouldn't you like to know how things would have turned out if only you had done something different at that critical juncture in your life?
DON'T BOTHER.
Have you never read any science fiction time travel stories? Don't you know that they always end with either dinosaurs becoming the dominant species on the planet or your grandfather killing Hitler, causing you to be born with a speech impediment and an irrational fear of listening to Born in the USA? Time branches are not something you can borrow books from - they are paths to realities that you couldn't anticipate and don't want to live in, and just try to get a decent corned beef on rye in any of them!
In Random Dingoes, the third Transdimensional Authority novel by Ira Nayman, investigators Noomi Rapier and Crash Chumley - who we first met in Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) and again in You Can't Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head) - look into reports of a drug that allows people to travel between universes without technological assistance. They methodically work their way up the drug ring's chain of command and are just about to arrest its leader when - time travel happens. With the assistance of Time Agency agent Radames Trafshanian, Noomi and Crash must navigate realities they hadn't anticipated and which they wouldn't want to live in. But, can they find a decent corned beef on rye? You'll have to read Random Dingoes to find out!
A REVIEW OF IRA NAYMAN'S RANDOM DINGOES
Ira Nayman's Random Dingoes is the third novel in the Transdimentional Authority series of humorous science fiction novels. It's just as funny, entertaining and unpredictable as its two predecessors, Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) and You Can't Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head). It's an entertaining reading experience for all who enjoy clever science fiction humour.
Although Random Dingoes is part of a bigger series, it can be read as a standalone novel. It easily allows readers to access the world of the Transdimentional Authority and the amazing adventures of their investigators. It's nice that readers don't necessarily have to know anything about the previous novels and their contents in order to enjoy this novel. (Knowledge of what has happened to the characters may help readers to understand certain things better, but I think that readers will understand what's going on without reading the previous novels.)
Random Dingoes is a fantastic novel about the new investigations of Noomi and Crash. It will please fans of the series and it will also be of interest to new readers who want to read hilarious science fiction humour. If you've never read anything by Ira Nayman, it may take a while for you to get used to the author's writing style, because it's a combination of main story, articles and flashbacks etc, but once you get used to it, you'll most likely enjoy what you're reading.
Before I write more about this novel and its contents, I'll mention that it's great that Ira Nayman doesn't try to please anyone with his humour and doesn't censor anything. Nothing and no-one is safe from his sense of humour, because he boldly writes about all kinds of themes and issues. He even dares to address certain things that some readers may consider to be difficult and even offensive.
Here's information about the story:
- Noomi Rapier and Crash Chumley are told about a new drug called Transdimentional Joy Joy that has hit the streets. It allows users to access multiple realities at the same time without technological assistance. Using the drug causes a high that's similar to LSD, but then the symptoms get worse, because the users slowly lose the ability to tell which physical reality they inhibit. Noomi and Crash begin to investigate the happenings involving Transdimentional Joy Joy and soon they find themselves travelling from one reality to another with their Dimentional DeloreanTM. They have to navigate through interesting and weird realities with unique help from Time Agency agent Radames Trafshanian...
- In this story, Noomi and Crash have to deal with law inforcement officers, deans etc during their investigations. Time Agency agent Radames Trafshanian helps them in her own unique style, because they find themselves navigating realities that are new to them and where they don't want to live in...
It was great to read about the return of Noomi Rapier and Crash Chumley. These investigators of the Transdimentional Authority are fascinating characters and their adventures have delighted me ever since I read the first Transdimentional Authority novel. If there are readers out there who haven't read the previous novels, I'll mention that Noomi is a junior investigator and Crash is a more experienced investigator.
Ira Nayman reveals interesting things about Crash's past to his readers. I'm sure that it comes as a surprise to many readers that Crash's secret passion is writing romance novels which he has published novels under a pseudonym. I won't write more about this subject, but I can mention that the author writes wonderful humour about it.
It's nice that the author also reveals things about Noomi's past. The flashback concerning her possible wedding and marriage to Derek and the revelations about her boyfriends are very funny. I enjoyed reading what Noomi felt about her current boyfriend, his appearance and his level of intelligence. It was also fun and enlightening to read about Time Agency agent Radames Trafshanian's childhood.
The colourful characters and their traits spice up the story in a nice way. For example, the cyborg Jabbakop is an eager and lively cyborg. The interrogation scene with Jabbakop is simply brilliant and very amusing, because it shows how eager a cyborg he is. Radames Trafshanian is also worth mentioning, because she's quite an unusual person who has brilliant comments.
The Study Questions featured after each chapter are brilliant quiz type questions that reminded me of the questions featured in certain textbooks. These questions allow readers to test their deduction skills and awareness of what they have read in an amusing way. For example, the author represents his readers such questions as "What are time tubes made of?", "What is a pocket universe?" and what has happened to the characters etc.
The Flashback scenes are excellent, because they reveal interesting information about the protagonists and their lives. It's nice that the author has included them to this novel, because they offer nice counterbalance to the main story and add depth to it.
The articles written by writers of the Alternate Reality New Service are funny and inventive. You simply can't read them without smiling, chuckling or laughing out loud.
After reading this novel you'll know a bit more about such things as doughnut smugglers, TAMI (Time Amplifying Mechanism, Indeed), underdogs, gerbils, dingoes, morphomorphs etc. I can assure that the author's vision of these things is something different.
Because I'm a devoted fan of weird fiction, literary strange fiction and the darker side of speculative fiction, I was thrilled to see an amusing reference to Lovecraft. I won't reveal what the author writes about Lovecraft and Lovecraftianism, but this reference will be of interest to readers who enjoy weird fiction and tolerate someone making fun of it.
Random Dingoes is one of those novels in which your knowledge of culture, popular culture, technology and the world around you is put to test. The more you know about what's going on in the world, the more you'll enjoy this novel and its nuances. In this novel, the author refers to Law & Order, Mona Lisa, Sandman comics, Memento, Downton Abbey, Edward Scissorhands etc in a funny and original way.
It was especially funny for me to read about references related to Downton Abbey, because Ira Nayman wrote about Exit Ramp to Downton Abbey in a brilliant way. I've heard that many people praise Downton Abbey as an especially fine and sophisticated drama series while others think it's a pretentious historial soap opera with little depth, so it was fun to read about the amazing plot twists that the author had invented to his own unique vision of this drama series. I can say that his vision differs quite a lot from the original series, because his plot twists are shamelessly hilarious.
One of the best things about Random Dingoes is that Ira Nayman approaches such clichéd issues as time travel, different realities and drug problems in an original and unique way. He manages to make these issues feel fresh and interesting by using clichés to his advantage and writing humorously about them.
Ira Nayman is one of the best authors of humorous science fiction and - in my opinion - he even manages to surpass the grandmaster Douglas Adams because his imagination seems to know no bounds. He delivers deliciously satirical, sarcastic, witty and quirky humour to his readers at regular intervals. His intelligent humour has a cool and sharp edge to it that may leave you stunned by its effectiveness.
It's great that just when you think that the author possibly can't deliver any more clever punchlines or comments, he surprises you by writing something that amazes you with its wittiness. He delivers a veritable feast of laughter to his readers (I'm honestly amazed at the author's energy to write humorous prose that makes fun of many different things).
It's possible that Ira Nayman's humour may not be to everyone's liking due to its sarcastic and witty nature, but in my opinion that's one of the reasons why he is such a good and talented author. I love his way of approaching different themes and issues in an original and uncompromising way. Random Dingoes is an excellent example of his writing style, because it contains all of his trademarks in a highly entertaining and wickedly funny format.
By the way, you should be careful where you read this novel, because you may experience sudden bursts of laughter coming out of your mouth when you read the story. It's almost impossible not to laugh out loud during the story, because it's chock-full of humour and brilliant references to popular culture and technology.
Random Dingoes is one of the funniest and most entertaining humorous science fiction novels ever written. It's full of humour, witty comments and uninhibited social commentary about our modern way of life disguised as science fiction. If you're not familiar with Ira Nayman's novels yet, you should read them, because they're good novels.
Excellent science fiction humour!