Christopher Moore is warped, but luckily for us, that's a good thing. Moore, author of Lamb, has taken us away from a cynical look at the teenage years of Jesus to a new sort of religion - a cargo cult on a remote Pacific island. But this isn't an anthropological study - this is a romp of island culture, medical intrigue, cannibalism and talking bats.

[ • revenge of the MARY JEAN COMMANDOS • ]
Tucker Case is a bit of a screw-up. His chief motivations in life are booze, women and flying - usually in that order. It is during one of these escapades that Case really screws up - wrecking one of his employers planes while having sex with a prostitute - and earns himself on a spot on several people's sh!t lists. Then a miraculous opportunity comes along - a high-paying job for a missionary doctor on a remote Pacific island. Minus his pilot's license, Tucker is as good as grounded - so he takes the job, starting his journey into the bizarre world of Alualu.

Tucker - a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy's body, his friend Jake calls him - quickly finds that a flamboyantly gay native can be his best friend, that bats talk with island accents and that kava tastes like crap for the first few sips - and those are the highlights. Angry ninjas, a ghost of a dead pilot and a sadistic Sky Priestess add to the chaos Tucker finds himself in.

As he starts to take it all in, he finds out that some jobs are too good to be true. Now he just has to survive long enough to figure out how to get himself unemployed again...

[ • who is tucker case AND WHY IS HE WEARING MY CLOTHES? • ]
Island of the Sequined Love Nun is a complete farce on the cargo cult mythos of the post-WW2 Pacific. I was familiar with Tucker Case from The Stupidest Angel (Moore's latest), although reading these books in order definitely has its merits. Instead, I got the background on the guy - and had a great time doing so.

Tucker is a screw-up with a heart, a man with one too many brains, a drunk with a pilot's license. He's managed to stay just this side of the precipice, but his latest stunt has him leaping off the edge with nothing but the pants around his ankles as a parachute. He's the perfect anti-hero: flawed, of questionable ethical standards but fundamentally good. Thrown into a bad situation, he starts out by finding out how to turn it to his advantage - only later does his conscience open his eyes to the nefarious happenings around him on the peaceful but hardly idyllic Alualu.

Alualu is the home of the Shark People, a group of natives who have been wowed by Vincent, a WWII pilot who stopped by and freed his people from the Japanese. The doctor and his wife have been playing up this cargo cult, acting as vessels for 'Vincent's word', and using Tucker to unwittingly help them. But Tucker Case's knack for getting into trouble reveals some of the strange things happening on this island. In between bedding the doctor's wife and savaging a ninja with a 9-iron, he discovers the truth of what is happening, bringing him to face-to-face with the danger that his new friends - the Shark People - are facing. With his navigator Kimi, the old cannibal Sarapul and the village chief Malink, he comes up with a plan to change a few things on this slice of paradise. In the end, he defies death to save the Shark People from the evil plans of the Doctor and his Sky Priestess, a plan just crazy enough to work.

[ • hi, i'm sebastian, CAN YOU SPARE A KIDNEY? • ]
Christopher Moore is one of my favorite authors at the moment. His off-the-wall books and disturbed wit tickle me to no end. Lamb was one of the funniest books I've ever read, and Practical Demonkeeping was also hysterical, introducing us to the hapless residents of Pine Cove, CA as doom approaches. Recently, I've read two of his other novels - Fluke and The Stupidest Angel, which were funny but a notch down from what I'd come to expect. But with Island of the Sequined Love Nun, I'm reaffirmed in my estimation of Moore's talent and sense of humor. The character of Tucker Case is much more well-formed here than in the later book, although I might feel differently if I had read this first.

The supporting cast is somewhat 2D and archtypical - but they are supposed to be. The drunken British reporter wasting away in the islands, the Mary Kay-parody boss all are straight out of How to write a stereotype. But caricatures aren't necessarily a downfall as this novel actually feeds on them. What the magic is has very much to do with those characters. The banter is simple but often odd and hysterical:

Jefferson Pardee was trying desperately not to look like a sea turtle ... To a shark living in the warm Pacific waters off Alualu, sea turtles were fed. Not that there was any real danger of a shark making that particular mistake. Even a mentally-challenged shark would figure out that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no turtle would be yattering obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath. Still, a couple of harmless white-tipped reef sharks smelled blood in the water and cruised by to check out the source, only to retreat, regretting that in one hundred and twenty million years on the planet they had never evolved the equipment to laugh.

It is his appreciation of the intrinsic hilarity of the situation that plays well into Moore's hands. As the villagers ogle over People Magazine, he gets to spoof American 'culture' while giving you a brief - if slightly skewed - lesson in Pacific culture. Even given that many of the characters are only a wooden backdrop in a low-brow play, they still do what they are supposed to do - act as targets for jokes, offer up different points of view and in the end, somehow turn into people that you enjoy reading.

[ • and i'm OUTTA HERE • ]
Christopher Moore has a way with insane situations. He takes some things he's experienced, some things he's heard about, and some things he's only dreamed of, and turns them into a ridiculously funny story. Island journalists and cannibals share a drink and People Magazine over the prone form of a ninja, and it all makes sense. While Lamb is still my favorite of his books, this is still a worthy follow-up and one I know I'll read again.

[ • related CHRISTOPHER MOORE • ]
Lamb »
Jesus and his best friend Biff as teenagers. Absolutely hysterical.
Practical Demonkeeping »
A man and his demon visit a small town in California, looking for some peace and a small struggle for the future of all mankind.
Fluke »
Nate Quinn runs into a whale with attitude and a penchant for pastrami on rye - and then things get bizarre.

Recommended: Yes