Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest

May 27, 2013
The ever-mercurial Martinez (Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain) offers up a sweetly charming, gleefully entertaining tale of two teens traveling across the country, one mythic encounter at a time. Helen Nicolaides, a young woman suffering from minotaurism (hooves, tail, cow head, and all), and her coworker Troy Kawakami, who’s almost distressingly normal, are cursed by the long-forgotten Lost God to collect certain items of power, or else. (“Because that’s the way it is,” the god explains when Helen protests that quests are “arbitrary” and “stupid.”) With a little help from the National Questing Bureau, they set off, dealing with sleeping dragons, hungry witches, and a combative cyclops while a murderous pack of orc bikers follows in hot pursuit. Martinez is a master at making the fantastic so mundane it’s fantastic again. While too many familiar mythical elements may occasionally encourage readers to skim, sympathetic characters and a fast-paced plot filled with magic and adventure build to a rousing success from an author who reinvents himself with every new release.

July 1, 2013

Helen's summer waitressing job at Magic Burger is cut short when her employer tries to sacrifice her to a lost god resembling a humanoid made of hamburger meat. When a handsome, multitalented coworker named Troy joins the fray, the god changes its plans and instead sends Helen and Troy on a quest to retrieve an unspecified number of artifacts for an unknown purpose. Although being a minotaur gives Helen some advantages in the modern world, she has little chance of winning Troy's affections. Accompanied by a three-legged dog and pursued by a motorcycle gang of orcs, Helen and Troy traverse a rarely traveled part of the American landscape, trusting destiny and the National Questing Bureau to guide their journey. VERDICT The author of Gil's All Fright Diner scores another winner with the zany adventures of a pair of intelligent, out-of-the-ordinary young adults in a world where humans and mythic creatures coexist. Martinez's full-blown comic talent places him in a category with Piers Anthony and Terry Pratchett as a master of comedic fantasy.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.