Having been exposed to what might reasonably be termed a ‘surfeit’ of unhealthily imaginative Voynich theories since nineteen-clickety-duck [*], I’d like to think that I’ve seen quite a lot of ‘highly unlikely scenarios’: and so pretty much anything involving Roger Bacon, time travel, and the Voynich Manuscript I should have covered, right?

Wrong! In her 2013 novel “A Highly Unlikely Scenario: Or, A Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide To Saving The World” Rachel Cantor straps an extra ten feet to her conceptual pole and vaults far higher than just about anyone else would try. (In fact, I’d say she tries her level best to vault out of the whole darn arena.)

Yet there’s a spark, verve and swerve to her jambalaya of story ingredients: future fast food corporations at war, a heady mix of mismatched philosophies, time-travelling conversations (with Marco Polo and family members), magical songs (“who is the king of the [clap] third ether?“, stop me if you’ve heard it before), anarchist book club members (sort of), and clothes so vividly jangling they make your inner eye hurt (toreador pants and red afros? Yes, really). And then the story properly begins…

There will be those who glibly snark that such a book is not a ‘novel’, it is simply a creative writing experiment that somehow managed to escape the labs: and that the correct cultural response to such over-hybridized monsters is a tranquilizer dart in the thigh and a discreetly dark van to clear the Frankenbody from the streets. But pshaw to such reactionary knee-jerking, I say: for all its angularity, such writing keeps language fresh and (dare I say it) exciting. Read this and enjoy it! 🙂

[*] Which is, of course, the punch-line to the wonderful old joke: “Two little old ladies playing bingo. One says to the other, ‘You know, I’ve been coming here since nineteen clickety-duck’.

5 thoughts on ““A Highly Unlikely Scenario”, reviewed…

  1. Josh on June 3, 2014 at 12:16 pm said:

    I don’t know if I’d be interested in reading this one, but I enjoyed reading Dan Brown’s novels as fictional action books. I don’t see a real reason for anyone to say this book shouldn’t have been written, as long as someone enjoys it.

  2. Josh: I didn’t say that this book shouldn’t have been written. I liked it! 🙂

  3. Curious fact: according to Google, this is now the only page on the web containing the text “I enjoyed reading Dan Brown’s novels“. How spooky is that?

  4. bdid1dr on June 3, 2014 at 4:33 pm said:

    Scenario: The “Voynich” written as a whodunnit. Many of today’s mystery novels involve the writer’s favorite cooking or baking recipes.
    🙂

  5. bdid1dr on June 24, 2014 at 6:00 pm said:

    Huh? ‘clickety-duck’ (?) Whuh? This is way over my head — and still flying! Please clue me in!
    🙂

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