Casual Rex: A Novel

There are any number of ways to approach Hollywood Boulevard, but for pure shock value, the key is to strike at the heart of the beast, right where the cheese factor is the highest: the intersection of Hollywood and Highland Avenue. That's Limburger, baby, with a side of extra stink.

In Casual Rex, a prequel to the first novel, Vincent, a velociraptor, gets conned into helping out his partner Ernie's ex-wife Louise. Ernie still can't resist Louise's "lilac and warm oatmeal" pheromone signature and crocodile tears (almost literally, since Louise is "one of those unfortunate dinosaurs for whom the lachrymal glands are still overproductive, even after millions of years of evolution worked this kink out of the rest of our systems"). When she comes to the agency with a story of her younger brother Rupert's involvement in a dino cult, the pair quickly find themselves masquerading as cult members, or Progressives. The Progressives are intent on reclaiming their dinosaur ancestry, or as they put it, "becoming 100% Dinosaur Natural."

The smooth talk and the stunning beauty of cult leader Circe, whose velociraptor pores emit a dizzying scent of rosemary, fennel, and thyme (all powerful dino intoxicants), fascinates even skeptical Vincent. But it quickly becomes apparent that something dangerous is simmering beneath the surface of the cult. The only question is whether Vincent and Ernie will figure out what's going on before they become 100% Dinosaur Dead.

Garcia's first novel became something of a cult item in its own right. Fans will be happy to know that Casual Rex delivers the goods again; it's funny enough to render the sophomore jinx extinct. --Kelly Flynn

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Not Free SF Reader, 2008-03-03
Disguise really is good, people.


Although Casual Rex is not quite as good as its predecessor, Anonymous Rex, it is still a fun book. A cult satire, if you like, as a particular group decides that it would be good if dinosaurs could walk around au naturel, rather than keep their true selves hidden from the monkey boys and girls around them.

Our hero is tasked to do something about this group of lizard nutters.

Entertaining.


3.5 out of 5


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Worthy prequel to Anonymous Rex, 2006-10-01
I bought this book because I absolutely loved Anonymous Rex. For those who don't know, this detective series is about a private investigator named Vincent Rubio, who also happens to be a dinosaur. It turns out that dinosaurs never became extinct. They just decided to disguise themselves to look like humans. Not all dinosaurs agree, however, and have formed a back-to-nature cult.

As with Anonymous Rex, Garcia's writing is crisp and witty and fits the genre with tongue-in-cheek. I found this book as funny and entertaining as the original and I highly recommend it.

I know that Garcia already has another dinosaur private eye book out called Hot and Sweaty Rex, but I doubt I will read it. It was a great idea, but I am glad to hear that Garcia is letting the dinosaurs go after that. Three dinosaur PI books is plenty.


1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Not every idea is worthy of a series, 2005-06-21
I know I continue to rant about series books and how they are draining the life out of publishing, but I shall continue to do so while books like this come out.

The prequel to "Anonymous Rex", which was mildly engaging, this story doesn't really go anywhere. Garcia has already thoroughly explored the world of these dinos-in-disguise. This novel doesn't cover any new territory. And being a follow up, it can't surprise you with its originality either. The publishers throw this sort of uninspired material out there because they know readers will snatch it up because it's familiar. New ideas are out there, folks, so why do we, as readers, have to become so obsessed with one writer and one story?

But that's beside the point. This book just isn't very interesting, and the story takes forever to go anywhere. Plus, it's never really clear what's at stake through most of it. Dinos and humans living together. So what? It's just a convenient fantasy element stacked atop a formulaic plot. And Garcia's writing, which showed promise in "Anonymous Rex", just takes a nosedive. Even he doesn't really seem to know or care what the story is about.

Eh, whatever. If you liked the first one, you'll probably like this one. But take a moment and ask yourself that question: "Do I like it because it's good, or because it's familiar?"


0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

The ingeniously weird prequel to Anonymous Rex, 2005-05-25
This novel has gotten a fair amount of hype - and, I would argue, deservedly so because it really is unusual, memorable, and well-written. I must admit I didn't find the book as funny as I expected it to be, however. Certainly, there is a lot of humor in these pages, but this is a much deeper story than the quirky farce I expected it to be - and that is actually a good thing. There is one scene in the book, for example, that really captures the heartrending pain of a father who has lost his only son to suicide - and the comical bits surrounding it only make it that much more touching and poignant.

Casual Rex is, first and foremost, a mystery - told in the classic first person, film noir-ish, hard-boiled private eye perspective. The kicker, though, is the fact that Vincent Rubio is a dinosaur - a Velociraptor, to be exact. It seems that dinosaurs survived the great cataclysm 65 million years ago, after all; they witnessed the rise of homo sapiens and now dwell among them (in much smaller bodies than their ancestors), their true identities hidden by elaborate guises involving lots of straps, buckles, and epoxy. No human knows that dinosaurs live among them, but the dinosaurs themselves can easily identify one another by smell. They can be found in every profession, so whenever one of their kind kicks the bucket, needs some dental work, or goes out looking for entertainment, they're taken care of outside the prying eyes of humans.

Victor and his partner Ernie are your basic PI's - snooping on roving spouses, hunting down prostitutes with sticky hands (wait a minute there - I'm talking about stealing), etc. That humdrum state of existence changes when Ernie's ex-wife asks them to find her brother and bring him home (forcibly, if necessary). It seems the poor kid has gotten all caught up in a dino cult called the Progressives. Most dinosaurs have accepted the fact that they have to go to great pains to pass themselves off as humans, but some yearn for the old lifestyle, free of their human guises and able to kick back and do the kinds of things the dinosaur ancestors used to do (much of which involves the free use of a lot of very sharp teeth). Vic and Ernie infiltrate the cult and get their man - but that's just the beginning of the story. There's something really sinister going on here, and our detective heroes are determined to find out just what the Progressives are up to. Their mission eventually leads them to a back-to-nature retreat in the islands of Hawaii, where they learn even more than they bargained for about the cult.

The fact that Casual Rex wasn't quite as funny as I expected it to be is certainly not a bad thing - I didn't really expect much of a plot, so I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of meat to this story. It does, after all, deal with such serious issues as drug abuse (ah, sweet basil), cults, murder, and your proverbial world domination and genocide - as well as friendship, honor, and humanity (or whatever the dinosaur equivalent of that would be). The writing style is delightfully quirky, the absurdist setting is effectively presented (with explanations of dinosaur culture over the millennia enriched by rich and numerous off-the-cuff remarks), the action is well-paced, the tragedies that take place over the course of the novel are surprisingly poignant, and a rising level of suspense (not to mention curiosity) definitely draws the reader in and carries him/her all the way to the end. Be forewarned, though: if you read one of Eric Garcia's novels, you will very likely want to read them all.


1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Audio Version - If you can find it - GET IT!, 2005-03-05
Picked this up on eBay recently, and was astounded at what an absolutely fantastic reader Jim Hanks (brother of Tom - Yes, THAT Tom Hanks) was. This guy understands that audiobooks are a separate medium that require specific skills, particularly in the humor genre. It's not enough to know how to read, you must be able to perform and bring the words on the page to life. The reader must also be matched to the material in the same way animated chracters are in films. Jim Hanks is a PERFECT match. It's a shame he didn't get the job for the other 'Rex' novels.

Five stars, Jim! You do the Hanks name proud.

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