goodreads has, as per usual, Read the book real Good & concluded that bc the narration of a confused old man is elliptical & muddled it's a bad novel. smh. as frequently as you may wanna tell ray/reuven "yeah ok peepaw, time for bed now," this is a legit rollercoaster ride: a picaresque that's also sort of a conspiracy thriller that's also a peephole into the age of heroes brought to you each week by corrugated groats, the only breakfast cereal with ingredient Z! (the kav & clay comparisons in that regard are spot-on.) besides raw entertainment value it grapples mightily with a thumping big moral Q: how much, if at all, do intentions matter when the outcomes are horrifying? blurbed by douglas adams if you need an added value prop here. (N.B.: this review is for the original ed; a couple decades after publication a new edition cut the length by 150pp. "newly revised by the author" supposedly but i have an unfounded hunch that harper collins leaned on him?? i certainly wouldn't have cut anything fwiw)5 s Woody Chandler353 4

Well, this one sinks it. My general rule is: "Do not accept book recommendations from those other than with you have a mind." Both of the Goodreads recommendations which I picked up have been clinkers, this being the second & last.

It features an almost child 70-y/o with everything from his POV, including interiority; script text; unnecessary Capitalization (at almost every turn) and a skewed sensibility that has not held up well since the book's original publication.

I never grooved with the main character & that made it a tough read, right from the outset. I just kept shaking my head at his inherent naiveté & by the end, when his inherent cluelessness led to a stupid death, I felt that his ending, which the whole novel had been leading up to, was deserving. Bump him. Paschalis5,051 Want to read

elibraryelibrary Paul226 2

The dark cloud has lifted and the nightmare is over: I am finished with "Further Adventures", a book I should have bailed out of around page 4. You know how a child hands you something to read and spend 90% of the time deciphering their grammar or spelling and the other 10% comprehending the story? That's exactly how you will spend the first half of this book. And to my knowledge, it's never explained WHY the author uses poor punctuation and random capitalized words, but the spelling is perfectly fine. Is it supposed to mean the narrator, in this case the main character, is poor at grammar but yet speaks a poet? The whole book is just one giant mess, and that's just the beginning.

It took me nearly 3 months to get through this book. I could digest no more than 5 or 6 pages a day and would fall asleep. It's THAT boring. You might think it's about a superhero, or at least someone pretending to be one Rainn Wilson in the movie "Super", but you would be wrong. It's all about the present day life of a former RADIO superhero, and as far as I know they never explain what The Green Ray can do as a superhero, which is unbelievable. But it really doesn't matter because the flashback scenes of the radio show are few and far between. The book doesn't even get mildly interesting until around page 250, and that's way too late for any book to get there. I was floored to read the author turned in a 750 page manuscript that was trimmed down to this 330 page borefest.

The characters are hard to truly figure out at times, especially the "villain" Newberry. His behavior seems erratic. The main character is faceless in my opinion, but we start to understand him towards the end of the book. The author has a Mexican character and he writes her English as a Second Language Speech in such a manner that looks more taking all the words in the sentence and jumbling them up in any order he wants. I was laughing at how bad it was.

I found nothing original about this story and, coupled with the writing style, I might have to say this is the worst book I have ever read. Also, I couldn't figure out if the author was trying to be humorous at times. Some things kind of read they were being played for humor, it just wasn't all that funny. I hate to have to be so critical of someone's life work, but I just want to warn anyone that is thinking about reading this garbage. I really don't want to put my copy up for sale or donate it. I would much rather burn it.

I'll say it one more time just to be clear - the writing style ALONE is reason not to read this book. But if you love run-on sentences and random capitalized words, go for it. Maybe you will absorb more than I ever did. B136

I won this book as a First Reads prize a couple of months ago, and it took me a while to finally read it. When I did, I was pleasantly surprised.

Initially, the most surprising aspect of the book was Fink's (the author's) use of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and chapters - or rather, the lack thereof. This, of course, is because the book is written as if a lengthy suicide note by the antagonist Ray Green, who in his young adulthood was aka Peter Tremayne aka the Green Ray, a radio superhero. At first I was annoyed at the strange, sometimes-babbling style of 73-year-old Ray's letter/novel, but by the end I loved it. His voice was so clear; I started to truly read the novel I read a witty letter or e-mail from a friend.

Yes, the novel was witty, but it was also quite dark and I found myself at the end caught somewhere between thinking that everything we do in life is futile and everything we do in life has a purpose. With every page Fink forces his readers into a balancing act between good and evil, right and wrong, and loyalty and betrayal, and I think his conclusion about which sides prevail are left for us to determine.

The last few pages were a perfect end - concluding all of the tragedies that Ray simultaneously tried to prevent and yet also caused, and leaves the readers hoping with all hope that in his death there will be justice.

While it had many excellent lines and great characterization of Ray, I found some of the beginning and middle a little dull, and I think that some of the pages showing the minute details about Ray could have been better used towards the characterization of other players. I felt that the back stories of Amelia and Dolores were a little rushed, and some of the many pages of Ray's story were a little monotonous. That being said, the original version of this novel was 150 pages longer, and I am very glad that Fink cut it down.

I would recommend this book to readers who d stories of forgotten or woe-be-gone superheros such as The Watchmen, because it is about taking control of your destiny and trying to DO something to help the world - being your own superhero - even when the world has forgotten or shunned you.

Whether or not Ray's attempts at changing the world were successful, you will have to decide.first-reads Tim818 44

I usually have some trepidations about the narrator with diminished capacity/mental problems/just plain stupid; it's hard to pull off a narrative voice that isn't irritating or repetitious, one that is consistently interesting. Jon Stephen Fink does a nice job with that in the early going in this tale of an old man who used to be the voice of a radio hero (The Green Ray). Strange happenings during a blackout have the old man flashing back to his radio days and determined to be the hero he once was (or once played). It's a bit Don Quixote crossed with The Shadow.

"Further Adventures" often is quite funny, and the simpleton first-person approach (no commas whatsoever except when associated with quotes) was fine. Then about 40 percent of the way through, the book turned on me and started biting, and I just got irritated. The humor just became forced and, well, perhaps my patience just snapped. From then on it was a slog.

Readers should note that I read the revised version, newly reissued. Apparently Fink cut a couple hundred pages from the book as originally published in the early '90s, and made other improvements. I can't speak for that earlier version, but I'm guessing if I had read that one, I might have gone insane. Nicole104 2

I wanted to give this book a 4 for originality but I did have to struggle through some chapters and the writing style is not one of my favorites. It's a simple narrative, with poor grammar and very little punction.

The Green Ray was a radio superhero in the 30's-40's. He had to keep his identity secret until he decided to tell his story at the ripe age of 73, I think. I can't remember if the reason was mentioned but Ray decided to become a real life superhero sometime in his 70's. So the story bounces back and forth between his younger self on the radio and his older self helping people, which takes him on a crazy adventure to Mexico. I found it a little hard to believe a 70+ year old man enduring the things this man did. first-reads-giveaway Gloria20

I picked up this book on a whim after reading the back cover. I love comics and superheroes so I figured I'd this book. It was a decent read, definitely un anything else I've ever read. I appreciated the original story and unique characters but the style of writing was a bit difficult to get used to. What I remember from this book is how frustrated and upset at how it ended, I would have loved to see the main character react differently and channel some of the Green Ray superhero in him right up until the end. But overall, an okay book. Yasmin205 19

I went back and forth on this while I was reading it, but ultimately decided that I d it. At times it was a little slow, but apparently this revised version is 150 pages shorter than the original. Martin Presberg40 1 follower

I am not really sure what to make of this one. On the one hand it kept me reading with its plot, interesting use of language, and compelling main character. On the other hand, I the violence seemed over-the-top and unnecessary at the end.
Zozo241 10

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