DNF at 40%

I just couldn't get into this. Maybe it wasn't the right time for me, but we really didn't click. At the 40% mark, I'm still completely uninvested in the characters or the story and actually quite bored. I found the narration to be very slow-moving and at times confusing, and the characters uncharismatic. There was a little good humour here and there, but it was too little to really keep me interested in the story.

I might give this another try in the future but, for now, it's a no for me.

What a brilliant and bizarre imagination Lynne Truss has - the world was first introduced to her Evil Talking Cats back in 2014 with Cat Out Of Hell, and to my delight and surprise, she has returned two years later with The Lunar Cats, with some very promising signs of a franchise in the brewing.  This is that rare kind of book that you never knew you wanted but once you've read it, you don't know what you did without it.  I have listened to the Radio 4 adaptation of Cat Out Of Hell repeatedly and have various tracts of the dialogue verbatim.  I had never expected a sequel and am so glad that when one did arrive, it did not disappoint.

One can imagine that the narrator, kindly retired librarian Alec Charlesworth, might be hoping for a quiet life since his last adventure with the ETCs (his dim-witted ally Wiggy prefers that they use the acronym), but if he was then he was out of luck.  He and Wiggy have lived on tenterhooks, regularly checking in that the other is alive, each the only one who has any awareness or indeed reason to believe in the ghastly events which saw off the Captain and Roger at the end of the last book.  But then a series of events begin to unfurl - Alec is attacked in Poundland by a woman who smells of stew and an incredibly adorable kitten arrives on his doorstep, melting his heart with her cuteness.  Suspicious?  Oh yes.

Truss is very much building on the foundations of the already established 'lore' around the ETCs - that after a cat has managed to die and survive nine times they are reborn, that there are Cat Masters, that Beelzebub is their line manager, etc, etc.  The Lunar Cats is probably best enjoyed having already familiarised oneself with the wider story - Roger does explain it best even if he is a tad long-winded and Alec does tend to skip to the main points.  This is a sequel rather than a stand-alone story - and I do hope that the surprise reappearance of a Certain Someone gets explained in full later on down the line (obviously - I was overjoyed but not so much as to ignore a possible plot-hole).


John Hawkewsworth
The Lunar Cats does also wear its historical context rather heavier than Cat Out Of Hell - Alec has to look into the 1773 voyage of HMS Endeavour, and in particular the account given of it by John Hawkesworth, one-time friend of Dr Johnson and rising celebrity of his day.  Hawkesworth was not present on the voyage but public reception of his version of it was so appallingly negative that Hawkesworth died within months.  Over time, it becomes clear that this is connected to the titular Lunar Cats Society, a non-evil band of talking cats who have decided to use their longevity and genius to puzzle out the mysteries of the universe and have been meeting for centuries to discuss their findings.  Alec shares a typical agenda which covers the chemical content of a furball, the role of yowling in music, and - fatally - Mr Timkins' decision to board HMS Endeavour on Hawkesworth's recommendation  in order to prove his theorised solution to the 'longitude problem'.

I am ambivalent about attempts to tie in the ETCs to 'real' history - this is not a series for people who have difficulties in suspending disbelief.  Between the journals written by cats, emails, agenda and minuted meetings - admittedly the screenplays come courtesy of Wiggy but all the same, it's all quite gloriously silly.  From the bibliography etc, I can see that Truss had done the legwork in looking into Hawkesworth and HMS Endeavour, but in all honesty, I would have enjoyed it just as much as if she hadn't bothered.  There is a giddy feel to most of the novel, it's very high-spirited and a joy to read - it even feels like it just may have been a joy to write.  As well as poking fun at the horror genre though, it does feel that Truss is having an affectionate dig at the lengths people go to for their pets - and, yes, particularly their cats.  Apparently innocently, Truss notes the parallels between one ETC's control of its 'owner' and gas-lighting, with the cat's stereotypical haughtiness and withheld affection being akin to psychological warfare.  And then, poor Watson - the token dog - he spends so much of the novel as a supine victim, but he does step in at key junctures to save the day because deep-down, Truss is a dog-lover at heart.

This is one of those rare books that it is almost impossible to explain - I can hear myself explaining, "So, there are these evil talking cats and they're immortal and they're geniuses and they have powers - no, wait, it's good, honest!"  While Cat Out Of Hell was more a general send-up of cheesy Hammer Horror, The Lunar Cats feels like Truss is putting out the feelers to see if there is an appetite for what adventures might next befall Alex and company.  What other historical events could they be mixed up in?  Which other deadly Cat Masters are waiting in the wings?  Will Beelzebub ever manage to get everyone back in line?  One of the more bonkers reads that you'll ever come across, my only advice is this - don't read it on public transport.  Uncontrollable laughter.  So many strange looks.  So many.

Sometimes you read a book and when you finish it you think. Did I really just read that? That’s how I feel now I have finished this book, which is partly about ETCs (Evil Talking Cats) and a retired librarian. And yes, it really is mental!

The blurb of this book promised a light-hearted, entertaining read, here it is in it’s entirety:

“When you are an inoffensive retired librarian with bitter personal experience of Evil Talking Cats, do you rescue a kitten from the cold on a December night?

Do you follow up news items about cats digging in graveyards?

Do you inquire into long-ago cats who voyaged around the world with Captain Cook?

Well, yes. If you are Alec Charlesworth that is precisely what you do – with unexpected and terrifying consequences …”

Maybe if I was only 8 this book would have lived up to that expectation. But I do have some doubts about that, as regular readers of this blog will know we quite like reading children’s books and although this might have been passable entertainment for a few evenings I doubt it could ever become a much-loved classic. In fact I did double check and it really is aimed at adults. But it’s so badly written that I gave up on it before I was a quarter of the way through it. Ironic as it’s written by the woman who recently wrote a best-selling book on grammar!

To be fair it isn’t grammatically incorrect, nor is it an over preponderance on correctness that mars it. I just found the characters too bizarre and shallow. Considering that I love a quirky character this is a damnation of about the highest order possible.

Princess Fuzzypants here:
At first, I was not quite sure about this book. There seemed to be so many moving pieces that it took a while for things to click. But click they did and I ended up loving this story. It is a mixture of history and whimsy, reality and magic. It involves a society of learned cats who date back to the times of Dr. Johnson and his cat, Hodge. The same cats must solve a mystery and help a couple of humans foil the plots of an evil temptress. Said temptress happens to be an ETK or an evil talking cat who is also an irresistible orange and white kitten.
We have evil humans, the devil, other talking cats both evil and not, Captain Cook and an assortment of oddball characters who should not work together but do.
There is pathos and humour and a cracking good tale. I love the way everything mixes together. It is highly entertaining.
I give it five purrs and two paws up.

I enjoyed The Lunar Cats. Lynne Truss is a very funny writer who has genuine erudition beneath the humour an the combination works well here. (The Lunar Cats follows on from Cat Out Of Hell, but it works fine as a stand-alone book.)

The set-up is silly but engaging. There are some cats who are highly intelligent and capable of speech. Some are plain evil and in league with Beelzebub, others are near immortal and are members of The Lunar Cats, a Learned Society formed in the enlightenment and Truss derives a lot of genuine humour from a bunch of cats conducting themselves like eighteenth-century gentlemen. The plotis narrated by Alec, a mild-mannered retired librarian who gets caught up in all this. It is enjoyably silly, involving an evil talking kitten, an evil stolen Tahitian idol, appointments with Beelzebub and so on and the battle by Alec and The Lunar Cats to thwart them. It is amiable, readable fun.

There is also a good deal here about the voyages of Captain Cook and their subsequent chronicling and publication, which Truss manages to make engaging and very interesting, so there is a solid intellectual core which anchors the absurdity, making it witty rather than just silly. I found that a very good aspect of the book which left me with a sense of having read something of substance as well as it just being plain funny.

Perhaps this isn't a classic, but it's a very enjoyable and engaging read, underpinned by proper research and learning. Recommended.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

I have no words to describe this book.

Imagine, if you can, a world in which a mild-mannered English librarian gets tangled up with Evil Talking Cats, not once but twice!

Our 'hero' Alec Charlesworth is contacted by a mysterious Greek client who asks him to research whether there were cats on His Majesty's Ship Endeavour which sailed around the world with Captain Cook. His investigations lead him to a sinister Evil Talking Kitten and her minions, a secret society of long-lived scientific cats and a strange bout of mouthey-mouthey-itis (you have to read it).

Told through a combination of meeting minutes, first person narrative by Alec, dairy entries and newspaper articles, watch as Alec and his tattered crew of comrades attempt to defeat the Evil Talking Kitten's plots.

I liked this, it had the odd humour of Terry Pratchett or Tom Sharpe but with a slightly more literary bent. I just didn't love it.

A slight improvement on the one that came before, although this still isn't brilliant - the historical side of things is a little clunky, and the end of the more fun, modern half of the book is over in a flash. Also, what sense of humour the author deigns to give us is pretty much of the almost slapstick kind, whereby the hero's best friend is a dunderhead. Still, as a whimsy it isn't bad, but you'll note the original publishers of the first in the series are no longer with us...

Sometimes you read a book and when you finish it you think. Did I really just read that? That’s how I feel now I have finished this book, which is partly about ETCs (Evil Talking Cats) and a retired librarian. And yes, it really is mental!

It reminded me a little bit of Terry Pratchett’s books. The writing style is whimsical and humorous, sometimes just plain odd. It certainly does not take itself seriously and I definitely enjoyed it, but somehow I wish there had been a bit more substance to the plot. At times it just seemed a little too whimsical and the end did not really work for me. However, overall it was a fun read.

I would recommend this book if you like fantastically whimsical books and you do not mind talking cats!

A ridiculous, rambunctious and raucous tale that grabbed me immediately. I fell in love with the irreverent story about evil talking cats, a mysterious feline lunar society and the voyages of Captain Cook!
I am a librarian myself & a cat lover, so this really struck a chord with me.
Lynne Truss is hilarious! She really has captured this corner of the market of literary feline friendly people and created a mad story that they will enjoy.
Park of a series, but you don't need to read them in order.