Order PAX TITANUS here
I don't know how to start this review because I'm till unsure what to think about Tom Lucas' novella Pax Titanus. It's not necessarily a bad thing. The book is so completely alien to whatever is being done today in science fiction, stoner humor and monster movies that it's tough to imagine it can ever be written. But it was and it's right at home in Eraserhead Press' New Bizarro Author Series, which prides itself in testing the boundaries of genre fiction. Pax Titanus created a great mythological paradigm of outer space, featured some killer fight scenes and wallowed in a brand of toilet humor that really tested my patience.
The story of Pax Titanus is very simple. It's the manic and kaleidoscopic narration that isn't. Simply put, Titanus is a manly, four-armed construction worker in outer space with the uncanny talent to "get big". He accidentally displays this talent to a large audience one day, found viral celebrity and got his son kidnapped by people who requests he participates in SkullCrushFest fighting tournament and murders every one of his opponents. That's about it. Imagine the epic of Gilgamesh rewritten as a Space Opera by the Aqua Teen Hunger Force guys and you got Pax Titanus in a nutshell. It's completely crazy, it's probably more crazy than it is good, but it has a kind of craziness that should be celebrated.
See what I mean? Probably not.
I love the paradigm Tom Lucas created for his characters. It's chaotic, yet filled with familiar creatures and feels like a dangerous place, even for a giant red space monster. If the Star Wars Universe is the United States, the world of Pax Titanus is Sierra Leone. That's the kind of wild vibe it has. The only major problem I had with the book though is its attempts at toilet humor. Nothing against the concept, but most of the jokes in Pax Titanus were not funny. There's one scene at the beginning where Titanus wakes up and rips a thunderous fart and...that's it. What am I? Eight years old? Titanus also has an "almost useless" sidekick named Craxx I could've done without too. I mean, the sidekick character HAS to be in the story, but I would've voted for somebody else.
So, the million dollar question is: should you read Pax Titanus? If you decide to, lighting up a blunt about half an hour before starting is probably a sound decision. I would've probably hated it if it was longer than 94 pages because of the bad toilet humor, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and delivers monster fight scenes that live up to their promises. So yeah, I probably liked Pax Titanus. I can't imagine why I would read it a second time, but it was fun, wild and straight to the point. Monsters, mayhem and carnage that is. It's an easy sell when said like this, but there's really nothing I can tell you that can prepare you for what Pax Titanus is like, so you'll have to give it a shot to figure it out!
So, the million dollar question is: should you read Pax Titanus? If you decide to, lighting up a blunt about half an hour before starting is probably a sound decision. I would've probably hated it if it was longer than 94 pages because of the bad toilet humor, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and delivers monster fight scenes that live up to their promises. So yeah, I probably liked Pax Titanus. I can't imagine why I would read it a second time, but it was fun, wild and straight to the point. Monsters, mayhem and carnage that is. It's an easy sell when said like this, but there's really nothing I can tell you that can prepare you for what Pax Titanus is like, so you'll have to give it a shot to figure it out!
