Bluefeather Fellini

(I entered the ISBN for Bluefeather Fellini in the Sacred Realm but Hardcover pulled up this which I believe is the first book in the set. So this review is for the above mentioned sequel.)

-5 ⭐️s (unfortunately Hardcover doesn’t have a negative or even zero stars option, sooo…)

I hate this book. I hate it SO much! Its meandering, plotless story had me questioning why I didn’t just DNF. The beginning is slow and uninteresting but I was holding out for the “supernatural/mythos” bit, hoping that would be a decent payoff. When you finally get to the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” fanfiction, it’s agonizing.

Have you ever had a young kid tell you about a creature they made up and at first it’s interesting but they just keep going and it doesn’t make any sense and they’re just meshing together random things like “and his arms were ketchup packets!” and you start to forget what they were originally telling you about? So like that, but SOOO much more boring and an adult that thinks they’re clever with descriptive writing is doing it, that’s what reading about the underground world Evans wrote in this book is like. At that point, you’re like, “Wait a minute, why are they even really down here? What’s the end game of the two rich antagonists?” I’ll get to that, don’t worry.

But first! Let’s segway into the love story advertised by the synopsis on the back! Calling it a love story is very generous. The two love interests are unlikeable and most of their time spent together is having random parties that don’t drive the storyline AT ALL. Copious amounts of burritos and alcohol are ingested and there’s literally no point. There are side conversations that the MC overhears that read like someone trying to attempt the entertaining random dialogs in a Tarantino movie but doing it SO badly. The MC has sex with just about every woman BUT his love interest while constantly thinking about how much he loves her. When they finally do it, it’s right after they hunt down and shoot a mountain lion and as their hunting dog is gnawing on its still warm body, they drop trow and have sex RIGHT NEXT TO IT! 🤢 That’s not the worst sex scene. Towards the end, there’s a big shootout. Bullets whizzing by, ricocheting off every surface. What do these two morons decide to do? That’s right! The thing that would be the furthest from any rational human being’s imagination in that situation. They have sex, finish, she says his name AND THEN GETS SHOT THROUGH HER EYE SOCKET!!! 🤮 Why?!?!?! What did you think was going to be the outcome?!?!

The teeny, tiny premise of the book is: two greedy old men are feuding, one has access to a totally cool and not in the least bit boring underground world with weird creatures and enough gold to buy the moon and maybe even Mars. Other old guy sends MC in on false pretenses (“I just want some super rare wine”), MC forgets about wine for 90% of the rest of the book. Old wine guy sends his version of Seal Time 6 in to steal all the gold, MC survives but overall there’s about a 90% death rate for everyone else (oh yeah, did I mention that greedy old guy that owns the “mine” has what basically equate to slaves living underground doing everything for him?). MC and another character decide to TNT the entrance so no one from the surface can go down and disturb the natural wildlife (by doing so, they potentially leave any other surviving slaves down below, without asking if they’d rather come live on the surface or not. The idea being that they have plenty of chickens to get by, but end up taking away their electricity and everything). Then MC goes to kill old wine dude and as punishment instead of stabbing or shooting him, he locks him in a cellar to die slowly. Kinda like what he JUST did to innocent bystanders.

I wanted the MC to die a slow, horrible death, but of course he gets to live out his life to the ripe ol’ age of “Omg, the new generations are ruining EVERYTHING”. He contemplates the greed of people and you realize this, THIS is the whole reason this almost 500 page book was written, to illustrate that greed = evil. No fucking DUH, Evans! Was this really the best way to make that point? The last few chapters of the book are him preparing for his death. He goes out into the desert to die because he’s, and I quote, “the last free man”. I think, great, at least he’ll die. But no! The book couldn’t even do me that one solid. Two practicing fighter jets go by overhead and this crotchety old asshole whines, “It’s too loud to die in peace!” and marches his ass right back down the mountain!

*screams*

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot about his useless spirit guide, Dancing Bear (easy to do because he’s barely utilized in any sort of interesting way even though he’s mentioned in the blurb on the back as though he were a pivotal character). He shows up now and then for the MC to basically have something to talk at and does funny little dances. He’s used as a plot device in an effort to make their escape from the underground have even an iota of tension.

This author has won awards and is in the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. What happened with this one? I might give one of his other books a chance, probably one of the ones that were actually made into a film, but not until I’ve managed to erase most of this waking nightmare from my memory.

Don’t read this book. If you value your sanity at all, don’t read it.