Last night it was back to Brewport to discuss Edgar Cantero’s Scooby Doo/Lovecraft mash Meddling Kids. Those Brewport pulled pork and kimchi pizzas…dang they are good. Great beer list as well, so whatever the verdict, we were happy campers. Mr. Forman, has the jury reached a verdict? Yes, your honor, we have. How do you find the defendant? Not Guilty of being literary fiction, by reason of being a fun book.
In a nutshell, Meddling Kids mirrors the Hanna-Barbera classic with four young protagonists, a dog and a Chevy Vega standing in for the Mystery Machine. The story goes well beyond the bounds of a typical Scooby adventure, getting into the serious occult before flat out horror fiction. There’s no doubt Cantero is a clever writer, using the full bag of tricks and plenty of humor in what is either his second or third language, but he is trying a little too hard. One of our Brothers summed it up best when he said, I feel like the writer just came from a class where they all learned about similes. Like this, like that…crafty ones, but way too many or not properly spaced. They overshadow much of the writing.
That said, there were positives. Treating the Daphne character’s hair as an entity of its own, the state of the Peter character, the lesbian angle and the nods to the original series. A fun read, that doesn’t generate much discussion beyond whether as kids anyone was attracted to the brainy Thelma.
Brother Jason, who picked the book ended the meeting with “And I would have picked a better book, if it hadn’t been for a Good Samaritan and their meddling book recommendation!”
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