Gil's All Fright Diner

'Gil's All Fright Diner' was the first comedic Horror book I read after finishing the 'Tales From the Gas Station' series. It was a fun book to read, and has a variety of likeable characters. Definitely a good choice for fellow fans of comedic horror. This is a good book that's earned its spot in that category.

Duke and Earl are rednecks, best buds, and a werewolf and a vampire, respectively, but they're the decent sort. Most undead are - just normal folk trying to get by in a world that's actually a lot weirder than most people reckon. Things get weird even for them, though, when they stop at Gil's All Night Diner in the small town of Rockwood, Texas, just minutes before the diner is overrun with a herd of zombies. It's not the first time that such a thing has happened, however, and the boys decide to stick around to see if they can't get to the bottom of it. Martinez's story is actually quite dire, as the reader learns who is behind all the strange goings-on, the secret of the diner, and the nature of the threat that hovers over the entire Earth. But the way he writes turns what could be a devilish thriller into a great comedy, with wry observations and plenty of satire. As you can tell from the cover, the main monster in the book seems to be of the Lovecraftian variety, but the swift 268 pages are filled with ghosts, witches, zombie cows and plenty of other pieces of horror convention plucked from b-movies and pulp magazines and gently turned on their ear. Like "Shaun of the Dead," the situation itself is really quite serious, it's how the characters react to it all that generates the comedy. Duke and Earl have been everywhere and seen so much that even a mob of ghouls practically rolls off their back. Loretta, the manager of the diner, is a shotgun-totin' mama who ain't givin' up her diner to no spooks, no matter how many times she's got to rebuild. Even the town Sheriff (named Marshall Kopp, if you can believe it) doesn't take the stereotypical route of suspecting the newcomers in town for all the strange behavior, because he's smart enough to recognize that the strange behavior preceded them by a good many years. This is a really good book - a strong, funny novel with equal parts gore and laughter, and even a dash of sweetness to it as well. Things are clearly open to revisit the characters at the end, and I for one would be glad to see it happen - a very promising debut for Mr. Martinez.

Whenever you have a book with the title _Gil's All Fright Diner_, you can tell it isn't going to win any major literary awards. What it might do is just give you a little harmless fun. _Gil's_ is the literary equivalent of listening to AC/DC or watching _Sanford and Son_. It wasn't written to reinvent the way we look the world. It wasn't written to spur long-winded debates (*hackhack cough _Da Vinci Code_ cough). It was written to entertain. No more, no less. The story takes us to a community named Rockwood, Texas. It's a one-horse town in which even the horse got bored and left. It's one of those small towns that has its own way proving the Earth is flat - once people leave, they don't return. You get the idea. The titular (once we replace FR with N) diner is ran by a feisty, voluptuous, Daisy Duke wearing peroxide blonde named Loretta. Loretta seems to have her hands full once the previous proprietor (and you know who he is) skips town under mysterious circumstances. Every so often a band of zombies attacks her diner. It isn't so much that she's scared of the zombies as she is of the propery damage they cause - and the fact they scare away what few customers she already has. That's where Duke and Earl enter the picture. Bringing little more than the clothes on their backs, their rusty gray pickup truck, a dog-eared copy of _Dianetics_, and who knows how many empty beer cans - the two arrive at the diner with no real intention of staying in Rockwood. What happens however is that they arrive just when diner is attacked once again by zombies. Here we find that Duke and Earl aren't just ordinary passers-through. Duke is a former trucker who became a werewolf when he accidently ran over one with his truck. And Earl is a hundred year old vampire who finds that the vampiric lifestyle is full of more liabilities than assets. After agreeing to help Loretta with her little zombie problem, they find that's just the tip of the iceberg. _Gil's_ is differnet from so many of the other werewolf or vampire novels out there because it completely deglamorizes without demonizing the monsters. In other worlds, we don't have the gentile, sophisticated vampires like we do _Underworld_ or the Lestat novels by Anne Rice. Instead, we have a tale of vampires as if it were told by Jeff Foxworthy. The creatures here have bad tobacco stained teeth, pot bellies, wear overalls, pork chop sideburns, and bald spots. It's great how Martinez makes them resemble real people more than anything I've read so far. _Gil's_ is presently the only novel out there by Martinez thus far, so not very much information exists about the author right now. What I can tell you is that Martinez has a second novel entitled _In the Company of Ogres_, which will be released in August 2006. This book will reportedly do for fantasy what _Gil's_ did for horror. What will the third offering from Martinez poke fun at - science fiction, westerns, political thrillers? Who

First, a disclaimer: I do not typically read books with red, one-eyed monsters on the front cover, however artistically rendered. In fact, I might not have read this one if my husband hadn't raced through it in two days, laughing all the way. A. Lee Martinez has concocted a wild, ghoul-ridden ride involving teenage mistresses of the night named Tammy, a balding vampire and his best werewolf friend, and a ghost dog with the best personality since Old Yeller. I loved it. There, I said it. I laughed out loud, shuddered through the squishy parts, and thought back to my childhood Magic 8 ball with a new sense of wonder. Read it, and you'll find out why. One of my favorite bits: Wacky Willie's Deluxe Goofy Golf, and wacky Willie's paramount struggle to rid the thirteenth hole of bats. It's one of those pages where, still giggling, you grab a friend and say, "You have to listen to this."

Loved this book, laughed my way through it. With a zombie-addled diner, a couple of grumpy rednecks who also happen to be a vampire and werewolf, a touching romance with a ghost, a teenager determined to raise the Old Gods and bring about the end of the world and even a ghostly dog, what more could anyone want? It was like Christopher Moore meets Jeff Foxworthy, or a bit like Good Omens with a Texas twang. Certainly no one's idea of a challenging novel, but for a light fun read that will make you laugh, give it a try!

I'm not even sure where to begin. I picked up this book in the bookstore cause I liked the cover, opened it up and next thing I know I'm still STANDING in the aisle and I'm three chapters in. I buy the book, go home and read it straight through! I've never done that in my life (besides "The Giving Tree"), but I couldn't put it down. Who is this A. Lee Martinez? Does he have any other books? The story is simple: two kinda friends - one a vampire, one a werewolf - agree to help the owner of an all-night diner with her zombie problem. Yea, that sounds simple, but somehow Martinez has crammed more imagination, originality, action, smiles and endearing characters in 272 pages than most writers would in 10 books or their whole career. I am truly impressed.