[.ca] Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel (ISBN 0312319665)

very well written, laugh out loud funny!:
Picked this up at the library yesterday and haven't been able to put it down. The plot alternates between harrowingly accurate descriptions of the mundaneness of everyday life and fantasy, and always keeps you guessing as to what will come next. I haven't laughed out loud this much since reading "The good soldier Svejk". This is the first time I'm writing a review of a book on Amazon, so impressed am I by it. Very highly recommended!

Time Not So Well Spent:
An all-around trifle that left me disappointed when reading, and utterly unmoved upon complition; to the extent that a week later I had to pick the book up and read the insdie of the jacket to remember what it was about. As a satire it is weak after the intial set-up and becomes total (and unfortunatley woefully unfunny) farce at the end, any larger points that were trying to be made are forever lost to cartoonish and plodding plotting.

Office Space Spooky:
Paul Trilby has come a long way down, from a teaching position at a prestigious university to an office temp at the Texas Department of General Services. He has made every mistake in the book, and so he finds himself divorced, alone, barely making enough to live on, his life in shambles. Worse yet, he is haunted by Charlotte, the ghost of his ex-wife's cat, the cat he drowned because...well, it's complicated. Well, cubicle hell is bad enough, but then strange things start happening. Strange pale men appear and disappear mysteriously. Strange post-it notes appear on Paul's computer. People know things about him they couldn't possibly know. Tiles in the ceiling move strangely, suggesting someone--or something--is up there watching. Amusing as all this may be, it will soon get personal for Paul. He will be asked to make some terrible, serious decisions. Does he have what it takes? And is all this real? Or is Paul going psychotic? You will have to read the book to find out. Author James Hynes is absolutely brilliant. His writing reflects his vast erudition without being the slightest bit pretentious. It flows along easily, and you find yourself unable to put the book down. At first it is humorous, but then it becomes alarming, enthralling, unvelievably suspenseful, as you race through the last hundred pages. I recommend this book highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

An Entertaining Examination of Nine to Five America:
Have you ever worked in one of those huge soulless offices --- the kind that is full of row after row of gray cubicles and harsh fluorescent lighting? Then perhaps you know how mind numbing the days in these environments can be. But for Paul Trilby, who works in just such an office, life in a cubicle, so he thought, was the least of his concerns. James Hynes's latest novel KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE, tells the story of Paul Trilby, a temp worker employed in the General Services Department of the Texas Department of General Services. Trilby didn't always work as a tech writer in a government office. In fact, he was once an English professor at a prestigious university. But he was fired from his job there and when his wife Elizabeth found out about his girlfriend Kymberly, he was divorced as well. After Kym and Paul moved to Lamar, Texas (a thinly veiled Austin), their relationship also falls apart. Paul now finds himself typing away at TxDoGS, an office filled with eccentric and creepy characters, and living in a run down motel, haunted by Elizabeth's dead cat, Charlotte. It soon becomes clear to Paul that the problems of working at TxDoGS are bigger than dealing with the snotty Olivia or his clueless boss Rick. For example, who is leaving cryptic Post-it note messages on his computer screen? Why does he feel like he is being watched? Is the recycling bin really a bottomless pit? Why are people afraid to be in the office after dark? And, finally, who are the mysterious Stanley Tulendji and Boy G, and what do they want from Paul? KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE is office life taken to an absurd, but unique, extreme. Hynes's satire has a bit of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Paul Trilby is a classic everyman down on his luck (granted, his current predicament is entirely his fault). He is grumpy and arrogant but still actually likeable. And, as Paul becomes more and more enmeshed in the bizarre world of TxDoGS, we cheer for him more and more. The mysteries and secrets of the Texas Department of General Services finally become clear to Paul and at the same time dangerous. Hynes asks Paul (and readers) to think about how much he is willing to sacrifice for a work-free life, a life unaffected by gray cubicles and mindless busy work. Hynes also questions if a person is defined by the work they do. KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE is at turns frightening and laugh out loud funny. Hynes has captured many of the realities of office work while contorting them to nightmarish fantasies. From office politics to bloodthirsty zombies, from classic literary references to a steamy love affair, Hynes erases lines between genres by putting it all in one quite readable novel. Smartly written, this is an entertaining examination of nine to five America. While it doesn't offer many revolutionary insights into postmodern alienation and the costs of productivity versus creativity, you will never look at the ceiling tiles above your desk the same way again. --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

A great book.:
I sort of doubt that all the reviewers that have commented on this book actually read the whole thing. I say that because there is no way one could finish it, (and review it) without noting the dramatic fashion in which the climatic scenes are written. I won't spoil it here, but just know the last 50 or so pages ARE NOTHING like the rest of the book. Yes, there are great points of recognition about cube office life. Yes, there is laugh out loud humor ( the text book lessons with vertically arranged double meanings are brilliant, as are the descriptions of various people at the library book sale -complete with a Strawbs reference- to name just two of many great and hilarious examples). But the tone changes so much at the end, that the light Kafkaesque look at office bureaucracy and the slices of Texas life so well depicted earlier are a distant memory. A lot of times you hear people say a particular book 'can't be fit into any one genre' but trust me, here is a book that combines several styles and combines them well. The result is one of my favorite reads of 2004. I really enjoyed it on many levels, so I show up here to highly recommend it.