Platteville Kindle Edition

The novel is a blend of three styles: science fiction/fantasy; realistic, historical fiction; and humor blended with science fiction. The historical period is mostly August 1980 through May 1982 despite a few time-traveling characters. There are a few short parts or words that for a movie rating would lift it above PG and possibly above PG-13. Several sections of the novel read well as anecdotal short stories with their own beginning, middle, and end. One of these has a revenge plot. In the Kindle Edition, it is from 30% to 31%, with a brief follow-up at 35% to 36%. It had me laughing hard. I eagerly told my wife about it. She found it a great short story. Remembering the Eighties herself, she recalls the very loud stereos keeping her up at night. She wished somebody had done something in revenge like the protagonist Mayhem did! While sometimes the three diverse styles merge successfully, other times they did not. The science fiction/fantasy style with conspiratorial elements reminded me of explorations of “What is Reality” in the science fiction of Philip K. Dick. The realistic, historical fiction reminded me of the style of James Herriot in “All Creatures Great and Small” if applied to studying electrical engineering in the midwestern United States in the early Eighties instead of a vet in England in the Thirties. The humor with science fiction reminded me of the radio show Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams. One section where the three styles blended well was a severe snowstorm that leaves Mayhem and his friends trapped in a cabin. The bad weather might not be natural, so fit the "what is reality" style. Effective survival tactics works as realistic, historical fiction. Activities to pass the time while trapped worked as silly humor. While I felt the three different styles blended well there, I did not find it so for the entire novel. They did not blend well for me soon before the climax. It seems a villain did cause the weather attack, but he abruptly switches sides by explaining, "Stopping my assassination of the fraternity at Badger Camp pissed me off, but now I see it as all part of the fun." (96% in the Kindle Edition) If the style was solely or almost solely humor, this would be fine. When I consider it with the surrealistic “what is reality” style or with the realistic, historical style, then I did not like it. One section of the story had me feeling so sad that I gave up on continuing for a day. In the novel, the town of Barneveld is destroyed by a tornado. About a month ago where I work, we had a tornado drill. A student complained about the go-to-the-basement drill by claiming nobody died in tornadoes. I countered that the town of Barneveld, Wisconsin was mostly destroyed by tornadoes when I was an undergrad student living in Wisconsin, and people had died. The student and I had internet access in the basement, so looked it up in Wikipedia. It claims the tornado was June 8, 1984 with nine people killed and about two hundred injured. This gave the student food for thought. The tornado that hits the fictional Barneveld of the novel, although sharing the same name as the actual city, would have to have it happen sometime between 1980 and 1982 given other contextual clues. In the fictitious town of Barneveld in the tornado that came a couple years earlier than for the real town, the novel tells us that it "erased it from the map…It was amazing that nobody was killed." (at the 21% point of the Kindle edition) I found the use of the actual name of the town Barneveld where people did die from a tornado for a fictional town of the same name where nobody died off-putting. Despite the complaints, I did find the novel a page-turner once I got over the sad feeling about the real-world town of Barneveld, Wisconsin so resumed reading. Especially the section with the revenge against the students with the loud stereo deserves to be considered a classic short story!

boring; poorly written

i enjoyed being taken along on the hapless hero’s story of his struggle to get through college (and get a date) while he slowly realizes that his world is not all that it seems.From the girls sunbathing in the cemetery to crazy college pranks, Platteville is a lighthearted comedy and I found myself actualy laughing out loud at moments in the story.Definitely worth a read!

Sorry, I couldn't get into this at all. I finished it, but it was grueling. If I had to read one more time that it was the 80's and cell phones didn't exist yet, I was going to scream! It was like reading a computer nerd's diary; a lot of writing about nothing.

Received copy from author, great book, this author writes some great story's