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The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad
by Minister Faust
(Del Rey, $14.95, 531 pages, trade paperback; published in August
2004.)
The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, a first novel
by Canadian  author
and broadcaster Minister Faust, is a sprawling supernatural adventure
set in Edmonton, Alberta.
Roommates and long-time best friends Hamza, a tormented semi-lapsed
Black Muslim with the strange ability to find anything anywhere, and
Yehat, a hedonistic atheist with a penchant for building outrageous
machines, are the Coyote Kings: geek-culture connoisseurs; genius misfits
working minimum-wage dead-end jobs; and founders of the Coyote Camp,
a learning and creative get-together for neighbourhood children.
The Coyote Kings' routine is disrupted when Hamza falls desperately
in love with Sherem, a seductive woman with a hidden agenda. Soon, the
Coyotes find themselves caught in the middle of a mystical conflict
that dates back to the dawn of humanity. The stakes are both immense
and confused, as the different players all lie and the two friends have
no way to discern the truth.
Faust's novel constructs its own reality -- one in which Alberta is
a nexus for cannibal cultists, secret histories, magic, and superpowered
villains -- with a twisted but loving take on superhero comics logic.
The Coyote Kings speak in a rich blend of Canadian Black culture, comics,
and science-fiction references. Every chapter is narrated in the first
person, so readers are exposed to a relentless flow of this inventive
language. The Coyotes luxuriate in creating their own words, sometimes
by combining existing words with arcane cultural references -- e.g.,
"behemothra" -- other times by crafting neologisms inspired by previous
events in the book. It's deliriously charming and completely absorbing.
Some chapters are narrated by characters other than Hamza or Yehat,
and they, too, bring their own dialectic eccentricities to the text.
Faust's novel explodes with exuberant ideas, creepy adventure, intense
emotions, and linguistic derring-do. Every page is pure pleasure.
Originally published in slightly different form in
The Montreal Gazette, Saturday, 9 October 2004.
Claude Lalumière's Fantastic Fiction
is a series of
capsule reviews first published in the Saturday Books
section of The Montreal Gazette.
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