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There is always an upside to listening to audio commentary. Not only do I find it enjoyable, but it is also educational, especially when it comes to the audio commentary of The Simpsons. I've learned about their writing room, the origins of some episodes, and that John Swartzwelder (who wrote some of the most classic episodes) wrote a novel (two actually, but I learned that from Amazon.
The Time Machine Did It is a detective story, with a very incontinent detective named Frank Burly, who gets involved in a very odd case. He is asked by a former mulitmillionaire homeless man to retrieve a foot high figurine of a Justice Holding the Scales. This leads him to discover that local criminals have stolen a time machine that they are using to rob famous works of art and people of different time periods. He manages to right everything, though not without swinging the pendulum into his own favor.
This story reminds me a lot of Pulp by Charles Bukowski. They are both detective stories with characters that are pretty stupid, and the style of writing is very close to the same. I thought many times while I was reading this that I was reading the work of Bukowski, but I knew that that wasn't true.
One fault I can find with this novel is that Swartzwelder created Burly as a little too dumb; so dumb, in fact, that I have trouble believing his character. A lot of his characters are like that, actually, which had me a bit annoyed. Despite that, I enjoyed the story.
Written by: RF