Review: "The Speaker for the Trees" by Sean DeLauder

Title: The Speaker for the Trees
Author: Sean DeLauder
Available: Kindle
Summary: "Hedge is a typical human--fat and bald, not pretty but not ugly, with a round, doting wife, and a farm where he tends beehives. Except Hedge is not a typical human. In fact, Hedge is not human at all, but a plant sent by the Council of Plants and the Plant of Ultimate Knowing to observe humanity and determine whether or not humanity is a threat to the universe. A task he has blithely performed for twenty years. Until the night he receives a message to report back to the Council and realizes he has to leave everything behind.


Pursued by an agent of the notorious Visitors, whose appearances have heralded the end of civilizations, torn between his fellow plants and an awakening affection for his earthwife, Anna, and armed only with a toaster, Hedge must find a way to save humanity from Visitors, plants, and themselves."
Source: I received this free from the author in exchange for an honest review.


Review: Apparently, I'm on a funny indie book kick. My non-indie reading has not been so much with the funny, but this is the third humorous indie I've read in a row. And you know what? I love it. They've been a blast.


This one was a riot. I had only meant to read a couple chapters this evening, and ended up finishing the whole damn thing! (Mr. DeLauder, if my characters haunt me because your story delayed my writing of theirs, I'm sending them to your doorstep.) There are some truly precious lines. The "Touchdown!" scene -- you'll know it when you read it -- nearly put me into a giggle fit.


The story is pretty hysterical. I love the idea of the plants. The story had some philosophizing about big topics, you know, like the nature of God and the future of humanity, but never got the feeling that it was trying to be more than it was. Remarkably. It really gave me that loony, funky feeling that the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did. Dry and witty. After the day I've had, I needed it too.


5 Fireballs for this one!


...will try not to light the plants on fire.