Let’s first clear up why exactly I am reviewing this. I was going through a bunch of crap in my basement from grade school and found this little paperback tucked away. It used to be one of my favorites as a pre-adolescent young dude. But then again, so did shopping carts, Sonic the Hedgehog fanfics, and TheFamilyLawnmower. So, with that out of the way, let’s see how this book stacks up to other works such as Master Harold…and the Boys.
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Let's read.
First off: it’s about furries. Well, not furries, but anthropomorphic mice. The fact that it’s a rodent-based work with a storyline pretty much automatically puts it above, say, Sonic ’06. Ha ha! With the obligatory Sonic reference out of the way, let’s move into the characters that we’ll meet.
First off, we’ve got Geronimo Stilton. He’s described as “a learned and brainy mouse” in the preface to his book. That he gets author credit for. He may be brainy, but he sure isn’t humble.
Next up is Thea, or “the one with the eyelashes”. She’s female and the younger sister of Geronimo. Lord knows the Stilton parents are not consistent with names, but whatever. She’s persnickety and shit.
After that is Trap, the incredibly-unfortunately-named cousin of the twomiscreants protagonists. He apparently owns a store called “Cheap Junk For Less”, which, presumably, is a division of Kmart. Only kidding, these are mice, you idiot. They don’t have Kmarts. Let’s be realistic here. He’s got quite the beer belly as well.
And finally, the runt of the litter is Benjamin, “Geronimo’s favorite nephew” as the preface states. Wow, Geronimo! You and your books must be a real hit at family gatherings! Anyway, somehow Trap’s seed managed to bumble its way into some poor woman, and li’l Benjamin popped out a few months later. They both wear red suspenders so you know they’re related.
![Posted Image]()
Ken Penders strikes again!
The first thing you notice once you get to the actual “story” (as Geronimo Stilton and his questionable judgment would call it) is that holy fuck the author sure does like to use many different fonts, almost all of which appear to be from 1998. They are in color as well.
![Posted Image]()
Textual healing
Chapter One opens with an exclamation! “We Want Stil-ton!” exclaims the title! And you can be damned sure that that is not a cry of someone who loves cheese! As Geronimo Stilton enters his office at The Rodent’s Gazette, he sure is relieved that no one recognized him. “Because, you see, I am Geronimo Stilton!” he helpfully points out to the reader. Oddly, as soon as he gets up to the window of his office, everyone recognizes him. Perhaps this is why they don’t paint names on the windows of people’s offices any more.
Turns out that Stilton, in his long quest to become New Mouse City (I wish I was making that up)’s biggest fuckup, basically turned the phonebook into a reference as accurate as the TVTropes page for YouTube Poop. As he gazes down at the angry throngs torching his phonebooks, he begins to receive angry phone calls and faxes. Presumably, the one correct phone number in that phonebook was the one for his own office. Nice going, Geronimo Stilton!
He finally gets so afraid of dealing with the consequences of his fuckuppery that he manages to persuade Trap and Thea and Benjamin into going full Styx and sailing away. Make that flying away, as he somehow learned to operate a hot-air balloon. Off they fly for the Fuckup Islands, presumably to visit the rest of the Stilton kin.
But then, out of the clear blue sky, come CANNONBALLS! Right through the fabric of the hot air balloon! And just like that, the plot advances as subtly as Hulk Hogan going bowling.
The crew somehow float on over to the ship from whence the cannonballs flew, which is manned by CATS. The rodent equivalent of the Darwin Awards is on the horizon for Geronimo and company. But don’t worry, dear reader, they are anthropomorphic cats, and so they take them onto the ship because they are pirates. Spouting cat puns all the way, the mice are somehow not eaten in favor of…snails. Not anthropomorphic snails. Just regular snails. God only knows where they come from, probably the snail black market.
Twenty-five pages in, we finally meet the villain. He is a cat called the Black Bandit, due to the fact that he is a bandit who dresses in black. No pussyfooting (ha ha!) around with the naming conventions. Lest the reader get the impression that Geronimo Stilton is good for anything, he promptly bullshits that they left Mouse Island (again, really) due to a disease outbreak. The Bandit responds by sending them off to be killed and eaten. Clearly disease prevention is not a strong suit among cats. Anyway, due to Thea implying potential sexual favors towards the cook in order to avoid being killed, they stay in a jail cell for a bit.
Benjamin, who has not learned yet of the Stilton family tradition to be a complete moron in all aspects of life, devises a plan to escape that involves filing through the bars of their cell. Geronimo and Thea decide to cover up the noise by singing. For once, it works. Incidentally, this comes as more of a surprise to most readers than, say, the initial capture by the cat clan.
As nighttime falls, Geronimo Stilton, Mouse Of Action, discovers a plan of the ship conveniently engraved on the cell wall. “Slimy Swiss Balls!” he exclaims. He writes it down in the diary that the cat jailer somehow allowed him to retain. These are not smart cats.
In possibly the world’s most anticlimactic escape scene, the mice escape the tower.
Geronimo, to his credit, devises a nifty little plan to get the cats off the ship. He explains that the all-metal ship is so hot that it is burning up, and so all they need to commandeer the ship is a fire. What he doesn’t take into account is the fact that this makes NO FUCKING SENSE, because metal is NOT FLAMMABLE, and it doesn’t BURN, it MELTS, holy shit you’re an UTTER MORON.
Then, in a direct violation of thermodynamics, the ship catches fire and the cats jump overboard and just like that, the mice have a ship that they have no idea how to control. Slimy Swiss Balls! How they didn’t burn up is left to the imagination of the reader.
I’ll leave this quote here. “I climbed into bed, avoiding the rug. It was made of soft gray fur. It might have been mouse fur. I tried not to think about it, but it was hard. I could almost hear that poor rug squeak!” What the fuck, Geronimo Stilton.
Of course, being a pirate ship, there is treasure on it. Geronimo finds an old coin. Thea and Trap and Benjamin find treasure. Slimy Swiss Balls!
Having somehow steered the ship on course, the failure-prone foursome arrive back in New Long Mouse York City Island or whatever. Again, let me emphasize that the entire point of this little voyage was to avoid a career-ending fuckup. Less than a week later, G-Stil and his companions are given a hero’s welcome. The ship is turned into a pizza parlor and the spoils of the ship are used to buy other stuff.
How does it compare to Master Harold…and the Boys? It doesn’t at all. For one thing, it’s not written by Athol Fugard and is about mice. It’s also not set in South Africa, only mentions dancing once and takes place in a single-race vacuum of Mouse People.
The moral of the story is: running (or flying, or sailing) away from your problems will make them better, no matter how badly you’ve botched things.
Harvestman’s Rating: 3 slimy swiss balls out of 10
Let's read.
First off: it’s about furries. Well, not furries, but anthropomorphic mice. The fact that it’s a rodent-based work with a storyline pretty much automatically puts it above, say, Sonic ’06. Ha ha! With the obligatory Sonic reference out of the way, let’s move into the characters that we’ll meet.
First off, we’ve got Geronimo Stilton. He’s described as “a learned and brainy mouse” in the preface to his book. That he gets author credit for. He may be brainy, but he sure isn’t humble.
Next up is Thea, or “the one with the eyelashes”. She’s female and the younger sister of Geronimo. Lord knows the Stilton parents are not consistent with names, but whatever. She’s persnickety and shit.
After that is Trap, the incredibly-unfortunately-named cousin of the two
And finally, the runt of the litter is Benjamin, “Geronimo’s favorite nephew” as the preface states. Wow, Geronimo! You and your books must be a real hit at family gatherings! Anyway, somehow Trap’s seed managed to bumble its way into some poor woman, and li’l Benjamin popped out a few months later. They both wear red suspenders so you know they’re related.
Ken Penders strikes again!
The first thing you notice once you get to the actual “story” (as Geronimo Stilton and his questionable judgment would call it) is that holy fuck the author sure does like to use many different fonts, almost all of which appear to be from 1998. They are in color as well.
Textual healing
Chapter One opens with an exclamation! “We Want Stil-ton!” exclaims the title! And you can be damned sure that that is not a cry of someone who loves cheese! As Geronimo Stilton enters his office at The Rodent’s Gazette, he sure is relieved that no one recognized him. “Because, you see, I am Geronimo Stilton!” he helpfully points out to the reader. Oddly, as soon as he gets up to the window of his office, everyone recognizes him. Perhaps this is why they don’t paint names on the windows of people’s offices any more.
Turns out that Stilton, in his long quest to become New Mouse City (I wish I was making that up)’s biggest fuckup, basically turned the phonebook into a reference as accurate as the TVTropes page for YouTube Poop. As he gazes down at the angry throngs torching his phonebooks, he begins to receive angry phone calls and faxes. Presumably, the one correct phone number in that phonebook was the one for his own office. Nice going, Geronimo Stilton!
He finally gets so afraid of dealing with the consequences of his fuckuppery that he manages to persuade Trap and Thea and Benjamin into going full Styx and sailing away. Make that flying away, as he somehow learned to operate a hot-air balloon. Off they fly for the Fuckup Islands, presumably to visit the rest of the Stilton kin.
But then, out of the clear blue sky, come CANNONBALLS! Right through the fabric of the hot air balloon! And just like that, the plot advances as subtly as Hulk Hogan going bowling.
The crew somehow float on over to the ship from whence the cannonballs flew, which is manned by CATS. The rodent equivalent of the Darwin Awards is on the horizon for Geronimo and company. But don’t worry, dear reader, they are anthropomorphic cats, and so they take them onto the ship because they are pirates. Spouting cat puns all the way, the mice are somehow not eaten in favor of…snails. Not anthropomorphic snails. Just regular snails. God only knows where they come from, probably the snail black market.
Twenty-five pages in, we finally meet the villain. He is a cat called the Black Bandit, due to the fact that he is a bandit who dresses in black. No pussyfooting (ha ha!) around with the naming conventions. Lest the reader get the impression that Geronimo Stilton is good for anything, he promptly bullshits that they left Mouse Island (again, really) due to a disease outbreak. The Bandit responds by sending them off to be killed and eaten. Clearly disease prevention is not a strong suit among cats. Anyway, due to Thea implying potential sexual favors towards the cook in order to avoid being killed, they stay in a jail cell for a bit.
Benjamin, who has not learned yet of the Stilton family tradition to be a complete moron in all aspects of life, devises a plan to escape that involves filing through the bars of their cell. Geronimo and Thea decide to cover up the noise by singing. For once, it works. Incidentally, this comes as more of a surprise to most readers than, say, the initial capture by the cat clan.
As nighttime falls, Geronimo Stilton, Mouse Of Action, discovers a plan of the ship conveniently engraved on the cell wall. “Slimy Swiss Balls!” he exclaims. He writes it down in the diary that the cat jailer somehow allowed him to retain. These are not smart cats.
In possibly the world’s most anticlimactic escape scene, the mice escape the tower.
Geronimo, to his credit, devises a nifty little plan to get the cats off the ship. He explains that the all-metal ship is so hot that it is burning up, and so all they need to commandeer the ship is a fire. What he doesn’t take into account is the fact that this makes NO FUCKING SENSE, because metal is NOT FLAMMABLE, and it doesn’t BURN, it MELTS, holy shit you’re an UTTER MORON.
Then, in a direct violation of thermodynamics, the ship catches fire and the cats jump overboard and just like that, the mice have a ship that they have no idea how to control. Slimy Swiss Balls! How they didn’t burn up is left to the imagination of the reader.
I’ll leave this quote here. “I climbed into bed, avoiding the rug. It was made of soft gray fur. It might have been mouse fur. I tried not to think about it, but it was hard. I could almost hear that poor rug squeak!” What the fuck, Geronimo Stilton.
Of course, being a pirate ship, there is treasure on it. Geronimo finds an old coin. Thea and Trap and Benjamin find treasure. Slimy Swiss Balls!
Having somehow steered the ship on course, the failure-prone foursome arrive back in New Long Mouse York City Island or whatever. Again, let me emphasize that the entire point of this little voyage was to avoid a career-ending fuckup. Less than a week later, G-Stil and his companions are given a hero’s welcome. The ship is turned into a pizza parlor and the spoils of the ship are used to buy other stuff.
How does it compare to Master Harold…and the Boys? It doesn’t at all. For one thing, it’s not written by Athol Fugard and is about mice. It’s also not set in South Africa, only mentions dancing once and takes place in a single-race vacuum of Mouse People.
The moral of the story is: running (or flying, or sailing) away from your problems will make them better, no matter how badly you’ve botched things.
Harvestman’s Rating: 3 slimy swiss balls out of 10