AFFotD Book Review: DNA Nannies by Fidel Faddle

“This is either the best book, or the worst book, that I’ve ever read.  But to be fair, I’ve never read a full book.”

~AFFotD’s Official Book Reviewer

Yes, it takes a lot for a “book” to grab our attention and make us start to “read” it.  Unless that book is blatantly xenophobic, or, you know, actually just a beer, it’s tough to motivate us into stringing together the various printed words and comprehending the “action” that we’re implored to use our “imagination” and “stop drinking for just one damn minute.”  Well, even when we read we know better than to do it sober.

Of course, we quickly changed our tune (well, except for the “reading while drunk, only” thing, that’s pretty non-negotiable) as soon as we saw the cover for DNA Nannies, available for download through the Kindle and written by “Pseudonym: Fidel Faddle.”  Yes, this creative genius decided that the best alias he could come up with would be “Fidel Faddle,” which in no way tells us that this book was written by a 65 year old man with delusions of grandeur.  But we’ll get to that later.

Just look at that cover!  Wall Street!  Statue!  Wall Street again!  Uh, Wall Street in the 20s!  LOG CABINS!  Galaxies!  UFOs!  Tits!  TITS!  This book has to be the best book ever, right?

Well, there’s only one way to find out.

AFFotD Book Review:  DNA Nannies by Fidel Faddle

…did we mention the tits?

Okay, right off the bat, we have to assume this book is just trying to fuck with us.  Despite (or maybe because of) the liberal application of UFOs and titties, the cover of this book looks like a text book written by a 9/11 “Truther” with a mild pornography addiction.  Come on, he named himself “Fidel Faddle.”  Come on.  It’s about “DNA Nannies” but the image of on the cover is clearly a slutty nurse.  We mean, clearly.  But, much like Nicholas Cage trying to interpret a tax form, we’ve already made the commitment to reading this, so we might as well go about it until we are reduced to shrieking, bee-covered versions of our past selves.

This book unfortunately seems to only have an in depth summary and the first two chapters available without making us having to “pay money” for it, which was upsetting, until we realized that we’ve never read that much before, so we still can’t even promise that we’ll make it that far.

So, let’s just dive into this.

The Summary of the Summary of DNA Nannies

Photo unrelated

Whoever decided that you’re not supposed to give away everything that happens in your book on the “Book Description” segment of a website selling digital copies of your book for three dollars and ninety-eight cents clearly was the same person who determined that “Fidel Faddle” shouldn’t be used as a writers alias.  Because Fidel Faddle has absolutely no qualms in ruining his entire book for you.

We don’t blame him, when you have such badassery confined to an electronic book, you gotta spread the word any way you can.  So, we will try to break up the information that the summary provides us into three categories:  Information that is somewhat relevant to Fidel Faddle’s insane idea of what a “plot” is, sentences that, when taken out of context, could make a kickass band name, and gibberish that possibly might tear open the fabric of space time if enough people said them out loud.

Information That is Somewhat Relevant to Fidel Faddle’s Insane Idea of What a “Plot” is

The story is about a native American, Jacobi, who tells the story of his life with his wife to his son, Benny, and his fiancé, Seleena.  Jake (they go back and forth between “Jacobi” and “Jake” with no warning) fell in love with a “big beautiful blond woman of Swedish extraction” and moved with her to Newark, New Jersey, where he becomes a cop who neutralizes a group of terrorists that took a local elementary school hostage.  As Jake investigates the death of influential Wall Street magnates, his own household staff members die mysteriously, so he runs away to the northern woods of Montana with his wife.

Jake’s Wife, Prudence, tells him that she is a half breed of an alien race that wants to colonize the Earth so they can interbreed with humans, proving once and for all that ever big beautiful blond Swedish woman is, in fact, part alien.  Then there’s a space battle, and Jake doesn’t know if Prudence was telling the truth about that or not (the space battle was just a display of light beams and explosions in the sky).

As for the DNA Nannies, it’s unclear who that is supposed to be.  Apparently there is a nanny named Inga, as Tits McGee on the cover has the words “Nanny Inga” written on her outfit.  But

Sentences That, When Taken Out of Context, Could Make a Kickass Band Name

“Ragnar Ragnvard, the world’s richest man.”

“The eight spatial manifold away from earth.”

“Ormosians plan a Utopian existence.”

“Ormosian battle groups”

“Space-time aperture at the north-star”

“Benny, and his fiancée”

“Militarized energy beams”

“Do not threaten suicide like my Prudence always did.”

Gibberish That Possibly Might Tear Open the Fabric of Space Time if Enough People Said Them Out Loud

“The young beautiful nanny, into whose care the couple’s only child was entrusted, betrays the family and her guru, Ragnar.”

“But cause her husband a visceral revulsion for her person.”

“Prudence tells him she is the half breed progeny”

“Ormosians had lost the ability to reproduce and they sent exploratory missions to identify planets”

“Must defeat a rogue race of evil Siliconaceous creatures that envy earth for fissile and refractory materials”

“Do not threaten suicide like my Prudence always did.”

The Summary of the First Three Chapters of DNA Nannies (full title- “DNA Nannies and Einstein’s Ghost”)

When you click to see the first pages of this glorious book, you are rewarded to this little blurb.

“This is a strange story about aliens, a Native American man and his very blond very rich somewhat mysterious wife, dearly in love with her husband, whose penchant for lying to him drives the finale of this story and leaves the reader in a state of perplexion about what she finally divulges to him.”

What?  First of all, is there a way to describe a woman that’s any more suspicious than “very blond [and] very rich”?  Isn’t “very blond” about the laziest descriptor one can use for a blond woman’s hair?  What’s the difference between “very blond” and, say, “bleached blond”?  What level of the blond spectrum would Ivan Drago’s wife belong to?  You can’t just throw these things around willy nilly and not expect us to ask questions, Fidel Faddle.  Gooddamn it.

Anyway, to the book.

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The opening line of the book is “It wasn’t the best of times; it wasn’t the worst of times.”  Oh God, this is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better, isn’t it?

Apparently, this book takes place in the future, after the “Greatest Depression” (inventive name there, Faddle), and it’s largely because “Nanny Enterprises” failed, probably because it had far too many adjectives used to describe it.  “Nanny Enterprise was an oxymoronic alliance of contradictions that disintegrated when their charismatic and secretive leader, chairman Ragnar Ragynvard, mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth.”  Those are not words that make sense together.  You can’t be an oxymoronic alliance of contradictions unless you’re mired in a “improperly using big words to sound smarter than you are” battle, and even then you’d be making about as much sense as if you had said “the company was a aeloghaehpoi of agbphoeaghp.”

Anyway, the first chapter consists of Jacobi Nosal talking to his grandson, Benjamin Nosal II.  We know this because they introduce the grandson by having Jacobi bark, “Benjamin Nosal, Benjamin Nosal II, come, sit over here; sit with your grandfather.  I have something I want to tell you.”  Benjamin Nosal II, as it turns out, is obnoxious and awful, and only refers to his grandfather as “Gramps,” since he responds… you know what, let’s not ruin it for you, here’s the actual back and forth the author, who in no way is a 65 year old man who doesn’t know how to write young characters, decided to have between the grandfather and his awful, awful grandson.

Awful, Awful Grandson:  “Gramps, how ‘bout I take you up on it another day; me and my girl have a date.  I have tickets to the ‘Big Sky Rodeo’ this week and today’s the last day.”

Abridged Rambling of Grandfather:  “Son, ‘Big Sky’ has been playing every year for over two hundred years; you’ll have many more opportunities to enjoy the rodeo, but I’m not sure there’s much time left to tell all I need to tell you.  Grandpa is not like the rodeo; I don’t have that kind of longevity [editor’s note:  WHAT!?]…You did not know your grandmother, my dear sweet Prudence; the bear killed her before you were born [editor’s note:  WHAT WHAT WHAT!?  You can’t just drop a bear attack that casually!]”  (Okay, this paragraph goes on for a while, so let’s skip ahead)

Awful, Awful Grandson:  “Gramps, I’ll stay; do you mind if I call my girl.  Do you mind if she comes over and listens too.  We’ll try to make the late riding competitions tonight.  They’re the best anyhow.”

Awful, Awful Grandson again:  “Say, Gramps, Seleena’s coming over.  Hold on until she gets here.  She’s going to be family.  I’m going to propose to her this evening during the bull riding contest.”  [editor’s note:  WHAT!?!]

Terrible Grandfather:  “That’s original Benjamin, you’re just like your grandmother, full of ideas and associations; why the bull riding contest, may I ask?”

Awful Grandson:  “I thought it would be symbolic; you know what I mean, Gramps?”

NO!  NONE OF US KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN, YOU AWFUL GRANDSON!

Pictured above:  Symbolism?

So we’re going to just skip ahead to the end of this chapter and give you a rundown of the rest of what happens.  The soon-to-be-fiance/mechanical-bull-rider, Seleena, shows up, so the Grandpa decides the best way to tell his story is to get drunk (because even in the future, damaging stereotypes about the alcoholic tendencies of Native Americans are going strong and well.”  The awful grandson randomly has his grandmother’s cell phone, which will never be a thing—no one will ever use their ancestor’s cell phone as a fully functional keepsake.  This book is awful, but we can’t stop.  Come on, they just casually tossed in a bear death in the first chapter, just out of nowhere.  That’s called foreshadowing.  Or wait, what’s the opposite of foreshadowing?  Giving shit away right away for no reason?  Oh right, it’s that.

There is mercifully only one more chapter, which briefly describes Jacobi getting married, and shows him thwarting a terrorist attack on an elementary school on September 11^th, 2026, because if you wrote a book under the name “Fidel Faddle” you probably don’t care how blunt and obvious it comes off when you set a terrorist attack to take place on the 25 year anniversary of 9/11.  Unfortunately, we stopped really paying attention when they stopped talking about beers, so like most books, this sort of fell by the wayside.

But hey, don’t trust us on this.  We stand by the assessment that this is either the best book in the world, or the worst one written, and if you’re still not sure which side we’ve landed on, the damn thing is only a four dollar download away.

(But seriously, this is the best book ever.  Enjoy).