Dead Space

So far, so good. Sounds like "Star Trek" to me. But television producer and writer Lee Goldberg has taken that story, thrown in seriously twisted agents, actors and sci-fi fans, hit the frappe button, and spun out "Beyond the Beyond," an over-the-top melange of ultra-violence, sick humor and black comedy.

Everyone wears a target in "Beyond the Beyond." Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are mutated into the Endeavor's Captain Pierce and Mr. Snork, whose fans emulate the latter character's elephant nose. There's a network boss who creates shows like "Siamese Cops" about a police officer with two heads, and a superagent who uses any tactic to keep his talent under contract.

So when "Beyond the Beyond" is revived for The Big Network, it lets loose a tractor-trailer load of nuts and flakes, especially when the actor who played Captain Pierce, Guy Goddard, attempts to reclaim his role, aided by a group of equally demented fans.

As the body count rises into the stratosphere, it is up to studio security agent Charlie Willis to sort out the problems. Willis is more than up to the job, and comes across as sane (he's only one of two characters with any redeeming qualities) and realistic enough about Hollywood to keep his other job as owner/manager of a storage facility.

So whether you would enjoy "Beyond the Beyond" depends entirely on your taste for humor that knows no boundaries for taste. This is a book that should come with an advisory for mature readers. It's Mel Brooks with a laser blaster. Its humor is so wide-ranging and so scattershot that there's something to offend every reader, especially those who take "Star Trek" and its ilk seriously.


Trekkers, Beware!   July 1, 1998
Martha Kuhn (mjkuhn@brightchoice.bright.net) (Ohio)
5 out of 9 found this review helpful

Serious Star Trek fans should take a pass on this novel. Hits a bit too close to home. Silly Star Trek fans (like me) should grab it, head for the nearest easy chair, and settle in. Lee Goldberg is merciless on...well, just about everyone Charlie Willis, studio security guy, comes across. You have to understand that the reason Charlie IS the studio security guy is because a remarkably Angela Lansbury-esque actress playing a remarkably Jessica Fletcherish role gut shot him for trying to give her a traffic ticket. His new job is the studio's way of saying, "Sorry!" and keeping their temperamental Sunday night anchor out of jail. That happened in Lee's previous novel, My Gun Has Bullets, and it was tame compared to Beyond the Beyond. If you're looking for angst and deeply drawn character, you'll be disappointed. If you thrive on the outrageous and irreverent, you'll be hooked. You know who you are. Get reading.


A book the humorless will love to hate   February 19, 2007
J. Taylor (Directly over the center of the earth)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful

Until Larry Niven described the phenomenon in The Mote in God's Eye, I thought I was imagining the fact that there are intelligent beings among us who lack a sense of humor. They assume they have one, and believe they have one, and whatever they use as a substitute works for them, but they don't have a sense of humor at all.

However, God has made up their shortfall in the risible sense with a nicely developed urge to criticize things that did not amuse them. If pressed, they will point to other writings that cracked them up to the point of a faint smile and titter of applause. But they'd much rather tell you that a certain kind of writing sucks, because their celerity of mind is so honed that they analyze it in one second as a trick to make them relax and suspend a little disbelief, just long enough to enjoy the story... nope. No sense of humor. Absent, missing, non-installed.

For the other 95% of the human race, this is a book that can be enjoyed on a train, to the offense and disruption of other riders. Few experiences compare with trying to read a Lee Goldberg novel in a public place and realizing that NOT ONE PERSON other than the reader is getting what's so funny.

The other day, I watched a serious young rider on the Portland MAX, reading Goldberg's book, My Gun Has Bullets. I could tell when he got to the part about the cop waking up in the hospital, because he started to blink. And I could tell when he got to the stuntmen with no pain-receptors, because he started to laugh. He looked like he needed it, too.

Beyond the Beyond takes Charlie much deeper into the insanity of Hollywood and television. Gomorrah, CA is getting weird beyond description, but Goldberg comes close. He salts the book with inside jokes but also layers it with clearly funny and subtle cultural memes that any reader gets.


Readers and writers already owe him a great debt for his jab at Jessica on Murder, She Wrote, wherein someone becomes a famous writer by typing for seven seconds per hour and solving murders over cucumber sandwiches for the rest of the program.... Someday, if Hollywood ever makes My Gun Has Bullets into a movie, Angela Lansbury has GOT to do this role, living or dead. (Hollywood had no scruples about casting John Lennon in Forrest Gump, and the CGI is a lot better these days. She could win a posthumous Academy Award.)

Buy this book. Look, if you don't get it, if it isn't your cup of tea, you can always regift it to someone with a sense of humor.


Too bleeping funny!   June 4, 1998
2 out of 8 found this review helpful

Goldberg nails Hollywood in a book so over-the-top laugh out loud funny, you know a lot of it has gotta be true!


Fun Romp   March 6, 2010
K. Peterman (Vallejo, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I enjoy Lee Golberg's writing. The prequel to this one "My Gun Has Bullets" was hysterical. This one is too. The characters are well drawn and the author's descriptions are so vivid one can imagine it happening as one is reading it. In fact in recalling on Mr. Goldberg's 'Monk' books I remembered it so vividly I was sure it was an episode from the series.
The characters are indeed characters with a capital 'C'. They are zany, wacky, loony, nutty,impossible, implausible, and yet believable. I would say that one has to suspend reality, which is true, but somehow the author leads you along the path so it seems real, plausible even.
There are several ongoing stories. One deals with a remake of a Star Trek type TV show. Mr.Goldberg manages to deftly parody the obsessiveness of Trekkies who will go do anything to ensure that the original characters stay in the remake of the show. Another deals with a studio security guard and former actor Charlie Willis who will do anything to protect the studios stars. Anything. A third is about the first woman head of a studio with a twist. Then there is the ongoing story of a hapless producer Eddie Planet (pronounced like Plan A...reminiscent or Mrs. Bucket on 'Keeping up Appearances') who is insecure and in a continual stew and always scheming. He has a plaque that says "Reserved for Mr. Planet" that he puts on tables from the finest restaurant to Kenny Rogers Chicken restaurant.
And sprinkled through are a myriad of intriguing folks and plots and subplots and twists and turns that will keep you reading and engaged.
Sit back and enjoy this very funny book and be glad you're not a character in it.