Cosmic Banditos

A Contrabandista's Quest for the Meaning of Life

By: A. C. Weisbecker

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Mr. Quark is a down-on-his-luck pot smuggler hiding out in the mountains of Columbia with his dog, High Pockets, and a small band of banditos led by the irascible José. Times are lean, and to liven up their exile, José decides to mug a family of American tourists.

Among the spoils are physics texts, which launch Mr. Quark on a sidesplitting, boisterous adventure north to California, where he confronts the owner of the books with his own theories on relativity, on the nature of the universe, and on looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places.

©2001 Alan Weisbecker (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A. C. Weisbecker outgonzos Hunter S. Thompson." (United Press International)
"Outrageous....An absurd and highly entertaining comic romp." ( Booklist)

A Time Traveling Footnote

The most fun you'll have learning quantum physics. I would write more but I have other things to do right now, mainly psychotropic drugs and the dodging of flying debris.

One of the truly great and unique books!

If you are one of the lucky people who found this gem before it's resurgence and 2nd printing but have been putting off getting the audio version stop reading this and just buy it already....

For the rest of you:

I loved the audio version but seriously read a physical copy of the thing first. This is just one of those books that will be better if you can put it down and really think about the insanity that you just read from time to time.

Um what?

Not my cup of tea I guess. Story moves but the ironic end left me wanting my time spent back. Ray's performance is okay but the sound edits were cheesy. Not as good as some of his more recent readings.

Laugh out loud

This is a book that makes you laugh but at the same time contemplate what is reality.

Dear Quark

Littered between the pages of this book You will find the quantum mechanics of logic, life, and drug smuggling. A pleasantly authentic Bandito, his translator and Ours, along with their allergy fit companion make sense of a complicated situation filled with bananas at tree-top level. Follow the hum of the steel drums and open Your mind for the explosion to unfold.

Chapters are misaligned

If you could sum up Cosmic Banditos in three words, what would they be?

Absolute, Utter, Bullshit.

Any additional comments?

In the audio book chapter 1 is :02 seconds long then the author's rambling preface continues till 28:21, if you don't want to spoil the book skip the entro.

Funny; refreshing and different

Hunter thompson meets quantum physics and has the desire to understand the universe. Very funny and right on the level

Subatomic Chaos

The meandering storyline was a pleasure to read. The infusion of quantum mechanics into that storyline was even better. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Nope

I wanted to love this book, however I fully admit I went in with absurdly high (no pun) expectations and that typically doesn’t end well.
Reviewers had compared Weisbecker to H.S. Thompson and Kerouac and that the characters in this novel could go “toe-to-toe with Cassady and Moriarty any day.” The fact that the reviewer (Jay Sweet Paste Magazine) who penned that quote misspelled both Neal and Dean’s last names should’ve been a red flag because this book couldn’t carry Kerouac’s water.
Another reviewer says skip the prologue, I actually encourage anyone to listen to the almost 30 min author’s prologue. It’ll give you a pretty good indication of how the rest of the novel reads. I’m all for narcissistic, drug addled flawed characters, just not boring ones.
Porter does his best as usual but I’m afraid the writing and my expectations killed it for me.

Banditos.

Made me laugh out loud. How many times can you use bandito in one book?