Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, Et Al

A Compendium of Evils

By: The Reno Kid, E.M. Rauch

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Length: 28 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

A world-class hero confronts ancient "supernatural" evils in an adventure that spans entire planets and defies everyday notions of reality!

Still mourning the losses of his beloved Penny Priddy and his surrogate father Professor Hikita, Buckaroo Banzai must also contend with the constant threat of attack from his immortal nemesis Hanoi Xan, ruthless leader of the World Crime League. To make matters worse, Planet 10 warrior queen John Emdall has sent her Lectroid legions against Earth with a brutal ultimatum. Or is her true target Buckaroo Banzai? As the apocalyptic threats continue to mount, only Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers stand in the way of global destruction.

The long-awaited sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is finally here after more than thirty-five years! As told by the Reno Kid to Buckaroo Banzai chronicler E. M. Rauch, this tale follows everyone's favorite scientist-surgeon-entertainer-daredevil as he sets off on a brand-new hair-raising adventure!

©2021 Earl M. Rauch (P)2022 Tantor

Grotesque juvenile fan fiction grade

Stuffed 50 lbs of Buckaroo character dialog and scenarios into a 10 lb sack, and mixed with a gratuitous slurry of expletives that add absolutely nothing to the content. I couldn't choke this down despite liking the idea of a sequel story.

Endless yammering

I made it past 3 hours into this story and having encountered nothing but back story, contradictory descriptions and endless monologs, I gave up.

Why get paid for one word when you can use two?

I was really looking forward to reading this book, and I was eager, because there were a lot more pages in the second book then there were the first. And I don't have as many hours in the day to read, as I once did, so when the audiobook came out, I jumped at it.

Perhaps the choice of narrators had something to do with it. The annunciation was clear, and the pace was slow enough that anybody could listen to it, but it was being read by someone I thought would be more appropriate to a Shakespearean play. It was truly hard to listen to.

I quit one hour in and I'm not seeing how to get a refund.

Not worth the wait.

Where to begin? This book was a racist, sexist, bigoted nightmare of Buckaroo Banzai fan fiction. The macho posturing of the narrator is off putting and in my opinion out of character from the likable voice of the same character in both the original movie and it’s novelization. The performance is slightly better than the material deserves but does not save this work.
The style of these stories are not fit for contemporary audiences and change this series into one that not only was uncomfortable to consume but doesn’t end, it just stops. I understand that much like “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension” this is meant to be just another chapter in the ever continuing adventures of the titular hero, but usually there is some resolution to the story with a cliffhanger to lead the reader to the next chapter. This does not so that, it just ends with no conclusion to the conflicts presented let alone a satisfying one.
All in all if you enjoyed the 80s classic that was the first adventure of the Hong Kong Cavaliers we had the pleasure of viewing/reading skip this one. It is not worth all the years of anticipation.

Not very good

Story is just not well written. Boring story . Movie was so much better. Sad waited like 40 years and this is what we got.

Truly Dreadful

I’m not sure what I expected, but nothing could have prepared me for this! The narrator was excellent, and did a wonderful job making the material he was reading actually sound like it had some kind of meaning, so kudos for that! The story had, in my opinion, literally nothing to do with the film, although it did throw in some names that were familiar. Any continuity beyond that was lost immediately. The narrative, if one could call the rambling stream of consciousness, begins at once to meander and wander, the writer(s?) seeming to glue massive numbers of words together without ever really feeling the need to make any sense out of them. I was flabbergasted, and, determined to press on, hoping against hope, that some meaning or comprehension could be gleaned from the steaming heap of putrid, lurid, gibberish, I managed 5 chapters. I was truly puzzled: was this some sort of attempt to be a cult master piece without actually having a story, a narrative, or point? The answer for me was a resounding “no”. Save yourself the trouble and go watch the movie again, if you ever figure out what the point is, please lmk!

Nothing like the movie.

Not tongue in cheek. Not fun. Boring. Bad writing. Gross. I quit 2 1/2 hrs in, by which time pretty much nothing had happened except some torture porn. The writer didn't understand the movie. They didn't even understand that the Electroids got their weird names because someone on Earth had to come up with a bunch of names all at once and ran out of ideas. The author didn't get that incredibly simple joke but thought random bathroom humor would work.

The speaker spoke with great Gravitas in the beginning- giving every word incredible weight even though it didn't deserve it, but he got better as the story went on.

If you are expecting Buckaroo Banzai style writing from the movie, this unfortunately is not it.

Save yourself. You don't want any part of this.

The voice performance was decent. There. I said something nice. The story, however, is like a lurid gross fanfic. If I could give it no stars I would. The highlights include: gratuitous disgusting descriptions of sexual activity, gratuitous disgusting descriptions of grotesque characters and their equally grotesque anatomy, and to top it all off a detailed description of Buckaroo being raped by a corpulent bug alien who we are told is Empress John Emdall from the original movie. This was a nasty waste of time. Either the author utterly loathes the fans (that are the only conceivable audience for this work), or has completely lost whatever spark of creativity that made the movie a cult classic. Steer clear of this.

just say nope

I slogged to the end and ... if this was what the sequel movie would have been based on, it is clear why it was never made. it is vulgar as well as incoherent. Probably the biggest issue is if you let it go on there is no destination reached. There is no real resolution at the end regarding the world crime league or the final fate of Penny.

I suspect the co-writer for the film salvaged the interesting bits and removed most of the rambling soliloquizing. The reader did an amazing job considering the material he had to read.

just skip this one.