The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent

Series: The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent

By: Larry Correia / Narrated By: Adam Baldwin

Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins

The oooone time I DON’T read the Publisher Summary, I get hit with this! Unexpected, delightful, just get past the sporadic right-wing sneers…

Seriously, like, I avoided the Publisher’s Summary cuz I’m always berating myself for reading the Summaries, going in with expectations, and coming out scratching my head and asking, “Whatthe…?!?”

They’re usually wrong and misleading is what I’m saying. So I doooo try to get past the desire to peruse and just start a story/audiobook to experience what all I get.

But THIS time, I really shoulda given the danged Summary a glance cuz I was very very much expecting Tom Stranger to be a goofball extraordinaire who winds up way in over his head with Interdimensional Hijinks blasting him this way and that. I mean, we’re talking: The dude’s an Insurance Agent for cripes sake. How tough can he be?

Uhm…

PLENTY tough! From the get-go, author Larry Correia has alternate dimensions being horrifically attacked by aliens hellbent on mayhem and destruction. And it’s all pretty funny as chaos is going on all around, and Tom Stranger from Stranger & Stranger (Voted Number 1 in Customer Satisfaction three years in a row!) comes in to save the day by ensuring that devastation by alien attack is indeed covered within that dimension’s policy. He kicks a little butt (Hmm, actually, a LOT of butt armed with his trusty Combat Wombat), goes through arbitrations with rampaging and homicidal creatures, then flies off to the next job with his brand new intern, Jimmy, at his side.

And oh—the thing about Jimmy? Well, he’s just a kid, a spaz, really, who likes his booze, likes his pot, likes his skin intact, thank you very much, and he has a tendency of screaming, puking, curling up in the fetal position when Tom flies them through intergalactic space battles. Turns out that Jimmy’s placement is kinda sorta a mistake, and Tom’s reeeeeal intern was accidentally sent to an insurance call center. This sets up the big battle engagement scene at the soulless call center which was just a ruse to lure Tom into a trap designed by his arch nemesis Jeff Conundrum. The paunchy, blue-haired Conundrum, Interdimensional Insurance Agent himself, haaaaaates that Stranger & Stranger makes his own agency look bad. I mean, sure, Conundrum’s call center has a list with the MOST inopportune times to call people, so that’s DEFinitely when customer service people call. And sure, Conundrum will sell his client list info to Satan himself, but… Jeez… it’s just not fair.

This little audiobook is action-packed, like crazy, and filled with plenty of clever dialogue (Cuz Tom is plenty clever to go in with his ultra kick-butt level-headedness). Correia is even a character himself, plucked from a Comic Con just when the gates of hell are unleashed upon the costumed crowd. And I think here would be the time to say that narrator Adam Baldwin is absoLUTEly FEARless with his performance; it’s like he’s enjoying every gut splash, every witty bit o’ banter, and when he does “Manatee” as a foreign language, he’s to die for! Baldwin really has us riding this rollercoaster as it twists, turns, zooms up, plummets down. Wherever the story goes, that’s where he is, taking us to each alternate Earth, to each spaceship, to each soulless call center.

So all in all a super fast-paced little audiobook marred only by Correia’s OBVIOUS right-wing jabs written in which I could’ve done without. The man’s entitled to his opinion, but I always prefer jabs to be made in Essays and Nonfiction. But oh well (Plus, tho’ I’m just a tad left of center, I had to admit that he had a couple of points in his taunts, however glibly made. Tsk tsk tsk). Though all the sneering did interrupt the flow of the story to make it seem like Correia couldn’t help himself, he just HAD to preen a bit about his rapier-like commentary, the action in the rest of the story, and the goofiness of Jimmy and his well-intended attempts to be brave like an insurance agent, had me chuckling and they’re enough to see me through to eventually listening to the sequel.

Ignore (Or Savor, if you’re right of center) the self-congratulatory sneering witticisms, and enjoy the rollercoaster and the chaos and Tom’s keen insights and Jimmy’s wailings.

And most certainly, enjoy the beJESus outta Baldwin’s hammy narration. Great narration here only made a good story even better!