Audiobook Review of Tom Stranger by Larry Correia

Believe it or not, up until a couple weeks ago I had never listened to an audio book.  I think.  Maybe back when we called them books on tape.  I would like to, but a 5-minute commute doesn’t provide much audio book time.  Even for an audio book as short as The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent (let’s stick with Tom Stranger).  But Tom Stranger is short—just over 2 hours long—and only available in audio form.  So I knocked it out over the course of a couple short roadtrips.

Tom Stranger is not your average Larry Correia book.  There is some action, and good action at that, but that isn’t the point.  The plot is structured around a very eventful day in the life of interdimensional insurance agent Tom Stranger, and it’s a satirical work.  As such, it’s less a single story than a series of vignettes.  And your appreciation of the satire will depend, in part, on how much closely you follow Correia (and, to a lesser extent, Baldwin) and how well you know the insurance business.

It’s a little inside baseball.  There is a tactical melon baller joke, for chrissakes!  And lots of jokes about gender studies majors and Wendell the Manatee and a job occupying a street.  And lots and lots of insurance jokes.  Tom Stranger really cares about good customer service.

The story is organized as a day in the life of Tom Stranger.  His 10am is one chapter, his 2pm is another, and so on.  So there isn’t one real plot thread running through the entire audiobook, although Tom Stranger’s conflict with his nemesis and competitor in interdimensional insurance, Jeff Conundrum, comes close.  Vignettes include an attack on a version of Earth where Adam Baldwin is POTUS (we, unfortunately, never had a libertarian space cowboy revolution because Firefly was cancelled prematurely).  That one ends with an arbitration where the arbitrator is Chuck Norris.  Another vignette involves protecting Larry Correia at a Con, which allows for a lot of Con-related jokes.  A later vignette revolves around returning his intern to the call center where he belongs.

The entire thing is damned hilarious.

The narration is by actor and libertarian space cowboy Adam Baldwin and is a definite highlight.  The narration gives him the excuse to show off great imitations of R. Lee Ermey, Barack Obama, and Correia himself, and to show off literally the worst imitation I have ever heard, of Joe Biden.

For fans of Larry Correia, libertarian space cowboys, and really good customer service.

4 of 5 Stars.

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