Planet Q

The book description on the review site described Planet Q by Peter Quinones as a “somewhat strange, completely original volume …that invites the reader to try out hundreds of “story openers” with the following question in mind – If you started reading a story, and this was the first sentence, would you want to continue reading?”

Accordingly, the reader is presented with one hundred and twenty pages of sentences. Some short and jarring:

“Jared is such a puss bag.”

“I love plastic cocks, OK? – there, I said it. “

Others thoughtful and insightful:

“The consequences of your ignorance will become the content of your sorrow.”

“A small ailment in one’s fifties is the start of the journey toward death.”

As well as larger rambling polysyndetons, sentences with multiple conjunctions that join multiple independent clauses:
“Baysta was in the pet store looking around for joint support soft chews for a small dog but her mind tended to wander and in seconds she saw the good looking male stock boy and she wondered if she were to drop to her knees and give him a blow job in the back aisles among the cans of cat food should she go for the granny mouth, pulling her lips back to create a suction feel?”

“I live my life as I wish, as a wildebeest with excessive blood flowing to my penis, cracked lips with hanging pieces of skin, dragon breath (dental floss is for plebeians), an occasional foray with an expensive nose hair trimming tool, and a Kung Fu action grip on women whose vaginas I crave – you can bet no girl is playing with her cell phone when I’m around.”

Taken into the context presented by the author, that if you started reading a story, and this was the first sentence, would you want to continue reading?” the hundreds of offerings range from intriguing, to witty, with some crossing over to gross, while the majority are bizarre or absurd.

Quinones is masterful in his use of language finding humor in contradictions while connecting incongruous subjects to create an alternate reality. Throw in a handful of obscure words and nescience takes over – the reader begins to believe this nonsense has some literary value.

Maybe it does, considering most books consist of pre-determined genre plots populated by stereotypical characters. Planet Q may be flimflam but it’s original, and in that regard deserves credit. Just how much can only be determined by the readers.