Jeff Names the Planets

Not nearly as good as the premise would indicate. It starts off a little flat, toying with the down-on-his-luck PI trope, then veers into bizarro-lite terrain and teenage boy fantasies about sexy girls who just want sex with their sex and sexy-sex. After that, it's a series of loose, disjointed interludes, weirdness is portrayed, but most of what the writer shows off is disdain for his characters, the setting, popular culture (I think I caught a Britney Spears joke somewhere in here... zing!), and modern life in general. Specifically, America: Ellis so straight-facedly blathers on about the evil of popular American culture, I began to think it was some kind of ironic-but-serious but-really-ironic game invented by the author to entertain himself.The plot meanders along, with a couple of standout scenes, (The Falconer is promising, but ends up just a plot device), then wobbles to a predictable finish.Why didn't I like this book more? It had it all... but it lost me.