Justin Robinson's GET BLANK

Justin Robinson's Fill in the Blank series has the makings of a classic except for one small but significant flaw: it is a bit too much a product of the moment, that moment being early 2014, during the grand epic swan song/swan dive of that remarkable but possibly not unforgettable TV series Mad Men*. Which is to say that I'm a bit concerned, regarding this second volume, Get Blank, that it's not going to stand up quite as well as it deserves to in the years to come, when that show and the other pop culture ephemera of this moment are distant memories. And make no mistake, these books deserve to stand up. They deserve to stand up a lot. And that's not any kind of double entendre. Or at least not much of one.

But you know, perhaps early readers of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson had similar concerns, back in the day.

All questions of long-term survival of the book aside, Get Blank is a worthy successor to the book in which our conspiracy-juggling hero was introduced, 2012's thigh-slapping romp Mr. Blank. It has all of the qualities I enjoyed most in that first book, without feeling like the mixture same as before; Robinson importantly proves early on that "Bob" Blank is far from being a one-note character, even as again he goes to a familiar crime/noir plot well, that of the getting-too-old-for-this-ish, it's-somebody-else's-turn wannabe retiree who is sucked back into his old life by forces he can't control and complains about it entertainingly.

Robinson wisely narrows the focus, this time around, on his protagonist/narrator's amusing narrative voice, resisting the temptation to fill this second volume chock full of MOAR. MOAR CONSPIRACIES! MOAR VILLAINS! MOAR SURREALS! MOAR PUNTASTIC DIALOGUE! MOAR MOAR MOAR.

Instead, we rather a more restrained and thoughtful look at Blank's weird world through his grudgingly maturing eyes.** As Bernard Black (perhaps my only pop culture hero that doesn't get a sly mention or allusion in this novel) would say, he's a boytfriend now; he's got duties, responsibilities, lots of hand-holding and sighing... except unlike Bernard, Blank really is a boyfriend now, whether people believe him or not; the buxom bombshell who shared his adventures last novel, Mina the gorgeous plus-sized model, saw something special in him that no one else seems to (except for us, of course) and decided all he really needed to be a suitable partner was some decent clothes. It's sweet!

Alas, the damsel no sooner won is lost again, framed for murder in an obvious but effective ploy to draw the supposedly retired Blank back out into his former, laughably complex, orbits. As plot devices go, it's a bit ho hum, and it deprives us of a character that really enriched the prior novel, but really, how the hell else are a bunch of conspiracy nuts going to suck their favorite gopher back onto the sacrificial goat delivery circuit? I can't think of a better, can you?

Taking Mina's prior-novel place as sidekick/helpmeet-cum-source of bafflement is one Victor Charlie, a genuine Man in Black, complete with old-fashioned-looking car that can speed like a rocketship, but who is way more bizarre than anything Lowell Cunningham et al imagined for the comic book/film franchise of that name. VC is one weird amalgam of person and program, popping off stock phrases like "hubba hubba" at inappropriate times, taking instructions like "hang on a second" too literally, and generally both helping and hindering Blank's progress, often at the exact same moment. I wish he'd come into the story sooner, though. Ditto Elias. O, Elias, O VC. I would read the crap out of the adventures of Blank and Elias and VC, I really would. 23 Skiddo.

Did I laugh out loud on every other page like last time? No. But what I did do was begin to feel for Mr. Blank, to understand what a life like his might actually be like, and to root for his romance. And that's no mean feat when dealing with a cranky reader like me.

Bravo, Justin! Bravo, Blank!

*Remusly, lots of references to Mad Men here, and I'm not just talking about the main female character/quest object (yes, sadly, the magnificent Mina is more of an absence than a presence in this second Blank novel) being pretty much a role crafted expressly for Christina Hendricks in all her stacked and begirdled red-haired Marilyn Monroe sex-bomb glory.

**Lest this make the book sound too po-faced, though, let me assure you, there are still bits that are funny as hell. A running gag in which Blank keeps enlightening us on the seekrit conspiratorial messages hidden in a litany of pop songs Mina has loaded onto his iPod is lots of fun, for instance. And yes, one of them is by R.E.M. and yes it's probably the one you're thinking of.