Crappy Twin "Bad Twin" by Gary Troup

I screamed "No!" from page one, but the geek in me, well, the geek in me wanted some answers.

Let's switch universes. We're in Lost reality now, not our world, but the world where Oceanic Flight 815 existed and crashed and one of its passengers was an author, an author of Bad Twin. Now switch back, so we can geek out.

There's a TV show called Lost that just started shooting its third season, and during the break an alternate reality game started called "The Lost Experience". This experience blurs the lines between reality and story world, it crosses over characters in the form of actors. The Lost Experience has encompassed TV commercials, the internet, and now, a book. It's big drawing point is that it's going to explain the numbers (4-8-15-16-23-42), though probably not completely and not without a ton of heavy handed advertising (these people aren't doing this for free, right? they got to get rich!).

In season 2, Hurley's reading a manuscript, called "Bad Twin". He makes mention of the fact that it's really good (don't believe him, his taste is horrible). In an effort to get money from suckers like me (I checked it out from the library, though, so ha!) Hyperion released "Bad Twin" under the pseudonym Gary Troup (A fictional character from the show that was sucked into one of the engines in the pilot episode. He was also a flight attendant named Cindy, whom we haven't seen much of but is going to be part of the third season). "Bad Twin" was one word off from being an apropos title: "Bad Book". It's just as well the real author didn't put their name on it, because it's one of the worst books I've ever read.

Ever.

It's not even worth it to attempt to describe the muddled plot. Just know that none of the dialog is real, all of the descriptions are cliches, and there isn't one instance when you actually believe or are engulfed by the story or the characters. It looks like the people behind this book just threw something together with tangential references to things or people related to the show. In the end, even that was poorly done.

If it helps, anyone interested in The Lost Experience, but not wanting to waste time on this book, here is what is mentioned but never explained: The Hanso Corporation is housed in the Widmore building (which Hurley visits to talk about his money in season 1), Mittlewerk is a man that works for Hanso and is also on the Widmore Corporation's board, there are mentions of the Helios Foundation (people hoping for a new Eden), a Noah's Ark Foundation, the dog's name is Argos, another Greek name, and, per usual, a laundry list of appropriate books are mentioned that may or may not have clues (the book list is so big that nearly anything could).

Other than that, it's a bunch of mumbo jumbo hogwash that goes nowhere and satisfies nothing. With writing like "he got naked to the skin" or "the sugar and caffeine were in a footrace towards his brain" you've got to wonder why and how and over who's dead body did this get out there. Even if it's author was made infamous by a flight that disappeared somewhere between Australia and Los Angeles.

Or did it?

The conspiracy continues, but at least for me, it won't continue in any future books written by dead passengers from Oceanic Flight 815. I've got the geek under control. For now. God Speed.

The cover, like the book, is thrown together. So it too, is good...for me to poop on.