Press – Scott Stein

Highlights from Reviews

“A clever novel that just consistently dances on the edge of absurdity; it’s a great and witty time.”
—Vulture.com (naming The Great American Betrayal one of “The Best Comedy Books of 2022”)

“Stein delivers a madcap sci-fi take on the hard-boiled detective genre in this fun, near-future romp that’s chock-full of rapid-fire wit, tongue-in-cheek literary allusions, and playful futuristic absurdity… Stein keeps the stakes high and the laughs coming … Sure to appeal to fans of Douglas Adams, this zany, uproarious mystery is a constant delight.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review of The Great American Deception)

“An amusing SF private eye/coffee spoof, chock-full of silicon circuits, served with laughs. This coffee tale offers good taste (to the last drop).” —Kirkus Reviews (review of The Great American Deception)

“Monty Python meets Sam Spade in the future… This book is absolutely hilarious… It takes a lot of guts to make the hero and narrator of your book a rolling robotic coffee maker, but that is indeed what Scott Stein has done, to great effect.” (The Inside Flap Podcast review of The Great American Deception, audio clip below)

“Wordplay at its finest. You’ll love Stein’s mashups, and you might even be tempted to give it a second read-through for the absorption and enjoyment of it all.” —Independent Book Review (review of The Great American Deception)

“In this witty delightful crime noir, a coffee machine steals the show… This is an entertaining read with high stakes and fast paced action.”
—Sci-Fi and Scary (starred review of The Great American Deception)

“There are a million laughs in the big city…wonderfully comic…a page-turner…Stein has a keen eye for the details of our cultural landscape. And he sprinkles his scenes with deadpan one-liners and cultural reference points…insightful tweaking of city living and modern times.” —Philadelphia Inquirer (review of Lost)

“If Franz Kafka were funny, if, while down at his local pub in Prague, he had fired off one witty, sarcastic rejoinder after another about the absurdity of the world, then he would have written a novel like Scott Stein’s Mean Martin Manning…a gem of a book.” —Philadelphia City Paper (review of Mean Martin Manning)

“Crafting a breezily subversive, funny narrative out of a barely hyperbolized modern American zeitgeist, Stein spins perhaps a bit too-timely-for-comfort cautionary tale…creative and oftentimes hilarious.” —The American Spectator (review of Mean Martin Manning)

Full Reviews and Articles

• Liberty magazine 2007 Books of Summer. (Click images to enlarge.)

• Philadelphia City Paper review of Mean Martin Manning. March 22, 2007.

• Per Contra review of Mean Martin Manning. Spring 2007.

Lost

• Philadelphia Inquirer review of Lost. February 2001. (Click image to enlarge.)