Go, Mutants!

"No one understands me!"

It came to Earth... and now its spawn goes to high school!

Go, Mutants! is the second novel from Larry Doyle, author of the critically acclaimed I Love You, Beth Cooper. It's a science-fiction story set in The Seventies of an Alternate Universe, where the creatures of B-Movie legend walk the streets along with ordinary humans. The story centers on J!m Anderson--teenage son of the late Andi Ra, an evil alien that once tried to conquer the human race--as he struggles through high school and life in an alien-unfriendly society. Rounding out the cast of creatures are J!m's friends, a radioactive biker ape named Johnny Love, a gelatinous blob posing as a fat kid named Jelly, and Marie Rand, an Ordinary High School Student--and the love of J!m's life.

Apparently, it's being optioned for film. The author says he's writing the screenplay for Ron Howard, but he's likely joking about that.

Tropes used in Go, Mutants! include:

• Affectionate Parody: Of cheesy 1950's B-movies.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Inverted, ENIAC becomes sentient, but decides not to tell anybody. When it does try to warn humanity of disaster, it gets shut off.
• Aliens Speaking English: Andi Ra' learned English by watching the BBC. As a result, his way of speaking is very British, accent and all.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: The backup plan of the Government Conspiracy to whip up anger against the aliens, monsters, mutants, and robots.
• Alternate History: The entire story is set in an Alternate Universe where in addition to B movie monsters running wild, many things are very different including...
  • Nixon beat Kennedy in the famous presidential campaign, though he was later assassinated by none other than John Glenn.
  • Kennedy, on the other hand, became fat, renounced Catholicism and later decided to attempt another run for the presidency, emphatically denying he had any carnal relationship with his running mate Norma Baker, who is a space cow.
  • Ronald Reagan is also in the presidential race, though his chances have been hurt severely upon the public discovery that his wife Nancy is really Si-Tchun of the Fulong, a race dedicated to the eradication of men.
  • Albert Einstein, while still a Nobel Prize winning scientist, is ridiculed as a crank and a traitor for having befriended J!m's father.
  • Elvis and his brother survived to the present day, and continue to sing as a duet.
  • Stanley Lieber never went into writing comics, and is instead a philosopher-poet.
• Ambiguously Gay: Tubesteak. He seems to have a total thing for Russ and takes way too much pleasure in pantsing J!m.
• Anything That Moves: The entire Venusian Succubix race including Rusty.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Apparently a lot of girls thought that J!m was very well endowed. Until they all find out that it was just a tail he was hiding in his jeans and he actually doesn't have a dick at all.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: J!m, ever so much.
  • Bizarre Alien Reproduction: J!m's species apparently can mate (after all, where do you think he came from?) despite their lack of external genitalia.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The series gets a lot of its humor from describing in-universe mundane circumstances that would be very odd to us. For example after a description of Marie's lawn, including her lawn gnomes...

The robognomes let her pass, for it was not time for her to become her Courtesan Queen.

• The Cameo: Plenty of famous B-Movie monsters, from Godzilla and King Ghidorah to |Gort.
  • Not to mention Them, The Blob, The Thing, and the Fifty Foot Woman, who left her husband to date Godzilla.
    • Heck, this even applies to the main characters, who are basically the kids of said Fifty Foot Woman, the Son Of Kong, and the son of The Blob, among some humans and other alien species.
• Catgirl: J!m's mother, Miw.
• Chekhov's Gun: Quite a few of them, but most notably J!m's severed hand, who ends up saving Marie from Russ.
• Expy: J!m may remind one a bit of another alien living on our world, while Andi Ra' bears quite a resemblance to |Klaatu.
  • Though this is definitely not intentional, J!m's species bears a strange resemblance to the main character in the movie Megamind.
• ET Gave Us Wi-Fi: Inverted, its humanity's development of nuclear weapons that brings us to the attention of other species at first. Later played straight when Andi Ra', J!m's father, builds the Internet Plex for humankind.
• Everybody Lives: This novel has a surprisingly low body count. Except for a couple of Mooks, no one dies throughout the novel. In fact several characters thought dead actually turn out to be alive, leaving the body count at the end less than what it started with.
• Fantastic Racism: Due to interactions with aliens, mutants, monsters, and robots in the past, humankind has become quite xenophobic in this timeline. Despite it being in the seventies, there doesn't seem to be any Civil Rights issues present. Perhaps white and black really did team up on green in this timeline.
• Friend to All Living Things: Marie sort of fits this trope, as she is pretty much the only human to be nice to everyone, wether they are alien, mutant, robot, or even Russ.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Alien Security Service. Think about it.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • One alien hooker is named Fuglii.
  • After being knocked down in the surf and trying to hump J!m, Rusty exclaims "I am so wet"!
• Girl Next Door: Marie and to some extent Rusty.
• Government Conspiracy: It turns out the president is a madman locked up in an underground base, J!m's father is still alive, and Rusty's grandfather General Ford is running the conspiracy to cover up what really happened when aliens landed and keep humanity xenophobic.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Rusty and Russ, half human, half Venusian Succubix.
• Heinz Hybrid: J!m, half Leonian, half Regulan.
• Helping Hands
• Heterosexual Life Partners: J!m and Johnny. Russ and Tubesteak.
• Historical In-Joke: The House Un-American Activities Committee was really formed to root out aliens in Hollywood.
• Horny Devils: The entire Venusian Succubix race, including Rusty and Russ. The former revels in her Succubix heritage, the latter is more than a little disturbed by it.
• Hot Mom: Miw, much to her son's chagrin. As J!m himself says, no boy wants a sexy mother.
• I Come in Peace: What J!m's father, Andi Ra' came to Earth to do
  • We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill: What ends up happening. Surprisingly though it wasn't caused by the human populace in general, but rather a Government conspiracy (and not by the entire government either).
• Intelligent Gerbil: Miw's species, which are intelligent cats, Cowgirls from Alpha Tauri, and an intelligent chicken
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Marie to Dr. Rand.
• Meganekko: J!m's mom Miw, in the past.
• Mismatched Eyes: Marie; she has one blue eye, one green eye.
• My Brain Is Big: J!m's entire species.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: The PLEX can determine if someone is menstruating or not.
• Narrator All Along: It turns out J!m's father, Andi Ra', is narrating the entire book.
• Nigh Invulnerability: J!m, after his metamorphosis. He is now Immune to Bullets, and can take plasma bolts without flinching.
• No Except Yes: On the government's possible abuse of the PLEX system

The government was not in the business of keeping files on all its citizens; it was more of a hobby, really.

• No Celebrities Were Harmed: J!m Anderson, on the cover, looks suspiciously like an alien James Dean.
  • Read Sheriff Furry's dialogue and try not to think of Sarah Palin.
• Not So Harmless: General Walter Ford, who seems to be Rusty and Russ' harmless old xenophobic grandfather at first, turns out to be the Big Bad and organizer of the Government Conspiracy.
• One of the Boys: Rusty seems to only have male friends, but it seems like she also wants to date all of them.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Essentially, they are created when a Regulan screws up in reanimating the recently dead.
• Parental Incest: Russ comes into the She bar to make love to a hot Venusian Succubix. Turns out its his mother. And after her initial shock, she's willing to go through with it.
• Planet Eris: Another rare example in Literature, to the point where this could be considered the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for B-monster movies.
• Power Perversion Potential: Almost immediately after learning that what she thought was a birth control was actually a suppresion pill, and learning the dire effects if she ever goes off it, Sandra Jane immediately wants to try experimenting with the dosage to see if she can make her breasts grow and everything else stay the same.
• Purple Prose: The book suffers quite a bit from this at the beginning, but clears up admirably after the first three or four chapters.
• Shock and Awe: Another of J!m's post-metamorphosis powers. Combine that with his Nigh Invulnerability and his ability to access the Internet PLEX and gain its power, and J!m basically becomes a Physical God.
• Quote Mining: "[Nobody's saying] YOU MUST GET RID OF YOUR NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR BE DESTROYED!"
• Raygun Gothic: Affectionately parodied.
• Shout-Out: Tons, mostly to literature and culture of the time
  • It is mentioned that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit.
• They Walk Among Us
• This Is a Work of Fiction:

This book is a work of fiction. The public figures, historical events, and popular entertainments referred to in the text are from a different universe, one with no libel or copyright laws.

• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Sandra Jane's parents are essentially the incredible shrinking man and the fifty-foot woman.
• Understatement: Having learned English from watching the BBC, Andi Ra' has also gained a very British sense of humor.

Andi Ra': "I Come in Peace. (Beat) A bit awkward. Is this a bad time?"