Monday, 29 September 2025

Mensa, Magic, and Mayhem - Karina Fabian - DragonEye PI Book 10

Mensa, Magic, and Mayhem
A DragonEye, PI Book 10
Karina Fabian
Laser Cow Press
ISBN 9781956489248
ASIN B0FHFDWKY4

Mensa, Magic, and Mayhem - Karina Fabian - DragonEye PI Book 10

TWow what an amazing story in an excellent series. I read the first edition of this volume that was originally published 16 years ago. I loved the first edition of this story, but this revised edition fit in with the other stories in the series is masterfully rewritten. Every time I read a book by Fabian, no matter the series, I think ‘it can’t get better than this’ and yet somehow it almost always does. It is an amazing read in a excellent series. But I will get back to that in a minute.

I read this volume over a few days during a very busy time at work and home, otherwise it would have been devoured in a single day. I had a hard time putting it down. It is such a fun story. The way Fabian pulled it off was wonderfully executed. 

I believe that with each new book I read from Karina Fabian’s masterful pen I am more and more impressed with her writing. To date, I have loved all the books and all the series I have read by her. And this marks the 44th time I have read a book by her. This new version of this story is another excellent offering. And the cover is an excellent hat tip to the original cover.

I have been reading stories from Karina Fabian since 2008. But in the last three years I have read or reread over 44 books and stories published by her. In that time I have read stories across most of her series, some a few times. I usually read her books and then often listen to them a second time using adaptive technology. My understanding is that this is the order of the series at least at the time of writing this review:

9.0 Gapman
10.0 Magic, Mensa and Mayhem (Revised edition)
11.0 Live and Let Fly (Revised edition forthcoming)

And as announced at the end of this volume Fabian is circling back and rewriting Live and Let Fly as her next offering in this series. There are a couple of other short stories published in this universe as well:


And yes, with my dyslexia every time I read the title of that second last one I think A Wrinkle in Time, but that is another author and universe. But back to this story. The description of this book is:

“It should have been a cushy job: Vern and Sister Grace are given an all-expense-paid trip to Florida to chaperone a group of Magicals at a Mensa convention. Leaving Gapman to take care of Los Lagos, they set off anticipating sunny skies and interesting conversation.

Then the pixies start pranking, the Valkyrie starts vamping, and a dwarf goes to Fanny Flamingo's Fantasyland hoping to be "discovered." Environmentalists protest Vern's "disrupting the ecosystem," while clueless tourists think he's animatronic. Not to mention, Gapman’s desperate calls as he deals with hobgoblins and Moles of Unusual Size.

When the elves get high on artificial flavorings and declare war on Florida, it turns into the toughest case they aren’t getting paid for.”

The chapter tiles in Fabians books are often very important, the chapters in this volume are:

The Trouble with Hobgoblins
A Conventional Calling
Pixies in the Program
Extra-Curricular Assignments
For Your Safety and the Sanity of the Dragon…
High Flight
Flight High
The Bottom Two Percent
Dis-Orientation
Mensa and Mayhem
Bedlam and Brownies
Food Fight in the Con Café
Hobgoblin Havok
Good Nun/Bad Dragon
Cowbell In A Gadda Da Vida
An A-Musing Incident
Pucking Pixies
Dashed Hopes and “Loverly” Dreams
Creatures of Action, Ja?
Spirits and Stegosauruses
No One’s Pathologically Anything
Danger, Danger, Danger!
Siegfried Snaps
The Seductiveness of Modesty
Do Quantum Brownies Go with Diet Cola?
Pickaxes and MOUS Ranches
Steak and Brownies
Best Laid Plans of Elves and Dwarves
How Do You Hide a Papal Bull?
Another Fine Mensa

This revised edition has nine more chapters then where this was book 1 in this series. There are 15 chapters titles that overlap exactly, 1 that is pretty close. Leaving 15 new chapters interspersed throughout the story.  

It is 30 chapters of fun, adventure, and an Vern the Dragon and Sister Grace trying to stave off epic battles. Something is brewing and bubbling to the surface. Vern is picking up clues but it is not clear yet and there are so many small fires to put out (figurative and almost literally); humans to surprise and shock, and events at the convention going on that he almost misses the connection. But to figure out the mystery and join in the fun, read this excellent story.
  
This book is another terribly entertaining read, in an excellent series. It is a great offering from Fabian’s pen. Even if you have not read any of the other DragonEye PI stories I can easily recommend this book to you. I have said it before, and I say it again in many ways it reads like a catholic version of Robert Apsrin’s MYTH series and his Phule’s Company and also the works of Tom Holt, especially Holt’s Nothing but Blue Skies. Give this book or the series a try; I am certain you will be entertained. A fantastic read in a great series that I can easily recommend.   

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2025 Catholic Reading Plan!


Dex Hollister Series:
The Old Man and the Void
Dex's Way
...

Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator Series :
Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator
I Left My Brains in San Francisco
Shambling in a Winter Wonderland
…

DragonEye PI Series:
DragonEye PI Novels:
9.0 Gapman
10.0 Magic, Mensa and Mayhem (Revised edition)
11.0 Live and Let Fly (Revised edition forthcoming)
... 

DragonEye PI Short Stories:

DragonEye PI Original First Editions:
...

Space Traipse Series:
Space Traipse: Hold My Beer, Season 1
Space Traipse: Hold My Beer, Season 2
Space Traipse: Hold My Beer, Season 3
Space Traipse Stories
…

Madness of Kanaan Series:
(formerly The Mind Over Series)

Edited by: Karina Fabian:
Infinite Space, Infinite God I
Leaps of Faith
Infinite Space, Infinite God II
...


Contributed to:
Firestorm of Dragons
The Zombie Cookbook
The Book of Tentacles
Twisted Fayrie Tales
FRIGHTLINER: And Other Tales of the Undead
Mother Goose is Dead
Word by Word: Slowing Down with the Hail Mary
Image and Likeness Literary Reflections on the Theology of the Body
Corrupts Absolutely? Dark Metahuman Fiction
Weird Noir
The Complete Guide to Writing Paranormal Novels
Manifesto UF
Avenir Eclectia
Planetary Anthology: Jupiter
Planetary Anthology: Pluto
Planetary Anthology: Luna
Planetary Anthology: Uranus
FlagShip Science Fiction and Fantasy v2i5
My Little Book of Headdesks
To Be Men: Stories Celebrating Masculinity
...









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