The Mentor

By: T.W. Fendley

Narrated by: Matthew McGraw

This quirky, futuristic romp into extreme consumer activism pits time-traveling sentient giraffes and lions against each other in a society where corporations have total control. Who says crime doesn't pay?

©2014 T.W. Fendley LLC (P)2015 T.W. Fendley LLC

Time traveling giraffes in space - hell yeah!

So this book is a little hard to describe. Think far future, or some alternate galaxy. There are two-legged giraffes that have conquered space travel and populate multiple worlds. Same for lions. Then there is this tech that allows the giraffes, and lions, travel through time and space, and to be able to shield themselves from view. Now toss in big corporations that have total control over our finances, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In fact they can charge you today for money you will spend in the future.

Yep, all that in only 24 minutes. This is a very odd little story, but quite delightful. First, our main giraffe or, rather, a two-legged girapod, Zher, is a low-paid teacher. She has to take all these young girapods on a field trip. They use the tech to go to a zoo where their supposed ancestors (the giraffes we all know and love) reside. Of course, she has to pay for the trip. So she has gotten her hands on a fake credit wand via a shady relative.

Enter the mighty Max, who is quite leonine and unwilling to easily give up the chase. He intends to figure out how Zher is paying for her stuff. Now all that is just the set up. I haven’t spoiled anything. Plenty of shenanigans ensue. In fact, there is quite a nice little twist at the end that makes perfect sense once you see it.

Over all, this was a delightfully strange story. There is quite a bit going on it, so I suggest you listen to it when you have the time to give it your full attention. I really loved the idea of sentient, space and time traveling giraffes. Let alone ones who commit credit card fraud! And look at that cover art. Ha! Too fun!

The Narration: Matthew McGraw was a fun narrator for this book. He didn’t giggle at the idea of two-legged girapods traveling space with fake credit cards. Or, if he did, he didn’t record it. I especially liked his voice for Max the leonine credit detective.

Good story

It was a good short story! I was a little lost at first but quickly caught on to the setting of the future and was able to keep up with the story line and how the plot thickened and resolved! Wonderful telling of how a teacher's encouraging words can affect her student!