July 1, 2012
A once-entertaining tale about a widowed inventor who goes on the lam with his three above-average children (until he can finish building a time machine to dispel an ancient family curse and prevent his wife's murder) drags its way to a conclusion. Having taken care of the curse in the middle episode, Another Whole Nother Story (2010), "Soup" evidently finds that even with extensive padding--including an irrelevant flashback chapter and bit parts for the uncommonly intrusive author/narrator himself and his deaf mother--the culminating rescue makes only half a book. Accordingly, the author fills out the page count with a long and aimless stopover for the time-traveling Cheeseman family. This takes place in Some Times, an interdimensional mashup of eras, places and seasons where the Cheeseman children get glimpses of their futures from a worshipful descendent. Meanwhile, their father, convinced he's Gioachino Rossini after a knock to the head, furiously (re)composes the William Tell Overture. The Dave Barry-like flurries of sententious tangents that previously added refreshing interludes of silliness to the storyline come across here as dull and labored, as do the heavy-handed caricatures of various corporate and government pursuers who are the tale's villains. Happy and (more or less) logical resolution aside, thin Soup. (Fantasy. 11-13)
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