text: Native Tongue 
  by Carl Hiaasen 
  
  This book is fast paced, has a lot of energy, and a zany weirdness.  No doubt, it is a page-turner.  And it is better than the other book of Hiaasen's I have read, Double Whammy.  But all that does not a good read make...
  
  A strength of Hiaasen's books are his characters, well defined and numerous.  Most are straightforward stereotypes, from the out-of-luck journalist-turned-publicist, the vapid sex-phone girlfriend, a steroid-doped strongman, the crude-and-sleazy millionaire bad-guy, a muscular-but-clear-minded black good-guy cop, to the dumb-but-intrinsically good-guy burglars, and loads of redneck Florida "crackers".  Hiaasen makes this cast interesting by having them jump through zany hoops, and by casting two characters that are quite original, an environmentally-militant 70+ aged woman, and an environmentally-crazed former-governor-gone-wildman.  And we meet psychotic whales and sex-starved dolphins.  Etc. etc.
  
  So what's wrong.  Mainly, it's that the book stays at a level of TV-sitcom-gone-book.  It achieves zero depth in dealing with any subject.  One might think that the exception is the environment, but the story is so inane that it cannot achieve traction even here.  So perhaps Native Tongue is just pure entertainment?  If you like brainless action, gratuitous violence, gross humor, and zany "fun", Native Tongue might satisfy.  
  
  I have one additional problem with Hiassen, and it's similar to the problem I so often have with Michael Crichton.  These books stink of hypocrisy.  Crichton makes a (seriously good) living off nifty science ideas while constantly bashing that same science.  Hiassen's heroes work hard to rise out of the trash heap of modern society, but Hiaasen's writing routinely wallows in that same trash heap for supposed laughs and zaniness. 
  
  While I enjoyed a few sections of Native Tongue, I had no doubts at the end that I had wasted many hours that should have been better spent
  