Ask A Ninja Presents The Ninja Handbook: This Book Looks Forward to Killing You Soon by Douglas Sarine and Kent Nichols

Ask a Ninja, one of the regular question answerers in the pages of the Onion, has put together a book about how to be a Ninja. Of course, there is only one way to become a Ninja: to be born a ninja and spend your life in brutal training. But even for the non-ninja clan born, there is hope! Ask a Ninja tells how the pathetic, sucky loser known as you, can be as close to a real ninja as it is possible to be.

But it certainly isn't easy to pass through the different stages. The first, where everyone not a ninja is, is non-ninja, and where most people reside all their lives. The first step on the way is Nonja, where you begin to train and learn how to kill. Included are a list of Beginning Training Items for Ninja Wanna-bes, such as The Knife Monkey, a rabid rhesus monkey in a lightweight suit adorned with switchblades that you let loose in your home and try to catch without contracting rabies or being killed.

The next step is Ninja-ish. Here, you being to learn a Ninja's sneakier moves, including how to use flattery to disarm your opponent, how to lead your targets wildly astray before killing them, and making up your own catchphrase.

Thirdly, you go on to being Ninja-like. This is where you train your senses so that you can see and experience what is really there, and learn of a special ninja sense, smaste, somewhere between smell and taste and how to live in an eternal everpresent now. Don't look to the future, don't regret the past. Live now. Also, learn to feel actual regret for what you have done by abusing your close friends unmercifully, then write them a heartfelt letter of regret afterwards.

If you survive being Ninja-Like, you pass on to the stage called "Whoooooo!", where you learn how and when to kill and how to do so in silence. You also begin to learn the true arts of invisibility and what Ninjas really do with their time beyond assassinating people- defend the world and the universe from threats that most humans cannot see or percieve. You also begin to meet Ninjas who embody certain Ninja-type traits, like Master of Weaponry, Complete Silence, Surveillance and Complete Hot-cha sexiness. You also learn how and when to use Smoke Bombs.

The Last and Highest Step you can achieve is I.T.A.N. or "Is That A Ninja", said not by the rubes who are only merely human, but said by other Ninja. Actual Ninja, of course. Here, you are able to almost compete with real ninja, and can compete for Ninja Merit Badges (all in black, and which are sewn to your body rather than your uniform). Here is the ultimate test. Will you make it? Or Fail and Die Horribly?

The book ends with lists of Ninja skills and other things for Ninja to practice, including how to sharpen your weapons so that they are laser-sharp, and how to remain alive while doing so. There are also Opininjas, or Opinions by various Ninjas on various subjects, from Pirates to Japan, scattered throughout the book. With plenty of graphics and advice from choosing a clan name to the 10 worst ninja films ever made, this book is packed with all things Ninja. Do *you* have what it takes?

Okay, this book is satire, of course, but unless you read it in very short doses, the whole ninja shtick gets real old real fast. Yes, it's amusing in short doses, but not laugh-out-loud funny, and while the drawings of various foes are great, a lot of this seems padded.

Unless you are a complete Ninja fanatic, buying this book is a waste of time and not much fun in the bargain unless you plan to read it in little bits over a month or more. Too much faster than that, and the jokes get old, flat and stale. Save your money or read it at the library.