Book Review: BarnYard Heroes
Barnyard Heroes: The Havarti Travel Bureau Conspiracy, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cow Zombie Apocalypse. Samuel McAdams, The 21st Century Absurdist, June 2025, paperback and e-book, 478 pages.
Reviewed by Brian Foster.
Barnyard Heroes: The Havarti Travel Bureau Conspiracy, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cow Zombie Apocalypse, by Samuel A. McAdams, is the second of the Barnyard Heroes series. It follows a group of intelligent animals with “incomplete” superpowers as they attempt to save the world, while also finding their place in it. Though I have not read the first book in the series, I don’t believe my reading experience was negatively impacted by this. Not because the book does a good job organically catching the reader up, as it bluntly explains relevant information on a strictly as needed basis.
Rather, it’s because not knowing the specifics of how the animals met, got their powers, and decided to become secret agents adds a great deal to the books absurd tone and delightful insanity. It feels reductive to call Barnyard Heroes a comedy in the traditional sense. Certainly, a number of rather funny things happen, but by and large the plot, which is heavily influenced by the Men in Black franchise, is largely played straight. The core joke is that most of the main characters are barnyard animals. And while the protagonist and point of view character, the cow, (none of the animals get names for some reason) has a distinct and good-hearted personality, she isn’t really what I would call funny. The hyperintelligent cat is by far the funniest character, but has tragically few appearances, and is never allowed to take center stage. The interactions between the animals is by far the best part of the novel, which is why it’s such a shame that the bulk of the book features just the cow interacting with human agents. The result is a lot like what would happen if Kermit the Frog never got to be around the other Muppets, and instead only hung out with normal, reasonable humans, who very occasionally make a funny mistake.
With all that said, the novelty of a cow attempting to do the work of a secret agent never fully goes away, even if it never made me laugh the way the book clearly wanted me to. It is genuinely enjoyable to watch the cow persevere against seemingly insurmountable odds, despite not being built for combat. The animals are all reasonably relatable characters, and from page one onwards you do genuinely want them to succeed, which does a lot to keep the reader invested. And the plot, while nothing seasoned thriller or sci-fi readers haven’t seen before, has enough twists, turns, and excitement to keep the reader engaged. You will have fun with Barnyard Heroes, and that does seem to be the novels primary aim.
Having said that, this is not a novel for all ages. Intense fight scenes, violence, and character death are all contained within its pages, and readers sensitive to violence towards animals should take care. Some of the scenes were sufficiently bloody to feel like sharp deviations from the tone, which didn’t help the novels case as a comedy. Between that, and some late-stage deus ex machina’s initiated by characters we don’t get to see solving seemingly insolvable problems makes it hard to recommend Barnyard Heroes as a sci-fi thriller. But make no mistake. I do, in fact, recommend Barnyard Heroes for one simple reason. There is literally nothing else like it. It is singular. It is unique. And in this day and age, there are few compliments harder to earn. If you want to read a book unlike any other, run, don’t walk, and pick up a copy of Barnyard Heroes today.
