The Wrath of Cons - Robert Kroese

   2018; 177 pages.  Book 4 (out of 4) in the “Starship Grifters” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Spoof.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Rex Nihilo unabashedly loves his job!  Of course, the fact that its potential payoffs are huge is just an added bonus.  Rex is a burglar/con artist, and he’s very good at it.  He’s often found working on several jobs simultaneously.

 

    There are claims that Rex is the greatest shyster in the galaxy.  Okay, most of those claims were made by Rex himself, but no one is arguing with him.  Alas, there’s now another contender for that title.  Some people call him “The Unpinchable Hannibal Pritchett", others call him “PP”, which is short for another moniker he likes to use: “the Platinum Pigeon”.

 

    Hannibal Pritchett has just stolen the most sought-after secret in the Universe, something called “the Shiva Plans”, from the most powerful bad guy in the Universe, The Malarchian Primate, who wants them back.  Move over, Rex, there’s a new top-tier shyster in town.  Maybe you could steal those plans back.  You could get in good graces with the Malarchians and eliminate your top rival at the same time.

 

    Or even better, maybe you can scam all of them.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Wrath of Cons is the fourth installment (but also sometimes listed as “Book Three” because there’s a “Book Zero”) in Robert Kroese’s superb sci-fi spoof “Rex Nihilo Adventures” series, which is sometimes also called the “Starship Grifters Universe” series.  The story is told from the first-person POV, that of “Sasha”, Rex’s girl-Friday, moral compass, and a robot, since her name is an acronym for Self-Arresting near-Sentient Heuristic Android. 

 

    Acronyms are just one of many recurring witticisms in this series, with other examples being APPLE, GASP, AGNES, NARATR, and my favorite, SHAMBLERS.  You can find out what those all stand for, as well as the contraction “Sp’ossels”, by reading this book.  The mangling of names is another recurring theme; in earlier books Rex came up with oodles of variations for “Sasha”, here the “Platinum Pigeon” is repeatedly and hilariously abused.

 

    I enjoyed the literary nods to The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, the Brontë sisters, and Dune.  The phenomenon known as the “Wandering Wornhole” (aka “the double double-U”) was a nice touch to the story.  There are lots of alien races and evil groups to meet and run away from, a half-dozen planets to try not to die on, plus all sorts of sci-fi geeky tools and weapons to learn to use.

 

    Robert Kroese comes up with lots of plotlines to keep the reader’s interest and whet Rex’s appetite for greed.  Those Shiva Plans aren’t the only document worth stealing, there are goods ranging from zontonium to suddenly-inhabitable planets to fence, a lifeless planet (Earth) to eschew, that conniving rival con artist to dispose of (or ally with if you can’t beat him), some Wizard-of-Oz-ish “gifts” to request for someone or something called “The Narrator”, and if you’re Sasha, sentience rights for all robots to strive for.

 

    There’s only a smattering of cussing (14 times in the first 50%) in the book, and no adult situations that I recall.  Most of the cussing situations are handled via LOL phrases such as “lying skorf-rat”, “duplicitous flaffle-herder”, “blamp-turfer”, and “for Space’s sake”.  I loved those!

 

    The ending is good; albeit a bit over-the-top, but that’s okay in a genre like this.  It leaves the door open for further adventures in this series, but I doubt that will happen.  More on this in a bit.  The Wrath of Cons is both a standalone novel as well as part of a series.  I’ve been reading the stories in publication order (Book 1, Book 2, Book Zero, Book Three), but that probably isn’t necessary.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 63 ratings and 32 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.12/5 based on 184 ratings and 21 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Sasha,” Rex said, “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.  But not us.  You know why?  Because we were born for greater things.”

    “I wasn’t born at all, sir.”

    “Manufactured, then.  Don’t interrupt me.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “We were born and/or manufactured for greater things.  We have a purpose.  A destiny.  And nothing can keep us from that destiny, Sasha.  Not even jelly donuts with sprinkles, as delicious as those may be.  (loc. 141)

 

    After staring at the cave wall for a while, he opened and closed his mouth several times, smacking his lips together loudly, and then said, “My mouth tastes like a Valorkkian muck-beast’s back side.  Sasha, what did I tell you about letting me drink more than five shots of Ragulian whiskey?”

    For a moment I was too stunned to reply.  The others were all frozen, staring at Rex.

    “Not to, sir,” I managed at last.  “Sir, are you okay?  Are you really back?”

    “Back from where?” he said, looking around the cave.  “Space, I could use a drink.  Sasha, pour me six shots of Ragulian whiskey.”  (loc. 3483)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Wrath of Cons presently goes for $4.99 at Amazon, as do the other three books in the series.  Robert Kroese has three dozen or so other e-books for your reading pleasure, the majority of which are in fantasy/sci-fi series, and none of which I’ve yet read.  They range in price from $0.99 to $13.99.

 

“Chimps rule, humans drool.”  (loc. 1163)

    Like the other books in this series, The Wrath of Cons is a fast, light, fun read where the focus is first and foremost on spoofery and entertainment, not things like character development and storyline continuity.

 

    Hence my only quibble with the book is the way the plot threads were handled.  When you look at the half-dozen or more plotlines listed earlier, none of them get resolved in the book.  Even the “con artist competition” which the title alludes to.

 

    I suspect that Robert Kroese originally planned to tackle these in the next book, but that’s never happened.  The Wrath of Cons was published 3½ years ago (October 2018), since then the author has been concentrating on a “cranky libertarian sci-fi series” (his words, not mine) called “Mammon”.  So far, he’s published two novels in it, plus a short story collection, with the third novel due out any day now.

 

    Sadly, I think this means we’ve seen the last of Rex and Sasha.

 

    7 Stars.  My quibble should not be misconstrued as a red flag.  When watching a Three Stooges skit, we don’t complain that the characters are shallow and the storyline is full of holes.  We just sit back and allow ourselves to be amused and entertained.  And in that respect, The Wrath of Cons succeeds nicely.

Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains - Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley

   1990; 248 pages.  Book 3 (but Volume 2) (out of 7) in the “Bill the Galactic Hero” series.  New Authors? : No, and Yes.  Genres : Science Fiction; Humor and Satire.   Overall Rating: 3*/10.

 

    Central Headquarters needs a volunteer and Space Trooper Bill is the perfect fit.

 

    Maybe it’s that pair of Deathwish Drang fangs he sports.  They’d scare a Chinger right out of its lizard pelt.  Of course, since Chingers are only seven inches tall, that's not saying much.

 

    Maybe it’s that alligator foot that the military surgeons at Camp Diplatory have just attached to Bill’s leg.  Alligator feet are quite powerful.  But since Bill only has *one* of them transplanted so far on him, all it does is make him walk lopsided.

 

    Maybe it’s because Bill’s a part of the famous “Fighting 69th Deep Space Screaming Killers” unit.  But heck, there’s fifty thousand such troopers stationed here at Camp Diplatory.  So what makes Bill so special?

 

    Actually, it’s because Bill’s been classified as expendable, and that’s exactly the kind of soldier needed for this next mission.  It’s a trip to “Tsuris”, a mystery planet where objects passing nearby – even starships – get plucked from space, disappearing into thin ether, only to reappear again millions of miles away.  Someone needs to go there and reconnoiter, even if they also get zapped to who-knows-where and are never heard from again.

 

    Someone expendable.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains is the third book in Harry Harrison’s 7-volume humorous sci-fi series, and the first to feature a co-author, which then became the norm for subsequent entries, although the co-authors change from one book to the next.

 

    The book is first and foremost a spoofery of other Sci-Fi series, most notably Star Trek (with Captain Dirk and Mr. Splock) and Star Wars (with Ham Duo and Chewgumma).  Bill gets introduced to time-travel, thanks to a gizmo called a "Temporal/Spatial Displacer", and a bit later experiences getting sucked into a computer as well.

 

    The writing is a vocabularian's delight, featuring some kewl words I’m familiar with (such as “simulacrum” and “tintinnabulation”) plus some that were new to me, a couple of which are listed below.  The multifunctional expression “bowb” (it can be used as a noun, verb, interjection, and/or adjective) is back; I think it should be added to everyone’s vocabulary.  I enjoyed the nod to Robert Heinlein by having Dirk “grok” things, and of course the journey back through time to Carthage and the encounter with Hannibal resonated deeply with me. 

 

    There's some subtle wordplay, such as a capital city named “Graypnutz” and some hilarious mistranslations as Bill’s computerized translating device struggles with the idioms of the Tsurisian language.  I chuckled at some of the religious references, including the “Church of Very Little Charities” and the “Zoroastrian Winter Solstice Defloration Festival”.  Nowadays we call that latter one "Christmas".

 

    There are multiple plotlines to keep the action and excitement flowing: will Bill get a brain transplant?, will he fail the intelligence test?, can he successfully steal a temporal/spatial displacer for his superiors?, can he avoid being court-martialed and executed?  I guess the answer to that last one is self-evident, since there are four more books in this series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Zaftig (adj.) : having a full, rounded figure; plump,  (a Yankeeism)

Others: Crampon (n.); Concomitant (as a noun, not an adjective).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 11 ratings and 5 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.42*/5, based on 811 ratings and 18 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Yipe!” Bill yiped.  “What the bowb are you doing with my ear?”

    “I’m fastening a translating device to your ear, so if you find any Tsurisians on Tsuris you can talk to them.”

    “Tsuris!  The place nobody ever comes back from?”

    “You catch on fast.  That’s the whole point of the operation.  Your non-return will give us the excuse to invade.”

    “I don’t think I like this.”  (pg. 16)

 

    “They’re giving me the Usladish look; you know what I mean?”

    “No, I don’t,” Bill said, desperation in his voice, a trapped feeling coursing through every fiber of his being.

    “I keep forgetting you weren’t born here,” Illyria said.  “An Usladish look is what we call a look that means, I know you’re up to something sneaky and rotten but I’m not going to tell anybody about it yet because I’m sort of sneaky and rotten myself.”

    “They don’t have that feeling where I come from,” Bill said.

    “No?  How curious.”  (pg. 22)

 

“When they handed out the brains you were in the corner picking your toes.”  (pg. 181)

    Sadly, there are a bunch of weaknesses in Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains.  Overall, the writing is bad, and the storytelling is even worse.  I felt like I was reading a high school student’s effort.  The various plotlines meander all over the place in the tale, and there is no overarching storyline to tie everything together.

 

    The first part of the book has some funny moments, but things soon devolve into just plain silliness.  I felt like the authors were trying to spoof Starship Troopers and its “so bad it’s good” reputation, but ended up instead with a “so bad it’s terrible” result.  I’m also at a loss to say who the target audience is; the book’s too silly to appeal to most adults, but it’s also got too much cussing and sexual references (tumescence, phallus, copulation, detumescing) to be appropriate for a YA audience.

 

    Summing up, there’s just too much wrong with this book, and the series as a whole, to recommend it.  The low Goodreads rating and the scarcity of reviews/ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads (B,tGHotPoBB has been around for 32 years now, and both Sheckley and Harrison are well-known sci-fi writers) should’ve clued me in that this was something to avoid.  I doubt I'll go any further in this series.

 

    3 Stars.  The book’s cover lists Harry Harrison and Robert Sheckley as co-authors, (with Sheckley’s name getting the smaller font size), while the Wikipedia article (the link is here) says Harrison was merely the editor.  Also, Harry Harrison’s comments in Wikipedia sound like he really didn’t want much to do with this series, likening it to “sharecropping”.

 

    Personally, the 72 chapters of Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of the Bottled Brains seemed like a friendly contest between the two writers.  I got the impression that one would write a chapter, but end it with a ill-fitting and superfluous sentence, and it would then be the other writer’s challenge to somehow make it fit.  For instance, Chapter 60 ends with this sentence: “Surprisingly, the answer was to be provided by a single long-stemmed blue rose.”  Oy.  Good luck making that segue smoothly into the next chapter.

Out of the Soylent Planet - Robert Kroese

   2017; 242 pages.  Full Title: Out of the Soylent Planet (A Rex Nihilo Adventure).  Book 0 (out of 4) in the “Starship Grifters” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Spoof.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Rex Nihilo and Sasha.  A wheeling-dealing con artist and an incapable-of-lying android.  A pair of cosmic connivers.  The Galactic Malarchy’s maladroit malady.  And the two main characters in Robert Kroese’s hilarious “Starship Grifters” series.

 

    But inquiring minds want to know: when, where, and how did they first meet up?  When you encounter them in Book One (reviewed here), they’re already a two-man, um, well… one-human-one-robot… dynamic duo, gallivanting around the universe in search of moneymaking opportunities and gullible marks.  Well, that’s what Rex is doing anyway; Sasha job seems mostly to be to talk Rex out of going through with his hastily-conceived and poorly-executed scams.

 

    Now at last we are given the answers.  Out of the Soylent Planet is the prequel to this series, even though it is chronologically the third book, publishing-wise.  So slip on your space suit, hop into your hovercar, and don’t forget to pack your lazeweapon of choice.

 

    We’re going adventuring with Rex and Sasha!

 

What’s To Like...

    There’s no drop-off in quality in Out of the Soylent Planet just because it’s a prequel; there’s just as much wit, slapstick spoofery, and  birskly-paced action as in the first two books.  The story is short, just 202 pages covered by 27 chapters, but there's also a 40-page bonus short story, The Chicolini Incident, tacked on, and it’s just as much fun to read as the main tale.

 

    The story is once again told in the first-person POV by Sasha.  Other than her and Rex, I recognized only one other recurring character: the Malarchian bad guy Heinous Vlaak, although it’s been a couple of years since I read the first two books in this series.  Happily, there are a bunch of new folks to meet and greet: some baddies, such as Bergoon the Grebatt and Andronicus Hamm; some goodies, such as MASHER-7719 (aka “Bill”) and my favorite newcomer, a shambler named Stubby Joe, who’s the green beastie you see of the book’s cover.

 

    I was impressed that the old Broadway play “A Streetcar Named Desire” could be worked into the story; ditto for the BeeGees disco hit “Stayin’ Alive”.  There are a couple nods to Sci-Fi movies; the book’s title clues you in to one of them.  And the acronyms used are both clever and droll, as are the assortment of critters encountered.

 

    You’ll experience the sublime joy of eating oodles and oodles of creamed corn, and learn that the best job to have on Jorfu is that of a "Soylent Wrangler".  The second-best job is being a Quality Assurance supervisor, a career near and dear to my heart.  And for pun enthusiasts, there is an unforgettable and lengthily-contrived one near the end of the story.

 

      The ending is sufficiently clever, as Rex saves the day with one of his many spur-of-the-moment schemes.  He and Sasha escape their troubles and blast off to further adventures, leaving a couple of grudge-holding baddies in their wake, screaming for revenge.

 

    The Chicolini Incident is also worth your time, with lots of humor to keep you turning the pages.  Rex attempts a multiple-phase arms deal scam, and the usual mayhem and unexpected twists arise.  In his foreword, Robert Kroese warns that The Chicolini Incident is guilty of a cliffhanger ending, and explains why, but I thought the tale ended at a logical place.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Sophistry (n.) : The use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intent of deceiving.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 96 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.11/5 based on 294 ratings and 42 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Now many of you have probably heard that you’re going to be literally ground up and made into SLOP,” Sloppy continued.  “Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.  Setting aside the occasional industrial accident, there is simply no possibility you’ll be ground up and made into SLOP as long as you remain a productive Ubiqorp employee.  And when your productive output falls below a minimum threshold, you’ll be painlessly euthanized, pulverized and added to the soil additive mixture in our plantations.”

    “Well, I feel better,” said Rex.  (loc. 1955)

 

    “I am in love with Stubby Joe,” Bill announced.  “I am sorry, Mistress Ono.  I do not believe things are going to work out between us.”

    I was too stunned to respond.  Rex said what we were all thinking.  “You realize you’re a robot and Stubby Joe is a talking plant, right?”

    “Love transcends such categories,” Bill said, taking one of Stubby Joe’s tentacles in his giant, pincer-like hand.  (loc. 3525)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now Out of the Soylent Planet costs $4.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series all sell for $4.99 apiece.  Robert Kroese has more than a dozen other e-novels, some in other series, some standalones, and ranging in price from $2.99 to $13.99; as well as several short stories for $0.99.

 

“Have you ever spent three days in a wuffle field, watching for skorf-rats trying to run off with your squishbobbles?”  (loc. 175 )

    There’s not much to quibble about in Out of the Soylent Planet.  The primary plotline – Rex and Sasha’s attempts to escape from a slave planet, might seem somewhat modest, but the main purpose of the book is to present a plausible backstory for our two protagonists, and in that regard it succeeds nicely.

 

    There’s a smidgen of mild cussing, which is the norm for this series, and a miniscule dab of romance, albeit interspecies-to-the-extreme in nature, which you can get a glimpse of in the second excerpt, above.

 

    Finally, one of the running gags throughout the book is Rex’s persistent mangling of Sasha’s name.  Surprisingly, this clears up about ¾ through the story, only to start up once more near the end.  I thought there was some significance to this – like Rex beginning to accept Sasha as an equal - but if so, it wasn’t consistent since it didn’t last.  Oh well, let’s chalk that up to me overthinking things.

    But none of this nitpicking is significant.  Out of the Soylent Planet was a fast, fun read for me, and my only regret is that there's only one more book in the series, The Wrath of Cons, that I haven't read.  It came out in October 2018, and since Robert Kroese hasn't published any more Rex Nihilo adventures since then, I'm going to assume this is a completed series.

 

    8 Stars.  On a personal note, I chuckled out loud about a company mentioned early on by Rex called “Gro-Mor”, apparently a galactic agricultural company, since Rex mentions that they employ irrigation bots.  A long time ago, the company I worked for did business with a company called Gro-Mor (with one minor spelling variation), also in an agrochemical capacity, and it was spooky to see them pop up again here.

The Pincers of Death - Toby Frost

   2017; 320 pages.  Book 6 (out of 6) in the “Space Captain Smith” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Science Fiction; Space Opera; British Empire; Steampunk.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    For Captain Smith and the ragtag crew on the John Pym, it’s do-or-die time.  Literally.  They, and the rest of the forces of the British Space Empire, are about to take on the ghastly Ghast Empire for control of the universe, and neither side intends to take prisoners.  The allies of the Ghasts – the Lemming Men, the Edenites, etc. – have been vanquished in earlier books in the series; now it’s time to squash the final foe like a bunch of bugs.  Which seems fitting since the Ghasts are a super-evolved version of ants.

 

    Of course the Ghasts have all the usual advantages that any evil space empire comes with: overwhelming manpower (okay, bugpower), overwhelming spaceship superiority, and an insanely psychopathic leader who calls himself “Number One”.

 

    But the British Space Empire has some potent weapons of their own.  First of all, they have tea, and we all know that’s the fuel that drives the British Empire.  Second, they have “moral fiber” – er, “moral fibre” – and that has to be worth something, right?  Finally, they have a leader, Major Wainscott, who loves to show his fortitude (and other things) by dropping his pants at the start of any armed conflict.  Actually, he likes to drop his drawers for any reason he can think of.

 

    So the battle lines are drawn, both sides have made their preparations, and there’s just one more detail to take care of before commencing the hostilities:

 

    To play a series of rugby-like matches in the gladiatorial arena, culminating in the championship “Hyperbowl” game, played on genuine galactoturf.  Because that will certainly demonstrate the value of “moral fibre”.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Pincers of Death is the sixth, and apparently final book in Toby Frost’s great steampunk sci-fi spoof series, Space Captain Smith.  The title refers to Number One’s personal group of praetorian guards.  If you’re reading these books in order, be assured that Book Six is just as witty, wacky, and snarky as the preceding five.

 

    All your favorite characters are back, both good and evil, including Suruk the Slayer, Rhianna the Flower Child, Wainscott the Flasher, Number One the Vainglorious, and 462 the dog lover (well, “ant-hound lover anyway”).  But there’s a bevy of new characters as well, most notably the Straalian Bush Captain Shane and his kangaram Rippy for the good guys, and the Criminarch of Radishia for the baddies.  The Criminarch is a clever portrayal of an American president; you can read the book to find out which one.

 

    As usual, the text includes numerous literary and music references.  In the first category, there are nods to Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Noel Coward & Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw.  In the second, the nods go to Bach, Kate Bush, Minnie Riperton (who?), Frederick of Mercury (LOL), and the little-remembered folk group (except by Toby Frost and me), Fairport Convention.  Toby and I are also probably the only ones who remember the old TV series The Prisoner, which also gets worked into the storyline.

 

    The Pincers of Death is written in English, not American, so in addition to the quiff and saveloy cited below, you’ll find strange words like tosser, troppo, doo-lally, smalls (undies), scoffing (scarfing), boffin, and skewiff.

 

    The ending is remarkably exciting for a sci-fi spoof story, and includes several nice twists.  A short epilogue closes things out, which I thought was done quite well.  The Pincers of Death is both a standalone novel and the finale in the series.  I read these books in order, but I don’t think that's absolutely necessary.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Quiff (n.) : a piece of hair, especially on a man, brushed upward and backward from the forehead (a Britishism).

Others: Saveloy (n., and another Britishism).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 41 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.11/5 based on 46 ratings and 10 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “When you meet the Criminarch, there will be a moment, a brief moment, when you will be close enough to attack Number One and snap his scrawny neck.”

    “And then?  How will I escape without being shot.”

    “Well, you won’t.”

    “Right,” Smith said.  “I see.  That’s a bit of a flaw in your plan, isn’t it?”

    “Not really.”  (loc. 1411)

 

    Suruk approached.  “Friends, the time for war is upon us.  Less yakking, more hacking.  You look troubled, Piglet.  Fear not.  Tomorrow, we will stand among the heroes of the Space Empire.  And if you die, which is reasonably likely, think of the welcome your ancestors will give you in the afterlife.”

    “I’m a robot, Suruk.  My ancestors were typewriters and word processors.”  (loc. 3872)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Pincers of Death is presently priced at $3.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series range in price from $5.99 to $7.99.  Toby Frost has five other e-books at Amazon, parts of two other series.  These range in price from $3.99 to $16.99.

 

“Time to float like a butterfly and sting like a melting clock, as Muhammad Dali would say.”  (loc. 1659)

    The quibbles are few.  The first half of the book is all about the athletic meet; while the second half is devoted to the final battle.  But those two threads don’t have much to do with each other.  I kind of got the feeling that these were two separate novellas that the author stitched together at a later date.  But hey, it works, so what’s there to complain about?

 

    There’s an annoying issue with italicizing text for no apparent reason and which occurs sporadically throughout the book.  But that’s a technical glitch, not a literary one.  Finally, reading prudes should note that there’s a small amount of mild cussing, mostly confined to the words hell and damn although d**khead gets used once.  There’s also one roll in the hay and a character who frequently partakes of something called Martian red weed.  Overall though, I thought this was a “clean” story.

 

    I found The Pincers of Death to be every as enjoyable as the other books in this series.  I never felt like the storyline was going stale, and Toby Frost's sense of wit and humor resonated with me.  I should give a quick shout-out to my local library for carrying the first two e-books in this series, which is how I discovered Captain Isambard Smith and Company.  I was hooked after those two tales.

 

    8 Stars.  Here are a couple more things you'll learn by reading The Pincers of Death.  1.) What reaction occurs when you mix a large amount of Supercola with a large amount of Imperial Mintats.  2.) What Captain Smith’s favorite magazine is.  3.) Why Charlie Chaplin walked like a penguin.

End of Empires - Toby Frost

    2014; 352 pages.  Book 5  (out of 6) in the Space Captain Smith series  New Author? : No.  Genre : Sci-Fi Spoof; Space Opera.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    The battle lines are drawn.  On one side is the indomitable British Space Empire.  On the other, the invincible Great Galactic Happiness and Friendship Collective, otherwise known as the Yulls.  The battleground is set: Ravanar, a territory that’s not native to either side.  It is populated by the meek and lowly Beetle People, and who cares about them?

    The Yulls are more commonly known as the Lemming Men.  They’re fearsome, ruthless, and countless in number.  They function as of One Mind.  As long as that Mind doesn’t tell them to go jump off a cliff, their numerical superiority and fighting prowess can win any battle.

    But the British are not without their own resources, most notably access to that superlatively restorative potion: tea.  And of course, they also have Space Captain Isambard Smith and his trusty crew of his ship, the John Pym.

    So let the fighting begin!  And let’s try to have it finished before 4 o'clock in the afternoon  Because there’s no excuse for missing tea time due to some empire-ending cosmic duel to the death.

What’s To Like...

    If you wish that the Monty Python troupe would have tried their hand at writing Star Trek episodes, then you’re going to love End of Empires.  Every page is filled with madcap antics, smoothly blended with an epic kill-or-be-killed scenario.

    Readers of the series will be happy to know all the ship-crew regulars are back, including the psychic hippie chick Rhianna Mitchell, the I’ll-try-anything robot Polly Carveth, and my personal favorite, Suruk the Slayer.  Most of the secondary characters are also present, including the master-spy “W”, Major “The Ghost Who Walks in Shorts” Wainscott, Susan (whose main task is to make sure Wainscott at least has shorts on), and Polly’s Android love-interest, Rick Dreckitt.

    There’s a bevy of beasties to deal with beyond Beetles and Lemmings.  The Ghasts have only a peripheral presence and the Edenites are missing entirely, but there are wallahbots, shadars, ravnaphants, maneaters, and cute little ponies to take their place.  I especially liked meeting some of Suruk’s M’Lak family and fellow-warriors, and was happy that even Gerald the Hamster gets to play a brief-but-key role.

    The book is written in English, not American, so you have tiffins and piffles, storeys and pyjamas, todgers and selotape, etc.  Classical rock nods abound, including Pink Zeppelin, The Doors, and some clever take-offs of Jimi Hendrix (called “Jimmy Horlicks” here) lyrics and titles.  I was especially impressed that Gustav Holst’s magnum opus, ”The Planets” was also cited.

    The ending is suitably exciting and action-packed. Some of its events are over-the-top, but that’s okay when you’re emulating Monty Python.  There are just a couple of cusswords and a few allusions to adult situations, but that’s okay when you’re writing Space Opera.

Kewlest New Word...

Parp (v.) : to make a honking sound like a horn.

Others : Clottish (adj.).

Excerpts...

    “You there!  Stop this nonsense or there’ll be trouble!”

    Half a dozen bullets answered him.  Ducking back, Smith reflected that this might be more difficult than he’d thought.

    “It’s the Sweeney!” a voice cried from inside.  “If you want to barney, filth, I’ve got a heater waiting for you!”

    “Sorry,” Smith called back.  “I didn’t understand a word of that.”

    “Naff off!” came the reply.  “I’m bleedin’ do you, you slag!” shouted the thug.  (loc. 740)

    “My unit has been infiltrated by an individual known only as the egg-man.  This whole mission was a white elephant from the start … or a white rabbit … or a pink elephant, on parade.  My god … they set the controls for the heart of the sun, they sent us two thousand light years from home, dropped out of orbit eight miles high … like a squid, fast and bulbous!  They’re coming to take me away!”  (loc. 2178)

Kindle Details...

    End of Empires sells for $4.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series are all in the $3.99-$7.99 price range.  Toby Frost offers several other e-books at Amazon, ranging in price from $3.99 to $9.99.

“I was hallucinating,” he gasped.  “Thank God you’re here, Emily Bronte.”  (loc. 3831)

    The only thing I can quibble about is the book’s structure.  The Table of Contents divides it into three parts (11 chapters total), but really, it felt like three separate novellas, all strung together to make a suitably full-length book. 

    Briefly, the three parts are:

Part One: Investigate a subversive plot and play some Warro.

Part Two: Retrieve Major Wainscott and get him to put some pants on.

Part Three: Find the Relics of Grimdall and fight the Lemming Men.

    This sort of literary patchwork usually fails, and it is perhaps an indication of Toby Frost’s writing skills that here, for me, it somehow worked nicely.

    8 Stars.  End of Empires is the fifth, and penultimate, book in this series.  The final tale, Pincers of Death, resides on my Kindle, awaiting my attention.  It was released almost two years ago, in November 2017.  If indeed this is a completed series, I for one will miss Isambard Smith and his wacky cohorts.

Starship Grifters - Robert Kroese

    2014; 244 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the Rex Nihilo Adventures series.  Genre : Spoof; Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Space.  The “Final Fun-Tier”.  This is the story of the starship “Flagrante Delicto” and its two-man crew.  No, wait.  Make that a two-person crew.  Nah, that’s not right either.  How about a two-entity crew?

    The captain of the ship is Rex Nihilo, whose main goal in life appears to be trying to make a fast buck off of anyone in the galaxy who’ll sit down and play cards with him.   His one and only crewmate (for now, at least) is an android named Sasha, who serves as Rex’s first mate, girl Friday, and unfathomable font of knowledge.

    Their mission: to boldly seek out new planets, on which to hide out from the bounty hunters acting on behalf of the the Galactic Credit Bureau.  It seems Rex’s card-sharking expertise is legendary, and we don’t mean that in a good way.

    Yet perhaps his luck is changing.  Not only did Rex just win the Flagrante Delicto at the card table, but he also won an entire planet.  There’s no telling how much that’s worth.

    But just a minute.  Is that a faint twinkle I spy in the loser’s eye?  Why could he be happy about losing a starship and a planet?

What’s To Like...

    Set in the 31^st Century, Starship Grifters is a fast-paced sci-fi spoof, filled with constant action and devoid of anything serious.  For the most part, it parodies the Star Wars saga, with a Darth Vader wannabe (Lord Heinous Vlaak), a rebel alliance hiding out on a far-flung planet, and even the cuddly Beebers subbing for the cuddly Ewoks.  Instead of “the Force” that’s with you”, it’s the “Chaotic Equilibrium”.

    The story is told in the first-person POV, and it's Sasha, not Rex, who's doing the talking.  The book cover gives a nice rendering of both of our protagonists.  There’s some smidgen of mild cussing, but most of the time when Robert Kroese wants to swear, he uses the euphemism “Space”, as in “for Space’s sake…”

    There are hilarious footnotes, which I took as a nod to the late, great Terry Pratchett.   I also enjoyed the mention of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, and Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past”.  The rebel alliance is known as the Frente Repugnante, which gets further translated as “The Revolting Front”.  For science freaks, there’s “Hypergeometry” to explain interstellar travel, and the Ferbuson Paradox, a take-off of the Fermi Paradox, that’s applied to cloaking devices.

    Puns and word play abound.  One example: a med called “Pheelsophine” which I read three times before realizing its humor.  The character “Ted” is a hoot, and watch out for the Sp’ossels: they'll try to convert you to their cult religion.

    There aren’t a lot of characters to keep tabs on, which makes for an easy read.  The ending is a mixed bag.  While the resolution of the cloaking device thread was blatantly obvious, it was followed by several nifty plot twists providing an unanticipated backstory to explain Rex, Sasha, and Pepper.  Starship Grifters is a standalone story, as well as part of a series.

Kewlest New Word...

Caterwauling (v.) : making a shrill howling or wailing noise.

Excerpts...

    “You guys are just lucky I had a tracer on your ship.”

    “Lucky?” snarled Rex.  “You shot us down!”

    “I saved your asses.  If you’d have climbed any higher, you’d have been vaporized by the stealth satellite.”

    “What stealth satellite?” asked Rex.

    “Exactly,” replied Pepper.  (loc. 1536)

    “I’d still be prison if it weren’t for some contacts I had made in the Ursa Major Mafia.  They offered to help me escape in exchange for doing some jobs for them.  After I got out, they gave me a new identity and paid to have my DNA scrambled.”

    “Oh, man,” said Rex.  “DNA scrambling is the worst.  Last time I had an ear growing out between my shoulder blades.  People acted like they didn’t notice it, but I could hear them talking behind my back.”  (loc. 1652)

Kindle Details...

    Starship Grifters sells for $1.99 at present.  The other two books in the series are currently priced at $4.99 apiece.  Robert Kroese has a couple dozen e-books to offer at Amazon.  The full-length ones are in the $1.99-$13.99 range; and there are also a couple novellas and short stories for $0.99 a pop.  Robert Kroese frequently offers his books at a discount (or even free!), so keep your eye on the various Amazon e-book deals each day.  And oh yeah, from his picture on Amazon, it appears that Robert Kroese is left-handed.  That means he’s a genius.  All left-handers are geniuses.

A sane person is always at a disadvantage when negotiating with a lunatic.  (loc. 1311)

    I don’t have much to quibble about regarding Starship Grifters.  The plotline, while sufficient, wasn’t compelling, at least to me.  Then again, this is true of almost all spoofs: they either parrot whatever tale they’re making fun of, or else just dispense with a storyline altogether in favor of non-stop yuk-yuks.

    But I pick at nits.  Writing a spoof is always a roll of the dice, since everybody’s sense of humor is different.  For me, Robert Kroese’s attempts at wit and humor was a total success: the story tickled my funny-bone, and I was entertained from the start to the finish.

    8 Stars.  Robert Kroese is the master at combining catchy titles with frequent discounts on his various books.  Such a strategy rewards him with lots of reviews at Amazon and GoodReads, and presumably a hundred people buying one of his books for $0.99 is better than two people buying it for, say, $2.99.  There is perhaps something to be learned from this.

A Game of Battleships - Toby Frost

    2013; 320 pages.  Book Four  (out of 5) in the Space Captain Smith series  New Author? : No.  Genre : Sci-Fi Spoof; Space Opera.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    The cosmos needs saving!  Again.

    The forces of Evil: The Yull, the Lemming Men, the ant-like Ghasts, and the religiously-loco Edenites have joined forces, albeit uneasily, to conquer the galaxy and rid it of all that is good, including the British Space Empire and its tea.

    The good guys can use all the help they can get, even from the incredibly advanced, but creepily non-corporeal Vorl.  They’ve arranged a peace conference to attempt to sway the Vorl to their side, and the number one fear is an incursion by the bad guys, especially since it seems that one of the baddies has developed a lethal spaceship with a super-effective cloaking device.  And said warship just mauled a convoy of space freighters that was being protected by our hero, Captain Isambard Smith.

    Hey, Smith.  How’d you like to get another crack at that cloaked-up dreadnaught?

    Yes, we thought so.

What’s To Like...

    After a four-year hiatus following Book 3 (reviewed here), reportedly to successfully pursue a law degree, Toby Frost comes back with another solid addition to the Space Captain Smith series.  All of Smith’s crew are here, including the M’Lak headhunter Suruk, the android pilot Polly Carveth, the 25^th-century flower-child Rhianna, and my favorite MacGuffin, Gerald the hamster.  Ditto for everyone from the British spy cadre – Major Wainscott, “W”, Susan, and bounty hunter extraordinaire Rick Dreckitt.

    Frost also introduces us to a bunch of new characters, among them Captain Felicity Fitzroy (look out, Rhianna!) and the mysterious and charismatic Le Fantome.  Quite a few new peeps are thrown at the reader at the start of the book, but I think that’s a plus in that it shows that the author isn’t just rehashing past tales. 

    There are three main plotlines.  Smith chases the cloaked warship; Wainscott protects the peace conference, and the baddies make plans to disrupt it.  Everything converges seamlessly.  The Ghasts are back, but they play a lesser role here, which I thought was a good move.  It’s always kewl to do battle with new Black Hats.

    A Game of Battleships is written in English, as opposed to “American”, and that always makes for entertaining reading.  There’s a slew of puns, and plays-on-words, which is the main reason I love this series.  A bunch of these involved the French language (“someone regretting Ryan”), which was an added treat.  I also liked the various tips-of-the-hat, including ones to Kraftwerk, Asterix, and Dave-&-Hal, they of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame.

    There really aren’t any slow spots, which is a Toby Frost trademark.  A Game of Battleships is a standalone novel, as well Book 4 of what appears to be a 5-volume series.  See Kindle Details, below.

Kewlest New Word...

Nobble (v.) : to obtain dishonestly; to steal.  (informal, a Britishism)

Others : Aspidistra (n.); Scrumpy (n.); Smalls (n., plural, a Britishism, informal); Lidar (n.).

Excerpts...

    “Status report, revised,” she announced.  “We’re stuffed.”  She closed the logbook and sat down.

    “Any details?” Smith asked.

    “Alright then.  Basically, I’d say we’ve passed the stage of being merely inconvenienced and are now moving into the realm of being totally buggered.  Should the buggeration continue, I’m anticipating us losing not just paddle but canoe very shortly, leaving us floundering helplessly in the filthy rapids of a certain malodorous creek.”  (loc. 397)

    “Many years ago, when I was a mere spawn, impressionable and technically incapable of criminal responsibility, the elders of my tribe told me of a land beyond the great waterfall that plummets over the cliffs of Bront.  He who recited the correct charm and then leaped through the waters, would emerge in a land of wonders.  So I travelled for nine days, until the waters were in sight.

    Speaking the charm, I sprang through the waterfall.”

    ”What did you see?”

    “Stars, Mazuran.  I knocked myself out on the cliff.  The elders were lying through their mandibles.”  (loc. 2826)

Kindle Details...

    A Game of Battleships sells for $4.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in the series go for $4.99-$7.99.  The latest book in the series, End of Empires, was published in 2014.  I suspect it is the series’ finale.  Toby Frost issued Straken, the first e-book in a new series called Astra Militarum in 2016, and co-wrote a second book, titled eponymously, in that series last year as well.  But they are both only available for the Kindle at Amazon-UK, and neither has garnered any reviews yet.  Straken is available at Amazon as a paperback, but it goes for $16.00.  There are no reviews for that version either.

“Do you know Beethoven’s Ninth?”  “Really?  At what?”  (loc. 777)

    The ending was good, but not great.  It had an interesting twist to it, but I felt like I’d seen it used before in other stories, and it seemed a somewhat awkward fit here. 

    The big problem with A Game of Battleships is the formatting.  Typos abound, especially of two types: possessives and words with double L’s.  I tend to blame the publisher, Myrmidon Books, not the author for this.  Since my library carries the first three books in this series, I presume Toby Frost did not self-publish this.

    One typo that deserves special mention was the word “teachest”.  This should of course be two words: “tea chest” (but maybe it’s a single word in “British-speak”?), yet my mind kept trying to make it the superlative form of the word “teach”.  Talk about a brain freeze.

    It reminded me of a book I read years ago, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (reviewed here), which contained the presumably valid word “mambaskin”.  Which means the skin of a certain snake.  But my brain kept trying to make it “mam baskin”, evidently a weird flavor at our local ice cream parlor.  Needless to say, this also resulted in a brain fart.

    7½ Stars.  If you liked the first three books in the series, you’ll not be disappointed in this one.