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 31st 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.
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