Joe Zieja

Great sequel, made me laugh even more than the first. The story is all around engaging, in style and delivery, with creative images (like lint being "little static ninjas") and A use of semaphore.

Also, the mathematically-minded Thelicosan’s are absolutely hilarious, with calls to destruction such as "We must visit an inverse sine wave of destruction on the Meridan fleet!" and the heartfelt benediction, "May your parallel lines never intersect.”

This book has been sitting on my personal TBR pile for a very long time, mostly because I didn't care to start a trilogy when I couldn't get easy access to the follow-up books. Even though, at the time, I was really interested in reading an old-fashioned send-up of military service. Be that as it may, our protagonist, one R. Wilson Rogers, is mostly a competent slacker on the make who finds himself "reactivated" for active duty, only to find that the lackadaisical space navy he "served" in show more has gone stark raving mad, and is ostensibly gearing up for war. Rogers' efforts to get to the bottom of this state of affairs is what drives the plot, and the funny parts are very funny. However, the absurdity is layered on a little too thick at times. Still, I liked it enough to carry through and look at the rest of the series. show less

One thing I had not realized when I read "Mechanical Failure" is that Joe Zieja had been a contributor to the "Duffel Blog," which attempted (and apparently still does) to be to military affairs what "The Onion" is to general news. This time out, our much put-upon Capt. Rogers is still trying to get a clue about how the hell he is supposed to execute his position, while his opposite number, Alandra Keffoule, is also trying to get to the bottom of why interstellar war has broken out for the show more first time in over two hundred years; could it have something to do with the losers from the last war? Anyway, the jokes from the first book are almost as funny the second time around, and this is made up for by the way Zieja has widened his net. show less

The exploits of R Wilson Rogers are ridiculous, hilarious, and entirely accessible for the reader with only a passing acquaintance with the sci-fi genre. Some jokes seemed over-used by the later chapters, but they were still surrounded by original moments which had me snorting.

I listened to this on audio, and audio-books aren't usually my thing, but I decided to give it a go since Joe himself was narrating. And, yeah, it was awesome. (For you Fire Emblem fans, it may take a few chapters to show more remember that, no, this is not Claude telling a bedtime story to the Golden Deer.) show less