Laura Ruth Loomis

Disclosure: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers Thinkling Books, via Library Thing.

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Loomis shows off a fine sense of the ridiculous here in a space opera send-up featuring a technological Jonah who ends up sentenced to a year in the Galactic Universal Peacemongering Paradigm Emergent Action Spacefleet (GUPPEAS) after her floatcar accidentally pokes a rather large hole in City Hall.

Inexplicably named captain of a tatterdemalion show more ship with a disgruntled crew and a pouting computer, Janet Delane does her best to carry out her first mission – the rescue of an Earth scientist being held prisoner on Pluto.

The plot, which is basically superfluous, has the crew gallivanting about trying to discover a closely-held Plutonian secret while occasionally remembering the captured scientist. Oh, and there’s coffee, chocolate, and a hunky diplomat as a love-interest.

Don’t sweat the small stuff – just go along for the wacky, FTL-paced action that borrows largely from opera bouffe (or perhaps space-opera bouffe). If there’s a quibble, it’s that Loomis didn’t take just a few minutes longer to play with the Spacefleet’s full name in ordered to come up with something that would acronymize to GUPPIES. (Come on, -- Space Guppies? How could you resist?)

This looks like the beginning of a series, and if it is, I’d like to sign up. What minor law do I have to break to get gang-pressed into GUPPEAS? show less

My neighbors called and said my laughter was annoying them, and my husband was concerned that I looked way too happy when he got home from work.

Okay, that didn’t really happen, but it could have. This book is so much fun!

I’m not a typical sci-fi fan. In fact, I rarely read the genre, and yet I seriously loved this book. So if you’re like me, don’t let the starship and interplanetary travel deter you. First, eat your fill of chocolate, because it’s illegal where you’re going, then show more settle in for a wild adventure.

The Cosmic Turkey is playful, satirical, and witty, but beneath that is a thoughtful, meaningful story.

*I received a review copy from Thinklings Books.* show less

as a curler I really enjoyed that curling was a major plot point. the book itself was an enjoyable farce. I look forward to more

The description of the story reads:

A cycle of linked stories about love and loss and the difficulty of communicating emotion in any language, Lost in Translation portrays the complicated, intertwined lives of two men and a woman.


I read the first 3 chapters, as I thought, twice, before I realised that the 'chapter' was actually a 'story', told from the point of view of the person named below the heading. Each story is written in the first person, and follows on from the previous story, which show more further added to my confusion.



The last story feels incomplete to me. In the last paragraph, Julie tells Roy to go after Jesse, Roy's ex-boyfriend, because that is who he is in love with, but Roy crosses the room to comfort Julie, his ex-wife. The end.



It was interesting, reading how each character viewed their situation, but it left me with more questions than answers. Will there be another set of stories following on from this? To date, no.


I feel I've missed something, because other readers have enjoyed it and rate it highly. show less