M. T. McGuire

This is a cross-genre story that feels like it should be classified somewhere between Doctor Who and Discworld. I’m calling it science fiction rather than fantasy because at one point the ‘magic’ is described as the clever application of the strange effects of quantum mechanics. This is no more outlandish than the Doctor’s TARDIS, although instead of the unlikely time travel of Doctor Who, this story includes travel between our reality and an unlikely alternate dimension.

It’s an show more interesting place.

This alternate Earth is run as a police state, and our reluctant hero, The Pan of Hamgee, is a Goverment Blacklisted Indivdual. His existence is therefore illegal, and the fact that he has survived as a GBI for five years, which is about four and a half years longer than normal, proves that he is very good at not being caught. This talent comes to the attention of Big Merv, a major crime boss, who recruits him as his new getaway driver. For the Pan of Hamgee, this is good news for two reasons. As a GBI, no legitimate employer will hire him, and Merv’s other option was dumping him in the river - with cement overshoes - but these are details we don’t need to go into here.

This story has flying car chases, a bad guy you love to loath, likable gangsters, and a hero you can really identify with since, like most of us, he’s not terribly heroic - at least not intentionally. He reminds me a bit of Rincewind in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. He’s a professional coward whose talent for getting into unintended trouble is only exceeded by his talent for escaping from it. All he wants is a simple, normal life, but the universe seems to have another fate planned for him. The book also has a few laughs, a lot of smiles, and even a bit of political and religious satire. There are far too few books like this. Great characters, interesting setting, humor, and cultural satire, with a genuinely good plot providing a framework holding them together is a hard blend to achieve and an even more difficult one to do well. This book does.

The prose is well executed with just enough description for the reader to visualize the scenes. Backstory, where needed, is integrated seamlessly into the narrative. Dialog is believable and suitable to the characters and to the situation. Grammar, spelling, formatting, and other of technical requirements of the storyteller’s trade that sometimes pose a problem for the independent writer are executed professionally in this book.

It passes my personal 5-star test. In addition to all the basics needed for a well-told tale, it has that something extra that would prompt me to read it again. I enjoyed following the misadventures of The Pan of Hamgee, a likeable sod thrown into an uncomfortable situation in an imaginative world that has certain parallels to our own. I highly recommend it to readers of lighthearted speculative fiction or anyone who may be looking for something a bit different and a lot of fun. show less

The Pan of Hamgee is charming, funny, quick thinking – and a coward. The only thing he’s any good at is running away. It’s a pretty good skill though, and explains why after being blacklisted for five years, he’s still alive when the rest of his family are dead, and his whole existence is treason. Perhaps there are some people in his home world of K’Barth who don’t want to kill him, but they seem to be few and far between. It’s probably lucky then that he literally has eyes in show more the back of his head.

He puts his getaway skills to use as a driver for a gang of bank robbers, but when they inadvertently steal a precious thimble which has magical powers, he is set on a road to disaster, which pits him against Lord Vernon, the despot leader of K’Barth. Lord Vernon is prepared to go to any lengths necessary to stop the rightful leader from becoming known – and just because The Pan got in his way once before, there’s no way either of them want that to happen again.

The Pan has never believed that ethics and principles are very helpful in the art of survival, but all of a sudden he finds himself fighting for what he believes in, trying to escape with his life, and becoming captivated by a young woman whose name he does not even know. Will he survive? Will he get the girl? And might he even gain some courage along the way?…

Fantasy is not normally a favourite genre of mine, as I can find it hard to suspend disbelief. However, I did not have this problem with this book. It’s packed with humour and action, and held my attention throughout. The struggles for independence and survival by both The Pan and the residents of the land to an extent reflect real life events which happen in our world.

The Pan is a great hero, precisely because he does not possess the usual ‘heroic’ attributes. He is happy to admit that he is a coward, who is just desperate to stay alive. For someone who tries so hard to avoid confrontation, he finds himself in many sticky situations and often exacerbates matters by talking before thinking. But he has charisma and is very likeable. I also liked his employer Big Merv, who had hidden depths which are revealed throughout the book.

Lord Vernon made for a formidable villain – powerful, intelligent and without a shred of compassion.

The writing flows easily and the story moves along rapidly, with plenty laughs, and detail about the world of K’Barth which is both similar and very different to life on earth. This book is the first in a trilogy and I was definitely left feeling that I wanted to know what happened next.

Recommended, especially to fans of fantasy, but also to those who might usually avoid it. show less

This is, unfortunately, a kind of humor I really don't enjoy. The story is actually pretty interesting, and it's well-written, but it's clearly expecting me to be rolling in the aisles about the lobster aliens, telepathy, last-minute save of Earth, plots and counterplots... I found the legal discussion somewhat amusing, but it got a mild smile from me rather than tears of laughter. It just didn't work for me. If you love Red Dwarf or think Marvin is the best character in Hitchhiker's Guide, show more please grab this book - you'll probably love it. I don't see the humor in either of those, either. show less

I would caveat this review by stating upfront that I'm not the principal audience for this type of fiction, as I don't tend to read humorous fiction and like it a bit more on the dry and wordplay side - Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series for example. However, I do read science fiction.

Protagonist Andi Turbot becomes embroiled in intergalactic politics when Eric, her friend at college, reveals he is actually a tall lobster-like creature with 7 eyes on stalks who needs to be smeared with show more marmite smelling goo in order to breathe. His human appearance has been a projection all along, but he has confided in her because the Earth is about to be devastated by meteor collision in order to allow its colonisation by alien life, on the assumption that humans aren't sentient (despite having a civilisation of sorts). Andi has to help Eric and his husbands (his species are all male) to prove that she and her fellow humans are sentient AND prevent the meteor collision, which is made more difficult by its being steered towards Earth deliberately and protected by a forcefield. Meanwhile, the identity of the real villain of the piece is not necessarily the obvious one.

I liked Eric and his relationship with Andi, though we don't see a lot of Andi's alternative side as a standup comedian. Eric and his fellows are quite nicely alien with their physiological differences and telepathy, though there are one or two things that are brought into the story - such as they seemingly can go and talk to their deity in person? - which are not really developed into a payoff. Also sometimes I found the pacing a bit slow. I did also wonder about the aliens being a bit militaristic when it seems they have an inhibition against actually killing anyone (at least, anyone they deem to be sentient). However, it was a lighthearted and amusing romp with some tension around the fate of the Earth, so I would award it a well-deserved 3 stars. show less