After a slow start this book picks up and rolls right along. I'm fairly sure I missed a number of puns along the way, but got most of the rest of them. Toby Frost's main character Captain Isambard Smith isn't the brightest penny in the pile, but he's up beat, forthright and loyal to the British Empire. Suruk, Smith's M'Lak friend and companion, is refreshing in his candor and desire for heads to decorate his mantle and Polly Corveth is cool too.

I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by Mr. Frost. ( )

Tries to hard to be funny. I believe it would work better as a short story rather then a novel ( )

I was looking forward to reading this after reading the blurb and a few reviews. It's jolly good fun and exciting stuff, now for a cup of tea. ( )

A rollicking, humorous (albeit juvenile) space adventure! First in a series. ( )

Just because you have a way with a gag it doesn't mean that you're excused from the requirement to deliver a bit of character development with your farce. Part of the problem is that I suspect that this story would work better as a graphic novel, where there would be an illustrated component to portray the emotional element that Frost is not really providing. Not to totally slam the walnut with a hammer, I suspect that another issue here is that I'm just a little too old for this sort of thing. Let's put it this way; I used to like Ron Goulart (another purveyor of satirical SF) back in the Seventies, but a few years ago I tried to reread him with no success. ( )