Customer Reviews

Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

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This, the third installment of Bill the Galactic Hero, is by far the most pointless (or least pointed, depending on your point of view) yet. Among the disparate sci-fi references are Star Trek: TOS, Han Solo & Chewbacca, time travel, cyberpunk, and likely several others. Any one or two of these could be utilized in a first-rate parody - but that book would be a distant cousin several times removed from this book. What we have here, instead, is a hodge-podge of tangential references that momentarily amuse (if that) but come nowhere near providing a satisfying story. If you're a fan of the printed word you might like this book, because that's really all it amounts to: words printed on paper with the usual punctuation thrown in to form sentences. There's a vestigial plot, an intrusive narrative structure, faux profanity, alleged sex, and such low-grade humor that the puns in Book 2 seem like Mamet in retrospect - all of which I'm sure appeal to some audience out there, I just don't think I'm a part of it anymore.

Most of my frustration with the book is that plot points are raised, but never go anywhere. For instance, we are presented at one point with the Alterna-Crew of the USS Enterprise (cleverly renamed here the Gumption) from the "Mirror, Mirror" TV episode. We encounter them once, and they're referred to a couple more times, but nothing actually happens with them beyond getting Bill from plot point 1 to plot point 1.1 - and we really could have gone from point 0.9 to 1.2 and never noticed anything amiss. Likewise, we're told that the Alien Historian is trying to alter the past to create a future without war - and that he's succeeding; but we never encounter a single instance of an altered timeline as we travel from cover to cover. If these were isolated instances Harrison and Sheckley might be forgiven, but nothing of consequence ever takes place in the book and large sections could be removed without affecting the story on either side of it.

If you have a few hours to kill and are given the choice between reading this book or taking up self-dentistry, check to see if you'll get any anesthetic first. You won't want to read this book without it.

I read the first one about 6 months ago. A all-round good time, one mishap after another, the first book you wanted to see want would happen next, BUT this one! Jumps from one story line to another, with unbelievable plots, I know that it is Science Fiction but the authors could at lest try to make it believable. I felt it was three or even four books that were not related to each other, I would not recommend this one at all. I will try one more of the series, but if the next one is just as bad no more.

This is a good book for when you want to read something that has a plot and characters and all that literary stuff, but you don't want to have to actually think.

If you haven't read this, but have read any of either author, then you haven't hallucinated anything yet.

It is a frivolous romp through a sad universe that seems populated with familiar faces by two of the great experts in the genre of humorous SF.

Read it or be forever the way you are. (Not that it will change anything permanent. Just a few yucks and a strange longing for a second right arm - even if the colours don't match.)

Filled with in-jokes that only a fan would get, it is a feast for the initiated.