Customer Reviews

Sam Boone: Front to Back

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In the late 22nd Century, Earth's first interstellar spaceship is involved in a collision with a much larger vessel outside the approved travel lanes. In its desperation to avoid the Galactic Hegemony, the captain gives Earth a more modern ship out of its inventory. This allows Earth to build more ships, and explore local space. Intelligent life is pretty common, and the only reason Earth hasn't heard about it is their use of inefficient and outdated electromagnetic energy for communication, instead of the much more efficient galactic phloomb. About the only talent humans have, according to the rest of the galaxy, is that of negotiation and arbitration.

Sam Boone works at Earth's major spaceport, near Trenton, New Jersey. It's there because one of the favorite tourist destinations is the nearby city of Hoboken (along with Disneyworld, of course). In one story, Sam must deal with a pair of alien races who decide to settle their differences in a professional wrestling ring, thinking that humans also do it this way. Another popular export for Earth is magazines of any type. Whether it is a home and garden magazine or a mechanical hobby magazine, the other alien races find them absolutely hilarious. In another story, Sam must escort a pair of aliens around Disneyworld. This wouldn't seem so difficult, except these are group mind aliens, where one individual inhabits 20 or 30 separate bodies. Do they get a group discount on tickets? In each of these stories, Sam must deal with very different cultural values, while keeping his alien boss happy and keeping himself out of some potentially disastrous situations.

There is a sad lack of humor in science fiction. This book helps to fill the gap. For lighter, humorous reading that is still well written, this is very much worth checking out.

I read this book by way of recommendation from one of my favorite authors. The book is a collection of short stories about Sam Boone. Aliens have made contact with Earth and Sam works for one as a sort of concierge to visiting aliens. If they want tickets to Disney he arranges it. If they want to buy large magazine collections he arranges it.
The premise of the book at first seems silly and boring, but believe me once you start to read anything by Bud Sparhawk you just can't put it down. The reading is light and incredibly funny. I am a true devotee to what most in the industry call "hard sci-fi". Bud Sparhawk is so far out of my norm for reading material that you would think that it would be impossible to enjoy. But I have admit that after reading this collection of short stories, his works are now one of my guilty pleasures. I actively seek out his work. Anytime I find a short story compilation that has one of his works in it, I just smile and think "yeah this is going to be good".
If you need a good smile in your life don't ever miss an opportunity to pick up one of Bud's works. One story is all that'll take and you'll be as hooked as I am.
Enjoy!