Customer Reviews

Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Space Captain Smith" is a work of science fiction comedy in the tradition of Harry Harrison and Douglas Adams. Captain Isambard Smith is given command of the HMS John Pym, a broken down old wreck, and sent to recover Rhianna, a hippie herbalist, from the clutches of the evil ant-like Ghast empire. His crew consists of Carveth, a fugitive pothead sex-bot, Suruk, a head-hunting alien, and Gilbert, the ship's hamster.

In some places "Space Captain Smith" reads like a straightforward spoof: of the "Alien" movies, "The Matrix", and a general smattering of pulp sf stereotypes and formulas. (Similarities to the TV show "Firefly" are particularly clear, down to the design of the junky old ship, and the shoot-first philosophy of our heroes). But it works because, like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" before it, it's managed to create sympathetic characters who can stand on their own even as they lampoon the cliches of the genre. They are only barely competent at their jobs, and spend a lot of time drunk or stoned, but they're a fun and very likable bunch. Not only that, but they're definitely the good guys, standing up for freedom against the hordes of fascists and fanatics. The villains are suitably evil, starting with the evil-empire totalitarian ants and rounded out by the Republic of Eden, a nation of unmistakably American religious extremists.

The humour is very British, with Smith's deadpan public school delivery contrasted with Carveth's rampant double entendres and Rhianna's Californian stoner philosophies. I don't often find myself reading funny books, and this was an absolute delight. Highly recommended for high adventure and a good laugh.

Actually, the title should more properly read "more than JUST 300 pages of dick jokes" although there is a dick joke or two to be found. Also, bum jokes, fart jokes, and single, double and triple entendres. But for all that, this is steampunk space opera set to flank speed.

Imagine every sci-fi movie, TV show, book and computer game ever. Mix them all up in a huge bubbling stewpot, throw in some British honour out of Flashman, and turn the dial up to 11. That sums up Space Captain Smith as best I can. Alternatively, you could try imagining what comes to mind with the simple phrase "British Space Empire".

To write a proper spoof of something, it has to work on the level that is being spoofed as well. Toby Frost does this: there is an evil alien empire (the insectile Ghasts), a square-jawed hero (Captain Isambard Smith), his sidekick (Suruk the Slayer, an alien), a love interest (Rhianna), and a henchmen. Henchbot. Henchsexbot (Polly Carveth). Oh, and a hamster called Gerald, but he does not have a lot to do. Without giving the plot away, there is adventure, derring do, and violence.

Smith is a bit of a cipher here - we are unsure if he is civilian or military, public servant or company man. He's a real hero - a dead shot, personally brave, terribly proper, and unlacking in moral fibre. He's also not terribly bright, hopeless with women, and thoroughly paternalistic. For all that, his best friend is an alien savage and he is horrified that his android pilot was designed as a sex toy for a degenerate (but escaped to freedom instead). Smith plays it straight all the way through: there is no winking to the audience, for all that the writer's tongue is planted firmly in cheek.

With so much going on, it's a wonder this works as well as it does. Don't bother trying to count all the influences being ripped off, you will give up in the first few pages even if you take off your shoes. I think myself there was only one plot thread too far, and I might have ditched the hamster. Probably other people take a different view as to which character and plot thread could have been cut, and all that goes to show how very well the damn thing works. Its less "ridiculous" than Red Dwarf or Hitchiker's Guide - it's a real universe, just filled with crazy, yet internally consistent, characters.

If you can handle humour in your sci-fi, or sci-fi in your humour, this is the book for you

I absolutely love Space Captain Smith. Sci-fi is not usually my thing but because of its deft humour and the wonderful tongue-in-cheek historical allusions, that didn't matter in the slightest. The Flashman-like throwback Isambard Smith is a brilliant character and his escapades aboard the John Pym spaceship with his motley crew are laugh out loud. The will-he-ever sexual tension between Smith and Rhianna, the woman he is trying to save, is also very funny. I'm half way through the second book in the series (God Emperor of Didcot which bizarrely Amazon says will be published on April 1, 2009 - or maybe that's there little joke?) and it's just as good.

This is the second kindle full price title I have bought recently that was so full of formatting errors that it interfered with enjoying the story (the other was the new and excellent Pratchett "snuff" where it was so bad I went and bought the real book) the problems are mostly running the paragraphs and dialog into each other making it hard to follow who is talking....

it is one thing to have bad formatting in a free or 99 cent book but not when you are dropping full price.

This is a nice easy read and a bit of a modern take on the classic space opera so no real complaints about the story and I give the yarn 3 1/3 stars

But Amazon need to do something about the quality of their kindle formatting and assign someone to see that it matches the printed version I have not had these problems on the Apple Book store

The various other reviewers have done a perfectly satisfactory job of describing what this book is about, and it goes about what it is about about as well as necessary.

The one warning I'd like to add is that the Kindle edition I read had been rather badly converted. All sorts of confusing scene changes appear between one paragraph and the next, and quite often in the middle of a paragraph. I've never seen the paper edition but I suspect that there was supposed to be some white space left to show the scene breaks, but many of them have been lost in conversion to ebook format. There are quite a few other artifacts that seem to indicate either a careless conversion or unusually poor editing of the original. I wish publishers would lavish a smidgeon more care in the production of their ebooks.

You can pretty much guess based on the cover of this book that what awaits you is something seriously silly. You'd have guessed right. What we have here is a ripping yarn (sci-fi division, steampunk regiment) about an army officer named Isambard Smith who proudly serves the British Space Empire in the 25th century. His sidekicks are Polly, an android sex toy and pilot of Smith's ship the John Pym, and Suruk the Slayer, a bloodthirsty alien warrior and Smith's best friend. In this, Smith's first adventure, he must find and protect Rhianna Mitchell, a hippie with special powers. Smith is protecting her from the Ghast Empire, an evil civilization of ants bent on destroying the British Space Empire.

But enough about the plot. The subject or plot of a comic novel is often irrelevant because the novel's success or failure is almost entirely dependent, from the reader's perspective, on the quality of the comedy; P.G. Wodehouse's plots were far from clever, but that doesn't detract from his position as the greatest writer of English comic fiction. The benchmark for comic writing in the sci-fi/fantasy world is, of course, Terry Pratchett, and on the Pratchett-o-meter Frost scores a very healthy 8.5 out of 10.

Frost, like Pratchett, loves to lampoon popular culture, drop in literary references and quotations, and forge some really diabolical puns. Frost is particularly keen on referencing movies, and there's one especially clever bit in the book built around A Clockwork Orange, not to mention comic riffs on Blade Runner, The Matrix, and even, I think, The Wild Bunch. And Smith's friend Suruk is very clearly modeled on the alien nasty from Predator. Frost's riffs on pop culture are great fun, but the guy can also craft a really clever comic sentence. Here's Smith complaining to a superior about not getting a spaceship to command:

"You know jolly well that I'd eat my own pants for a chance to get back into space, and yet here I am, still sitting here, wearing them."

Wodehouse himself would have been happy to have penned that sentence. Frost is definitely a very funny writer. What holds him back from Level Pratchett are some double entendres that are a bit too Carry On-ish, and an occasional failure to hold back from making the obvious joke. I will definitely read the rest of the books in this series, God Emperor of Didcot and Wrath of the Lemming Men.

Read more of my reviews at JettisonCocoon dot com.

It was a sunny summer afternoon when I first sat on my veranda reading of the good captains exploits. As the sun glistened from my chilled Pimms and the children played in the distance with the governess I settled down and read of derring do, heroic sacrafice and tea.

Now I think back... there were a lot of bits about tea. And dreadnaughts.

Staggeringly corny but always entertaining British-Empire-translated-to-space tale with unlikely hero and even more unlikely crew, which sends the genre so far up that it may never come down again. First book I've read for a long time with genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

I really enjoyed this Victorian steampunk space opera that reads like George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman meets Flash Gordon with a side order of Douglas Adams. Nothing new about the character mix (a guy, a girl, and an alien sidekick) but the fresh humor will ambush you at every turn. Should also appeal to fans of Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore.