Will Save the Galaxy for Food / B01N666JEG
I went into WSTGFF knowing I would like this book because I like all of Yahtzee's books, but came out pleasantly surprised by how *much* I liked this book.
The premise is wonderful, and I commend Yahtzee for his creative range. WSTGFF follows a washed-up star pilot who is struggling to make ends meet now that teleportation technology has made star piloting obsolete. Our protagonist gets by on odd jobs as a tour guide and the occasional ferrying of an outlaw on the run from the government, but he's only barely scraping by and staring down the barrel of destitution and failure. When he's hired for a "private flying gig" and asked to go by another name than his own, he's desperate enough to agree--any monetary port in a poverty storm!--but he's not expecting the difficulties posed by his new employer or the baggage attached to his new name.
At the beginning of the book, I thought it was a bit slow and I was already mapping character types from WSTGFF to characters from Jam and Mogworld. ("Oh look, it's Mr. Wonderful. Oh look, it's X. Oh look, it's Jim.") But I turned out to be pleasantly wrong! The characters deepen out into real and delightful individuals with personalities all their own, all within a creative setting with a humorous tone I love and a turn of phrase reminiscent of Douglas Addams. (The line I ended up committing to memory was "If there was anything about this ship that was like a cat, it was its willingness to do as it was told.")
What I like most about this book is the protagonist. (I'm struggling to keep his name back because it's a spoiler! Let's call him James.) He's the most relatable character Yahtzee has written as far as I'm concerned. James used to save planets for money and because it was the right thing to do! He's got an endearing idealism streak that hard times haven't beaten entirely out of him. While he's disillusioned by the passing of the Golden Age, he still wants to do the right thing. That's a departure from Mogworld (which was driven by a desire for self-deletion) and Jam (which was driven by, well, complacency) and it sets WSTGFF apart with a very different tone. When James finds himself on a planet that needs saving from the Borg (er, Malmind), he really comes alive at being called upon to do something he loves and values and is good at. I found myself liking the character and wanting him to succeed at his goals, which is a nice place to be in as a reader.
Where the writing has flaws is the same place as usual, I think; for one, Yahtzee still struggles to write a female character who feels real to me--or, for that matter, a male character's interaction with a female character that isn't cringeworthy. There's a part where Warden expresses relief that the pirates they've been captured by include female pirates, and the male character calls her "sexist" without understanding why she might be *relieved* to learn that the place she wants to escape to and live allows women like her to, you know, escape to it and live! Later, the protagonist upbraids her for being sexually dysfunctional and it's so very uncomfortable to read and so unnecessary to the story. Just. No.
On the flip side, I will say that Warden is probably the best female character he's written thus far, and she has an absolutely amazing crowning moment of awesome in which she halts a dangerous invasion via the power of bureaucracy. So he's definitely getting better at female characters! That's good! (There's also a teenage girl in this novel who is actually really well written and has a realistic and complicated relationship with her mother, so credit there where credit is due. I liked her a lot.)
[TW] I note as a trigger warning for readers that there is a flippant and irritating early reference to the protagonist preferring to "take up transvestite hooking before piracy." I know Yahtzee likes to trade in shock jockery, but I really wish he would stick to punching up with the sarcasm rather than down. And if I've been a little harsh at points in this review, it's because I believe he can take criticism and do better.
One last quibble: WSTGFF ends with one major mystery unsolved and that irked me quite a bit. I do feel a sniff of the "sequel hook" here, so it'll be interesting to see if we get a second novel in this setting. The ending wasn't bad enough to ruin the book for me, and I knew going in that Yahtzee likes his endings bittersweet, but it was mildly annoying to have a repeatedly-referenced and major mystery go unsolved.
In the end, though, I liked this novel a lot and these quibbles did nothing to detract from my overall enjoyment. Yahtzee is a talented writer and a master of quirky turns of phrase, and it was delightful to read a "classic" science fiction novel which considered the impact of scientific advances on the heroic star pilots. Plus, being given a protagonist who genuinely believes in what he's doing and has a streak of idealism was a wonderful and unexpected gift. As always, I recommend the accompanying audio book since the author is such a fantastic narrator.
~ Ana Mardoll
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