Aliens, The Other White Meat

Tell me if you’ve heard the one that starts, “A chicken went into a bar ...” But that doesn’t matter -- I can pretty much guarantee that you haven’t heard this one yet! It’s hard to know where to start in describing this story. Suffice it to say that this is the story of a dying planet, a daring group of spacefarers, a family of chicken farmers in Delaware, the Queen of Sheba brothel, the first American-born Pope, an Islamic jihadist, a drunken visionary living at the margins of society, meddling gods, and the transmigration of the soul. Yes, it does cover a lot of ground! Our story begins with the gods GaHoot, KulKan, and BaBu tinkering with the planet Blithos by creating a double sun for the planet ...

This novel is science fiction humor á la Douglas Adams -- the tone and style are eerily similar to that of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This is definitely slapstick comedy, not romance. I have to say that I am awestruck by the sheer organizational skills of the authors. The story must have been incredibly difficult to write, with a cast of characters in the thousands. The plot is so complex that the reader has to get a quarter of the way into the book before all the threads even begin to come together. While this book was not necessarily my cup of tea, I think that fans of science fiction humor will love it!

Reviewed by: Jean