Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1764782 in Books
• Published on: 1981-12-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Review
Harrison skims the cliches from old-style galactic adventures for a spoof which has its moments of hilarity and you don't need more than comic-book kultur to enjoy it. "Broad shouldered Jerry" and Chuck, "no less of a genius," construct a super-transmitter fueled by Cheddar, which takes them into the final frontier - along with screaming Sally and black (erstwhile Commie) John. It's hard cheese with tentacled, multi-eyed friend and foe on other planets until the end when the four pair off into two loving couples. Just right for Mad readers of all ages. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A rollicking, chaotic send up of 50s TV Serials
A book that will only date when people stop watching series like "Lost in Space", this is an occasionally affectionate and sometimes biting send up of early SF TV Serials with a nod of the head to EE "Doc" Smith as well. With a couple of All-American heroes (Football Players and brilliant scientists and students), a Janitor who turns out to be a Communist Spy, and a girl that all three are in love with who really tries to be more than a screaming face without ever succeeding, a Warp Drive made of cheese (no, really), aliens with strange mental powers, and a war between good and evil, all the elements are there with a slight twist. It does get head-swimmingly chaotic towards the end, but with Man (not Woman though) on the side of the good guys, a happy ending with everyone home in time for bed can be the only conclusion. If you appreciate Harrison's slightly warped sense of humour, this is amongst his best, and in my opinion much funnier than the interminable saga of Bill the Galactic Hero.

Harrison's funniest novel.
A bunch of ordinary college kids invent FTL space travel and blast around the galaxy on a ridiculous set of adventures... This novel is a send up of the EE Doc Smith style of very bad space opera featuring implausible science and even more implausible characters, although you don't need to have read any of this particular kind of sf to enjoy the humour. Just having watched a couple of episodes of Star Trek: Voyager should be enough bearing in mind they did once feature the line: "Send this cheese to sick bay."

Harrison has produced two very long-lasting and supposedly humorous SF series - 'Stainless Steel Rat' and 'Bill, The Galactic Hero'. I've read and enjoyed quite a few of both of them. The only problem I have is their complete lack of any actual humour. In fact I'd read two or three Rat books before I realised they were actually supposed to be funny. That is funny as in actually laughing out loud rather than smiling quietly to yourself.

I found this book to be a far more entertaining read than those overrated works. The humour is over the top and has plenty of entertaining set-pieces, some of which to my mind rival 42 being the meaning of life from the Hitchhiker's Guide, and as such this book deserves to be more widely appreciated.

Enjoyable nonsense
Very silly and amusing science fiction satire (although satire might be too high-faluting a word for this book, 'piss-take' is more its level) on bad space opera.

I'm not a big reader of sci-fi so there were probably many in jokes that I didn't notice, but I had a ball reading this. Utter nonsense from start to finish, centering around a form of space travel powered by cheddar!