| Genre: Sci-Fi Main characters: Simon Wagstaff (“the Space Wanderer”), Chworktap Summary: Simon is having a nice picnic with his girlfriend, on the top of the reconstituted Sphinx in Egypt, when all of the sudden it starts raining. So much rain that soon it becomes obvious that it’s the Second Great Flood we’re talking about (caused by an alien race which goes around the universe cleaning planets every 10,000 years; now they made a mistake and came back after only 4,000). Simon is the sole survivor and, after finding a spaceship floating by, together with his new found friends (the dog Anubis and Athena the owl), he starts wandering through the space in order to find an answer to his question (“Why are we created only to suffer and die?“). |
Simon wanders to a lot of planets until at last finding his answer. He goes through some good stuff (is offered and elixir that prolongs his life with a few thousand years) and some bad stuff (has a tail attached, has the tail cut off, loses an eye), but he keeps pursuing his quest and looking for his answer. I have liked that about him (though it was very understandable else there would have been no book), and I found him quite a likable character in general. I have liked Chworktap even more, as she was close to perfection, what with being a robot and all :P . The character that I was sorry not to see developed more was Elder Sister Plum (the space ship’s computer), presented as quite shy and uncommunicative (but with a name like that I bet she had great potential :P).
If I had to choose my favorite planet, I’d choose the very first one, Shaltoon, as I have found that the most amusing. On that planet one person’s ancestors took hold of the person’s body, one day each. So the one you met today is not the same one as the one you’ll meet tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and so on (even if it does look so on the outside):
Simon wasn’t too jarred by the rudeness. Very few of the natives were in a good mood when sober. This was because the carrier’s body was continually abused by the rotating ancestors. Each had to get all the debauchery he could cram into his allotted time between the quitting whistle and the curfew bell. As a result, the first thing the ancestor felt when he took his turn was a terrible hangover. This lasted through the day, making him tired and irritable until he had had a chance to kill the pain with liquor.
The book was initially signed “Kilgore Trout” (the fictional author created by Vonnegut). I have to say I was quite amused to find in this book something I have enjoyed in Vonnegut’s: Vonnegut has this Kilgore Trout character, who is a writer, and from time to time we get something like: the hero was thinking about a book of Kilgore Trout’s, where this happen, and then that happen (and so on, telling the whole book :P ). We have a very similar thing here, only this time the author whose books are mentioned every now and then is Jonathan Swift Somers III. (I wonder where does the Somers come from — if it has any special meaning).
Speaking of special meanings, soon after meeting Chworktap I have realized her name’s an anagram of Patchwork (she confirms this a bit later by saying “I’m a crazy quilt of chromosomes“). Almost every single name seemed to be a possible anagram as they were very strange, but I have to say I failed to find another (I had fun trying though :P ).
What I liked most: The fact that people on different languages look different than humans and speak different too. While it seems like a sensible thing, a lot of books/movies just ignore it :)
Also, I have found the answer to Simon’s question (remember, the one he spent 3000 years looking for) both funny and realistic :D :D (not as funny as Adams’ 42 but funny nevertheless — and the very last line of the novel too :P )
**************************SPOILER*************************
“But why?” Simon Wagstaff shouted. “Why? Why? Why?”
Old Bingo drank a glass of beer, belched, and spoke.
“Why not?”
**********************END SPOILER*************************
What I liked least: The part where Simon and Chworktap are imprisoned for about 130 years, which destroys their relationship (“Time corrupts everything, including immortal love.“) and has them behaving like “old jailbirds”. I can’t say for certain what had bothered me about it, perhaps only the fact that 130 years seem an awful long time in a book to be spent doing nothing. I have also resented the change those years made in Chworktap, I had liked her so much before; after getting out of jail she turned into some sort of scheming revolutionary :(
Recommend it? Yes, especially if you happen to like Kurt Vonnegut and/or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy :P
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