Review of Will Save the Galaxy for Food

I just finished reading Will Save the Galaxy for Food by Yahtzee Croshaw and EM Gist.📚

In a future where humankind can travel space in seconds, we follow a Star Pilot story hoping to meets ends by chartering short “real” space flights for tourists arriving at the Quantunnel of the Moon city Ritsuko. One day he meets a mysterious woman who hires him for a private tour. Not knowing what he is in for and in desperate need of the paycheck, he takes the gig.

Opinion

Please note that from here on out, the text can contain spoilers of the book.

The book has good and bad sides to it. I started out liking it very much, especially the pacing and the unique setting in which the main character exists. But the middle part was feeling unstructured and way too long. The story just meandered from one obstacle to the next without actually explaining why. While reading, it felt like we lost speed from the beginning. The last part of the book then again picked up on speed.

The book plays a lot with the tropes of the western and sci-fi genres. We have the classical hero – who, due to technical development, is now obsolete. He is not dumb; if only he would think a bit further into the future than the next five seconds. In the end, he solves lives by random chance :-).

I like the Jemima character quite well. She has not many dialog lines but understands that she is a person and not just a “princess” to safe – if the other character would only halt for a moment and listen to her. It created some funny fourth wall breaks while reading the book.

The book also talks about the theme of change. Sometimes in life, you need to change to be still relevant — a message I think the author relayed in a funny and short while way. And this quote someone rang a chord in me:

“A lot of space environmentalists had complained that the trebuchet gate system had accelerated the life cycles of several stars by many millions of years and had robbed their systems of the chance of ever supporting life.” Just the idea of having people thinking about space as a place to protect – it certainly makes a lot of sense.

Comments

How to respond

Write your comment on your on page and link it to this page with the following link:
https://vmac.ch/posts/2020-11-26-will-save-the-galaxy-for-food-review/
Then insert the permalink to your post into the form below and submit it.

Alternatively you can reach me by email to: comment@vmac.ch