Thursday, October 20, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Audacity by Carmen Loup

 


The Audacity is the first in a self-published sci-fi series by Carmen Loup, with the series openly inspired by the work of Douglas Adams (think Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). I enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide when I read it back in High School (and on rereads since) but I've often found books taking after Hitchhiker's to not really work for me. Those books often are non-stop with the jokes and ridiculousness to the point of overwhelming everything else (for example, Cat Valente's Space Opera), seemingly forgetting that Hitchhiker's wasn't quite that, even as filled with language-filled humor as it was. But I've enjoyed a few novels in this vein, and with this book being one of those I was to judge for this year's Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), I had to give it a try.*

 *Disclaimer: Due to a snafu involving the books provided to us as SPSFC Judges, I actually read about 40% of one of this book's sequels (book 3) before I gave this book a try - this may have colored my opinion a little, but hopefully not too much*

To my pleasant surprise, The Audacity struck to me the right balance of jokey, ridiculousness, and plot/characters. Our main character May, who finds herself abducted by aliens (led by a Chaos Goddess) and then accidentally rescued and going around the galaxy with a bonkers alien gig (& occasional sex) worker - where she more than anything tries to find a way to live without feeling like a freeloader. And of course there's rocket ship racing, obnoxious men and aliens to deal with, and yeah the saving of the Earth from the aforementioned goddess in the plot as well and somehow it all combines into a highly enjoyable if ridiculous ride.


-----------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------
May had a job serving food at a 24 hour Sonic restaurant and mostly lived an ordinary unsatisfied life, just trying to make enough money to pay the rent and feed both her and her cactus Betty. She had little interest in the bizarre news that hundreds of AMC Gremlins (an old model of car) had fallen from the sky around the world - after all that had nothing to do with her. But it soon had everything to do with her when one of them approached her, knocked her out, and took her to an alien spaceship hovering above the Earth.

There, May finds herself pressed into food service for strange alien invaders alongside other abductees, seemingly destined for a life without compensation until a rescue attempt goes bad...and she winds up on the Audacity, a strange rocket ship piloted by an even stranger alien - Xan.

Xan had no reason to pick May up; Xan has little reason to do anything really, except when he needs a new gig, often selling his body, to make money to keep going. But alongside Xan, May sees new and strange parts of the galaxy, and perhaps sees a way to not being simply a burden on him by making some money of her own: by racing the Audacity in rocket ship races.

Except the Universe won't just let Xan and May wander around space forever, and soon they will find themselves called back to Earth, where that invasion fleet is led by a Chaos Goddess wearing the skin of Xan's ex-girlfriend, and intends to use the conquering of Earth for her own sinister purposes....with no one but Xan, May and a few others able to stop her.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Audacity starts off in a way that will feel familiar to Hitchhiker's fans: A human being is taken from Earth just before/as its status quo as an independent planet is shattered by alien forces - of course this time, it's not an alien bulldozer destroying Earth but a Chaos Goddess deciding to invade the planet, armed with an army of modified old cars, just to prove a point to the body she's taken over (and for well, Chaos).  And of course the human, May winds up with a crazy alien in Xan as her companion as she's taken across the galaxy (ala Zaphod), with the plot then featuring lots of jokes via language and narration along the way.  

And yet, despite clearly being inspired by Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker's, the Audacity is very much its own thing, with its own humorous use of language and characters that fit this story more than any other.  So May is essentially an Ace girl (never explicitly stated, but implied) who isn't some passive wanderer desperate to hold on like Adams' protagonist, but is instead a girl who wants to prove that she's not a freeloader and to find a place for herself, even if that means pushing Xan to do things Xan doesn't want.  Xan of course may be wacky and a bit nuts, but he's also more understanding of his own being wanted in the universe, with his own fears (as opposed to Zaphod's fearless narcissism in Hitchhiker's) making him as often the straight man/alien to May as he is the wacky crazy one.  And then there's our other major characters, like human man August and alien engineer Ix, who go on their own adventure through time as they try to find a way to stop Chaos and save her host, to go along with the wackiness of Chaos and her scheme.

But really you're not reading this type of book for great characters, although they are all highly enjoyable, you're reading this type of book for the fun and amusement and the situations and language jokes and just everything of The Audacity is well: fun.  It's not really the type of book that will make you laugh out loud super often if at all, but you'll constantly be smiling and enjoying, and it's the type of amusement and parody that more fits our current moment, whether that be what they wind up gambling to try to make money, the type of annoying man who gets May and Xan involved in an illicit race, or the utter parody of ridiculous capitalism that they all come up against.  I don't really know how to describe this any better, but the Audacity is just tremendous fun and reads really quickly for its short page length.  

So yeah, this was one of our books for the Self Published Science Fiction Competition and it's one that I'll very much be recommending to go forward to the Quarterfinals and beyond.  So obviously it's a self published book well worth your time.  

Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)