Book Review: No Small Bills by Aaron Rosenberg
DuckBob Spinowitz is your average Joe--er, Bob, and compliments of the Gray aliens he had been modified with the head and plumage of--you guessed it--a duck. As it turns out, his physical modification was no mere experiment of curiosity as DuckBob learns when he is pressed into service by the Gray aliens and the NSA on a matter of galactic security. For only DuckBob can realign the quantum fluctuation matrix to prevent an alien incursion from an alternate reality!
Say what?
Aaron Rosenberg channels Douglas Adams, Monthy Python, and Henson's Creature Shop (and silly string) in a hilarious, ludicrous escapade through outer space, intraspace, and ultraspace. Teamed with an irritable NSA agent, a squat broccoli-headed alien repairman, and a gorgeous human female mission leader (who was also modified by the Grays but only intellectually, to DuckBob's delight), our feathered and billed hero sets off across the galaxy and manages to enrage flower loving dinosaurs, cause an interstellar bus accident (punishable by losing his ability to see the color mauve), and confront a six-inch tall shrimp with a death ray gun on a protected ocean planet after falling off a speeding bridge.
You had to be there.
As a result, DuckBob and his team wind up in prison and sentenced to two hundred years of hard labor including telemarketing, stuffing envelopes, and filling bags of marshmallows. But they manage a daring escape, picking up two more characters along the way and it isn't long before they're back on course to the Galactic Core where the quantum fluctuation matrix awaits realignment. Of course, the preposterous challenges don't end there!
I read No Small Bills over two evenings and two lunch hours at work. There are few slow moments, mostly limited to DuckBob's occassional comedic introspection, yet the pacing is consistent and the dialogue witty. Rosenberg demonstrates a wild imagination and clever storytelling in a book suitable for YA and adults alike.
Remember, every duck has his day.
