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The Complete Guide To Exploring Your New Planet
In the Golden Age of Planetary Exploration, high adventure met tedious monotony, and easy living and hard dying went hand in hand. Those days are gone, apart from the monotony and dying bit. All the best planets have been taken and sure, a few people have become immensely rich, but it is only a few and they’re quite keen to keep it that way.This is where the budget interstellar exploration companies come in. With travel between stars limited and it taking decades to get anywhere, humanity is only slowly spreading into the galaxy and hasn’t got very far. Nobody wants to colonise somewhere that might turn out to be an inhospitable rock, so intrepid explorers are sent out first to check out the lay of the land, so to speak. If it's good they’ll stay on as an advance guard for the colonists to follow. If they're lucky they'll stay alive. Inhospitable rocks can be quite unforgiving and even the greener, more benign watery worlds can turn out to be quite nasty. The local flora and fauna may not be so welcoming of incomers and you never know what horrible pathogen might be lurking in the nearest puddle.Enter the crew of the Independent Space Ship Ubiquitous Pioneer, an otherwise reliable old clunker, whose arrival on the Earth-like planet they have been sent to explore has not gone according to plan. They’ve not so much landed as gaspoded (Ground Assisted Spontaneous Pressurised Oxidation Disassembly Event), as the ship’s malfunctioning Artificial Intelligence computer would have it…
394 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 30, 2021
1 person is currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Mark Weaver
3 books1 followerHaving been a professional archivist, astronomy student, and a long time ago an archaeologist for one summer, Mark Weaver is now an author, keeping the theme of careers beginning with the letter A going. He lives in England's Peak District with more fountain pens than he realistically needs.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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November 3, 2023I have mixed feelings toward this book. On one hand, it is enjoyable and it is not demanding. It is a nice book to take a break with, and it is quirky and funny. And I love AI (or AY as is the case here), and MAY can be precious, also some of her/its dialogues are hilarious. So, all in all, I had a good time with this one.
But, on the other hand, I am quite disappointed because this book has potential. A ton of it. And for me, it is, more often than not, wasted. The problem is that it tries too hard to be funny, and trying too hard is a sure recipe to fail. It is too repetitive, and it is not as natural and as smooth as it could have been. And it is a bit of a shame, because the idea is solid, and there are many things to love in there but... but I was sorely tempted just to let it go. The only reason I finished it is because it is a SPSFC book and since it is not really bad I decided to give it a full opportunity. But... I am not sure I would recommend this book. Sure, it is not bad, and maybe it could work for you, because, as I said before, there are some brilliant ideas in there, and we have a good story (it is also quite original), but the development of it all is below the expectations.
But, on the other hand, I am quite disappointed because this book has potential. A ton of it. And for me, it is, more often than not, wasted. The problem is that it tries too hard to be funny, and trying too hard is a sure recipe to fail. It is too repetitive, and it is not as natural and as smooth as it could have been. And it is a bit of a shame, because the idea is solid, and there are many things to love in there but... but I was sorely tempted just to let it go. The only reason I finished it is because it is a SPSFC book and since it is not really bad I decided to give it a full opportunity. But... I am not sure I would recommend this book. Sure, it is not bad, and maybe it could work for you, because, as I said before, there are some brilliant ideas in there, and we have a good story (it is also quite original), but the development of it all is below the expectations.
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December 8, 2023I didn’t get along with The Complete Guide To Exploring Your New Planet, but I can tell the author had a blast writing it. The trouble is, the author spent more time having fun and enjoying their love of works like Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy than they did considering how to make the book work for an audience.
Hattie, Sam, and Boomer thought they were just cogs in an average space based capitalist dystopia, but when their starship explodes on landing – sorry, undergoes a Ground Assisted Spontaneous Pressurized Oxidation Disassembly Event, or GASPODE – the world they’ve been sent to explore is no longer a boring bit of rock to drop a mayo sandwich on. It's a wilderness trying to kill them with volcanoes the ship’s Artificial Yntelligence – MAY – refuses to call anything but a magma chamber, angry yellow dodo equivalents, the biggest fish that ever got away, and ancient aliens. Hattie, Sam, and Boomer aren’t very good at their jobs. Thankfully, the plane isn’t very good at killing them, either.
This is, blatantly, a passion project. This is the author loving a certain kind of book and taking a stab at writing one, probably spending many, many enjoyable hours with a hot drink in hand while chortling their way through another page. That’s the impression I get, and if you’re lucky enough to align with the author’s sense of humour, you could probably have a lot of fun with the book.
Unfortunately, it missed for me. Repeatedly, and badly. The author seems to enjoy obscure references twisted around funny-sounding words, and has written a sort of... humorous version of the Martian with a humour that relies heavily on words that sound funny being funny. Some of these references I caught – the infamous Spaghetti Tree April fool’s joke – some I caught, but disliked – there’s a significant love of Trump’s infamous misstatements of Covfefe (in the form of Kovfefe Koffee) and Hamberders, and the political origins of the silly words put a foul taste in my mouth every time they appeared. (With alarming frequency when, as a gag, the corporation that produces the gadget that automatically names critters on the planet gets into a slap-fight with the coffee company, resulting in everything being named ‘Kovfefe’ for awhile.) Some references, a lot of references, I suspect, went entirely over my head and as a result were just another set of incomprehensible gibble-gabble without much funny to it other than that it was out of the way.
Some jokes rambled on too long in that way where someone’s having too much fun telling the joke to get around to the punchline – resulting in situations where, when the punchline finally landed (or more often didn’t), they arrived with a strong desire to punch back. (Not really! Promise. Just a strong, disapproving groan.)
For me, the book was reminiscent of being invited over to a pal’s house and having to sit through their first try at stand up comedy. A lot of it won’t work, but your pal loves comedy or they wouldn’t be trying to do it. And that love means they actually do bring along a few good jokes, meaning that there is a readership out there for this.
But who?
An invented reader we’ll call Cozy Carter – Carter is not pressured to read books at a quick pace, the way I am when reading books to judge for SPSFC. Carter does not merely over a book, but likes to linger. They want something they can spend ten minutes a day with while waiting for a train. This book is (mostly) low stakes and runs at a good chapter-to-chapter pace, I suspect it will feel a hell of a lot funnier when you don’t have to race through it and the sledgehammer effect of jokes that miss the mark can ease off a little. That’s what Carter wants, and it’s entirely possible that this book would fit Carter’s needs perfectly.
Did this book need to be written and published? Yes it did. For me, it doesn’t work – I read and loved Hitch-Hiker’s Guide and once every few years I listen to the radio show over again, which means that where I see the author trying to achieve the same sort of thing... I get hopeful that they’re going to pull it off. And when they don’t, that disappointment bit deeply enough to ruin the experience for me. I think if the author had spent a bit more time focussed on what a reader would get out of the book, cutting it quite significantly, shortening and punching up the jokes, they would have come up with a better book... but honestly? I don’t think they would have had the same fun at the keyboard. And I think it’s okay to write a book just to amuse yourself with it – I think that’s actually a vital human activity. It’s making art for the fun of it, and playing around like that is one of the most important things we can do on this planet. So this book might not be for everybody, but I think it is for the author, and there is a playful joy in this thing whether or not it lands with its readers.
If you’d like to see if you’re lucky enough to connect with this funny but flawed book, you can explore the author’s LinkTree at https://linktr.ee/vildmark
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You can find out more about SPSFC here: https://thespsfc.org
You can find all my reviews and posts dealing with SPSFC 2023 here: https://sinisbeautiful.com/tag/spsfc3/
Disclaimer: Please be aware that I am deliberately trying to take a different perspective to my usual one while judging for SPSFC 2023. Ordinarily I have a very narrow taste profile for what I like, and as part of my writerly practice I usually engage with books by tearing them to shreds and picking through what’s left to see if I can learn anything. I don’t think that’s a helpful point of view to review/judge from, and since reviews are for readers, not for writers, I’ve tried to avoid that here. (As you can see above. Your call on whether or not I succeeded, of course.)
Hattie, Sam, and Boomer thought they were just cogs in an average space based capitalist dystopia, but when their starship explodes on landing – sorry, undergoes a Ground Assisted Spontaneous Pressurized Oxidation Disassembly Event, or GASPODE – the world they’ve been sent to explore is no longer a boring bit of rock to drop a mayo sandwich on. It's a wilderness trying to kill them with volcanoes the ship’s Artificial Yntelligence – MAY – refuses to call anything but a magma chamber, angry yellow dodo equivalents, the biggest fish that ever got away, and ancient aliens. Hattie, Sam, and Boomer aren’t very good at their jobs. Thankfully, the plane isn’t very good at killing them, either.
This is, blatantly, a passion project. This is the author loving a certain kind of book and taking a stab at writing one, probably spending many, many enjoyable hours with a hot drink in hand while chortling their way through another page. That’s the impression I get, and if you’re lucky enough to align with the author’s sense of humour, you could probably have a lot of fun with the book.
Unfortunately, it missed for me. Repeatedly, and badly. The author seems to enjoy obscure references twisted around funny-sounding words, and has written a sort of... humorous version of the Martian with a humour that relies heavily on words that sound funny being funny. Some of these references I caught – the infamous Spaghetti Tree April fool’s joke – some I caught, but disliked – there’s a significant love of Trump’s infamous misstatements of Covfefe (in the form of Kovfefe Koffee) and Hamberders, and the political origins of the silly words put a foul taste in my mouth every time they appeared. (With alarming frequency when, as a gag, the corporation that produces the gadget that automatically names critters on the planet gets into a slap-fight with the coffee company, resulting in everything being named ‘Kovfefe’ for awhile.) Some references, a lot of references, I suspect, went entirely over my head and as a result were just another set of incomprehensible gibble-gabble without much funny to it other than that it was out of the way.
Some jokes rambled on too long in that way where someone’s having too much fun telling the joke to get around to the punchline – resulting in situations where, when the punchline finally landed (or more often didn’t), they arrived with a strong desire to punch back. (Not really! Promise. Just a strong, disapproving groan.)
For me, the book was reminiscent of being invited over to a pal’s house and having to sit through their first try at stand up comedy. A lot of it won’t work, but your pal loves comedy or they wouldn’t be trying to do it. And that love means they actually do bring along a few good jokes, meaning that there is a readership out there for this.
But who?
An invented reader we’ll call Cozy Carter – Carter is not pressured to read books at a quick pace, the way I am when reading books to judge for SPSFC. Carter does not merely over a book, but likes to linger. They want something they can spend ten minutes a day with while waiting for a train. This book is (mostly) low stakes and runs at a good chapter-to-chapter pace, I suspect it will feel a hell of a lot funnier when you don’t have to race through it and the sledgehammer effect of jokes that miss the mark can ease off a little. That’s what Carter wants, and it’s entirely possible that this book would fit Carter’s needs perfectly.
Did this book need to be written and published? Yes it did. For me, it doesn’t work – I read and loved Hitch-Hiker’s Guide and once every few years I listen to the radio show over again, which means that where I see the author trying to achieve the same sort of thing... I get hopeful that they’re going to pull it off. And when they don’t, that disappointment bit deeply enough to ruin the experience for me. I think if the author had spent a bit more time focussed on what a reader would get out of the book, cutting it quite significantly, shortening and punching up the jokes, they would have come up with a better book... but honestly? I don’t think they would have had the same fun at the keyboard. And I think it’s okay to write a book just to amuse yourself with it – I think that’s actually a vital human activity. It’s making art for the fun of it, and playing around like that is one of the most important things we can do on this planet. So this book might not be for everybody, but I think it is for the author, and there is a playful joy in this thing whether or not it lands with its readers.
If you’d like to see if you’re lucky enough to connect with this funny but flawed book, you can explore the author’s LinkTree at https://linktr.ee/vildmark
-----
You can find out more about SPSFC here: https://thespsfc.org
You can find all my reviews and posts dealing with SPSFC 2023 here: https://sinisbeautiful.com/tag/spsfc3/
Disclaimer: Please be aware that I am deliberately trying to take a different perspective to my usual one while judging for SPSFC 2023. Ordinarily I have a very narrow taste profile for what I like, and as part of my writerly practice I usually engage with books by tearing them to shreds and picking through what’s left to see if I can learn anything. I don’t think that’s a helpful point of view to review/judge from, and since reviews are for readers, not for writers, I’ve tried to avoid that here. (As you can see above. Your call on whether or not I succeeded, of course.)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews