Up and Down / Terry Fallis. 4 stars

[LibraryCin]

David used to work in Ottawa, but moved to Toronto to be closer to his dying mother, who has been mostly taken care of by his sister. His new job is with a PR firm and he is thrown into the fire immediately to help with a NASA campaign. Some love, some don’t, his idea of a “citizen astronaut” campaign. People can enter to randomly be selected to go up to space, as long as they can pass the training requirements. But the people at NASA who matter love the idea and it’s on. There will be one winner from the US and one from Canada. But someone (in the DC office of the PR firm) have specific ideas about who they think should win the “random” draw. And the random person in Canada? Definitely not what anyone expected!

This was fun! Fallis’ books are humourous and this was definitely that. And I loved L Percival, Canada’s winner. There were interesting “side” stories for both David and L Percival. The PR guy in DC was horrible! But, I suppose, for the humourous slant of the novel, it makes sense to have some over-the-top characters. I really should read more of Fallis’ books (I’ve already read the political ones with Angus, but no others -- yet.)