Flutterby™! : Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure)

Robert Kroese sent me a copy of Starship Grifters (A Rex Nihilo Adventure). I liked it. Not as much as his "Mercury" series, but I still gave it five stars on Amazon. That review follows:

The history of bumbling pulp sci fi heroes is long and proud. Retief, the Stainless Steel Rat, and similar larger than imaginary future life characters filled the tales of my childhood, dashing about the galaxy, saving civilizations, supporting rebellions against evil overlords, with a narrative style that understood both the absurdity of these situations and tales, and the appeal of them.

Rex is a hard-gambling hero, accompanied by his faithful robot sidekick Sasha, who "wins" a poker game in a way turns on him, and ends up holed up with rebels on a forest moon (gee, where have I heard this before?) exploring all the tropes with memorable quips. And the final twist is both solidly supported by the story and completely unexpected. Blowing reactor cores, defending bases from impracticl marauding vehicles, hard drinking larger than life characters, they're all here.

If I have a complaint it's that, although they're funny and witty, the challenges that Rex and Sasha (the narrator) face aren't as existentially enlightening as Rob's "Mercury" series. This is light pulp reading, not material that makes me ponder, but it still gets five stars.