Will Save the Galaxy for Food
Series: Jacques McKeown, Book 1
Written and Narrated By: Yahtzee Croshaw
Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
Epic? It wants to be. Funny? It definitely is.
Be prepared for profanity galore. It turns out our hero, a space pilot who can fly anything with even only one wing, swears like a, well, space pilot. But in Will Save the Galaxy for Food, mathematics is the root of all the woes of the average space pilot, so swear words are derived from math: Everything is Plying this, Plying that, UnPLYINGbelievable (short for multiplying). And tract (short for subtract) has a tendency of hitting the fan.
We never really know the real name of our hero, but due to a shady deal done with an uptight lady working for a soulless, brutal, crime boss, he’s sucked into a ruse where he becomes known as Jacques McKeown—an infamous and anonymous writer of books chronicling the adventures of space piloting. The public loves him, the space pilots whose stories he’s ripped off haaaaate him. So our hero is in hot water almost immediately.
There really isn’t much plot to the book, it’s mostly 10+ hours of tract hitting the fan and our hero using his rattled wits to get himself and his companions outta horrific and deadly scrapes. If something seeeeems to come off without a hitch, you can bet that something dreadful is about to occur. If something dreadful happens, you can bet that things are going to get even worse. It’s 10+ hours of slapstick comedy. Which can get old.
So the book gets old at times, but what saves it is Yahtzee Croshaw’s desperately clever writing, especially with dialogue. He’s a funny, funny guy! And his narration is what pushes the book into the hilarious. Our hero takes himself so very seriously, but Croshaw’s narration never does. He does deadly scrapes and earnest conversation with the same over-the-top sense of drama that’s not to be missed. If you’ve already listened to Differently Morphous, you’ll have a notion of what to expect: The rousing excitement of space pirates, oh-so-cute aliens who used to be kept as pets… until they ate their owners, possible scenes of hate-sex… but no, really, they haaaate each other too much even for that! Especially since they’re about to be killed by Cyborgs. A mood-killer if ever there was one.
Take the audiobook with a grain of salt. It’s nothing big, and I foresee a sequel judging from how it ends. But it does have plenty of laughs, and I gotta say it: Looks like I’m turning into a Croshaw Fan!
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