Book Review: A Spaceship Repair Girl Supposedly Called Rachel
I am a huge fan of Richard Roberts' PLEASE DONT TELL MY PARENTS I'M A SUPERVILLAIN series. I also really enjoyed his YOU CAN BE A CYBORG WHEN YOU'RE OLDER. He's an individual who absolutely loves his quirky teenage girls up against ridiculous casts of weirdos. He often takes somewhat dark and edgy genres like superheroes or cyberpunk then makes them into much-much more hilarious tales.
A SPACESHIP REPAIR GIRL SUPPOSEDLY NAMED RACHEL is a delightful take on the space opera genre taking place in a world that runs on dreams more than logic. Protagonist Rachel is a young sketch artist, about sixteen years of age, who finds herself magically whisked off the Earth by a pedal powered bus into the rest of the solar system. It turns out Earth has been quarantined from the rest of the system due to our exposure to MATH. This unfortunately leaves most of humanity unable to enjoy the ridiculous nature of the surreal chaotic reality around them.
Our heroine finds herself dealing with space squid, asteroid lighthouses, bunny women, kobolds in blonde wigs, and other ludicrous situations. It is a humorous story that makes fun of any possible logic and reality but enjoyable in its wackiness. She becomes best friends with a pirate princess and has to discover whether or not her favorite chef is a professional wrestler that is the best in seven dimensions.
There's a Gaiman-esque surrealness that reminded me of his classic Stardust, except instead of being about a magical fairyland, this is set in a Spelljammer-esque world of ridiculous spaceships powered by imagination. If you're unable to forget everything you know about physics, science, and engineering before you read then you probably won't be able to enjoy this book. That's part of the fun, however.
Really, the book is a collection of mini-stories and scenes about our heroine meeting a peculiar cast of characters as well as dealing with an oddball bunch of assumptions. She has to repeatedly tell equally wild tales as the ones she hears in order to figure out how to keep from getting sent back to the dreaded Earth! As a mathophile, I can say I'm less than pleased by the handling of the subject as it gives us such wonderful things as science as well as computers but I accept it for this tale.
If I had to recommend the audiobook versus the text version of the book, I'd definitely recommend the audiobook version because the narration by Rachel L. Jacobs is fantastic. She really puts you in the shoes of our babysitter abducted by an interstellar con man.
