3 out of 4 stars
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From the name of it, I expected Gas Punk Chaos (by Johnny B. Wilson and Luka McAuley) to be something along the lines of Mad Max or some punk version of The Fast and the Furious. While I was a bit surprised it wasn't like either of those classics, I was even more surprised that it WAS like the even-better The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. While a bit confusing at times, it was largely a humorous sci-fi adventure with a good dash of action.
The book kicks off with some insight from The Android's Almanac, introducing us into the sad state of affairs our world is in. After this, episode one begins by introducing us to Samson and Edge, a father and son bounty hunting team. The two of them wreak so much havoc that they barely get to keep any of their multi-million credit bounty payments, and requests are made specifically excluding them from many of the jobs. They end up entrusted with a low-paying gig as a test of whether they can turn things around, but even the simplest of jobs can go horribly wrong in their hands.
Meanwhile, Samson's techie-genius daughter Raven, who lives with his ex-wife/former fellow bounty hunter Magda on Mars, becomes intrigued by the business. She takes her self-taught expertise and her genetically-modified, talking lizard Thomas to chase a couple targets. Will her sharpshooting skills and genius overcome the fact she's new to bounty hunting?
The plot itself is rather lackluster most of the time, but the humor was so fantastic I never noticed. The book is rife with the dry, all-knowing humor that made The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so amazing. In addition to kicking off the book, The Android's Almanac is referenced throughout the book and works as a perfect method to explain how something works or why things are the way they are. On top of that, the book does a good job making you think between laughs, and some of the characters (Raven especially) are fantastic.
While the plot may not have been fantastic, the groundwork of the story is rather interesting. At the same time, there were several times I was a bit confused by what exactly was going on in a moment. There's such excellent description most of the time, but when it misses it makes it difficult to fully visualize the action and feel like I'm there. More than once I had to read paragraphs again, trying to find something I missed and failing to do so. Also, there's a third side of the story that comes into the book late, and I never felt attached to it at all. The cover of the book has "Book 1" in the bottom-right corner, so I'm assuming this was done to lead into book 2, but it felt entirely disjointed.
As always, the real metric of a book's quality is whether I'd read another book by the authors. Not only would I read it, I'd preorder it! If the authors can carry that base plot further and maintain that humor while smoothing over the confusing gaps, this could be an absolutely epic series! While my excitement is high, I still have to be realistic rating this one, and I feel it deserves a solid 3 out of 4 stars. I'd definitely suggest it to anyone who enjoys humor or sci-fi, and especially to anyone who enjoyed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Be warned, though, that there's a bit of foul language and violence.
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Gas Punk Chaos
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