Judgement Dave

Starship Teapot, Book 2

De: Si Clarke

Narrado por: Kay Eluvian

This time, the universe puts the cat in catastrophe…

Lem is adapting to her new home aboard a strange spaceship in an even stranger universe, where the misfit crew of the Teapot have more than enough trouble on their hands running their interplanetary charter service. But when they accept an urgent assignment, they have just one week to save a race of cat-people from certain destruction.

Stuck with a disaster-platypus of a project manager and a population seemingly determined to thwart their own rescue, the Teapotters face the impossible job of herding cats and evacuating the planet before it’s blown to smithereens..

Can Lem and the gang avert disaster and save this race of infuriating cat-people?

Perfect for fans of wacky and imaginative sci-fi stories, this satirical space opera is a ridiculous adventure that will delight listeners of John Scalzi's take on Fuzzy Nation or TJ Berry's Space Unicorn Blues.

Get it now!

©2022 White Hart Fiction (P)2023 White Hart Fiction

Si Clarke Does it Again

I was very excited to see the rest of this series out on Audible. This book is both funny, entertaining with mild social commentary (Slavery, and Accessibility). I love how Si Clarke explains delicate and complex issues in an easy way, brining you on the characters epiphany moment. How to explain accessibility to someone? Use a robot with wheels! The poor robot person gets stuck in a ditch or can only travel on a paved road. Lem starts to understand how frustrating it is for Henry to not be able to participate “off road”, how vulnerable Henry is when stuck or unable to get out of a room. One set of stairs can mean a whole group of people can’t participate. Also thank you to the author for putting your books on audible! As a person with vision issues I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy this book without the audio version!

Anti cat bias?

Note this review contains spoilers, though doesn’t get into the plot at all

Like the left hand of dog, this second installment of the starship teapot trilogy is entertaining, humorous and educational. It is as always focused on the belief that gender is more social construct than concrete reality, and offers cogent arguments in the context of a science fiction story with unusual aliens. It also comments on challenges faced by those with physical disabilities.

One of two alien races new to the series is a race of cat like creatures with many of the same qualities that cat lovers admire, like vanity, being easily distracted, and enjoying being waited upon. This starts off quite funny and as a cat lover I enjoyed this. But as the book goes on, it becomes apparent that the creatures are actually quite evil as well, and this feeds the common trope of cats as villains so embraced by cat haters. I think Si Clarke crossed the line here from light satire to revealing a bias against cats, and would have been better to avoid such an obvious resemblance if there was some more important purpose in the story, which I hope there was.