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Remember the first time you read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Remember those delightful tangents that Mr. Adams went on to give you amusing little details about the world? Remember all the fun non-sequiterish conversations that the various characters would occasionally have?

That was pretty great.

Imagine a book where the majority of the text is made up of those tangents and conversations instead of the plot. Now take that book and send it off to a self-publisher who doesn't even run it through a grammar checker and leaves in sentences like: "Entire planets were junk outposts requiring a much farther drive than the few hours in three hundred Sunday afternoon drives searching for a Buddha belly clock for the mother-in-law." This lack of editorial review also results in using Parsecs as a unit of time.

As with most of the self published works that I've read, the most frustrating part is that the author has some talent. In fact this book has both a tight beginning and a sharp ending. It's just that somewhere in the middle it loses its way perhaps just trying to fill up a novel sized container with something that would have been much better in a smaller portion. The characters were fun, interesting and likable and many of the little tangents were very clever. It just got to be too much.

I believe that Madeleine Hart has a great novel in her. The idea that computers will never take over because they are too busy messing with us is a clear indication of her cleverness. Intergalactic Gazette was not that novel. I hope she tries again.

John Enzinas reads frequently and passionately. In his spare time he plays with swords.