Sam Boone: Front to Back

Sam Boone: Front to Back, Bud Sparhawk, FoxAcre Press, 2003

In the late 22nd Century, Earth's first interstellar spaceship is involved in a collision with a much larger vessel outside the approved travel lanes. In its desperation to avoid the Galactic Hegemony, the captain gives Earth a more modern ship out of its inventory. This allows Earth to build more ships, and explore local space. Intelligent life is pretty common, and the only reason Earth hasn't heard about it is their use of inefficient and outdated electromagnetic energy for communication, instead of the much more efficient galactic phloomb. About the only talent humans have, according to the rest of the galaxy, is that of negotiation and arbitration.

Sam Boone works at Earth's major spaceport, near Trenton, New Jersey. It's there because one of the favorite tourist destinations is the nearby city of Hoboken (along with Disneyworld, of course). In one story, Sam must deal with a pair of alien races who decide to settle their differences in a professional wrestling ring, thinking that humans also do it this way. Another popular export for Earth is magazines of any type. Whether it is a home and garden magazine or a mechanical hobby magazine, the other alien races find them absolutely hilarious. In another story, Sam must escort a pair of aliens around Disneyworld. This wouldn't seem so difficult, except these are group mind aliens, where one individual inhabits 20 or 30 separate bodies. Do they get a group discount on tickets? In each of these stories, Sam must deal with very different cultural values, while keeping his alien boss happy and keeping himself out of some potentially disastrous situations.

There is a sad lack of humor in science fiction. This book helps to fill the gap. For lighter, humorous reading that is still well written, this is very much worth checking out.