God Emperor of Didcot

God Emperor of Didcot by Toby Frost

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


New Eden and the Ghasts take over Didcot using the Grand Hyrax, a fanatical lunatic, as a figurehead. Didcot is the primary source of the British Empire's tea supply. With no tea, the British Empire has no moral fiber and is therefore finished. It's up to Isambard Smith and his crew, Carveth, the renegade sex droid, Suruk, the alien headhunter, Rhianna, the space hippie, and Gerald, the ship's hamster, to liberate Didcot. Suruk goes to his people for help. Unfortunately, they aren't nearly as warlike as he remembers...

God Emperor of Didcot is the sequel to Space Captain Smith. Is it as good? It's a sequel so of course not. They are rarely as good as the originals. But it's still delightfully hilarious, full of dry wit and jabs at sf classics. As you can tell by the title, its plot is inspired by the Dune series. There are references to a multitude of other sf stories as well. Carveth wakes up complaining about that dream of electric sheep again, for example.

Speaking of Carveth, she gets even more of the good lines in this one, as well as some character development. Suruk also benefits from more time in this one. You can almost taste his rage at what his society has become. Still not to keen on Rhianna but at least Frost hasn't forced a relationship between her and Captain Smith yet.

I'd recommend this to fans of the previous book, Space Captain Smith, as well as fans of Red Dwarf, Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, and British humor in general. Now, the wait for the third volume begins...



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