It’s been a few years since I read the Hitcherhiker’s guide series, and I still remember fondly ridiculousness of the novel; science fiction and humor can mix. The Columbus Day book though… is a bit awkward with its jokes.
The premise is simple: aliens invade Earth, and overwhelming technology pound all the nations down. Another alien race arrives to defend the invaders, but apparently they’re the wrong side to fight for. It’s a really intriguing plot line to start with, that doesn’t need humor in the first place, but the way the author went with it is disappointing.
The author introduced a Marvin-esque AI (except it’s more chippy) a quarter of the way through the book, and used that as an ex machina for everything the humans do. Instead of a feel-good story about human ingenuity, we get a story about an ancient AI telling them how to do everything. Such a good plot line squandered I feel.
The language is beyond colloquial, with little prose worth mentioning. There’s also an incredibly amount of typos throughout the book (for something that highly rated on Amazon…?). Overall, a bit disappointed at how the rating system on Amazon worked on.