Book Review of The Star-Crossed Pelican

For every book we release, we’ll be sure to post a review of it during the week before the book comes out. Our next book, The Star-Crossed Pelican by Laura Ruth Loomis, is a sci-fi comedy perfect for fans of Douglas Adams, and will be published next Tuesday, December 5th.  This review comes from Aline Soules.
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Take it away, Aline. . . .​

The Star-Crossed Pelican—More Fun and Games

​Along with her crew, technologically challenged Janet is back. Still captain of the Cosmic Turkey, part of the Galactic Universal Peacemongering Paradigm Emergent Action Spacefleet (GUPPEAS), Janet intervenes in the name of peacemongering when the crew comes across two ships fighting on their way to a peace conference.

Also on board is Beau Dangere, Janet’s secret heartthrob, who is engaged to the badly behaved Richena. Beau looks forward to reuniting with Richena at the conference, and Janet is not her usual upbeat self. The crew’s overdue shore leave is canceled as multiple ships converge on the peace conference and the challenges of intergalactic communication and cooperation (or not) emerge. The Vegans (from Vega) enjoy the taste of humans, and Cygnoids don’t get along with any of the others. What could possibly go wrong?

The crew is up to its usual tricks: Janet’s brother Martian is a tech whiz, the computer is so self-determining it could be a person, Lola’s aura changes color in a flash, Frink steals anything not moving, Nlubglub retrieves the stolen objects to return to their owners, and Zeeko is “the unofficial cook, hairdresser, lizard-trainer, and a few other things.”

Janet begins to date Randy, who turns out—well, spoiler alert. But the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, especially as Richena plans her wedding with Beau, which she insists must be held on Janet’s spaceship and officiated by Captain Janet.

And the converging species—Jupiterans, Plutonians, Vegans, Cygnoids, and, oh yes, humans—quarrel and play tricks. The level of mayhem increases with the number of species involved. 

The plot twists and turns unfold with many mishaps, but there’s always a way forward. Janet’s ex-boyfriend, Pietro, writes annoying articles in the Galactic Times; Frink puts Janet’s profile on a dating site, LuckyStar; and Frink falls in love with Xerxzez, who runs scams on everyone, but Janet can cope and conquer. And there are return appearances from The Cosmic Turkey: chocolate and caffeine and curling (no, the sport).

At the conference, in addition to the rivalry of the various species, a dangerous weapon of psychological torture, the Civilizer, falls into the wrong hands. The plan for its recapture results in a trip to the Pelican Nebula. The reader can find out why it’s star-crossed.


Our thanks to Aline! You can read the first chapter of The Star-Crossed Pelican free here.
 
Check out Laura’s author interview for this book here. A character interview and our top ten favorite quotes from The Star-Crossed Pelican are coming soon!​

​The Star-Crossed Pelican​ is book 2 in the Cosmic Turkey series. This series does not necessarily need to be read in order, but it helps.

Click here to take a fun quiz and see which of the alien species from this series you’d be!

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Aline Soules

Author, Evening Sun; Emerita Librarian and former selector, Juvenile/Young Adult Collections, Cal State East Bay.
https://alinesoules.com ; https://twitter.com/aline_elisabeth
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinesoules/ ; ​https://www.facebook.com/alinesoulesauthor.