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Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 1)
 
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Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 1) (Paperback)

by Toby Frost (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 1) + God Emperor of Didcot (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 2) + Wrath of the Lemming-men (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 3)
Price For All Three: £17.57

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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Myrmidon Books Ltd (6 May 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1905802137
  • ISBN-13: 978-1905802135
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,776 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
'Gives the sacred cows of sci-fi a good kicking before racing home in time for tea.' --Dick Maggs, director of BBC Radio 4's 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'

Product Description
In the 25nd Century the British Space Empire faces the gathering menace of the evil ant-soldiers of the Ghast Empire hive, hell-bent on galactic domination and the extermination of all humanoid life. Isambard Smith is the square-jawed, courageous and somewhat asinine new commander of the clapped out and battle damaged light freighter John Pym, destined to take on the alien threat because nobody else is available. Together with his bold crew a skull collecting alien lunatic, an android pilot who is actually a fugitive sex toy and a hamster called Gerald he must collect new-age herbalist Rhianna Mitchell from the laid back New Francisco orbiter and bring her back to safety in the Empire. Straightforward enough except the Ghasts want her too. If he is to get back to Blighty alive, Smith must defeat void sharks, a universe-weary android assassin and John Gilead, psychopathic naval officer from the fanatically religious Republic of New Eden before facing his greatest enemy: a ruthless alien warlord with a very large behind...

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 1)
68% buy the item featured on this page:
Space Captain Smith (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 1) 4.3 out of 5 stars (29)
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Coward on the Beach (Dick Coward 1) 3.9 out of 5 stars (20)
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The Affinity Bridge
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The Affinity Bridge 3.4 out of 5 stars (22)
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Wrath of the Lemming-men (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 3)
7% buy
Wrath of the Lemming-men (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 3) 4.8 out of 5 stars (4)
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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews
5 star:
 (22)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Ripping Ride, 23 Jun 2008
Space Captain Smith is a difficult book to categorise. Sci-fi would seem an obvious starting place but to pigeonhole it there would be to understate its broader comic significance. This well told tale of derring-do in the 25th century British Space Empire captures, encapsulates and then sends-up everything it has ever meant to be British, from stiff upper lip to rough serge uniforms, from bounders to blunders, from well-trimmed moustaches to Tiffin and tea. If you ever wondered what made Britain great, Captain Isambard Smith will only increase your uncertainty.

Frost's excellent prose takes us on a Hitchhikers' Trek to the Red Dwarf Matrix by way of Dan Dare with a soupcon of Dad's Army. Nothing is quite as it seems, which is probably just as well. Like one of those bizarre dreams following a heavy session sometimes where you are and the characters you're meeting seem vaguely - unnervingly - familiar.

The author has a thorough knowledge of sci-fi and many other genres so you can enjoy playing spot-the-reference without detracting from the serious pleasure of the read. Smith is a gem and the other main characters: a runaway sex-bot turned pilot who relies on the Haynes manual to fly, a homicidal skull-collecting alien (Smith's best buddy) and a new-age flibety-gibbet girl passenger, are all drawn to perfection. The baddies are boo-hiss-able, the jokes frequent and the action scenes memorable.

Toby Frost proves once and for all that innuendo is a legitimate weapon in the literary arsenal and not simply an Italian word for suppository.

Space Captain Smith is a book to savour on a holiday flight or any time at all. I guarantee you'll queue for the sequel when it's published later this year. My money says a film will not be far behind.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Flashman meets Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy!, 12 May 2008
By SJ SMART "Smartie" (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
A fun light hearted new piece of Science Fiction writing in the style of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy with a touch of Flashman, Red Dwarf, Blackadder and perhaps Bill and Ted. If you are looking for something very dark and heavy this isnt it, but if you like some of the previously mentioned books and programmes and enjoy a funny, tongue in cheek and sarcastic type of humour then this for you as you read about Space Captain Isambard Smith's adventures defending the British Empire in Space!
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Difficult Trick To Pull Off, 1 Jul 2008
By C. Green "happily low brow" (Faringdon, Oxon, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Producing a genuinely funny send up of any literary genre is a difficult trick to pull off. All too often such attempts slide to far into farce, lack any real humour or come across as mean. With Space Captain Smith however, Toby Frost has sidestepped all the potential pitfalls and created successful lampoon of the science-fiction genre.

Genuinely funny without resorting to ridiculous 'Airplane' or 'Naked Gun' style humour, Smith is a proper work of fiction. The book has a plot that is more than a series of gags and characters that aren't just there for pratfall purposes. There is a real sense of affection for the staples of science fiction even as the book gently mocks them. Frost is a man who is obviously familiar with everything from HG Wells to Firefly, but doesn't rub the reader's nose in it. If you're familiar with the references you'll pick them up but if you're not then the book will be no less enjoyable for it because despite its otherworld setting much of the humour is universal. This is not one big in joke for sci-fi geeks.

Some may want to compare the book to the Flashman series (the book's cover certainly does so), others to Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and some to Red Dwarf. To do so would be to do the book a great disservice. Frost's creation is very much its own animal, with its own personality. Isambard Smith himself is no Flashman. He may be asinine and priggish but he's also competent and brave. The book is also no HHGttG. It doesn't seek to satirise contemporary life but to send up the sci-fi cannon via gentle digs at Cyber Punk, 50's B-Movies and the 'Western in Space' genre amongst others. Finally it is far smarter than Red Dwarf and doesn't feel the need to resort to the purile or childish.

Personally I can't wait for the next in the series, published in September 2008. Any book that references Didcot in its title has to be worth reading. If its nearly as enjoyable as Smith's first adventure then it certainly will be.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars space captain smith
an enjoyable romp through space with a very likeable bunch of characters.lots of innuendo and sarcastic one liners. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. R. W. Spivey

4.0 out of 5 stars What a rare treat.
I picked this book up with some trepidation, but was delighted to find a new author who has effortlessly created likeable, if slightly dim-witted characters, on a parallel with... Read more
Published 4 months ago by JJ

3.0 out of 5 stars An OK waste of time
Space Captain Smith is a fairly amusing sci-fi novel, in which we are introduced to a complex interstellar society filled with (well, to be quite frank) weirdoes. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Flemming Nielsen

1.0 out of 5 stars Exclusive
A good children's book can be read by anyone, but this is so aimed at pubescent boys that it excludes everyone else.(This is, of course, cool to the target demographic. Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. Morris

2.0 out of 5 stars re-hash of Hitchhikers/Red Dwarf/Captain Blackadder/ect
I really wanted to like this book, however i found it a ripoff of other ideas, strung together.
Some parts were rather amusing, but the sub plots and thread to the story... Read more
Published 6 months ago by A. D. Taylor

5.0 out of 5 stars A hoot!
I've only just started reading this novel (half way through chapter 3), but I have to say it's one of the best SF novels I've read in a long time. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Iain McClumpha

5.0 out of 5 stars A RIPPING SPACE YARN
I think that the reviewers who have given this little gem anything less than 3 stars have missed the joke completely! Read more
Published 9 months ago by FantasyFan

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Fun!
Toby Frost's light hearted romp in the retro-futuristic British space empire is a superb read from start to finish. Sarcasm, witty one liners and slapstick humour abound. Read more
Published 10 months ago by First Time User

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't jump to obvious comparisons, this is something new!
Undoubtedly in other reviews this book will be compared to the works of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Grant and Naylor. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mr. M. V. Norwood

2.0 out of 5 stars Light hearted and silly
This book gets two stars because it is not Flashman in outer space. It clearly isn't, because the characters are simple two dimensional ciphers and there is not the reflection... Read more
Published 10 months ago by bob

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