"The best bit about this book is the humour." #Kindle #BookReview
Force of Habit
by Marian Allen
Genre: Science Fiction
Book Synopsis
Isobel Enid Schuster never planned to go into space. She almost wished there had been no Vatican III, and the clergy had not gone co-ed, or at least the Jesuits had not.
But all those things had happened. The Galactic Union Space-Troopers teamed up with the St. Bennedetta Jesuits to form the Space Academy Preparatory School, and now Bel is a Professor of Extra-Terrestrial Humanities and Value Systems on a starship.
Restricted shore leave on the planet Llannonn is better than staying on the ship, especially when Bel swaps clothes with a close-look-alike Llannonninn woman and slips out to see the sights. But the woman is the target of a criminal from another planet. The woman thinks Bel is a police agent, come to take her place. The criminal thinks Bel is his target. Yet another criminal thinks Bel is a VIP he can kidnap and hold for ransom.
The only thing between Bel and a life of slavery in the provinces is the tenuous friendship she's formed with Tetra Petrie, a language professor from the planet Gilhoolie.
Gangsters aliens, local law enforcement and highly placed political operatives all get into the act, as a tangle of misunderstanding, miscommunication and mistaken identity land Bel in court, facing what passes for a legal system on Llannonn.
Bec's Rating
Bec's Review
Being a bit of a science fiction junkie, I love when stories are set in space, involving aliens. And this one covers those bases, involving a few different species of aliens, a space ship, an alien planet and cultural misunderstandings caused from the relation of the above. It all makes for a very interesting setting overall, and one that serves well to highlight the intricate story and weaving plot that this book contains.
But the best bit about this book is the humour within it. There are so many misunderstandings occurring on the behalf of the characters, so many mistaken beliefs about the plans of the others that you, as the reader, know are not true that I found I couldn’t help myself chuckling along each time a character came up with yet another outlandish theory as to how much knowledge the other had, and how this was all going to work out in some bizarre way. It was amusing to see the leaps the characters made in their beliefs in regards to the situations they found themselves in.
Allen weaves a wonderful story and world that will have you groaning and laughing at the antics of her characters, who each take on a life of their own within the stories. This is a well written book full of twists and turns while all the while you wonder just how Bel is going to get out of the great big mess she has found herself in, a mess that sometimes seems to get worse and other times seems to get better. Let’s just say that, even with all the information that the characters don’t have, the story may surprise you. It certainly surprised me.
Disclaimer: May not be appropriate for children due to violence.
