Petey's
Fiction Review
The Light-years Beneath My Feet
by
Alan Dean Foster
Rescued from their Vilenjji captors, Marcus Walker and a trio
of new friends lead relatively pampered lives on the home world
of their liberators. But Marcus is bored by life in the intellectually
and technologically superior alien society; what he and his
friends really want to do is go home. Unfortunately, their respective
home planets are light-years across the galaxy, and no one knows
in which direction.
To
relieve his boredom, Marcus becomes a self-styled gourmet cook.
Soon, his growing reputation for Epicurean masterpieces attracts
the attention of a strangely beautiful alien visitor, who wants
to hire him as cook for the Regency Palace on her native planet,
Niyu. Marcus agrees to Viyv-pym's offer, providing his friends,
who see it as a bold first step toward home, can accompany him.
They strike a bargain, but on the eve of their departure, the
villainous Vilenjji briefly recaptures the unfortunate four,
only to be thwarted yet again, this time by the Niyyuu, who
take a dim view of buying and selling sentient beings (although
it's okay to rent them).
Life
on Niyu quickly becomes boring for the quarrelsome quartet,
and once more their thoughts turn toward home. They soon realize
that they'll be stuck on Niyu forever if they can't elicit the
help and support they need to leave. The surest way for them
to get help is to ingratiate themselves with the most powerful
and influential among their hosts.
Because
the many realms of Niyu wage perpetual, if somewhat civilized,
war against each other—as much for economic stimulus as
for popular entertainment—Walker allies himself with General
Saluu-hir-lek, the ambitious commander of the Kojn-umm military
forces, and quickly becomes chief military strategist. Suddenly,
the characteristics of war on planet Niyu begin to change.
With
a protagonist like the homesick human Marcus, and main characters
like the Tuuqalian Braouk, a tentacled hulking presence with
a penchant for poetry and song; the acerbic, egotistical K'eremu
Sequi'aranaqua'na'senemu, a towering intellect of short stature;
and George, a speech-enhanced canine, you just know that The
Light-years Beneath My Feet is going to be a very funny
story. By the time you finish reading this book, your guts will
cramp (from stifling belly laughs) and your face will ache (from
suppressing smiles). How could a sci-fi novel with a talking
dog not be funny?
A
traveler to exotic locations around the world, The
Light-years Beneath My Feet author Alan Dean Foster
has written more than 80 Books, 16 of which have appeared on
The New York Times bestseller list. He and his wife make
their home in Prescott, Arizona.
Visit
Alan's Web site at www.alandeanfoster.com/
Review
by Phil Hanson
Click
on the title to order your copy of The
Light-years Beneath My Feet.
Copyright
© 2005 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
