I’ve never read anything quite like M Suddain’s second novel. On the one hand, it’s a galaxy-spanning space opera with intrigue, adventure and fascinating tech extrapolations. On the other, it’s a hilarious, almost Nabokovian account of a food critic’s gastronomic misadventures as he conducts a tour of restaurants on dozens of far-flung planets. Suddain manages the almost impossible task of balancing cosmic scope with slapstick, intricate wordplay and dialogue at times worthy of PG Wodehouse.
He spares readers the annoying exposition sometimes found at the beginning of far-future novels. Instead, we get parody, rhapsody and endless invention from the off: “Remember when you were young? … Remember when you weren’t just a ghost who changes faces to suit the weather, or a strange device used by others to manufacture their happiness?” And on that note we are introduced to J Salvador Tamerlain, food critic – a snobby, finicky, opinionated and yet ultimately likable narrator who always carries a “compact portable cocktail kit” and who has no interest in the kind of spaceship he’s on or anything, really, apart from restaurants.
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