Flash Review: Space Force (book, Jeremy Robinson)

No, it’s not an adaption of the Netflix series, Space Force is a totally different animal by Jeremy Robinson. It’s kind of like Deadpool does a remake of Ernest Cline’s Armada.

The newly commissioned, and decommissioned, Space Force has to fight aliens in a battle royal. Fortunately, Space Force has a group of gamers of who actually know what that means. The response is led by Stone, a disgraced SEAL, on the ground and Hale, a female pilot in space who share their POV in alternating chapters. They are assisted by Gerty, a series of robots that would make Lisa from Weird Science proud. Unfortunately Gerty is about as realistic as Lisa, so there’s no robotics teachable moments here. Lots of sophomoric humor (penis jokes, poop), LOTS- can’t emphasize that enough, with a spate of Dennis Miller worthy cultural references from the 80’s on to the current administration. Even better, it’s not really GameLit- Robinson explains the video gaming conventions bounding the aliens’ attack. The humor isn’t mean spirited and occasionally it’s ROFL. What else would you expect when the Audible version displays a picture of Jeremy Irons for Robinson’s bio head shot?

Space Force is fast moving, lots of action, and entertaining—it’s not brilliantly funny like The Murderbot Diaries but you gotta have something to listen to while doing chores.