Hal Spacejock

By Simon Haynes

Book Overview

Clunk, a clapped-out robot, is convinced he's about to be junked. Instead, his penny-pinching boss is sending him off to be refurbished. Being old and wise, Clunk knows there's a catch, but at first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 192073189X
• ISBN13: 9781920731892
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Fremantle Press
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.0" x 4.5"

Customer Reviews

in a word "brilliant"

I thoroughly enjoyed the book as there are so many laugh-out-loud scenes in it (the Cigar lighting robot scene was a killer!). It's an easy and fast paced read that will leave a smile on the dial. If you like Pratchett then you'll love this stuff.

Robots, Trouble and Incompetence...

is what this book is about. Hal is incompetent, but a likeable guy (well, except to most women). Clunk is a robot, that tries his best to keep Hal out of trouble (but mostly does not succeed). And, of course, trouble happens about every page. This book is funny, easy to read, and a good story. It has not yet reached the classic status of Asimov's Robot stories (which were more serious in nature), but can approach Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series.

Funny SF is trickier than you think...

...but this book manages it. The humor is clever and sometimes subtle. The story starts pretty quickly, and flows smoothly the entire time with scarcely a break in the action the entire time. Best of all, the actual science fiction elements in the story are plausible, showing that the author has not only read some of the classics himself, but is paying attention to (and extrapolating from) what's going on in the world around him. I'm looking forward to reading the second book.

An entertaining read

All in all it was a great romp through a universe littered with spaceships, bad guys, intelligent computers and robots. I do feel that it started out a little slow, though this may be a "female" thing as the writer spent more time discussing the technicalities of spaceships and robots then I felt necesssary. That said, it did nothing but get better as it went along with whole story hitting its stride in the last third of the book. Loved Hal's "big dumb jock" luck--his ability to land on his feet with little regard for how it happened (More often than not, Clunk put him there). Lots of snappy, funny conversations and slapstick humor. Many moments had me chuckling and a few-laughing outloud. One of this book's best qualities is that it is squeaky-clean humor--I can let my sons read it and not have to worry about disturbing content or references to "adult activities". This alone puts this book on par with Terry Pratchett in terms of broad audience appeal. I cannot wait for the second book and third books in this series to find their way to the US.

Fast, smooth read and a fun science fiction adventure

Simon Haynes' "Hal Spacejock" was a darn good read. More importantly, it was something that I completely enjoyed reading, after a long time. What was interesting for me while reading the book was to note that I was hooked by the time I was barely a quarter of the way through the book. Usually, it takes me a while to be truly invested in a story. For instance, Terry Pratchett is my favourite author but the last few books by PTerry took me at least till the middle of the book before I was really engaged in the story - you know, the point of no return, where you get so hooked in the story that you cannot bear to put the book down. Am I saying that Simon is better than PTerry? Not really. (Sorry Simon :p) But I'm saying that Simon's style is very easy to read and to get into and that it is very different from that of Terry Pratchett - I enjoy books by both but I find that Simon's is a much more easier page turner for me a lot earlier on :) But I'm not going to compare one author to another, that's really not fair to either since each author has their own unique style and they bring completely different values and qualities to the table. Basically, I enjoyed the story. It came together well and by the time I completed it, I wanted to get my hands on the sequel, "Hal Spacejock: Second Course" and continue reading. That's all that any author can ask for, right? :)