Did TV writer/producer Michael Rubens know what he was doing when he decided to make his debut novel, THE SHERIFF OF YRNAMEER, a science-fiction comedy? You have to wonder. This tiny sub-genre is so dominated by the works of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett — and the wonderful, too-often-neglected Robert Sheckley — that you’d have to create something radically different to avoid looking like a pale imitation of these giants.
THE SHERIFF OF YRNAMEER is not radically different, and only mildly funny when Rubens doesn’t try so hard. It’s the story of Cole, a space rogue and part-time smuggler whose money and luck are running out. A monstrous alien bounty hunter is after him, and in desperation, he steals a space ship from a popular competitor and blasts off for parts unknown.
Soon, Cole discovers that his competitor was hired to transport a quarrelsome couple and their cargo of freeze-dried orphans to Yrnameer, one of the few remaining planets without corporate sponsorship. (The name is a contraction of “your name here.” Get it?) With no other means of income, and that bounty hunter still on his tail, Cole takes over the commission.
Meanwhile, a group of Bad Men terrorize the gentle inhabitants of Yrnameer, whose prayers are answered when a hero and his space ship literally falls from the skies. It’s Cole, of course, and the inhabitants immediately and unanimously elect him as their sheriff. But, not surprisingly, Cole is not sure he wants the job and all the responsibilities that come with it.
Rubens piles on the jokes hard and heavy in the novel’s opening scenes. But fortunately, the tasks of getting on with the story take over, and the humor becomes lighter and not as forced. The author deserves props for his vision of future commercialism gone mad, with dust motes sprouting up billboards and entire planets taken over by corporations. The scenes where a group of executives on a huge training satellite are turned into flesh-eating zombies by the implants in their heads are among the best moments in the novel.
Still, for all his efforts, Rubens serves up nothing that devotees, having so little to choose from in SF comedy, have not already read. It’s not that he’s shamelessly derivative as perhaps simply unaware that we’ve been there and read all that before he threw his book into the ring.
Who is likely to fully enjoy this debut? Obviously those who somehow missed out on Adams and Pratchett and Sheckley. Or those who don’t read much science fiction.
The rest of us should welcome Rubens to the neighborhood, but sit out his initial effort and wait to see if he can come with something, well, radically different. —Alan Cranis
Related posts:
- R.I.P. Robert Sheckley
- Forbidden Planets
- Double the Bounty / The Lawman
- Black Dawn
- SERIOUS ISSUES >> 8.21.09
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Cute how the cover is reacting to your review.
Any way to contact you about looking at a new book (a black comedy about God, space aliens, insanity and the quest for the Ultimate Orgasm)?
Commander: If you’re referring to the new one by Dan Brown, I think it’s already spoken for. (Just kidding!) But seriously, forward all such inquiries to the Editor.