Meet Floyd Watt: disgraced diplomat, journalist, television personality, a self-important, arrogant assh*le, who, in Crowley’s own words “thinks he’s an enlightened, progressive fellow who enriches the places he visits by his very presence”. He’s also the author of the extraordinary travel guide Notes from Small Planets. Extraordinary, because these destinations and hundreds of other planets have been accessible to us Earthlings only temporarily and this book is the sole witness of those glorious times.
In this small manual for the interstellar traveler, we accompany Floyd to eight (well eight and a half, to be strict) of these marvelous worlds:
- fantasy world Mittelvelde – encompasses places such as the cruel and grim Fysteros, Descensus where you can descend dungeons for all eternity and Syrillar, where the elves live;
- Eroica City – home to superheroes employed by various corporate companies for advertisement purposes as flying billboards and to baddies who, honestly, are somewhat more reasonable people (my personal favorite is the dastardly Gravy Jones who can shoot gravy from his hands, turn his blood to gravy to enter one of his famous rages and whose heart belongs to crime);
- the lore of pirates, Spume – hilariously dangerous, the chapter about Spume includes a short linguistic guide teaching you how to talk like a pirate and sheds light on the conflict between Watt and the infamous Council of Free Captains – CFC;
- Chugholme - a sort of industrial, steampunk London that Watt still pines for;
- the Sector of Pseudofictional Astro-Cultural Environments, aka SPACE; “The poor Space Men. Although I pity them, I truly loathe them.” Quote from Watt himself.
- Grondorra! - a Hyborian-Age-meets-Lovecraft kind of scary and cruel mythological place;
- the home to Wizardes, Mundania/Whimsicalia, will excite even the most unenthusiastic Harry Potter fans;
- and finally for those who want to taste life after civilization – Wasteland.
Since I have stated above that there are eight and a half destinations, now comes unavoidably West, the world for cowboys - sort of -, but you need to read it for yourself to understand why it only counts half.
Each destination is presented through the same grid structure of real travel guides, divided into criteria such as history (the bones of once-mighty civilisations lying atop one another in a planetary mass grave – Grondorra!), “Can’t Miss” experiences (includes dueling a dragon in Mittelvelde, battling a kraken in Spume, taking a giant leap for mankind in SPACE, ), wildlife (lupus bastardis, equus perfectus… etc), currency (bitten coins in Spume), fashion (tendencies such as the fetishizing of prosthetics in Spume – the most prominent example being the legendary Captain Jurgen Bunchfist who was "declared dead only a week after his shipmates realized they had replaced his last original body part with a block of wood"), best time to visit, bars and restaurants and so on. Scattered between these informative, pseudo-matter-of-fact parts there are small, charming personal reports written, believe it or not, not by Watt, but by people he encountered during his trips and transmitting their impressions of that particular planet:
“In me old job as a recruitment consultant, I were surrounded by complete bastards pretending to be reasonable people. Now, I be part of a crew o’reasonable people who spend all day pretending to be complete bastards.” – excerpt from Why my Heart Belongs to Spume by Sid Tidy, ship’s cook aboard the Gilded Gurnard.
“Now I stoke the boilers on Count Truckula, War Mum’s big big car, so the Wrench Ladies can eat’em up and build new trucks for Mum.” – excerpt from Why I Would Die for Wasteland by Beetle Man, Battle Lad of the Steel Castle.
“I ended up enslaved, chained to a millwheel for ten years, where I developed my astonishing physique. But it was not only my magnificent thighs that grew strong during that grueling decade: so too did my mind. I learned the error of trusting your friends – of trusting in anything except the steel in your own heart. Eventually I grew strong enough to break free, using the millwheel itself to crush my captors, and now I wander the world, using this mighty disc of stone to secure everything I desire. Life on Gondorra is what I make of it, and so life is good.” – excerpt from a testimonial from Janet the Batterer, Headwoman of the Crimson Jackals.
Let’s finally not forget editor Eliza Salt, the veritable salt and taste of this book! Eliza is basically the complete opposite of Floyd (a thoughtful, tactful human being who takes no shit from him) but is only present in the footnotes where she often adjusts, corrects and criticizes Watt’s faux pas. You see, Notes from Small Planets is an incomplete work- Watt has disappeared shortly after completing chapter eight and Eliza also went missing, leaving all kinds of unreplied, unfinished footnotes to be applied to the text before its intended publication. Having read the whole book, I actually have a hunch where they might be, but officially they are missing and this great work will sadly never be fully completed.
Nate Crowley never fails to amaze with intense imagination all the while leaving his readers in stitches. It is in times like ours, by that I mean times where we feel confined in a certain unpleasant situation that people like him can actually help you step out of your reality, that may or may not be scary or sad at the moment, and open your mind to genuine geek fun.
Enjoy the ride!
Thank you my favorite bookshop Otherland for providing me the review copy of this book. This review will be published in a slightly modified version in their November newsletter, don't miss it!
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