Space Captain Smith (1) (Chronicles of Isambard Smith)

This is a fun deadpan comedy book, which will net you plenty of wide grins, sly smiles and chuckles, even if no outright guffaws.Smart-eyed readers will find references to Firefly, the Matrix, Alien and a few others. One problem being is that if you don't get those references, you'll miss most of the wit. The idea here is a on the surface straight Space opera, right out of "Doc Smith", but with the pop culture and SF references providing the fun & humor. More of a pastiche than a parody, tho. Some prior reading of books with a hero from the British Public school system will also help.

The various other reviewers have done a perfectly satisfactory job of describing what this book is about, and it goes about what it is about about as well as necessary.The one warning I'd like to add is that the Kindle edition I read had been rather badly converted. All sorts of confusing scene changes appear between one paragraph and the next, and quite often in the middle of a paragraph. I've never seen the paper edition but I suspect that there was supposed to be some white space left to show the scene breaks, but many of them have been lost in conversion to ebook format. There are quite a few other artifacts that seem to indicate either a careless conversion or unusually poor editing of the original. I wish publishers would lavish a smidgeon more care in the production of their ebooks.

Captain Smith and his very odd crew are on a mission to save the universe for God and England, whether it wants it or not. He is given a mission to deliver a hippy, who may be magical, with a android who faked her paperwork as pilot and a crew made up of a single alien warrior and a closet of skulls on the worst ship in space. Two empires are out to stop him and it will take all his luck and Victorian sensibilities to deliver his cargo and ask her out. This as an enjoyable odd duck that borrows from dozens of sci fi tropes and blends them like a mad scientist to come up with something completely new. Take a chance on captain Smith.

If you have every asked yourself "Why is Blackadder in Space not yet a thing?" then this is the book for you. Lots incompetent, good-natured chauvinism, stiff (and mustached) upper lips, and a fair bit of sexual innuendo.It has a good deal of parody as well, taking swipes at Asimov, the Matrix, Blade Runner, and more. You don't have to be knowledgeable about major science fiction tropes and franchise to enjoy it, but it helps.

A wonderful SF steampunk tale of derring-do and great silliness. I was strongly reminded of the adventures of Retief, with a dash of Ruritania. The author has a very deft hand with the pastiches, homages, and movie references (the bit combining Casablanca with Blade Runner in less than a page was stellar, and should be awarded two ears and the tail.) I look forward to Captain Smith's further adventures and eventual hash-settling of the evil insectoid Number WhateverItIsNow.

Well, this is just splendid. Space Captain Smith ticks so many boxes for me; space and spaceships, military, (slightly) steampunk, victoriana, adventure, tea and best of all it actually made me laugh out loud. Very few books do that.I enjoyed this so much I've reread it several times, bought all the others in the series, reread them several times, and recommended it to everyone I know.Well written, bloody funny, with immensely appealing characters and a rollicking good storyline. One of my all time favourites.Read for: piss-funny space adventure, with tea. http://www.unassumingreader.com

This is the second kindle full price title I have bought recently that was so full of formatting errors that it interfered with enjoying the story (the other was the new and excellent Pratchett "snuff" where it was so bad I went and bought the real book) the problems are mostly running the paragraphs and dialog into each other making it hard to follow who is talking.... it is one thing to have bad formatting in a free or 99 cent book but not when you are dropping full price.This is a nice easy read and a bit of a modern take on the classic space opera so no real complaints about the story and I give the yarn 3 1/3 starsBut Amazon need to do something about the quality of their kindle formatting and assign someone to see that it matches the printed version I have not had these problems on the Apple Book store

FINALLY!!! Here is a GREAT Steampunk-ish series WITHOUT all of those silly glued-on gears and smokestacks! Yet there is still more than enough Stiff-Upper-Lip (or as much as ya can get with Tongue Firmly Planted In Cheek) Righteous Victorian British Imperialism to keep any die hard Cog-Boy feeling right at home. All while jokingly poking, prodding, razing, and kicking darn near all of the popular Sci-Fi icons firmly in the bullocks! = Most Definitely HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! = FIVE STARS (I'd give it TEN, but they only give ya five! LOL)

This is a review of the whole series of five books.As mentioned by other writers, the scenario is an SF comedy action-adventure set in a slightly steampunky Victorianesque 26th century. Captain Smith is an East Galaxy Company officer in the British Space Empire fighting against the Ghast ant-men (the Third Reich) and the Yull lemming men (WW2 Japan channeling the Aztecs).It follows in the vein of Red Dwarf and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, combining parody of and homage to many popular SF and children's TV, books and films including Bladerunner, The Matrix, Terminator 2, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Will o' the Wisp, Predator, Pirates of the Carribbean, Alien, The Clangers, Dune, Doctor Who, among others, and cultural tropes including film noire and French mime.There is a lot of fun in spotting these references though some of them probably will only make sense to British people over the age of 40. Much effort also has been put into the creation of puerile puns and innuendo and the series is all the better for it. While it won't win any literary prizes, the prose style contains some evocative similes and manages the inner voice very well.Captain Smith and his merry, dubiously competent crew and cast of assisting characters will lead you onward To Adventure with a good amount of sniggering and some LOL moments too.

Captain Isembard Smith is the idiot commanding officer of a decrepit old spaceship in the British Intergalactic Empire. He has strong Victorian values and outlook on life such as a very un-PC distrust of all things foreign (although his best friend is a 7ft tall, green, homicidal alien). His pilot is a pony-obsessed, escaped sex-android. They are sent under deep cover into enemy star space with inadequate support and little hope of success.This is a funny, page-turning yarn that takes the gentle mickey out of most science fiction that I've come across over the last 40 or so years. This is the first in the series; Space Captain Smith , God Emperor of Didcot (Space Captain Smith) , Wrath of the Lemming-men (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 3) (Space Captain Smith) , A Game of Battleships (Space Captain Smith) and, as might be expected, the books improve. The puns get worse, the jokes funnier and the baddies more evil and ridiculous.These books are crying out to be made into films - unfortunately, I suspect that if this happens, the dead hand of Hollywood will remove the wit, humour and obscure references to British cultural life and focus-group them out of all recognition.Read the books now before Hollywood ruins them. If you do, you can honestly say that the books are better than the film. Space Captain SmithGod Emperor of Didcot (Space Captain Smith)Wrath of the Lemming-men (Chronicles of Isambard Smith 3) (Space Captain Smith)A Game of Battleships (Space Captain Smith)

Space Captain Smith is an easy read, with plenty of groan out loud moments, and even the odd laugh out loud moments. Some of the jokes are really corny, and you can often see them coming from a mile away, but that's what makes this so much fun.If you like Pratchett and Adams then you will probaby enjoy this too - the humour is a similar style.Although it is a good book, the reading flow is spoiled by poorly placed the scene breaks - by this I mean a blank line or a seperator to show that you've jumped a few hours further into the story, or when the narrative switches viewpoint. Often they are missing and on occasion they are in the wrong place (a paragraph too early or a paragraph too late) and in either case it jolts the reader out of the narrative.This is a professionally published book and these issues are just plain sloppy. I want to buy the next book - the sense of humour is right up my street - but the prospect of encountering similar formatting problems is putting me off.

I chose this book because the blurb made it sound light hearted and fun and it is. The writer's style take a bit of getting used to. Very much in the style of early boys adventure books, all gung ho and everything for the EMPIRE! I never was really keen on that, even as a youth and that is a long time ago.Once you get hyour head round that it starts to be fun. One has to read the book carefully to get the best out of it because there are little twists and references that are really very funny but you have to be able to spot them. Some are just a play on words which are very subtle.As far as the story goes, quite fun with the amazing escapes and vanquishing of villains. I will read more from time to time.

To me it was a cross, between black adder, and, Hitchhickers guide to the galaxy. Cheered me up no end. PS, must be read with a good cup of tea,to hand.