Here is a quarterfinalist review for a full read for Team 1.21 Gigawatts for the first round of SPSFC#5 by team judge Archie Kregear. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.

Blurb

It’s one thing to know that the End is coming, quite another to know the exact date and time right down to the nanosecond.

Such is the unhappy fate of the inhabitants of Rexos-4, a once-thriving planet that has lived under the doom of an inevitable apocalypse for millennia. Their entire philosophy of life may be summed up by the phrase “Mxtlpicam’ bnak ooligapn,” which in most languages translates to something along the lines of “What’s the bloody point?”

Unbeknownst to the poor Rexans, their predicament has also been the subject of the longest-running and most successful reality television series in galactic history, now translated into over 200 million languages, with closed captioning. With the end of the world just around the corner, the show is entering its all-important final season. Everyone knows how difficult it is to pull off a satisfying finale–such stakes fill even the most hard-boiled Gallywood executives with fear and trembling.

Join Gumpilos Tfliximop, Elvie Renfro, Rufus Camford and a cast of colorful characters as they battle the notorious showrunner (and subverter of expectations) Betty Neezquaff, all while tackling the big questions of life’s meaning and purpose with wit, warmth, and–dare I say–optimism.

The Final Season is The Truman Show meets the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with just a dash of PG Wodehouse.

My review

The premise of The Final Season is simple. The galaxy has been watching a reality show, life on Rexos-4, for thousands of years and the planet is now faced with total extinction. What could be better for the corporation that produces the show than to get a last final season. Then, having two residents of Rexos-4 fall in love, get married, and have a child in spite of the impending doom. Add in lots of corporate drama with colorful characters and present them to the reader with a
writing style similar to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the book is highly enjoyable. The Hitchhiker’s Guide style isn’t maintained throughout as the story winds its way through the drama to the impending doom, which is a pity. The aliens, while not looking like humans, act like humans and left me with the feeling that the story was a familiar plotline set somewhere else in the galaxy. Overall, a well written fun read that lacks meaningful depth of plot.