Slaves of Spiegel: A Magic Moscow story

by Daniel Pinkwater

Steve Nickelson, his assistant Norman Bleistift, and the Magic Moscow restaurant are transported through space to compete in an intergalactic junk food cooking contest.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Childrens, Science Fiction, Humor, Science Fiction Fantasy

88 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Daniel Manus Pinkwater is an author of mostly children's books and is an occasional commentator on National Public Radio. He attended Bard College. Well-known books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. Pinkwater has also illustrated many of his books in the past, although for more recent works that task has passed to his wife Jill Pinkwater.

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Daniel Pinkwater crossover!
The much feared 'Fat men from outer space' are gathering the greatest junk food cooks in the universe to compete in an intergalactic cook off and of course they pick the crew from the Magic Moscow.

Hilarious and surreal bit of fun sci-fi. Mixes the very mundane with the fantastic.
The Magic Moscow books are my favorites of Pinkwater's writing. Wish he'd do more.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing moments can't sustain this odd lark of a story, about an eccentric restauranteur and his assistant being kidnapped by alien fat men to take part in a pangalactic cooking contest.

To be sure, this is every bit as anarchic and playful as the other two stories I've read by Pinkwater, but it never connects; perhaps this is the peril of the one-joke premise. There is only a very slight story in the midst of all this silliness, and there is scant characterization spared for any of the characters, save perhaps Sargon, the leader of the fat space pirates, who is a funny, lively creation.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, short book by the master of silliness. The master short order sloppy chef from Hoboken is kidnapped by fat men (aliens) and taken to Spiegel where he serves 11 million servings of his latest and greatest strange fattening concoction. Luckily for him he looses the contest that this was an entry for because the winner had to stay on Spiegel and serve sloppy food to the fat men for all eternity. The second place finisher just got some blue garlic and a free trip home!

[Leland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly and fun!

[Ray Charbonneau · Rating 1 out of 5]

Juvenile, not in a good way.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slender YA story from Pinkwater about an alien abduction and an interplanetary bake off. Fun, as always, but not as developed or intricate as his other YA novels.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chuckled through Slaves of Spiegel, finding the contest quite amusing, especially the description of some of the delicacies concocted in the name of food.