Starrigger

Skyway #1

by John DeChancie

Independent space trucker Jake McGraw, accompanied by his father Sam, who inhabits the body of truck itself, his "starrig," picks up a beautiful hitchhiker, Darla, and a trailer-load of trouble. One of the best of the indies, Jake knows a few tricks about following the Skyway, which connects dozens, or maybe hundreds, of planets. Nobody knows how many and nobody really knows the full extent of the Skyway and much of it remains unexplored. But, somehow, a rumor gets started that Jake has a map for the whole thing and suddenly everybody wants a piece of an alien race called the Reticulans, the human government known as the Colonial Assembly, and a nasty piece-of-work called Corey Wilkes, head of the wildcat trucker union TATOO. No matter what Jake does, no matter how many twists and turns he makes, he can't shake any of the menaces on his tail. The Starrigger series, continues with Red Limit Freeway and concludes with Paradox Alley.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Space Opera, Space, Aliens, Science Fiction Fantasy

264 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1983

About the author

From his website:
John DeChancie is the author of over two dozen books, fiction and nonfiction, and has written for periodicals as widely varied as Penthouse and Cult Movies. His novels in the science fiction and fantasy genres have been attracting a wide readership for more than fifteen years, and over a million copies of his books have seen print, many in foreign languages.

John's first work was Starrigger (Berkley/Ace ,1984), followed by Red Limit Freeway (1985) and Paradox Alley (1987), completing the Skyway Trilogy, one of the most imaginative, mind-expanding series in science fiction. Beloved of SF readers around the world, the trilogy has become a cult classic. It is no exaggeration to say that the trilogy has found a place in the hearts of readers along with the works of Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke. Jerry Pournelle, co-author with Larry Niven of the classics The Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer, has compared the series to the best of A. E. van Vogt, and better written. The convoluted plot takes the reader on a mind-bending journey to the end of the universe and back.

His humorous fantasy series, beginning with Castle Perilous, became a best seller for Berkley/Ace. William Morrow published MagicNet, which Booklist said was "a welcome sigh of comic relief ... shamelessly droll, literate, and thoroughly entertaining. Magicnet is the fantasy genre's whimsical answer to Neuromancer." He has also written in the horror genre. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and in numerous original anthologies, the latest of which is Spell Fantastic. His story collection, Other States of Being, was recently published by Pulpless.com, Inc., an online and print-on-demand publisher.

He currently lives in Los Angeles and is at work writing novels, articles, short stories, and screenplays. His latest book was the short story collection THE LITTLE GRAY BOOK OF ALIEN STORIES published by Borderlands Press. John's most recent short story publication was in the original anthology SPACE CADETS, edited by Mike Resnick and published by LAcon IV, the 64th World Science Fiction Convention. The book was published in both limited and trade hardback editions. The book is available here . He has just completed a mystery novel and information on this new book (something different from anything he has ever written) is forthcoming. He will also have two new film articles in the second big issue of the new cult film magazine MONDO CULT, also forthcoming.

Reviews

[Ethan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starrigger is the first book in John DeChancie's Skyway Trilogy, and was a nominee in 1984 for the Locus Award for Best First Novel. It's set in the future, 2106 to be exact, and in this book mankind has access to something called the Skyway, which is basically an extensive roadway system built in space by an alien civilization that is thought to be long-extinct. There are portals along the road that will fast-track you to other planets, but as the system was built by an extinct civilization no one really knows how it works; there are things called "potluck portals" that have never been explored and may be one-way trips for those daring to enter them, there are "Skyway Patrol" cars, automated vehicles built by the alien civilization, that will vaporize you if you block traffic on the road and generally keep order on the Skyway, and so on.

However, despite the unknowns, the Skyway obviously has tremendous benefits, opening up easy and quick access to many previously unreachable worlds, creating entirely new industries and interplanetary trade, and so on, and so of course mankind has mass-adopted its usage. There are two main trucking/transport companies in this future, the Starriggers Guild, headed by the protagonist Jake McGraw, and its rival TATOO, led by Jake's nemesis Corey Wilkes. Skyway legend has it that an artifact exists called a "Roadmap", which outlines all the portals and pathways of the still largely unexplored Skyway. Whoever possesses such a map would be at a great strategic advantage, knowing where every potluck portal goes and ultimately where the Skyway extends to. Rumour on the "skyband" is that Jake has somehow come into possession of a Roadmap, and some people will kill to get it from him...

That's the general setup and plot of the book. Sadly, I didn't enjoy Starrigger for the most part. The writing was pedestrian at times, and at others was outright bad. The book has an excellent premise, and in the hands of the right author I think such a fantastic idea, with such a broad, universe-spanning scope as Starrigger could have become a space opera to rival Star Wars. But it's apparent early on and throughout the book that John DeChancie isn't the right author; descriptions of settings, vehicles, characters, and pretty much everything are very superficial, and there's virtually no world-building to be found in these pages.

You can't just ride a brilliant premise and setup to success; the execution matters. If you execute in a superficial, two-dimensional way, you can't expect readers to have a great reading experience. That's just not how it works. Great works of science fiction combine a brilliant premise with vibrant, three-dimensional characters the reader can get invested in, and Starrigger never achieved that for me. I didn't care about any of these characters, and due to lack of description I didn't even know what the truck/rig, which was a main character throughout the book, even remotely looked like, so in my mind I ended up imagining it looking like the truck from the cover art! That is just sad.

There are also long stretches of this book where absolutely nothing happens, and I've never read a book in my life that had a huge chase scene that actually bored me, but now I have. To add to that, when the book wasn't boring me, it was confusing me; DeChancie puts forward the concept that you can go into some portals and end up back where you started, and now there's somehow two of you and it's a Paradox, but he doesn't explain it very well, and then some of the characters are double agents in seeming schemes within schemes...trying to double-cross this guy or that organization, but they're also really working for the government and so they actually a good guy, but wait they're really more like a bad guy but they're kinda good, and sometimes you want to shoot them but then in the next scene they're your best friend...ugh. It was just tiring after a while. And it made no sense at all.

To be fair, I did enjoy parts of the book, and I think DeChancie's descriptions of a climate-change-ravaged 2106 will bear out to the point that this book will be considered eerily prescient in the far future. If I had to summarize Starrigger, I would do so as follows: Brilliant concept, poor execution. Before I read this book, I bought book two, Red Limit Freeway. The final two books in this series get higher ratings on Goodreads than book one, so I'll definitely check out the second book and see if there's an improvement, but I do so a bit grudgingly, and I will definitely avoid book three if things don't significantly improve in this series.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fabulous, yet no one believes me. Maybe because of the cover, but also probably because it's a quest novel without a real quest, it has a villainous organization that only shows up at the start and the very end, it is full of really stupid jokes and time paradoxes. Not only that, but there's a slew of alien races, evil highway patrol cars that blast people to bits, a 60s car that is also a space ship (for lack of a more precise description), and it's part one of a trilogy!
I loved it.

Jake is a believable, fun character, though we don't learn a lot about his background to make him fully fleshed out in the sense of his motivations. The same with all the characters really. Darla is a tough, intelligent woman comfortable in her sexuality and with herself, but she doesn't really have a perspective. The other characters are just kinda there, but for some reason it worked for this story. It reads like a really fun action sci-fi movie (like the new Star Trek movies) but does lack in character development.

This novel might also be annoying to people because it does the "quick explanation" for everything. And not just the plot, but why Jake's dad's personality is in his space truck for example - we are given a very vague and pseudo-scientific explanation for this and that's that. But I actually prefer this in most of the sci-fi I read. If there's no explanation at all I'll be annoyed, but if I'm given something plausible I will accept it. But if the author gets too deep into the physics or actual science of something I get bored. Oh, aliens created this weird super space highway? Sure, sounds good. Oh, the engine in your space ship functions based on the series of dark matter reactions linked to ... YAWN.

Yet ... despite its flaws, this novel is SO MUCH FUN. SO MUCH. I wish there were a bigger way to emphasize... SO MUCH FUN ... there we go. Basically Jake starts off on his journey with a random hitchhiker, a gun fight and then he's off on the weird alien space highway, jaunting around to crazy places that are just a blast to read about. I just adore this novel and have ordered the other 2 from Amazon.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starrigger is the first book of the Skyway trilogy and was DeChancie's first published novel. It's a fun and fast-paced space-opera adventure, with the neat twist that the orientation and culture of the interstellar travel is based on long-distance highway truck drivers, not space cadets zipping about in rocket ships. It's not a great novel; the characterization is a little slim, and there are long stretches where not much happens to advance the plot (which is perhaps typical of a long-distance haul? Hmmm...), but it's a fun story. The story follows Jake, his unlikely navigator (the computer companion who was formerly just his Dad), a perky and friendly hitchhiker named Darla, and their trials and tribulations to keep the business afloat despite problems raised by such as the evil rival Tatoo and the nasty Reticulans. And then there's the roadmap to the end of the universe... or is there? It's a fun, clever romp. Your soundtrack options include Deep Purple and C.W. McCall. The Ace edition came out with one of James Gurney's best non-dinosaur covers.

[Jacob Proffitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this series probably a dozen times since it came out, having found it close enough to publication that I remember having to wait for the third one, though not for long (fortunately because that's a three year publication gap and I'm very glad I didn't have to white knuckle it). It is an old love that has stood the test of time better than most from that era, particularly sci-fi.

This is a twisty tale with a unique sci-fi conceit and a time paradox/mystery plot that pulls me in immediately every time. The background is that humans found a big old road on Pluto once we got close enough to see it and that road had a couple of pillars that connect that planet to others in the galaxy. So at least part of the mystery is who built that infrastructure and why. Jake, our hero, is a bit of a blue-collar philosopher nerd who is happy to speculate, but also has a job to do hauling cargo and shepherding his haulers union/guild along against the big bad corrupt organization he is competing with. And we start with him picking up a pretty hitchhiker who is very sorry she snuck away from him earlier. Problem is, he knows he has never met her before.

And it isn't long before Jake finds himself the object of intense scrutiny amid rumors that he has that most fantastic of objects imaginable, an actual roadmap. Humanity has its Cluster (or Maze depending on how colloquial we're being) but exploring is hazardous because not all routes have a loop-back. Along the way, he picks up some friends, random passengers, a cute alien who is probably sapient, and a kid whose background may be even more screwy than his is—after all, it's not every day you see an ancient souped-up chevy blitzing past you on the alien roadway.

It's a lot of fun action and the bit of a noir detective tone in Jake's inner dialogue is amazingly fun. It does a fairly good job divorcing from its published timeframe by making the technology sufficiently advanced that it still seems super-futuristic with only a few things that threw me out of the story when they came up. Like all the smoking. And nobody seems to have a personal communicator/phone/camera. There were a couple times I'm all, hey, why don't you capture that with a pic and you'll be able to show your friends instead of describing it or making a quick sketch. And the only really bad female depiction is Susan who seems to be in emotional override all the time, though at least that isn't generalized as a female thing so much as a "not quite stable person" thing.

One thing DeChancie got very right is projecting a whole new slang lexicon in this future based on the way things have changed in a galaxy connected by a giant road network. It's the right mix of unique and interesting without larding it up all over the place. A nice balance that's a lot harder than he made it seem.

So yeah, this is still an easy five stars. I gulped it down just as eagerly today as I did nearly forty years ago when I first read it. Gads. Can it be that long, really?

A note about publishing and stuff: This book is incredibly hard to get hold of. It was fairly popular at the time, but it doesn't seem to have much in the way of extra print runs. Since its popularity has legs (i.e. it seems fairly popular even today) the combination of limited supply and steady demand makes it really hard to get hold of. There is a recent republication in trade paperback. It seems expensive (because it is). I have no idea if it's any good. There's also an eBook. Which is what I picked up. It's a very crappy OCR conversion, though, with many words obviously mangled from a scan of a worn copy. Example, there are multiple places where "the" came through as "me". It's very bad in the first couple of pages but crops up a couple of times per chapter. Plus, there are blanks where graphics would have been, like, for example, where a diagram that would have been on the stick shift of the souped-up chevy. Seriously, this is a scandalously crappy eBook conversion. I kind of want heads to roll, particularly if this is someone's first experience with the story and they're stuck with this crappy half-assed tragedy. If you can, hunt down one of the original print run with the cover displayed on this review. They're hard to find, but not impossible and well worth it even if not in the best condition.

A note about Steamy: The era this was written was just before the bottom fell out of the free love era, so the characters are more than happy to cozy up with each other. Jake attaches strongly to Darla and there are shenanigans. Not a ton of explicit content, but enough to justify the steam tag, though at a very light degree for my steam tolerance.

[Paul Fergus · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover, with the futuristic truck driving next to the classic red Chevy, is the best part of the book. Truckers in space with a hint of classic Americana? Sounds groovy!

Alas, there's not much going on inside. Jake, the interstellar space trucker and his computer truck pal Sam make for pretty bland characters. And they're the most interesting of the cast. Everyone else is plain crazy random, a satellite character, or a plot device.

The setting is more interesting. An alien super-race left behind a bunch of self-repairing roadways connected by stargates that allow vehicles to teleport from one planet to another over vast distances. Humans are busy colonizing the galaxy using this network, running into other more mundane aliens and connecting trade through space trucks called "starriggers".

It's that old classic "industry expands into space" trope that's been done to death. Earth is basically a polluted, resource extracted shell everyone is happy to vacate in order to do the same thing to an endless amount of other worlds. Even in 1983 science fiction writers understood well that the earth was full, they just didn't ever imagine a futuristic world in which we never leave the planet.

Reality can go hang though. You can still have fun imagining truckers across the stars right? Well, the situation gets pretty crazy convoluted and hard to follow really fast. Good ol' Jake gets himself stuck in the middle of a mysterious situation involving that classic standby McGuffin--the lost map.

Because of the nature and complexity of the interstellar highway system, no one has a master map of all the portals and roads. So if one actually existed it would speed up the conquest of the galaxy and allow mankind to take over even more places in space. Think of the resources ripe for the plunder! The indigenous non-persons who could be exploited goes off into infinite territory, woot!

There's an enigmatic dame of course, and a ruthless gangster, and a corrupt policeman, and double crosses, and chases, and aliens with funny speech patterns. There's even time travel and that whacky idea called the paradox. It's a 'catch the pigeon' mystery, with everyone chasing Jake to get their hands on the map. Except none of it really makes sense until Jake takes a narration time-out to explain it to you.

Ugh, half the time isn't even spent in Sam the starrigger. There's all sorts of boring detours that lead to zero character development and action sequences that feel pretty much ridiculous rather than dangerous.

Probably the most exciting part of the book is when Jake and his friends steal this magic super power car and it turns out to be the Batmobile on steroids. Screw the crummy space truck, that antique Chevy should have been the vehicle Jake traveled in. I thought the book was about to finally get going.

Nope.

This is why the book fails--bad choices. The writer attempts too much in a short space of time instead of sticking to essentials. You don't really have anything going on. Where's the fun? The sense of disorientation at switching cultures and languages? The danger of being caught or taking a wrong turn?

The conflict between Jake, with his barely-hanging-on guild of independent truckers, and the gangster Wilkes trying to swallow everything up is more than enough. Instead, the antagonist's motivations grow so tangled and epic in scope as to lose all believability. What was he trying to do again? I still don't know.

What did the protagonist want again? He sure went through a lot of motions from place to place, but despite his actions and being privy to his inner dialogue, I still have no idea who he is.

Oh well, cool cover.

[Michelle Graf · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an American trucker's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. More action, some sex. Not as funny or charming. The idea of the setting is fascinating, and the end was exciting, but getting there meant a lot of exposition that kinda went over my head. This is a book I'd recommend to my dad, if he didn't already read it when it first got published in the 80s.

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

First: Beware the Goodreads summary doesn't match the book as of this review.

A very curious book and I highly enjoyed it. The premise is almost silly, the idea of a long gone race having created a series of skyways (essentially roadways) on various planets interconnected to other planets on other stars through special gates. Various races have found this system which usually doesn't run through a planet inhabited by one of the races but on a nearby planet. No one seems to know the full extent of this system, only the local neighborhood, and there are suggestions that some of the gates may go as far as other galaxies or may even shift into different times.
I normally wouldn't go so much into the setup in detail, but the premise is extraordinary and even a little silly. Anyway our hero has a problem. He is a well known trucker with an advanced technology truck, necessary for travel on all these different worlds, and finds people after him for a map of the skyways that he doesn't yet possess. He surmises he will discover in future adventures and then come back to this time frame. The action is fun, clever and fast and thoroughly enjoyable with many interactions in alien worlds.
As I said, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this story written originally in 1983. When I first started reading I didn't appreciate this is part of a trilogy, but will definitely read the second volume now.

[Elliott Baez · Rating 2 out of 5]

So the Concept was nice. A rationale for an interstellar highway in which trucks actually made sense (even if fusion powered and capable of Mach 0.45 or so).
The Plot suffers from mishandling time travel. Paradox is not a plot point, but a Deus Ex Machina which we criticize the ancient Greeks for using. The Universe building a new book requires can take a lot of pages, and by the end of the book we had a Universe, but not much of a plot beyond the endless chase.
At this point, I can't make myself interested enough to read book two and three.

[Bob Phule · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books. Starrigger. Jake is an interstellar trucker who picks up a hitchhiker and things go bad, as you would expect. Most of the interstellar roadway is unmapped and of course he heads off the map to shake those after them, Jake, the truck and the hitcher.

Book two, Red Limit Freeway. Book three, Paradox Alley.

[kesseljunkie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s fine? The type of harmless pabulum that’s unnecessarily complex and charmingly forgettable. I mean no disrespect to the author, and recognize there are plenty who enjoy it.

While I didn’t hate it, it’s just the novel equivalent of a “popcorn movie.” I don’t have interest in a sequel and I won’t go out of my way to recommend it.

[Justin Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, imagine that you are a big-rig trucker. Now imagine that the highway you travel on is an intergalactic road the runs through countless planets and satellites in faraway galaxies, connected by a series of Einstein-Rosenberg portals generated by cylinders created by a long forgotten ancient civilization. Your big rig is a specially made terrain vehicle designed to withstand a variety of different biomes and conditions with a copy of your late father’s personality and perhaps soul serving as the AI. This is the world of Jacob “Jake” Paul McGraw, the main protagonist of Star Rigger. Star Rigger is a science fiction novel that is very reminiscent of the pulpy style of fiction published in magazines during the early 20th century. Thus the premise is a simple one: during a delivery, Jake picks up a hitchhiker, a woman named Darla who apparently knows him intimately but whom Jake has never seen before this moment. This sets off a series of misadventures where Jake has to deal with a rival delivery service, human hunting aliens resembling insects, and government conspiracies. All trying to get a mythical map to the labyrinthian roadway that Jake supposedly has, yet does not have. What I like about this premise is that it is in many ways a twist on the classic noir stories where a femme fatale comes into the main protagonist life and flips it upside-down by her mere presence. In many ways, Darla does conform to this trope: from the mystery that surrounds her in regards to her somehow knowing Jake without him knowing her, to the hidden talents and gadgets in her bag only intensifies her mystique. And yet unlike other femme fatale, she actually does care for Jake, saving him several times throughout the story. And she is much more prominent in the story than a traditional femme fatale.

In a similar vein, Jake is reminiscent of a classic pulp hero but with a few twists. He is much more of an everyman rather than hard-boiled type that pulp novels tend to revolve around. Even his career choice as a ‘trucker’ and president of a nearly bankrupt guild of ‘star truckers’ betray the idea of him being a regular person. And yet, he is able to hold his own against the myriad of people searching for him, be they human or not. He is also shown to be a protector of people who cannot defend themselves, and while some of his flaws do come to light throughout the story(he can be shown to be a flirt at times), he is a character that anybody can relate to. Compare this to one of the main antagonists of the book, Corey Wilkes. Rich, powerful, highly arrogant owner of a rival delivery service. He is the perfect foil to Jake in many ways. Unfortunately, he does not play as big of role in the story as he should.

One of the biggest flaws in this story is the fact that the story at times feels quite rudderless. While the story is fast paced, the story does feel more like a series of misadventures rather than having a concrete beginning, middle, and end. And while some may not have issues with this due to it being the first novel in the series, the issue I have with this is the fact that given how the story begins, it needed a much more solid cohesive ending. As is, the ending is not bad, but disappointingly mediocre. As if missing something grand.

Still, this is a fun book and I would recommend reading it for the creative premise and characters.

[Wolverinefactor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book doesn’t just keep you hooked but it threads you along, allowing you to see glimpses of the bigger picture moments before the main character pieces it together. It’s creating the ah-ha! Moment without feeling predictable

[Shawn Fahy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had the book “Starrigger” by John DeChancie (1983) at the top of my “to read” list for a very long time now. I can’t recall where the recommendation came from and I took a long time to get it; when the library didn’t have Starrigger, I kind of put it on the back burner but not long ago I found a copy on Amazon for cheap and bought it.

A note on the book itself: it’s old enough that the pages are starting to yellow and it was printed in the same year that I was born. That doesn’t make me feel good…

The story is about Jake McGraw, an interstellar truck driver and his rig, Sam, which is imbued with the essence/personality/spirit(?) of Jake’s deceased father through alien AI technology. They pick up a hitchhiker, Darla, that Jake hasn’t met before but Darla greets him like an old friend. Jake and Sam play along while trying to figure out what is going on. As Jake runs into other characters, they relate to him that he’s being seen in places that he’s never been, doing things that he hasn’t done yet. It’s a time-travel paradox story, set in a futuristic galaxy that has been explored by man thanks to the Skyway, a road that is connected by a series of portholes or “toll booths” that allow travelers on the Skyway to instantly travel between planets that are light-years away. The Skyway is partially uncharted and was constructed by a mysterious alien race that may or may not even still exist. Jake is also being pursued by Wilkes, the head of a trucking company that doesn’t care for Jake’s competition, especially as his legend grows and grows thanks to the time-travel paradox. This culminates with everyone becoming convinced that Jake possesses a map of the Skyway, something that many are willing to kill to get their hands on. The problem is that Jake doesn’t have it… or does he?

The book is humorous and fairly well-written, not taking itself too seriously. The author has fun with the different worlds and the aliens that inhabit them. There’s gunplay and car stuff, adventure and intrigue, weird tech and unclear motivations. The 70’s and 80’s hero trucker trope, when applied to a sci-fi world, immediately sets the tone as a story that’s meant to be enjoyable rather than serious. A product of its time, the bad cop villain is a Russian, something that I also noticed in other sci-fi books written in this era.

The ending obviously sets things up for a sequel, which I might track down at some point. I had fun reading this one and so I’m inclined to give other works by DeChancie a shot.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This pulp sci-fi with an awesome cover reads like a product of its age. That age being the early '80s. But not always in the awesome way.

"Starrigger" has some really great worldbuilding elements. I love the idea of space trucks and the ancient, mysterious, alien-built roadway that they use to instantly blast between planets. I like stories that look at the future from an age before ubiquitous cell phones other modern tech, where the author has to come up with original inventions to do the things we take for granted. I liked the way the prose was a little bit cowboy and a little bit noir.

I didn't like that the plot was super convoluted, revolving around a mystery the protagonist himself didn't fully understand. It didn't take long before I was lost in a sea of human antagonists and alien bounty hunters that all started to blend together. By the end, when the bad guys were standing around revealing their master plan, I didn't really know who any of them were, or care.

On top of that, the book is cringingly sexist. I don't think the author is sexist, I think "Starrigger" is just the product of a different time, when it was status quo for pulp novels to be full of women who are defined by their beauty, get "hysterical" in a crisis, get naked at the drop of a hat, and are instantly considered potential sex partners, even if they're a random teenage parking attendant. I suspect this is a snapshot of a style that's fallen out of favor rather than a point of view promoted by the author.

At any rate, this book has a lot of interesting stuff to enjoy if you can get your hands on a copy.

[Daniel Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1980s sci-fi had a lot of unique ideas and was written in a way that was exciting and fun to read. Starrigger is the first in a series about an interplanetary road system connected by portals, both of which are built by a civilization nobody has ever met and who are believed to be extinct. Our main character is an irreverent, subtly brilliant truck driver. He's fun to be around, the narrator's descriptions of his thoughts are occasionally hilarious and usually relatable, and he is a guy who is easy to root for. This book centers around a paradox in the time-space continuum where the main character discovers himself in a sort of loop that may or may not be manufactured by business rivals, an overbearing Colonial Authority, or a vaguely-defined group of "dissidents." Or perhaps it's none of the above. There is surprising depth to this book, both within the characters themselves and the overall plot. The time-space paradox conundrum is handled artfully, and while I wish the book had given me a little bit more explanation, especially at the end, I understand why the author chose to instead build excitement for the next book and leave some things unanswered.

I recommend this book to fans of 80s sci-fi and shiny, action-filled interstellar plots. At times I wished the pacing was a little faster, and I occasionally had difficulty suspending disbelief for some of the more bizarre scenes. However, this book was always fun and I will certainly be going to the next one at some point, which is on my shelf right now.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on recommendation and just felt a bit tickled by the premise -- since it's not something I usually see -- and was immediately enjoying it for the oddball physics and the potential timey-wimey hijinks of an open-road (or road-galaxy) adventure.

About half-way in, I was thrilled to see it turn into Smokey and the Bandit with mach-speed racing.

The rest was pretty entertaining, with spies and betrayals and wacky religious people and hitch-hiking the starways.

I didn't realize how much I missed this crap until after I thought nobody wrote this kind of novel anymore.


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews is be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

[Aricia Gavriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a pleasure this book was -- am about to pick up Part 2 of the trilogy immediately! This is SF the way I like it, and I wish more similar fiction was written today. This one is about thirty years old now, and deChancie stopped this series with the trilogy ... dang, I could have read a lot more of this! The way I'm going, I'll be finished the whole thing in a week -- which is the only downside to something you're really enjoying: you finish it fast, and like everything in life, it ends.

Anyway, not to be glum about it, since I still have Parts 2 and 3 ahead of me. Add this one to my list of favorites ... add de Chancie to my list of favorite authors. How in the world did I not come across his work sooner?!

[Pack Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books I call a "check your brain adventure". I compare it to Brian Daley's Han Solo Star Wars books, E.E. "Doc" Smith books, Conan stories, Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc. It's fun. But it's not only that. There are some interesting ideas here. The concept of traveling everywhere by truck and not spaceship is interesting and explained very well. There's a big time travel element in the story. The characters are many, varied, and well fleshed out. I first read this when it came out in 1984 and loved it. I re-read it this year, and loved it again. The two sequels expand the concept of the Skyway in a very interesting way.

[Risa Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as good as I remembered...

Sometimes, the memories of a "good" book from our youth are distorted by great one liners or imagery of of a well described scene... Some good books are are the polar opposite! All of the one liners and imagery are held together with a truly unique, fast paced, and facinating plotline supported by a varigated cast of characters that have appropriate levels of development to keep it all flowing. Well done, Mr. De Chancie. This is not your only book that has stood the test of time! (Pun intended)

[Joseph K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book set in a really fun universe

This was a really interesting universe filled with interesting characters and very cool tech. The story was a bit convoluted, but that makes sense given the time travel type paradox involved for some of it. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the other stories in the series. Can’t wait to eventually meet the road builders. It will also be fun to get more info on the super car and its driver. I recommend this book.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

To think that I first read this book when I was 11 years old when I lost the book and found it again just now on Amazon. This book never really got the credit it deserves due to the fact that the cover instantly threw people off, but if they only knew the story within they would fall in love with not only the book and series but the author as well.

[Andria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Love Sci-Fi. What I don't like are CLIFFHANGERS!!! And rambling on and on with an increasingly convoluted time travel storyline that probably keeps on truckin to the end of the universe--but without yours truly--I'm done.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written science fiction novel with interesting characters and a good premise. At times, it seemed to me the author struggled to tell the story without introducing gaps, but perhaps these are explained in subsequent volumes.

[John B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars. Action-adventure science fiction that, were it a movie, could be described as a cross between Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Men in Black (1997). I will be reading the second book in the series.

[William E. Ferreira · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cross between James Bond and cheesy Sci-fi

If you have already read all the great Sci-fi books then you might want to take this on. Perhaps this is as strange as Q (played by DeChancie in Star Trek), maybe that's the purpose. If so, it's successful.

[Charl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. Very different, and seeming pretty well thought out. I'll be reading the next one. (There's no higher praise in my book.)

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quick pace kept me reading. The question of time-travel was very interestingly presented.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not amazing writing, but an entertaining book with an interesting premise.

[Rose Crooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun quick read

Fun book and series. My father read this to me years ago and I'm enjoying catching back up with it

[Jane Roxanne Beamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've reread this series of books a half dozen times. They are exciting and well thought out, and a highly entertaining read.