Voice, narration and structure: ?/9.
Plot, suspense and climax: ?/9.
Dahl, a newcomer to the spaceship The Intrepid, found that some bizarre events was happening around him:
- His colleagues kept avoiding certain high-ranking officials.
- His coworkers always disappeared before those officials showed up, leaving him to deal with ridiculous tasks assigned by the officials.
- His coworkers kept asking the protagonist some strange questions and offered weird instructions about these officials.
- These impossible tasks could be solved by a magical machine and all the work the protagonist required to finish was to spout some gibberish to accentuate the officials’ intelligence.
- A wraith turned up suddenly to warn him to keep away from the bridge.
- A crewman, illogically thinking it safe to cling to Kerensky, ultimately ended up getting himself killed.
- Kerensky recovered quickly with an aberrant speed despite his frequent close calls.
So one day the protagonist couldn’t help but inquire of his coworkers of these events. They told him that the wraith was called Jenkins, a programmer who had built a illegal system of alerting coworkers to those officials who always brought bad luck to staff around them.
Out of curiosity, the protagonist decided to investigate Jenkins and Kerensky for the truth behind the abnormalities.
( After finishing chapter 6, I realized I was not this book’s target reader: I can tolerate Star Trek’s horrible science owing to its magnificent plot and splendid characterization. But obviously, this satire didn’t possess any considerable advantages over them. By teasing these flaws while, at the same time, committing the same nasty flaws, the work seemed doomed to be mentioned as the mere accessory to some TV shows—good only for temporary amusement. )