Million mile road trip Novel

Rudy v. B. Rucker, 1946-

Book - 2019

When a seemingly-innocent trumpet solo somehow opens a transdimensional connection to Mappyworld, a parallel universe containing a single, endless plain divided by ridges into basin-like worlds, three California teens find themselves taken on a million mile road trip across a landscape of alien civilizations in a beat-up, purple 80s wagon . . . with a dark-energy motor, graphene tires and quantum shocks, of course. Their goal? To stop carnivorous flying saucers from invading Earth. And, just maybe, to find love along the way. Million Mile Road Trip is a phantasmagoric roller-coaster ride--mind warpingly smart and wildly funny, with a warmly beating heart.

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Subjects
Genres
Science fiction
Road fiction
Published
New York : Night Shade Books [2019]
Language
English
Main Author
Rudy v. B. Rucker, 1946- (author)
Edition
First Night Shade Books edition
Physical Description
469 pages : illustrations ; 19 cm
ISBN
9781597809917
9781597809924
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Zoe and Villy are high-school seniors with no plans, so they decide to run away in Villy's purple station wagon days before graduation. But just as they're about to hit the road, Zoe plays a solo on her trumpet that accidentally opens a portal to the flat, alien dimension called Mappyworld. Two aliens cross over and inform Zoe that she and Villy need to travel a million miles through Mappyworld to help prevent an alien invasion on Earth. With Villy's younger brother in tow, they embark on a dangerous road trip across surreal realms of this foreign dimension. As the group picks up strange alien passengers along the way, they learn more about the war developing between vampiric flying saucers and all other conscious life forms that threatens to spill over onto Earth. Zoe also slowly begins to realize that her crackpot father didn't just disappear after her parents' divorce; he's been living in Mappyworld with her half-sister, Maisie, orchestrating Earth's salvation. Rucker's book is a fast-paced, absurd, and entertaining road trip through a fever dream and that's a good thing.--Rachel Colias Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Tipping his hat to Thomas Pynchon, Jack Kerouac, and Douglas Adams, Rucker (Return to the Hollow Earth) immerses readers in a fantastical roadtrip adventure that's a wild ride of unmitigated joy. Zoe Snapp, soon to graduate from Los Perros High (in a thinly veiled version of Los Gatos, Calif.), convinces her surfer crush, Villy Antwerpen, to take her on a trip in his 1980s beater wagon. Zoe plays a strange trumpet riff that inadvertently opens a tunnel through which two friendly aliens emerge, ready to soup up their vehicle for a trip through "mappyworld," a parallel universe in which the planets of our "ballyworld" are replaced by basins. Living flying saucers are intent on invading Earth so they can eat the "smeel," or consciousness-stuff, of all of its inhabitants; to defeat them, Zoe and Villy must roam through mappyworld and collect the tools that they and Villy's kid brother, Scud, will need to be the heroes of a "cosmic beatdown." Rucker populates this story with boldly surreal, humorous personalities and environments and moves it at a frenzied, ever-increasing pace. Before it all falls apart, he ties everything together with internal consistency, playful use of language that keeps his ideas alien yet accessible, and a solid grounding in fourth-dimensional math. This wacky adventure is a geeky reader's delight. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved