‘The Sheriff of Yrnameer’ farging funny

  Cole knows the wheels are off his wagon when he finds himself hanging from the tentacle of an alien bounty hunter named Kenneth.
  “Kenneth, seriously, you don’t want to lay your eggs in my brain.”
  Kenneth, who was dangling Cole upside down by one leg, said, “Stop squirming, Cole. You’re making this very difficult.”
  Kenneth had a truly wonderful voice — cultured, warm, soothing.
  “I don’t mean to be a scold, Cole,” he said in that voice, “but you shouldn’t gamble if you can’t pay your debts.”
  “Kenneth, I can’t even begin to tell you how well I’ve learned that lesson,” said Cole. “In fact, I — whoaa! Is that your ovipositor?!”
  “Mm-hmm. Oh, come now — you don’t have to make faces.”
  “No, no, it looks fantastic — have you had work done?”
  “Nope. Just clean living. Hold still, please.”
  Cole manages to escape Kenneth’s ovipositor, and he steals a high-tech spaceship — only to find it loaded with freeze-dried orphans and a couple of relief workers who are accompanying the children to Yrnameer (your name here), the last planet without a corporate sponsor.
  Cole doesn’t have a lot of options with Kenneth still hot on his trail. Though not a humanitarian, he decides to ferry the kids to the mysterious planet, but little does he know that Yrnameer isn’t the utopian hideout he hopes to find.
  “The Sheriff of Yrnameer” by Michael Rubens is hilarious, and readers will enjoy stumbling across references to such sci-fi classics as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Star Wars” and, of course, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
  With a cast of quirky characters and its own language, including creative swear words, “Yrnameer” certainly is reminiscent of other genre favorites. There’s a surprise or a laugh on every page, making this witty space caper one sci-fi fans shouldn’t farging miss.