Darryl JW Temple, $2.99, ISBN 978-0-6451852-3-2
Sci-fi, 2022

The protagonist of Darryl JW Temple’s space caper Unbound yearns for the excitement of having all kinds of adventures in space.

“Simon Fox, twenty-two, born 2172 in Apollo city, Vesta Moon, Trappist F,” the avian says in one breath, leaning back in his chair. Then, with a deadpan expression asks, “Straight out of freighter school. You’re a thrill seeker then?”

Alas, he’s not good enough to graduate from freighter school, but hey, what’s a little harm in fudging his qualifications? Joining a space pirate crew on the ship Unbound is going to let him be the Long John Silver of the 22th century…

Oh wait, he’s nothing more than a glorified janitor and he has to share his bunk—on rotation, okay, so let’s not get too excited, people—with a guy that eats raw onions non-stop.

Is the excitement he is seeking ever going to come his way?

Okay, this is an alright story for something that the author admits in the afterword to be plotted on the fly, and I don’t have any issue with it except for one thing: Simon.

That fellow just won’t quit.

Every line from his mouth is a quip that the author clearly intends to be some wisecrack, but this only makes the fellow come off as a sociopath, or perhaps a demented fellow that is incapable of any human emotion.

This may be amusing for, say, three pages, but Simon’s terminal sass soon becomes insufferable and annoying, especially when the rest of the story could have moved to some place interesting if this fellow would just pause to catch his breath and let other people actually do something that isn’t playing the audience member to his one-man stand up comedy show.

As I’ve mentioned, this story isn’t bad for a half-baked potato kind of affair. It’s somewhat interesting and the cast of secondary characters are colorful. It’s just a big freaking shame that the obnoxious protagonist exists to suck all the oxygen in the room, so to speak, and denying the story any possibility of becoming more interesting.