Grease Monkey - Hardcover

Eldred, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765313251 ISBN 13: 9780765313256

Publisher: Tor Books, 2006

Synopsis

Caught in the crossfire of an interstellar war, our Earth was bombed to flinders--and then repaired. The mysterious alien Benefactors who healed the planet also offered "uplift" to our dolphins and gorillas. The dolphins turned them down. The gorillas said yes. As a result, we're now sharing our world with language-using, tool-making simians. Tensions are inevitable, in both directions, but it's gradually working out.

Decades later, teenage cadet Robin Plotnik has been assigned to Fist of Earth, a defense station high above Earth, keeping watch against further attacks by the interstellar Horde. Robin's a spacecraft mechanic-in-training, apprenticed to Chief "Mac" Gimbensky, a cranky but basically benign gorilla with issues of his own.

Fist of Earth is a challenging place to grow up. Robin and Mac maintain fighter craft for the all-woman "Barbarian Squadron", which constantly competes for prestige with the other squadrons based on Fist of Earth. Robin's trying to romance a young librarian, and he's far from sure he knows what he's doing. Most of all, he's constantly struggling to figure out his moody, mercurial boss.

Then he and his best friend become entangled in a burgeoning scandal over betting on the squadrons' standings. And just when things look like they've hit rock bottom, the worst thing imaginable arrives at Fist of Earth: an efficiency expert from Earth, determined to reorganize Robin's hard-won life, and the whole squadron system, out of existence.

Fresh and engaging, crammed with likeable characters and science-fictional inventiveness, Grease Monkey is like a classic "Heinlein juvenile" in sequential-art mode.

Introduction by Kurt Busiek, author of Astro City

About this title

About the Author

Author and artist Tim Eldred lives in San Diego, California.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Grease Monkey

"Believable characters, good writing, humor and excitement. Who could ask for more?"
--Trina Robbins

"Delightful science fiction with a sense of humor, Grease Monkey is an all-ages series that doesn't write down to its readership--and that's much more rare than it should be."
--Comic Shop News

"What snuck up on me over the years was just how much is actually going on in this series. What I thought of as a loose string of stories--almost a sitcom set on a space station--was turning out more and more to be a single work, more ambitious, more structured and deeper than I'd realized. This wasn't a series, it was a novel--an episodic novel, to be sure, but a novel nonetheless."
--Kurt Busiek, author of Astro City

Reviews

Grade 7 Up–Cadet Robin Plotnik is assigned to work under Mac Gimbensky, feisty ace mechanic for a crack squadron of pilots preparing for the return of extraterrestrials whose first attack eliminated 60 percent of human life. Mac is a gorilla, one of millions that were accelerated with rapid evolution in order to replenish Earth's defensive numbers, should the attackers return. Through Robin's introduction to Mac, readers learn about the workings of the space station and the future world in which the stories take place. The original comics collected here were published by three different companies over the course of 10 years. What's remarkable is that the presentation retains a focus and a consistency throughout that period. The occasional broad humor lacks punch, and the 12-page stories partially limit the canvas upon which the characters can develop. That said, the short cadence of the chapters does leave readers desiring more, and so the book quickly becomes a compelling, addictive read. The lack of depth with which the high concept of human/gorilla relations and the characters' emotions are explored prevents the story from moving beyond a well-constructed spectacle. However, most teens will be unlikely to notice, as it is both enjoyable and emotionally effective.–Benjamin Russell, The Derryfield School, Manchester, NH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 9-12. This sizable chunk of a read is a practical lesson in effectively combining such disparate genres as sf, coming-of-age drama, comedy, and romance. Arriving aboard the space station Fist of Earth, Robin Plotnik is apprenticed to Mac, superevolved simian mechanic for the Barbarian Squadron, an all-female team of space-fighter jockeys running combat maneuvers as they await their impending call to war. The evolving story contains trenchant commentary on racism, politics, animal rights, dating, family, loyalty, and the importance of books, and while its length may prove intimidating at first, the identifiable characters and the depth of the insights add up to something greater than the sum of the individual episodes--a rare commodity in graphic novels: wisdom. Eldred's character art serves the lighthearted tone well, while his beautifully designed and detailed spaceships make his obvious interest in aerospace technology absolutely contagious. An occasional burst of adult language ("You son of a . . . .") and a rather unflattering depiction of a librarian may give a few readers pause. Jesse Karp
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0765313251
• ISBN 13: 9780765313256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352