Pirates of the Universe

Dreaming of living in the Disney utopian park, Pirates of the Universe, poverty-stricken Gunther Glenn is sent to Orlando and then into space as a Disney Ranger, where he is assigned the task of capturing Peteys, mysterious vacuum jellyfish whose skins have replaced gold and oil as currency

In Bisson's (Voyage to the Red Planet, 1990, etc.) medium/indeterminate-future, the war-torn Earth is depleted of resources, while global warming has distorted climates and actually cooled large parts of a Balkanized and depopulated former North America. Disney-Windows sponsors the Rangers to live in space and capture Peteys, huge objects--creatures?--who appear near the Moon and whose skins, when peeled off and cured, are extremely valuable (though we never learn why). Young Ranger Gun Ryder, who won a lottery to get the job, has earned almost enough to retire to the live-in Florida theme park, Pirates of the Universe, with his childhood sweetheart, Donna. Returning to Florida after a mission, and carrying a mysterious package for his jailed brother Gordon, Gun finds his mail and salary on HOLD; he can't even retreat into his favorite virtual reality scenario. So he journeys home, to Morgan's Ferry on the banks of the swollen, frigid Ohio river, only to find that Gordon has escaped from jail. Here, unfortunately, the plot disintegrates. Gordon is being helped by the gens, beings associated with the Peteys, sort of pocket universes that somehow influence the nanobots controlling Overworld, Disney-Windows's orbiting ex-theme park base. Gordon gets to create a new universe, while the annoyingly passive Gun gets his girl and retires to his anodyne theme park. Stories are Bisson's great strength, and this--despite lots of wonderful parts and his trademark droll, deadpan style--offers no coherent or satisfying whole. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA?Gunter Glenn, 21st-century Disney-Windows Ranger, is one hunt shy of reaching his life's ambition when he is put on Administrative Hold and stripped of his Ranger braid. His search for justice in a world gone mad takes readers on a wild romp. Business and government are tweaked in this story that weaves science, fantasy, and the indomitability of the human spirit into a page-turning adventure. One bit of 20th-century common knowledge after another is stretched to the absurd while the central thread holds readers' interest. Teens capable of leaving their disbelief parked for a few hours should have a grand time with Gun Glenn.?Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the six years since the publication of his celebrated satire Voyage to the Red Planet, Bisson has published only short stories?one of which, "Bears Discover Fire," won both a Nebula and a Hugo. Now Bisson has returned, with elan, to the novel to tell the adventures of Space Ranger Gunther ("Gun") Ryder, who is one mission away from the coveted "Pirate of the Universe" title (and permanent resident, with his "best girl" Donna, in a Disney-Windows "live-in theme park"). When Gun returns from an encounter with some "Peteys" (mysterious, unmanned spaceships that have revolutionized Earth's economy), he finds himself entangled in a Kafkaesque conundrum. Unable to access either his money or his e-mail, he moves vulnerably from bureaucrat to administrator, with each encounter more macabre than the last, until he realizes that he and his fugitive cousin must, literally, save the universe. In the hands of a lesser craftsman, this comic-book plotting would dominate, but Bisson's deadpan narrative and dialogue carry the day, as do his laconic and dysfunctional, but very empathetic, characters. Readers will want to root for Gun as he tries to make sense of goings-on, even as they laugh at his creator's sharply satiric observations and cheer his storytelling panache.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the 21st century, Ranger Gunther "Gun" hunts Peteys, huge jellyfish-like creatures. On oil-depleted, war-torn Earth, Petey skins are used for currency, and Disney-Windows owns anything of value. After Gun completes his last Petey-hunting mission, he and his high school sweetheart hope to retire to Disney's utopian park?Pirates of the Universe. Their plans are complicated by the discovery of the Peteys' relationship to other universes and the nonquantum physics that govern them. While this is a good tale, it is rather one-dimensional; the universe is a little too neatly divided between the good guys and the bad guys, and character development is minimal. Recommended for larger sf collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bisson trains his award-winning imagination on the borderline between other universes and ours. Gunther "Gun" Ryder is a Disney Ranger, dedicated to hunting the gargantuan, jellyfishlike creatures known as Peteys, which drift into the solar system from whereabouts unknown. His latest expedition goes awry when a colleague is sucked into a Petey's vacant interior, and Gun returns to the space station Overworld, which is equipped with Heaven, the enormous holding tank in which Petey skins are stored, and the Tangle, the station's sealed-off, nanobot-patrolled corridors. A visit with his outlaw brother on an environmentally ravaged Earth precedes Gun's plunge into the Tangle to discover in its space-bending passageways that Peteys may not be creatures after all. Rather, they may be the seam of this universe's juncture with others just coming into existence. Bisson wryly envisions a futuristic landscape unlike any other because of its basis in a nonquantum conception of space. By turns farcical, suspenseful, and whimsically surrealistic, this is another gem from one of sf's leading innovators. Carl Hays