Smitty's Guide to Interstellar Bartending

Smitty just wanted a quiet night. Instead, he woke up strapped to a table on an alien spaceship, staring at two exhausted extraterrestrials whose memory-wipe machine had run out of juice. Now they have a problem. And Smitty, a wandering bartender with itchy feet and nothing to lose, has an opportunity.

Dropped off at Goulaub Station-a crossroads space habitat teeming with spindly Breelo, purple hexapods, three-headed commuters, and one exceptionally cranky rock-skinned thug-Smitty needs a job, an air tag, and a way to stay ahead of the local law. What he really needs is a bar. Because if there's one thing the galaxy has in common with Earth, it's that everybody, everywhere, needs someone to listen while they complain about their boss, their spouse, and the price of alien beer.

Armed with a lifetime of pouring drinks, an ear for human (and inhuman) nature, and a stubborn refusal to stay put, Smitty sets out to open the first Earth-style bar in known space. But between cutthroat competition, corrupt station officials, a soda monster, a jailbreak, and his very own revolution, running a bar in an interstellar port city turns out to be a lot more complicated than mixing A into B and stirring.

Warm, witty, and packed with the barroom philosophy of a narrator who's seen it all-on Earth and beyond-this is a rollicking science fiction comedy in the tradition of Douglas Adams, John Scalzi, and Spider Robinson's Callahan's Place.

Ray Tabler is a retired engineer and author, originally from Louisville, Kentucky. He chased the north-bound dollar to Michigan because of a tragic addiction to a steady paycheck, where he married a lovely Yankee girl. Several decades later, despite the siren call of warmer climes, Ray might be permanently lodged in the frozen north. He writes upbeat, humorous science fiction, and aims to entertain. Think Starship Troopers, hijacked by Monty Python. Smitty's Guide to Interstellar Bartending is Ray's fifth novel.