Book Review: He Lost His Keys in Space

He Lost His Keys in Space by Lizzy Lang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After twelve years of diplomatic service to planets all over the galaxy, Vega Ulysses – a man who looks like a bespectacled lumberjack in modified stormtrooper gear – is ready to go home. With a state of the art house waiting for his return, he’s eager to get back and enjoy retirement.

But somehow he’s lost his house key, and without it, there will be absolutely no way to get inside his house. So, he does what we all do when we’ve misplaced something. He backtracks everywhere he’s been. And that amounts to a lot of planets. As he searches backwards, we learn how badly he’s bumbled his mission and screwed up alien societies everywhere he’s been.

It’s a fresh premise, which I always appreciate. There’s enough re-telling of familiar stories around already. All in all, I found this to be a complex story with a fairly dark streak, but it has a needful balance of humor scattered throughout.

I read the hardcover version. It’s beautifully crafted with thick, vibrant covers, good binding, whimsical end papers, and glossy paper stock. They got out the top-shelf ink to print vibrantly colored comic panels in every shade of the rainbow and possibly a few from other planets. Set He Lost His Keys in Space out on your coffee table and I guarantee your guests won’t be able to resist picking it up to examine.