*Review* Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc by Ash Bishop

 

Genre: Science Fiction

Published: September 6, 2022

Pages: 610

Finding work is easy. Staying alive is a little bit harder.

When Russ Wesley finds an unusual artifact in his grandfather’s collection of rare antiquities, the last thing he expects is for it to draw the attention of a ferocious alien from a distant planet. Equally surprising is the adventurous team of intergalactic exterminators dispatched to deal with the alien threat. They’re a little wild, and a little reckless. Worse yet, they’re so impressed with Russ’s marksmanship that they insist he join their squad . . . whether he wants to or not.

I received a copy of this audiobook through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This tale was a wild ride through the galaxy. It starts with Russ Wesley returning "home" for his grandfather's funeral. He's basically a loser who can't/won't keep a job or even stay in the same place for long, but he was always close with his grandparents. Through a crazy chain of events, he ends up encountering a group of aliens who are tracking an alien cat thing that has ended up on Earth and they offer him a job, because he's a crack shot. He is understandably hesitant based on the terms of the contract and his general nature. But the job would help him to save his grandparents' bookstore so...

There were a lot of hilarious scenes in this story, kind of reminding me of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For one thing, Russ is great a short-circuiting  the AI robots the federation uses to police its citizens and non-citizens. I don't know how realistic his methods are, but it seemed plenty plausible to me at the time. 

The narration pleasant, and while it mostly didn't really feel like the narrator was trying to do different voices for the different characters, it was still always pretty clear who was speaking. Overall I give Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc 3.9764 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Ash Bishop is a lifetime reader and a lifetime nerd, loving all things science fiction and fantasy.

Ash was born in Bloomington, Indiana where his dad taught at Indiana University. His family moved to Orange County, California when he was very young, and he spent his formative years among the mean streets of Irvine. He attended college at UCSB, then the National University of Ireland, Galway. Ash is also a graduate of San Diego State University with an MFA in Creative Writing. He currently lives in Southern California with his family and numerous pets.

He spent a good number of years as a high-school English teacher and an adjunct college professor, but he's also done a few less important, though slightly more glamorous, things. He worked in the video game industry, and educational app development; he currently acts as a script supervisor for a major Hollywood studio, and he even used to fetch coffee for Quentin Tarantino during the production of Jackie Brown.

Ash can't get enough of fellow sci-fi authors Philip K. Dick and John Scalzi, but he also likes the classics, thanks to all those years teaching F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton. He plays at least an hour of Magic the Gathering a day and considers a revival of Logan's Run and Robotech among his dream projects. He is currently running a very loquacious level-8 Bard through The Rise of Tiamat (alongside three friends and a cruel, unforgiving DM).

Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc. is his first published novel. Horoscope Writer will release Summer of 2023.

For more information about Ash, please visit www.ash-bishop.com or www.linktr.ee/ashlbishop.