In this offbeat, enjoyable adventure set in the far-flung future of 20018, a mild-mannered accountant with a dark past reluctantly teams up with a three-armed alien cop and a mysterious young woman to save the universe. Percival Gynt and his allies must crack the mystery of the long-hidden Engine of Armageddon before it can finish unmaking all of creation. Along the way, they have to cope with a galaxy-spanning church, relentless space Nazis, and an evil wizard whose very existence was erased from memory. Melbourne’s zippy, often tongue-in-cheek debut reads like postmodern Douglas Adams: a mixture of self-aware humor, existential crisis, and cultural satire. Modern brand names such as Apple, Viagra, and Walmart persist millennia from now, juxtaposed with clones, temporal manipulation, and magic. Percival is a contradictory everyman, a dapper-dressed nobody with unexpected heroic qualities. Though the plot is occasionally too twisty and clever for its own good, the underlying sense of good-natured excitement makes this a fun, frenetic story. (BookLife)