Zoomarble by Adam Swetnam is a pretty good book. My cats like it but I don’t think they are very smart; I keep catching them Googling words they don’t know. The story is like every story with a monster and pirates and clowns. Fantasy books are like country songs where there’s really just one and everyone tries to put a spin on it. Billy Garth Tallhat is not doing anything innovative and Swetnam isn’t either. Adding some space travel to the mix just makes us all miss Douglas Adams even more.
That being said, the story moves along at a reasonable pace and keeps the reader interested. The “science” in this science fiction would be in a tiny font with “fiction” being much larger. That’s fine with me; when I try to comprehend concepts like time dilation it makes me want to puke at the speed of light, which could take 5 seconds or 15 seconds depending on how fast I’m running.
Writers who do their homework, like Andy Weir (The Martian or even better Project Hail Mary) shouldn’t bother pit-sweating any competition from Zoomarble. Good storytellers like Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut shouldn’t pee-dribble worrying about losing their place in the pantheons of literature. But Zoomarble is entertaining enough to indulge yourself for a couple of hours while sitting on the toilet with the whole family. Wait, why are you doing that?