Review: HARD LUCK HANK: SCREW THE GALAXY by Steven Campbell

A completely bonkers future that takes itself just seriously enough to work, while goofing off along the way.

Story

Set in a distant future that smells like equal parts Trek and Wars, the Hard Luck Hank universe gives us a smattering of new proper nouns—like the space station Bellvaile, the Colmarian Confederation, and an Ontankian pistol just to name a few. It’s accessible, and the repetition of these new terms helps you to understand who or what they are.

But unlike the big galaxies of yesteryear, our hero Hank is no Kirk or Skywalker; he’s a criminal negotiator on a distant space station populated almost exclusively by gangs of criminals. He’s good at what he does thanks to his mutation, which makes him virtually indestructible, a trait many people have tested.

In the debut installment SCREW THE GALAXY, our hero Hank takes on a new client—one with plenty of beauty, money, and power, things he’s short on—and very quickly finds himself at the epicenter of a conflict WAY above his pay grade. Soon eldritch gods are knocking on the space station’s front door and asking to speak with Hank and his client.

Comfortable being a gun-toting tough guy, Hank suddenly finds himself having to grow in his role as a negotiator, and face challenges far outside of his skillset.

This is just the first in an ongoing series of episodic Hank adventures, each one more inventive and ridiculous as the last.

Characters

Hank and his cohorts would very comfortably be at home in the pages of a comic book. He’s huge and strong and indestructible, while his law enforcement counterpart Garm is feminine and cunning. Together they take on colorful gang bosses, guys who run restaurants as money-laundering fronts for their spicier business ventures, and they work with a colorful roster of allies throughout the city.

Narrator Liam Own does an excellent job of giving a personality to each of the characters with unique voice cues for them. It makes it easy to keep track of them all.

World

Time? Unknown, but it’s the future. Place? Unknown, but it’s out in space. Alien races abound, from the organic to the mechanical, and everything in between. You’ve got clean-and-polished navies, you’ve got rough-and-tumble thugs, you’ve got smugglers and mercenaries. You’ve got leftovers from ancient alien supercomputers that still amble around and cause trouble. It’s ripe for exploration and discovery on the reader’s part, and that’s got a lot to do with how Campbell keeps exploring new corners of the galaxy.

Politics

None. It’s removed from our world and time, and doesn’t mess around with that.

Content

You get some mid-PG-13, but nothing too heavy or graphic.

Who’s it for

Well, ever since Star Wars committed to being trash, everyone in the indie novel scene has rushed to fill the vacuum, and Hard Luck Hank is a competent contender in this realm. So if you like old space operas with a hint of modern humor and bathos, this series is for you.

Why read it?

When I first found this book and told my wife the title, she thought it was something I was writing, not a book that already existed from someone else. It’s wacky, but it’s surprisingly thoughtful and takes itself seriously enough to be more than surface-level entertainment. It reminds the reader of how shocked they were when they noticed Pacific Rim had a plot.

Plus the ever-evolving developments in Hank’s backstory across the following volumes shows that Campbell is committed to his character in the long-term, just as much as he’s committed to the comedy of it all.