4 stars for all you sci-fi comedy nerds. Others will rate this much lower.

Let me start with: this book has a very limited audience, but that audience will greatly enjoy reveling in all the nerdiness. This is for hard-core scifi comedy readers who love nothing more than to find easter eggs (and feel like they are part of some grand in-joke), and there are LOTS of them: From Star Wars to Dr. Who to Futurama to Firefly to modern memes and pop culture to current news to historical and literary references. If you love picking up on hidden scifi references, you will have a field day.

Dhawan is one of the few humans left on Earth (most having fled the planet long ago), living under a protective dome that is failing. He is not the brightest, but he is optimistic, and he wants to help. Along with Rada (who wants to escape the idiots on her planet) and Airvolt (who is the author of a guidebook to humanity), they go on an interstellar mission to locate a new dome. Visiting different planets with all sorts of different species, they fall into a series of absurd hijinks as they try to procure the aforementioned dome, thus saving the remaining humans on earth.

Laden with references, many of them I surely missed, but I did get a lot! (Note: the author lists all the sources of his references at the end of the book. It is up to you to find them in the text. Good luck!) The writing and dialog do feel a bit stilted at times, and the characters aren't very deep, but the plot moves along quickly and the book is a fast read. If you don't like overtly witty, self-aware, meta, and punny scifi, pick another read. For the rest of you, enjoy!

Alex Shvartsman's "The Best of All Possible Worlds" is that rare beast: a book both witty and sarcastic. It plunges the reader headlong into Shvartsman's unique voice and style as his characters race through an urgent space journey with more twists and turns than a pretzel tugged into a black hole. References to and tweaks of modern and classic space opera standards abound, and I guarantee you'll be laughing within minutes of starting the first page. A great, lighthearted, and humorous book with still enough depth and soul to avoid being "snarky." Even your corgi will like it!

I loved this book. The story was interesting and I liked the characters. I absolutely loved the pop culture references, but I am sure I missed a lot of them. And although I don’t usually like silliness, this book is an exception; it is silliness done well, so well in fact, that I stopped making notes about the parts that amused me because there were too many. I thought that the epigraphs at the start of the chapters were, in effect, not silly but very insightful. I also liked the sources at the end of the book, which flagged to me how much serious work went into writing something so much fun to read. The illustrations were excellent. Thank you to NetGalley and UFO Publishing for the advance reader copy.

Satire isn’t for everyone, but if you count The HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as one of your top reads, then I’ve got some bad news for you -- Douglas Adams is deceased. But, if you don’t mind reading a book by someone who tried an awfully lot to write like Douglas Adams, then I might humbly recommend The Best of All Possible Planets by Alex Shvartsman. It isn’t as long and many of the things Shvartsman parodies in the novel aren’t even British, but if you can get past all that, The Best of All Possible Planets might be one of the best times you’ll have on a fictional spaceship and multiple fictional worlds.

Now, this review won’t be as long as a corgi -- the standard unit of measurement in Shvartsman’s version of Earth’s future -- but hopefully I can get you to take a chance on this fantastic corker of a book.

Shvartsman’s novel is filled with satire, puns, and Easter Eggs of all sorts. Now, satire is hard to pull off. Just ask Jonathan Swift about the backlash from A Modest Proposal or take a hard look past Brad Pitt’s abs to see how no one really understands Fight Club or Starship Troopers. Often, satire confuses and provokes, so I would not be at all surprised if there are low reviews for this book purely for that reason. Case in point -- I don’t believe Shvartsman ever uses the word “American” throughout the book when referring to the people of this land from the 21st century, instead opting to go with “South Canadians.” The title of the book itself is basically a poke at those who blindly believe their country is “THE BEST” without even experiencing life outside their own borders.

But sprinkled throughout the satire are countless references to sci-fi standards from the Golden Age authors of Asimov and Heinlein to the hey-day of blockbusters like Star Wars and Star Trek and TV mainstays like Stargate SG-1 and Doctor Who (which may have been my personal favorite reference throughout TBOAPP). Alex Shvartsman has a comprehensive list of the media that he parodied and referenced in the author’s note in the back matter of the book, but I wouldn’t doubt if even he missed one or two -- there’s A LOT.

My dad would have loved this book. It feels a lot like what he would have written had he written something. Often he would come up with these puns or word combinations and then spend hours coming up with a joke or scenario to shoehorn it into. For example…

“Let’s say there was a vending machine that sold deodorant, perfume, and cologne. One day the final deodorant was purchased, so they had to put a sign on it, saying “Out of Odor.”

This was just one of the thousands of puns and jokes he attempted on an unwitting family and friends over the years. And if that elicited a slight chuckle, well…The Best of All Possible Planets may very well be the book for you.

In a way, the satire and jokes are merely set dressing. The characters and the plot are well-crafted and work well. We start in the far future where Earth is in need of a protective force shield. The utterly clueless Dhawan and his date, Rada, head off into the galaxy in search of a new one, stopping at various places that alternate between maddening, confusing, and flat-out frustrating. Characters have arcs and there are tons of surprises to be had on this rollicking journey across the stars.

While I read the ebook early thanks to NetGalley, Shvartsman gave me a sneak peak at the audiobook, which features guest appearances by comedian Lewis Black (perhaps best known as Anger from Inside Out) and a wonderful innocent, yet comedic narration from Eli Schiff.

I would heartily recommend The Best of All Possible Planets, especially if you enjoy some intelligent humor with your sci-fi. Thank you to UFO Publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

The Best of All Possible Planets (4.5/5 but rounded up because it was a wild ride and I enjoyed it)

A fun space adventure with immaculate "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" vibes. The character development was great and the main character went from basically a naive liability to a note-worthy protagonist. There are also some great side-characters like 79 and overall the ensemble cast felt essential to the story.

It was short, however, the pacing made it feel like the correct length and honestly it was a wild ride. Everything was unexpected and the plot twists were keeping me on my toes. I also loved the illustrations.

The only warning I would have is that the pop culture references are quick heavy handed and there are a lot of them, so might be off putting to some.