Book Vote Semifinals 2: Space vs The Midwest (Patreon)

We're Almost There!

For the semifinals, the first match-up is:

"Houston, We Have Three Problems!"vs."The Third-Best Bordello in All of Sious City, Iowa"

Voting is at the bottom, and don't forget to vote on the other matchup!

I have to admit, this side of the bracket has me a little conflicted. On one hand, "Houston, We Have Three Problems!" is basically permission for me to throw every science textbook I own directly into a dumpster and write the sort of space adventure that would've aired on cable television in 1986, complete with blinking control panels, impossible physics, and astronauts who solve problems by looking determined enough. It's optimistic in that wonderfully old-fashioned way, where humanity's greatest strength is apparently "having a can-do attitude" and an alarming quantity of duct tape. Space duct tape.

I think what I like most about "The Third-Best Bordello in All of Sioux City, Iowa," is that it sounds like the sort of novel your grandfather would insist was a forgotten American classic. His favorite book. Then one day, he passes away. Your grief causes you finally read it. Then, you just discover it's the male version of one of those dogeared romance novels old ladies blast through while they're waiting at the laundromat. Piano music, crooked politicians, traveling salesmen, bar fights, enough whiskey to preserve a medium-sized whale, and just stupid amounts of jiggly bits. At the very end there will be an appendix with cocktail recipes, because once that angle occurred to me, it simply refused to leave.

What's amusing to me, is that both books are really about the same thing: three women being dropped into an environment they have absolutely no business being in, then proceeding to become the most competent people there. Whether they're floating hundreds of miles above the Earth trying to fix the tachyon accelerator, or negotiating with cattle barons while inventing a cocktail called The Dubious Alibi... Well, there's nothing these broads can't handle.