Thanks to a recent reddit thread on “the best sci-fi novels Nobody’s ever heard off”, I downloaded the “Starrigger” trilogy by a chap calling himself John DeChancie.

As the title suggests, this is trucking in the future, but for those of you who already want to click the bookmark icon for Salon or Slate, hang on for a minute: this is actually moderately high brow fun. The author is happy to mix up Kirkegaard, Einstein and Kris Kristofferson for a highly amusing take on the classic road movie, and has obviously a lot fun while doing so. The plot feasts on some outrageous time paradoxons, manages to include some jabs at organised religion and features a purple life form muttering ‘deary me’ when encountered in the dark.

The three novels have recently been released as an e-book on Amazon, and for the next long flight or holiday I can’t recommend them more.