Publishers Weekly
07/18/2022
Bishop’s feel-good sci-fi debut kicks off when drifter Russ Wesley discovers a mysterious stone among his recently deceased grandfather’s collection of oddities. Russ recruits Nina Hosseinzadeh, aspiring electrical engineer and “the smartest woman in all Evanstown ,” to help him identify the stone, hoping to sell it for quick cash to save his family’s crumbling bookstore. Nina, meanwhile, needs money to help out her terminally ill father. Instead, the stone attracts hostile extraterrestrials, plunging the pair into interstellar drama. The eponymous organization arrives to dispatch the hostiles—and, upon witnessing Russ’s superior marksmanship, forcibly conscript him into intergalactic pest control. But Nina also wants a lucrative (if potentially lethal) job with the company, putting the pair in fierce competition—until looming danger threatens to destroy their careers as exterminators before they can begin. After a slow start, Bishop ramps things up, imbuing this romp with solid worldbuilding, a broad sense of adventure, and a sensitive emotional core. With gruesome alien battles, layered conflict, and a sprinkling of humor, this is sure to find an audience. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Lisa Dawson Assoc. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
"Bishop’s feel-good sci-fi debut kicks off when drifter Russ Wesley discovers a mysterious stone among his recently deceased grandfather’s collection of oddities . . . imbuing this romp with solid worldbuilding, a broad sense of adventure, and a sensitive emotional core. With gruesome alien battles, layered conflict, and a sprinkling of humor, this is sure to find an audience.” —Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
08/01/2022
DEBUT After assisting in the extermination of an intergalactic pest on the backward planet Earth, Russ Wesley is faced with two impossible choices. He can either try to become a galactic citizen and an unpaid member of the Intergalactic Exterminators crew or he can wait for the immigration control robots to capture or kill him. Instead, Russ chooses to scam them all and suborn one of those robots for his own purposes since he needs to save his grandmother's livelihood, and his girlfriend wants to see the galaxy and save her father's life. The former immigration control robot, now calling itself Steven Applebum, wants to wear a mask and a cape and save everybody, while the exterminators just want to stay in business and live for another day of pest control. In this madcap adventure of space bugs, advanced tech, and corporate greed, they might all manage to get their wish—or die trying. VERDICT Bishop's sci-fi debut is recommended for readers who think Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter International" series should go intergalactic, those who enjoy stories featuring the people who get the dirty jobs done, and especially anyone who wishes that Martha Wells's Murderbot would become a superhero.—Marlene Harris
