The Cosmic Atlas of Alfie Fleet

In this comic adventure, Alfie Fleet is desperate to earn some cash so that he can buy his poor mum a new foot spa…and maybe afford something other than fish head soup for dinner for a change. Answering an ambiguous ad, he begins working for Professor Bowell-Mouvemont, and soon realises that the job will involve an awful lot more than the lifting and moving that had been described.

The Professor, it turns out, is the last remaining member of a unique and ancient organisation: The Unusual Cartography Club. He is custodian of a stone circle that is a portal to millions of worlds all over the universe. This is a wonderful opportunity for Alfie to broaden his horizons, and also an excellent source of comedy and adventure, as the unlikely duo hop from world to world, taking in the local sights and running into all sorts of unexpected trouble.

Planet Maureen, Brains-In-Jars-World and Outlandish, all host beautiful, bizarre and bonkers local people and wildlife. There is a grizzly bartender who serves nothing but beer, stew or customer’s own body parts, and there are tribal religious zealots ready to sacrifice anything that moves. There are also lots and lots of brains in jars. None of these peoples are as weird as the professor, though, who is hundreds of years old, rides a moped and insists on stopping for tea and sandwiches, even when being chased by magical-spear-wielding warlords!

Sadly, the excitement offered by these intergalactic whistle-stops is rather short-lived as the entire second half of the novel takes place on one planet: Outlandish. Outlandish is home to all manner of mythical creatures that have already been made ultra-famous in other stories. Gold-hoarding dragons soar over the heads of wistful woodland elves, while knights and wizards hatch schemes to vanquish villains. Though there are subtle twists on these familiar characters (the knight is called Sir Brenda, for example), even younger readers will feel that they have ultimately met them all before, which is a shame as the predictability that emerges detracts significantly from the humour and excitement that is prominent in early chapters.

Alfie and The Professor are a great team and readers will be rooting for them as they stumble their way across the universe trying to get home in time for tea. Their cosmic atlas maps out many fascinating locations, though readers will have visited some of them a few times already.