Chris Panatier, "Stringers" (Angry Robot, 2022)

Take an average-to-below-average man, his loyal best friend, a jar of pickles, and some bug sex facts, and what do you have?

The answer to that is Stringers, the new novel by Chris Panatier (Angry Robot, April 2022), which is already garnering fantastic reviews. In this riotous, laugh-out-loud science fiction epic, Ben Sullivan has lived a life full of questions relating to the strange facts in his brain and now faces abduction by aliens who want the answers he doesn’t have. It’s part buddy movie, part space adventure, with lots of heart and charm.

It’s also ridiculously funny.

“I wasn’t thinking about a space comedy even when I first conceived of [STRINGERS],” Chris says. “What I first conceived of was ‘what if someone was born with a bunch of crazy knowledge in their head’. Of course, because of my affinity for potty humour, that went to bugs f***ing themselves in the head, which you’ll find on page 3.”

From its stunning cover to the formatting quirks that make it unlike anything you’ve read before—plus, yes, those bug facts—Stringers is sure to delight fans who enjoy Hitchhiker’s Guide and Red Dwarf and who might be in need of a laugh-out-loud escape from reality.

Chris Panatier lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife, daughter, and a fluctuating herd of animals resembling dogs (one is almost certainly a goat). He writes short stories and novels, "plays" the drums, and draws album covers for metal bands. Plays himself on twitter @chrisjpanatier.

Dan Hanks is the co-host of New Books in Science Fiction and the author of Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire and Swashbucklers.

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