Through his many imaginative adventures we get to meet a cast of unusual characters. There’s Hugh, a Lunarian, who is teaching the Armored when he really wanted to teach that planet’s other population, the Unarmored, who are essentially bundles of exposed nerve endings. Roboman (a human brain in a robot head) 9/3 is “slightly defective” and teaches on a mechanically-inclined planet where the kids chase him down the street, playfully disassembling him when he is caught. Then there’s Matthew, also from Earth, who houses a terrible secret compliments of his activist father. And let’s not forget Jinya, the attractive Octavian whose “undulating tentacles make Sam forget all about human appendages.”

Always entertaining and a fast read, Angry Young Spaceman is Jim Monroe’s second novel (his first published novel, Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, is currently available for free download from www.nomediakings.org). I’m, at best, a reluctant sci-fi fan, eschewing any book that requires a companion glossary of unpronounceable words. Fortunately, Monroe focuses on the story, leaving the science details for other, more anal-retentive writers to hash out. In fact, the sci-fi setting is mostly a veneer-thin disguise for Monroe’s criticism of current political and cultural issues. The Punk movement, globalism, the spread of western civilization at the expense of indigenous cultures, intellectual property rights, manufactured pop bands and social trends — all are fodder for Monroe’s deft pen. Aside from his mini-diatribes on vegetarianism, he is never heavy-handed on such topics, instead cloaking them in clever humor.

Monroe’s writing is tight and the characters likeable. With the book’s amusing, light tone throughout, the reader is bathed in this alien world that is eerily familiar to our own. My only problem with the book is a personal issue. As the Octavians are eight-legged aquatic beings with some humanoid characteristics, I was unable to envision them as anything more than the aliens from “The Simpsons.” I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but probably not what the author had in mind.

That said, there are so many jabs, thoughts and ideas sprinkled throughout that the reader is constantly delighted with new hay to chew. For instance, on Earth all other species have become extinct, trees haven’t existed for millennia, the seas have been drained for more living space, youth counter-cultures come pre-packed with starter kits, and people travel as easily from New York to Sicily for lunch as one travels across a small city today.

This leads to some touching moments such as Sam enjoying a solitary tree on Octavia and befriending a wallen, a small garbage-feeding creature that co-exists with the Octavians and is occasionally eaten by the native inhabitants. Normally an illegal activity, because the Octavian language is considered unpronounceable by humans, they have received an exemption from the Earth Council and are able to keep parts of their native culture, such as said eating of said flesh and growing their own food (“outrageously inefficient”).