This is the first book in The Galaxy Game-triology, you don't have to read the other two to appreciate this book, since they are almost free-standing. Dick, sorry (he looks like a Dick to me), Richard Curtis is building a spaceship that will take the first earthlings to where no man (or woman) had gone before. Such an important mission requires the most skilled and intelligent astronauts that are specially trained to work together under tough circumstances. To bad that the crew consists of a bunch of idiots. Under the command of Curtis, heh! just kidding, under the command of the humanlike computer named Arnold BUILT by Curtis (sounds much better already?), a computer that are programmed to obey any of the crews wishes, a computer that fast and efficient calculate ways to get out of complications the easiest way. Well, in a perfect world it would be like that, now it's more like: if Arnold is in the right mood and only if he's sure that the crew later will regret it, he is obeying. Hal was a friendly pocket-calculator compared to Arnold.
Well, anyway, they are trapped inside this ship for two weeks, and are going to be the first humans to meet intelligent life from outer space. That's the plot...almost. I had heard very little of Phil Janes when I started reading this book. Something tells me that I will hear a lot more about him later on, this book is a great amusement, Curtis is the most clumsy and inefficient leader and one can't help but feeling a bit sorry for him. Get away from reality for a while and read this book and realize that your life could be so much worse, and that you're not completly controlled by artificial life like Arnold..yet.
