Welcome to the Galaxy: Or, How I Learned to Appreciate the Importance of a Good Flocking

Welcome to the Galaxy is a humorous science fiction story set in the very near future. It begins when a travelling, snake-oil-style, junk dealer named Quane arrives at Earth to sell a dilapidated stardrive engine as a stolen museum piece. Coincidentally, he looks like the devil. So he hand sews a ragged dog costume as a disguise to prevent frightening his human customers and gain their trust.
Of course, the derelict engine breaks down shortly after departure of the inaugural human expedition to the stars and maroons the crew in a gravitational dimension known as Dark Space. That sets off a chain of human blunders, alien misunderstandings, and evolutionary coincidences which combine to raise Earth’s status from a jerk-water planet in the galactic backwater to one of the richest and most influential in the galaxy.
Welcome to the Galaxy is written with enough attention to scientific detail to satisfy hard core science fiction readers, but in a humorous style that makes the science easily accessible to all.
Welcome to the Galaxy also establishes a fundamentally new and novel method for interstellar travel that does not involve warp drives or wormholes.
And check out the sequel Welcome to the Universe and its companion spinoff Generating Effluence available now as ebooks and paperbacks. **