Having successfully averted an apocalypse Jeh has been left with a machine that can create universes, and has decided to monetise this into an entertainment experience. After a series of disastrous initial attempts at populating the universe he intends to send people to explore, the corporate board send in their own representative, Lucy. Lucy promptly discovers that, far from the passionate creative genius Jeh has been made out to be, the leader of the project is an egomaniacal madman and his team of designers are only clinging on thanks to a frankly unhealthy amount of mood enhancing substances.
Interspersed with accounts of the lives of the Pocketverse’s denizens and monsters, Lucy attempts to save the project from the clutches of its deranged leader, and perhaps improve the lot of those stuck within it if she gets time.
Having successfully averted an apocalypse Jeh has been left with a machine that can create universes, and has decided to monetise this into an entertainment experience. After a series of disastrous initial attempts at populating the universe he intends to send people to explore, the corporate board send in their own representative, Lucy. Lucy promptly discovers that, far from the passionate creative genius Jeh has been made out to be, the leader of the project is an egomaniacal madman and his team of designers are only clinging on thanks to a frankly unhealthy amount of mood enhancing substances.
Interspersed with accounts of the lives of the Pocketverse’s denizens and monsters, Lucy attempts to save the project from the clutches of its deranged leader, and perhaps improve the lot of those stuck within it if she gets time.
It might not seem like a logical jumping off point but pirates were one of the Designers first pitches. It started with a basic concept; design the race of man to be as much like them as possible. Unfortunately, the first reply to this was one of the designers shouting "what? Drunk?" and Jeh, being a no bad ideas kind of guy wrote the words 'permanently blotto' on the board. Loud made it next, then snazzy dressers (they are scientists not fashionistas...) before going off the deep end with "lives on a boat".
In fairness to the Designer suggesting this (Clive, who had been here since before this was an entertainment park) he did, in fact, live on a boat. Not a pirate ship, one of those houseboats with a nice comfy bed and cooking section. It wasn't in the water as he was scared of sharks, instead he kept it in the company car park which everyone grumbled about as he took up four spaces. Corporate had attempted to get him to move the boat and he had agreed to do it just as soon as the tide came in. At first the idea that their first people be seafaring ones had been ridiculed, but then the Designers remembered they had yet to design any land (they had planned to add it the day before, but the end of day party started early and six drinks in they made the executive decision to add it in later), so it moved them back to being on schedule too.
At the time they had no idea how they were going to string together all the necessary pre-knowledge such as ship building, smithing and the distillation of rum, but happy with a first day’s work the first ship was plonked on an otherwise empty Pocketverse ready to be eaten by the Kraken they forgot they had created the day before.
This was the purest possible expression of Jeh's initial idea for the way life should work for the denizens. By proxy, this too was his vision for our own world. In their own image, he said to the other Designers. Big bushy beards, ample imbibing of alcohol, loud, exuberant and larger than life. In Jeh's opinion this was his masterpiece, a work of art beyond any piece before. As he hit the big button to activate the lifeforms he anticipated nothing more than handshakes and a roaring ovation from his corporate counterparts.
The lack of this reception from his corporate paymasters, the sheer horror on their faces as the waters turned red was the start of what Jeh saw as the corruption of his perfect paradise. This, in his opinion was the onset of the rot.
Childhood in the Pocketverse is very short, with its youngsters achieving a level of maturity somewhat similar to a sixteen year old within twelve months of birth. The youngsters in this particular village are taught the basics of what passes for language in the Pocketverse, which end of the pen makes the magic 'X' and how to sing a shanty.
On the eve of their first birthday, as their parents declare them adult enough to earn a life for themselves, the father of the family will take the child to the pub for their first pint. This will ceremoniously be drunk with the child, after which a coin will be left to pay for the youngster to continue drinking through the night and the father will leave, nodding discretely to the well-dressed one legged man on his way out.
This snazzy fella is one of the captains of privateer vessels in the Pocketverse's seas. Whilst there are many seafaring vehicles in the Pocketverse these pirates have a penchant for galleons, with a surprisingly small minority deciding they would rather have a modern vessel declaring that the steel hull is an abomination which should be avoided at all costs.
There are exceptions though. The dread pirate Fluffy Beard, who held something of a grudge regarding the nickname his fellow pirate captains had given him, commandeered an aircraft carrier. Fluffy Beard ruled the seas for some time, scattering bomber jets to ruin the galleons of his former peers, his body count grew to the thousands. Eventually though the base instincts of his pirate crew overtook. A shortage of rum led to the crewmen deciding to try drinking the petrol as it smelt equally as flammable as their normal tipple, only to discover that if you drink all the fuel you can't easily move a large steel tub in the middle of the ocean. Baser instincts of the denizens overtook and after a brief all out melee the last dozen pirates standing (the unfortunate Fluffy was not one of them) took a lift raft vowing to stick to wooden boats from now on.
The pirate captain in the pub will now commence the process of pirate recruitment, a simple matter:
1) Find a pub (done)
2) Get people so drunk they pass out (very much in progress)
3) Smuggle them onto the ship whilst they snooze - when they wake up they’re on a boat.
Hey presto there’s five more deckhands for Karl the Kraken to eat in a brutal display of hunger. On rare occasions the Captain may find that step two is not going to plan as the recruit has an unusually high alcohol tolerance, or the bar has watered down the pints more than average. For such emergencies the Captain brings with them one trusty blackjack. Any more than six pints in and out comes the cudgel to speed things up. One might expect a certain amount of upset from the unsuspecting new crew members but captains use the carrot of rum, fun, and adventure, and the stick of the boson with…well with a stick. More successful bosons may even have a stick with nails in it. Our subject did not need either of these. He was fully aware his father had been a pirate, and he had seen five other siblings wander off to join the ranks of floating cannon fodder. This youngster is called Eric.
Eric was very much enticed by the prospect of a life full of adventure on the seven seas. His initial assignment to the ship mostly consisted of day to day tasks may be simple straightforward scrubbing, mopping, knot tying, and avoiding death by Karl the Kraken. Eric was joined by six other new recruits on the ship. The first of these, a young pirate by the name of Steve, learnt the last lesson on the first night as one of the Krakens tentacles swept him from the deck of the ship in full view of his peers. There was some brief crunching before he was never seen again and, other than the threat of the consequences of not steering clear of massive tentacles was largely forgotten.
The new recruits were promptly taught how to fight at sea. An intricate art the pirates refer to as swashbuckling the first recruit up was Elsa. Eric watched eagerly from a safe(ish) spot on the deck. Elsa promptly demonstrated the value of keeping steady on your feet as a bow wave caught the ship and she dropped the demo cutlass on her foot. A significant amount of screaming followed.
Fortunately for Elsa, pirate vessels are well equipped for such situations. It is common following forays, boardings or Karl the Kraken for our poor pirates, especially the deck hands who are seen as highly expendable, to suffer from significant injuries. Accordingly it is also common for ships to retain a ship’s doc. These are not the doctors found in hospitals and birthing units, these are more or less random crew mates picked for a degree of ability with a needle and thread. As the pirate crew consists of drunkards, most of whom have no surgical experience a visit to these butchers is not often an experience many wish to repeat, although as an alarming number of ship’s docs are carpenters in their previous lives it does mean they get top of the line peg-legs, with stunning custom carvings, usually of Karl.
These are the better of the ships medics. The alternative is significantly worse. Those ships whose doctors do not come from the ranks of carpentry tend to instead hail from butchery. For the patient the end result is often the same, it is the rest of the crew who suffer the consequences when they start eating the mystery soup for the evening. After all meat is meat.
Elsa is a good example of why these docs are so problematic. In theory she lost three toes from the incident. The ships doc, however, took one look at the injury and decided that the best treatment would be to sever the leg somewhere between the ankle and the knee as that had worked for every other injury on the ship and "no buggers gonna bother carving you wooden toes missy". One should probably note that the doctor in question had originally thought he was going to be a ship repairman, and spent most of his youth learning to turn wood, a hobby he now regarded as his secret passion. Whilst most pirates with peg appendages put up with simple wooden batons a prosthetic limbs of the Royal Annie’s Vengeance were works of art. Elsa's new leg was sculpted with leaping dolphins being ridden by barely dressed mermaids.
This is yet another reason why the carpenter is a better doctor. The carpenter will normally stop at the most convenient joint, the former butcher will instead think about how many crew members are currently hungry, and how long since they last tasted meat in the stew. On a rival ship helmed by Captain Louisa Nobeard (who really hated her captain name, especially after briefing her first mate that he was her beard not that her crew didn't know, they just all pretended they didn't for her sake)a crew member found themselves bitten by a rat on their pinkie. The doctor made his 'medical' assessment and declared that they'd better take both arms just to make sure it didn't happen again. A week later the ship's doctor declared that there was only one solution for the Deck Hand's complaints of uselessness now he had no arms. The crew were treated to a roast rack of ribs, whilst the captain had a lovely liver pâté with a side of something that definitely was not bacon. The Deck Hand was never seen again.
The denizens of the Pocketverse are easily bored, and left to their own devices most turn to infighting within days of inactivity. It is therefore considered prudent for captains to ensure that at least once a week the pirates have a day away from their floating home to play one of their favourite games.
'Hunt the gold’ is a classic, and one of the pirates favourite. This involves landing on an island where the pirate captain either hid some gold but can't quite remember where, or suspects that one of his rivals may have hidden some gold. The pirate crew are sent out in small teams with shovels and cutlasses and sent out to dig in more or less random spots around the island. Nobody is quite sure why the pirates seem to enjoy doing this, as they never actually bury any gold themselves despite thinking that they may have done.
On Eric's first such expedition he discovered that many games of Hunt the Gold also involve a quick round of ‘flee the locals’ as they attempt to not be turned into pin cushions by local savages with spears. Eric's pool of recruits was already down to him and five others, what with Steve being digested and Elsa still in the sick bay adjusting to life with one less leg. Dazza was the first to discover the natives, by way of receiving a spear through the knee.
Dazza stared at it for a while trying to process the reality of six foot of wood poking a hole in his leg when the arrows started firing at them. Eric picked up Dazza (who was surprisingly light) and he and his compatriots fled through the jungle forest screeching like small children. They quickly decided to dabble in a quick game of ‘hide and seek’. The pirates often dabble in this. Commonly there is 'hide from the tax men', on some special occasions they may even have 'hide from the local wildlife', this time though it was 'hide from the natives'. Eric and his friends decided to hide up a tree which they climbed as quickly as they could whilst joking that they could take some of it home for the new leg Dazza would probably need.
By this point Dazza was barely conscious so didn't really care, and whilst they waited for the natives to grow bored they watched the sea from their tree where some members of the crew, including their intrepid captain, were attempting to hide from sharks. Unfortunately their attempts were not massively successful, as there is not much to hide in. The captain though had secured a safe position away from the pointy sharp bits of the shark by standing on top of the crew members as he rode them back to the ship.
The captain, of course, made it back safely. His two junior crew were not so fortunate having given their bodies to save their brave-ish commander. When Eric and his compatriots eventually decided the coast was clear enough to flee to safety Dazza was mostly alive and was rushed to the ships doc who prepared his bone saw with more eagerness than is normal for someone about to hack off a limb and replace it with a bit of wood. Unfortunately, Dazza had made a rude comment about the doc's work on Elsa's replacement leg so, in place of his normally nautical themed work, the doctor decided to carve Dazza's leg into a giant, veined, phallus. The doc also decided that in light of the comments that the extra dose of rum reserved for patients better belonged in his own stomach than in Dazza's.
Eric's crew is now down to five including himself. Being new to the ship they were assigned the role of Deck Hand. The job of the basic Deck Hand is a perilous one. It is their duty to make sure all parts of the ship is kept clean, tidy, and free of Kraken and Kraken pieces. No good captain would excuse a deckhand from staining the good teak deck with unwanted monster blood, and it’s not unheard of for hands to be whipped for disgracefully bleeding too near the rum, even if the Karl the Kraken has already technically already finished them off. Deck hands are also the first line of defence against both borders and unwanted beasties. They are quickly tested on their survival skills by Karl the Kraken, who thinks this is a fun end to a Monday afternoon, and hasn't had much of a snack since he swallowed Steve whole.
This time Karl gets a good meal, taking a cook, half of one of Eric's cadre called Big Dave (the captain gave the other half a jolly good whipping for dripping too much blood on his favourite sea gazing spot). Eric's cadre is down to four within a week of starting their new life at sea.
In basic training Little Dave from Eric's cadre was discovered to be able to light a fire without burning his own eyebrows off or damaging the ship. Following the nomming of the previous ships cook by Karl (recorded in his meal diary as too salty and soaked in rum with an odd charcoal aftertaste) Little Dave has been assigned to the kitchens and been renamed Foody Dave. Medium Dave, now the only Dave, asked to be released from his Medium title was promptly turned down as Eric reasoned that Medium Dave was still neither big nor small and so was still Medium. Plus who knew when a new Dave might join, and then they would still need a label. Medium Dave wasn't old enough to be an Old Dave, so Medium he would stay.
The job of ships cook does not require any knowledge of how to make edible food, after all no matter how you cook a rat it still tastes like rat. A cook is blessed with not having to fight Karl the Kraken with only chance encounters when taking vol-au-vents to the captain being on the cards, and this would, at first glance, be a benefit to their mortality rate. However cooks are given access to the neat rum supplies and then left in charge of sharp things. Little Dave managed three days before a drunken accident and a cleaver reduced him to the next days soup.
At this point Eric was down to only two compatriots; Medium Dave and Ambiguous Bobbie. Elsa and Dazza rejoined the ranks a few weeks later with the next batch of recruits. Within the month Medium Dave decided he was going to try to carry on cleaning the cannons mid battle with navy vessel. He was credited with winning the battle for the Royal Annie's Vengeance after he, and the cannon ball he was still hugging smashed a hole in the enemy ship and scuppered it.
Ambiguous Bobbie found their fate a few weeks later practising cutlass fighting with a new batch of recruits. Their wild swinging of the curved blade eventually resulted in them slipping off the boats deck, where a two hour operation to save them ultimately failed due to no one being able to find any rope on the entire ship. This was not from a lack of rope, but instead from the deck hands getting wildly distracted by a porpoise off the stern of the ship who had somehow acquired a funny hat. The hat had belonged to Ambiguous Bobbie, and got caught in the wind as they fell from the ship. The lesson here being don't wear silly hats to sea.
Eric managed to join the elite selection of pirates who survive long enough to aspire to become a captain of his very own pirate ship. This means a bigger cut of the gold, unlimited rum rations, and a crew of his very own to feed to Karl! Years of experience meant that even in his now constant state of drunkenness pirate captain Eric is a formidable opponent, as long as he’s still able to stand upright. But even when he is that inebriated he is fine too, as he has deck hands to do the dying, um sorry, fighting, for him.
Eric has recently taken on passengers. This is extremely foolish of the travellers, venturing on to his boat, but there it is. The pirates of the Pocketverse do not mind the concept overly much seeing it as a quick and easy way to earn a few coins, and the only thing they love more than gold is rum. Well...rum and murder. Often the passengers fail to make it to their destinations, and instead have their pockets emptied before being fed to the Kraken. This time though one of them is rather pretty and has caught the captain's eye. This young lady is called Anne, and Eric has a brief dalliance with her whilst she travels with them. Worried about putting her off her time with him Eric fails to rob the other passengers, and consequently to feed Karl. This has not gone unnoticed.
Like any pirates fling, unless it is with another member of the crew, this ends when the boat docks at its next destination. This is also the reason romance between the crew is not encouraged. In most captains experience this eventually results in a domestic. The losing crew member (almost invariably the man) mysteriously disappears around this time (presumed fed to Karl) and the captain has to feed the winner to Karl to prevent further arguments on the ship. The captain is now down two otherwise perfectly good crew, and all because they were all a little lonely.
Who left the corporations in charge of designing the universe?
Jeh, megalomaniac and egotistical, might not be your first choice as head of an unhinged design team if you are looking to create a well-rounded, sensible new world. However, if you’re looking for a hilarious, creative, and occasionally deranged romp of fun, he absolutely is your man (sorry, Lucy!).
Sam Hill’s The Little Lives of the Pocketverse is a uniquely funny, dark, inventive, irreverent, and thoroughly enjoyable read.
What I should specify upfront is that Pocketverse is a comedic story set in a fantasy world rather than a fantasy story with comedy elements. Think Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Walter Moers’ Captain Bluebear, and you’ll have a good idea of what you’re in for. The jokes take precedence above both plot and characters and Hill’s novel, at times, reads almost like a comedy set.
Much of the plot is structured around the history of the eponymous Pocketverse, starting from its first creation, following its developing cultures, and finally exploring the very structure of life and death. You will meet a host of characters, many finding an unspectacular if amusing end at the hands of what can only be described as questionable universe design. Some characters also make repeat returns, giving the reader familiar favourites to hold on to (I had to smile every time Karl was mentioned!).
Within such a quick-shifting and ambitious story, Hill makes the sensible choice to include a secondary, structuring plot about the inner workings of the design team, detailing the conflict between the aforementioned Jeh and Lucy, the only woman on the team. This second plotline does much to ground the reading experience, as do Hill’s other attempts to structure a plot that might otherwise threaten to amble.
The world of Pocketverse is both unique and inventive while also occasionally relying on deconstructed folk tales and popular culture references. Those references give the reader a familiar structure to follow within an ever-shifting and original world. However, I can’t help but feel that I preferred the novel when it was driven by completely fresh ideas – of which Hill has many – rather than when I was following a rewriting of Frankenstein, for instance, as amusing as that addition was.
What keeps this book from being a perfect 5/5 is the level of editing. There are frequent issues with punctuation, and the sentence structure could, on occasion, also have used a second look. None of this detracts massively from the reading experience, and I would still highly recommend Pocketverse to anyone who enjoys irreverent, dark fantasy comedies. However, a pass by a professional editor would have made a difference here.
TL;DR: Overall, I would recommend this for fans of dark fantasy humour. Pocketverse is an incredibly funny and rewarding read and a thoroughly unique and creative achievement.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via Reedsy Discovery. I am not affiliated with the author or the publishing press.