Synopses & Reviews
Hokas resemble human-sized teddy bears and love everything about humans and our cultures -- except that they see no difference between fact and fiction, which makes them very dangerous to human sanity.
Synopsis
The Interbeing League had been formed to make contact with new intelligent races in the galaxy and offer them membership. But when the League encountered the Hokas, furry creatures strongly resembling the teddy-bears of Earth, the League's agent, Alexander Jones, could have been excused for wishing he had a simpler assignment than making sense out of the Hokas -- such as singlehandedly stopping an interstellar war.
Not that the fuzzy aliens were unfriendly. In fact, they loved everything about humans, and adopted various Terran cultures wholesale and in every little detail -- but with a bit of confusion about the differences between fact and fiction. So if the Hokas suddenly started acting out the parts in a riproaring, shoot-em-up western, or brought to life the London of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a pipe-puffing, deerstalker-wearing Hoka, or suddenly decided to fly the Jolly Roger and lead a life of adventure and piracy on the high seas, matey, that was only to be expected. And as the Hokas threw themselves wholeheartedly into progressively wilder worlds from Terran history and fiction, Jones could be excused for feeling that his grip on reality was hanging by a single, thin, increasingly frayed thread....
Table of Contents
The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch -- Interlude I -- Don Jones -- Interlude II -- In hoka signo vinces -- Interlude III -- The adventure of the misplaced hound -- Interlude IV -- Yo ho hoka! -- Interlude V -- The tiddlywink warriors -- Interlude VI -- Joy in Mudville -- Undiplomatic immunity -- Mysterious message.