Tom decides to take some time off from his demanding Ph.D. program to clarify his life goals. He enjoys the natural world, so he moves to a remote, off-grid cabin in the Northern California coastal woods. The last thing that he expects is that he will be accidentally abducted by the bungling crew of an interstellar spaceship raiding Earth for saleable artifacts and animals.
Tom's adventure begins in his backyard when his dog wakes him up in the pre-dawn dark to alert him that some varmint is getting into his chickens. Instead of a raccoon that wants chicken for breakfast, he finds a big toothy creature resembling a tyrannosaur in the dim light and looks like it would like to have him for breakfast. With only a flashlight and a small shotgun, Tom outwits and disables the monster. As the sun comes up, Tom sits against a tree to think about how he will convince anyone to come and investigate something as unlikely as a dinosaur in his back yard, but he falls asleep.
Tom wakes up on the spaceship, disoriented and confused. He finds himself in a radically different culture populated with strange aliens and intelligent robots, and there are no humans to help him adapt. Tom doesn't even have his dog to keep him company because the shipowners will sell it as an exotic pet. It turns out that the dinosaur in Tom's backyard was also an exotic animal collected from another planet, but it is intelligent and escaped when the spaceship stopped near Tom's property.
The shipowners don't care about Tom's plight and don't want him running loose, so they send their security department to capture him, and they play rough, but he is smart and not afraid to get physical when necessary, and he evades them.
Tom makes friends with some of the ship's unusual residents, including the dinosaur-like predator that he had defeated in his backyard. The ship's artificial intelligence and the general manager are sympathetic and help Tom to hide from the security department, and he helps them to solve several thorny challenges. Recognizing Tom's abilities as a problem solver and a natural leader, the ship's general manager has plans for him. He invites Tom to stay on his homeworld with his family.
When Tom disembarks, he finds himself on a planet that is a multiple species center for interstellar trade. Unfortunately, it is where the shipowners have their business headquarters, and they are the scourge of the community because of their use of extortion and violence to get their way. Tom has had enough of the shipowners' bad behavior, and he is getting angry. He makes friends with individuals among the diverse species and intelligent robots, starts a business, and even acquires an alien girlfriend. Realizing that he has found his new direction in life, Tom's next goal is to get rid of the shipowners, and dealing with them will require careful planning, violence, and a coordinated community effort.
Inventive, funny, and spiced with action, this is the read you have been waiting for!
