BWW Reviews: Jackie Kingon's CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE MOONS Is A Wild Romp Through (Meal) Time and Space

It's summer, and time for some light reading. Should it be a comic novel? Maybe a mystery? Your friends are begging you to try science fiction, but it all sounds so heavy and serious. What if you could have all three - and it wasn't heavy or serious at all?

Artist and teacher Jackie Kingon (that's Kingon, not Klingon - tell your science fiction friends to stay calm) has done just that with CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE MOONS. The premise is science fiction - you can go to college on the Moon, where there's plenty of Earth colony. But going there because the lesser gravity means you weigh less, and you didn't have to diet? Which means you can eat a steady supply of your favorite candy, Chocolate Moons, and stay thin? Comedy. On the other hand, maybe you don't want to eat your Chocolate Moons, because someone's poisoning them? That's the mystery. Add a dash of broken heart, and you have a combination that, like chocolate candy itself, is too good to resist.

Kingon's prose is wildly reminiscent of Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, and so is her humor. Names of people, places, and things are subject to major hilarity, and no creature, cow or otherwise, is sacred.

Don't expect deep philosophy here, or reflections on the nature of mankind or its place in the universe - as with Adams' work, this is purely good, old-fashioned fun, a HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE that women are more likely to relate to. The heroine, Molly Marbles, is an Arthur Dent for the modern woman, and rather than listen to Vogon poetry, you can immerse yourself in composer Elvis Beethoven's nine polkas. And if you love to eat, the book will indeed leave you hungry - Molly enjoys describing the food she and her friends eat almost as much as she enjoys eating it. The book may also leave you hungry for more writing by Kingon, who clearly has a knack for broad comedy (and for comedy for us broads).

Fasten your seat belt and prepare to laugh. This may be the best beach read of this summer. If you're looking for it, check by author and title - it's printed without a publisher imprint, in the fashion of a number of modern paperbacks - though it does have an ISBN number. You should have no difficulty with an online order for it.

The novel wraps up neatly, so there's no call for a sequel, but there's plenty of call for more of Kingon's writing, especially in this vein. This is a wild ride of a first novel, and as with Chocolate Moons, there had better be more where the last one came from.

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