The Sky Done Ripped (Ned the Seal) by Joe R. Lansdale
Cover Artist: Timothy Truman
Review by Ernest Lilley
Subterranean Hardcover ISBN/ITEM#: 9781596069107
Date: 31 December 2019 List Price $40.00
Links: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=18687

If you’re looking for an absurdist mash-up of H.G.Wells, Jules Verne, Authur Conan Doyle, and pretty much every other proto-steampunk adventure you can image, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for the further adventures of Ned, the steampunk/cybernetically uplifted seal, ditto, and it’s a fine place to be. But if you’re looking for serious science fiction, don’t stop here. But if you’re up for some pulpy-steampunky-timey-whimy fun, by all means, pull up a chair.

H.G. Wells (the author is a character here) and Ned the seal, travel in time, space, and across parallel worlds in what can only be thought of as Verne’s Nautilis crossed with a Tardis. Stopping off on a planet of the apes alternate Earth just after the alien invasion and subsequent panic, Ned and Wells pick up young Bill and his sister Suzy Q., survivors of a shipwreck caused when the cruise ship carrying the president fleeing to safe-haven ran into a flying saucer. More of a floating saucer.
Then things get weird. Tarzan (Tongo in this world), a Vernian underground world, Airships, Giant stone juggernauts, and the evil Toni, the unloved daughter of the Ape-American president, now a strange hybrid filled with knowledge from the aliens and mutating into something remarkably revolting.

It all comes down to a race to grab the golden fleece and maybe get everyone somewhere they can call home.

Fortunately, we’ve got Ned our side.

W.C. Fields once remarked that you should never work with animals or children, as they’ll both upstage you. Ned proves the truth of that, red fez and all.