Boontrak started out life as a spark from pyrotechnics at a rock concert on Level 7. He is given a suit though that allows him to collect himself more and chooses to be male from all the different genders available. Boontrak is happily flying through space not really worrying about where he is going when he runs into the Pleasure-Filchers. The Pleasure-Filchers (PF for short) take the fun out of things, so they’re never quite as good as the first time was. Boontrak runs into something while trying to get away from the Pleasure-Filchers and leaves behind something solid while he now feels “like a cloud of diffused energy.” He manages to recombine his energy into three pieces, which end up in different universes. Earth and Thrarrxgor started out as duplicate universes. Pieces of Boontrak landed on both. Where they landed, they left behind immense power.
Unfortunately, the first person to find that power is Squid Sculpin. He finds the piece of Boontrak on Thrarrxgor. Sculpin isn’t such a good guy and he uses the power to his own benefit. Sculpin works for a man named Capias K*rargxt. K*rargxt is mentally insane due to an experimental upbringing involving wild animals as caretakers. He takes great pleasure in watching human pain and destroying universes. Ked (Kedrin Coot) works on Thrarrxgor at K*rargxtko, so he also works for K*rargxt. Unbeknownst to Ked, the plan he has devised that he was told was a “life planning script” is going to be used by K*rargxt and Sculpin in another way. When Ked finds out the truth, he isn’t happy. K*rargxt’s next target is Earth, once they have recovered the other piece of Boontrak that is there. The plan is to first torture the Earthlings and then break them down so that using mind-control, they can make them into free slave labor. That way they can move the slaves over to Thrarrxgor before destroying Earth’s universe. First, they have to test the plan on a single Earthling though. They choose Joe, our hero who has just gotten his life in a much better place after meeting Riska at The Bend in the Sky bar.
Joe was having a hell of a night, the night he met Riska. All he wanted was a drink, but the place he chose to go to was one of the strangest possible. His night wasn’t getting any better when he fell through the floor. The moment he laid eyes on Riska, his entire world changed. He was so nervous to talk to her that he was tongue-tied, but lucky she understood and connected with him as well. Since that meeting, she’s taken him sky-diving and all sorts of other things that have opened his life in ways he never thought possible. It’s really too bad that he is going to have to try and figure out how to stop K*rargxt and keep the entire Earth from being destroyed. Luckily, the inventor Marlin Quilldragon has found the piece of Boontrak on Earth. Marlin is a good man and will try to help Joe.
Shloomger Shoon is a level Elevener and habitates many levels and universes at the same time. Shoon owes a lot of money to a loan shark named Zunddertokk. His buddy, Eelag, shows him a device that won’t fix things but will show you a different way of looking at them to help you figure out how to fix your problem. When they test it with his loan issue, they get stuck in some unknown place full of really stinky beasts. After returning from that adventure, Eelag convinces Shoon that he can get out of his money problem by going to Earth and becoming mortal temporarily. This way Zunddertokk will lose track of him not believing that Shoon would give up his immortality. While there, Eelag wants Shoon to help Joe and stop K*rargxt, so at least Joe is going to have some help from that front as well.
The Bend in the Sky is an epic tale of quite a few lives, universes, and levels converging in various ways. I do hope that my short plot summary has made sense to you as it is very difficult to read. There are so many more characters and smaller plotlines that converge with these main characters that you simply need to read the book to understand. D.S. Morgan writes very much like Douglas Adams, who I have never personally been a fan of. But I do realize that I am in the minority on that opinion! Having said that, I found myself enjoying The Bend in the Sky more and more as I kept on reading. My advice to you is to not get caught up in trying to get all of the details down at the beginning and just keep reading. It will start to come together and make more sense about a third of the way through. Granted, it’s still a slow read at times. If you’re a fan of Douglas Adams, I recommend that you pick up Bend in the Sky and see what you think for yourself as I think you will probably enjoy it.
