Marianarchy

Hi, guys! Sorry I’ve been away for a little while! Anyways, today I will be doing a review for the Space Battle Lunchtime book!

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Space Battle Lunchtime is about a baker named Peony. She is an underrated baker working in a cute cafè. But then, an alien comes down and snatches her up to space! The reason is because Peony has been chosen to compete in a baking show called Space Battle Lunchtime. Peony faces challenges with baking ingredients from other planets, people thinking she’s not good enough, and a suspicious chef named Chef Melonhead who will… eliminate his opponents at any cost… Will Peony make it through? Read to find out!

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I personally love baking, so this book is one of my favorites. I also love the creative ingredients from other planets! I do wish that it was a bit longer, but overall I think it is a really good book! I rate it a… 8.5/10 on the Marianarchy Scale!

𝑀𝑌 𝐷𝐴𝐷’𝑆 𝑅𝐸𝑉𝐼𝐸𝑊

I’m going to assume that Marian gave y’all a plot summary in her review – because summarizing is a skill she needs to work on and I know she’s doing her best to improve in that area. So I’m going to just jump in . . . 

 

When Marian asked me to review the first collection of Natalie Riess’s “Space Battle Lunchtime,” I was not thrilled. My wife, Jess, and Marian love cooking challenge shows. They’ve watched several and are currently in love with Disney’s kid-centric cooking contest show.

 

I must admit, I find these shows painful to watch; even the purposeful by-design-as-benign-as-can-be Disney one. I’m not sure why. I feel maybe like food is meant to be the shared gift and collective blessing and to turn into just another contest seems like . . . whatever, the point is, not a big fan of the basic premise of the whole book: human girl gets snatched up into intergalactic cooking contest show, facing off against a grip of aliens and navigating her way around alien ingredients.

But I enjoyed this comic! The plot is thin, but that strikes me as true to the genre of the whole reality TV cook premise. On such shows characterization is woven into their approach to cooking and their attitudes towards the other contestants. Riess’s characters reveal themselves in the heat of battle and give away huge bits of their motivation and backstory in the compressed moments they aren’t on camera. I’ve never been on one of these shows or, honestly, on television or movies (except for thing on public access in grade school), but this seems genuine to the story.

I like how Riess pays homage to her inspirations. For example, in her tale about a lone human facing weird and fantastical challenges, she worked in a character that resembles Finn the Human Boy from the classic “Adventure Time” show.

She also goes surprisingly dark without getting gory. A major plot point centers around the delightfully grisly idea of a cooking show where you must defeat and cook your opponents. Which, honestly, might finally be a cooking contest show I could respect.

There’s a LGBTQ angle that might get complicated by the fact the main protagonist, a young woman who is crushing on another lady chef, has a best ally who is a dude that is clearly crushing on her. I haven’t read the second volume, so no spoilers in the comments! Reiss’s characterizations add to the interest, but in a efficiently handled way that seems genuine to the fact that the interpersonal relationships between the characters occur within a competition. 

“Space Battle Lunchtime,” volume one, is a focused and slender pleasure that gives more than it takes and, for that, I think it qualifies as a success.