https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/stringers-by-chris-panatier-brief-note/

Really awful. Not as funny as he thinks it is, by a long way. ( )

Panatier, Chris. Stringers. Angry Robot, 2022.
Chris Panatier’s second novel, Stringers, is aptly compared to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In his late twenties, Ben works in a tackle shop, selling fish lures and tying flies. His one friend is his pal Patton, a “never-employed stoner” who needs weed to function. Ben’s social life has been stunted by a strange mental condition—he knows a lot of esoteric information about natural science, especially such things as the sex lives of bugs, but he does not know where he learned any of it. He also knows a lot about watches, again never having studied the subject. As a child, he would describe to his parents the details of the sexual anatomy of Brazilian bark lice. Meanwhile, across the galaxy, Naecia, a young humanoid indentured pipe fitter on a space station, has visions of a machine she feels compelled to build, though she does not know what it does. All these lives will intersect with the help of an android bounty hunter. There is plenty of satirical humor as this misfit trio tries to understand what brought them together. The characters are surprisingly three-dimensional, and the world building is fun, if a bit hard to hang on to at times. 4 stars. ( )