Can Sparky the Mekkion face her fears, dry her deadly tears and re-programme her peers? Sparky can see the whole of her life laid out before her for the next millennia - that's how Mekkions like it after all, with a really good job overseeing update 'patches' on the intergalactic translation service the Universal, a routine to keep her safe from surprises and a universe that a thousand years on from interstellar contact seems at last to be settling down. She's as grounded as they come, not least because her wheels cause her to sink lower to the floor than most Mekkions and more interested in profits than prophets. But when her new Boss, an uncaring uncouth Doosbrat named Melon Rusk, takes over her precious 'Universal' that's brought such peace and community and starts using it to attack the new-oldcomers in the universe, the Space Dinosaurs, Sparky discovers her new calling and it's one that lies in an unseen dimension of faith rather than her reliable logic. Will she be able to save her new friends from persecution? Can she work out what Melon's plan really is? can she stop Maggrumph Ronald Grump from taking power? Will she ever work out that her pterodactyl boyfriend has feelings for her? Will she ever discover the memory she had removed and feel the feelings she's suppressed for so long? And will she ever find her life's porpoise? (Not a typo!)
More than just another novel, 'Maintenance' is absolutely another mad house, a love song to spirituality and how we are all more than just cogs in a machine, offering hope that one day if we listen to what's in our hearts and souls rather than seeing the world that's right in front of us it might just save us all.
Now available in a special illustrated re-issue with illustrations by the artist 'Under A Dreamer's Moon' that bring the twelve colourful alien species of the 'Kindred Spirits' universe to life.
