While the audience for this may be a small sliver of a Venn diagram, it’s surprisingly readable and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Regular readers will know many, if not most, wrestling novels fall into a common theme: a fictionalised version of the territorial era of the 70s and 80s, with (sometimes thinly) veiled versions of the NWA and its touring champion model.

Occasionally you’ll have an extra genre in the mix, usually crime, sometimes romance. This follows that pattern but the genre is science fiction. The story is based around Gorpp, an alien on an advance mission for an invasion of Earth who sees a televised wrestling show and, misunderstanding the description, believes he must defeat the World Heavyweight Champion to take over the planet.

It’s not exactly the most plausible of situations, but the book works by playing it straight and sticking to as much internal consistency as the pretext allows. The whole “main character is an alien” deal doesn’t get in the way of the story and instead is a useful logistical device for overcoming situations where time and distance would otherwise derail the book’s pace.

Perhaps the biggest compliment is that it often doesn’t feel like a sci-fi novel, though does perhaps require an even bigger suspension of disbelief than most wrestling fiction. It’s by no means deep or sophisticated literature, but a breezy read that’s more about pro wrestling than the concept might suggest.

[Disclaimer: The author provided a review copy.]