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Summary
Summary
Take a trip aboard Hotelitor: the finest hospitality craft in its colony, equipped with jet feet, a hyperspace engine, and single, double, and adjoining rooms.
When a giant alien attacks the ship, Hotelitor's surviving guests and staff find themselves stranded in deep space. There, 18-year-old intern Anna Greene must take charge. Alongside her fellow entry-level service workers, she'll try to control the chaos while rival factions emerge, wealthy VIPs seize hotel resources, and the musician-in-residence develops a literal cult following. As Anna and her friends search for a way home, shocking discoveries about Hotelitor's owners await them--if another giant alien doesn't smash the crew first.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--In a not-too-distant future, Earth is depleted of its natural resources and becomes a destitute orb, forcing humanity to take to the stars. The Apatus Corporation turns planetary catastrophe into luxury living and ferries the populace between colonies, including Colony 4CX, where Hotelitor--a "luxury-class defense and hospitality unit"--offers VIP treatment to its guests. When Hotelitor falls under alien attack, Anna, an 18-year-old intern, rallies her fellow service workers to send the hotel unit into space to escape the aliens, but the group finds themselves navigating class warfare, corrupt hotel management, and the formation of a cult as they try to find their way back to the colony. As Anna and her team search for a way home, they uncover secrets about Apatus that could cost them their lives, if the aliens don't get them first. Relying on often hilarious situations and dialogue, Hicks delivers a sharp story about the service industry, social classes, and corporate greed. Vibrant illustrations are colorful, incorporating a diverse group of characters. VERDICT Hotelitor blends sci-fi and class comedy with entertaining results. A good choice for YA graphic novel collections.--Rosemary Kiladitis
Publisher's Weekly Review
During her unpaid hospitality management work placement, 18-year-old student Anna runs around completing necessary but drudging tasks at Hotelitor, a "luxury-class defense and hospitality unit" created by Apatus Corporation for Colony 4CX, one of its retail-and-leisure locations. While the bridge crew presciently celebrate "another year without incident on board" planet-side, Anna's colleagues Rodney and Tori blithely launch Hotelitor off-colony, where a surprise battle with a massive alien maroons the mech-like hotel in remote space. Over a month later and sans any real leadership on board, remaining guests and staff form factions and entertainingly clash with one another to cope with the intergalactic stranding, leaving Anna and her makeshift bridge crew the only ones attempting to pilot Hotelitor back home. They soon dock on an Apatus-run mining outpost, but their relief is cut short once they learn that the corporation has committed myriad heinous crimes, including hoarding resources, and plans to destroy Hotelitor and its inhabitants to protect their secret. Utilizing flat coloring and straightforward paneling, Hicks (Glorious Wrestling Alliance) presents a clever, high-octane graphic novel satire of the bourgeois and proletariat. Human characters are depicted with varying skin tones. Ages 14--up. (May)
Kirkus Review
An interstellar intern fights aliens, giant robots, and social inequality. In this insightful extraterrestrial graphic novel, the Earth has been stripped of its resources, leaving humans to live among the stars on corporate colonies run by a company called Apatus. Eighteen-year-old Anna Greene is an unpaid intern at Hotelitor, a luxury hotel housed within a giant robot in the Apatus Colony 4CX. The guests live in plush accommodations with a spa, pool, and generously stocked bar, while the staff occupy different levels within Hotelitor. When a dazzling pink-and-purple wormhole opens in space-time, and an imposingly large purple creature bursts through it, Hotelitor falls under attack. As the hierarchical constructs of staff and guests dissolve and re-form amid the chaos, Anna must step up to save Hotelitor and its humans. As the cause of the attack becomes clearer, Anna also contends with something she never imagined: the fact that Apatus Corporation itself is a foe. Using cinematic action scenes rendered in a dazzlingly hued palette, Hicks blends space opera with clever commentary on wealth and social inequality. Despite its slim page count, this work is jam-packed with big robot fights, an alien cult, an evil corporation, and the trials and tribulations of working in the hospitality industry, making for an utterly intriguing genre mashup that's sure to stay with readers. Anna is white; there's racial diversity among secondary characters. A razor-sharp and action-packed science fiction romp that tackles social issues with aplomb. (Graphic science fiction. 12-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Anna Greene is new at her job at Hotelitor, a first-class multistoried hotel-mech complete with jet packs, two shoulder-mounted cannons, and a full-service bar. When their colony is attacked by an unknown alien force, Anna and her colleagues must now perform "other duties as assigned" and save themselves and their customers by using the Hotelier to not only fight but also escape and survive. While there are plenty of obligatory kaiju battles, the majority of the story focuses on running the unusual business and the internal politics between the separate classes aboard the hotel, as factions have broken out since the first alien attack. Between battling the aliens, dealing with infighting, and figuring out how to get Hotelitor back home without its original bridge crew, there's a lot going on, but the overall playfully silly atmosphere and commentary on capitalism as a constant undercurrent make for an enjoyable read. Hicks' appealing cartoon artwork, which has retro-manga flair, nicely matches the tone. Sharp and full of heart and fun.
