LogFAQs > #898620126

Alright, so, this is the point where the book gets way strange and stays that way until the end.

Roger and Q'nell set out on their mission and it's...well, difficult to explain in brief. They're basically floating through the 5th dimension and everything is really abstract. They've been trained to manipulate things with their thoughts, but naturally Roger isn't quite as good at it as Q'nell. He quickly screws things up.

He can't keep his focus, starts to panic, and shit hits the fan. Imagine a quick sequence of the infinite improbability drive from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They're horses for a bit at one point. They almost die and stuff.

Eventually, Roger does get a grip on things and gets them back into.....each other's bodies. Yep. The author really wears it out, too. The jokes would not stop. Q'nell, in Roger's body, is all about trying to have teh sexy timez, despite the severe urgency of the situation. Roger, in Q'nell's body, experiences perpetual harassment for the first time.

They keep getting more sidetracked from the mission, which eventually results in Roger getting conked out again...and waking up in captivity...again.

It's Oob the Rhox who's got him. It's at this point that things start to get funny again. Keep in mind, it's Roger Oob has captured, but in Q'nell's body.

Oob explains that his plan the whole time has been to try to negotiate a deal. He's been trying to invade Earth...but not just in the present...he wants to invade it throughout all portions of history. Oob is a 5th-dimensional being.

After Roger refuses to bargain with him, Oob "disposes of him" through some sort of temporal inter-dimensional equivalent of a waste basket. Roger ends up in a strange place and wouldn't you know it, there's an 8th (or 9th?) dimensional robot there named UKR.

After a brief chat, Roger finds out that UKR has been charged with throwing out some "contaminated slides" from his "filing system". Oob, the 5th dimensional being, is what caused the contamination by intruding and allowing a bunch of 3rd dimensional beings (all the characters we've met to this point) to get into the slides. We also learn that Oob is able to generate a bunch of 3rd dimensional forms of himself and send them out into different slides (time bubbles) at once. There is only one true Oob.

UKR is about to dispose of Roger and the rest of the time bubbles, but Roger persuades him to at least give Roger a chance to rid the place of Oob himself. UKR has very little confidence, but agrees to let him try, just for the sake of watching it play out. He agrees to give Roger pointers through telepathy as he goes.

So UKR transports Roger back to where Oob had him. At this point Roger says he's changed his mind and is willing to negotiate. It then is revealed that Roger misunderstood Oob. Oob doesn't want to invade Earth...he wants to make it a circus where other higher-dimensional beings can come gawk at the primitive life forms.

They have a really silly back and forth to try to reach a compromise. Stuff like "I'll let you have the first 2 billions years" - "No, I need at least everything from 18th century on" - "OK, you can have 1931, but you have to stay in Canada only" and etc. It's actually pretty funny. One of the only things that made me laugh out loud in the book was this quote:

"You're greedy," Oob observed. "Can't you at least let me have the Gay Nineties--and maybe a couple of odd decades out of the Renaissance?"

Remember, the book is set in and written in the 70s, and Oob knows the future already. It was just so unexpected and a, like, wtf? moment. I had a good chuckle.