There are a lot of ways for authors to make their novels funny, or try to even if they themselves aren't personally very funny. They can inject Marvel-style quips, they can make their characters comment endlessly on how the world you are reading about is not actually the real world and does not act in the same way, hoping for that one joke to carry you through in high spirits. Soup of the Universe is funny and does not do that - it does what comic novels need to do, telling a story while being genuinely good-natured, with jokes following naturally as characters do things. Some characters banter, some keep straight faces, the narrator is definitely bantering with the reader, and even if I always found it funny the adventure itself was the meat of the story, something everyone took seriously even in the midst of the absurd.
The story, not broken into chapters, roughly follows the ex-businessman researcher Marcus, the birdman spy and provocateur Banks, and the undead comedian Dean through a plot to take over the drab little slum at the heart of the universe. Hull draws on the beloved drab little slum locale from fantasy novels and especially video games - spiritually, this book's closest relatives are 1990s point-and-click adventure games - to tell a story about what it is we get out of life, from excited or desperate or world-weary perspectives; about finding a new life, and why you might want or not want that.
It's a story with a lot of moving parts, a lot up in the air at all times, but it's always moving, even in the necessary exposition dumps delivered mostly through the dialogue. There's a lot of dialogue - the focus is on the people, their friendships and enemyships with each other, the resolutions or lack of that they come to, and the reader is inclined to the novel with affection for all of the characters, especially the murderous thugs.
Editing isn't perfect, that's indie, but it's a fun time.
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