Akiko and the Missing Misp by Mark Crilley

When Akiko is contacted by her Smoovian friends Mr. Beeba and Spuckler Boach, it is to come to Smoo for the celebration of the 125th Anniversary of Smoovian Liberation Day. Little does Akiko know that this adventure will send her back in time to see Spuckler when he was a kid and Mr. Beeba when he actually had hair!

Since Mr. Beeba and Spuckler are so busy planning the parade to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Smoovian Liberation, they have sent a remote-controlled robot ship to pick her up, piloted by a Beeba-bot. Akiko isn't very happy about that, but she can deal with it, and settles in to sleep during the journey. But when the ship encounters an electromagnetic holofield, Mr. Beeba decides to move the ship 25 light years by Transmoovulator. Only instead of moving the ship in space, he sends it into the past, where it crash lands on Smoo. Akiko hikes to the palace and soon figures out she is in the past when she sees Mr. Beeba with hair.

Since he doesn't know her yet, Akiko is forced to tell some pretty tall tales about the future to get Mr. Beeba to trust her, such as that he has been named head Librarian of all Libraries everywhere. As part of their discussion, he tells her about why the Smoovians celebrate Smoovian Liberation Day. King Froptoppit defeated a tyrant named Vorsto Sluggs and liberated the people of Smoo. Vorsto had a crown which could control people's minds, but it was destroyed except for the indestructable part, called the Misp, which is kept locked up in King Froptoppit's Palace. Since only a descendant of Sluggs can use the power of the Misp, and there are hundreds of them on Smoo, it's deemed safer to keep it under guard.

But while Akiko is dining with the King, a much younger Spuckler Boach is sneaking in to steal the Misp. He's caught by one of the King's guardsmen, a fat man named Fatch. But when Akiko tells everyone that she knows him, Mr. Beeba concludes that she is an associate of Spuckler sent to distract him, and they are thrown into prison together. But Spuckler easily breaks out, and her as well, and they are looking for a way out of the castle. They find it in Mr. Beeba's assistant Hwindolyn Plapp, who is afraid of them, and gives them money and her personal airscooter to escape on. But as they escape past the guard, Mr. Beeba finds them and tells them that the Misp is a fake and was probably stolen by Fatch, who has fled the palace. Using Hwindolyn's scooter, Akiko, Mr. Beeba, Spuckler, Gax and Poog go after Fatch. But can they catch up with him and find out *why* he stole the Misp and for whom? Or will the future Akiko has with her friends be wiped out by the actions of whoever stole the Misp?

This time, Akiko is fighting for more than herself; if she can't fix the past, she'll be stuck there forever, and King Froptoppit and his son the Prince will be no more than a memory! Can Akiko fix the problem without changing the future in any significant way?

I liked this book, which gave us a very different picture of Spuckler and Mr. Beeba. We also get to see Gax before he got so dinged up and rusty. He's actually shiny and new in this book. But Akiko must also confront the time paradox that her actions are creating on Smoo: how will the future be changed if her friends remember her from the past? Is there any way to get out of the problems she's creating for herself?

But you don't get any time to dwell on that, as almost no sooner than Akiko arrives, she is drawn into the hunt for the Misp, which involves racing across long stretches of Smoo and confronting horrible villains. But who is the mind behind the theft? And when Akiko's companions are captured, can she face down the villain all by herself? Things end on a fun note, and she finally makes a friend she can tell about her adventures on Smoo. I wonder where the series will go from here, but I'm enjoying it mightily every step of the way.

I also wonder if the Akiko comic book is still going on, and if this adventure was chronicled there the way her pursuit of Alia Rellapor was. I had no idea, but having visited Mark Crilley's site, I can now say, no. The comic and books diverge after the Alia Rellapor story, which is fine by me. I can only hope there will be more books in the series, and that Mark Crilley will continue to entertain with books like this and his wonderful manga, Miki Falls.