Space Team is a fast-paced scifi parody in the vein of Harry Harrison. Cal Carver is a low-level crook and con artist who's life takes a turn for the awesome, as he's abducted by a galactic government, assigned to a team of malcontents, and given a very important mission to retrieve a super-weapon and stop a civil war. The first and biggest problem is that they've mistaken Cal for his cellmate The Butcher, an infamous serial killer/cannibal. After that, well its a dizzying array of stock scifi tropes , gross-out humor, and casual misogyny in pursuit of action.

Overall, this story is aggressively average. The humor relies on body functions (especially snot) and references to nerd pop culture. Cal is a relentless optimist, which does a lot of good for making the plot feel exciting, even as it consists of meetings and arguments and chase scenes which are circular at best. But there are irritating tics in the writing (do people have expressions beyond various levels of false smiles?), and you know, I'd never expect to say this about a comedic scifi novel, but there's an irritating amount of white male privilege on display. Cal is the captain, despite a complete absence of leadership qualities, because he's too arrogant to shut up and let people who don't preface everything they see with "space-" do their jobs. The other characters exist purely in reaction to Cal, without much characterization of their own.

Not bad if you can pick this up for a dollar and want to kill a few hours, but you're better off reading Bill The Galactic Hero instead.