In the sixth CatStronauts graphic novel, the elite team gets invited to test the first-ever space hotel!

Goodreads Waffles and Pancake Series by Drew Brockington - Goodreads

It turns out that several other space programs around the world are planning Mars missions, and the CatStronauts are the last ones to get involved. Fresh off of their heroic mission to save the world, the CatStronauts--Major Meowser, Pom Pom, Blanket and Waff. In this graphic novel series, author and illustrator Drew Brockington breathes life into a world populated entirely by cats, brimming with jokes, charm, science, and enough big boxes and tuna sandwiches for everyone!But around the world, other cat space programs are watching–in particular the CosmoCats, the first cats to go to space! The Catstronauts have successfully saved the world from an energy crisis in the first book, and now they're about to be shown up by the Russian Cosmocats in the space race to Mars! Plus, the cats back at Mission Control have accidentally abandoned the crew for rest, relaxation, and retreat. The Catsronauts are headed off to the International Space Station to attach the new botany module, perform some experiments, and do some maintenance.

Tinderblox | Alley Cat Games Tinderblox | Alley Cat Games

Can you deal with unrelenting disaster and hold your ship together long enough to destroy the enemy invaders? It takes team work, and brainstorming, and a swallowing of pride to collectively get everyone back on task.For example, cats whose eyes were drawn so that they had eyelashes were female, while cats whose eyes were just dots were male, meaning that all the CatStronauts were male.

CatStronauts: Race to Mars (CatStronauts, 2) by Drew CatStronauts: Race to Mars (CatStronauts, 2) by Drew

The CatStronauts are on a mission on the space station, while meanwhile everyone in mission control goes on vacation. Although, the adult in me is going don't promote someone just because they feel bad and you want them to feel better. Brockington included some nice visual jokes and random references in the background (I noticed Star Wars, Star Trek, and maybe Teletubbies), but overall this volume didn’t seem quite as light as the first one, even though there was less at stake.A side note: this volume made me realize that I’d made some character design assumptions that weren’t necessarily true. Players are competing in a simultaneous fast-paced race to stack cat-shaped meeples into towers of cuteness. I really enjoy the Catstronuats book series but I didn't really like this one as muck as the others. The numerous space-based acronyms are funny, but for someone like me who has lived in acronym hell (AKA the military) for a couple of decades, it got a bit tiresome. I would not normally include a short, fun read like this one in my reading challenge - but I’m woefully behind and unlikely to actually hit my goal again this year.

Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site Catastronauts for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Official Site

Pom Pom has a huge list of experiments to run which the rest of the team thinks may be too much, but Pom Pom is determined. Sometimes the cats had to prioritize between their “race to Mars” timeline and the scientific experiments they wanted to do once they got to Mars, because there wasn’t enough time to get everything done.As the Commander of a team of Catstronauts, you’ll take on fast-paced missions to visit planets across the solar system and rescue poor helpless kittens! Meet the fearless commander Major Meowser, brave-but-hungry pilot Waffles, genius technician and inventor Blanket, and quick thinking science officer Pom Pom on their most important mission yet! Race to Mars creates a world much in the same way as those movies: characters are sketched out enough to gain some development, impending problems and play on which characters know about them create layers of development that hold us in suspense. Brutal and grim Russians who inexplicably alternate between rage and amiability may be a reflection on how any human interaction and perception of others may be skewed when each participant considers the other ultimately hostile and incomprehensible.