If you are not sure about a book then typing the title into a google search will usually provide you with a few reviews to ponder over. I was considering "The Dark Light Years" by Brian Aldiss for my kindle and a quick search on google found a review on SFReviews.net which was enough to convince me that it was going to be right up my street.....
"In my more introspective moments, I find myself wondering how anyone could possibly not love a novel with dialogue like, "I pronounce all this to be land belonging to the Triple Suns. Let defecation commence." The Dark Light-Years is, forty years after it was first published, still one of the most biting and hilarious satirical SF novels ever written.
What if the human race encountered an extraterrestrial species that was clearly advanced, in many ways beyond anything we could possibly imagine — and yet what if their ways and customs contravened everything we considered to be endemic to a civilized, sapient culture? The Utods are just such a species. Both philosophically and technologically advanced beyond our understanding (their spaceships are made of wood!), they literally wallow in their own filth. Defecation is tied into everything — religious ritual, family bonding, even basic communication.
So it should come as no surprise that when humans first encounter these beings, we consider them dumb animals and shoot them full of holes."
