World Enough (And Time)

Back on Earth, a dying man has just left his fortune to a home for maltreated ferrets.
Normally Jeremiah Brown would not begrudge such luckless animals their windfall, but the man was his uncle, and the fortune was supposed to be his inheritance.
Furthermore, having already purchased a ticket for a luxury space-cruise "on expectation" of said inheritance, Jeremiah can no longer pay for said ticket.
And furthermore still, he is already on said cruise...
World Enough (And Time) is a sci-fi comedy of manners and errors.
If you enjoy the work of Douglas Adams—or have always longed to read something inspired by P.G. Wodehouse or Kingsley Amis but set on, you know, a spaceship zipping through the void at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light—you should check it out.