Mar 30 2006
Currently Reading…
Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi
Before I read Scalzi’s Hugo-nominated novel, Old Man’s War, I thought I’d read the first novel he’d written and which, following Cory Doctorow’s example, he made available online for free (although I read the hardcover version. The experience was a delight.
This is a very silly, irreverent story. But then, I’m attracted to silly and irreverent, so I fell into the book with a big splash then swam to the end in a few hours.
Tom Stein, a young Hollywood agent, is hired by aliens to figure out a way to introduce them to the human race without said human race freaking out. There’s reason for that: the Yherajk, although intelligent and polite, look like the Blob on a good day, and communicate by farting. They need an image.
Despite being a first book, the story feels polished and is full of delicious details on the biz. The tone, as I said, is irreverent and Hollywoodian: gossippy, a bit mean, biting and sharp. The story has no pretension. It’s just plain fun.
Well worth reading, especially as a pick-me-up end of winter blues.
Correction of entry above, made at 16:00: John mentions that he offered Agent in 1999 online, before Cory Doctorow ever offered his first novel. See John’s comment attached to the entry.
2 responses so far
2 Responses to “Currently Reading…”
Glad you liked it!
Small point of clarification: I put the novel online in 1999, which is before Cory was doing his thing. What Cory *did* pioneer (as far as I know) was releasing a book simultaneously in print and free online version. The print version of Agent didn’t come out until 2005.
[…] Scalzi retains his smoothly flowing style in Old Man’s War, and there are traces of humour reminiscent of his first novel, Agent to the Stars, but the story is deeper, richer, more inquisitive than Agent. It could be qualified as a space opera but, just as Spin goes beyond the fantastic, Old Man’s War goes beyond the genre. Scalzi questions what makes us human, in a very different way. John Perry doesn’t have his own battered body, but retains his mind and his experiences. So the question appears: what makes us “us”? How is our humanity defined? Our personality? How much of it would we retain if we were to be reborn, or brought back from death? […]