Year Zero, by Rob Reid

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, Rob Reid is flattering Douglas Adams greatly.  As the publicity for Year Zero indicates, Reid's first book is very much in the tradition of Adams's incomparable Hitchhiker's Guide books.  That said, the students of great artists can very often be great themselves.

Nick Carter, our everyman earthling, practices law in a firm that specializes in intellectual property.  He is visited by aliens who come for his assistance.  As it turns out, aliens have been listening to our broadcasts since Year Zero, the year in which the theme song for Welcome Back, Kotter was discovered.  As it further turns out, no other species in the universe has the musical abilities of Earth, and the rest of the universe has an insatiable appetite for our music.  The aliens have conscientiously determined that they owe Earth for royalties, as virtually every living thing in the universe has every song ever written on Earth on their mp3-like players.  Plus, huge crowds come to see performers lip-sync Earth music (which has been a boon for humanoid species, who can more closely emulate their human idols).  Alas, Nick and his new alien friends have to compete with a faction who would rather see Earth destroyed (or, more accurately, destroy itself) than have deal with the financial debt to humanity.

Reid fills this romp through the galaxy with crazy characters and zany circumstances, while poking pop culture in the eye and mocking silly bureaucracies.  As you would guess from the theme of the book, as well as from Reid's background as a pioneer in the world of online music, he has plenty to say about file sharing, piracy, and music on the web.   Fans of Douglas Adams will definitely see shades of Adams in Reid's writing.  Yet Reid does have his own voice.  He's not Adams, but could turn into a worthy successor.  I would certainly love to read more Reid!


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary digital review copy!

First Contact: Or, It's Later Than You Think, by Evan Mandery

I was drawn to this novel because of the blurb on the cover, comparing it to works of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams.  I like Vonnegut OK, but I think Douglas Adams is one of the greatest writers EVER!  So of course I had to check out someone following in Adams's footsteps.  I've read Douglas Adams, and Mandery is no Douglas Adams.  Now that we've gotten that clarification out of the way, I'll say that I did enjoy Mandery's book.

More than Vonnegut and Adams, Mandery reminded me of Christopher Buckley's brand of political satire.  In First Contact, aliens make contact with Earth, announcing their arrival on YouTube.  The story revolves around an aide to the president and his relationship with the Rigelian ambassador.  Their superiors, especially a bumbling, exercise-obsessed, hyper-religious U.S. President (Mandery's clear lampooning of George W. Bush was a little too mean to be funny. . . . But still kind of funny.), end up in a series of misunderstandings and ultimately a nuclear show-down (the American President's fault, of course). 

First Contact is an entertaining trifle, but little more.  Mandery is a funny writer, but his attempts to channel Adams fall short.  Like Adams, Mandery uses lots of asides and digressions, Hitchhiker's Guide style, but somehow doesn't keep it all together like Adams did.  If you ever liked Douglas Adams, Monty Python, or science fiction with a rowdy sense of humor, pick up First Contact for a laugh.