Q: A Novel, by Evan Mandery

What if your future self met you for lunch and told you not to marry your fiance?  Or to change jobs?  Or to travel?  Would we really benefit from hindsight?  In his highly imaginative novel Q, Evan Mandery asks those questions and more.  In Q, the narrator, a professor and author (not unlike Mr. Mandery himself), falls madly in love with Q.  They are all set to get married when he gets an invitation to lunch from his future self, who tells him he "must not marry Q!"  Convinced, he begins sabotaging their relationship, finding a natural way to break it off.  Various manifestations of his future selves begin making regular appearances, guiding him toward or away from certain life paths.

As the advice from the future selves continues and escalates, frequently contradicting what the last future self said, the narrator becomes more confused.  We learn that time travel is invented at some point in the future, and an industry has arisen in which many people head to the past to make things right, or, as they perceive it, better.  Things don't always work out like they think, like when one man traveled back in time to give $10,000 dollars to a young Warren Buffett.  The timing was not quite right; rather than invest it, young Warren bought a ukulele and fulfilled his dream of becoming a well-known ukulele player.

Mandery has given us a story that is first of all hilarious.  His characterizations, dialogue, and situations come together beautifully for a laugh-out-loud read.   But more than a good laugh, Q is thoughtful and reflective, and tells a captivating tale.  I liked Mandery's funny novel First Contact, but with Q he takes his writing to a much higher lever.  It's still marginally sci-fi (after all, he deals with time travel) but mostly it's a novel about love and life.  I felt a connection to Q and the narrator, was entertained and even a little inspired.

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.