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69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!, February 15, 2009
Kurt Helm's review: "Agent to the Stars" by John Scalzi
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK unless you have eight uninterrupted hours to devote to having an incredibly good time with characters you'd like to hang out with and a plot that provides one delightful surprise after another!
"Agent to the Stars" is a break from Scalzi's highly acclaimed "Old Man's War" series with a seamless move from military sci-fi to humorous sci-fi. The plot involves a benevolent alien species, the Yherajk, that comes to help mankind. The only problem is that the Yheraji are not likely to be well received by humankind. They are frighteningly repulsive looking blobs of "space phlegm" and their main form of communication is by a variety of smells; very, very bad smells.
Our hero, Thomas Stein, is an up and coming Hollywood talent agent, still a bit low in the pecking order of his agency, who gets picked by his legendary boss to be the one to take on this alien species as their agent. His job is to "sell" these frighteningly alien blobs to the world as benefactors, not as scary invaders. Along the way the author gets to explore Hollywood hype; holocaust issues; friendship and love; family relationships; the high pressure, superficial life of a Hollywood agent; and how to deal with five gallons of rotten-smelling Jell-O slime with a 180 IQ. All of this with the snappiest dialogue since the West Wing TV show went off the air (Aaron Sorkin, eat your heart out!)
The only flaw I could find (and believe me I feel like I am picking fly-specks out of the salt by bringing this up) is that for the first chapter or two I had a little trouble keeping two of the main characters apart because of the similarity of their names (i.e., Miranda and Michelle.)
Overall, Anyone, regardless of his or her interests, who is fascinated by an author's ability to take the same old words we all use and put them together in such a way that we can see time-worn subjects with a fresh new perspective, will enjoy this book. Come to think of it, I don't think of "Agent to the Stars" as a sci-fi book after all. It is first and foremost a can't-put-it-down, funny as heck, read. The sci-fi part is just background, the skeleton upon which all the enchanting flesh of ideas, images and associations is hung.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a stay up all night reading book, February 9, 2009
John Scalzi just keeps on going from Strength to Strength with his books, and Agent to the Stars is no exception in his October 2008 release. What do you do when you are an agent, who is trying to sell the public on an otherwise fine species who just happens to smell really bad and we would find them very ugly.
Scalzi takes on Hollywood and Spin Doctors in this book, as he explores the idea that the public can be sold on anything, if it is done right. This time the Yherajk have come to earth to start off a new friendship with the planet, only rather than being god like or beautiful (or even looking like angels or Satan) the alien race is just not appealing to the human sense of beauty at all. Bring on Thomas Stein who is given the task of spinning humanity and its view point to appreciate and sell the world on the Yherajk. This is not going to be easy.
This is another must read five of five stars book, entertaining, funny, and in line with the Androids Dream, this is another densely packed and vivid story that is easy to follow, laugh at, and understand/feel the people's issues. This is a stay up all night book reading, and well worth spending time with it, totally "sold".
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"An entire people, amazingly technologically and ethically advanced, all in desperate need of Dr. Scholl's foot deodorizers.", November 13, 2009
This review is from: Agent to the Stars (Paperback)
John Scalzi is such a good writer that probably even his grocery lists glow with effortless wit and narrative flow. Scalzi has already left a sizable imprint in the sci-fi world, and I guess AGENT TO THE STARS sort of falls in that genre. Scalzi demonstrates a terrific sense of humor in all his books, but the humor in this one is decidedly more pronounced. There's the precise skewering of Hollywood and a topsy-turvying of that old sci-fi chestnut: first contact with aliens. It's a really fun read.
AGENT TO THE STARS, we learn in the author's foreword, turns out to be Scalzi's "practice novel," the book he wrote to see if he could actually write one. It was first made available for the readers in Scalzi's website and eventually found its way to publication in book format. Except that the guy is so good that it doesn't at all feel like a debut novel.
The Yherajk (*not pronounced "earjack" or "earwax"*) are a friendly lot, a highly advanced alien race, and they'd like to get to know us better. For the past 70 years they've been tapping into Earth's broadcasted signals and have gotten exposed to our television shows. The Yherajk are civilized folks, but they look like gross snotty-looking gunk and they communicate by exchanging seriously foul scents, so they're well aware that humanity's first reaction probably won't be a hug. So what do they do? Do they land in front of the White House? Do they contact Earth's most renowned scientists or the League of Nations? No. They get a Hollywood agent to represent them. Which actually isn't that ridiculous a notion. Who better than a Hollywood agent to convince the masses that $#!+ don't stink? And that smelly sentient blobs may actually be the good guys?
John Scalzi knows how to write sympathetic characters, and when you can make not only a smelly sentient blob but also a Hollywood agent sympathetic, well, then you know you got skills. There's always been a satirical element in Scalzi's humor, and this is never more evident than in this novel. Our central character is glib-talking Tom Stein, a Tinseltown up-and-comer representing a stable of not much. Tom's one A-lister is a 25-year-old starlet who lucked into a B-movie that surprisingly made tons in the box office, and now she thinks she can act. Now she wants the lead in a biopic about an influential Holocaust survivor. The rest of Tom's clientele are no-hopers, but all of them are ambitious dreamers. Then there's that sneaky reporter from a gossip rag who gets a whiff that something big's going on with Tom and starts to hound him.
All that aggravation, though, pales to diddly squat once Tom is hired by the living gooey goop. Now Tom has to introduce the Yherajk to Earth in such a way that Earth welcomes them with open arms or at least with open minds. But how?
I really dig Scalzi's Old Man's War series, but AGENT TO THE STARS is almost as much fun to read. It's definitely a change of pace. It early on establishes a breezy tone and mostly maintains it, only in the end giving way to a show of nicely-handled sentiment. There may have been a suspicious moistness in the eye or a sniffle or two when I read the last two chapters. Never mind that it played out sort of the way I figured it would. It's a very satisfying read; Scalzi keeps things moving, and the Hollywood dialogue rings true (not that I'm an expert, but Scalzi seems to know what he's talking about). And I think it's pretty neat (and very polite) that the Yherajk would actually phone ahead to announce their presence. Even my mom doesn't do that.
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