Customer Reviews

Bobby's Girl

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well, the cover and the blurbs don't do this book justice. I had to read a little bit of it before I decided to buy it. It's not a profound book, but it's a good fun read. It kept me interested, and laughing out loud at a couple of spots. The good guys are good, and the villains are not too villainous.

I like to read military fiction, and it seems to me as if the author knows what he's talking about, without delving too deeply into the nuts and bolts. The whole Hollywood schtick rings true too. Overall, I would maybe call it space opera, with a little bit of unapologetic Deus ex Machina.

I would definitely not turn up my nose at further books by this author, who, I see by looking at the copyright page, is Joshua Dann, who has other books listed on Amazon.

I just finished reading Bobby's Girl and it was great. Fast paced and an easy read, it was difficult to put the book down once I picked it up. The main character, General Ket Mhulhar, is a strong and honor bound woman - who is incredibly loyal and loving to her friends, both old and new. Ket, or Kathy as she is known on Earth, leaves her war torn planet and ends up in on the set of a movie in Los Angeles.

The author has an eye for detail and makes you feel as if you are with the characters in any setting, whether its in a bar on Earth or war torn Thradon. As with Ket, all of the main characters in the book are, someway or another, loyal and honorable - whether they are Ket's boyfriend Bobby or the "bad guy" Celin Kwa.

This is a book that deals with action, love and war, but it is free of any violence and bloodshed that may be considered graphic and therefore I think this book is suitable for younger readers as well, not just adults.

I'll begin by saying that whoever J.D.Austin is, i would guess that he or she has seen military service, and probably in the Navy, at that. About half of the important human characters in this book are Navy vets, and, to this Navy vet at least, they ring true -- written by someone who knows whereof they speak.

That aside, this is a cheerful romp through some of the same territory that my brother (David Weber)'s "Apocalypse Troll" covered a lot more seriously.

The storytelling is neatly divided between a current action story set on Earth and a series of flashbacks set on Planet Thradon, beginning two years ago as the latest in a series of wars between the planet's two largest nations has go badly indeed for the larger of the two.

To begin: General Ket Mhulhar has been on diplomatic duty, and consequently is not in her home country when the big coup goes down; as senior surviving military officer, she is suddenly Premier. But it's not safe for her to stay. The Space Force is going to send her away to a distant planet, which only one ship on the whole world can reach. Knowing she is safe, they can base a Resistance movement on that fact.

But, she has to be disguised surgically to match the inhabitants of her new foster world. Which is, of course, Earth. Working from pictures, the doctors do as well as they can.

Possibly too well.

As the one Thradonian who has actually *been* to Earth looks at the unconscious form lying on the table, he bemoans the fact that with those looks, keeping a low profile on Earth may be difficult -- "Terran males" he explains "go to sleep hoping they'll *dream* about girls who look like that!" On the other hand, he allows, she *is* headed for the one place on Earth where beauty and oddity hand-in-hand are taken for granted -- Los Angeles.

But it's too late to change -- into the ship and off she goes, arriving two years later on Earth, where she is taken under the wing of a retired couple. A retired couple whose son is a successful independent film writer/producer/director (think Tarentino, from the plot descriptions of his films). A film maker whose script girl has just quit.

And "Kathy" goes to work for Bobby, soon talking him into letting her try wearing the "Producer" hat on this film so that he can concentrate on directing. And she tries to decide just what she will do when the Bad Guys manage to follow her here.

Meanwhile, back on Thradon, the military of Dalyi, Ket's home nation, are organising a Resistance.

The two stories alternate neatly, the Thadon story skipping closer anf closer to Present Day, and Kathy and her Terran friends get ready for the Arrival...

Though much of the story is played lightly, there are darker underpinnings, and some fairly serious thoughts about war and peace and patriotism and chauvinism, not to mention the responsibilities of honor and friendship.

The characters, human and Thradonian alike, though mostly lightly sketched are still acceptably plausible -- one of them is a retired Master Chief Petty Officer who was a Seaman Apprentice aboard the Forrestal off the coast of Viet Nam the day a missile on deck cooked off and started one of the most terrifying fires ever to strike a ship that didn't eventually sink, and he *absolutely* reads like the real thing.

Both sides in the conflict on Thradon learn lessons that we haven't yet learnt fully and properly here on Earth, and it is obvious that its aftermath is going to poison Thradonian society and politics for a long time to come, even after the "Good Guys" win a (comparatively) near-bloodless victory.

But it all comes out in the end more or less for the best.

One Thing More Dept: If Austin writes any more books -- either sequels to this one or independent settings -- i hope he takes us back to "The Stupid Elf", one of the more amusing sleazy bars i've run across in fiction of film in a while. I'd like to know more about the "Elf" and Buzz, the unflappable ex-cop bartender.

What a charming book. I was wandering through the library, looking for something to read when I picked up Bobby's Girl. The blurb on the back, which by the way is wrong, looked interesting. According to it, Kathy the alien, was here on Earth hiding from her enemies, and no one on Earth knew that she was an alien. The reality is much more interesting. Her friends know that she is from another world, but they love her so much, they just don't care. They help her settle in to a life in LA and are prepared to defend her. The book is engaging and humorous. I read it in a single sitting, and boy is my behind tired! :-))).
I would recomend this to anyone looking for something a little different.

On a distant planet, after a short brutal war, a woman general finds herself the ranking leader in the country. She has received orders to go into hiding and remain safe until it is the right time to strike back. Hiding goes against her nature, but the rest of the staff comply and have her surgically altered to be human and then ship her off to Earth.

Ket Mulhar lands in California where she is promptly picked up by an aging golf-loving couple and her new life as Kathy begins. The couple have a son who is in the movie business and Kathy is soon working for him and making him more successful.

Meanwhile, the resistance begins to form on her home planet and a war of rebellion begins. The aggressors want to know where Ket is and why she has not shown herself.

The rest of the book is a true delight. Action passes back and forth between planets. Kathy develops a new life, first as a script girl and then as a producer. But Kathy is very honest. She has told the couple who befriended her who she is. Bobby, their son, is also told. Bobby, his parents, and his friends are all veterans (WWII and Desert Storm).

Needless to say, everyone takes a real shine to Kathy and we get a story of Family and friends sticking together and doing everything they need to in order to protect their own.

With General Ket in charge, you expect a big smash explosive battle ending, but this book is more intelligent than that.

I will leave revelations of endings to the readers as friend and foe all come together in the Californian desert.

A wonderful read that is pretty much unlike anything else out there. A fine book.

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General Ket Mhulhar, on the run after the fall of Thradon, goes to ground as a script girl in Hollywood. Fortunately, she had time for radical cosmetic surgery, and now appears to be a gorgeous blonde -- quelle surprise! She advances quickly in the industry, and is soon directing a sci-fi thriller about... the fall of Thradon.

This silly, light-hearted book is just right for a cozy evening's entertainment. This isn't faint praise -- this is a nice, lightweight, warmhearted, cinematic, romantic adventure novel, reminiscent of the "B" books that I used to devour by the yard. I liked it a lot. Recommended for military/romance/movie SF fans. Note that, like most such books, the premises really won't stand up to close inspection...

And note also that you'll enjoy Bobby's Girl more if you skip over the Prologue, and come back to it later. (This is almost always good advice, which I wish I'd followed here.)

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

It takes a lot for me to choose not to finish a book, even one this short. I just couldn't care about this story or the characters in it. Way too much happens to the main character way too easily. Surgically altered to look human and dropped onto an alien planet, she's taken in by the sweetest, nicest people who ever lived, and then falls into a high-paying Hollywood job (non-union shoot, apparently).

I think the author forgot that characters need to struggle in a story.