Road to Mars (A Post-modem Novel) [Hardcover]

Eric Idle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 1999 | Series: A Post-modem Novel

A comic novel by ex-Python and comedian Eric Idle, set in the 22nd century. It tells the story of two comedians on a vaudeville circuit of the solar system, with a robot who is writing a thesis on the nature of comedy. They find themselves caught up in a murder mystery and a terrorist plot. A romantic love story also features.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Road to Mars is the second novel by Eric Idle--yes, that Eric Idle, the guy from Monty Python's Flying Circus. No, the book isn't like a Monty Python skit (and a good thing too, since silly sketches are no basis for a successful novel). Yes, Monty Python is mentioned in the book, but the self-referentiality is blessedly confined to two paragraphs. Yes, The Road to Mars is funny. It's also genuine science fiction. And it's satirical, sharply characterized, well-written, thoughtful, fun, and more complex than you'd expect from its picaresque structure, in which a stand-up-comedian odd couple and their robot knock around the outer planets in search of decent gigs. Well, Alex and Lewis are looking for work (and sex); their android, Carlton, unfazed by his own irony impairment, is trying to write a thesis about comedy. The trio quickly find themselves mixed up with a mysterious beauty, a famous diva, the captain of the solar cruise ship Princess Di, and a band of terrorists determined to blow up Mars.

In addition to The Road to Mars and Monty Python scripts, Eric Idle is the author of the SF/fantasy novel Hello Sailor (1975), the play Pass the Butler (1982), and the children's book The Quite Remarkable Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The latest romp from Monty Python alumnus Idle (Hello Sailor) almost has it all: torrid sex, huge disasters in outer space, outworld rebels plotting to save their people from annihilation, quirkily anthropomorphic robots, impossibly rich space moguls, enough one-liners to choke a brontosaurAand philosophy, too. The absence of an interior to any of the book's characters wouldn't be a fatal flaw if the jokes were funny enough or the plot sufficiently absorbing. However, the narrative meanders for long stretches with scene after scene whose only point is to set up a weak jokeAthe sort of thing that works so well as TV farce but, when passed off as a novel, is tedious. The book is ostensibly the work of one William J. Reynolds, chronicling the revolutionary theorizing of robot Carlton on the nature of comedy. (Oddly, Idle puts forward as Carlton's main theory a White Face/Red Nose classification that in fact has been a commonplace in clown theater for at least a century.) We follow the misadventures of two interplanetary stand-up comics, Muscroft and Ashby, quipping their way through exploding space colonies and sabotaged ships, looking for work. Churning around amid the levity are lumps of melodrama: narrator Reynold's recurring rage at being jilted; love-interest Katy's agonized childhood; beatings and deaths by the hundreds. There are some good laughs, but too many of the jokes are pointless and cheapAlike the book's subtitle, "A Post-Modem Novel"Aand the whole is strung together by oddments of erudition and sci-fi, with an ad hoc feel that begs for a blue pencil. Typically, Carlton's crowning insightAthe theory of levity as anti-gravityAis silly enough for a giggle, but insufficient as the high point of a novel. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Boxtree (September 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075222414X
• ISBN-13: 978-0752224145
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, But Good, December 26, 1999

By 

S. Gibson "Skepchick" (Boston, Mass.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (Hardcover)

I must admit serious amusement and minor shock over the venom being unloaded on this little confection of Eric's. I mean hey, it's just a book. Chill out, kids.

I own a copy of Hello Sailor and I can assure you all this is four million light-years better than that book. Eric has advanced mightily from that 1976 effort, moving on from the strange calculus of politics and sex (its main character's goal was to bed all the daughters of the British government's cabinet) to the richer, more rewarding issues posed by science, comedy, the future of humanity, and how the three relate to each other in turn.

That having been said, I tried to give this book 2 1/2 stars but can't do so under this system. And in the interest of full disclosure, I am compelled to state I'm exactly the sort of person who would watch a test pattern with Eric on it (hey, I videotaped Nearly Departed, for cryin' out loud). I ran out to buy this in hardback. I am also a great flaming fan of Pratchett (sp?) and Adams as well as the Red Dwarf series and Blackadder.

I feel the book is not as good as it should be, given Eric's prodigious talents, but not as bad as others would have you believe. In other words--wait for the paperback.

The schooled Python fan should have fun with this one, as RM's flaws are flaws one finds in Python productions--the female characters are poorly drawn (especially the romantic lead). The only female characters that threaten to be interesting are Brenda Wooley and the Sammy character, but both are cliches and the latter is killed before she can be rescued from one-dimensionalism. In fact I find it a bit disturbing that the android has more depth and complexity to him than any of the women in the book.

The Alex character is a blatant caricature of John Cleese, and this is a goldarn scream. (Come on--thinning hair, young daughter, distant ex-wife, hours on end with a shrinkbot, what am I supposed to think?) yet it fails to go far enough. This could have been a remarkable portrait of Cleese through the eyes of one who worked alongside him, and I feel Eric copped out--making obvious jokes, but retreating when it came time to draw blood or take it to the next level. A missed opportunity, but still better and more insightful than that odious Margolis bio of Cleese.

The reference he makes to himself in the text is muffed, in my opinion, since he singles out a detail (the death of his father--Eric lost him at the age of two. He was an RAF solider who died not in WWII but a Christmas-season car accident) that only serious fans could be expected to know.

Like Python, there are distracting subplots that go nowhere or fail to bear fruit, and it doesn't know how to properly end itself.

You can also see Eric's special mark--here working against himself. He earned a reputation within the group for firing off wickedly funny one-liners. You'll find them in RM, too--my favorite comes on page 49 ("She was not available for other people's feelings"). Unfortunately, funny one-liners do not a plot make. (Exhibit A: Splitting Heirs). At worst, these sparkling one-liners feel forced into or pasted on the story, thus throwing a monkey wrench into the engine of the plot, bogging down the forward momentum of the story.

The Road to Mars had been a filmscript for many, many years before it became a novel (I remember speaking to Idle about it in 1989--at that time, he said he was shopping it around Hollywood and envisioned Robin Williams, David Bowie, and Bobcat Goldthwaite in the film). Unfortunately it was the sort of script that made the execs fall about laughing and earned Eric reams of high compliments--but no green light. (For this sorry phenomena, see "The 50 Greatest Films Never Made", by Chris Gore. RM is not in the book).

I suspect that out of sheer frustration, he adapted it as a novel. However, as a reader I felt he hadn't spent enough time and thought finesseing the filmscript into a proper reading experience. Filmscripts and novels are two different animals, after all.

There are too many holes, things not explained enough or not explained at all, and things meant to work on screen that in text form just don't make it. Perhaps a graphic novel would have been a better option, I dunno.

Even still, I did like the book. It was great fun watching Eric's wickedly clever, supple, nimble brain calculating the plot points into place. I read it in one sitting and had a good giggle. I have quoted and cited jokes in the book. I spent $ and I do not regret it. I had fun.

If you can see it not as a sci-fi novel but a roller-coaster ride through Idle's magnificent mind, I think you'll all enjoy it much more.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, clever and I can forgive him for the ending, December 8, 1999

By 

Rob Banzai (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (Hardcover)

Good lord! Such venom over a pleasant little book. Come on people, it's not supposed to give you the meaning of life. If you hated the "theory of comedy" theme, hated the characters, hated the plot and hated the setting what the hell were you doing picking this up in the first place? My suggestion: read the liner notes next time so you can run away screaming when you disagree with the content. Idle has done a good job of writing a funny sc-fi book. Not a Python sci-fi book, but simply a funny one with all of his usual clever verbal humor. yes, he bungled the ending and didn't manage the competing plots very well, but my book reading satisfaction isn't derived wholly from the ending! It's an amusing read and I look forward to his next effort. But I'll read the liner notes first.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex and ambitious, November 20, 1999

By 

Madeleine BAROUKHEL-MOUREAU (madeleine@barouk... (FRANCE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (Hardcover)

This book is not pythonesque, it is not this kind of book badly written by some star who can only get it published because he/she's a star. It's an elaborate, two-sided metaphysical thriller where lots of thought and personal experience can be found. One side is the story (the plot is quite prominent), which deals with very modern - sorry, modem - Gibson-like science-fiction, yet cleverly managing to keep the cartoon elements of your good old Star Wars space opera. The other side is the philosophy - a very acute backstage insight into the meaning of comedy as an explanation of the universe and a relief from humanity's burden. Like in the quantum theory, the narrator is part of the story and transforms it. There are also a satire of the charity business, rather pessimistic observations on the mechanics of political change, and a lot of strong and colourful (but not particularly likable) characters. I got quite hooked by the book and found it great in many ways. But I think it was wrongly advertised as a Douglas Adams-like piece of entertainment. It's complex and ambitious. Well done, Eric !