Customer Reviews

Second Contact

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

 

 

Remember those thrilling days of yesteryear, when E. E. "Doc" Smith and his peers gave us the square-jawed heroes and dewy-eyed heroines that made space opera what it was? Remember when aliens were green skinned and did everything with brain emanations? Ever wonder what it would be like if someone could bring back those days of Space Patrols using modern writing techniques and science? Well, wonder no more, J. D. Austin has done it for us. Daring deeds from the good guys, insane schemes from the forces of evil, interstellar romance, "Second Contact" has the space opera fix you've needed, and didn't even know about.

There are some stories where the characters make things happen, and there are stories where external events just carry things along. This is the latter type, which I find boring.

The two planets 'just happen' to evolve over billions of years within a few centuries of each other, and 'just happen' to be the closest to each other, and it 'just happens' there are no other planets nearby. It 'just happens' that our first contact occurs just as the Kivlans are experiencing a planetwide volcanic eruption that causes everyone to become irritable (which only happens once every 700 years, but it happened the year Earth makes contact). It 'just happens' that the human ship sent to make second contact arrives on the very same day that the Kivlans recalibrate all their thought-control devices, thus creating an opportunity for all kinds of chaos.

Throw in the 'just happens' that the Captain of the starship is the boyfriend of the President of the United States, and . . . well, you get it.

If you think this is clever, you're welcome to it. I find it boring.

On two planets galaxies away from each other life surfaced on both at the equivalent solar time. As the millenniums pass Earth inhabitants travel into deep space, but the natives of Kivlan stay planet-bound. The earthlings reach Kivlan, but the locals tell them to leave. A destructive laser beam enforces the command so the spaceship departs. On earth, the leaders refuse to accept the insult quietly and send a fully armed military excursion to teach the Kivlan a lesson.

No one on Earth realizes that the Kivlans are a peaceful congenial people who are a bit lazy so they invented the means of converting thoughts into objects. Their bellicose behavior towards the first visitors is out of character, but recent volcanic activity has left everyone on edge. The Kivlans expect the earthlings to return, but will this visit turn ugly with hostilities leading to mass destruction or will calm prevail?

Although this novel starts off as a Flash Gordon type of Science Fiction, the story line quickly turns upside down and spoofs first contact tales such as the Arrival. The characters from both species seem real and engage the audience to want to know more about them especially the Kivlan natives. JD Austin provides a refreshing tale of first contact that showcases a peerless writing style that and readers will derive joy from this reading experience.

Harriet Klausner

Well, I'm not going to say the book is bad, per se. From what I've gathered, it's like the Moulin Rouge of literature: either you got the inside joke and loved it, or you didn't and hated it. I fall into the latter. For someone weened on modern books and other reading materials, this is going to seem like a waste of tree pulp. Extrememly predictable, unrealistic (even for a sci-fi story), and chocked full of story info with little relevance to the actual story, it's a wonder the editor didn't laugh at Austin and threw him out of his office. Someone who lived in the early half of the 20th Century, it may bring back memories of the good old days. At best for me, it's a guilty pleasure book, though admittedly, it's a quick read. If you're looking for a meaty or thought-provoking story, _Second Contact_ is neither. Check it out of your local library first before dropping cold hard cash to buy it.

I had hopes for this book since the author's other book, Bobby's Girl, was so enjoyably funny, with a reasonable story and well done characters. I had hoped that this book would another strong satire. Second Contact, however, did not live up to what I expected.

The plot is simplistic and formulaic resulting in a highly predictable story once the basic natures of the two cultures were defined. It might have been better if the causes of the culture conflicts were not so clear so early. Once we know about both sides we could forsee the actions of the characters. This is not always bad, especially if the characters are interesting. But I did not find them at all intriguing. They, also, were all too predictable. And the deus ex machina to explain the Kivlan's aberrant behavior was just too convenient, in my opinion.

Second Contact is a very bad book. Or perhaps I have simply missed the author's point, or I may not be the intended audience. I can only report what I felt.

Second Contact is the story of a planet named Kivlan, far across the Universe from Earth. An Earth expedition visits Kivlan, only to be chased away by a couple of missiles. Some time later, Earth sends another expedition, this one armed rather better, in a sincere attempt to really get to know the Kivlanians. On another narrative thread, we follow the action on Kivlan. Apparently Kivlan is a Utopia of lazy people, having existed in planet-wide peace for 300 years, but unfortunately some volcanic eruptions are making the inhabitants cranky and even psychotic, to the extent that they are annoyed by the intrusion of Earth's expedition, and, later, to the extent that one man tries to start a war and take over the planet.

It's hard to say exactly what the book is about. Characters are introduced, described in the most glowing terms, given love interests, and then dropped. The focus shifts from the first Earth expedition, to the second expedition, to the action on Kivlan, and back. Conflicts are introduced, then resolved effortlessly, usually because of the overwhelming good nature of almost everyone, on both Earth and Kivlan. Much of Second Contact deals with the rather curious utopian society of Kivlan. Is a satire on Earth society intended? The satire, if that was intended, has almost no bite. Moreover, the alien society as portrayed is terribly unconvincing, and terribly inconsistent. And the depiction of the next century society on Earth is also unconvincing, and has little extrapolated depth. So -- if this is a satire, it fails for lack of bite. Is it a serious examination of an alternate society? It fails for lack of rigor, and lack of consistency. Is it a fun romp? It fails for lack of plot, and lack of interesting characters. In a word -- it fails. Utterly.

The characters are uniformly cardboard, given fawning background stories, and unconvincing and emotionally flat love stories. (Most of which are back story anyway.) Naturally there is a love story between a Kivlanian and a human (though the cover portrait switches the sexes) -- it takes about a paragraph to develop. The plot is both discursive and implausible. The science is beyond absurd (though I will say that the book never makes a pretence of having real science -- and in the hands of, say, Robert Sheckley, the same level of science can work just fine). I thought I detected a few jokes -- some even made me grin, some grimace, and I'm sure I missed some others. I will say that the prose is serviceable -- nothing special, but not an encumbrance to the reading of the book. It was a waste of some three hours of my time.

I can only add a caveat -- some editor saw enough in this book to buy it. It is possible that I have simply and profoundly missed the point. But tread carefully.

Second Contact starts out as a near future Satire/Comedy. The first chapter is funny and fantastic. Then the book breaks down into what appears to be a layout for the real book. The 7 or 8 characters are introduced and we are told their histories. This monotonous introduction takes up about a quarter of the book. Then we get a little bit of interesting interaction between the characters before we move on to Kivlan to meet and greet those characters and their society. By now a majority of the humor has disappeared and has been replaced with, well, nothing. The rest of the book has no heart or soul. It's not a terrible story, or a terrible book, it just seems very incomplete. It almost read like a high school writing assignment. Like others have mentioned, I find it hard to believe that any editor would allow a book this incomplete to be published.

I gave it 3 Stars since 2-1/2 is not an option, and I did not hate the book, just felt like it was a waste of time.

This was either the worst book I've ever read or a really terrific parody. It reads like some of the worst of classic pulp science fiction. At least the military characters get to be the heros in this one.

This was perhaps the most infantile SF book I have ever read. If you can get past the boring descriptions of each character's life, you find yourself in a boring plot. I enjoy SF, but I do like for it to be believable. Sure, the President of the U.S. might be a female, and sure, she might have a personal life of her own, but jumping into a car and speeding to a tryst with an astronaut who is about to lead a crew to another earth-like planet? Oh, come on now! I'm sorry I wasted my time with such junk.

I found this to be the best of this author's light-hearted science fiction novels. The characters are realistic, and the humor is great without being over the top, like in Douglas Adams' "Hitchhikers" series. J. D. Austin (the pseudonym for Joshua Dann, author of the 'Timeshare' novels) seems to release books rather sporadically, which is my sole disappointment.