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Agent to the Stars Mass Market Paperback – November 30, 2010

by John Scalzi (Author)

866 ratings

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From New York Times bestseller and Hugo Award-winner, John Scalzi, a gleeful mash-up of science fiction and Hollywood satire

The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish.

So getting humanity's trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.

Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents. But although Stein may have just concluded the biggest deal of his career, it's quite another thing to negotiate for an entire alien race. To earn his percentage this time, he's going to need all the smarts, skills, and wits he can muster.

Other Tor Books
The Android’s Dream
Agent to the Stars
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
Fuzzy Nation
Redshirts

1. Lock In
2. Head On

The Interdepency Sequence
1. The Collapsing Empire
2. The Consuming Fire

Old Man's War Series
1. Old Man’s War
2. The Ghost Brigades
3. The Last Colony
4. Zoe’s Tale
5. The Human Division
6. The End of All Things

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Science Fiction
Publication date

November 30, 2010
Dimensions

4.08 x 1.17 x 6.77 inches
ISBN-10

0765357003
ISBN-13

978-0765357007
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“With a plot that starts out as the rough life of a young agent in Hollywood and rapidly metamorphoses into B-movie territory as a remarkably intelligent first-contact yarn, this book is absurd, funny, and satirically perceptive.” ―Booklist on Agent to the Stars

“If Stephen King were to try his hand at science fiction, he'd be lucky to be half as entertaining as John Scalzi.” ―Dallas Morning News on The Ghost Brigades

About the Author

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular SF authors of his generation. His debut Old Man's War won him the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation,and Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel), and 2020's The Last Emperox. Material from his blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. Scalzi also serves as critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Science Fiction; First edition (November 30, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765357003
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765357007
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.08 x 1.17 x 6.77 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,635,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,185 in Humorous Science Fiction (Books)
- #7,807 in First Contact Science Fiction (Books)
- #24,900 in Science Fiction Adventures

Customer Reviews:
866 ratings

About the author

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John Scalzi

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John Scalzi writes books, which, considering where you're reading this, makes perfect sense. He's best known for writing science fiction, including the New York Times bestseller "Redshirts," which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. He also writes non-fiction, on subjects ranging from personal finance to astronomy to film, was the Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. He enjoys pie, as should all right thinking people. You can get to his blog by typing the word "Whatever" into Google. No, seriously, try it.

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

866 global ratings

5 star		63%
4 star		25%
3 star		9%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Lighthearted and Witty

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2023

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As usual for Scales great dialog, and social commentary. Reads like a noir detective novel but with sci-fi backdrop of a Hollywood agent instead of detective. First novel I've read in a while that made me laugh.

One of Scalzi's best

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2023

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Scalzi spun a fine tale in this on. The story is original and very entertaining. I like the interaction between the characters. It kept me entertained and interested all the way through.

"An entire people, amazingly technologically and ethically advanced, all in desperate need of Dr. Scholl's foot deodorizers."

Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2009

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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.

37 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2022

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I told myself I needed to finish one of my currently reading books before I started another one and Scalzi won the sweeps. It's a popcorn book, with everything and the kitchen sink flying by in the plot, but you don't care because it's clever and fun and secretly meaningful. Cheers, John Scalzi, again.

I started with the audio book with Wil Wheaton, which is excellent, but Scalzi audio books rarely work for my brain, so I had to switch to ebook. But I still heard Wil's voice in my head. He is an excellent narrator.

One person found this helpful

loads of fun with a twist

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2022

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As always John Scalzi delvers. It’s a fun romp that hides some great thoughts about us as humans and what if Alina did come. There is a twist that just threw me for a second but pulls it out so much better then just doing it all in exposition. Well done a great read.

Peter Venetoklis

Very good, but could have been better.

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2010

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Agent to the Stars is a fun farce about first contact with an alien race. We start out meeting a junior agent at a powerful talent agency in Los Angeles. He has a handful of B, C and D list clients, one major star, and a very capable assistant. We quickly find out that his boss has been approached by an alien race to manage their "first contact" with humanity, and his boss drops the job on him. The problem, he quickly discovers, is that, while the aliens are friendly, incredibly intelligent, and very evolved morally, they are blobs of goo that communicate via smells, which means they reek. No warm-fuzzy Ewoks or E.T. phone home here. The aliens do, however, speak perfect vernacular English, a result of absorbing all our television and radio transmissions for decades.

The book is great fun, very engaging and a lively read. It is loaded with snarky humor and jokes (some of which work better than others - the humor is a bit uneven), and the plot moves along nicely. The characters are rather one-dimensional, however, and they all have the same sarcastic sense of humor, including the alien liaison to the humans. This wore a bit hollow as I progressed through the book. The aliens also have moral standards that are portrayed as a fundamental outcome of their alien-ness, but come across as very "perfect human." This, too, makes them feel a bit less developed than I might hope. On the other hand, just as I was starting to despair that the conclusion was going to be a contrived let-down, the author surprised me with a final chapter that worked very well.

Obviously, the book is intended as humor/satire, and it succeeds well in that aspect. As a fun read, I highly recommend it. However, I think that there was potential for better, and that more than anything else left me a bit disappointed. Some might call me a bit overly critical of a fun romp of a book, but I see a missed opportunity for something even better.

5 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Mr. I. Saxton

Very enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 17, 2023

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I bought this as it seemed a bit different from the usual sci-fi story and it was. In many ways it’s better described as a humorous book than a sci-fi one. The sci-fi element is an essential part of the story, but the book is funny (witty) and that’s rare for science fiction.

Charles Green

A Great Debut

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 7, 2009

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Agent to the Stars was the unpublished debut novel of John Scalzi, author of the great Old Man's War, Ghost Brigades and Androids Dream. Like his other works Agent to the Stars has a sci-fi bent, but is a very different beast to the books that would follow it. This is not pure sci-fi like Old Man's War and nor is it a lightweight semi-comedic romp like Androids Dream. It is a strange hybrid of Hollywood-satire, critique of popular media and alien invasion B-movie. Remarkably, considering its disparate elements, it mostly works.

In a nutshell the plot involves a young Hollywood agent on the rise who get's given the biggest client of his career in the form of an entire alien race who want him to smooth their introduction to humans on earth. The aliens have reasoned that the fact they look like snot and smell terrible might lead to negative reactions from humans and that they need an agent to help sell them as the peace loving creatures they really are. What follows is a wild ride that satirises the obessions of Hollywood, the way the media treats celebrity and our preconceptions of what first contact with an alien race is likely to be like.

It all makes for a hugely enjoyable, often very funny tale that romps along at a fair old pace. Some of the ideas Scalzi would use in later novels to great affect can be seen in embryonic form; scuh as the aliens who use very human modes of speech rather than portenious tones, the lack of any sort of obsession with technological minutae, the avoidance of negative stereotypes and the humanising of even the most inhuman or foolish character. Scalzi also, wisely in my opinion, keeps things simple. He doesn't attempt any stylistic trickery that is beyond his skills as a writer. This is a very linear tale, told logically and straightforwardly and is all the better for that.

Of course there are some minor niggles here and there as you would expect with a debutant author, but the only major issue I had with the book was the ending. Without spoiling it for future readers I simply didn't buy into the way Scalzi resolved his tale. I simply couldn't accept that the plan the aliens and the agent come up with would ever work. I know this might sound stupid when you're talking about a book that deals with space aliens hiring a Hollywood agent to represent them, but up until the final quarter of the book I was able to suspend my disbelief and go along with events on the page, but the means by which the aliens are introduced to the world was just a step too far for me. That's not to criticise the quality of the writing but simply to say that personally I just couldn't go with the final turns the plot took.

Still that wasn't enough to stop me thorougly enjoying 80-85% of Agent to the Stars and for me not to recommend it. Whether you're a sci-fi fan or not there is much to enjoy here, and if you like this I can also wholeheartedly recommend trying Scalzi's other novels.

11 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Fabulous

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2022

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Totally wonderful, original and fun. I will read this book over and over again. You can trust John Scalzi to nail it every time.

Dr. J. A. Hiscox

Absolutely fab

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2011

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A number of other reviewers have described the general plot of the book. It's a novel about first contact on an individual and societal level. John Scalzi is my favorite sci-fi author and maybe of all time. His book 'Old Man's War' would have been my choice for Desert Island Discs, but maybe Agent to the Stars would replace.

The book is well paced, witty, insightful and the story very well told. I enjoyed, my wife enjoyed and my friends enjoyed too.

CjW & KjW

Great fun read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 22, 2011

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Sci-fi with humour, great fun read.

I loved the alien self-deprecating humour - very amusing - a brilliant holiday read.

I enjoyed the change of style and loved reading it.

Quite a decent plot line, although I did see the major theme coming; but executed very well.

One person found this helpful

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