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First Contact-Or, It's Later Than You Think (Parrot Sketch Excluded) (2010)

by Evan Mandery(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

006174977X (ISBN13: 9780061749773)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Harper Paperbacks

review 1: "First Contact" is a satire about aliens called Rigelians who come to Earth to warn humanity that their actions would likely cause the end of Earth. The aliens eventually meet the President of the United States who, up to the meeting, was more concerned about his lunch and underwear. The President's aide, Ralph Bailey, is appointed to lead the welcoming delegation making him in line to be President if nine hundred people in front of him died. Meanwhile, Ralph meets Jessica Love and they fall in love (I'm assuming pun intended).The plot is simple and predictable. I think the purpose of the book was not the plot, but trying to be satirical and to get a message across.The author, Evan Mandery, is a graduate of Harvard Law School and he inserted his experiences at learning law... more which were all right, but not necessary. Also, the story supports atheism and the liberal viewpoint. This would have been all right and not mattered if they were part of the story. Except, these viewpoints were unnecessarily forced into the story line too strongly as if the author was sending a message.As an example, it was a good reason for the President to attack the aliens because they did not believe in God. However, the atheist viewpoint was made over and over by the aliens and that believing in God would only cause problems to humanity. It would have been better showing the President's anger at someone not believing what he believed rather than sending a repetitive message about atheism.I liked how the writer interacted with the reader throughout the book. I did not catch on at first, but later this different way of writing seemed to work. However, what did not work for me was Mr. Mandery's attempt to mimic Douglas Adams who I really like. I would rather the author stayed with his own style of writing rather than trying to become someone else, which became boring toward the end.
review 2: The unlikely hero of this hilarious science fiction novel is a young Presidential aide named Ralph Bailey, whose primary duty each day is walk to the Blimpway and purchase for the President a ham and Swiss sandwich. However, in the course of this story, Ralph meets a lovely law student named Jessica, has his first encounter with aliens who are for some unknown reason presumed to be Jewish, and is appointed to be number nine hundred forty-ninth in the presidential order of succession. Meanwhile on Rigel-Rigel, home of the newly arrived Alien Ambassador, life goes on about the same as it does on earth, with the wife of the Ambassador to earth getting in a fender-bender, worrying about her husband being away from home, and dealing with PTA meetings. The novel continues with the first meeting between the aliens and the President.Chapters are titled with lines of songs, and the author occasionally inserts his own commentary into the narrative, which works well in this context. This is a fun and light-hearted read, but also makes you think, just a little bit, about how ridiculous some of our human rites and assumptions are. less

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