ISBN: 0-671-57823-5 Order from: Amazon.com
A conventional, hackneyed plot, strained humor, and absence of any pretense at scientific rigor deprive this space opera of entertainment value.
Reviewed by David on March 07, 2000
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera, Aliens, Humor)
Synopsis: The Unity is a space federation of species advanced in technology but lacking the grasp of fiction or lies. Therefore, when their watchers start to monitor the television programs originating from Earth, the advanced alien sociologists are puzzled and occasionally awed by the strange inventions of the human imagination.
When an escalating philosophical argument threatens war, the desperate aliens kidnap the actor playing Harmon of the peace-keeping Eldar on a science fiction program. Believing that the aging and vain Richard Faraday is really the character he plays, the aliens insist that he prevent the first interstellar war in countless millenia.
Full Review: This novel, full of improbable aliens, and trite, platitude-filled solutions to what should be complex problems, resembles some of Laumer's or Foster's simpler SF novels, without the former's enthusiasm or the latter's storytelling talent.
Striving for humor, the book is sprinkled with puns and thinly disguised jokes at the expense of the entertainment industry, the SF genre, and the American cliches at the end of the twentieth century.
Unfortunately, the humor is neither deft nor intense enough to carry the thin plot, and reading this novel, instead of being light entertainment, becomes an exercise in boredom.
Overall: 3.5; Plot: 3.5; Characters: 3.5; Style: 3; World-building: 4; Originality: 3;
Copyright date August 1998, Baen Publishing Enterprises (Baen), 1998, Mass-market paperback, 364 pages
ISBN: 0-671-57823-5 Order from: Amazon.com