Agent to the Stars

Agent to the Stars

By

4.25
(28 Reviews)
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

Published:

1999

Pages:

308

ISBN:

1596060204

Downloads:

41,259

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Agent to the Stars

By

4.25
(28 Reviews)
The space-faring Yherajk people have come to Earth to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. Gaining humanity's trust isn't easy when you look like a B-movie terror, and Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal. Thomas Stein knows all about closing deals -- he's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents, but he's about to learn it's one thing to sell your client when she's a hot young starlet and another thing entirely when your client is an alien species!

Book Excerpt

're good, you're good.

Chapter Two

I came out of the bathroom with 30 seconds left on the ticker, and started walking briskly towards the conference room. Miranda was trotting immediately behind.

"What's the meeting about?" I asked, nodding to Drew Roberts as I passed his office.

"He didn't say," Miranda said.

"Do we know who else is in the meeting?"

"He didn't say," Miranda said.

The second-floor conference room sits adjacent to Carl's office, which is at the smaller end of our agency's vaguely egg-shaped building. The building itself has been written up in Architectural Digest, which described it as a "Four-way collision between Frank Gehry, Le Corbousier, Jay Ward and the salmonella bacteria." It's unfair to the salmonella bacteria. My office is stacked on the larger arc of the egg on the first floor, along with the offices of all the other junior agents. After today, a second-floor, little-arc office was

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Average from 28 Reviews
4.25
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I found this book purely by accident; just a random choice.

What amazing fortune! I love Sci Fi, and I thought this book excellent. I haven't laughed at a book, any book, so much for a long time!

There is so much good about it, I could not list, but the slant it takes with First Contact situations was unusual and brilliant.

I was 100% gutted when I got to the last page, could have read on for hours.

Only thing is now, will my luck hold out for the second choice!

Enjoy!
4
Worth reading, fun and all that.

Besides, it makes a point in a difficult debate: when to stop the intensive care machines? Scalzi's answer is: when you know exactly that the patient does not want to live. We just don't know, at the moment, how to get that answer (not even if the patient is awake, I might add).
This novel is just plain fun. It's not hard sci fi, but who cares? Reminds me of some of Donald Westlake's comedic early novels (e.g., God Save The Mark).

A witty and often hilarious take on First Contact, in which a theatrical agent is given the task of introducing the first representative of a friendly alien species from outer space to the world without setting of a planet-wide panic. Good stuff!