Agent to the Stars

By -

The other day I finished Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi and it was well worth the read.  Well, in this case, the listen.

I listened to the audiobook version on Audible narrated by Wil Wheaton.  He narrates a lot of John Scalzi's books and they make a good team.

Scalzi is one of my favorite authors, but Agent to the Stars was released before I had discovered him.  I finally got around to reading the book but I wish I hadn't taken so long.

Agent to the Stars is about a Hollywood agent who is asked to represent an alien species trying to make first contact with earth.  Instead of the traditional model of contacting world leaders they would like to make first contact through Hollywood.  Their thinking is that American media sets the standard of culture for the world, so it's best to make first contact through them, they just aren't sure about the best way to do it.

It's a great sci-fi novel and also gives an interesting glimpse into the world of being an agent.

The novel is an easy recommendation, it's a good book.  But, if you've never read anything by Scalzi before, I recommend reading his best novel Old Man's War over this one.  This is a good novel, but Old Man's War is amazing.

Comments

  1. AndrewMarch 18, 2015 at 9:19 AM

    Old Man's War is phenomenal.

    I'll pass along another recommendation:
    I just started reading 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August' (Claire North), and it's really hard to put down.... great sci fi, with a fascinating premise.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more