Source of book: I own this
Space Oddity is the sequel to Space Opera, which our book club read and discussed during the pandemic. The first book grew out of the author’s live-tweeting of the Eurovision contest. A fan told her she should write a science fiction story about Eurovision. So she did.
The original book imagined a galactic version of a song contest, but with far higher stakes. Not only would resources and money flow in the direction of the winner, but if a new species was discovered, they had to prove their sentience by participating in the contest. If they came in last, well, tough luck. They would be annihilated and allowed to re-evolve and hope for better results next time.
If the species at least came in something other than last, then they were added to the galactic group of sentient civilizations and allowed to live.
So, in that first book, the has-been glitterpunk rocker Decibel Jones (formerly Danesh Jalo) is drafted to represent Earth.
The problems are many, from the fact that one-third of his band (The Absolute Zeros) is dead in a tragic accident, and the band hasn’t actually played anything in many years, to the fact that Earth kind of lacks the knowledge and resources to compete in this sort of glam competition.
At this point, if you haven’t read the first book, I recommend you do so before continuing this post. In order for the second book to make sense, you have to know how the prior book ended.
I also have to recommend reading all five books in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. There are far too many sly references to those books if you know where to look.
So anyway, having prevented the destruction of humanity, the Absolute Zeros now have to do the obligatory - and tedious - galactic tour: playing concerts, giving master classes, signing albums, pressing the flesh. You know the drill.
Somehow, though, Oort St. Ultraviolet manages to beg off, although he does reappear later in the book in an interesting role.
That means the tour is left to Decibel Jones and the improbably resurrected Mira Wonderful Star. Oh, and she is confined to a peculiar spacecraft, because her existence is already a spacetime anomaly and she cannot simply exist outside of this support system.
The spacecraft is a nod to the Bistromath (a Douglas Adams creation): it resembles a kitchy 1950s diner, complete with overrated food and angsty wait staff.
The first third of the book is filled with a lot of digressions and the plot itself takes a while to get going. Fair warning there. Philosophy and backstory first, plot second. Which, well, that sounds like Adams too.
One other reference is that we are introduced to Goguenar Gorecannon’s Unkillable Facts, which is an analogue to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Both are fascinating, witty, and pretty much useless as what they claim to be.
Once we get through all of this, we find out what the actual plot is going to be about.
Decibel Jones is bored, so he asks the ship to take him “somewhere interesting.” That place turns out to be Eta Carinae - a real place in our galaxy that is indeed (mostly) as it is portrayed in this book. The chapter (yes a whole chapter!) describing it is so much fun, both scientifically accurate and zany as hell.
In the book, however, there is, improbably, a planet with sentient life on it. Which nobody knew about except its inhabitants.
And, well, you know what that means!
Time for the song contest yet again, and a chance for the new life form to sing for its survival.
But there is a problem. This life form doesn’t seem to actually care about anything. It’s singing is karaoke, apparently, and the existential ennui overwhelms everything else. Heck, it can’t even feel emotions without weather dictating them.
So what is to be done?
Well, that is the problem that Decibel Jones and Mira Wonderful Star have to solve. Is inter-species empathy enough?
Overall, I thought this book was a bit less coherent than the previous one. A few too many digressions, a plot that took too long to start and then had to hurry at the end. And perhaps a bit more philosophizing than necessary.
But that said, it was enjoyable, and the best parts were indeed very good.
I find that I took a lot of notes, perhaps because there are so many pithy quotes and fun observations.
Let’s start with one of Gorecannon’s Unkillable Facts:
Peace is civilization’s problematic follow-up album that never quite works…because all it takes to prevent us from having nice things, over and over, is one single person. One single person who doesn’t want to play the same game everyone else is doing pretty bloody well at, so they won’t give over the ball even though everyone is yelling at them to get over themselves, because eventually that person will figure out that setting the ball on fire works a treat.
Hmm, can we think of anyone like that? Or perhaps an entire political movement that is throwing a bloody tantrum because other people want them to share?
Related is another observation:
Whole hemispheres insisted that white things were categorically good, and good for you, despite the obvious existence of arsenic, rum raisin ice cream, and European expansion. And despite how distressingly often those purely and nobly devoted white swans (and/or ever-expanding Europeans) tried to bite the entire faces off various unsuspecting bystanders who had not in any way bothered them.
And this one:
People really will do the most frightful things to feel special, you’ve no idea. Marvelous things too, but the frightful ones are a lot easier to pull off. The most dangerous being in the universe is somebody who’s never felt special in all their lives. If you encounter one in a dark alley, run.
Man, I could practically do a whole series on that stupid stuff my parents inflicted on me in their desperate quest to feel special. Sigh.
Also fun is the description of how every species has its meltdown after discovering they aren’t alone and are definitely not the center of the universe. Much like humans do at an early stage of development.
Historians, emergency medical staff, and serious debris collectors call it First Contact Syndrome.
Everyone else calls it the Blowout.
This term of art began with the famously understatement-prone Smaragdi, ten-foot-tall non-Euclidean bone sculptures who never met a sacred rite they did not yearn to flick in the forehead. It was quickly embraced, due to the near-universal experience of witnessing tiny, shrieking infants, regardless of species, helplessly eliminate their waste with almost unbelievable force and volume into a nappy far too small to contain the sheer tonnage of poo. Eventually the deuce in question burst its bounds, jetting into places all laws of fluid dynamics should forbid: between toes, fins, tails, and antennae, spattering eyelashes, hair, scales, and any relevant forehead protuberances, contaminating parent, child, floor, ceiling, and somehow, the front doorstep.
Of a neighbor.
Several doors down.
As a parent, if you know, you know.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this description of Mira, in the opening scene of the actual plot (after that epic first chapter of philosophy…), which might best be described as an epic hangover.
Once upon a time (a phrase that’s going to be doing quite a bit more work in this sentence than it’s used to) in a very large, very elegant, shockingly normal human hotel room, there snoozed a hardheaded, glamdrunk, exquisitely eyebrowed, emotionally available (for a limited time only), tinsel-hearted, assigned fabulous at birth, technically impossible and existentially toxic biped about whose precise medical status, legal identity, and, most importantly, temporal coordinates, no one could quite agree, except to exasperatedly admit, at the conclusion of a number of private think-tank brainstorming sessions, that her name was Mira Wonderful Star, nee Myra Strauss, and she was supposed to be dead.
…ish.
Decibel Jones, of course, is equally hung over, plus he has more of an existential crisis going on than Mira, who is surprised to be alive again. A Keshet assign to keep an eye on him notices he needs help.
“It looks like you’re trying to cope with the sudden catastrophic breakdown of your entire self-conception. Would you like help with that?”
We also get introduced to another Unkillable Fact, one that I think is in a lot of ways, the core idea of the book, and also of life itself.
Life is beautiful and life is stupid.
Valente goes on to note another truth about the forces of stupid.
And the forces of stupid are bound and determined to unbalance that immortal equation forever, if they can possibly manage it. That is their highest goal. No more beauty. All stupid all the time, as far as the eye can see.
That’s MAGA and every other authoritarian, fundamentalist movement in history. Beauty is different, and must therefore be suppressed. The existence of beauty is offensive to those who embrace stupid.
There is another fun discussion (digression…) on the problems of teleportation. Namely that it will eventually be used to teleport weapons. Just sent bombs via the ultimate delivery system. But this like is also good:
Not because it’s not possible to disassemble an organic being to his, her, or otherwise, constituent atoms, fax them across the inky void, and reassemble them on the other side.
It very much is possible.
And not because doing so technically kills the original person and reassembles a clone, or a golem, depending on how you like your metaphysical toast buttered.
It absolutely does that. But it’s still better than flying economy.
The first third has a lot of anti-war philosophizing, as I mentioned. There are some good parts. Another one from Gorecannon:
The most dangerous phrase in the universe is this time will be different. Those five words are a nasty little trap. This time is never different. It can’t be. It’s only possible to say that foolishness after you’ve royally fucked something straight up to the gills and are plainly standing right there in the middle of the blastmark fixing to do the same damned thing again.
While Gorecannon also notes that the opposite is true - hope that you will get it right next time is a good thing. But still, too much bad comes from repeating the same thing, hoping for a better result.
There are many variations of this next line, but Valente certainly makes it fun.
English is not a very complicated language. But what English lacks in sophistication, it more than makes up for in pure belligerent criminality.
That English robs other languages blind, saws off their best vocabularies, and wears them stapled, still dripping, to its own face, is both well-known and not much of a problem for man, mushroom, or Meleg. But English, inasmuch as it has rules, is so constitutionally incapable of obeying even itself that virtually every possible sentence contains some exception, some rude gesture of pug-nosed defiance toward the concept of order itself, some precious bit of spelling or syntax that thinks it’s so special it doesn’t have to behave like all the other children. You can hardly turn a phrase without being accosted by silent letters lying in wait for innocent spellers-by, half-dressed homonyms beckoning with come-hither stares, red-light district infinitives doing the splits, some dubious fellow in a trench coat lined with irregular verbs, delinquent subclauses loitering in the night, delusional plurals insisting they’re perfectly normal, broken sentence fragments desperate for the love of a good subject, unhinged apostrophes clinging to your clothes, and roving gangs of wildly disparate diphthongs all pronounced eh.
There are so many terrible (or great) puns in this book. And so many cultural references. For example, a travelogue written by a norovirus entitled “Eat, Pray, Irrecoverable Symptom Cascade.” Or TGIF: “Thankfully Gamma Irradiation has Faded.”
Part of the drama is in the friction between Decibel and Mira. As we learn in the first book, just before her untimely death, she had proposed to Decibel, who turned her down. Now, she is back, a decade younger than the aging Decibel, but somehow still more emotionally mature. I love Mira’s quip at Decibel during one argument.
“If one of us is a baby, I’m reasonably certain it’s the one who can’t even get up in the morning without a full team of therapists, a hostage negotiator, and an emotional support cocktail.”
Speaking of people with issues, how about another Unkillable Fact?
The most important things only ever happen at the worst possible times. I don’t know why, it’s not my fault, and it’s not very nice of you to imply that it is. It’s just tangled up in the spaghetti code of the universe with centripetal force and atomic decay and desperately wanting your father’s approval even though he thinks seat belts are a government plot to oppress him specifically. The spaghetti code of the universe is just drowning in store-bought jar sauce, I’ll tell you what.
This caught my eye in part because back in the day, my father really did resist wearing a seat belt. Until he was in an accident that put his head into the windshield and damaged his neck muscles in a way that still bothers him. Notably, I am alive because I took my mother’s advice to heart, and walked away from a serious accident - we left paint six feet up on a light pole - without injury. I do find the part about desperately wanting one’s dad’s approval even when you realize he is pretty bat-shit about a lot of important things. Sigh.
Once the new life form is discovered, it turns out that galactic rules task the discovering species to make first contact and “chaperone” the new species as it prepares for the contest. There is a hilarious list of rules for this role, starting with “Two Drink Minimum.”
No one should have to answer questions as egregiously stupid and egregiously numerous as you are about to without a healthy support system, namely gin. And/or its vast family of quirky cousins.
…
If you test clean, you will be terminated in favor of someone who more fully understands the gravity of this sacred duty.
And, under #7, “Do Not Tell the Truth”:
Throughout the infinite variety of cultures, morals, and entertainment options, there is only universally unforgivable hurt.
If you make a person feel small, and stupid, and embarrassingly unloveable, if you make them feel like they’re not worth seeing, if you do it on purpose, if you do it with intent, that person will, sooner or later, rip your and/or your whole society’s face off and eat it with ice cream.
Or write children’s books and cry a lot. Could go either way.
It is time for yet another Unkillable Fact:
The more alike people are, the more they’d rather staple their thumbs together than get along. You’d think it’d go the other way, I know, but have you met siblings?
The author also makes an amusing observation about human nature:
The galaxy was slowly waking up to the horrifying truth about humanity: no matter how hideous, dangerous, pustulant, inanimate, awkward, oozing, or wholly indifferent to and incompatible with the continuation of life, in specific or in general, there was a human who would not only love it, but cuddle it, build it an elaborate play structure, dress it up in a hand-knit sweater, call it their pwecious sweetbaby cutiebutt, spend far too much money on accessories for it, maintain a webpage in its honor long after its death and/or recycling, even let it sleep on the bed against all hygiene recommendations.
And if their human life partner objected, it was never once the xenomorph who had to sleep on the couch.
That’s comedy gold. As is this one, about what “la, la, la” in music stands for, as explained by Decibel to the new life form, who just doesn’t get it.
“Sorry? Oh, la, la, la.” Dess laughed a little. “Well, in songs on Earth, almost all the songs, going back to before electricity and plumbing and the intro-verse-chorus-bridge-verse structure, the la, la, las were sneaky little bits you could sing when you meant something naughty and the Church or the lord in the manor or your dad wouldn’t know what you were on about.”
And also this exchange with Mira, which is fascinating.
“We are sentient,” Brief Experience of Being Tavallinen said simply. “I am not a philosopher. But it is clear sentient beings frequently do things for no reason.”
“Animals do plenty of things for no reason. By definition, they don’t understand the reason for anything they do. Why they migrate or molt or chase this gazelle rather than that zebra. Why they choose one mate and not another.”
“Animals do those things for no reason they understand. Sentient beings do things for no reason at all.”
This one is good too:
“You can hate yourself almost to death for hating most of all the fact that you can’t stop being the kind of insufferable beast who hates that they hate themselves for hating themselves. Or you can package it with some liner notes and a beat and sell a million copies.”
I should mention that there is a character in the book seems directly related to the kind of non-living characters that Adams writes. There is a “Protagony Mine” named Gadramadur the All-Knowing. Now this requires a bit of an explanation. Basically, if it explodes, it creates in everyone with a certain radius the belief that they are the protagonist.
First of all, my manufacturer’s suggested use case is to drop me into a crowded public space so that I set off hundreds of protagonists all at once. Usually, they all kill each other in a quarter of an hour flat because fate told them there could only be one or some faff. I interact with specific deep-gene sequences to gin up a culturally appropriate narrative for each target. Even a single serving of me can be totally devastating to local wildlife and economies!”
And, like in the case with someone who wants to matter, if you see one, run…
However, given the problem of arms treaties and stuff, this particular mine is now reduced to the duty of showing people around the vast office building that houses the committee that runs the song contest.
And that leads me to the Board Meeting From Hell chapter. Which is hilarious and terrifying and all too real. I’m not even going to try to describe it. It must be experienced.
Of course the book has to contain a plethora of imaginary but hilarious song titles. Two of my favorites are “Anarchy in the Modqueue” and “Smells Like Teen Disaffection with a System in which Extrinsic Factors Beyond Their Control Are the Sole Determinants of Their Worth.”
Another good anti-war line seems particularly apropos to our endless meddling in the Middle East over the last 25 years. (And really, a lot longer, but particularly the last 25 years.) This one too is from Gorecannon.
Dead eyes, broken hearts, can lose. Terribly glad I killed a bunch of strangers and then not one single thing got better.
Preach.
Anyway, that’s the book, and it is a good read, even if not quite as great as the first one.
***
Unusually, in both of these books, the “liner notes” at the end are well worth reading. In this case, I noted four things I wanted to highlight.
First, Valente talks a good bit about Douglas Adams and the influence he had, not only on these books, but on her life as a whole.
There is a great story in there about how she and some friends, when they heard that Adams died, bought a bowl of geraniums and tossed it off the library roof. Even if they were a bit to sad to remember to say “oh no not again” as it fell. And that is just one of so many sly references in the book - you really have to pay attention.
The next is a section in which she acknowledges her kid, who is a character. She notes that it feels weird to “give birth to your own protagonist.”
In another acknowledgement to a writer who passed before he could see the book, she talks about “loving advice wrapped in f-bombs wrapped in deep cynicism that is always a mask for a soul that longs to be an optimist, and is always looking for an excuse to try out hope.” I think I can relate to that.
Finally, I’ll end with this thought:
Sentience, in the end, is only a little about being clever. It’s about how we handle each other. How we see one another. How we help. How we share. Howe we protect and how we love. How we catch someone when they stumble, and whether we can believe we will be caught when we fall.
That’s a perfect way to end it.
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