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ROCK 'N' ROLL BABES FROM OUTER SPACE

Name: ROCK 'N' ROLL BABES FROM OUTER SPACE
Author: Linda Jaivin
ISBN: 0-7679-0165-7

by Linda Jaivin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 13, 1998

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The title says it all about this cartoonish second novel by the author of Eat Me (1997): Three alien babes escape to Earth in order to enjoy lots of sex, drugs, and loud music. Jaivin pretends that every pop sci-fi universe is real, from the space babies of the tabloids to the paranoid fantasies of The X-Files, and there's even a nod to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker books, which clearly serve as some sort of prototype for the extraterrestrial antics here. Baby-Baby, Lati, and Doll are hybrid ``ayles'' (i.e., aliens) from Nufon, the most boring planet in the ``yoon'' (i.e., universe). The spawn of previous Earth abductees, the three aspiring rock star/sex fiends steal a rocket and head to Sydney, where Baby-Baby soon hooks up with Rasta-coiffed slacker and rocker wannabe Jake, the lead singer in the band Bosnia. After a night of otherworldly sex, Jake will do anything for his alien love, except commit. Meanwhile, the rock scene in Australia is mesmerized by the most amazing band they've ever heard—the three slightly greenish super-babes, whose antennas are assumed to be just part of their act. Up in space, an interplanetary committee, headed by Capt. Qwerk, decides to recapture the girls, before all of Earth learns of the ``Hidden Agenda.'' The babes manage to escape ahead of Qwerk, and bring a number of earthlings along for the ride—including UFO-spotting George, who's been waiting a long time for alien contact; and Ebola Van Axel, a leather-clad metal superstar. Their hasty getaway is assisted by none other than God, who makes cameo appearances throughout. The flimsy plot, though, is beside the point: Jaivin devotes most of her energy to re-creating the sounds of such things as inter-species lovemaking: ``Um um um! Socky wocky wocky! Um um um! Chp chp chp. Ooooooh. Smelly welly welly . . . .'' Strained humor and annoying bouts of intergalactic jive talk. ($50,000 ad/promo)

Pub Date: April 13, 1998

ISBN: 0-7679-0165-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Broadway

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MILES WALKER, YOU’RE DEAD
by Linda Jaivin

- BOOK REVIEW
EAT ME
by Linda Jaivin

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BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK

by Ben Fountain ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012

War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity.

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National Book Award Finalist

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Hailed as heroes on a stateside tour before returning to Iraq, Bravo Squad discovers just what it has been fighting for.

Though the shellshocked humor will likely conjure comparisons with Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five, the debut novel by Fountain (following his story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, 2006) focuses even more on the cross-promotional media monster that America has become than it does on the absurdities of war. The entire novel takes place over a single Thanksgiving Day, when the eight soldiers (with their memories of the two who didn’t make it) find themselves at the promotional center of an all-American extravaganza, a nationally televised Dallas Cowboys football game. Providing the novel with its moral compass is protagonist Billy Lynn, a 19-year-old virgin from small-town Texas who has been inflated into some kind of cross between John Wayne and Audie Murphy for his role in a rescue mission documented by an embedded Fox News camera. In two days, the Pentagon-sponsored “Victory Tour” will end and Bravo will return to the business as usual of war. In the meantime, they are dealing with a producer trying to negotiate a film deal (“Think Rocky meets Platoon,” though Hilary Swank is rumored to be attached), glad-handing with the corporate elite of Cowboy fandom (and ownership), and suffering collateral damage during a halftime spectacle with Beyoncé. Over the course of this long, alcohol-fueled day, Billy finds himself torn, as he falls in love (and lust) with a devout Christian cheerleader and listens to his sister try to persuade him that he has done his duty and should refuse to go back. As “Americans fight the war daily in their strenuous inner lives,” Billy and his foxhole brethren discover treachery and betrayal beyond anything they’ve experienced on the battlefield.

War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity.