First Contact
First Contact
Synopsis
A satirical joyride in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, First Contact introduces us to the hyper-intelligent Rigelians, who admire Woody Allen movies and Bundt cake, and urge the people of Earth to mend their ways to avoid destruction of their planet. But the president of the United States, a God-fearing, science-doubting fitness fanatic, is skeptical of the evidence presented to him and sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of his young attaché, an alien scam artist, several raccoons, and a scientist who has predicted the end of the universe. Parrot sketch excluded.
Praise
Featured on the June 2010 IndieBound Next List
Jordan Magill, Sacramento Book Review, May 2, 2010
“In this frenetic farce, which plainly owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Douglass Adams, First Contact offers a unique premise. Aliens from Rigel-Rigel arrive on earth for brunch with the President. They are enlightened, laid back lovers of Woody Allen and bundt cake, who wish to share their knowledge. One problem: they are greeted by a President who is a shallow, science-doubting, underwear-obsessed idiot, who assumes that the aliens must be Jewish.
Ralph Bailey, the President’s attaché whose portfolio had previously consisted of fetching his boss’s preferred lunch sandwich (“extra meat”) and catering to the previously mentioned underwear issues, now must serve as a liaison with the aliens. At the same time, Bailey has found sudden happiness with his new girlfriend, Jessica Love.
Mandery leaps about the galaxy, finding ways to celebrate topics, like Sting, the Simpsons, and Dr Pepper, even as he mocks censorship, political spin, government waste, insurance fraud, the fourth wall, law professors, and the galactic scourge known as the PTA. At times, the trip can be a bit dizzying, almost breathless, but the laughs never stop rolling. For fans of Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore, First Contact will leave you in stitches.”
David Pitt, Winnipeg Free Press, March 6, 2010
“First Contact: Or, It’s Later Than You Think (Harper, 267 pages, $18), by New York’s Evan Mandery, is a broad satire in which extraterrestrials drop by the Earth to introduce themselves, establish friendly relationships, and oh, by the way, warn us that the universe is about to end.
How broad is the satire? Multiply Kurt Vonnegut by a factor of 10, and toss in some Douglas Adams, some Woody Allen, some Joseph Heller and a bit of Monty Python.
The weird thing is that, even though the book is not what you might call subtle. There are elements of it that kind of sneak up on you (for example, the affection Mandery appears to have for a certain animated show about a certain yellow-tinted dysfunctional family).
The story has a serious message, too, if you’re paying attention. And if you can stop laughing long enough to take it in.”
Carl Hays, Booklist
“Mandery’s Dreaming of Gwen Stefani (2007) drolly deconstructed popular music while plumbing the psyche of a celebrity-obsessed hot-dog vendor. Here Mandery offers a Douglas Adams–style political farce about first contact with aliens from the planet Rigel-Rigel who, at first glance, bear a striking resemblance to Orthodox Jews. Instead of announcing themselves on the White House front lawn, the technologically superior Rigelians choose the savvier option of getting a teenager to download their YouTube video. When the White House’s culturally challenged Republican president finally receives the news from assistant Ralph Bailey, his first order of business is arranging a kosher state dinner. But it doesn’t take long before the president’s inept diplomacy turns the encounter into a major misunderstanding, culminating in a U.S.-led nuclear attack aimed at Rigel-Rigel. Ultimately, it will be up to Ralph and his newfound Rigelian ambassador friend, Ned, to save the day. Mandery’s digression-filled narrative, covering topics ranging from Woody Allen’s early comedies to Rigelian Bundt cake, spoofs contemporary popular culture while telling an irresistibly good story.”
Publishers Weekly
“…While coincidences add up and characters lives bleed into one another, Mandery’s sharp sense of humor and habit of addressing the reader make for a stimulating and intelligent read that’s never short on laughs.”
Library Journal Review: Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence
“Mandery’s. . .allegorical portraits of people, governments, life on other planets, and philosophy range from amusing to laugh-out-loud funny. . .Recommended for those who enjoy comedic fiction.”
Tim Dorsey, New York Times Bestselling Author of Nuclear Jellyfish
“First Contact was love at first sight! What a hilarious ride—the ubersurreal meets The Daily Show. I’m now staring at the cosmic calendar waiting for Mandery’s next contact.”
Excerpt
Chapter 4: Here In My Car, I Feel Safest of All
In the right-hand lane of the Trans-Galactic freeway, puttering along at 40,000 miles per second, less than one quarter the speed of light and just above the highway minimum, Maude Anat-Denarian was having a bad day.
It started when she decided to drive all the way to the Trader Planet in Orion, to shop for groceries. Maude had a love-hate relationship with the Trader Planet. The idea of being able to buy everything in the universe in one place was grand in theory, but odd in practice. It seemed unnatural, at least in Maude’s view, to go to a single place to fill a shopping list that read:
Seltzer
Succotash
Trans-Warp Coil
Frozen Fish Fillets
Epsom Salt
Pencil Sharpener
Portable Cold Fusion Generator Filter
Baby Formula
Cremation Urn
But you could get it all at Trader Planet. You would even find the urn and the formula in the same aisle, #684, titled and arranged by a store manager with a macabre sense of humor: “Birth/Death.”
Maude Anat-Denarian did not care for irony.
* * *
Maude finished her shopping in a reasonable amount of time. She found the right filter for the fusion generator and fought through the beverage section, securing the seltzer without incident. They even had the brand of succotash she liked.
The trouble began at the checkout. The man ahead of her on line got into an argument with the cashier over the price of a five-pound can of dangonsheel, a meat substitute that tastes like ham. They had to call over the manger and get a price check. Since Trader Planet is almost 5 miles long, it took almost 20 minutes for the manager to travel from one end of the store to the other. The customers in line behind the man did passive-aggressive things like exhaling and muttering under their breath.
* * *
This was all happening at precisely the same time the homeless man was fighting the powers that be at Blimpway about the quantity of meat in his sandwich. This is not as much of a coincidence as might first appear. Lots of people in the universe like ham and ham substitutes, which can be expensive. There are often disputes over price.
* * *
At Trader Planet, unlike Blimpway, the customer is always right. When the manager arrived, he happily resolved the price dispute in favor of the customer. The customer thus saved approximately a half-dollar on the can of dangonsheel. The manager even threw in a free ten-gallon jug of a new concentrated prune juice, which hadn’t been selling well.
This was all fine for the customer, but of no help to Maude. During the 20 minutes it took for the manager to arrive, most of the customers lost patience and went to other cashiers. Maude stayed. Immediately next in line, Maude felt trapped. She figured if she abandoned her position the manager would arrive the very next moment. So she stayed in line, and thus ended up waiting out the full 20 minutes.
For some reason, the cashier could not ring up another customer while they waited. This required a sophisticated technological advance beyond the store computer’s capabilities.
* * *
It should be noted that in point of fact, Trader Planet did not sell items in either five-pound cans or ten-gallon jugs. The people of that region of the universe used the Natriccian system which, by coincidence, is identical to the Metric system. For convenience, I have converted all mass and volume to the English system of weights and measures.
* * *
Things got worse still in the parking lot. They have every modern convenience at Trader Planet, including shopping hoverwagons, equipped with anti-gravity lifts that can be used to hoist the heavier items, such as dangonsheel and concentrated prune juice. These are free of charge, save a modest deposit of a ditron, a coin equivalent to the quarter, which is inserted into a female lock, attached to the handle of each hovercart. The coin is retrieved by inserting a male key, one of which is attached to the rear of each wagon. The idea is that when the shopper brings back her hovercart, she pushes her cart into line, using the key from her cart to release a coin from the next cart in the queue.
This kept the carts stacked neatly and saved the Trader Planet the expense of hiring cart boys. In the past, this function had been performed by the Zosmodians, a reptilian species from a six-dimensional universe with photosynthetic skin, a talent for spackling, and the ability to travel across time and space. The Zosmodians worked cheap, and generally off the books because few of them had visas, but they were nevertheless regarded as undesirable laborers. This was because, though they possess the ability to travel through time, they always showed up five minutes late. This defect in their chrono-ambulatory capacity was why they had never parlayed their natural abilities into fortune. When they showed up, for example, to bet on the Andromeda Derby, with knowledge of which space eel won, they arrived tardy as usual, and after the close of pari-mutuel wagering.
For their part, the Zosmodians had a good attitude about the whole thing. They figured it was part of God’s master plan, and spent lots of time in the distant past, when people appreciated quality spackling and weren’t in so much of a hurry.