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Help Identifying A Sci-Fi Book?

Austin Popper

Austin Popper

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Maybe someone here will know this weird little novel, the title and author of which escape me.

Years ago, Mrs. Popper brought home some books from a library sale or something. In the pile was this strange nutball work of fiction that I've been unable to locate. It was a small paperback with an interesting premise but the writing was not great. It seemed like someone was trying to write like Douglas Adams, and didn't even get close. The premise was that Earth was a kind of "reality show" that was broadcast to some other planet for the entertainment of whatever aliens lived there. Things had gotten pretty bad in the Earth series, with the president of Earth or maybe just the US president being some weirdo who had part of his head missing from some calamity or other.

Does this sound familiar? I mean the book, not the silly premise. That seems more familiar by the day. I'm sure it got sent off to the Salvation Army or some other thrift store or something. We moved house a couple of years ago, and got rid of at least a ton of books. The novel obviously owes a lot to things like The Truman Show and Hitchhiker's, and even Futurama, but in light of recent events here in the US, I'd like to look at it again. Maybe even finish reading it. It might be better and more interesting than I had thought.

Thanks.
 
The 'reality show for the benefit of the aliens' theme sounds like Frank Herbert's The Heaven Makers.
 
And a little like Dick's Time Out Of Joint, though I don't think that's the one you're looking for.
 
James_H said:
And a little like Dick's Time Out Of Joint, though I don't think that's the one you're looking for.
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Which, incidentally is one of the most frustrating books I've ever read- the first 2/3 are fantastic, creepy and intriguing, then the story just ... fizzles out.
 
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson – brilliant first 2/3rds, bizarre and terrible last third.
 
Kryptonite said:
Which, incidentally is one of the most frustrating books I've ever read- the first 2/3 are fantastic, creepy and intriguing, then the story just ... fizzles out.
Click to expand...
IIRC, it changes apparent setting quite dramatically at the end, which kind of put me out of joint.
 
EnolaGaia said:
The 'reality show for the benefit of the aliens' theme sounds like Frank Herbert's The Heaven Makers.
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I liked that one. It will always be in my head as I'd put in for a promotion at work, not got it, and been sent away to work in a totally different area almost as if I was being punished for something I'd said. I was reading that at the time.
So there you go. Interesting eh? :joint:
 
This sounds like Armageddon: The Musical by Robert Rankin or one of the two sequels.
However it's a been a while since I read this.
 
I'm the proud owner of a first edition hardback of Armageddon: The Musical. The description does sound like it, don't recall the President having part of his head missing, but he was a Scientologist, which may be the same thing.
 
Need some help identifying a sci-fi book I read back in the mid 80s and would like to rediscover.
This was at a time when I had just started commuting into London and read a huge amount (perhaps 3 novels a week) on the train, with sci-fi being my preferred genre.

I can recall a book set on Earth some time in the future, featuring a sapient bear, centaurs and vampires. Each creature is fiercely proud of their supposedly ancient heritage, only to discover that they do not belong to an ancient lineage, but were created comparatively recently as the result of scientists merging the genes of humans, horses, vampire bats etc. The hybrids realise they have been cruelly exploited (I can recall one scene in which vampires are strapped to a ship's mast and, kept barely alive with a few drops of blood, are forced to use their wings as sails).

My Googling has drawn a blank so far (although I thought I had found it in Philip José Farmer's Dark is the Sun, which has some vaguely similar themes on a future Earth, and which I also read some 35 years ago).

Any ideas please?
 
Do you recall whether the book was new or recent at the time you read it?
 
EnolaGaia said:
Do you recall whether the book was new or recent at the time you read it?
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When browsing in the library for my next week's reading, I tended to go for fairly recent sci-fi novels, in the style of Farmer, Pohl, Bradbury, Niven, Simak etc. so I suspect it was written in the 70s or early 80s. May have been some particularly lurid cover art that caught my eye. It's definitely a book I want to read again.
 
Based on the cited elements and timeframe, I suspect you may be thinking of James Kahn's New World series / trilogy: World Enough, and Time (1980), Time's Dark Laughter (1982), and Timefall (1987).
 
EnolaGaia said:
Based on the cited elements and timeframe, I suspect you may be thinking of James Kahn's New World series / trilogy: World Enough, and Time (1980), Time's Dark Laughter (1982), and Timefall (1987).
Click to expand...

Thanks! Will check those out (and World Enough, and Time sounds vaguely familiar).
 
You're a star, EnolaGaia!

It is definitely this:

time.JPG

Off to eBay now to buy a copy.
 
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