Good News From Outer Space [Hardcover]

The book is also interspersed with some very well-written and spooky passages in which a number of the characters seem to have encounters with aliens - or at least human beings who appear to be in the possession of some very strange powers and ideas. These episodes generate an enormous amount of expectation as the reader waits for Kessel to explain to us what the hell ties all of these events together...

..and he never does! The millennium arrives, the book ends. C'est tout. I'd give a lot of money to know what was going on in Kessel's head when he wrote the last thirty pages or so of this tome. But in spite of its formidable observational and stylistic virtues, the book left me kicking the furniture and cursing his name when I was done. Not a goal that the literary artist habitually aspires to, y'woulda thought.

First, at the very heart of a good story is a central conflict around which the plot revolves. There didn't seem to be one here, or at least it wasn't very compelling to me as a reader (It would have been compelling if I'd cared about the characters, - more on that below).

Second, the representation of religious mania was so exaggerated that it could only have been entertaining if portrayed humorously, which it wasn't. The reverend was a way-over-the-top stereotype of those preachers on TV and his followers were cardboard "followers". No light was shed on the actual motivation of those in our society prone to religious delusions. These followers more or less believed whatever they were told and did whatever their leader said. Although it may seem that religious nuts in our society are this way, those who know much about real religious nuts can tell you that it's hard to get large numbers of them to agree on anything or follow any one particular leader. So what made these ones so pliable and easy to manipulate?

Thirdly, the characters were largely unsympathetic. Except for Lucy, they all were deranged and as a reader I felt that the world would be better off without them. And the protagonist spent the entire movie chasing aliens, yet we were only provided with the flimsiest explanation of why he was so obsessed with them or why he thought they were trying to take over the planet.

And lastly, the various plotlines were barely even resolved at the end of the book. Instead of a climax, there is an anti-climax which left me feeling like I had sort-of wasted my time reading the preceding 370 pages.

If it's possible for a book to take itself too seriously, this one did. If the book had been written in a zany, wacky, humorous tone instead of being dark, pessimistic and edgy it would have worked better, in my humble opinion.

If you like dark, vague conspiracy theories and edgy, improbable sci-fi you might like this. It's not a bad book, it just didn't work for me.