Good News From Outer Space

by John Kessel

The end of the world! Or a new beginning.

George Eberhardt is dead . . . or was, The newsnet he works for has illegally revived him. But he finds himself examining the sensationalist stories he's been reporting for evidence that there are Aliens Among Us. Lucy, George's wife, loses her job for her role in reviving him, and finds herself abandoned and consorting with radical revolutionaries. The Reverend Jimmy-Don Gilray's Zion Tribulation Hour brings in millions of dollars and legions of converts every day, predicting that Christ will come again at the stroke of midnight on the last day of the year to judge the living and the dead. George's best friend Richard Shrike, who believes in nothing, plays con games with serious drugs. Meanwhile, a range of ordinary people across the U.S. undergo encounters with strangers who offer them sudden and miraculous escape.

Good News From Outer Space is a wild, dark, comic ride across a fragmented America as the millennium approaches and dreams of redemption or damnation seem only days away.

"Kessel's darkly comic vision is whackily funny, brilliantly cruel, and joltingly powerful--like Silly Putty cut with high-tech plastic explosive. This book does things I didn't believe were possible."
--Bruce Sterling, author of Holy Fire

"A very funny book. Kessel is a deft parodist, and his wacky WEEKLY WORLD NEWS world is full of clever takeoffs . . . but even the zaniest stuff has barbs underneath . . . at one level it is also a very serious book."
-New York Review of Science Fiction

"Simply the best science fiction novel of the year."
-New York Daily News

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Humor

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1989

About the author

John (Joseph Vincent) Kessel co-directs the creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. A winner of the Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, and Tiptree Awards, his books include Good News From Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, The Pure Product, and The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories. His story collection Meeting in Infinity was a New York Times Notable Book. Most recently, with James Patrick Kelly he has edited the anthologies Feeling Very Strange, Rewired, The Secret History of Science Fiction and Kafkaesque. Born in Buffalo, NY, Kessel has a PhD in American Literature, has been an NEA Fellow, and for twenty years has been one of the organizers of the Sycamore Hill Writers Workshop.

Reviews

[Andrés Zelada · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿Quizá más un 3,5, por los momentos en que pierde el ritmo? Bah, como sea.

Año 1999. George acaba de ser resucitado, una técnica que es ilegal en el Estado donde vive. El nuevo "zombie" está convencido de que hay una invasión extraterrestre poniendo de los nervios a los habitantes de EE.UU., y se lanza a la caza de los aliens. Lucy, la esposa de George, ve comprometida su carrera por haber promovido la resurrección y tiene que salir huyendo. Por su parte, Richard, el jefe de George en un programa de basura televisiva, dimite y se convierte en el nuevo jefe de prensa del reverendo Gilray, un fanático religioso que opina que ni invasión ni leches: lo que va a llegar es la Segunda Venida.

John Kessel intenta ser Philip K. Dick en este libro, que se publicó originalmente en 1989. No le sale, pero no ha pillado mal el tono: mesianismo religioso, un país completamente desquiciado y en plena quiebra económica y moral, nihilistas que solo quieren ver el mundo arder, manifestaciones extrañas que tanto pueden ser extraterrestres como ángeles o demonios... todo muy dickiano. También es muy dickiano el, eh, tratamiento de los personajes femeninos, el hecho de que todo el mundo se esté drogando todo el rato y el tema de que haya diálogos y acciones que a veces no tengan mucha conexión con nada, pero bueno.

El libro se divide en capítulos cortos, protagonizados cada uno de ellos por uno de los cuatro protagonistas. Los cuatro tienen personalidades y voces distintivas y sus acciones son coherentes. La trama es simple como ella sola pero al final todo termina por encajar.

Además, hay un par de capítulos protagonizados por una detective privada que cree tener línea directa mental con el presidente, con independencia de quién ocupe el cargo. También hay algunas historias cortas, capítulos que muestran cómo estos entes interactúan con otros personajes, que muchas veces ni vuelven a ser mencionados. Me gusta en especial aquí la historia del bateador de los Sox, que recibe una Visita y desde entonces se pueden seguir sus andanzas en las conversaciones de otros personajes.

Leí el libro de adolescente (la edición de Bibliópolis es de 2004) y recuerdo que me impactó, pero olvidé título y autor. Ahora lo he reencontrado en la biblioteca y la verdad es que me ha vuelto a gustar, a pesar de las fallas que ya he comentado. Está lleno de buenas ideas y es bastante punki. La traducción no te hace llorar (a pesar de gazapos como traducir "fire the teachers" por "prender fuego a los profesores"), lo cual en traducciones de ciencia ficción es un notable medio.

[Ash Scism · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating : ⭐️⭐️💫 (2.5)
Format : 📖
⏰ : 6 hours, 50 minutes

Wow. This was a wild ride of a book that I honestly don’t even know how to describe. It was an absurd story of evangelical conspirators, alien invasions, and the unevent that was the millennium’s ending of the world.

This book follows several different fragmented storylines all existing within the apocalyptic world of the pre-millennium as the world prepares for the New Year and the ending of the world.

It was an intriguing read for sure, and I did enjoy the satirical telling of the religious fanatics and alien conspirators.

It was however quite dense and I found myself losing interest quickly as I read through. The writing style wasn’t entirely it for me, and I found that I hardly cared about the fate of a single character.

It was an interesting read though and I enjoyed reading from perspectives that I haven’t really explored much of.

Overall, it was an okay book that picked up immensely towards the end and finally managed to keep me entertained in the last quarter as all the storylines converged and resembled a more well-constructed plot. It definitely made me think of things in ways that I haven’t before. I could eventually reread this and hope to understand it a bit better, but that’s quite low on my priorities list as far as my tbr goes. 🤷‍♀️

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just OK. I found the alien encounters interesting early on, and the rest a bit of a slog. The book did pick up toward the end, but then it kind of just fizzled out. The last chapter was, like a lot of similar last chapters, a disappointing little nothing tacked on to the end, and was completely unnecessary. It seemed dated, which I guess it is, but since it was written in my adult lifetime, I would have expected to feel that less. The whole televangelist thing seems very '80s, early '90s. It reminded me of a lot of other books - Bug Jack Barron, The Monkey Wrench Gang, the Illumanti series, but it wasn't as good as most of those.

[Leslie Meadows · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when it came out and as it happened John was my creative writing prof. The thing that is frightening about this book is that it seems less like fiction every day, but then we are living in a science fiction novel if you haven't noticed. If you haven't chatted with experimental models of AI, as opposed to the current consumer versions, you have no idea yet. In this book all sorts of crazy things happen. Kind of like if I bothered to watch the news. This book is real science fiction, not the Star Wars space opera kind. It's the kind that scares people to think about if you are into thinking.

[Alicia O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a weird book but overall I liked it. I read a short story by this author in Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine that got me interested in his work, especially after I found out that he was from Buffalo. There’s a nod to Buffalo in this novel. The final third of it fizzled out for me, it was more of a 4 star read until then. The final stretch was a bit of a slog to get through.

[Albert_Camus_lives]

t is predominantly a satire, telling the story of a resurrected reporter, George Eberhart, investigating alien involvement on Earth just prior to worldwide hysteria surrounding the countdown to the year 2000

[Mustafa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an oddball of a book.

[Ellis Wasend · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining but a little hard to follow at times. Overall I really enjoyed it other than that, aliens are always great after all

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read 38 pages and it’s dull.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

La idea es original y está bien planteada y bien escrita pero Intercala pasajes entretenidos e inteligentes con otros que se hacen bola.
Esperaba mucho y me ha resultado un tanto meh.

[Invadozer Misothorax Circular-thallus Popewaffensquat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super preacher named John Gilray is hyping the
end of the world. He's all about himself and an iron
clamp down on the sinners/unbelievers. One guy George
gets involved through his very involved job of finding
conspiracies for his Weekly World News type newspaper he works
for. He thinks the end of the world means alien
invasion. His buddy Richard wants in on the scoop and takes
a different route in research. Richard pursues the
preacher. George the aliens. There's more to it as their
lives become more surreal as the book goes but that's
the main gist.

This has all the makings of a
P.K. Dick book with all the self doubts and light
comedy but it doesn't flow at all. It gets bogged down
in parts and should have been edited. If you are a
biblical know it all and like the end of the planet
scriptures you will enjoy most of this book. I got in and
out of it very disjointedly and it took me 3 weeks
longer than I should've been at it.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kessel's 1989 absurdist riff on the Millennium fever of the 90s, with its pop culture references to UFOs, alien abduction, religious extremism, and anything else he can think of, still holds up even after 24 years and the non-event of Y2K. Kessel's world of media manipulation, political ineptitude, and religious extremism still seems disturbingly familiar, and his wit, like Swift's, seems even more savage now. This is a classic of both satire and SF, even if some of its references have become a little obscure. The electronic edition includes a brief, lucid foreword by Kessel where he discusses SF in terms of its presenting possibilities rather than predictions.

[Cedar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like it 'cause you never find out what really

[Joel Nichols · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kessel is a great writer, and the Lunar Cycle from the BAUM PLAN... is really excellent. This just wasn't my cup of tea and so I thought it was boring.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This satire is still quite relevant despite its setting at the turn of the millenium. If you like Vonnegut, you'll love Kessel.

[Steve Paulson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though it was written for a pending millennium it did not date badly. A much better read than I thought it would be.

Warning: heavy satire of millennialism and extreme evangelicalism.

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good, it seems like it inspired countless cynical spin offs. it was as good as any Margaret Atwood

[Nanc Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

can't get past the first three chapters.