Pink Eye

by Tom Norton

Have you ever felt like you’re being watched? You’re not paranoid. Alien eyeballs are on you right now.

"Pink Eye is a sharp, sci-fi satire with elements of an intergalactic Truman Show.” – Arts Alive, National Radio

Bobby Tucker doesn’t dislike Doctor Albert. He HATES him.

He can’t understand how a scientist could be so clueless.

When Albert, an astrophysicist, intercepts a mysterious signal from outer space, everything changes. If anyone else had answered the call things might’ve gone better.

Now, aliens are on the way and Bobby’s small town has one massive opportunity to prove that humanity is worthy. For most people, this would be a hard pass.

But Bobby’s determined to save the world even if that means accepting help from the one guy he can’t stand.

Spoiler alert: The odds aren’t in their favour. Humanity is, well… let’s just say we’re screwed.

"Pink Eye is more than just a first-contact story— it’s a biting satire on the entertainment industry." – Speculative Times


PRAISE:

"An absolute Hoot with a capital H!" – Sound & Fury

“A delightfully weird novel...” – Library Thing

“Two of the most lovable delinquents I've read in a novel, and a very punchable scientist.” – Good Reads

"The pace is perfect."– Notes from Elsewhere

“An uproariously fun and refreshingly quirky read.” – Library Thing

Genres: Science Fiction, Humor

226 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 1, 2024

Reviews

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from the author in exchange for a fair review.

This book is a Hoot with a capital H!

It's 100% a comedy. As such, it flies fast, strikes hard, and moves on. The characters are distinctive and fun, though, I will say, Bobby is a tad annoying (given he's a 17-year-old boy acting out) and does some questionable things (one of which he should have experienced stronger repercussions for, truth be told), but he also is this way as a balance to his friend who Chook, who is the exact opposite in terms of personality. This dynamic was very fun and made the boys feel realistic. I loved Chook to bits. I adored him. What a sweetheart.

The novel also has some fun aliens. The xeno-anthropologist in me wanted a bit more of the aliens and their culture, but for this story, they served their purpose and their deal, as it were, made sense. I loved Chook's love story. I couldn't get enough of it.

There are two twists (one I saw coming almost right away and another that did take me by surprise the teacher being an alien I knew pretty soon into the story. She was so exaggeratedly hot the set-up for her being an alien seemed inevitable. The story flows in a fun way and didn’t go where I expected. It moves very fast, though, and jumps from plot point to plot point with barely any time to catch breath, but that was part of the comedy aspect. If you want something with more contemplation or downtime, you won’t find it here, but you will 100% be entertained. How can you not? This book is a farce following three bumbling idiots dealing with a first-contact situation.

If you have an aversion to marijuana or alien-human love stories, you might stick your nose up at this. Too bad for you - I thought it was great!

Also, this book has giant floating eyeballs and is set in Tasmania. As I said, it's an absolute Hoot with a capital H.

[Shawn Wasilensky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious!

This book will ruin any trust you may have in your bladder. Even worse if you read it while using the clear eye suit detection agent. The most lovable juvenile delinquent characters with above average IQ’s I’ve ever come across and an effortlessly punchable scientist with a frog fetish all rolled into a story that clearly designed to make you pee your pants. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry from laughing, you’ll aggressively gyrate your pelvis in humping motions and tell your friends about it! It’s just that good.

[Bronwyn Delaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was indeed very fortunate to be given a copy by the author and have LOVED every sentence.
A laid back Astrophysicist doing the graveyard shift at Parkes Observatory, picks up a signal from another galaxy.
He becomes their frontman to put across the idea of a town in Tasmania being observed by the 'Pink Eyes' as a study', ot is it ? for remuneration for the entire population there .
What could go wrong?
I usually have no interest in intergalactic stories BUT this has been written perfectly portraying the Aussie laconic attitude, filled with wit, adventure and just a terrific storyline. Thank you so much Tom Norton

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had a ton of potential and lived up to most of it. I just wish there had been another 100 pages or so to tie up the loose ends. Lots of language and smoking weed but overall, this was pretty funny and I loved the premise. If you like silly sci-fi, like Hitchhiker's Guide, this will probably be up your alley.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great adventure through an alien visitation with engaging characters and interesting plot twists. I was laughing and chuckling while I read this book. It’s quickly paced and I just wanted to keep turning the pages. A really fun sci-fi story.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sci-fi + Comedy can be a crazy and entertaining combination… when done right. This book does it perfectly.

I cannot articulate just how much I am enjoying this book!

If there’s a sequel, I will definitely read that too.

[Janae O'Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of Pink Eye through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program; my review is voluntary.

I found this book surprisingly fun. It’s not downright hilarious, but it’s a romp for sure. Lots of immature and/or stoner humor. It reminds me of late 90s/early 00s teen comedy movies in spirit (think Dude Where’s My Car) with a tiny sprinkle of Hitchhiker’s Guide.

By the time I started reading, I’d forgotten the premise, which allowed some surprise and delight at certain key plot points. The idea behind it is pretty creative (and while some might feel it’s derivative of Hitchhiker’s, I didn’t see that much overlap). It’s a storyline I know I’ll remember down the road. The writing is good, just needs a good final edit to clean up a few technical things. And it’s a short, quick read that doesn’t get heavy. Sometimes that’s what you need.

3.5*

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is now one of my new favourite books.
I love the writing style, the quirky characters and the dialogue feels funny and natural. I had so many LOLs. It was the perfect book to get me out of my reading slump.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really great read! I really liked everything about it! The main characters, the overall plot & the energy of the book! I found myself absorbed into the story very quickly, a really fun read with a few unexpected twist & turns, lightly amusing, all I want in this type of book! I do strongly recommend!

[Sophie]

It doesn’t feel right to give this book a rating since I didn’t finish reading it, but if I were going to give it a rating, it would be 2 stars. The plot is bizarre but not uninteresting. I decided to stop reading when one of the main characters decided to watch through a window while his teacher undressed. This 17-year-old young man is a s**ual predator, but he’s portrayed, in my opinion, as a “regular” horny teenager in a “boys will be boys” kind of way. Nah. I have no patience for that trash. I’m not going to stick around for the rest of the story.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crazy antics-filled adventure involving two students and a scientist as they deal with aliens contacting Earth to film a documentary about human life.

This story is very in line with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy vibes though it's heavily influenced by the Australia setting...and there's a lot of pot reference/use I hadn't expected going in.

All in all, a humorous take on Earth's first contact with alien life forms.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great story and a fun read. An entertaining plot, incredible events and a charming ( albeit cheeky) sense of humour!

Definitely hit my top ten list for this year..!

[Hilton Alligood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Season 2

I enjoyed the book and I would read a sequel if there ever is one, This was different. Just what I needed.

[Ziggy Nixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

We’ve got to do something. We might be Earth’s only chance.

3 1/2 eyes. No, wait, stars. Something like that. I really liked the conception and imagination of Tom Norton's "Pink Eye", even if I couldn't relate to some of the specifics. I mean, I've never watched reality TV, I've never had sex with an alien species, and I don't smoke pot like I'm trying to teach Cheech & Chong how much fun it could be to try it some time. OK, at least 1 of those I'm pretty sure of but I'm not telling which. The other two, well, we all had our fun in college but those days are long behind me. Overall, though, it was a fun ride that made for mid-range hilarious reading. Yeah, again, the excessive marijuana usage just kind of flew by without really landing. But don't feel bad: I just pretended it was my prescribed medications taken with copious amounts of alcohol. Which can be fun when you've had a bad day, trust me… shame though about the kidney failure…

Standing up to arseholes, whether from outer space or Earth, was the right thing to do.

Anyway, there are definitely a lot of pretty cool twists and turns throughout that are fun to watch develop. And seeing all this from the perspective of an Australian writer who is writing about his fellow Australians - where I learned that Tasmania still counts despite it's severe island-ness - was a lot of fun. And kind of a relief as well to be honest because I seem to have hit a stretch recently where either the US and/or UK militaries have been entertaining themselves by blowing a lot of things up. I mean, it's got to be a dreamy place to hold an alien invasion, all things considered. Though I am concerned about the devils…

We’re establishing the Department of Alien Foreign Technology, otherwise known as DAFT.

What's truly amazing then about this whole - production? - is seeing how the locals react to giant eyeballs floating around, free to film and record anything and everything folks are doing. And how do you get around the innate need for humans to feel free and unencumbered by such an obvious invasion of privacy? Well, you appeal to their sense of humanity, namely, the betterment of same. And, of course, you throw a LOT of cash at all those who are willing to participate. Yes, we're reminded that no one considered doing that when the British took all these lands away from the Indigenous Peoples of the greater Oz region, but this is after all a more advanced age we live in. Pfft, as if, seriously how did no one realize earlier just how screwed they all were?

You’re taking forever. We could’ve totally saved the world by now.

I did enjoy getting to follow in this adventure along with Alfred, who I felt a mild kinship with if for no other reason that we both got PhD's in what many would consider to be useless fields of employment (mine has left and gone to China, at least we still look at the stars around the world). Poor guy - "the universe was messy, and so was he" - went from his major cock-up after receiving a message from "the stars" (in every sense of the phrase?) to leading the entire First Contact operation and more. Plus, he got to pull a full Captain Kirk and have major naked fun times with a green lady! Sure, he managed to spend a lot of the time being really nervous and whiny, but it seemed like a lot of folks suffered from the same symptoms. Goodness knows even Bobby and Montgomery, sorry, Chook did enough minging to fill an entire volume themselves. Which honestly wasn't my favorite part of the story, nor was the decidedly Young Adult view at life in High School. Not that I was expecting too much gun play - after all, the lizards and bunnies don't appear until later - but it did get a bit too "Dawson Creek" in some spots for my tastes.

No one ever won an academic prize for shagging extraterrestrials.

In terms of execution, the book moves at a pretty good clip throughout and obviously we have a pretty varied crew to get to know. And once we start up with the whole Stargate aspect of the story, it adds to the options we have in terms of the different players. Like literally, the cast and crew that kept the show moving! Sure, there were more than a handful of minor editing hiccups but nothing that would have me destroying a paperback of same for rolling joints or anything similar in frustration. The ending was kind of, well, meh but really once we passed the stage of getting Froggy Epstein out of the picture, there wasn't a lot more left to do. Besides, if there's still any questions left, I'm sure it's all on TikTok by now.

[Verix Silvercrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sci-fi book that follows a couple of dumb main characters -- idiots whose thought processes you can understand, wrong as they are. I can and do appreciate that - but what I didn't appreciate was the *other* characters' constant flip-flopping on motivations. In particular, Chook and Zojax seemed to yo-yo on their relationship more than was plausible, and Chook just accepting Zojax was a good guy at the climax with practically no argument felt completely unrealistic. I also disliked Grace's role throughout, but her own arc seemed much more reasonable given in the end, she's just following the first rule of show biz - "give the people what they want," with credit to Tomorrow Never Dies, and she ended up less as a character who actively didn't make sense to me, and more as one I hated.
It also felt like hardly any negative consequences had any lasting effect - particularly Bobby having his leg blasted off in the fight with the lizards felt like it was just thrown in for shock rather than adding any appreciable story value.

For a few positives - Hextor, to me, started to feel like a Harvey Weinstein analog, and frankly, anything that dunks on that bastard will get a thumbs-up from me. The conclusion to the story was good, fitting endings for most parties (maybe except Bobby - it felt like his story never got wrapped up, which sucks for a POV character). The use of organic technology for the alien race, rather than mechanical technology, is one of the more interesting parts of the story

Admittedly, that's where my interest in the Gatogrosians ended... it went the convenient route of giving the Gatogrosians a human-like male/female dichotomy, rather than exploring a more interesting (and also longer) sex/gender situation for the aliens. I would personally have preferred this for my interests, but really, that's not what the book is for. It mostly feels like a "popcorn" book that the audience is reading for a quick laugh. I enjoyed it, sure, but after getting halfway through it a few weeks ago, I completely forgot about the book and only picked it back up today.

It's a book that I mildly enjoyed but wouldn't ever think to recommend - a good example of a fun book with no lasting impression. Three stars.

[Christine Choptovy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of the book from Voracious Readers Only. This is a sci-fi novel, that I also found to be an eye rolling, stereotypical alien novel. It was ridiculous enough at the beginning of the book that I almost stopped reading it. Dr. Albert Manning is a physicist working at Parkes Observatory located in rural Australia. The telescope is used for Project Big Ears, in the hope of finding any sign of life in the galaxy. As he’s working one evening, a huge stream of data appears to be coming from one of the planets he’s been monitoring. He doesn’t notify his boss because he dislikes her and leaves a note telling her: Nothing to report. Quiet night. At home, he builds a signal converter program to ascertain whether or not the data stream means anything. He ends up hearing from a human/toad like alien named, wait for it, Blixitor from the Gatogrosian Council (huge eye roll). Blixitor advises Albert to share the message with Earth’s leaders and will be in contact again in three days time. Instead, Albert airs the follow up message on social media. The majority of people think it’s a hoax and Albert becomes a laughing stock. Two years later, Albert is hired by the government to convince the citizens of St. Helens, Tasmania to allow the Gatagrocian’s to film their daily lives. It’s supposed to be done secretly but the “pink eye” cameras are blatantly obvious. Two teenagers named Bobby and Chook are worried that the aliens might want to invade the planet. I won’t divulge any more of the story line but if you can make it through the silly stereotypes, it’s a okay read.

[Ted Waterfall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pink Eye, by Tom Norton, is a satire on science fiction. Even so, and knowing this, I found it shallow.

Dr. Albert, an astrophysicist, is on duty one night when he makes first contact with a highly intelligent alien life. They offer us amazing futuristic technology in exchange for simply allowing them to observe us through the presence of large monitoring devices the resemble pink eyes which we are supposed to simply ignore. They simply want to learn about us, or so they say. In truth,we have become the subjects of an alien reality show with occasional deadly consequences. Furthermore, there are aliens among us wearing invisibility suits who can only be seen by others also wearing those same suits or, per chance, one happens to be stoned. Enter Bobby and Chook, two horny teenage potheads upon whose shoulders falls the responsibility of saving the world. They enter a portal into the alien world, acquire a transmorgrifier … oops, I mean a transmorpher which can change their appearance (or others) into other forms either animal, vegetable, or other.

Reading this felt like one long Saturday Night Live skit, and not one of their better ones.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pink Eye is a wildly unique story with some crazy alien technology.
Characters: 3/5 - These feel like mostly all terrible people, I had a very hard time sympathizing with anyone. Terrible Misogynistics - always objectifying women as if they are only there to satisfy the men. This almost made me DNF the book, to be honest, but I kept reading because I was intrigued with the aliens.
Atmosphere/Setting: 3/5 - I wanted more of the "Alien"/other world scenery. We only get little glimpses of it.
Writing Style: 3/5 - I need more development in almost every category. It felt like it was a bunch of ideas held together with duct tape.
Plot: 2/5 - See above for feeling like it was thrown together. I didn't really gather a strong, thoughtout plot. I needed much more here.
Intrigue: 5/5 - As I said, Intrigue was 100% what kept me reading.
Logic/Relationships: 3/5 - Yes, logically - it all made sense, even if I didn't like it. Relationships - there were some there on the surface level, but they kept shifting, or seemingly shifting and it felt like we never really got good development in the relationships.
Enjoyment: 3/5 - Not sure if enjoyment is the correct word here but as I stated, the intrigue of it all was what kept me reading.
Total: 22/7 = 3.14/5 stars

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky tale of Aliens exploiting Earthlings for entertainment ratings. Dr. Albert Manning intercepted a signal from outer space and decoded the signal to usher in a supposed sharing of technology. The whole scam involves giant pink eyes studying and filming the people of Tasmania going about everyday life while pretending not to see the giant eyes. Funny in places where two stoner guys try to thwart the frog-like aliens. Even their teacher is an alien disguised as a beautiful woman who sets out to seduce Dr. Albert. In reality Grace is a show executive trying to seal a deal for another season. Chook and Bobby love to mess with the aliens and make filming hard the aliens. Silly aliens could have gotten away with their schemes if they’d just paid the boys like the regular adults.

[Michelle W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book. This was so much better than I expected. It's so good and unexpectedly funny.

If you haven't read Pink Eye, you should. Read it now! I want to tell everyone. Basically, it's about humans and aliens and the culture shock between the two, but it's also about so much more than that. I don't want to ruin it with spoilers.

I laughed out loud so many times, my boyfriend thought I was weird. If you're a fan of oddball sci-fi like Hitchhikers Guide (I am) then you'll love this too.

So expect aliens, brilliant characters, big lols, great friendships, and so many twists and laughs that you'll be entertained all the way to the end.

[Coleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through voracious readers only in exchange for an honest review. I was looking forward to a sci-fi read which is outside my usual genre. The sci-fi was a cool concept. I am probably not the target audience however. I did not appreciate the juvenile jokes, the pot smoking teens or the sexual focus. The teenage boy spying through the window as his teacher undressed sat poorly with me. That being said, I finished the book because I was intrigued to know how things would unfold…

[Jamie Helaudais · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review. This did not influence my thoughts in any way.

Pink Eye by Tom Norton was a delightfully weird book. When Albert the astrophysicist discovers a signal coming from the stars, it sets off chain of events that comes to a head in a small Australian town. I enjoyed this book a lot. Parts of it were very funny. Bobby and Chook were my favorite characters by far. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

[Joseph Horacki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny in a way

I picked out this book because I thought it would be a good laugh, and I did laugh some of the time, but not always. Most of the jokes fell flat for me, don't get me wrong there were times where I laughed out loud, but most of the time the jokes just seemed juvenile. I still think it was a good read though.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so much fun to read and I laughed out loud numerous times. Bobby and Chook thought that the school parents meeting was just like any other. But what they found out could change their lives forever. Aliens wanted to do a deal with the humans. Was it deal or no deal lol. I highly recommend you read it to find out.

[Donald Polk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really believing the pink eye from another galexy

So I can styful my belief systems a little because the other characters were a little more believable. The human characters were believable but the aliens were a stretch. Basically a descent read. Just a little disjointed. For me just a mediocre read! Sorry Tom Norton.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, but ends very jarringly

Pretty much every character is a moron in some way or another, and it's kind of refreshing. The ending was unsatisfying though, as if a stopping point was needed and it just ended.

[John H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny

[Mark Lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too juvenile with tired tropes.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good quirky sci-fi story

[Mary Ann Seidman · Rating 5 out of 5]

very cool book. I enjoyed the story and the characters. I would definitely follow up with any type sequel.