The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi

13 people attended a discussion of The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi. 5 people have read Scalzi before. About 10 people started the book, almost all of them finished it. Most people liked this book, although they almost unanimously agreed it wasn’t very deep. The characters left some readers wishing for more depth.

The plot of the book can be summed up thus: “An interstellar scandal explodes when a human diplomat assassinates an alien diplomat by farting at him, albeit using a scent-emitting communicator. To forestall interspecies war, the government enlists former war hero and current uberhacker Harry Creek. His mission: to placate the aliens by finding a unique form of sheep used in the aliens’ upcoming coronation ritual.” (From Booklist via amazon.com)

As one can guess from the synopsis, the value of this novel is mostly in the humor, and most readers agreed with that. Still, some people didn’t find it very funny. At least one reader was put off by the chapter-long fart joke, easily the longest fart joke ever told, that the book opens with. The same reader admitted she could not get into the book until she seduced herself into it with a pizza and a large bottle of cheap red wine.

Another reader had an idea why that may have been necessary. The first few chapters don’t help you to get into the book, because they go on without establishing what the book is about. The protagonist hardly shows up in the first few chapters, and when he does show up, it’s not obvious that he’s an important character. So if you don’t enjoy long, dragged-out fart jokes, the beginning of the book may not motivate you to keep reading. However, once religion enters the storyline, and when the action starts focusing on Harry Creek, that’s where it starts getting interesting, the reader said. It’s a pity, though, that Harry Creek was the one driving all the action without ever letting the female main character to take the lead. Some readers missed the heroine having an independent role. She just went along for a ride.

When it comes to fart jokes, a few readers admitted they find them funny, and the one in the book was found to be on par with the best of them. 🙂 The setup where a person can insult another to their face without anyone else understanding what was going on, and the English translations of the scent insults, were hilarious.

Many readers thought religion was the most interesting aspect of the story. Some people got more out of it than just the chuckle factor. They were intrigued by how the two factions within the church of the Evolved Lamb played off against each other. The book explored questions of what is religion, what does being religious mean, although it did it in a very irreverent manner. An unusual angle of the cult of the Evolved Lamb was that its adherents were actively working to make the prophecies come true. One person said this part hit uncomfortably close to home, since in her opinion the US current government is working to make that happen in the Middle East.

One reader noted science and technology was not very credible in some places. As a computer expert, he criticized the scene where one of the main characters “hacks back” into the computer of a hacker that’s trying to attack his server. Such hacking back would be impossible, because no attacker would be so stupid as to make his IP address visible. Another implausibility has to do with modeling a human brain down to quantum level, since it’s impossible even in theory.

These glitches were outweighed by realistic portrayal of government institutions. The attempts of the State Department and Defense Department to undermine each other looked familiar to some people. And one reader testified that the level of nepotism in bureaucratic institutions portrayed in the book is just as it is in real life: everybody is somebody’s brother or went to college with somebody.

A few people noted that the title The Android’s Dream was misleading, since the book had nothing to do with Philip K. Dick. One reader added the lack of connection was a big bonus.

–Elze Hamilton