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Diplomatic Act | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Peter Jurasik and William H. Keith, Jr. | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| N/A | N/A | ||
Peter Jurasik is the man who played Londo Mollari on the hit television series Babylon 5. The character was an alien diplomat on a space station devoted to peace, with a hairdo something like a spiked mohawk turned ninety degrees. Which explains why the book is about an actor playing a race eerily similar to B5's Centaurans on a tv show set on a large starship devoted to peace. The cover of the book damn near shows Londo swigging a beer with an alien - something Londo did a lot of, I might add.
The book is something of a cross between B5 and Galaxy Quest. Aliens abduct Richard Faraday, the actor, because they think he's real, and they need him to help negotiate a peace treaty, since on the show he's so good at it. The reason they make the mistake, though, is somewhat more realistic than the movie's. It seems the race he plays on tv is exactly like a real but long-vanished race out in the galaxy in skill at being diplomatic and parlaying peace. Nobody knows what they looked like, but it seemed reasonable to the aliens that the peace-loving Eldars were trying to manipulate our society through television. Everyone on Earth would think he's an actor, but the aliens knew the truth: it was an Eldar. Of course, they were wrong, but now they're committed.
The story is essentially a double first contact, with Faraday meeting the aliens as the aliens try to mingle with Hollywood society. The reactions of both sides are fun, often even humorous. The fact that Faraday is somewhat of a technophobe makes for some very interesting reactions to Galactic society and their machinery, and the alien on Earth knows about human life only by what he watched on television.
The authors aren't afraid to make up words for alien devices, senses, or concepts, but it is not overdone. It just gets across the notion that there is yet more for humans to figure out. And there are more subleties than you might expect. The plots and counter-plots get a little complex, but never confusing. All in all, a good, fun read.
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