THE DIRECTOR SHOULD'VE SHOT YOU: MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE (audiobook) by Alan Dean Foster

Published in 2024 by Tantor Media.
Read by Stephen R. Thorne.
Duration: 7 hours, 1 minute.
Unabridged.

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific sci-fi author. He has written over 50 sc-fi novels, but he is probably most famous for his numerous novelizations of sci-fi movies and TV shows, such as the original Star Wars movie (ghost written for George Lucas), Alien, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Krull, and The Last Starfighter.

The Director Should've Shot You is the story of Foster's experiences as the man who Hollywood turns to to write novelizations of sci-fi movies. He talks about how that system (usually) works, the odd experiences, his interactions with directors, producers, and faceless stuidio executives, and his various thoughts of the strengths and weaknesses of the various projects. 

My experiences with Foster as a young reader start with his two Star Wars books that he wrote when George Lucas  and his team were finishing the original movie.

As I noted, he ghost wrote the novelization of the first movie for George Lucas. He  also wrote the original sequel to the original Star Wars movie - a book called Splinter of the Mind's Eye. George Lucas asked Foster to make Splinter of the Mind's Eye a smaller story when compared to sweeping epic of the original story just in case the first movie turned out to be a bust. Lucas hoped to make a cheaper movie and recycle some of the original props and costumes in order to eke out a little profit. The runaway success of Star Wars made that plan unnecessary. 

We were so starved of Star Wars material back then. I must have read the novelization of the original Star Wars movie more than 10 times. This was back in the days when you could only see Star Wars in the movie theaters. It hadn't been played on TV yet and there were no VHS, DVD, or streaming releases. But, we had the books, the collectable cards, the toys to remind us of the story and it was an endless source of conversation.

I remember reading and discussing Splinter of the Mind's Eye until Lucas released the eventual sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. We were searching for any indication of how the stories might continue and we were trying to figure out how the Star Wars universe worked and all we really had were two little paperback books writen by Alan Dean Foster. That cover was excellent.

I must have read all of his novelizations of the Star Trek animated stories because I read everything Star Trek that I could find when I was in high school.

If you are looking for a complete autobiography of Foster, this isn't it. He offers a decent autobiography up to the point where he starts writing the movie novelizations and then it's pretty much all about those novels. That was fine by me - Foster is a critic and a fan at the same time and it was a fun listen.

The book is almost worth reading just to see what 1970s TV show paid him to write a novelization of a very special two episode story arc. It was certainly out of his normal area of expertise.

Now, I am seriously thinking about re-reading Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE DIRECTOR SHOULDVE SHOT YOU MEMOIRS of the FILM TRADE by Alan Dean Foster.

WHY WE DON'T SUCK: AND HOW ALL of US NEED to STOP BEING SUCH PARTISAN LITTLE BITCHES (audiobook) by Denis Leary

Published by Random House Audio in November of 2017.
Read by the author, Denis Leary.
Duration: 6 hours, 36 minutes.
Unabridged.

This sequel to his 2008 book, Why We Suck: A Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid, is an up and down work and not quite as good as his earlier effort.

Why We Don't Suck starts out very strong, with Denis Leary lashing out at both of the main candidates in the 2016 Presidential Election and their uncritical supporters. The book slows down as Leary tells the story of 11 Americans that inspire him. 

After that, the book nearly grinds to a halt as Leary sort of meanders about being critical of a number of things. He settles on religion for a while, gets into a convoluted discussion of cursing and also launches into an extended bit that starts as a riff off of President Trump's featuring Twitter feeds but devolves into "What if...?" Twitter feeds of past Presidents and, sadly, expands to include other world leaders, including Idi Amin. Really? An Idi Amin joke in 2017? He's only been out of power since 1979!

Happily, the book picks up towards the end. Leary writes about his own struggles meeting celebrities that are bigger than him, such as Paul McCartney and David Bowie. But, his funniest stories involve Keith Richards, simply because of their surreal nature. He also has several funny stories of being mistaken for other celebrities, including Willem Defoe, Kevin Bacon, Jon Bon Jovi and, oddly enough, Ellen DeGeneres.

What does any of the previous two paragraphs have to do with why America doesn't suck? I don't know - and, really, that's the problem with the book. It suffers from serious thesis drift until the end of the book when Leary expresses a serious amount of admiration for Millennials.

In short, due to the up and down nature of the book, I rate it 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Why We Don't Suck: And How ALl of Us Need to Stop Being Such Partisan Little Bitches by Denis Leary. 

The Human Blend: The Tipping Point Trilogy, Book One (audiobook) by Alan Dean Foster

Lackluster characters hurt a very interesting premise

Read by David Colacci
Published by Tantor Media, November 2010.
Duration: 9 hours, 56 minutes,

Unabridged.

Ultra-prolific author Alan Dean Foster introduces yet another series with The Human Blend, the first installment of a trilogy set in a relatively near-future Savannah, Georgia.

In this interesting new world the direst predictions about global warming have come true. America’s southern states have become near-tropical. Flooding ocean waters have buried coastal cities, forced them to move onto stilts or have caused cities to move inland. Much of Florida is underwater, the Everglades have swallowed the rest.

Political changes have swept the world as well. The United States is now part of a larger country called Namerica. Several countries in Asia are equal to, if not more important than Namerica. The moon, Mars and Jupiter’s moon Titan have been colonized as well.

Alan Dean Foster

But, the most important changes are the changes to the individual. In this future world, plastic surgery has become relatively cheap, easy and almost entirely safe. Called “melding”, new technologies have allowed millions upon millions of clients to “gengineer” themselves in an amazing number of ways. They can add animal tissue and literally grow feathers, gills, become amphibians, or fly. Clients can become exact duplicates of movie stars, athletes or anything else they can dream up. Do you want extra arms, eyes in the back of your head, or robotic hands with interchangeable parts? No problem. Want something a little more dangerous? Back alley gengineering clinics offer more dangerous options such as hidden weapons.

Alan Dean Foster introduces us to this strange new world through a meld named Whispr – a street thug who has had radical gengineering to make him hyperthin. Whispr and his accomplice Jiminy are working the streets of Savannah with a weapon that turns off pacemakers so that they may loot the dead bodies of their victims. They have just removed an exquisite hand from the body of their latest victim in hopes of selling it to a back alley clinic when they find an electronic storage device, a futuristic flash drive that is made of an unknown metal but is literally as thin and as flexible as a thread.

As Whispr and his various companions travel through the underworld trying to identify this thread and perhaps even download the information on it, they become the targets of police, hitmen and the bodies start to pile up in a hurry.

David Colacci, narrator

The narrator, David Colacci, does a fantastic job of creating a number of distinct character voices and accents ranging from Asian to Creole to Eastern European to southern redneck to South American Spanish. However, even the considerable talents of Colacci could not save the book from an inexplicable attack of wordiness for wordiness’ sake. Alan Dean Foster demonstrates in the book that he can be a master of the language with truly brilliant riffs of alliteration, simile and witty bits of conversation that make the listener smile at his cleverness. But, like a drum solo at a rock concert, a little bit of this goes a long way. Keep it up too long and the fans step out and look for popcorn. I found my attention wandering as a character named Wizzwang let loose with one cutesie, sex-crazed, pseudointellectual verbal barrage after another in the last hour or so of this audiobook. It seemed like Foster was trying to stretch the story out rather than cover new territory.

Another problem with the book is that there is really no one to root for. Whispr is not really likable – he kills people just to loot their bodies. His friends are no better. They are not lovable rogues, like Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. Rather, they are just criminals with bland but talkative personalities. There is the mystery of the threat data storage device, but this is not enough to compel the reader to carry on.

Fortunately, I found the world created by Alan Dean Foster to be quite interesting and I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the food dispensers, the new climates created by global warming and the effects of gengineering on society. As this installment ends, Whispr and his accomplice (a beautiful “natural” doctor who specializes in creating high-quality melds) are heading off to Africa to try to discover more about this “thread” and discover why everyone wants it so badly. I find myself wondering what new things I will learn about this distinctive vision of the future in the next installment.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Human Blend.

Reviewed January 22, 2011.

Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster

Published in 1987.

Glory Lane is a good old-fashioned sci-fi romp that is just made worse by the inclusion of all three human characters.

This is one of those stories where lovable losers get caught up in something really big and really complicated that they didn't even know existed. Typically, as these types of stories go along, the lovable losers do better, they grow, and they rise to the occasion.

These characters do not grow. They remain petty, impudent little pests and I found myself wondering why the other races tolerated the human species if this was all the better examples that they were going to meet!

Seriously, the actual sci-fi was top-notch. There were a multitude of worlds and species that were well-done. But, it was marred by the inclusion of a punk rocker, a geek and a ditzy blond who continued to bicker, and sometimes actually fistfight with one another, no matter the situation. I wish he'd haven given that aspect of the story a rest.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Glory Lane by Alan Dean Foster.

Reviewed on May 15, 2005.