Book: The Road to Mars, by Eric Idle

Idle, Eric. 1999. The Road to Mars. New York: Vintage.

I ran across this science fiction novel by Eric Idle of Monty Python at the bookshop in Laguna Beach when I was there for a conference a couple of weeks ago. Though it was published over a decade ago, this is the first time I had heard about it.

Road to Mars gets mixed reviews on amazon and in the newspapers, but the San Francisco Chronicle liked it. I liked it too. The portrayals of the show business characters - the two comedians who are the main focus of the book and the diva Brenda Woolley - are entertaining and well done, as is the book's lone academic, who functions as a sort of meta-narrator. I enjoyed the meditations on comedy as well. But don't expect to be blown away by the plot or deeply impressed with the coherent future universe.

In short fine bedtime / summer reading.

Recommended for Python fans.