CBR18 BINGO: Sheep (see cover)
BINGO: Joker, Sheep, Justice, 26, Friends
Back in 2024 I read John Scalzi’s Starter Villain, and I loved it so much I thought I’d found my new favorite author of silly, profane novels. A short time after that, I read the Kaiju Preservation Society, and while I appreciated the pro-environment angle, I thought the story was a tad predictable and not quite as entertaining as I’d hoped. The BINGO Sheep category was the perfect opportunity to break the tie, and I’m sorry to say that I might just have to accept that Scalzi was a one-hit wonder for me.
Some time in the future, where Earth is a relatively minor player in planetary politics, a trade negotiator causes a major diplomatic incident with the Nidu (an alien race with a highly evolved sense of smell) through a series of truly offensive farts. This concept, while sophomoric, is pretty detailed and kind of impressive in terms of creativity. So while I wasn’t totally thrilled with the first thirty pages of aggressive gas-passing, I respected the imagination that went into the idea as well as the backstory and exposition Scalzi provided.
To dig themselves out of the diplomatic disaster in which two people end up dead (insert “silent but deadly” joke here), the Nidu tell the Earth Ambassadors that they need to find a specific breed of sheep, called Android’s Dream (which, per the Nidu, “has some sort of literary significance”) for the Nidu’s upcoming coronation ceremony. Should Earth fail to deliver the necessary ovine, it’s going to mean war, which Earth will undoubtedly lose. Unfortunately, someone has been killing off this particular breed of sheep, almost like they want to cause more tensions with the Nidu. State Department Aide Ben Javna recruits his pal Harry Creek, a war hero and fellow State Department grunt, to track down an Android’s Dream specimen, which Harry does with the help of his dead best friend Brian, whose consciousness has been loaded into Harry’s computer. Brian and Harry find the DNA they need, but it belongs to a woman named Robin Baker, who owns a pet store. Through some truly disturbing parental history, Robin has the sheep genome in her junk DNA, making her the last living source of the biological material the Nidu require.
The Android’s Dream is essentially a political thriller/satire. As I’ve noted in the past, political and spy thrillers are not really my jam, but also they could be under certain circumstances. I just could not get interested in this novel, in part because in the future there are apparently no women in government. Like, zero. Robin Baker is very nearly the only female character in this novel, and she is #1) part sheep and #2) more of a plot device than a character. If a book is truly entertaining to me, I’ll overlook lack of representation, but the more bored I became, the more the lack of a believable, interesting woman pissed me off. Scalzi does throw in another female at the end, although she is a computer-based consciousness like Brian. That’s fine, except that it felt like the author just tossed in a couple of women that he intended to be powerful and/or intelligent, but who instead come across as flat and uninteresting. With the nonstop parade of government cabinet members and aides, most of whom are idiotic or despicable or both, not a single one of them could be a woman? It left me scratching my head. . . . do male authors avoid making these types of idiot characters women because they think it’s feminist to do so? I’m probably reading too much into this, but it irks me.
Another petty complaint: Robin owns a pet store and has animals of her own, but she’s able to take off for days without any backup plan. She even mentions it to Harry, but he insists there are more important things going on and the animals will be fine. I’m sorry, but no. Pet lovers could be getting chased by killer clowns and they’d still stop by a neighbor’s house to drop off a key and feeding instructions. In a 394-page novel, one sentence resolving this wouldn’t be out of line.
If you like political satires you may enjoy this novel, but I struggled all the way through. Sadly, I might just have to accept Starter Villain as my one-and-done Scalzi.
