Where I confess my preference for fun books

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read the original "Little Fuzzy" back in the 70s when I was a kid, and I remember that I liked a lot. Cute, quick read, fun. I'm pretty sure I read the second book, but I don't remember much about it, so who knows... But I was totally up for the reboot by one of my favorite authors as soon as I saw it, and I should have known about it years before. How'd I miss it? It's cool, everybody, I finally found it. Even if I'm late to the party, I enjoyed it, and Imma tell you why.

This is a fun book, and I put a lot of stock in that. I was reading five other books (you know, a piece of each every day, like a well-balanced diet) when I grabbed this, and it shouldered all the other books aside. Some of those are very good books, too, but this one was more fun. "I'll read just to page 150 and turn out the light," became, "Wow, I'm way past that now. Well, ten more pages."

Sometimes you read for moral improvement, and sometimes you read for fun, because you remember life is short and boring is long. It's okay to read something that entertains you. Seriously.

So, fun how? First of all, it's funny, which is practically a given with a John Scalzi book. Although the main character, Holloway, is likable and sympathetic and has the best lines, he is kind of an ass. In a brief exchange in court where he is discussed, secondary characters are given a few good lines:

"What's your general opinion of Mr. Holloway?" Meyer asked.
"Am I allowed to use profanity?" Bourne asked.
..."Just hit the highlights," Meyer said.
...[Bourne lists his shortcomings]...
"Any positive qualities?" Meyer asked, slightly bemused.
"I like his dog," Bourne said.

All accurate. He pisses people off, and he does have a good dog.

Besides being funny--it's a good story. It's straightforward in both the original and the reboot: humans are extracting mineral wealth from the planet Zarathustra with the belief that there is no sapient race on the planet, and the Fuzzys' existence, if they can be shown to be sapient, undermines the corporate claims to the planet's resources. It's not a complex plot and doesn't need to be, although it still addresses a lot of themes in an entertaining way. The original book was quite sweet and cute for science fiction (and loved in part because of this). While this version has more grit and conflict than the original, giving the reader a little more to chew on, it does so without doing violence to the source material. It achieves this mainly by roughing up the main character and his backstory rather than by introducing anything scandalous or salacious. (Mind you, I like scandalous and salacious fine. But it wouldn't fit this book.) He was a good steward of the Fuzzy tradition.

And, like all of this author's books, it is cinematic. It is easy to imagine this being filmed with a nicely glib smart-ass actor like Harrison Ford/Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey--or someone younger than that whose name I probably don't know yet. (Mindy Kaling? Out-of-the-box casting!) The book has that cool flow, quick read, action-with-humor vibe that makes a good book and a good movie, and even though it's not heavy, dramatically or thematically, (well, spoiler, this book does contain all the emotions, somewhere) it's not flyaway light; there's an effective and satisfying combination of character and plot driving the novel.

When readers say, "I like to read but I'm between books," or "Lately, I've been in a reading dry patch," what they mean is that they're choosing dull and dreary books that sound better than they are. Quit punishing yourself, people! Remind yourself what made you into a reader all those years ago. Read a good book. A fun book.

Hey! Here's one!

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