Redheaded Reviews: The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

This crazy book opens with Dirk Moeller planning on sabotaging the trade negotiations by causing the Nidu ambassador Faj-win Getag the son of his sworn enemy go on a rampage. He would accomplish this by using a device implanted into his butt that helps to send out messages within his farts. The Nidu have very sensitive noses and certain scents can have certain meanings. But only those of the higher castes can smell these meanings. Dirk sends out insults and the Nidu ambassador goes wild. He lets him know that it was him that sent the messages and the ambassador gears up to yell its battle cry when he suddenly has a stroke and dies. Dirk begins laughing and dies of a heart attack.

State Department gets involved because they are clued in by Dirk's assistant that something was up and they got the device from the medical examiner and intend to keep this to themselves. However, the Nidu believe that their ambassador was assassinated and are willing to overlook it if United Nations of Earth can provide the sheep needed in a ceremony a week away to crown the new Fehen of Nidu since the old Fehen has died and the next in line is to succeed him. The problem is that the sheep is a special breed genetically modified specifically for the Nidu by one man and all of the Nidu and this man's sheep have all come down with a bacterial infection and have died. No one else has been allowed to breed this sheep. But there should be some out there somewhere. It's up to State Department to find just one of these breed of sheep named Android's Dream [For those who don't know the name came from the book written by Phillip K. Dick called Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? which is what the movie Blade Runner is based upon.].

The Secretary of State's assistant, Javna, knows just the person for the job of finding the lost sheep: his dead brother's best friend, Henry Creek. Creek already works for the State Department breaking the bad news to those who work in the Embassies. He's also a bit of a computer whiz. He borrows a large IBM computer from NOAA calling in a favor from a friend and from his computer at home he brings to life a sentient artificial intelligent agent that operates on his computer. It has taken on the form of his dead friend Brian at the age of around eighteen. Brian executes searches for the DNA of the sheep and finds that someone is going around killing the sheep that do exist on earth.

That someone is the Defense Department who, working with Jean Schroeder who fixed Dirk up with the fart machine, want to stick it to the Nidu but aren't really thinking much beyond that. There's a reason military intelligence is an oxymoron. But there is one sheep still available and her name is Robin Baker. Robin was adopted and is the offspring of a bizarre experiment between a sheep human hybrid and a human father. She is 20% sheep but the sheep DNA is junk DNA and has no effects on her appearance.

To make things even crazier there's the Church of the Eternal Lamb, a religion that began life as a cult started by a failed science fiction writer turned conman who was trying to get money out of the richest woman on earth. However, she knew what he was up to and played along, but doled the money out sparingly. The writer wrote prophesies from his drunk drug-addled mind and soon died in frustration with the old woman. The old rich woman lived to be 104 and left her assets to the church. The church has spent the past twenty years making sure that the prophecies come true by engineering things that they do. Their goal is to save the lamb.

If all this sounds a bit crazy, well it is. It's also hilarious and an incredibly fun book to read. Robin is a great character who takes everything coming at her rather well, considering, but then Creek is a master at telling people bad news. Creek is ex-military and ex-cop so he does a pretty good job of protecting Robin. He's also an intriguing character who's been through a lot in life and just wants a quiet life. Something he's not getting right now. I really loved this book. Scalzi is a favorite author of mine and I count this one as one of his best. I can't recommend this book enough.

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