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Published on 5/7/08
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Plenty of postapocalyptic fiction has come out in the past year, but none of the recent Four Horsemen spotters have chalked up our demise to that sci-fi standby: a hostile alien invasion. Debut novelist Brian Francis Slattery does just this in his debut novel, Spaceman Blues, a compelling if unlikely fusion of end-times fantasy fiction and romance novel. As the book opens, Astoria resident Wendell Apogee is searching for his missing lover, the profligate Manuel Rodrigo de Guzmán González. Apogee’s manhunt takes him all over (and sometimes under) New York City—to giant parties in Red Hook, a subterranean colony called Darktown, and the Church of Panic, a cult that finally gets its predictions about the world’s imminent doom right.
Fortunately for humanity, Apogee gets some martial training from a Kyrgyzstani weapons master, transforming himself from heartbroken milksop into melancholic superhero. Captain Spaceman—as he becomes known—and his Lebanese fighter-pilot sidekick Masoud are the Earth’s only hope against a soon-to-land extraterrestrial invasion fleet. But can Captain Spaceman find his lost love before these belligerent ETs arrive with death rays blazing?
Spaceman Blues is a welcome Band-Aid for those still mourning the loss of Kurt Vonnegut and his uniquely wacky, satirical brand of sci-fi. There’s also a touch of Paul Auster’s flair for genre blending and New York mythologizing. In Spaceman Blues, the end of the world seems less pressing than the imminent demise of gritty Gotham, which suffers massive destruction when the swarms of aliens show up. A strange and whimsical mash note to the city, Slattery’s apocalyptome proves that this newcomer is as thoughtful and irreverent as doomsayers come.
