Product Description

Sam Breen, earthling, is pretty much standard issue for a recent college graduate. He's got a bad attitude, a massive student loan, and his eye on a snappy jetpack. So he does what any graduate of the class of 2959 would do: He signs up to teach English as a foreign language. Sam ends up on the underwater planet of Octavia, populated by eight-armed beings that have a voracious appetite for English ... and a few other things, as Sam discovers. But at the spaceport, someone steals his Speak-O-Matic translator, he gets into a barfight, and things go downhill -- or underwater -- from there. Still, Sam learns more than he teaches: from Mr. Zik, a singer of melancholy songs; from a robot named 9/3; and from Jinya, whose undulating tentacles make Sam forget all about human appendages.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1247035 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 252 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Former managing editor of Adbusters Jim Munroe (Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask) presents Angry Young Spaceman, in which post-slacker college grad Sam ditches Earth's power-brokering to teach English on the underwater world of Octavia in 2959. After becoming close with some of Octavia's eight-armed and robot inhabitants (and learning the pleasures of interplanetary romance), he decides to subvert Earth's cultural imperialism by playing unappealing earthlings in Octavian movies, and earns exile status as a result.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Angry Young Author (4.5 stars)
ANGRY YOUNG SPACEMAN is a fast, fun, touching, tragic book about a disenfranchised young man who departs a future Earth -- treeless, oceanless, completely commercialized and culturally regulated -- to teach English on a backwater, underwater world. On the surface, this book is an interesting, vividly imagined fish-out-of-water story, but it is also so much more. Munroe packs this book chock-full of biting social/cultural/political commentary/criticism -- pretty much you can just substitute America for Earth, and just about any third-world country for Octavia, and you'll get the picture. Despite the serious and relevant undertones, the book is written in a funny, witty, straightforward conversational tone, making it very readable and almost impossible to put down. The characters, while not people I'd particularly want to spend time with, are interesting and likeable, the settings are interesting, well fleshed-out, and believable. The customs and conventions of the people ring true, as do the attempts by the locals of "modernization" to meet the Earth standards. This book is well worth the read.

Clever premise
Jim Munroe's science often falls apart (how did a liquid-covered planet ever develop metallurgy) but his science fiction, which is little more than using a set of narrative tropes to explore the human condition, is top notch. Sam Breen is a twentysomething 'pug' who gets into meaningless, angry fights because he knows that medical technology can fix him up simply. When he decides to go teach English on another planet though, he learns the dark side of modernity; simply learning another native language would be enough to hand the intellectual property of an entire planet over to wealthy earthlings.

AYS is a "marvelous journey" story, a tour of our world dressed up like another. Munroe explores punk, intellectual property rights, the "exoticism" of the Third World and the discontents of the modern world in a clever, often funny and sometimes very tragic book.

Compelling mix of classic sci-fi and contemporary anger
Munroe continues the keen-eyed, witty social analysis of FLYBOY ACTION FIGURE COMES WITH GASMASK and increases his range of targets, from the media conquest of spontaneous, grass-roots "subcultures" such as punk (in the book's case, "pug," a loosely structured system of street fighting that brings Chuck Palahniuk to mind)--a process that seems not to have changed a great deal by 2959, only becoming more formalized--to the larger phenomenon of cultural imperialism, here substituting "Earth" for "America." Sam Breen, a twentysomething similar in many ways to FLYBOY's Ryan Slint, heads for the underwater world of Octavia to teach English and faces many of the perils and irritants of being a member of the galaxy's ruling entity while in a colonized region. While learning the language and getting to know the locals, he falls for Jinya, a young female who seems as interested in Earth as he is in Octavia. Mixed in with the narrative are compelling observations of life on Earth and Sam's former "pug" subculture that have urgent and relevant parallels for the present day. ANGRY YOUNG SPACEMAN certainly merits 5 stars, even though I still prefer FLYBOY (although that could certainly change after repeat readings). Through intriguing plot twists and tender portrayals of romantic longing, Munroe manages to transcend genre and create a well-crafted scifi novel that certainly shouldn't keep away those who "don't get" scifi.