James Morrow (1) (1947–)

The first Morrow book I've been disappointed in. Similar in length and setting to Shambling toward Hiroshima, this has none of the emotional weight and stakes of Shambling. Both are comic crises set in the recent past of a popular media. In Shambling it was B movies, in Madonna, it's American late 50's television. The setting is fun, but I doubt it will resonate for anyone who didn't see Space Patrol or Lamp Unto My Feet when they originally aired. As is often true for Morrow's stories -- though not Shambling -- the conflict is religion vs rationalism. Unusually for Morrow, religion is not portrayed particularly negatively. The villains are the blue alien lobsters who intend to kill all viewers of the Sunday morning religious program Not By Bread Alone because they are so offended by religious material. The rom-com protagonists never take on any substance, compared to many similar rom-com couples in previous Morrow stories.

Readable but only for Morrow completists. Those new to Morrow can pick almost anything to start -- Shambling if you want something darkly comic and short, or The Last Witch-Finder if you want something long and rich.… (more)

James K. Morrow is a satirist with a keen eye for religious hypocrisy and a sharp wit to take the puff out of puffery. The Madonna and the Starship is set in the misnamed “Stone Age” of television when network children’s programming involved “cardboard sets, primitive special effects, and subsistence budgets.” Protagonist Kurt Jastrow writes the scripts for Brock Barton and His Rocket Rangers and performs in an educational sketch to end the show. His life takes a surreal turn when he is contacted by space “immense blue bipedal lobsters” who are committed logical positivists threatening to wipe out humanity unless he can convince them that the religious programming they have intercepted is satire, never meant to be taken seriously.
Kurt’s discussion with the lobsters takes a few sharp philosophical turns, as when one of them asks for a definition of ethics: “Nothing you need worry about,” I piped up … “almost everyone on our world thinks logical positivism is just as swell as secular humanism.” Uh-huh. As someone says near the end of the novel, “Positivism always goes better with popcorn.” Indeed, it does.
Morrow is often compared to Kurt Vonnegut, with whom he shares a sardonic sense of humor. That is a just comparison.… (more)