Subject: BUDDY HOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL ON GANYMEDE (review)

From: [email-masked] (Alvin T. Campbell III)
Date: 19 Dec 91 19:16:38 GMT

BUDDY HOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL ON GANYMEDE
			by Bradley Denton

		reviewed by A. T. Campbell, III

Bradley Denton is a young writer who is beginning to establish a 
reputation for thoughtful science fiction with a sense of humor.  His 
first novel, WRACK AND ROLL, explored how the world would have been 
different if rock and roll music had been invented in the 1940's.  More 
recently, he presented a rather specialized afterlife in THE CALVIN 
COOLIDGE HOME FOR DEAD COMEDIANS, a novella which was a finalist for both 
the Hugo and Nebula awards.  Now he has delivered a new novel which combines 
the strengths of his early work with a surprising ability to write 
fast-paced action.  I was hooked by the end of the first paragraph.

Here is a brief description of the setup.  Late one night, a young man
in Kansas is watching a John Wayne movie on television.  Suddenly the 
broadcast is interrupted and replaced by an image of the late musician
Buddy Holly, with an extraterrestrial landscape in the background.
Holly says that he is on the planet Ganymede, and he wants to be rescued.
What happens next is an amazing series of events that I will leave for 
readers of the book to discover.

The nature of the story is difficult to describe.  On a superficial level
it may be considered another End of The World As We Know It novel,
joining the recent crop including John Kessel's GOOD NEWS FROM 
OUTER SPACE and James Morrow's ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER.  Yet it is 
also a crisply told science fiction action yarn.  On another level it is 
a comedy of manners.  It also may be regarded as a personal reflection of a 
young man raised in the culture of rock and roll.  The narrative structure 
is ambitious in order to accommodate these diverse elements.  Yet the story 
never falters.  Denton has a wonderful ability to make us care about his 
characters.  

I would recommend this book to lovers of humor, adventure, science fiction,
or rock and roll.  It has it all.

%A Bradley Denton
%T BUDDY HOLLY IS ALIVE AND WELL ON GANYMEDE
%I Morrow
%D 1991
%G 0-688-10822-9
%P 359 pages
%O $22.00

-- 
				A. T. Campbell, III
				CS Department, University of Texas
				[email-masked]