Entertainment as Training
Taking its inspiration from the cult science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest, the story is about how a game of aliens attacking turns out to be the real thing. The novel is punctuated with pop culture references that situates the reader’s experiences into the experience of the narrator:
“Like my old man, I’d spent my entire life overdosing on uncut escapism, willingly allowing fantasy to become my reality. And now, like my father before me, I was paying the price for my lack of vision. I was going off the rails on a crazy train.”
Like Father
A very commonly used metaphor to describe being like one’s parents is given a little tweak to tie in with the idea of the crazy train mentioned above. It seems the narrator’s father had some peculiar ideas (which turned out to be right on the money) and was thought loony. And now all of a sudden he wonders if the same is true about himself following the sighting of a UFO:
“The apple had fallen right next to the Crazy Tree.”
Star Wars
Multiple references are made to Star Wars among many other pop culture science fiction touchstones. This is the power of pop culture: metaphorical shorthand to make it easy to understand what’s going on without spelling it out:
“That’s why I was assigned to watch over you, and to help facilitate your training.” He grinned. “You know, sort of like Obi-Wan, watching over Luke while he was growing up on Tatooine.”
X-Files
In addition to Star Wars and Doctor Who, the classic science fiction TV show The X-Files gets referenced as well, further revealing the power of pop culture metaphor to create associational links in the reader’s mind. Of course, those who are less familiar with this show will be left to scratch their heads at this allusion which is presented without explanatory context:
“Right, we wouldn’t want the Cigarette Smoking Man to eavesdrop on us.”
Bond.
Even James Bond shows up in the comprehensive list of references to movies and television shows which permeate the narrative. It is one of the few that is not specifically science fiction although most of the film do manifest the escapist foundation common to that genre:
“I’m sort of like Q in the James Bond films.”
