Enemy Mine. Ae. Gavey!

Thanks to the September meeting of the PHBC being pushed back a week due to scheduling conflicts, I was able to pick up and finish one of the secondary book selections from August...Enemy Mine. I'm not going to lie and say it was the next War and Peace but for a fluff sci-fi novel it was pretty good. Written in 1985, the book, which is based on the movie with the same title which itself is based on a short story with the same title (author of the book and short story are the same), tells the tale of two soldiers from rival cultures who are forced to depend on each other for physical and mental survival on an alien planet and grow to be the best of friends. I believe that while there are clear allegories to the Cold War and the relationship of the US and Soviet Union the book is still compelling enough to be enjoyed from start to finish (which may be as short as taking off in SF and landing in NY).

One thing I must say though is that if you have had the misfortune to have seen the God-awful abomination of a movie that this book is based on please do not let that keep you from reading this book. The movie version of Enemy Mine, which plays as though you are watching a demented homeless man's alcohol fever induced nightmare, has very little in common with the book. The final thirty of minutes of the movie specifically (including the ending) are completely different from the book. There are a million other things I can say about why the movie is bad (including the fact that apparently when an alien speaks English it doesn't sound as though they are speaking with the accent they had when they were speaking their own language, but with an accent as though they just got off a plane from East Africa or maybe India) but I have yet to build a time machine that will allow me to finish list all of its problems and still have enough time to go back and celebrate my 115th birthday.

Again, I can not recommend this book enough. If you are a fan of science fiction and have a few hours to kill please pick up this book. You won't regret it...gavey?