First Contract
Greg Costikyan
Tor, 287 pages
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"Ah, life is sweet." That's the mantra of Johnson Mukerjii, CEO of Mukerjii Display Systems, a high-tech
company about to unveil a revolutionary new holographic display device. Indeed, life has been good to Mukerjii,
whose business success has allowed him to acquire the very best in palatial mansions and trophy wives, and to indulge
his taste for fine wine, gourmet food, Saville Row suits, and Jaguars. He fully expects the holographic display
device, the MDS-316, to make him even richer.
Then the aliens arrive. Not with lasers and plans of Earth domination; these aliens are capitalists, and want to
trade. On offer: a complete library of alien scientific and technological knowledge. The price: only the planet
Jupiter. "Jupiter? What's it good for?" the Earth negotiators shrug, and hand it over.
The trouble is, the alien tech is useless because it's so far in advance of ours. Earth has just sold a precious
resource for peanuts, as the Indians did with Manhattan Island centuries ago. And the first group of aliens is
only the beginning. Suddenly, Earth is a tourist world, a quaint backwater destination for rich interstellar vacationers.
Earth markets are flooded with alien products; the result is global economic collapse. After all, who wants a Jaguar
when they can have an antigrav vehicle that will travel at Mach 6? Who wants the MDS-316 when they can have complete
holographic sensory immersion?
In rapid succession, Mukerjii loses his mansion, his wife, his money, and his business. Homeless and penniless,
he's reduced to working as a soup-kitchen cook in a shantytown. But though Mukerjii may be down, he isn't out.
He has an idea for how to beat the aliens at their own game. Sure, Earth can't compete with alien technology, but
what about tacky tourist items? If Mukerjii can figure out how to make and market some cheap bagatelle the aliens
will want to buy, he'll be home free.
First Contract is a fast, funny book, an ironic jokefest that sends up everything from the world of high finance
to the conventions of pulp SF. It's chock-full of clever details: the United Nations' glee when the aliens bypass
the USA to deal with Earth's "planetary government"; the aliens' slick infomercial-style sales pitch;
the tourist stores where Van Goghs are sold alongside velvet Elvis paintings because the aliens can't tell the
difference; the alien cartel for which trade is a form of war and there's no such thing as a limited-liability
corporation; an L. Ron Hubbardish SF writer who produces testosterone-fuelled pulp with titles like These Stars
are Ours! and is the only person on Earth to successfully export his product, because the aliens think it's
pricelessly funny. Costikyan is plainly having great fun with all of this, and it shows.
The danger of this sort of book, of course, is that it will become merely a string of gags. Costikyan avoids this
by investing Mukerjii with a good deal of self-deprecating charm, despite his snobbery and his unapologetic lust
for wealth and luxury. He's a character the reader is glad to follow through both fortune and misfortune, and to
root for when it begins to seem he may be able to turn things around. Other characters are also well-drawn (especially
Mukerjii's Norma Desmond-ish sales manager, and Leander Huff, the SF writer), and the action, while over-the-top,
never becomes totally implausible. The ending is a bit pat (Costikyan isn't alone in not being able to figure out
how to put a satisfying finish on a satirical tale of this sort), but this minor flaw doesn't in any way diminish
the fun of this clever, enjoyable lampoon.
Copyright © 2000 Victoria Strauss
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