Who will save us from the lobsters from outer space?
It is New York City, 1953. Young pulp-fiction writer Kurt Jastrow's world is thrown into disarray when two extraterrestrial lobster-like creatures arrive at the NBC studios. Though rabid fans of Kurt's "scientific" alter-ego, loveable scientist Uncle Wonder, they also judge that the audience of a religious TV program is "a hive of irrationalist vermin." To Jastrow's horror, the crustaceans scheme to vaporize two million viewers when the next show goes on the air.
Now Jastrow and his co-conspirators have a mere forty hours to produce a script so explicitly rational and yet utterly absurd that it will somehow deter the aliens from their diabolical scheme...
"Starred Review. Jonathan Swift meets Buck Rogers in this hilarious send-up of the golden ages of television and pulp sci-fi... [A] delightful romp from Morrow" - Publishers Weekly
"The Madonna and the Starship will have you laughing out loud while you think about what it means to be human." - Looking For A Good Book
"Galaxy Quest, eat your heart out." - Bookish
This information about The Madonna and the Starship was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born in Philadelphia in 1947, James Morrow spent his teenage years in Hillside Cemetery, not far from Philadelphia. After receiving degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, Morrow began to produce prose fiction. His first such endeavor, The Wine of Violence, was called the best SF novel published in English in the last ten years by the American Book Review. He followed this with The Continent of Lies. Morrow's breakout novel was a satire on the nuclear arms race, This Is the Way the World Ends, which became a Nebula Award nominee and the BBCs choice as the best SF novel of the year. His next dark comedy, Only Begotten Daughter, shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushners Thomas the Rhymer. Throughout the 1990s Morrow worked on ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to James Morrow's Website

If you liked The Madonna and the Starship, try these:
by Ray Nayler
Published 2023
Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.
by Riley Redgate
Published 2022
The year is 2072. Soon a volcanic eruption will trigger catastrophic devastation, and the only way out is up. While the world's leaders, scientists, and engineers oversee the frantic production of a space fleet meant to save humankind, their children are brought in for a weekend of touring the Lazarus, a high-tech prototype spaceship.
by Tony Hiss
Published 2022
An urgent, resounding call to protect 50 percent of the earth's land by 2050--thereby saving millions of its species--and a candid assessment of the health of our planet and our role in conserving it, from the award-winning author of The Experience of Place and veteran New Yorker staff writer.
A few books well chosen, and well made use of, will be more profitable than a great confused Alexandrian library.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.