Mr Spaceman Author:Robert Olen Butler Robert Olen Butler's fiction has won him wide acclaim as one of America's most inventive writers, a sensitive and soulful chronicler of the human condition. His new novel, Mr. Spaceman, deals with the fate of the human condition itself-as seen through the eyes of an extraterrestrial named Desi. For decades, Desi has kept a quiet vigil over the ... more »earth, seeking a better understanding of the confusing, fascinating, and frustrating primary species of the planet. He has observed humans as they live their daily lives, and has occasionally brought a chosen few aboard his spaceship so he can hear their thoughts and experience their memories using his empathic powers. The novel begins on December 30, 1999, when Desi beams a tour bus bound for a Louisiana casino onto his ship. The twelve people onboard range from Hudson Smith, a slick African-American Harvard-educated litigator, to Lucky Wynn, a Vietnamese refugee turned gambling addict, to Judith Marie "Citrus" Nash, a runaway from an evangelical Christian family. They will be the last group of humans whose lives Desi will experience before he moves into the final phase of his mysterious mission - when he positions his ship in full and irrefutable view of the people of Earth, and descends to the planet's surface at the cusp of the new millennium. Brimming with insight and humor, Mr. Spaceman is a novel filled with unexpected twists and turns, a tribute to the powers of love and understanding, and the essence of what it means to be human.« less