Year Zero

An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet. Worse, they were lawyering up. . . . In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe--and the inner workings of the absurdly dysfunctional music industry. Low-level copyright lawyer Nick Carter thinks it's a prank, not an alien visitation, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. Ever since what has come to be known as Year Zero--when the smooth stylings of 1970s TV theme songs first reached alien ears--the universe has been downloading Earth's music. Now they've realized that, according to the Copyright Damages Improvement Act, every single download will cost $150,000 in fines--in other words, all the...