Operation Emu

"Sharp, fierce, and funny, Operation EMU is a wicked satire about the space program, low-budget filmmaking, and why Americans love to be told what to believe. Brandon Barker's first novel doesn't stop surprising or delighting. Imagine NASA run by pro wrestling's Vince McMahon - or better yet, start reading this book."-- Douglas E. Winter, author of Run (Knopf)"I loved Operation EMU -- very, very funny and wicked at the same time, with nice digs at popular/unpopular culture. I think it could be, aside from the delightful novel it already is, a very amusing movie."-- Judy Bachrach, feature writer for Vanity Fair and author of Tina and Harry Come to America: Tina Brown, Harry Evans, and the Uses of Power (Free Press)."Operation EMU is original, fresh, smart, funny, touching, and compulsively readable. Brandon Barker's take on man's first contact with life on another planet -- one suspiciously like our own in the age of the cave men -- could be a collaboration between Calvin Trillin and Philip K. Dick; but in the end, this fascinating novel is all Barker, a major new talent with a unique voice and a shrewd and compassionate eye on the human condition."-- Steven Spruill, author of Before I Wake (St. Martin's Press), Painkiller (St. Martin's Press) and Sleeper (Berkley).