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Jody Scott
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Passing for Human (The Benaroya Chronicles Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Jody Scott (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
“ONE OF THE 10 WEIRDEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS THAT YOU'VE NEVER READ.” --iO9

When a dolphin-like alien comes to Earth disguised in a female human body, it sets the stage for a wild feminist romp that out stranges Stranger in a Strange Land.

Foreword by Barry Maltzberg

"A riproaringly magnificent time. Passing For Human is quite unlike anything anyone else has ever done." --Neil Gaiman

“Aliens trained in Western pop culture disguise themselves as well-known figures and embark on two intersecting tasks: judging humankind’s readiness to join the interstellar community, and searching for a ruthless criminal. Scott carries on the tradition of Mark Twain, using outside observers to remark on society. While the treatment of women is the primary focus, other targets include consumer culture and the general human willingness to be led by the nose by a charismatic figure. … the speculative elements are well written and give a good sense of physical and cultural differences. A light touch keeps the moralizing from getting too ham-fisted, and this cautionary tale calling for a better world, first published in 1977, still registers strongly today … a message needed now more than ever.” Publisher’s Weekly

“A joyously and at times scatologically tangled Satire of the post-industrial Western world from a Feminist point of view that wittily verges on misandry.” -The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

“The pace of the story never lets up, yet it finds room for serious contemplation of humanity’s woes. The style is easy, with an edge of noir. The central character is a bit of a tough girl which, mixed with her naivety about humans, makes for an intriguing and likeable character. Especially as she (in common with the other aliens) inhabits bodies she has chosen from Earth culture – Brenda Starr, Emma Peel, and Virginia Woolf. Who could not like that, especially the final scenes in which Virginia Woolf is involved in a running gun battle. The humour, pace, and wry observation make this a rare and wonderful beast – a serious science fiction novel that doesn’t take itself seriously.” -Graeme K Talboys, grumbooks Review

“The novel leaps along with an energy and a disregard for convention that reminds me a little of genre outsiders like Barry Malzberg and possibly Josephine Saxton in that this reads like a romp through the Collective Unconscious. A closer comparison might be with the early novels of Ishmael Reed who shares with Scott a vitriolic contempt for seemingly all and everything, sniping and satirising hilariously along the way. “Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes Passing For Human an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides. Good examples of what SF can do when it steps out of its comfort zone, and of how women’s SF can challenge the genre assumptions by challenging its tropes and its language. Take a look, see what you think.” -Performative Utterance

PASSING FOR HUMAN
Or
Who Isn't Afraid Of Virginia Wolf?
Starring:
Benaroya
A 36-foot
Extraterrestrial "dolphin"
In the role of:
"Brenda Starr"
"Emma Peel"
Mary Worth
And a happy New Guinea hoptoad

With an all-star cast including
Abraham Lincoln
Jennison, the Kansas Jayhawker
Heidi's Grandfather
General George S. Patton
The Los Angeles Police Department
The Prince Of Darkness
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Ancient Egypt
The Isle of Capri
Interstellar Station 8
Four billion newly created people
And several hundred Richard Nixons
Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    178 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Accessibility
    Learn more
  4. Publication date
    August 17, 2015
  5. File size
    3.0 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Future Imperfect -- Neil Gaiman reviews the Sci-Finest​:
"Anyone who appreciates the offbeat (and the off the wall) will enjoy Scott's Passing For Human. Benaroya is a visiting alien, whose mission (to save the human race from an evil alien invasion, and to have a good time while she's at it) is complicated by her inability to understand why human beings make a fuss over such inessentials as death, pain and the physical universe. Wearing an attractive assortment of bodies, including those of Emma Peel and Virginia Woolf, Benaroya shows herself and the reader a riproaringly magnificent time. Passing For Human is quite unlike anything anyone else has ever done." -Neil Gaiman...................................................................................................................."The pace of the story never lets up, yet it finds room for serious contemplation of humanity's woes. The style is easy, with an edge of noir. The central character is a bit of a tough girl which, mixed with her naivety about humans, makes for an intriguing and likeable character. ..... The humour, pace, and wry observation make this a rare and wonderful beast - a serious science fiction novel that doesn't take itself seriously." -Graeme K Talboys, grumbooks Review ......................................................................................................................."This satire was first published in 1977, but its biting commentary still registers strongly today. Aliens trained in Western pop culture disguise themselves as well-known figures and embark on two intersecting tasks: judging humankind's readiness to join the interstellar community, and searching for a ruthless criminal. Scott carries on the tradition of Mark Twain, using outside observers to remark on society. While the treatment of women is the primary focus, other targets include consumer culture and the general human willingness to be led by the nose by a charismatic figure. The narrative drags at times, but the speculative elements are well written and give a good sense of physical and cultural differences. A light touch keeps the moralizing from getting too ham-fisted, and this cautionary tale calling for a better world is a message needed now more than ever." -Publisher's Weekly 12/14/2015........................................................................................................................"A ploy older than Gulliver although Swift made the approach an adjective: protagonist comes to alien world whose natives and absurdities are of course not at all "alien" but refractive of the human condition. The tilt of alien perspective however enables the insanity of that condition, perceived by a faux-naif, to be the more clearly perceived... This is the greatest employment of science fiction in the service of satire; we've had notable satirists-but Scott alone refuses to sentimentalize. The best unknown sf writer."- Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine ....................................................................................................................... "Around a cliched plot- aliens visiting Earth incognito for different reasons Jody Scott has written a highly entertaining novel. Of the two groups one is an anthropological mission to decide on the collective sanity of Homo Sapiens; failure to obtain a positive judgement will result in the disintegration of all members of the species. The other is a freelance criminal bidding for world domination and collecting a few (thousand) specimens/slaves for torture and other fun games to pass the time. The two sides clash of course, but the whole affair has more to do with slapstick and custard pies in the face rather than Rambo or Smiley. It also has enough death and destruction to supply Death Wish IV and Rambo III whilst not losing its fast, slightly giggly, 'golly gee what fun' tone. It also includes a transvestite Abraham Lincoln clone, a female protagonist whose speech patterns are largely modeled on the 'ripping yarn'/Bunty tradition, and an underlying seriousness that only twice breaks the surface. It's rather as if Stranger in a Strange Land were rewritten as a cross between Hitchhikers Guide and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. ​Highly resommended"-Birmingham SF News........................................................................................................................."ONE OF THE 10 WEIRDEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS THAT YOU'VE NEVER READ." --iO9

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0143K2LXG
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 17, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.0 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 178 pages
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 37 ratings

About the author

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Jody Scott

Jody Scott

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From old Chicago family with ties to the ​underworld. Winner 'Seattle's Ugliest Couch' upon which she wrote every day. "What a wild, original and outrageously funny writer she is."

​-TimeOut

Jody Scott was an award-winning American writer whose novels garnered extensive critical and peer acclaim. A satirist who employed speculative and mainstream fiction to critique society and question the nature of reality, her scifi series The Benaroya Chronicles (consisting of the novels Passing for Human, I,Vampire

​and Devil-May-Care) became cult classics of feminist satire and were widely hailed for their hilarity and originality. ​

In Berkeley CA partnered with George Leite to publish the influential beat-generation Circle Magazine and to run daliels bookstore, and with whom she also co-authored the novel cure it with honey, winner of the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, before settling in Seattle WA in the 1960's. There she lived the remainder of her life and produced the bulk of her oeuvre.

Scott died of heart failure in 2007. Her papers are housed at the Eaton archive at UC Riverside, Riverside CA, which is the largest speculative fiction archive in the U.S.

​read full biography at jodyscott.info/about

* * * * *

WEBSITE

jodyscott.info

SOCIAL MEDIA

twitter.com/jodyscottinfo

facebook.com/authorjodyscott

AWARDS

Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award

Nebula Award, preliminary nominee

Guggenheim, short-listed

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
37 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Chris Gerrib, Author, One of Our Spaceships is Missing
    5.0 out of 5 stars Really weird, in a good way
    Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I'm not sure how exactly I came to learn of this book. I think it was mentioned at a panel on "obsurce books you should read" at Capricon, a Chicago-area science fiction convention. Well, whoever mentioned the book was right - you should read it.

    The ebook description on Amazon says it is "one of the 10 weirdest science fiction novels you've ever read" and I heartily agree with that sentiment. Written in 1977, the book stars Benaroya, a dolphin-like alien from a highly-advanced race. She's an anthropologist and is visiting then-modern Earth. She is able to download herself into human bodies, such as a copy of Emma Peel or Virginia Woolf. While expressing her opinions about the (to her) Stone Age humans, she's in a struggle with another alien race over the fate of Earth.

    This book is hard to describe because it's so weird. I'll just say, go read it.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Robert Szeles
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible
    Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    An amazing, provocative, hilarious, insightful novel disguised as a space opera. I am halfway through book 2, I Vampire. And I can say without exaggeration that Jody Scott is a better writer and a more important one than most of the famous classic science fiction authors. In fact, her work is more important and mind-opening than most other novelists, period. She will blow your mind wide open, and you'll be laughing your ass off the entire time (except when you feel like crying). She was not just a writer, but a visionary, and a genius satirist. I had never even heard of her till a year ago. Now, she has become one of my heroes.
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  • Steve Alm
    4.0 out of 5 stars EXCITING STUFF - A BIT REPETITIVE
    Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2019
    Passing for human introduces some characters and relationships which were novel at the time they wee written and have not been often presented since. The protagonist and all her good guys are aliens; from another planet in our galaxy, but advanced to the point of telepathy. They send their envoy, Benaroya, our hero, to engage the earthie humans in human form (she really presents more like a dolphin on her own planet) in order to determine whether these violent creatures should be allowed to continue or be wiped out of existence. She is also an unwitting decoy to draw out an evil presence from yet another planet.

    Benaroya is a female creature while her enemies and her superior officers are male. The squirmy sexual pecking order is one of the themes of the work. All the relationships and action are well described and suspenseful in parts. Those things make for fun reading. The underlying issues, however, are repeated at almost every juncture of action and character intersection and that detracts a little from this otherwise engrossing book.
    I received a complimentary copy of this book through Reading Deals and I have provided an honest review.
    One person found this helpful
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  • ROYGBIVphoto
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great quality books.
    Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Price and shipping very fair and also quick.
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  • MW
    5.0 out of 5 stars Reprinted Reader Review
    Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2015
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    5.0 out of 5 stars I,Vampire is truly a lost masterpiece.
    ByA customeron June 14, 1998
    Format: Mass Market Paperback
    This is one of the most original, brilliantly written novels I've ever read. I, Vampire, along with its prequel, Passing for Human, deserve to be discovered by readers everywhere. Jody Scott may be one of the wittiest writers of our century, and I am dying for her to write more.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • brutusmuktuk
    2.0 out of 5 stars Manic fluff
    Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2017
    The only thing that Jody Scott's Passing for Human seems sure about is its manic energy. Each page crackles with an energy unsurpassed by none, and yet this energy is its undoing. Scott, I assume, is attempting to tackle serious social issues, yet her flippant tone makes it hard to take anything that happens seriously. The breathless way Scott jumps from action to action, idea to idea, leaves the reader with nothing to grasp, whether ideologically or visually. I see that the book was originally published in 1977, but never really took off, and now Scott's estate would like to see if her book will fare better after her death. I'm afraid this has aged a lot and many readers won't understand references to Emma Peel or Brenda Starr, though maybe that doesn't matter. The writing style may appeal to those who like frequent mentions of "zowie!" but to others it will grow tiring. This is sci-fi-lite, satire-lite, and just light stuff in general.

    An alien race, the Rymesians, are observing Earth to determine whether the planet's dominant species, humans, known to Rymesians as bushmen, deserve to remain alive or not. On this quest is anthropologist Benaroya, often confusingly referred to as simply B. (lazy editing?), Brenda Starr, Brenda, Miss Star, Emma Peel, Emma, and Miss Peel, among other names. This grows more confusing when more Rymesians enter the fold and are referred interchangeably by their Rymesian name and their human body name. These Rymesians have dolphin bodies in their natural form, but a body is not truly important to them. Their souls, or consciousness, or what have you, are able to jump from body to body. Not in the sense that they can take control of any person, but they can jump into any empty body at any time. This is nothing based in any sort of science, but more of a spiritualism. Anyway.

    A cliche story would take this concept and cause the alien to come to love the human race and want to save it. This is not a cliche story, but that's not to say this isn't what happens. It's very confusing, actually, what happens. Benaroya begins flying down the highway in a fancy car, being chased by police officers. Her skillful driving skills, however, cause them to crash and die. Then she provokes a frustrated woman into a race, causing her to crash and die as well. Benaroya, in her bikini Brenda Starr body, is arrested and within the hour has seduced her lawyer into having sex with her in his office and professing his love, and all the while she's just excited to have mated with a human so quickly. This may sound amusing, with a few zowies! and zoinks! thrown in for good measure, but it's actually more tiring than it sounds.

    For one, Scott, or maybe just her characters, shovels venom upon the human race. It's tough to tell if Scott is the one so spiteful of the human race or just her alien characters, and it's also tough to tell exactly why she or they are so spiteful. Everything from the shape and makeup of human bodies to humanity's careless handling of Earth's resources is an object of scorn. But the scorn fails to do any true cutting because it's fired off like a five year old boy trying to aim his urine into the toilet and hitting the seat and floor instead. Somebody who agrees with her might not see a problem with some of her remarks, and I don't necessarily disagree, but the level of vitriol isn't really earned in the novel.

    Scott certainly writes with a lot of manic energy, but another word I would use to describe her writing style is ephemeral. It fails to grasp anything - setting, character, satire - and the reader will have trouble grasping these things as well. The action at the beginning feels impossible. The car races through the streets seemingly without other vehicles or objects, without the limitations or noises or feelings of driving at such a speed. Characters move from area to area as though by means of teleportation. Benaroya proclaims hatred of the human species early in the book and mere chapters later somehow has a fondness of them and does not want them destroyed. I know Scott is trying to be funny and satirical, but her satire crosses some lines and teeters dangerously near to her seeming misanthropic. Scott seems to be using her Rymesians as a stand in for humans who view other humans and animal species as inferior and deserving of scorn. On the other hand, Scott also seems to be using her Rymesians as a vessel for her own dire view of humanity. While critiques of humanity are always needed, and always coming, there should be at least something constructive, not just hate.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Patricia D. Krenik
    5.0 out of 5 stars Quick Review of Passing for Human
    Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I really haven't had time to finish the book, but it has an unusual approach. A new viewpoint on humans, for sure. Light reading, just a fun book.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
    Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Just wow. This book is something else. The cure for vapid modern warporn sci fi. Visions if the future looking back on us, and then flushing.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • borax99
    5.0 out of 5 stars A most si ngular author
    Reviewed in Canada on January 21, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Maybe her writing isn't for everyone, but by gum I recommend you give it a try. Jody Scott, rest in peace, was an astounding writer. In a sense, I can see she was well ahead of her time, just have to see the things that inflamed her spirit and imagination. Thoreau may have walked much around Concord, but I can assure you I have devoured a vast amount of SF and Jody Scott stands with the absolute best of them. Absolutely worth a shot!
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