Diplomatic Act

In contemporary L.A., actor Richard Faraday, who plays an alien diplomat on a TV show called Star Peace, is mistaken for a real diplomat by alien observers, the Kluj, who kidnap him in order to apply his imagined talents to prevent an interstellar war. Meanwhile, one of the Kluj takes Faraday's place on the set of the show and, in the process, learns more about Hollywood, humanity and the difference between fiction and reality than he ever expected. Both alien and human discover that there really are Elder Races wandering around the galaxy, and they eventually join forces to defeat the malevolent plotting of one of them. Once past the initial premise, which is neither plausible nor original, this lightly entertaining story moves briskly and includes fast action (Keith has written much military SF, including the Warstrider series) as well as knowledgeable satire on the Hollywood scene (Jurasik is a star of the TV series Babylon 5). (July)