The Future Will Be Live Streamed: A Review of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018)
Written by: Hank Green
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 288 (Hardcover)
Publisher: William Morrow

Why I Chose It:  I’ve been following Hank Green’s work for about a decade, and have been waiting for his debut novel for a few years. There was no way that I was going to pass this up.

The Premise:  

The Carls just appeared.

Roaming through New York City at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

Spoilers ahead

Discussion: It’s impossible for me to review An Absolutely Remarkable Thing without touching on some spoilers. I’m not planning on talking about the ending, or the answers to any of the puzzles, but I will be commenting on the identity of the Carls, and the overall themes of the books. For those of you who’d like to go in pure, here is my non-spoilery, mini-review.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a page turning, thought provoking novel, that better exemplifies the year 2018 than any other work I’ve come across to date. Full stop.

Now, let’s get into some spoilers.

As you might have guessed, given that this is a speculative blog, the Carls that populate An Absolutely Remarkable Thing are not just mindless statues. This is a first contact story. And what I liked the most about this novel is how grounded and realistic it felt. It makes sense that in our vastly interconnected world, that the first footage of an alien encounter would go viral. It makes sense that the person who appeared in that viral video would suddenly find herself internet famous. And it makes sense that in humanity’s efforts to make sense of it all, we’d end up debating things on Twitter. And because social media divides us as much as it unites us, it makes sense that this debate would end up bringing out the best and worst in us.

One of the biggest topics in the book is that of fame, and how addictive and corrosive it can ultimately be. When April initially finds Carl, this former art student certainly doesn’t have fame on her mind. Instead, she merely wants to draw attention to what she considers a unique sculpture, and help her friend Andy, a small time YouTuber, get some views. But the deeper the mystery develops, the more addicted April becomes to being in the spotlight.

April May is a wonderful protagonist. And yes, part of that is because she’s smart and funny, but the main reason I loved her so much is because she is so flawed. Despite her good intentions, over the course of the book she makes mistake after mistake that ends up hurting herself and those around her. Fortunately, she’s written so skillfully that this comes off as more relatable than frustrating. For example, the moment that April discovers that the Carls are alien, she immediately figures out a way to keep herself in the media by creating a false persona, a decision that rightfully seems both manipulative and attention-seeking. At the same time, April’s desire to present herself as a beacon of hope in a time when people are scared is helpful to humanity at large. In addition, the steps she takes are pretty common place. Any creator who’s tried to establish themselves online has probably thought a bit about their “brand” or the curated view of themselves that they have created for mass consumption. April just does this on a much larger scale.

Given that the Carls offer no threat, April assumes them to be a benign force, but not everyone feels this way. An opposition, forming behind an opportunistic writer who feeds off peoples fear of the unknown, rises up in the form of The Defenders. Lines are immediately drawn in the sand, and the way that April and her supporters clash with The Defenders will be familiar to anyone who’s ever been caught up in an online flame war, whether it’s about politics or if hot dogs count as sandwiches (they don’t).

Speaking of relevancy, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is filled with references to modern day social media. Our heroes post video on YouTube, go on Twitter rants, and order from Postmates. Hell, the climax of the book is live streamed. These references to modern day online services did make me worry that in five years that the book will start to feel dated. But as someone reading it in 2018, these touchstones were things that I could immediately connect with. And given that Hank Green, in addition to being an author, is also a YouTuber, podcaster and well established internet personality, you can tell that he’s speaking about these elements from a place of experience.

In Conclusion- As mentioned before, I’ve been a big fan of Hank Green’s work for years- from his YouTube career with vlogbrothers, SciShow and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, to his podcasts Dear Hank and John and Delete This. So I went into his first novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing with a noticeable positive bias. Regardless, I am convinced that even if I didn’t know who Hank was, I would still enjoy the shit out of this book. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing handles the concept of first contact in a fresh way, and April May is an incredibly relatable character. I enjoyed every minute that I listened to this audiobook (Hank even reads a chapter!), and know that this is a book that I will happily revisit sometime in the future.

But for now, where’s my sequel dammit? That cliffhanger ending was cruel!