The first Morrow book I've been disappointed in. Similar in length and setting to Shambling toward Hiroshima, this has none of the emotional weight and stakes of Shambling. Both are comic crises set in the recent past of a popular media. In Shambling it was B movies, in Madonna, it's American late 50's television. The setting is fun, but I doubt it will resonate for anyone who didn't see Space Patrol or Lamp Unto My Feet when they originally aired. As is often true for Morrow's stories -- though not Shambling -- the conflict is religion vs rationalism. Unusually for Morrow, religion is not portrayed particularly negatively. The villains are the blue alien lobsters who intend to kill all viewers of the Sunday morning religious program Not By Bread Alone because they are so offended by religious material. The rom-com protagonists never take on any substance, compared to many similar rom-com couples in previous Morrow stories.

Readable but only for Morrow completists. Those new to Morrow can pick almost anything to start -- Shambling if you want something darkly comic and short, or The Last Witch-Finder if you want something long and rich. ( )

James K. Morrow is a satirist with a keen eye for religious hypocrisy and a sharp wit to take the puff out of puffery. The Madonna and the Starship is set in the misnamed “Stone Age” of television when network children’s programming involved “cardboard sets, primitive special effects, and subsistence budgets.” Protagonist Kurt Jastrow writes the scripts for Brock Barton and His Rocket Rangers and performs in an educational sketch to end the show. His life takes a surreal turn when he is contacted by space “immense blue bipedal lobsters” who are committed logical positivists threatening to wipe out humanity unless he can convince them that the religious programming they have intercepted is satire, never meant to be taken seriously.
Kurt’s discussion with the lobsters takes a few sharp philosophical turns, as when one of them asks for a definition of ethics: “Nothing you need worry about,” I piped up … “almost everyone on our world thinks logical positivism is just as swell as secular humanism.” Uh-huh. As someone says near the end of the novel, “Positivism always goes better with popcorn.” Indeed, it does.
Morrow is often compared to Kurt Vonnegut, with whom he shares a sardonic sense of humor. That is a just comparison. ( )

As I read further, I kept thinking of more people I should tell about it. First it was anyone who wanted a lightweight SF romp. Then it was anyone who enjoyed the pulp era in SF. Then it was anyone who'd done live radio or TV. Then it was anyone who'd taken philosophy and/or religion in college.

What the heck, read this book. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2015/11/review-of-madonna-and-starship-by-james... ( )

In "The Madonna and the Starship," by James Morrow, we meet Kurt Jastrow, a science fiction and television writer in 1950s New York City. He writes for a show called “Brock Barton and His Rocket Rangers,” and also embodies the character of Uncle Wonder for a segment called “Uncle Wonder’s Attic,” where he plays a 1950s’ type Bill Nye the Science Guy, showing kids scientific experiments and explaining the principles behind them. He is surprised one day when his television set comes to life on its own and two large, blue creatures that resemble lobsters with three eyes introduce themselves to him as being aliens from the planet Qualimosa, where logic and rationality are prized above all things. They have been monitoring the Earth’s television output (well, Kurt’s show, “Texaco Star Theater” and “Howdy Doody”) and have decided to award Kurt the Zorningorg Prize because of his ongoing championing of science. They obviously have not seen the religious program, “Not By Bread Alone,” written by the woman Kurt fancies, Connie Osborne, and when they find out about it, they determine that they should exterminate the 2 or 3 million Christians who tune in to that show every week. Only Kurt and Connie have a chance of stopping them, but can they come up with a workable plan in time?....If you’ve read any James Morrow, you’ll know that he is a very fine satirist and is particularly forthright about the problems with religious faith. This short novel is certainly a minor work in his oevre, but it is a lot of fun nonetheless, especially his rendition of what TV-land was like in the 1950s. You’ll either be offended or you’ll laugh a lot at this book; I did the latter, so recommended! ( )