Onyx Books (Hardcover), ISBN 0-451-40943-4
Yo! Steven Spielburg and George Lucas, listen up! Send one of your flunkeys to zip to the closest bookstore and pick up Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm. You'll want an original copy to plan the splendid movie you'll make. Trust me on this, if you do the special effects right no one will even remember Stephen Boyd ripping fake bodygunk off Raquel Welch's boobs. Well, no one female will.

Boys, this book is right up your alley. Instead of the revolting rebels they intended to smoke, some Russian MIGs shoot down an alien space ship. Inside the pod, they find an alien body full of all sorts of nasty and weird and neato things.

One of the Russians who takes custody of the alien pod ships it to a secret underground lab in the mountains of California. This lab spends billions and billions of American taxpayer dollars to shrink things. (OK, Congress does stuff like that already, but they don't do it secretly underground, although sometimes you wish they would.)

Think of the casting you'll be able to do. Actresses will salivate over the Tomiko Braddock role (a beautiful Oriental martial arts security specialist) and the Cynthia Tyler role (a bitchy blonde female biologist, who makes PMS look like a walk in the park). Actors will pay you to hire them for the Marc Devlin role (a handsome, gung-ho former pilot/avionics inventor) or the Arnold Freeth role (a short nerd, who specializes in faking alien dissection videos). Not to mention the role Sean Connery damn well better play: Felix Hunter, the Guy in Charge of Everything -- er, I mean the Director of Project Proteus.

Enough of actors and actresses, let's get back to the special effects. Think of the things you can do with the sealed alien pod, complete with body. Plus, the Russians don't know one of their officials brought it to America instead of reporting it to the proper authorities. This gives the Americans only 24 hours to shrink a crew and ship and shoot them inside the pod -- and eventually into the alien's body so they can Discover The Secrets Of The Universe. Well, not really discover the secrets of the universe, but definitely snag bragging rights on who takes the first pictures of alien innards. I can just imagine all the great special effects you'll create.

'Nother hint for the special effects crew: the stuff on the outside of that alien's body makes ravening beasts look like angels of peace and joy. Not to mention all this really great deadly stuff on the inside. Your creature people will thank you for letting them work on this one -- if they don't kill you first.

So come on, guys, get those flunkies moving. I figure with Kevin writing the script you should have a kick-ass movie ready in time for next Memorial Day. One thing though -- don't forget it was me who told you first. No, no, you don't need to thank me. Just make sure I sit next to Sean at the premier.

Teri Smith

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