If you think that the current State Department has difficulties in justifying the ways of POTUS to the rest of mankind imagine what will happen when it has to represent all Earth when dealing with other species in the Galactic Federation, and when some of those, such as the Nidu, divide into clans and find themselves in battles for succession at home that put Somalis, Medici or Mogul emperors in the shade. Then throw in the need for a rare sheep at that final enthronement; allow for someone else to be genocidally removing said sheep; and, finally, allow for some other, earlier degenerate to have played with genetic splicing such that the very last "sheep" is the owner of a pet-shop in Washington DC. When she realises she is being lined up for a shish kebab she wants out. Harry Creek, veteran of alien wars and now diplomatic fixer (he would be the man who could get the US Embassy in London to pay its congestion charges today) is the man who has to pull it all together.

Anyone who has seen Paul Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS (with which Scalzi's earlier OLD MAN'S WAR has been compared) will have an idea of what might have made Harry Creek what he is and also what he is up against.. There are no androids to dream in this novel, though sheep are central. Ovines apart, the other major strand tying back to Philip K. Dick is virtual reality - a cyber-church, which has existed for millennia undercover like Asimov's Foundation, actually has the first two disembodied entities within its e-neural synapses, and luckily for Creek one is his old buddy. This is a great but not overwhelming advantage, especially as the Church of the Evolved Lamb (in an allusion to the late L. Ron Hubbard) "was the first and only religion that fully acknowledged that its founding was a total scam", but has a disadvantage in that members go to their digestion without a fight. This pacificism does not, directly, help Creek.

Plotting is essential to THE ANDROID'S DREAM - first in building the incredibly confused situation in which Creek has to realise what has happened; then in the rivalries, feuds and vengeances on earth and across the galaxy when Harry joins veterans a veterans memorial cruise.

Actually, there are other elements in Scalzi's manic imagination, too: back on earth there has been a court case - this is America even if it is Earth - in which the Nidu are demanding their property: if she has a sheep's DNA then Robin Clark is a sheep and property, not a human with rights. At least some members of the US government suffer a sense of justice and use the law, like future Perry Masons, to resist this aspect of the Nidu assault. You will not be able to use the argument with which they win in a court today. Neither are you likely to utter the words that Harry Creek ought to say: "I love ewe".