Mr. Spaceman (2000)

In Mr. Spaceman, Rober Olen Butler's millennium-inspired sci-fi parable, nice-guy space alien Desi has orders from on high to introduce himself to earthlings on New Year's Eve, 2001. But before doing so, he beams aboard his ship a busload of Louisiana casino-bound tourists — 12 abductees ranging from a runaway to a lawyer — to better acquaint himself with human nature. Unfortunately, allusions to Desi as a Christ figure and moony ruminations on the essential goodness of the human race fill the space where a plot should be. For Butler, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1992 collection A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain, this is sweet-natured but surprisingly zero-gravity fare. B-