(On DVD, July 2005) No wonder the film couldn’t find much of an audience after America’s new-found post-9/11 military crush! This dark satire of a peacetime army, set in 1989 Germany, is pretty vicious in its depiction of military personnel. Drugs, violence, incompetence: everything goes in an environment where nobody cares. Protagonist Joaquin Phoenix has a good turn as the cheerfully amoral protagonist, who will steal whatever he can get his hands upon, acting as an interface between the army and the local criminals. For maybe half an hour, Buffalo Soldiers is irresistible fun; not terribly realistic, but well-directed with a tremendous amount of energy and careful comic touches. Then it starts sliding toward drama and never stops. The story gets darker as the laughs get sparser, culminating in a finale that tries a bit too late to wrap it up in a happy finish. It doesn’t quite work: the third act is a bit of a mess, and the unevenness of tone takes away from the impact of the film. Still, there are good segments here and there, and provided you’re not over-sensitive to a bit of irreverence toward the military, it’s worth a look. The DVD includes some obvious electronic presskit making-of material.
Gravity Wells, James Alan Gardner
EOS, 2005, 344 pages, C$21.50 tpb, ISBN 0-06-008770-6
For mid-list writers, simply getting a short story collection published is a small coup: anthologies are notoriously unpopular with mass-market audiences, and most trade publishers look upon them as favours, not money-makers. James Alan Gardner’s satisfaction at placing Gravity Wells with his regular publisher EOS must be considerable. With it, he not only gets a chance to republish a few worthy short stories, but also show a wider stylistic range that is to be found in his novels so far.
The very model of a modern mid-list SF writer, Gardner has, until now, written half a dozen engaging space adventures, recently making the jump from paperback to hardcover format with Radiant. I have not, to be entirely truthful, read all of his novels, but what little I have (Expendable and Commitment Hour) were… okay. Unremarkable. Maybe a bit boring, if you want me to be excessively negative.
But part of that lack of verve is due to the imperatives of mass-market fiction. For someone who intends to keep working in the industry, the most prudent course is to stay within the conventions of the genre, avoid stretching the envelope and stick to a prudent style.
With short stories, most of those restrictions don’t apply. Authors aren’t investing months of effort in one piece than may not sell. Experiments become possible. Gardner-the-novelist is a very different writer than Gardner-the-short-story-author. He’s looser. Funnier. If Gravity Wells does one thing better than anything else, it’s to highlight how daring Gardner can be when he wants to be.
Just look at the titles: Could you imagine a novel named “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream”? How about “Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large”? Now imagine the content and the structure of the stories. The Aurora Award-winning “Three Hearings…” for instance, takes the form of three inquisitions dozens of years apart, tracing the evolution of a difference between humans throughout our understanding of science. Ambitious stuff, well-handled with an original approach.
Other “stories” have similarly slippery relationship with traditional narratives. “Lesser Figures of the Greater Trumps” is closer to a collage of odd descriptions, some more interesting than others. “A Changeable Market in Slaves” tells the same simple thing two dozen times, with hilarious variations –though it may take a second reading to extract its full flavour. “Kent State Descending the Gravity Well: An Analysis of the Observer” is a fascinating examination of a writer (not necessarily Gardner himself) as he struggles with how to fictionalize real-world tragedy. Perhaps my favourite piece of the book, “Sense of Wonder”, discusses unimaginably big concepts through a schoolyard dialogue.
In Gardner’s experimental style, even traditional narratives can be presented differently. “Shadow Album” tells a story through descriptions of still pictures (good concept, so-so execution). Meanwhile, “The Young Person’s Guide to the Organism” is a first-contact story taking the form of speeches from elder to younger –and sustains that premise for the length of a novella.
Gardner’s versatility also applies to the genre of the stories. He writes Science Fiction, but does not pretend to be a member of the hard-SF school. Most of Gravity Wells is closer to speculative fiction, some of them crossing over to the fantastic. “The Reckoning of Gifts” is SF clothed in fantasy garbs, but “Withered Gold, the Night, the Day” is straight up fantasy, as is “Reaper”.
Meanwhile, fans of more traditional SF will also find plenty to like. “The Last Day of the War, With Parrots” is classical Science Fiction, with a straight-up narrative, interesting inventions and a terrific rhythm. “The Children of Crèche” is also the kind of well-handled SF made accessible through clear prose. Finally, “Hardware Scenario G-49” is perhaps the most obviously funny tale in the book, the kind of story that never fails to leave a smile on your face.
I may not care too much about Fred Gambino’s cover illustration (a surprise, given that I love most of what Gambino has done elsewhere), but the content of the anthology itself is well worth your time. Aside from three of four weaker pieces, Gravity Wells is diverse, entertaining and more original than you’d think. I’m tempted to rate it above what I’ve read of Gardner’s longer fiction.
Now, if we could just convince EOS and other trade publishers that they should take chances on more short story collections…
Web Site Report – June 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly "Urchin" web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, June 2005 Total Visitors 6,741 Total Pageviews 15,203 (Corrected Total: 9,378) Total Hits 17,181 Total Bytes Transferred 380.9MB Average Visitors Per Day 224.7 Average Pageviews Per Day 506.76 (Corrected Average: 312.6) Average Hits Per Day 572.7
The "corrected" numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered "pages" by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are significantly lower than last month, which I’m seeing as a welcome correction given the end of the school term.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
/index.html 416 /reviews/1998/books98c.htm 364 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 286 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 188 /reviews.html 162 /about.html 138 /texts/100films.htm 138 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 137 /reviews/2001/books01f.htm 135 /reviews/movies-1998.htm 131
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw. I’m as mystified as you are (well, okay; more mystified than you are) at the reason why old 1998 reviews could end up in the second spot.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2988 (3908)Netscape|6 1568 (1907)Googlebot|2 555 (450)Netscape|4 401 (1089)Explorer|5 352 (445)
Argh. Netscape 4 still there.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1307 (1958)www.google.ca/search 343 (445)google.co.uk/search 148 (202)google.co.in/search 110 (New)yahoo.com/search 95 (120)
Not much change here. Google-India replaces Google-France in the Top-5. Overall decrease in hits from search engines.
Two new link this month: Someone wrote to ask me to explain the ending of Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys (see below) and then posted a link to my site on her blog. Have a look at hellomy.name/is/phoebe/ (Hm… Currently off-line.)
Then my name popped up in Nicholas Whyte’s annual review of the Hugo Nominees. Have a look mid-way down the list at explorers.whyte.com/sf/Hugo2005.htm
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Not much, but enough
1. Another Sauve wrote to say…
Always interesting to see the talents of others who may be connected genetically.
Thanks! (And for once, I regret my "anonymize all comments" policy, because the Sauve who wrote this is one stunning sharp-shooter.)
2. Poebe, from South California, wrote in reaction to my review of Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys to ask…
Hey – so you "get" the last page of "The Cheese Monkeys"?
I sure don’t and I’m cranky about it. Been puzzling for two days. Think it may have something to do with ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ – or maybe Himilsy was the fish? I DON’T GET IT!
Clues? Hints? Blatant explainations for the retarded?
Rather than re-print my answer here, go check my (amended) review for the details…
3. A pseudonymous fan wrote to state…
Against all odds, I found your website.
I like it. Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
4. Others wrote (in French) to ask about the current state of hard SF and to recommend the film CITY OF GOD (which, after following the recommendation, I can heartily endorse), but those topics are best covered at Fractale-Framboise.com rather than here…
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>book review snapshots from hell 12 >snapshots from hell book review 11 >good films 11 >amazon isbn 9 >free movie screenings 9 >solaris explanation 9 >advance screenings 8 >being canadian 8 >dave nichol 7 >canadian browsers 7
Not much to say here.
>10 must see films this summer
The way things are going, you’ll be lucky to find three of them.
>book review of snapshots from hell x6 >book review of snapshots from hell by peter robinson x4 >book review on snapshots from hell x3 >book review on snapshots from hell by peter robinson x2 >book review snapshots from the hell x2 >review of snapshots from hell x2 >review on snapshots from hell x2 >snapshots from hell x2 >snapshots from hell book review x6 >snapshots from hell peter robinson review x2 >snapshots from hell peter robinson x2
Some MBA class clearly had a book-reviewing assignement. I wonder how many of them tried to pass off the review as their own, and how many got burned by it.
>how to learn hacking examples from swordfish movie
No. No, no, no. Wrong.
>top 100 stoner films
Are there even more than twenty-five stoner films?
Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.