BOOK REVIEWS

2001, Part H: August 2001

2001, Christian Sauvé

Featured this month:

 

Fortunes of War
Stephen Coonts

St. Martin's, 1998, 376 pages, $33.99 Can. hc, ISBN 0-312-18583-9

Regular readers of these reviews know that I have said a lot of nasty things about the current works of those who used to write great techno-thrillers in the early nineties. Tom Clancy has killed his editors. Payne Harrison suffered brain damage and turned UFO-nut. Larry Bond took too much Prozac and now writes simplistic crap. Dale Brown re-writes the same boring book again and again. Harold Coyle got lost in the Civil War and never came back.

Compared to all of his classmates, at least Coonts is making an effort. Granted, The Intruders had problems, and I can't discuss the formulaic-sounding latest Cuba, Hong-Kong and America trilogy without reading them first, but at the very least he doesn't actively try to repeat himself. Fortunes of War, despite some shortcomings, is a step in the right direction. One that should be attempted by a few of the afore-mentioned authors.

The first great thing about it is how it does not take place in the author's flagship universe. Whereas Clancy continues to play in Jack Ryan's increasingly divergent parallel Earth and Dale Brown re-uses the same characters over and over again, Coonts temporarily abandons his Jake Grafton alter-ego here and branches off in a new world: In the first few pages of the novel, the Japanese emperor is murdered by hard-liners, and preparations are made by the new government to invade oil-rich Siberia. Oh, and both sides have nuclear weapons...

Shortly after Japanese troops take over Siberian cities, American pilot Bob Cassidy is dispatched to the area with a squadron of F-22s. The United States want to stop the Japanese intervention, but political pressures force them to send only pilots who will fight for the Russian air force. Of course, things are more complex once the Americans have to face a new Japanese fighter jet, and Cassidy has to fight against a friend on the other side...

Have I mentioned the coup that drives a rabid dictator to the top of the Russian government? There is a lot of material in here, and it's Fortunes of War's chiefmost problem that it attempts to cover a lot of ground in relatively few pages. Describing a war takes time unless you severely constrain your scope (see Coyle's Team Yankee), and while Coonts focuses on a few characters, the picture still seems fragmentary.

It doesn't help that several pages are spent on the wrong things. Most of Cassidy's fellow pilots are discussed more intricately during their recruitment than after. A lot of time is spent in preparation rather than the actual war itself. There are only a few glances at the ground war. At the same time, the novel flies from the pilots to the politicians. While the beginning is laborious, the ending is rushed. In short, there seems to be a lack of focus.

There's also, in the middle of this realistic scenario, a bit too much of war-stories dramatics. The "elite corps of competent misfits that has to fight battles on their own" motif is, by now, so over-used that even careful rationalization can't completely excuse it. The friendship between pilots on opposite sides is interesting, but seems artificial. The Russian dictator is straight out of Central Casting.

Still, the novel is a good read, and not an entirely unsatisfying one. There are good action set-pieces, and a few interesting characters. More of them die than you might expect. Maybe best of all, this novel doesn't slavishly imitate Coonts' earlier works, which have concentrated more on the Vietnam War (Flight of the Intruder), limited theater engagements (Final Flight) or more espionage-driven plots (The Minotaur). It's his first try at a brand-new war; give him some slack. At least he's working harder at it than his colleagues.

 

 

Apaches
Lorenzo Carvaterra

Ballantine Books, 1997, 368 pages, $8.99 Can., ISBN 0-345-42251-1

What is a "structural problem" in the context of a book review? What is "structure", anyway? Is it easily identifiable? Are you even interested? And why am I asking these questions at the beginning of my review of Lorenzo Carvaterra's Apaches?

Definitions first: I'd argue that "structure" is the way the story is put together. It's neither the premise nor the writing. It's akin to plotting, but not quite, as you can tell a same story in many ways. Structure is how the author makes a transition from the overall story he's trying to tell to the mechanics of how to tell it. For instance, the premise might be "farmboy takes over as king", structure might be "farmboy learns about the world, makes friends, raises an army, attacks the castle and kills the king" while plotting might be the various general events that fill in the structure: "he makes friends by paying them beers and triumphing at a snooker contest".

Structural problems arise when, for a reason or another, something prevents the story from being told in a satisfying fashion. This, obviously, is all in the reviewer's mind. But consider: the movie PEARL HARBOUR puts its most impressive sequence -the attack on Pearl Harbour- right in the middle of the film, padding it on each side by an hour of miscellaneous stuff. Wouldn't it have made more sense to put it at the very end of the film, during which all the conflicts are resolved at the highest moment of dramatic tension? Or, more interestingly, begin the film with the attack and end it after the battle of Midway, when Americans win a sizeable victory over Japanese forces? That is a structural problem.

On a straight paragraph-to-paragraph level, Lorenzo Carvaterra's Apaches is a pretty good read. Heck, even in chapter-to-chapter, it's sufficiently interesting. He writes clear prose, adequate characters and isn't afraid to be truly nasty when depicting evil characters. (Two stomach-turning words will suffice: Dead babies) In fact, rip out the first half of Apaches, and you have a fair thriller.

The structural problem comes up when you consider the first half of the book. Not the first chapter, mind you, an effectively heart-wrenching depiction of a kidnapping. But right after, as "Book one" of Apaches (chapter 1-6, P.7-132) introduces, chapter after chapter, the six main protagonists of the novel. While the chapter-stories are interesting, they're either too long or to concentrated at the start of the novel at a point where the reader is justifiably asking himself why he should read on.

There are ways of handling the same material more carefully. In Icon, Frederick Forsyth introduces his main protagonist in the story only midway through. However, the first half of the book interleaves the main plot and the protagonist's personal history in such a fashion that the protagonist's backstory is completed just as he enters the stage. That's good structure and that's what should have been done here, introducing one character at a time along with their backstories.

Okay, I'll admit it; it's not such a big problem. You can get past it and enjoy Apaches as what it is, a story of hurt ex-cops banding together to rid the world of an evil criminal, shoot'em-up style.

A word of caution, though: Apaches is one mean book. Each of the protagonists has a violent tale to tell. The villains are truly completely evil. Even our heroes, once they get their mandate to get rid of the scums, are uncomfortably closer to vigilante justice than to law and order. Apaches does some mileage out of an examination of the line between good and bad, righteousness and revenge. Almost by definition it can't be a pleasant tale. The high body count doesn't really help.

But in the end, chances are that you won't be able to shake off the feeling that somehow, this could have been an easier, a more powerful tale. That's when abstract notions such as "structural problems" suddenly become compelling.

 

 

Gravity
Tess Gerritsen

Pocket, 1999, 385 pages, $10.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-671-01677-6

By now, you should know the rant: Some will argue that after decades of publishing fiction tightly segregated in marketing categories, enough is enough. Critics demand cross-fertilization! Authors are rebelling against the straightjackets of genres! Readers are picking books blindfolded! Everywhere, the crowd chants "Fusion! Down with genres! Mix'em up!"

Uh-huh.

I don't think so, but that doesn't preclude the odd good cross-over book from time to time. Tess Gerritsen's Gravity is one such book, a medical thriller with one interesting twist... it's set on the International Space Station.

Interestingly enough, you'd expect this crossover between medical thriller and science-fiction to be penned by an author previously associated with SF—if only because authors in other genres are usually reluctant to do research on space technology and associated material. But not so with Gravity and Tess Gerritsen, whose best-known previous novels are unarguably medical thrillers. (She also has nine romantic thrillers to her credit, but is now exclusively "marketed" as a medical thriller writer) Gerritsen has obviously done her research, and the space station segments are lovingly detailed with exactitude to rival the best and most obsessive hard-SF writers. (And, though it's considerably incorrect to dwell on such details, her photo on the back jacket shows that she's a real hottie. Ahem.)

The result of Gerritsen's work is unusually invigorating, attacking a familiar SF premise with an abundance of hard-edged details that are real now.

And what a lovely premise it is: After a slight accident with one of the ISS's biological experiment, doctor Emma Watson—newly sent up as mission medical specialist after an accident that befalls her predecessor—is helpless to prevent the contamination of her colleagues with a mysterious and deadly disease. After NASA decides to quarantine the station rather than bring back the virulent plague to Earth, well, it's up to her to find a solution...

The real fun of Gravity isn't in the premise, nor the overall story or conclusion: It's in seeing the gradual tightening of the screws taking place in the first two-thirds of the book, where the claustrophobia of the ISS multiplies the creep factor of the disease tenfold, and all the possible options to save our protagonist are gradually stripped away.

This tension culminates with a memorable shuttle landing halfway through, and the revelation of the nature of the sickness killing off the ISS astronauts. After that, well, things are somewhat obvious. Paradoxally, tension falls as possible paths for survival are reduced to exactly one. It's a small letdown, but not one serious enough to sink the book... though it definitely strips it of any superlative mention.

All the way through, Gerritsen manages to deliver an excellent mix of limpid writing and convincing details. It's not easy to juggle both astronautic and medical jargon at the same time, but here she achieves both with an admirable deftness. ("Combines the tension of ER and APOLLO 13" raves the New York Post on the back cover. Amen.)

Gerritsen even goes back to her romantic literary origins by including a strong "estrangered couple" relationship in the mix. Have I mentioned the expression "genre fusion" in my introduction?

While it climaxes before impact and recycles elements that will be familiar to avid genre readers, Tess Gerritsen's Gravity remains a wonderfully unusual thriller. Impressive research, good use of telling details and an exceptional initial heightening of tension should be enough to make you pick it up if you're in the mood for this type of novel. I'm definitely curious about Gerritsen's other novels now.

 

 

Lagrange Five
Mack Reynolds

Bantam, 1979, 227 pages

It might be an artifact of growing up, becoming more cynical or watching too much of the evening news, but as I grow older, it seems to me as if Science-Fiction is all too often becoming a nostalgic refuge for the simplistic techno-fantasies of a more naive time.

Not all science-fiction, mind you, and almost none of the stuff I really want to read. Such luminaries as Bruce Sterling or Greg Egan have proven themselves to be aware of the complexities of our world, and the effects of changing society on our dreams for a better tomorrow.

In fact, because we're so close to "our" contemporary SF, it's often difficult to say what's being naive for lack of perspective. But take a look a SF twenty years after publication and, oh boy, do you get perspective vertigo. While Mack Reynolds' Lagrange Five isn't offensive in its retrograde social values as, say, Martin Caidin's 1984 novel Killer Station (which comes to mind only because I recently read it and it's truly atrociously falsely feminist), it's a novel that is showing some substantial cracks.

The most visible of those comes from the setting. As you may infer, Reynold's novel takes place on an O'Neill-type space habitat located in Lagrange Five. That notion was most popular around 1980, but has now proved -with a few year's worth of hindsight- to be highly problematical. The building costs are unimaginable, the ecosystematic challenges complex (thanks to a few year's worth of experience in trying to build artificial environments since then)... and perhaps most unsettling, the human aspects are more worrisome than ever. Will humans accept being stuck in an artificial habitat? How do you protect such a fragile habitat against attack or accidents? How do you finance it?

In Reynolds' view, few of those are problems, and those that are (claustrophobia) are more like plot devices than real issues. At the heart of Lagrange Five is a thriller, but it's a thriller of such simplicity that it almost seems a distraction from the habitat so lovingly described.

As usual with potboiler SF, there is an assumption that smart people never do wrong. Lagrange Five is an idyllic place to live, where several communities provide cultural diversity and people can choose which type of urban setting attracts them the most. Oh, and everyone on Lagrange Five is hyper-intelligent, because they won't allow anyone with a lower IQ to immigrate. (Even thinking of myself as an intellectual elitist, this notion disturbs me somewhat. At least Reynolds handwaves something about Emotional Quotients.)

There is also a black superiority subplot, handled with maybe a touch more class than we'd expect from a hard-SF story. Lagrange Five's resolution is as unashamedly didactic as the rest of the novel, which spends as much time demonstrating how much of a cool idea it is than to advance the mechanics of the plot.

And yet, I enjoyed it. The plot advances by fits and spurts, but the details are always interesting. Our averagely-intelligent protagonist easily gets the smart girl, and it's all really sweet. Reading about a well-adjusted artificial community might be so déclassé, but it's unarguably more fun than having to suffer through another angst-ridden post-cyberpunk novel.

So should we conclude that nostalgia has its place? Maybe. After all, if SF can all things to all people, it probably allows some room for everything, including uncompromising optimism in the best retro fashion.

 

 

Invisible Monsters
Chuck Palahniuk

Norton, 1999, 297 pages, $18.99 Can., ISBN 0-393-31929-6

The third novel of an author is in many ways the most revealing of his future career. Not only does no-one knows what to expect of your first, but you also have all the time in the world to polish it. If it's successful, not only will everyone will expect something of your second, but you'll also be expected it to deliver it in short notice. Most authors have enough material discarded from their first book to inspire a second one. But the third, ah, that's when the author's career takes off, with the expectation of a steady level of quality and the time restraints it implies.

It's also the novel that shows if the author is a one-note hack.

Chuck Palahniuk certainly made an impression with his debut novel Fight Club, a blisteringly angry manifesto for the Gen-X generation. Beginning as the narrator has a gun in his mouth, it certainly established Palahniuk's fascination for self-destruction. His second novel, Survivor, wasn't much different, presented as the last recording of a man about to crash a plane in the Australian outback.

So it's no surprise to find ourselves in familiar territory again at the beginning of Invisible Monsters, as the narrator flashbacks from a scene involving a burning house and people getting shot with an automatic rifle. Rewind a few months, and the plight of the narrator becomes more apparent: An ex-fashion model, she's been disfigured by a rifle shot across the jaw. Unable to speak, stuck in a relationship with a sexually conflicted vice cop, at the mercy of a clothes-stealing best friend, she quickly succumbs to the peculiar charms of a pre-op transsexual also looking for her true identity.

If you think the above paragraph is weird, well, you really have no idea. The narrative hops in time like a mad rabbit, character all have multiple identities, self-destruction is pushed to new limits, twists and turns abound, and nothing is quite as it seems.

The twists and turns of the novel are so extreme that they quickly acquire a quality of our own. Don't be surprised to whoop and cheer at every outrageous revelation and ask for even more. Remember: No one is what it seems!

All throughout, Palahniuk keeps up his usual verve and ironic narration. While our protagonist's voice doesn't quite fit with her personality, it's not too much of an intrusion, as if it's all-too-clear that this is Palahniuk's narrating as a fashion model and not the fashion model herself. Give me irony. Flash. Give me quotable quotes. Flash. Give me a bookload of fun. Flash.

As usual, there are several priceless moments scattered over the novel. One Christmas gift unwrapping turns into a nightmare for our narrator as her parents give her boxes after boxes of condoms, overcompensating for the plight of their AIDS-afflicted son. In another instance, we're treated to a clinical description of the steps required in order to rebuild the narrator's jaw --no small wonder our stomachs churn, as we understand why the narrator would rather stay that way.

But what about Palahniuk's future career, and all that good stuff mentioned in the introduction? It's obvious that Palahniuk isn't moving too far away from his usual themes of self-destruction and nick-of-time redemption. It's also clear that stylistically, he's sticking to what he knows best. While the shtick is still vastly entertaining, it's also beginning to show its signs of excessive use. Only Palahniuk knows what his next book holds, but let's just hope that it will allow him to stretch a few conceptual muscles.

 

 

War of the Rats
David L. Robbins

Bantam, 1999, 474 pages, $9.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-553-58135-X

For all the horror and the suffering that came out of the period, World War Two is an inexhaustible source of great stories. Manhattan Project, Pearl Harbour, D-Day... The battle of Stalingrad, while less known in North America, stands as an equally fascinating event, a principal nexus of the Nazi's Russian campaign and a turning point for, indeed, the whole war.

Numbers can only tell you so much: Both armies lost 1,109,000 men in that battle. The city's population was reduced from 500,000 to 1,500 civilians, "Of the million and a quarter invading soldiers who rode across the Russian steppe to the gates of Stalingrad in August of 1942, fewer than thirty thousand ever returned to their homeland." [P. 470]

But, as Stalin said, a million death is a statistic but a single death is a tragedy. In War of the Rats, David L. Robbins has found a way to humanize the conflict by focusing on that most personal of military killers, the sniper.

While no soldier is alike, snipers are a special breed themselves. While they carry a powerful scope rifle, their most efficient weapons are stealth and patience. They will burrow in an innocuous spot, patiently wait -sometime for hours- for their target to make a mistake, and then they will take a shot. One bullet, one kill. While they might take a shot from more than half a kilometer away, there's no real distance between them and their target. While soldiers often have the luxury of convincing themselves that it's always the guy to their sides who fired the lethal shot, snipers have no such comfort; each killing is theirs.

This sniper mystique is one of the many elements that come together successfully in War of the Rats. Based on real events, this novel is about the duel between a Russian and a German sniper in the ruins of Stalingrad during the fall of 1942. When the Germans become concerned about a Russian sniper hailed as a hero -Vasily Zaitsev-, they decide to take measures and send in their best shooter to track him down. It's not the only story in the book, which uses this simple conflict as a springboard to describe the battle of Stalingrad, as well as a romantic affair between Zaitsev and an American-born (!) woman he trains as a sniper.

The historical authenticity of War of the Rats is deeply impressive, convincingly representing the atrocious conditions of the battles and doing its best to put us in the soldiers' frame of mind during it all. Robbins has conducted good research (there's a complete bibliography at the end of the book), and the results are there for us to enjoy. Zaitsev and Thorvald's duel comes to symbolize the test of will between the two nations fighting over Stalingrad.

War of the Rats's principal flaws are its occasional lengths, which trade off energy for mood. The book is never snappy or flashy, but it does succeed admirably at building psychological suspense. It's impressive to see what Robbins can do with a conflict in which both parties spend most of their time immobile, peering through a rifle scope.

This is a docu-novel that should immensely please war buffs and thriller readers to no end. Historically accurate yet no less exciting for it, psychologically claustrophobic and filled with suspense, this is a novel unlike any you've read before. Worth a detour.

(One last note: There is a recent film called ENEMY AT THE GATES, which also tells Zaitsev's story though presumably not based explicitly on War of the Rats. Given the choice, see the film before reading the book. Not only will you be surprised at the differences between the film and the book -oh, those screenwriters!-, but the images of the film will help to ease you in the novel's atmosphere. Though note that the German sniper Thorvalds looked nothing like Ed Harris.)