REVIEWS

2002, Part E: May

2002, Christian Sauvé

Reviewed this month:

 

8.4
Peter Hernon

Jove, 1999, 460 pages, $8.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-515-12713-2

Devastating earthquakes in North America. Only in California, you say? Not necessarily: The New Madrid Seismic Zone has fascinated geologists for years, especially given the documented evidence of a massive series of quakes in that area in 1811 and 1812. According to some, the new Madrid fault will shake again soon. If it does, it's going to move along most of the American Midwest from Ohio to Mississippi, with catastrophic results...

The New Madrid fault is starting to interest disaster novelists too, as demonstrate thrillers like Walter Jon Williams's The Rift, Michael Reisig's The New Madrid Run and Peter Hernon's 8.4. I'll cover Williams' mammoth novel eventually, but if you have to pick and choose between one of the three, Hernon's thriller is a perfectly serviceable illustration of the devastating potential of an earthquake in America's heartland.

As you might expect from countless disaster stories, 8.4 follows a familiar template of ever-increasing danger, up to the worst disaster --narrowly averted by an audacious last-minute operation. The protagonists are, of course, maverick earthquake specialists whose alarm cries are not taken seriously until the very last moment. It also helps that one of the heroes has been seriously traumatized by an earthquake before: This time... it's personal!

I barely jest. 8.4 has many fine qualities, but plotting originality isn't one of them. In many ways, it doesn't really matter. Despite its newfound attraction for novelists, the New Madrid Fault is new enough that simply showing the effects of a massive series of quakes in the American Midwest can be satisfying enough without resorting to sophisticated narrative techniques. In short, when the special effects are sufficiently spectacular, the characters and story can take a back seat.

It's a good thing, then, that 8.4 features some awe-inspiring scenes. Early quakes send the content of a graveyard bubbling to the surface. Major cities are trashed. Civil unrest requires the intervention of the army. A dam bursts open. A nuclear device is used. It's all deliriously thrilling in the best tradition of disaster stories. (No relation with actual plausibility is implied or required.)

Even so, 8.4's level of suggested realism is impressively convincing. Not only do the characters talk the talk (often ridiculously so!), but Hernon thoughtfully integrates a few technical diagrams to help the lectures along and provide some graphical conceptualization. Exposition? Heck, we're talking about a World Fair's worth of exposition. Geology buffs will lap it up, as will techno-thriller fans used to multiple paragraphs of technical details. (That is, unless they find major mistakes I couldn't guess at)

Given the above, it's no surprise if so few characters actually come to life during the course of the novel. Some subplots are superfluous, especially when they don't involve spectacular sights. We're supposed to care about a major betrayal late in the book, but at most, the only effect is a nod of acknowledgement from the reader at the expected kink in the plot.

It takes a special kind of reader to appreciate 8.4, mostly the same type of reader which worships hard science-fiction and authentic military thrillers. The indifferent characters definitely hurt the novel, but not as much as you might expect given the awe-inspiring disasters and the interesting details. Peter Hernon delivers a credible description of an upcoming New Madrid earthquake, but if you want a fully satisfying piece of fiction, well, that remains to be read.

 

The Ultimate Rush
Joe Quirk

St. Martin's, 1998, 374 pages, $8.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-312-96902-3

If I'm forced to mention only one element that can transform an average thriller into a good one, it would be speed. Pacing, rhythm; call it how you want, but a novel that moves can be forgiven many things that would otherwise sour a book that just doesn't go anywhere.

The Ultimate Rush begins with a solid, exhilarating demonstration of speed, as our protagonist battles the treacherous streets of San Francisco to make a delivery... on rollerblades. Heroic maneuvers, near-death experiences, fast hip lingo and limpid writing make this intro one of the best since, ironically enough, the similar opening of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.

The rest of the novel eventually slows down, but in a few subsequent pages, we're introduced to a protagonist who seems to embody coolness. Pierced narrator Chet Griffin isn't only a blader, but he's also an ex-hacker and a punk rock groupie with an unwholesome fascination for a lesbian friend of his. His new job as an elite courier, however, soon -very soon!- sends him rolling straight to various underworld elements, who quickly become highly unpleasant when they suspect him of peeking in the packages...

As a novel, The Ultimate Rush initially lives up to its title. The novel alternates between terrific chase sequences and hilarious slice-of-life scenes; it's very difficult not to like Chet and his merry band of friends. When, in mid-book, love strikes and we're treated to a gratuitous sex scene ("Do me like a straight girl!", etc. [P.206]), well, it's like seeing two old deserving friends finally getting together. Quirk has a knack for describing memorable characters, and our attachment to them goes a long way to make us like the book.

Quirk can't resist being cooler than thou, though, and sometimes bites off more than he can chew. Yes, his taste in music is cool and impeccable (bands and album names are casually dropped to show off) but while I'm no authority on rollerblading, his hacking sequences are a bit off. They reprise, albeit with some skill, the usual cliché that gifted people can break in anywhere with only a few hours' worth of work. Fortunately, there's some hand-waving and not a little help from various virtual friends, but still... At least this gives form to one of the coolest deep-hacking scenes since Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. (On the other hand, well, everyone will easily guess the real identity of the cyber-antagonist chapters before it's finally breathlessly revealed to us.) Realistic, accurate and carefully researched? Er, no.

Technical quibbles aside, though, what really harms the book is a steady lessening of tension in the last hundred pages. The ending, which packages a shootout between various groups, should be thrilling but comes across as perfunctory and routine. The book also gets grimmer as it concludes, which somewhat contradicts the novel's earlier carefree attitude.

Fortunately, it ends up on a high note. Or nearly does; I'd recommend stopping at the penultimate chapter rather than the last unless, as the chapter title indicates, "you want a sequel". It's a huge downer, pointless and depressing, the kind of thing that's best left as the first chapter of the sequel.

But again, if you can ignore that pesky problem, The Ultimate Rush is a wild ride, a breakneck thriller with great sympathetic characters, crackling narration and a devastating sense of cool. If every other suspense novel you read seems flat and plodding, try this one. Zzzoom!

 

Storming Heaven
Kyle Mills

Harper, 1998, 499 pages, $9.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-06-101251-3

Looking at genres, from time to time, I despair: Is it possible to do something new or innovative any more? A standard thriller features a lone protagonist who loses everything by fighting a vast conspiracy. Betrayals, unlikely allies and multiple murders usually complete the picture. In this familiar context, is it possible to create something interesting?

Well, yes. Any sufficiently-capable author can still work wonders with even the most overused plot. It all depends on good characters, interesting twists and good writing. Kyle Mills' Storming Heaven doesn't deviate a lot from the usual thriller plot, but the execution of the premise makes it all seem fresh, somehow.

It starts with a murder, obviously. This time, a suburban millionaire couple is found dead in their home. Their teenage daughter is missing. FBI agent Mark Beamon (suitably renegade enough to serve as our protagonist) suspects something is up. His investigation eventually uncovers disturbing links between the young girl and a vast new religion with links to a telecommunication empire and a few paramilitary operatives.

Scientology, anyone? Not quite. Clearly, some parallels exist: The Kneissians do pillory their opponent through lawsuits, have an ongoing feud with the German government and operate according to a series of "levels" similar to the real-world sect, but Mills take the concept much farther. The Church of Kneiss is actually closer to Scientology++, if you want: Mills imagines a new religion that consciously uses the latest techniques in marketing and social manipulation to set up a brand-new system of belief. Without the "limiting factor" [P.236] of outdated dogma that holds back established religions.

Every jaded reader should be paying attention at this moment; while real-world governments are too ponderous to engage in conspiracies and businesses are too subject to market fluctuation to be menacing, religion is something else. When its influence comes crashing down on our protagonist, there isn't much he can do to stop them. It's a formidable opponent, and our hero has to use his wits to extricate himself from an impossible situation.

Fortunately, this is yet another area where Kyle Mills distinguishes himself. We've seen countless smart renegade cops before, but few of them are as believable as Mark Beamon. He repeatedly demonstrates his intelligence without inexplicable leaps of logic or hand-waving. Storming Heaven's good characterization doesn't stop there; the novel is filled with memorable supporting characters that resonate even weeks after finishing the novel. The young heroine herself is one of the most sympathetic kid-in-distress in recent memory, as she even gets a chance to shine her wits later in the novel.

Somehow, everything else seems sweeter when good characters are at the core. Even though the plot mechanics may seem familiar, they work much better when we care about the humans they affect. Beamon's descent in obscurity is stronger, and so is his inevitable triumph.

A strong, unconventional, too neat conclusion ties everything together with an effective resolution that doesn't dredge up the mano-a-mano cliché, and takes the time to deliver a few scenes of pure payback pleasure.

Well-written and well-executed, Storming Heaven is a shining thriller that can restore your faith in the tired old conspiracy genre. Strong characters remain at the core of the narrative, making this novel more than your run-of-the-mill escapist entertainment. The religious sub-themes are deftly handled and may make you think hard for a moment or two. Mills vaults in the ranks of promising thriller writers. More, please!

 

Manifold: Origin
Stephen Baxter

Del Rey, 2002, 441 pages, $40.00 Can. hc, ISBN 0-345-43079-4

As an avid reader with a limited book-buying budget, I have come to hate inconsistent authors. Greg Bear, for instance; capable of turning out fantastic novels (Moving Mars) and then waste our time with boring crap (Dinosaur Summer). Up until now, Stephen Baxter had proven to be a dependable author, writing book after book of solid hard-SF, often with deficient characters but never without a good lot of interesting ideas.

What makes Manifold: Origin so frustrating isn't so much the conviction that Baxter is now an unreliable author as how it's such a let-down from the first two volumes of the Manifold trilogy. Even as "thematic trilogies" go, this third volume is a bust.

A quick reminder: With his Manifold trilogy, Baxter set out to examine the question of sentience in the universe, re-using a cast of similar characters in alternate universes. The first volume, Manifold: Time, posited that humans were alone and showed how they set out to solve the problem. In Manifold: Space, the universe was filled with intelligent life and most of it was hostile to each other. In Manifold Origin, the scope is limited to humans. All kinds of humans.

As the novel begins, our common protagonist Reid Malenfant and his long-suffering wife Emma are flying over Africa. Stuff happens, a mysterious red moon appears, they eject from their plane and a giant vacuum cleaner scoops up Emma as Reid parachutes back to Earth. As with the previous Manifold novels, this is the beginning of Malenfant's quest to set up an impossible space mission, in this case send a rescue shuttle to the red moon in order to rescue his wife.

At least a hundred pages of filler pass until Malenfant manages to lift off. Once the rescue shuttle lands (with predictably catastrophic consequences), both Malenfants are stuck on the red moon, where they'll discover that it's a device traveling in between universes to cross-pollinate the various branches of humanity. It's an interesting concept. Unfortunately, you have no idea how dull and unpleasant is the execution.

The surface of the Red Moon isn't a fun or peaceful place: Various sub-species of humanity cohabit there, most of them barely above pre-historical social levels. There is a considerable amount of cannibalism, inter-species warfare, senseless deaths and unpleasant mating rituals. Oh, and slavery too. I have accused Baxter of being grim before, but I really had no real grasp of how depressing he really could be. It gets worse, naturally. The end of the novel is as pointless as British SF authors can make'em, which is to say very.

My main objection to Manifold: Origin is that it's nowhere near as densely imagined as Baxter's previous books. Good ideas are far and few in-between, and the whole novel constantly feels padded. Most of the non-homo-sapiens viewpoints can safely be skipped without any loss of comprehension. The whole mission-preparation segment is overindulgent, stopping the action just as we needed to speed up the plot. Even worse, the ending kills off most of the cast, doesn't solve any problem, barely presents a lame explanation and leaves whatever remaining characters in an unbearable hell.

The only good news are that given the loose relationship between the three volumes of the Manifold trilogy, you can read the first two and skip out entirely on the third without any harm. At the very least, don't rush off and buy the hardcover like I did; you'll be sorry.

As far as I'm concerned, though, Baxter gets taken off not only my hardcover list, but off my buy list altogether. I'm sure he'll get over it some day.

 

Bright Star
Robert Louis Stevenson III

Berkley, 1998, 287 pages, $9.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-425-17301-1

Before proceeding any further, let's clear something up right away: Yes, this Robert Louis Stevenson is a descendant of Treasure Island's Robert Louis Stevenson. Reading Bright Star, it's hard to avoid thinking that if Stevenson I was alive today, he'd write techno-thrillers. But then again, maybe Herman Melville would be writing military fiction set on an aircraft carrier, so who knows?

Bright Star is an unabashed sea adventure, mixing high-tech gadgets, military operations, political intrigue and a dash of romance. It's not really successful, but at least it's short and to the point, which is somewhat of a rarity in today's bloated thriller market.

It starts promisingly enough, as a revolutionary high-energy orbital weapon system is demonstrated to the American military. They want it in orbit as soon as possible, but they better be patient, given that the shuttle transporting the satellite is quickly hijacked and sent to the bottom of the ocean. A rescue mission is unsuccessful in retrieving the weapon, so soon enough the hunt is on to retrieve the missing weapon.

Technically sophisticated readers may arch their eyebrows at the above plot summary, with good reason: landing a shuttle in the ocean, from orbit, would seem to be an entirely inefficient strategy if the goal is to retrieve even parts of the shuttle intact. (There's a reason why landing gear exist, and another that passenger aircrafts pretty much never survive an attempted sea landing; at even waterskiing speeds, water becomes roughly equivalent to a brick wall!) Furthermore, the hijacking of a sophisticated weapon is useless unless the weapon is backed by a sufficient architecture, which either implies terrorists (ridiculous) or a foreign power, which logically leads to a de facto declaration of war.

The least we can say is that Bright Star isn't really big on plausibility. It gets worse and worse throughout the novel, as our deep-diving protagonist is thrown from one contrived situation to another in which he'll have to use his best diving skills to save the fate of the world! Bright Star is a lot like those cheap TV series where the protagonists are in a position to use their special capabilities over and over again (to quote the Simpsons, "We now return to Nightboat: the Crime-Solving Boat. Every week there's a canal. Or an inlet. Or a fjord." ["Maggie Makes Three"]) Here, everything eventually revolves around diving. When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

I can normally forgive a lot of implausibility if I can believe in the rest of the novel, but that's not the case here: The protagonists are macho, unbelievable, needlessly tortured and constantly horny. I'm not sure which worldview Stevenson is espousing, but the attitude of his male characters towards women was more creepy than endearing. The rest of their psychology doesn't fare much better. Many of them die with scarcely a twinge of sympathy from us.

Overall, that's pretty much how I also feel about the whole novel. While there are intriguing elements here and there, the one-solution-fits-all plotting, the sinister characters and the indifferent prose all combine to produce a curiously flat techno-thriller. Bright Star isn't particularly well-written; there are several interesting scenes that fail to take fire even as they should, because everything is described without panache or precision.

Too bad, really.

(I should probably note that Bright Star is a sequel of sort to Stevenson's previous Torchlight, which I haven't read. The wealth of back-story referred to in this second volume is voluminous enough to suggest that Bright Star might be improved by reading the first tome.)

 

Triangle of Death
Michael Levine & Laura Kavanau

Dell, 1996, 490 pages, $8.99 Can. pb, ISBN 0-440-22367-9

Much as most of the angry black hip-hop music is bought by white suburban kids, I'd be willing to bet that most of the military fiction out there is bought by comfortable suburban professionals like yours truly. As a law-abiding white-collar citizen, there's an undeniable vicarious thrill in reading about fictional exploits of manly heroes who have sworn to defend our contemporary way of life by all means necessary.

Triangle of Death is a military adventure in the same vein than the Rogue Warrior books supposedly co-written by ex-supersoldier Richard Marcinko. Flavorful first-person narration "by the author", believable authenticity, disregard for non-operative authority and movie-like heroics are the norm here. Like the Rogue Warrior series, Triangle of Death seems almost custom-made to show us civilians how we really have no clue about the sacrifices needed to protect our freedom.

Certainly, Michael Levine has traveled the same rough professional road than Marcinko: Both have served their country for a quarter-century (Marcinko as a SEAL, Levin as an undercover operative for the DEA), got shafted by their superiors, left the service in disgust, wrote best-selling non-fiction (Marcinko's Rogue Warrior and Levine's Deep Cover) and then turned not only to the conspiracy fringe, but also to fiction-writing. As of this writing, though, Marcinko seems to be the only one of the two who still regularly publishes fiction.

As a novel, Triangle of Death is good tasty fun. The novel grabs you by the throat early on and rarely lets up as we follow the protagonist/narrator "Michael Levine" through a deep unauthorized undercover mission to rid the world of a potent new sex drug that could do no less than shake up civilization as we know it. The no-nonsense prose is filled with macho posturing, fascinating "authentic" details, a roller-coaster series of events and an overall sense of, yes, fun.

It's a hugely enjoyable read, especially as Levine battles impossible odds, hops around the world, gambles big, contacts friends in high places, spouts some Asian philosophy, undergoes specialized training and eventually pieces together a conspiracy involving the US government. Breathlessly exciting stuff, told in a spot-on style.

You can read Triangle of Death as a straight-ahead novel and like it a lot. If you liked the first few volumes of Marcinko's series (before noticing that it repeated itself), this novel is the closest thing to it. As a thriller, it's more engaging than most of its brethrens and its aura of authenticity is only too rare.

But there's also a second level of entertainment that kicks in late in the novel, as the "Levine" protagonist announces his intention to publish a novel about the events of the story, hence blurring the line in between fiction and reality. That's when readers with some time to lose might want to boot up their computers and do some serious research on Levine and his career.

It's fascinating stuff, especially given that it takes us to the fringes of the conspiracy-nut memesphere. We can find traces of Levine's radio show, dedicated at exposing the government's incompetence and corruption. From there, we find links to documents alleging massive conflicts of interest in between the government's official "war on drugs" and the realpolitiks of international trade and policing work. Governmental interference in police works? Say it isn't so!

That particular brand of paranoia doesn't serve too far-fetched or unbelievable, which makes the truth-or-fiction game even more fascinating. Triangle of Death thus becomes a veiled introduction at some serious thinking about the war on drugs, even from the point of view of someone who abhors criminals and addictive substances like Levine. What's true and what isn't? Maybe truth is once again stranger than fiction...

 

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sunken Ships and Treasures
Stephen Johnson

Alpha Books, 2000, 452 pages, $24.95 Can. tp, ISBN 0-02-863231-1

I really do like the "for Dummies" and the "Complete Idiot's" series of non-fiction books. Despite their title, they usually offer a clever introduction to a variety of subjects. A glance at their catalog is usually good for a giggle or two (Elvis for Dummies?!), but the truth is that there are few other better ways to get a quick primer on a given subject than to settle down with one of their books. The Guide to Sunken Ships and Treasures is a primer on the exotic -but compelling!- field of, well, sunken treasures. This Guide offers a general primer on shipwrecks, underwater exploration, treasure-hunting and a few related subjects like pirates, nautical lore and salvage law. Most of the book is dedicated to a series of short primers on famous shipwrecks, from the antiquity to the cold war.

There are certainly a lot of good stories in this Guide. The most fascinating section of the book are undoubtedly parts 3 to 5, which describe the event leading up to fifteen famous shipwrecks, from the 1622 Spanish treasure fleet to the USS Scorpion, without forgetting such famous names as the Bounty, Lusitania, Andréa Doria and the unavoidable Titanic. Even if you think you know a lot about some of these stories (like many of us are likely to do after seeing TITANIC), there's a lot of interesting information presented in an accessible fashion. Furthermore, each of those fifteen chapters also highlights when and how the shipwrecks were later found and salvaged by modern treasure-hunters. It usually makes for fascinating reading, especially if you absorb it in small doses, one shipwreck per evening.

Alas, the rest of the book isn't as tightly focused. The first section of the guide, for instance, hops left and right, constantly repeating information on various subjects without a clear outline and a steady progression from one point to another. It really starts to grate after a few chapters, as the author sometimes refers to past pages, and just as often breathlessly re-introduces the same concept yet another time. The book's overall organization is a murky mess: Part 6, which follows the "famous shipwreck" section, is about pirates and modern treasure-hunters; it's unclear why it had to be segregated to the back of the book when it fits more naturally with a general introduction to the subject.

This lack of organization is most visible at the page-per-page level of the book. The sidebars, which fit so naturally well in other Complete Idiot's Guide books, here seem excerpted almost verbatim from the main body of the text. The Complete Idiot's Guide series also ends its chapters with a brief recap of the chapter's most essential points. Not so here, where "The Least you Need to Know" endbar goes fishing for the most trivial points of the chapters and passes them along like essential facts. I stopped reading them half-way through.

All of the above leads me to wonder if Stephen Johnson's manuscript was maybe written on spec as a stand-alone book, only to be retro-fitted later as part of the Complete Idiot's Guide series. It would explain many of the highly annoying flaws of the book, especially when compared to the overall pleasant flow of the text. (The other reasonable explanation is that Johnson, a newspaper journalist, isn't completely at-ease when structuring a longer work).

It's a shame, really, when considering the intrinsic interest of such an unusual and fascinating subject. The movie TITANIC did a lot to revive interest in shipwrecks (let's not fool ourselves; it probably sparked the writing of this book too), but it's not the only wreck out there and there is a lot more to learn about the field than simply deep-water submarines expeditions. Pick up this Guide to Sunken Ships and Treasures to learn more... but prepare for some frustration along the way.