Reviews

August 2005

2005, Christian Sauvé

Reviewed this month:

 

Dark Matter,
Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Doubleday, 1990, 375 pages, C$24.95 hc, ISBN 0-385-24756-7

While Garfield Reeves-Stevens is now best-known for his work on various media properties, most specifically his involvement with the Star Trek franchise, he has also produced a small but significant stream of original projects earlier in his career. (And then -along with his wife Judith- a number of very good techno-thrillers, the latest of which is the excellent Freefall.) Dark Matter is one such early work, combining criminal horror with scientific content and ending in far-fetched Science Fiction. It's not an excellent book, but it's suitably entertaining and it's definitely worth a look if you like horror/crime/science hybrids.

The very first scene sets the tone, describing a gruesome murder that makes the “last supper” scene in Hannibal look like a charming romp. Someone, somewhere, likes to kill young blond students while educating them about quantum mechanics. Coincidentally (but not really), the very next scene takes place in Stockholm, as three American scientists are set to receive the Nobel Prize for Physics. Soon after, a mysterious man makes them an offer they can't refuse: A fully-financed lab, and the promise that all of their wishes will be catered to. All of their wishes...

Flash-forward three years. A dismembered body is found in a Los Angeles apartment...

Perhaps the best thing about Dark Matter is how it combines a procedural crime novel with hard-science content. On one side, scientists explore the mysteries of quantum mechanics, speaking well over the head of the average reader. Meanwhile, a policewoman with plenty of personal problems investigates a stomach-churning string of murders. We know they're linked (in fact, Reeves-Stevens waits far too late to make explicit a link that is patently obvious from chapter two) and so the fun of the novel is in seeing these two universe intersect. The investigation is well-handled while the scientific content is as flawless as can be determined by laypeople.

While most of the scientific content will be lost on readers without specialized knowledge in high-energy physics, Reeves-Steven's gift for clear prose and steady narrative rhythm is enough to keep turning the pages. His ability to write scientific vulgarization is astonishing. His characters are well-developed, and whoever still believes that fictional scientists should behave like robots are in for a refreshing dose of (in)humanity. Among the book's best moments is a demonstration of a high intellect at work, solving a complex problems in a matter of seconds, each step carefully described. Reeves-Stevens tackles complex characterization issues with Dark Matter, and he's more than partially successful in achieving what he's trying to do.

There are also a number of interesting thematic issues raised by the characters' willingness to do unspeakable things (or allow unspeakable things to happen) in search for inspiration. The link between genius and madness often leads to trite ethical dilemmas (“What's one life compared to an innovation that could benefit billions?”, etc.), but Reeves-Stevens navigates a hard course and avoids on-the-nose moralizing.

But none of that will prepare readers for the last third of the book, as the the novel abruptly jumps tracks from criminal scientific fiction to far-out science-fiction. Even hard-SF readers are liable to feel that the book goes too far, too wide-scale at once. The protagonist's quasi-magical abilities take the novel well beyond the realistic parameters followed by the novel thus far, and it doesn't help that the pacing suddenly slacks (and takes off for Boston) in the middle of what should be an acceleration of events. The ending predictably veers into the usual metaphysical nonsense, trying too hard for enlightenment when denouement would have been enough. Weird choices for a novel that, up until then, had been kept under control.

The irony, of course, is that from a critical standpoint, the novel's late slide into more fantastic territory makes it a lot more interesting to discuss. It's up for debate whether a tighter, more focused version of Dark Matter would have warranted a review. (Probably, given the successful melding of horror, crime and science) As it stands, Dark Matter isn't really recommended, but it is interesting enough to be worth a look if ever a copy should falls in your hot little hands. And not just as the early work of an author who went on to become a best-selling Star Trek co-producer!

 

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang

Tor, 2002, 333 pages, C$21.95 pb, ISBN 0-765-30419-8

It's a fact of today's Science Fiction publishing environment that successful writers, almost by definition, write novels. Short stories may be where authors begin, but they're not where authors make money. For every short-story specialist like Harlan Ellison, there are ten Robert Silverbergs who put food on the table thanks to novels. At best, you get people like Greg Egan, whose excellent short-story output complemented a steady stream of novels.

In this context, Ted Chiang is a bit of an oddity. In a career now spanning fifteen years (The earliest story in the volume was published in 1990), Chiang has found a place as an important writer of short stories. His first three published pieces alone netted him a total of two Nebula Awards and one Hugo nomination! At a time where short story anthologies by trade publishers are rare, his debut book was an anthology of eight pieces put out by no less a publishing house than Tor. With Stories of Your Life and others, Chiang reaches those SF readers (including your humble scribe) who would rather pick up a book than a series of magazines.

It's one heck of an introduction. While claiming that “there's not a bad story in the bunch” would over-estimate the impact of a few average pieces, there's a lot to like in Stories of Your Life and Others. It's no exaggeration to say that there's more to like here than in several “best of” annual anthologies out there. Chiang makes up in quality what most others can't do in quantity.

For instance, the very first piece in the book (his first published story), is a treatment of the “Tower of Babylon” myth in as realistic a fashion as would be possible. How could you build a tower to the sky? What if the sky was, could be breached? What would be mechanics of such a thing? Chiang treats the subject with a superbly entertaining mix of details and suppositions. Even guessing the end pages before it happens isn't enough to sour the story's considerable reading pleasure.

The second story of the volume, “Understand,” is a look at the possibilities offered by unlimited intelligence. Unlike the classic Flowers for Algernon, Chiang has little patience for sentiment, and more than a passing interest in showing us how unbelievably cool such intelligence could be. Mix in a few fascinating philosophical question and a bewildering accumulation of details and the result is almost too good for words. (Though it proved good enough for a Hugo nomination) More than that however, is the sentiment of having read an exhaustive story: if someone wants to write another story about heightened intelligence (or another story about the tower of Babylon, for that matter), they will have to write in reaction to Chiang's work.

I didn't find the rest of the book as fabulously interesting as its first two stories, but there are still plenty of great pieces later on. “The Evolution of Human Science” is a perfectly-paced text about post-singularity science. “Story of Your Life” made more sense to me the second time I read it, which is a strangely appropriate thing to say if you know about the story's non-linear sense of time.

Even the fantasy stories contain a treasure trove of originality. I wasn't so fond of “Seventy-Two Letters” in general, but the magical system explored in great detail throughout the novella is enough to make your mind go out for a spin. The Hugo-winning “Hell is the Absence of God” takes fundamentalist Christian mythology and runs away with it to literal extremes. What if the appearance of angels took on a terrifying arbitrary quality? Not bad at all, especially when it gets down to the fine distinction between religion and faith.

Even Chiang's lesser stories still have a kick to them. “Liking What You See: A Documentary” runs about twice too long on an empty middle section, but the basic concept (what if there was a neural tweak to make you insensitive to beauty or lack thereof?) is well-explored. I may not care too much for the deliberately challenging end of “Division by Zero”, but the otherwise clean writing and the awe-inspiring premise makes it a joy to read.

I may have been sceptical about this collection's hyperbolic reputation, but the end result is a very good anthology, well-worth reading for any fan of the genre. It remains to be seen whether Chiang will continue to release stories at the quiet rhythm of his first decade of work, or if he'll go ahead and commit to a novel, but whatever he decides to do, I'll be standing in line to buy his next book.

 

The Big Over Easy
Jasper Fforde

Hodder & Stoughton, 2005, 398 pages, C$24.95 tp, ISBN 0-340-83568-0

If you have read any of Jasper Fforde's previous books, you know what to expect from The Big Over Easy: zany fiction espousing genre-bending meta-fictional tricks, utterly readable prose, good gags and sharp characters embracing their clichéd (or counter-clichéd) nature. After four book in the Thursday Next series, The Big Over Easy is the beginning of a new series, very loosely connected to the previous one. (By this, I mean that the connections are one-way: readers of The Well of Lost Plots will have a blast reading The Big Over Easy, but there are no explicit references in the other direction) In this volume, detective Jack Spratt and his newly-transfered assistant Mary Mary investigate the unfortunate death of Humpty Dumpty, found cracked near a wall.

Yup; After lampooning the entire genre fiction establishment in his previous four books, Fforde returns with a crossover between crime fiction and nursery rhymes. Jack Spratt's world is just as likely to include three murderous pigs and women with really long hair than bad cars, office politics and forensic evidence. The Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department isn't glamorous (in fact, it's pretty much the local laughingstock), but Spratt is too conscientious a cop to let that drag him down. Still, he too would like to be part of the Guild of Detectives, and submit his thrilling adventures for inclusion in Amazing Crime Stories magazine...

Oh yes, the patented weirdness of Fforde's funny fantasy is back. While The Big Over Easy is generally more grounded and a touch more controlled that Fforde's previous books, no one will mistake this for conventional fiction. Not when sight gags include nursery rhyme characters trying to fit in the real world, or a spiritual leader called “The Jellyman”. Fforde has a gift for heightening the fantastic with a good dose of the mundane, and so Jack Spratt's affection for his troublesome car tend to be cute rather than annoying. (Well, cute to us and annoying to him)

The Big Over Easy, as the title suggest, is perhaps more effective when it's riffing on the conventions of the crime fiction genre. There is a lot of wonderful material about the convoluted nature of mystery plots in here, as well as how master detectives would be seen (or adulated) by their peers. Fforde's plot itself cheerfully goes down a tremendously complicated route, so don't be afraid to let go and not be too frustrated at the solutions pile up.

Fforde's sense of sly humour and limpid prose also remains intact. Reviewing one of his books tends to be an exercise in picking favourite gags, which I'm trying to avoid. What is certain is that next to The Eyre Affair, this is his most accessible book. Readers who haven't tried any of his fiction yet will find much to love if they start here. (I doubt, however, that readers frustrated with Fforde's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to plotting will be any more pleased here, though The Big Over Easy is a bit more restrained in real-world matters.) A fair warning: Don't be too surprised if, once firmly in the novel, you don't want to stop reading.

One thing that did trip me up, in the interest of full disclosure, is that my knowledge of nursery rhymes is sub-par: Having been raised in a francophone environment until way past the weaning age for comptines (and not being a parent myself), I don't have the instinctual knowledge of nursery rhymes ingrained in native English speakers. Those for whom English is a second language, or who may have forgotten even the most basic nursery rhymes may want to sneak into a young nephew's room and read up on his documentation before diving into The Big Over Easy.

Otherwise, this book is all gold. Good solid concept, smooth execution and the usual Fforde laughs. Who could ask for more? Oh, wait, me! I can't wait until Spratt's next adventure, already announced as The Fourth Bear...

 

King Rat
China Mieville

Tor, 1998, 318 pages, C$21.00 tp, ISBN 0-312-89072-9

Quick: Name China Miéville's first novel.

No, it's not Perdido Street Station. Miéville may have stormed the world of fantasy with his first Bas-Lag novel, but his true first novel was an urban fantasy novel set in London. Before becoming a Hugo-nominated, world-renowned literary superstar, Miéville wrote King Rat.

I won't try to be one of those snotty critics disdainfully pointing out that an obscure first work of a famous artist is totally better than the big hit that made him known to the mainstream (assorted with a contemptuous mention of how said artist “sold out”). King Rat isn't up to Perdido Street Station's level of ambition and accomplishment. The prose is leaner, the characters are simpler and the plot is more derivative. It is, in many ways, the work of a young author.

But this doesn't mean that it's not worth reading. While it withers in comparison to its younger, more vigorous siblings, King Rat is a perfectly serviceable example of contemporary urban fantasy, riffing off modern culture and ancient myths. Under any other name, it would be a book worth considering without unfair comparisons to the author's other works.

It begins as a young man, Saul Garamond, comes back home to London after a weekend of camping. A confrontation with his father is narrowly averted, but worse is to come: Shortly after waking up, he discovers that his father is dead, most likely killed, and he finds himself in prison as a prime suspect. But that's not counting on a mysterious figure called the King Rat, supernaturally springing him from jail and bringing him in London's underground. London's real underground. Meanwhile, drum-and-bass DJ Natasha meets a strange flutist with a keen interest in overlaying rhythms...

What gradually emerges from the story is a modern analogue to the Pied Piper fairy tale, although far more violent. There's a war, you see, a war between the rats and the piper. Now that the story takes place in mid-nineties London, who is to say which technological advantages can change the equation? Poor Saul, stuck with serious paternity issues to solve in the middle of a city-wide fight.

There's a lot to like about King Rat, and not the most insignificant of those is the fabulous atmosphere that Miéville gives to his semi-imaginary London. His domain is not the tourist London, or the financial or political heart of the nation. His is a London of warehouses, of sewers, of ravers and teenagers.

The novel also comes complete with some cool stuff about updating the Pied Piper myth to modern standards: Mixing in drum-and-bass music in the book's plot is a minor stroke of genius. King Rat's final showpiece is the kind of thing you'd dream up after watching HELLRAISER and listening to too much Prodigy. And to think that we colonials are missing half the local references...

You can also find the book a number of the ingredients that would later make Miéville's work such a success: Careful prose, downtrodden characters, a fascination for urban spaces and a taste for the grotesque. (A chapter ends with “The glass front of the train burst open like a vast blood-blister. The first Northern Line train of the day arrived at Mornington Crescent station and plowed to an unscheduled halt, dripping.” [P.142] Hardcore!) No one could have predicted the Bas-Lag universe from King Rat, but the points of similitude are there.

Also present, alas, are some of Miéville traditional weaknesses. As short as it is compared to his latter books, King Rat is still a bit overlong and under-plotted. The middle sections, in particular, have a hard time bridging the terrain between the intriguing opening and the dramatic conclusion. Fortunately, you won't need a thesaurus to read the book: Miéville avoid florid touches and keeps the vocabulary appropriately close to the street.

Fans of urban fantasy shouldn't miss this book, nor should fans of Miéville's work in general. It's interesting even in its problems, and may show where the author will go once he'll close the books on the Bas-Lag universe. It's not as successful, nor as ambitious as the tales he's best-known for, but it's a good choice for urban fantasy readers. For Miéville's fans, it should already be regarded as a must-read.

 

Jarhead
Anthony Swofford

Scribner, 2003, 260 pages, C$21.00 tp, ISBN 0-7432-4491-5

Even at this politically-charged time where “support our troops!” has become a hollow synonym for “shut up!”, the first requirement for supporting our troops would be to understand them. And we won't do that by listening to journalists, bloggers or self-important pundits: the troops themselves remain their own best advocates. Fortunately, every generation produces its share of able witnesses, and one of the latest ones is Anthony Swofford with his blisteringly honest autobiography Jarhead.

Swofford, we quickly learn, was an odd Marine. Equally prone to spending his time reading classics or drinking to excess, Swofford was an insider and an outsider at the same time, completely part of the Marines Corps and yet (especially with hindsight) capable of stepping out and describing the Corps as an observer. This dual perspective, as a participant and an bystander, is invaluable in describing his experience to us.

Jarhead is structured in an non-linear fashion, alternating between Swofford's experience in the Marines with flashbacks to his personal history. Training, initial postings, difficulties with his family are all covered here, up to and including Swofford's posting in the Gulf. As a Marine Sniper, Swofford could reliably be called one of America's elite soldier. But the reality he reports is nothing like the spit-polish image of the army that some people would like you to believe. We all suspect that boys together will do some pretty stupid things, and this book confirms whose suspicions. We all know that war is hell, and being paid to go to war doesn't leave much room for mellowness, even in horsing around. But what Jarhead does better than any other military book is portray the absolute boredom of being a soldier most of the time.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's in Gen-X genes to consider boredom to be a pervasive yet intolerable state of mind. Maybe it's a modern affliction to say “but I was bored!” as if it was worthy of compassion. But maybe it's what happens when you take thousand of soldiers and put them in a desert, waiting, waiting, waiting for what they were trained to do.

Suffice to say that in time, Swofford gets what he wants: He gets to shoot and be shot at, even though his active participation in the Gulf War may be more underwhelming than you'd expect. Fortunately, Swofford writes with an eye for the killer detail and an excellent sense of place. Jarhead pulls no punches and presents the military life with all of its problems and whatever glory it offers.

Clearly-written, this is a book that demands to be read almost all at once, page after page, chapter after chapter. Swofford knows how to write a story, and he's got plenty of them to tell. Funny, direct, profane, sometimes infuriating in kind of a “what-are-you-doing-you-moron?” fashion, this autobiography can't be confused with another era or another generation.

I will let others debate the accuracy of Swofford's depiction of Marines service. From my perspective as a civilian (and a Canadian one at that), Jarhead rings true, maybe a bit truer than I'd like to believe in an effort to keep some of that “support our troops!” feeling. It certainly made me re-evaluate BUFFALO SOLDIERS as a mite more plausible than I initially thought, what with Swofford's tales of pervasive drug usage and self-destructive peacetime behaviour.

It's impossible to read Jarhead today without at least a passing thought about the current American-led occupation of Iraq, and the hardships endured by the military personnel stationed over there. Even if the Gulf War was a lightning romp compared to the lengthy nightmare of Iraq, even if tactics and equipment have changed, it's hard to avoid linking the two. Swofford doesn't exactly encourage us to think otherwise with his cynical view of oil as being the honest reason behind Desert Storm. Swofford had plenty of time to think about the reasons why he was stuck in the Arabian desert, and some of his conclusions can be jarring when juxtaposed against the mundaneness of wartime experience. Old men sending young men to die so they can profit...

But even as candid as it becomes, Jarhead doesn't do much to diminish a civilian's awe for professional soldiers. At a time where one hears about war in clinical terms, as if it was yet another corporate challenge to be managed, it's good and just to be reminded that war is a deadly matter, fought between men who curse, and bleed, and cry, and suffer. Support our troops; try to understand what they're really going through.

 

Olympos
Dan Simmons

EOS, 2005, 690 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-380-97894-6

Well, it's over and it was about time it was.

It's not that I disliked Dan Simmons' Ilium. But even ambitious novels trying to tie together science, literature and the human condition can leave some lingering resentment after lasting about twice as long as what they should have. Obviously, mine was a minority view: Ilium went on to earn critical raves and was nominated for the 2004 Hugo Awards. But it was still, after all, half a story and now that Olympos is out, we can learn how it all ends.

It ends well, fortunately. Olympos is not without its own considerable lengths, but at least it ties everything together and enlightens us as to the nature of Simmons' artistic and thematic choices for Ilium. Picking up a few months after the Iliad-changing conclusion of the first volume, Olympos continues the adventures of the humans, moravecs, post-humans and even stranger entities of a far-away future. At last, issues are settled and questions are answered. (Not the least being “why the parallels with classic works of literature?”)

Olympos is an epic work not especially because of the subject (which is ambitious, but still small-potatoes compared to some of the most overblown space-operas out there), but because of the amount of time readers are expected to sink into the entire 1,100-pages story before getting a good payoff. The “eloi” plot thread never started cooking for me until well into the second half of Olympos, and given the density of the book's 600-odd pages, that's a long time awaiting. (Simmons fan will note that a similar problem affected the Endymion diptych: The first volume wasn't terribly useful, but the second one was the whole point of the setup.)

This being said, it's entirely possible that the Ilium/Olympos series may be too big for my own little head to contain. The references to classical literature kept eluding me (heck, says “Achilles” and I picture Brad Pitt in TROY.) and the thematic underpinning of the book seemed a lot more obvious after reading an interview in which Simmons himself explained what he was trying to do.

Still, none of my perceived inadequacies at understanding the text invalidates my feeling that it ought to have been much, much shorter --say, the entire story in a slim 500 pages. There's a notably jarring sub-thread about a doomsday submarine that I found particularly out-of-place, especially given how it relates to one of the book's most egregious plot-cheats, a honking big coincidence that ties two threads together. Neat stuff, but it may have been better as a stand-alone novella than a part of the series.

On the other hand, there are a number of lovely images and concepts here and there, from the nature of genius to a road sliced through the ocean. The moravecs are interesting characters (some will say that they're more human than the humans) and the reconstructed twentieth-century human observer Hockenberry is still a dependable viewpoint character. There's also a pleasing complexity in the levels of technology exhibited by Olympos's assortment of gods, demi-gods, robots and humans of all descriptions. This isn't a simple side-A-versus-side-B type of arrangement, but something scaling all the way from plain humans to the functional equivalent of world-altering magic, and all points in between.

Obviously, this isn't quite enough to overcome my lack of patience with the book's length, and for that reason alone I would suggest to leave it out of the Hugo Award ballot next year. There are already a number of faster, more interesting works out there this year, and Olympos certainly isn't a perfect candidate. (It's a candidate from a well-respected, well-known writer, however, and that changes things.) I suppose that readers with patience and a classical education will have another take entirely.

 

Saucer
Stephen Coonts

St.Martin's, 2002, 340 pages, C$21.95 tp, ISBN 0-312-28342-3

There are no perfectly sane writers.

There is always a little trapdoor in every author's mind, blocking dumb ideas, stupid beliefs, wrong impulsions and other things we don't really want to know. If the author is reasonably self-cognisant, if his editor is at least mildly competent, the trapdoor stays closed and readers never have to hear about any of the silliness hidden behind it.

But as the author's career advances, as he becomes so successful as to dictate terms to his editor, or as his thirst for money and success grows outside all reasonable bounds, the trapdoor opens and what comes out isn't pretty. In the techno-thriller field, take a look at the brief but spectacular flame-out of Payne Harrison's career. Two excellent novels (Storming Intrepid and Thunder of Erebus), one mildly entertaining potboiler (Black Light) and then Forbidden Summit, one ludicrous straight-to-paperback UFO-are-real conspiracy thriller complete with an afterword claiming that everything is real. Exit Payne Harrison: he never wrote a novel under that name again. Good riddance, too.

Now the brain-eating, trapdoor-opening disease has firmly lodged itself in the head of Stephen Coonts, as he trades his credibility for extra bucks with the trade-paperback original UFO thriller Saucer. To be fair, it starts promisingly, as an engineering team discovers a long-buried flying saucer in the Sahara desert. So far, so good: there's no trace of a conspiracy, and there's still a science-fictional thrill in contemplating alien relics left on Earth thousands of years ago. What's more, Coonts anchors his novel around an endearing young protagonist, and if the result may not rise much above adventure fiction for the first hundred pages, it's decent adventure fiction.

It gets more interesting when the characters figure out that the saucer has been shaped by and for human minds. Savvy SF readers immediately reach for the good old time-travel explanation, with maybe a wince when remembering Michael Crichton's Sphere. But Coonts then takes his accumulated momentum and runs off a credibility cliff: You see, explain the book's mouthpiece scientist, humans are the descendant of an alien race that landed on Earth thousands of years ago, and then devolved into tribalism and forgot all about their technological origins.

This, not to put it too mildly, is crap. It flies in the face of everything we know about early human history, heck all of biology (there's more than enough genetic linkage between humans and other animals to make it patently obvious that we share a common biological origin.)

But it gets worse, a lot worse as Saucer abandons adventure fiction to focus on the evil machination of an evil rich man, the duplicity of the US government, and romance in a “get me the super-duper MacGuffin!” plot that was better-handled in books like Dale Brown's classic Day of the Cheetah. Even our likable protagonist loses his charm, as his characterization oscillates between boy genius, dumb teenager (“third-year-old women are old!”) and a blood-thirsty stone-cold killer. Saucer, in other words, gets silly, gets dumb and gets old real fast.

The cherry topping on the sundae comes late in the book, as the protagonists figure out how to hook up an advanced computer to a plain old laser printer. Gaaah. At this point, it's obvious that Coonts just doesn't even care about the intelligence of his readers: as long as he's got their money, it's all good. (But now try to convince those readers to buy your newer books, chump...) This “my readers are morons and that's a good thing” thinking extends to the mechanics of the saucer's anti-gravity mechanism, which make no sense and, if I'm reading latter sections correctly, would even prevent the saucer from leaving the ground.

Fortunately, it's not all bad,: Despite the considerable lengths and silly plot mechanics, Coonts still gives to Saucer a basic readability. Part of it is based in “just how dumb is this going to become?”, but part of it is also based on a scattering of intriguing characters and neat reversals. But this doesn't change that of all of Coonts' book, this is the first trade-paperback original, and that it's nowhere near the quality of his latest books, even the disappointing Hong Kong.

I now see that Saucer somehow warranted a sequel (Saucer: The Conquest, which I seriously think lacks an exclamation point.), which strengthens my whole “Dumb readers! Money! Dumb readers! Money!” theory. Memo to authors: Writing fun adventure fiction doesn't give you an excuse to ignore logic and good sense. Unless you don't have any left, the trapdoor having sprung open.

 

Market Forces
Richard Morgan

Gollancz, 2004, 386 pages, C$24.95 tp, ISBN 0-575-07567-8

Anyone who has read Richard Morgan's previous Altered Carbon already knows that the man's not afraid to pull punches when it comes to sex and violence. Morgan may not appeal to more delicate sensibilities by successfully combining science-fiction elements with big boy toys, but he has managed to carve himself an impressive readership. Now with Market Forces, Morgan one-ups himself and delivers the equivalent of a big Hollywood action blockbuster in book form.

The comparison with a big-budget film is no accident: As Morgan acknowledge in his preface, Market Forces was a script at one moment in its checkered history, and the central premise owes more to studio high-concept thinking than to serious sober extrapolation. What if, in a world where ultra-capitalism is dominant, one takes “corporate warfare” to its logical conclusion... on the roads?

This is not such a new idea. ROLLERBALL 2000 and MAD MAX 2 are also mentioned in the preface, while more experienced readers will remember satiric works such as Alan Dean Foster's “Why Johnny Can't Speed” or Harlan Ellison's "Along the Scenic Route". Morgan's newest entry in the infernokrusher canon attempts to be somewhat more sophisticated, reflecting current concerns about globalization, runaway corporations and the widening divide between social classes.

As the novel begins, renowned carfighter Chris Faulkner joins a new employer in their Conflict Investment division, in which he makes deals with third-world civil war leaders in exchange for considerations once the dust settles. Dirty stuff, but not all that detached from current practises. What is different is the way companies vie for contract and corporate climbers eliminate their competition: On the road, with cars and guns. Whoever wins, suggests Morgan, brings back the other driver's plastic cards.

If that sounds like a perfect excuse to include car chases, gun battles and hot women, well, you're absolutely right. The universe of Market Forces is one where corporate executive go joy-shooting poor people in the disenfranchised zones, where every woman is either a bland wife, a hot mistress or an icy ball-breaker. It's hard to take it very seriously, and that eventually becomes a problem: Morgan's satire is earnest about its left-wing stance (this may be the first guns-and-babes action novel ending with a bibliography suggesting works by Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore), but it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief to work. When Morgan gets down to explanations in the pivotal Chapter Thirty-Four, he doesn't give the reader a believable rationale as much as an excuse to go along with the whole carfighting concept.

But don't thing that this makes Market Forces any less than a bang-up read. Morgan writes with an unbeatable narrative energy, and as a result you'll be hard-pressed to tear yourself away from this novel even as you roll your eyes and mutter that this is all very unlikely. Faulkner's corporate struggles with competitors, enemies and friends are gripping, and so are the various incidents on his road to moral redemption. A twisted example of Morgan's skills is found in Chapter Thirty-Three, as an incident of unbelievable violence is felt as a cathartic triumph, and then becomes a comic punchline for the rest of the book.

The book falters near the end, as it tries to reconcile dramatic inevitability and moral considerations with its action-driven atmosphere. The way Morgan is willing to criticize ultra-capitalism and yet deliver an ambiguous conclusion is admirable, but it may also strike some as trying to sell a cake and eating it too. Too bad that in the process, a number of threads are cut abruptly, or left unresolved.

There is no doubt that Market Forces is a remarkable book. At a time where “left-wing” often means “wimpy”, it's unusual to see a vigorous political argument taking a form more appropriate to the bloodthirsty young males. It's a fascinating study in the contradictions of satire, with serious themes supporting silly concepts. It's almost wonderful in its capacity to make fascinating characters out of repellent people, and in creating narrative interest even as the events unfolding are almost unbearably awful. It certainly solidify whatever credentials Morgan has established with his first two novels, and is making hard to wait until his next.