Year: 1999

  • Signal to Noise, Eric S. Nylund

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon/EOS, 1999, 371 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-79292-3

    Despite what naysayers might say, the science-fiction bookshelves of your nearby bookstore have never been so attractively filled with dozens of potentially interesting books. This diversity, unfortunately, has made it more difficult than ever to find the really good stuff. Today’s savvy SF reader must learn to negotiate the thin line between hype and actual value, between signal to noise. In this game of equilibrium, it doesn’t take much to drown out any potential interest.

    That happened in early 1998 as I was at the local SF bookstore considering my next few purchases. An unusually-colored hardcover attracted my eye: Eric S. Nylund’s Signal to Noise. Unfortunately, the jacket copy began by claiming that the novel was the first instance of a new emerging genre—hyperpunk.

    That was far too much marketing jargon crammed in a single word. I placed the book back on the shelf.

    A year -and several good reviews- later, I finally bought the paperback copy, noticing that the “hyperpunk” blurb has disappeared from the cover. Strangely, after reading the novel I find myself in agreement that, yes, Signal to Noise is truly “hyperpunk”… or cyberpunk pushed to hyperspace.

    Jack Potter is a typical cyber-protagonist: A young single male computer expert trying to survive in a world dominated by gigantic corporations barely restrained by governments. So far so cyberpunk. But the fun starts when Jack discovers a way to instantly communicate with aliens light-years away. The aliens are traders, and for their first swap, Jack gives them the human DNA code. They send back “an enhanced version.”

    Shades of A for Andromeda, yet? Before long, Jack’s the Favorite Person of at least two intelligence services, two alien races, several venture capitalists and assorted other bad guys. They implant stuff in him, give him enough money to go in business, double-cross him a few times and wring him dry of any further alien trading results…

    Intricately plotted and not without some occasional confusion, Signal to Noise signals the arrival of a potentially major new talent on the SF scene. This isn’t Nylund’s first novel (despite holding two science degrees, he previously wrote three previous fantasy books), but his first full-length SF effort displays a mastery of plotting and hard sciences that’s simply too intriguing to be ignored.

    His writing style combines simplicity and density for a satisfying reading experience. His characters are believable, with some special attention given to the flawed protagonist. His plotting is filled with surprises, passing through a few paradigms before the large-scale finale. A few late-book choices left me puzzled (the selection of sidekicks, for instance) until I realized that Signal to Noise sets up a sequel. This usually irks me, but Signal to Noise can stand alone by itself. It’s my duty as a reviewer, however, to suggest that shrewd readers should wait until they have both books before reading Signal to Noise.

    Fast-paced, imaginative and exciting, Signal to Noise is exactly what readers should expect from a good SF novel. Ignore the “hyperpunk” hype; this book is pure signal to the background noise of your bookstore. I really look forward to the sequel, and anything else from Eric S. Nylund.

  • The Haunting (1999)

    The Haunting (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1999) Are horror films basically incompatible with the Hollywood blockbuster mentality? This film offers part of the answer. This big-budget, star-studded Haunted-house offering from Dreamworks manages the rare feat of being a completely ordinary horror film without one good scare in it. Aside from a mild jump-shot or two, The Haunting fails at eliciting anything approaching dread from the audience, with disastrous results. In many ways, this is a movie from another time, where you could afford to build up the suspense for an hour before letting it all flow. This approach could have been applauded if The Haunting has done anything worthwhile… but this build-up only elicits impatience rather than tension. The below-average script doesn’t help things, with some particularly bad dialogue (mirroring almost everything the characters feel despite the fact that it’s blindingly obvious to the audience.) and a lack of any sympathy for the characters. Jan de Bont’s direction is far from being as dynamic as I would have expected from his work on Speed and Twister. Catherine Zeta-Jones is as lovely as ever, but she has to fight against the House itself in the looks department. The bad ending finally seals The Haunting‘s rating to, at best, barely average.

    (Streaming, June 2025) Twenty-five years later, I come to the 1999 version of The Haunting with a very different perspective informed by having seen the 1963 version, having read Shirley Jackson’s novel and being far more appreciative of classic horror.  Alas, none of this leads me to a more positive appreciation — although there a a few things I do like more about it.  The beginning, for instance, is rather good — never mind a fleeting glimpse of Virginia Madsen in the opening scene, The Haunting is never quite as good as its first half-hour where everything is still possible and the film does seem intent on combining terrific set design with an intention to follow the original novel.  The casting helps a lot — Lili Taylor is really good as the mousy protagonist, Catherine Zeta-Jones fantastic at the outgoing Theo and Liam Neeson makes for a great authority figure. When I read the novel, I couldn’t help but imagine them in the lead roles. (Alas, Owen Wilson is utterly miscast in a badly-written character — I like 1963’s Russ Tamblyn much better.)  The sets are grand and the pacing is such that you can hope for the best.  But then The Haunting takes a turn for the worse by going for a special-effects spectacle at a time when CGI really wasn’t perfect and from source material that’s built on ambiguity.  The final half-hour is grotesque overkill — and I’m not even objecting to the heroic-sacrifice finale. As of this to say that despite a very different path, I still end up twenty-five years with an impression of the 1999 The Haunting that’s no less critical.  It’s not even trashy-fun like the near-contemporary remakes of 13 Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill — it’s just ponderous, misguided and near-useless.  This wasn’t the movie that killed Jan de Bont’s promising career as a director — but it was one of the three strikes (alongside Speed 2 and Lara Croft 2) that earned him early retirement from Hollywood.

  • The Full Monty (1997)

    The Full Monty (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, July 1999) Why did I miss this in theatres? A charming little movie faithfully echoing the Flashdance paradigm (cleverly cited) of ordinary people being transformed by… er… art and personal self-fulfillment. No, but really: A quirky, comic British film that’s just too sympathetic to miss. Some obvious jokes, but also some delightful moments. Perhaps a bit lower on the laugh-o-meter than its reputation has made it to be, but still worthwhile. Never mean-spirited, and always in good taste despite the raunchy potential of the material. Could have used an epilogue, maybe over the end credits. Great soundtrack, of course.

  • Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

    Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1999) I don’t worship Stanley Kubrick and this film won’t change my mind. Long-anticipated and released in the midst of controversy, this is a movie that actually lets people see what they want in it. It is a bore; it is a masterpiece. It’s filled with undressed women; it’s hugely unexciting (The most erotic scene is, curiously, a kiss between two fully-clothed adults). It’s a love story; it’s a conspiracy thriller. It’s beautiful; it’s ugly. It’s too long; it’s too short. It’s easy to see that Eyes Wide Shut is the kind of movie that has it both ways, by being simultaneously an empty disappointment and a multi-layered success. Me, I’m ambivalent: I thought it was too long, focused on the wrong story (the couple rather than the secret society), not as hard-hitting as it could have been and not as well-scripted at it should have been, but also found it beautifully directed, with involving questions, good acting and a half-naked Leelee Sobieski. Oh, pervert that I am…

  • Evil Dead II (1987)

    Evil Dead II (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, July 1999) Simply put, a blast. A shotgun blast. Effectively mixing dark comedy and liquid gore while making the most out of its small budget, this movie works by sheer audacity. Director Sam Raimi’s devilishly inventive camera angles and non-stop pacing (the movie’s 85 minutes, but packs a wallop) are as frantic as anything you’ve seen elsewhere. Plus, Bruce Campbell is very cool and the special effects are pretty well-handled. Drags a bit by the end. Works simultaneously as a movie, a parody and MST3K fodder. Clever, hip and simply a lot of fun. Rougher than its sequel Army Of Darkness, but well worth the rental.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, August 2006) I’m sure that this film does get old at some point, but watching it every few years is still a treat: The mixture of horror and comedy is one thing, but Sam Raimi’s hyperkinetic camera style is still a blast after twenty years and countless imitators. The film manages to top itself minute after minute, and this despite an introduction that repeats the entire first film in a matter of moments. It also helps that Bruce Campbell truly emerges as an icon right on time at the beginning of the third act. Good gags, appropriate gore and tons of creativity: ah, if more horror movies could be like this… The DVD contains an amusing commentary by the principal crew members, who take the time to reflect on the film shoot in general and how specific scenes were shot.

  • A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1999, 606 pages, C$38.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-85683-0

    For some reason, I was one of the few people not overly impressed by Vernor Vinge’s previous novel, the 1992 Hugo-award-winning A Fire Upon the Deep. Epic space opera, yes, but constantly focused on the wrong narrative threads: The poor humans stuck on the backward planet rather than the all-out galactic war taking place around them. But that was then, and now is A Deepness in the Sky. Deepness is widely hailed as “the prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep”, but is really so thinly linked that it’s best read as a stand-alone volume. (Though the symmetry of the pair is intriguing.)

    Two human expeditions arrive around a star with the interesting property of cyclically “shutting off” at precise intervals. They discover a planet whose indigenous inhabitants (“Spiders”) are on the verge of attaining space-flight technology. Problem is, the two human expeditions come from radically different societies. One is composed of traders, the other is based on intellectual slavery. Before long, the expeditions are fighting it out in orbit. After the brief skirmish, both camp find out that they can’t travel back to their home systems and that they won’t survive unless they combine their resources. And so the survivors from both camps settle down warily, waiting until the Spiders can provide them with the way to go back home… a prospect at least thirty years away.

    There can be no mistaking that A Deepness in the Sky is pure science-fiction, at least not if you accept the proposition that “SF is about the effects of technological change”. Vinge lovingly details the Spider’s technological progress, using this subplot as a convenient excuse to make some sociological comments on the place of technology on human progress. Though the book is only moderately high on ideas, Vinge’s extrapolation hold some interest. (His digression on multi-generational legacy code held special interest for this IT professional.)

    Vinge also uses a neat trick (which I won’t spoil) to anthropomorphize a basically alien species. Though the use of “cars”, “telephones” and other typically human terms may annoy some readers, it’s a great device to humanize an entire segment of the cast.

    Which, unfortunately, doesn’t really solve the question as to if these alien subplots should have been kept in the novel. If A Deepness in the Sky is a pure-SF novel with fascinating bits and intriguing aliens, it’s a shame that it’s so long and bloated. Wordiness kills a large part of the novel’s momentum, so that even if the first few hundred pages contain massive space battles, the book doesn’t get moving until the mid-point mark. Make no mistake: A Deepness in the Sky is well written, but it’s well over-written too. The characters are worthwhile, but they’re not easily approachable.

    Fortunately, when the book starts moving, it really starts to be interesting. Vinge manages his threads effectively, and his extended conclusion effectively completes the story.

    While assuredly one of the front-runners in this year’s SF crop and definitively worth your money in paperback, A Deepness in the Sky nevertheless fails at provoking enthusiasm. Slowed down by a deliberate prose and longish subplots, this novel joins the ranks of recent books that could have been improved by some serious editing. This caveat aside, don’t miss what is easily one of the best recent examples of a simple yet epic SF story well-told through the personal struggles of full characters.

  • Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

    Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1999) Wildly uneven pseudo-documentary about a small-town beauty pageant that turns really ugly (the pageant, not the movie). Often wickedly funny in a mean-spirited black humor way, with gags that go all the way from slapstick to social satire. The mockumentary approach is unconvincing, with its occasional jump-cuts, multiple camera edits and other contrived techniques. Not as subtle as it should have been. Should have used a narrator-driven approach, like Bob Roberts or Fear Of A Black Hat. Kirsten Dunst is adorable. Goes on for at least ten unnecessary minutes. A marginal rental choice, but a late-night movie treat.

  • Deep Red (1994)

    Deep Red (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1999) The lovely Joanna Pacula (The Silence Of The Hams, Virus) continues her streak of being the most watcheable element in otherwise disappointing movies. This straight-to-video SF thriller mixes elements of detective fiction (a Pi, tortured by remorse, accepts a protection contract) with SF gadgets (nano-enhanced unkillable characters) and ends up as a film without the means to accomplish its goals. Though not without potential, Deep Red loses itself in incoherencies, unresolved plot threads and too-convenient developments. Maybe they could have saved on one of the three explosions and hired another writer… Besides Pacula, Michael Biehn (The Terminator) and John De Lancie (Star Trek: TNG) also star.

  • Deep Blue Sea (1999)

    Deep Blue Sea (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1999) Now that’s what’s a summer action movie is all about. Ignore the bad dialogue. Ignore this curious impression of déjà-vu. Ignore the bargain-basement Frankenstein lesson. Focus. Focus on the wonderfully-written action scenes. Focus on the unrelenting tension. Focus on the superbly coherent editing. Deep Blue Sea, despite its lack of intelligence, is a very clever movie in what counts; the action and the suspense. Scarier than most horror films despite not being billed as a scary movie, Deep Blue Sea redeems all of its significant flaws by been exceedingly good at pleasing the audience. It does what it has to do and does it very, very well. Special mention must be made of a totally unexpected scene that completely took our theatre by surprise. I laughed, I whooped, I gasped, I clapped: What more would I want?

  • Canadian Bacon (1995)

    Canadian Bacon (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1999) At its heart, a one-joke sketch stretched out over ninety minutes and thirty minute’s budget: To bolster weapon sales, a capitalist convinces the United States to declare war on Canada. Starring John Candy, Alan Alda and Rhea Perlman, this intermittently funny movie paints far too good a portrait of Canada, though most Canadians will appreciate the effort. A mildly pleasant late-night movie, obviously more interesting to Canadians than Americans… A good double feature with Wag The Dog.

  • Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1999, 319 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-86712-3

    One might wonder at the reason behind Robert J. Sawyer’s current success. Certainly, the author’s tireless auto-promotion has something to do with it. The regularity with which he publishes is another, at roughly a novel per year since 1990. His direct, journalistic prose is easy to read. His professionalism is obvious; he always deliver the goods with each successive book.

    In other words, Robert J. Sawyer truly understands and produces what the average reader demands of SF: Easy, captivating yarns built around the solid core of an idea and wrapped in professional characters and plotting. His latest, Flashforward, is almost a textbook example of how to write a fair contemporary SF novel.

    The premise is a good one: Following a high-energy physics experiment at CERN, everyone on the planet experiences two subjective minutes of a future twenty years away while their “objective” bodies lose consciousness. The immediate repercussions are horrendous: Thousands of people are injured or killed as they blank out in dangerous situations. But the long-term effects are even more significant as everyone correlate their individual visions and find out that they all refer to the same future…

    Fantasy concept, sure, but Sawyer manages to make us willingly suspend our disbelief. In the process, he raises concepts of free-will, of fate, of guilt, of the non-eternal duration of love. Sawyer aficionados won’t be surprised to see Sawyer’s usual matrimony/theology themes weaved in all of this. Heady stuff, but adequately presented in digestible bites.

    The concept leads itself to some delicious situations: A man investigating his own upcoming murder, a marrying couple knowing they won’t be together twenty years later, a writer with a glimpse in his non-upcoming-greatness, a president-to-be harassed with congratulation calls, a future-couple uncomfortably meeting for the first time… Flashforward really benefits from these touches of irony, which compensate for the thin -but well-handled- characters.

    There are a few flaws, like the dubious “everyone-asleep-was-dreaming” assumption (hasn’t Sawyer heard of deep sleep?). The ending is a bit rushed, with the typical Sawyer last-chapter paradigm leap. As usual, Sawyer’s ideas exceed his executive capacity -intentionally?-, and hard-core SF readers can’t be faulted for take the author to task for being a bit pedestrian. But most readers will love it.

    Otherwise, there really isn’t much to say about Flashforward. Fans will like it, with most agreeing that it’s one of his best books yet. It does wraps up a bit easily and could benefit from less conventional writing, but it’s hard to fault such an easily-readable novel (don’t bother with bookmarks) for being too accessible. As usual, a sure choice for the major awards.

  • Brainscan (1994)

    Brainscan (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1999) Long before David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Brainscan -superficially- explored the issues surrounding the nature of reality in an age of Virtual Reality games. Of course, this being a low-brow horror film, the result wasn’t as interesting. Still, there are a few interesting elements, though it progressively gets sillier as it advances. Besides being “all a dream”, Brainscan can’t be bothered to adhere rigidly to the rules it sets for itself, and so we get a senseless script that pretty much boasts of its senselessness. The weak payoff at the end doesn’t redeem the movie. No nudity and few good one-liners make this a marginal choice for late-night TV viewing.

  • The Blair Witch Project (1999)

    The Blair Witch Project (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1999) This didn’t work for me. Widely over-hyped as being one of the scariest movies ever made, this ultra-low-budget film is a pretty good illustration of how a clever premise can be far more intriguing than the end result. (It’s also a study in how originality and web-savvy marketing can lend itself to a boffo opening-weekend promotional push.) Unfortunately, as I’ve lamented elsewhere, originality must not be confused with entertainment and artistic merit. The Blair Witch Project is, all things considered, a fairly ordinary film that quits before getting really unnerving. (What would I have considered really unnerving? How about the true self-destruction of the trio without resort to artificial means like the witch?) The constant shaking of the handheld camera footage is immensely distracting in theatres. Charges that “this movie stimulate your imagination, you barbarian” are laughable, considering that written horror has been doing that for… oh… more than a hundred years now. While I won’t deny the effect of The Blair Witch Project on many viewers (especially those gullible enough to believe it’s “a true story”), I simply couldn’t muster any lasting feeling about it; I slept well that night. For me, the scariest thing about this film is the prospect of endless rip-offs…

  • Bad Boys (1995)

    Bad Boys (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1999) The last gasp of the “buddy-cop” series of movies produced by Hollywood between 1984 and 1995. The ingredients are simple; two policemen protagonist with opposing personalities, drug dealers as antagonists, sunny weather, big guns and a bunch of action sequences. What makes Bad Boys special isn’t so much the rehashed plot or the Florida locale, but the dynamic direction of Michael Bay and the ineffable charm of Will Smith. Otherwise, the characters of Téa Leoni and Martin Lawrence are annoying, and so are the alleged “comedic” moments. The can-you-possibly-be-more-clichéd demise of the villain is also pretty weak. In summary: Check out the action scenes and fast-forward the rest.

  • Icefire, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1998, 703 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-01403-X

    If Icefire is to be believed, the government should be monitoring private home pages to detect, identify and act upon threats to the state based on intricate psychological profiles. In this case, I fully expect unmarked black vans in front of my home any moment now: In the past year, these book reviews have demonstrated an unhealthy interest in global catastrophes of various flavors: Insect extinction (Dust, Charles Pellegrino), Alien Invasion (The Killing Star, Pellegrino and George Zebrowski), EMP event (Aftermath, Charles Sheffield), Exploding Moon (Moonfall, Jack McDevitt), Crazy Terrorists (Storming Heaven, Dale Brown), Cometary Impact (Final Impact, Yvonne Navarro), Bio-Warfare (The Cobra Event, Richard Preston)… Now here comes Icefire, a global catastrophe thriller that begins in one of the world’s most unexpected places… Antarctica.

    The Reeves-Stevens premise is simple: A large part of Antarctica (The Ross Shelf) is actually hanging over open sea. Should this area be abruptly hurled into the sea, it would create a massive wave that would travel across the entire Pacific Ocean in a matter of hours, devastating everything in its path.

    Guess what? This is exactly what happens in the opening pages of the novel, as nuclear warheads are detonated by terrorists. Before long, our Navy SEAL protagonist Mitch Weber is forced to team up with environmentalist Cory Rey to warn the world of the impending danger. Complicating the matter further is that the two were once lovers, but now stare at each other from totally opposite ideological viewpoints.

    To be charitable, Icefire is not a novel of characters. A techno-thriller in the best tradition, it is a breathtaking narrative of rapidly introduced ideas and good-old American can-do military intervention. Everyone who despaired at the current techno-thriller slump should rejoice at the arrival of the Reeves-Stevens on the scene.

    One crucial element that has been well-understood by the writers is the techno-thriller genre’s reliance on secrets. Whether anyone believes that the US military knows about UFOs and such, most of us suspect that they’ve been hiding some pretty fascinating technology. Icefire has far too much fun in imagining what these secrets might be. Though overdone in some areas (come on, they’re still rehashing Roswell?), this is one of the nice surprises of the book. Are these high-tech secrets convincing? Well, I did look on the Internet for some references to the mysterious objects described on pages 243-244. Even at 10$ for the paperback, there is a lot of material for your money in Icefire‘s 703 pages.

    The other surprise is how darn exciting it all is. Icefire begins with nuclear explosions and builds on to bigger things. The means used by our protagonists to travel beyond the wave are increasingly high-tech, and the action doesn’t let stop. Several “Cool Scenes” [TM] pepper the narrative, pushing Icefire well above the average techno-thriller novel.

    Best of all, the writing flows very well. The characters are well defined in their functions, even if not much deeper. (I never really believed in the protagonists’ past romance, for instance, seeing how radically different their personality types are.) The plot mechanics are ingenious, wisely dropping cards when needed and withholding some bigger stakes for later. The conclusion is kind of flat, but after all that happened, who can blame readers for being a bit numb?

    One could go on endlessly about Icefire, but it all boils down to how much fun it all is. What’s most surprising is that Reeves-Stevens are relative newcomers at techno-thrillers. They either studied their market cynically well, or they instinctively know what to do. In any case, I’m anxiously waiting for their next techno-thriller. Good stuff.