Author: Christian Sauvé

  • The Surrogates, Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele

    The Surrogates, Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Top Shelf, 2008, 256 pages, US$19.95 tpb, ISBN 978-1-891830-87-7

    Good news, bad news: The Surrogates is a decently-imagined standalone Science Fiction story that deals with intriguing themes and stands alone away from superhero fantasies. On the other hand, the rough art is a tough sell in this era of slick computer-shaded photorealism, and the story has fairly embarassing plot holes.

    As the mainstream comics publishing industry matures and tackles other things than the superhero fantasies that have been their backbone for the past few decades, one of the most promising developments has been the trend toward limited series later collected in trade paperback. The Surrogates was originally published in 2006-2007 by Top Shelf Comics, and this trade paperback collects all five issues of the miniseries along with extra making-of material.

    The subject matter is intriguing: tackling the familiar SF idea of remote-controlled bodies, The Surrogates imagines a world where such technology has passed in common use: People purchase custom robotic bodies and stay home, living through their surrogates and their enhanced physical attributes. As the story begins, a masked criminal in Atlanta is destroying surrogates for reasons of his own. A policeman placed on the case quickly finds out what it means to live “for real” again when his surrogate is destroyed during the investigation. He suspects the intervention of a nearby preacher who cautions followers about mediated lives, but the truth is more complex than it appears.

    The problem with comics tackling SF themes is that, bluntly speaking, they’re usually well behind the times in terms of genre sophistication. The Surrogates, as strong as it is in a few areas, is a perfect example of those issues. It’s never quite credible in making us believe that less than fifty years from now, everyone will be using surrogates whose components can be traced back to one company. Real technology diffuses into the real world in complex ways: there’s competition, multiple models, people who refuse to buy into the new technology and various other knots of complexity. I, ROBOT (the movie) was similarly dumb in its treatment of its principal plot device, and for the same reason: the plot hinges on One Way, One Truth and One Answer. Point out that, well, there’s an awful lot of iPod clones on the market today and the plot of these stories crumbles away.

    Hence my dubiousness regarding the extrapolation in The Surrogates. From a written-SF fan’s perspective, it doesn’t help that the idea of surrogates have been explored in many stories for decades. It’s not an entirely original plot device. Anyone looking at the last decade alone can unearth Laura J. Mixon’s Proxies, David Brin’s Kiln People and (tangentially, but vigorously) Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon as examples of the form, and that’s not even going into short stories.

    But it is new in the comic book universe, and what matters is what the writer does with it, right? Fortunately, writer Venditti does better when comes the time to makes his characters come to life: His lead protagonist is a credibly beaten-down policeman who learns to re-discover his outer humanity, and the plot involves a good variety of interesting characters. Preachers are often mis-used in SF and The Surrogates doesn’t escape that trap, but at least it does something unexpected with it.

    But where The Surrogates will really divide readers is at the surface level of the art, which is an odd mixture of pen sketches and computer-enhanced coloring. I found it dreary, unfocused and unpolished, like being stuck in a nightmare —but looking at other reviews, I see that it’s an approach that has fans. It’s a good thing that the script is the strongest part of The Surrogates: careful buyers will flip through the book before purchasing it to get an idea of whether they’ll have an allergic reaction to the art.

    Despite everything, The Surrogates is worth a look to see where the comics medium is going regarding authentic SF ideas. It’s not entirely successful, but it’s a great deal more ambitious than most SF graphic novels on the market, and when it work, it really works.

    (You won’t be surprised to learn that the big-budget movie adaptation will feature Bruce Willis and come out in summer 2009.)

  • Just Buried (2007)

    Just Buried (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2008) This Canadian-made low-budget film blew through a limited theatrical release, and that’s too bad given how well it succeeds as a very dark comedy. As a young nerdish man inherits a struggling small-town funeral home, he comes to realize, with the help of his new girlfriend, that mortal accidents are a great way to send paying clients to his business. But once you start killing people, intentionally or not, it can be hard to stop… Rose Byrne (looking a lot like Kirsten Dunst) is the film’s standout performer as a mortician with a keen interest in her job; regrettably, Jay Baruchel is saddled with a too-annoying character to be sympathetic, and the film flounders a bit on this lack of attachment. The script itself is a clever hybrid between small town comedies and disturbingly morbid plotting. At a time where “dark comedy” is labeled on just about anything, Just Buried is the real thing, a film that could have slid in outright horror with just a few tiny adjustments. Despite a few third-act problems, the film wraps up neatly with a merciless finale that ironically gives moral weight to the rest of the script. It’s definitely a low-budget independent film: even if the budget allows for a few impressive explosions and crashes, it takes chances that normally wouldn’t even be thinkable for a wider audience. If your tastes can handle murder for love and profit, well, scour the local video store for this one.

  • A Theatre Near You, Alain Miguelez

    A Theatre Near You, Alain Miguelez

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Penumbra Press, 2004, 370 pages, C$45.00 hc, ISBN 1-89413-138-X

    I must have passed on Alain Miguelez’ A Theater Near You in local bookstores for two or three years before finally buying it. As a lavishly-illustrated specialized publication from a boutique publisher, this wasn’t a book I could hope to see on sale at some point. What’s more, I do have a deep interest in the book’s subject matter: I spend most of my waking hours in Ottawa, and I’m a steady moviegoer: A book about “150 years of going to the show in Ottawa-Gatineau” is almost tailor-fit for my tastes, even if it ends up being one of my most expensive books purchased so far.

    Fortunately, it’s worth every penny. Miguelez’ history of movie-going in the Ottawa area is a superbly-produced book that will certainly become the last word on the subject. It’s unbelievably well-researched (with 424 endnotes spread over ten pages), filled with a variety of historical facts, and it understands the economic, civic and cultural ramifications of its subject. A Theatre Near You deals perfectly with the language issues particular to Ottawa, demonstrates a keen understanding of the city’s history, and logically packages a complex subject in an easily-digestible structure. Its readability is also enhanced by clever graphic design: Nearly every single one of its pages sports visual material of some sort.

    It starts earlier than anyone would expect, going back all the way to the mid-nineteenth century theaters founded when Ottawa was still lumberjack-shack Bytowne and Canada was still a vague notion. Miguelez then moves on to the electric era with the Nickelodeons, then the “Early Legitimate Cinemas”, the “Downtown Picture Palaces”, the “Talking Picture Theatres”, the “Post-War Theatre Boom”, a quick unabashed look at the wave of “Porno theaters” that briefly flourished when single-screen theaters tried to survive in difficult times, then the “Theaters in Malls and Office Complexes” and finally the current “Megaplexes” era.

    Miguelez was able to sketch portraits of these eras with historical documentation and occasional memories from people who went or worked at those theaters. Each theater in Ottawa’s history (!) gets its own section, and the result is highly satisfactory. Miguelez himself becomes part of the story when discussing the closure of the Elgin or the Sommerset, and his first-hand knowledge of theaters in the area becomes more and more obvious as we move closer to the present day.

    For the historical buff, A Theatre Near You is a fascinating open door on Ottawa’s history, and the place of cinema in the Canadian capital’s cultural life. Even longtime Ottawa residents may be surprised to find out about such things as the Russell Hotel, or the now-gone Canal Street. (The postcard illustrations of downtown in the first third of the book are amazing.)

    I obviously never paid enough attention to my local history, because I was gob-smacked to find out about the existence of Le Français, the Regent or the 2,000+-seats Capitol and amazed at how much of Ottawa’ past cinema history remains visible in downtown today. The strange empty space next to the upper-Bank Street Staples is explained in this book, and if I stretch my neck a bit from my cubicle, I can see the empty space left behind the gas explosion that destroyed the Odeon in 1958. Those historical fact progressively mesh with my own memories as I recall the Sommerset (where one can now purchase milk where I was sitting at the premiere of GO in 1999), the Elgin sign that still stands proudly or the wonderful Mayfair still kicking after decades of continuous showings. One can easily imagine a walking tour of downtown pointing out the dozens of past theaters, some of which are still standing. (One of the most intriguing bits in the book is the suggestion, perhaps fanciful, that the Place de Ville theater has been mothballed, “the cinemas still in place, waiting for another tenant to occupy the space.” [P.311]) [January 2014: As of early 2014, the Place de Ville theater still exists in its mothballed state, albeit maybe not for long as this Ottawa Rewind article and this subsequent CBC news article suggests.]

    General movie buffs may be more interested in learning that Ottawa may have been the site of the first public motion picture projection in Canada:

    “Ottawa brothers Andrew and George Holland pioneered movie exhibiting in Canada. With their Edison license, their kinescope shows on Sparks Street were Canada’s first contact with the moving pictures. Holland Avenue is named after them.” [P.83]

    More recently, Ottawa’s grandiose Capitol theater hosted many Canadian movie premieres. Best yet: There are credible arguments that the first Canadian multiplex was Ottawa’s own Elgin theater. (What is certain is that the owner who had the bright idea of creating “The Little Elgin” went on to become the president of the Cineplex chain.)

    Despite a few annoying typos, a lack of an index and passages that could have been re-written once more, especially near the end of the book, A Theatre Near You is easily one of my favorite books of the year. I doubt that it will be particularly interesting to anyone outside the Ottawa area, but it’s the best book one could imagine on its particular subject.

    It’s also likely to remain the definitive book on Ottawa-area theaters for the same economic reasons that are explained throughout the book: With the progressive passage of films to the digital realm and the consequent acceleration of direct digital distribution, I don’t think that we’ll get many more new theaters in the area. Since 2004, only one theater has opened in faraway Barrhaven, and despite the revival of the St-Laurent multiplex as a discount theater, the 2006 shake-up in theater ownership only suggests a dwindling market: The Mayfair and Rideau always feel on the verge of closing down, and plans for a new downtown picture house have not materialized. Once day-and-date direct digital distribution becomes commonplace (something that may be as near as five years away), theaters will become a charming upscale throwback to an earlier area.

    But even if that happens, A Theatre Near You will be there to testify about cinema’s history in the Ottawa area. If you are or know an Ottawa-based cinephile who likes history, this is a perfect gift idea.

    [January 2009: Alain Miguelez was kind enough to write and acknowledge the review. Thanks!]

  • Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

    Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2008) Director Guillermo del Toro delivers so much goodness even in his weaker films that it’s tough to be overly critical. So does Hellboy 2, much like its predecessor, remains interesting even despite some seriously flawed scenes and an offbeat sense of humor that fails as often as it succeeds. Often looking like a collection of outtakes for Pan’s Labyrinth‘s fantasy sequences, this supernatural action film goes heavy on the CGI, but with strong visual design that redeems it all. Even the worst creatures are almost endearing, to say nothing of the bleached twins fighting for the right thing, but against the wrong people. The story doesn’t do much than present a clothesline on which to roll out the visuals, which wouldn’t be too bad if it wasn’t for the ham-fisted emotional beats inflicted upon the characters. Obvious soap opera moments do little to bolster the charm of this film’s variety of heroes: sequences go on for far too long with unconvincing staging (witness the Hellboy-vs-locker scene) and contrived bonding sequences. At least some aspects of the mythology don’t feel entirely re-used from other sources, which is a bit of a relief. For some reason, though, Hellboy 2 remains stuck somewhere in the “okay” category, never ascending to loftier heights. Which, come to think of it, seems to be the norm in this 2008 “summer of adequacy”.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, January 2009) I’m not really surprised to find out that this film appreciates on a second viewing: Guillermo del Toro’s a canny filmmaker, and the level of detail he crams in even his lighter films is usually worth revisiting on DVD. In this case, however, there are a few more factors at play. As del Toro points out a few times in his commentary, there is a real subversive attitude at play in this film, where the antagonists have stronger morals than the heroes, and where violence usually has bittersweet (or ineffective) results. Even if you do understand this voluntary tweaking of conventions, a second look can do much to smooth out ruffled genre expectations. Otherwise, well, the usual array of del Toro supplements, from a great making-of documentary to a breathless director’s commentary (and a decent actors’ audio commentary as well.) Those who may have dismissed Hellboy 2 too quickly in theaters may be surprised at how well it holds up and improves on a second and third viewing, with some clues from the filmmakers.

  • Hancock (2008)

    Hancock (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2008) Oh my. If I was feeling generous, I would have a few nice things to say about Hancock‘s thematic depth regarding the tension between power and happiness, its unpredictability and the chances it takes with well-worn material. Alas, seeing Hancock doesn’t put anyone in a good mood, so let’s start swinging by saying that the film is picture perfect example of a good premise disintegrating as it goes along. The Big Problem of the film is that it’s two radically movies smashed together: a comedy about a drunk burnt-out superhero putting back his life together (the movie promised by the trailers) and a drama about superheroes who can’t live with each other (most definitely not shown in trailers). While it’s conceptually refreshing to see marketing campaigns not giving away the last half of a film, that radical alteration of the premise leads to a wholly different movie experience, and not a very good one at that: The suddenly-introduced mythology makes little sense and allows accursed screenwriter Akiva “massively overrated hack” Goldsman to indulge in his usual mystical nonsense. It’s bad enough that the back-story of the characters makes no sense (why would she move there, what did they look like 3,000 years earlier, what was in Miami 80 years ago, etc.), but the power-draining shtick is inconsistently applied for maximum tear-jerking impact. Over and over again, Hancock almost touches upon interesting issues: what would it take for a superhero to lose faith in the common man? But the final film is an uneven romp that wraps up after 40 minutes, leaving little but a far less pleasant last act as a so-called “climax”. It’s as if someone had received a mandate to torpedo a perfect summer blockbuster with extreme prejudice. As it stands, the only person who emerges from the debacle more or less intact is Will Smith. Director Peter Berg certainly doesn’t, mis-applying pseudo-documentary cinematic techniques to a film that doesn’t need any. Any half-way competent producing team would have been able to see the fundamental problem in Hancock‘s present form: but the final movie is nothing but a testimony to the power of how even large group of people can delude themselves into crashing a sure-fire production straight into a wall.

  • The Dark Knight (2008)

    The Dark Knight (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2008) This may not be a perfect movie, but it’s almost as good as blockbusters ever get: There are ridiculously big explosions, car chases and fist-fights, but also a generous amount of thematic ambition, symbolism and subtext. Christopher Nolan’s camera seldom missteps and the cinematography finds a happy medium between credible grittiness and the slickness we expect from big-budget cinema. This is an unusually smart superhero film, and the script does amazing things within the constraints of the Batman mythology: The Joker’s origins remain blissfully unexplained, Batman struggles with his own actions, and we get a full-blown tragic character with Harvey Dent. The acting is often spectacular, with bit roles going to good actors (William Fichner!) and the headliners handling themselves with skill. For the fears that Heath Ledger’s Joker may have been over-hyped, the actual performance itself is remarkable. The rest of the film meets the high standards left by the script, acting and direction: Special effects? Top-notch. Dialog? Better than you’d expect, except when the action stops for a few grandiose and unnecessary speeches. Sadly, the film’s own success leads to a number of quibbles we wouldn’t notice in lesser films: The sound editing is terrible and drowns out dialog (and that’s when we don’t get the ridiculous Batman growling). Some of the plot points are glossed over in the film’s hurry to get from beginning to end. Finally, the last act of the film feels notably less interesting or urgent that the rest: The climax, in particular, falls flat after the dramatic peaks hit earlier during the film’s two-and-a-half hours. But it’s rare enough to see films succeed so well both on a popular and critical level: Let’s just revel in what’s been achieved here.

  • Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross

    Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 2008, 323 pages, C$27.50 hc, ISBN 978-0-441-01594-8

    One of the most vexing issues to face genre SF these days is the necessity to put away outdated futures. Seminal writers in the fifties may have have imagined glorious visions of housewives in space, but we know a bit better: We know that housewives will be rare in the future, and we suspect that space travel is likely to remain impractical for humans. Any modern SF writer worth his books’ cover price has to stop and consider whether the ideas hardwired in the collective DNA of the genre are still possibilities knowing what we know now.

    Charles Stross is one of the smartest genre SF writers on the market today, so it’s a delight to see him come up with a novel that squarely confronts those issues in Saturn’s Children. It’s an updated homage to Heinlein and Asimov that seeks to tie classic extrapolations to a future we can still imagine from today. It’s a romp, it’s typical Stross (perhaps too-typical Stross) and it’s a terrific read for those weaned on classical SF.

    While perfectly readable on its own, Saturn’s Children is best appreciated with a curriculum of previous reading experiences. Since it’s an explicit homage to Heinlein and Asimov, it’s best appreciated with some knowledge of those authors. In particular, it features a heroine, Freya, with strong similarities to the titular heroin of Heinlein’s Friday (the cheesecake cover of the American edition of the book may be too outrageous for some, but it is a blatant reference to Michael Whelan’s infamous Friday cover), tours the solar system much like in Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (along with descendants like John Varley’s The Golden Globe) and freely quotes attitudes from much of Heinlein’s middle-to-late period. Since Saturn’s Children also riffs on the power chords of the Three Laws of Robotics, familiarity with Asimov’s I, Robot is suggested.

    It begins as narrator Freya contemplates suicide. You would too if you were in her situation, a female sexbot created to serve the needs of a human race that has since disappeared, now stuck above Venus with little means to her credit. Fortunately, Freya is one of many fembots cast from the same model, and they try to help each other when they can. Shortly after being summoned by one of her sisters, Freya is stuffed in a ship and sent off to Mercury, where her Grand Tour of a post-human Solar System only begins. Fans of Stross’ work won’t be surprised to learn that espionage, thrills, secret identities, romance and high-tech jargon are all included in the tour. The prize is a dazzling recasting of Heinleinian and Asimovian themes in something that feels convincingly modern, up to an including a neat extrapolation of the social vulnerabilities of Asimovian-wired robots left without human masters.

    Saturn’s Children is most distinctive when it points and smirks endearingly at the trail left by Heinlein, Asimov and other well-respected SF legends. Heinlein’s well-known quote about the need for humans to be generalists is upended with a rude reference to trading other people’s skills for sexual acts. Other specialized jokes abound: A crucial poultry-shaped MacGuffin is referred to as a “Plot Capon” while the threat of humans being genetically re-created becomes “pink goo”. And so on; even if this a standalone book, the more you remember about SF, the more jokes you’ll get.

    As a Stross book, it’s largely what fans have learned to expect from the author: it hits the usual techno-jargon, humor, romance, thrills and hints of horror that figure so often in his work. Readers who loved his previous books will completely satisfied by this one. (Conversely, those who still don’t get what Stross is trying to do won’t be any closer to an answer with this one.) Stross has attained the status of a reliable author a while ago, but at the price of delivering excellent novels that are perhaps a bit too similar. From an uninformed perspective, Stross writes very quickly: due to a number of factors, his fans have enjoyed twelve novels in six years, an insane pace that doesn’t allow any margin for error. As a result, Saturn’s Children may be superbly entertaining, but also feel just a bit too familiar to be truly impressive. (On-line chatter suggests that he’s aware of the issue and is about to slacken the pace a bit, which should be for the best.)

    Small quibbles about Stross’ prodigious writing output aside, Saturn’s Children is another solid hit for him, and a superb example of genre Science Fiction at this moment in time. It makes interesting use of familiar tropes with contemporary thinking, and it’s a wonderful read from beginning to end. Stross has been accumulating fans ever since coming to prominence with his first novel, and this merely keeps up his winning streak.

  • From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, Minister Faust

    From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, Minister Faust

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Del Rey, 2007, 390 pages, C$17.95 tpb, ISBN 0-345-46637-3

    This, dear readers, is the decadent era of the superhero in pop culture. There are now so pervasive, such a part of the entertainment-retail complex that there is nowhere for them to go but down, preferably in a cloud of ridicule. The symptoms are clear, and clearer as I re-write this in September 2008: After HANCOCK, it’s clear that it’s a free-for-all in the superhero field, and notwithstanding oddities like BATMAN RETURNS, it’s clear that humor is one way of dealing with a now-overly familiar topic.

    That’s tying Minister Faust’s From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain to a heavy conceptual framework, but it’s also true that Faust is perverting the comic-book superhero tradition in two ways in his second novel, one of which is obvious from the get-go, with the other becoming apparent only as the novel goes on and maintains a facade of false humor.

    (Readers overly sensitive to spoilers may want to skip ahead to the last paragraph of this review.)

    The first of Faust’s hacks on the superhero form is well-presented in the packaging of the novel. Written as if from the pen of “Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman”, psychologist to superheros, From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain is re-titled Unmasked! When Being a Superhero Can’t Save You From Yourself and presented as a self-help book for the average hyper-hominid. If you’ve read any pop-psychology book before, this will feel instantly familiar, as Dr. Brain can’t help but structure her narrative around common super-heroic psychological issues, and pepper the narrative with a thick cloud of well-titled syndromes and cute acronyms.

    It’s not your average self-help book though, because it does tell a story. As Dr. Brain is tasked with treating the dysfunctional relationship of the top members of the Fantastic Order Of Justice (FOOJ), some of whom are not meant to be riffs on existing superheroes. Who would associate Batman with pro-fascist The Flying Squirrel? Who could recognize Superman in the quasi-moronic Omnipotent Man? There isn’t any link at all between Wonder-Woman and Iron Lass! Well, oh, okay. (Other winks to superhero canon are peppered through the narrative, two of the earliest ones being “the city of Los Ditkos” and the “Crisis of Infinite Dearths.” )

    But as Dr. Brain deals with her super-powered subjects, another external threat emerges, linked with the escape of super-villains, an upcoming election within the FOOJ and the death of one of the greatest superheroes of all times. What happens as the novel goes on become stranger and stranger, as one of the story’s most lucid character is systematically belittled by the narrator. The character’s racially-charged rhetoric may be overt, but it’s strange to see him marginalized, especially given Faust’s own minority-friendly first novel.

    But nothing is an accident, and the unreliability of the narrator eventually becomes a window through which we understand that Faust’s building an entirely different critique of the superhero genre, one that obliquely discusses the nature and social ramification of the power fantasies implicit in the superhero genre. Brain herself may be either evil or clueless, but that doesn’t change anything to the way the novel says one thing and means another in its closing chapters. It does place readers in a curious position, though: After a fun start, From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain becomes less and less amusing, until the smiles become bitter with resentment.

    As a novel, it’s a clear step up from the occasionally-messy The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad. The style is snappy, the characters all have distinctive voices, the twists are striking and the entire novel seems far more controlled. It’s a mystery why Faust hasn’t received more attention for this unnerving, but worthwhile second novel. As a decadent take on the superhero genre, it’s about as good as it gets.

  • Heaven, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen

    Heaven, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Aspect, 2004 (2005 reprint), 428 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-61103-4

    I may blow my entire Science Fiction credibility out of the room by mentioning the following, but here goes: I’m not a big fan of alien-centric SF. Strange, isn’t it? But put down those pitchforks and allow me thirty more seconds to explain that one. I’m more interested in the extrapolative aspect of SF; in its ability to illuminate the familiar with the unfamiliar. The problem with alien-centric SF is that is too often feels like a self-satisfied series of tricks that are of interest to the author and few others. “Card tricks in the dark”, to cite the Turkey City Lexicon again.

    Add to that my lack of interest in SF that tackles religious themes (it’s been done before, folks) and that explains why I never really bothered seeking out a copy of Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen’s Heaven. Both authors, respected scientists in their own fields, had previously shown an impressive ability to match scientific speculation with adequate fiction in their first novel Wheelers. I had to wait until I saw a paperback copy of Heaven deeply discounted at a used book sale before committing to their follow-up.

    I shouldn’t have waited that long. Despite a back-cover blurb that suggests a worst-case-scenario of alien-centric SF crossed with pure religion-bashing (“…mariner Second-best Sailor leans this his planet is discovered by evangelists…”), Heaven turns out to be a lot more palatable than my own prejudices had led me to believe. Oh, it’s not an immediately compelling read, at least at first: I ended up re-reading the first fifty pages once I realized that if I hadn’t been hooked by the first few pages, there really was something intriguing going on.

    Once properly set up, Heaven flies by with a succession of neat ideas and better-than-expected plotting. Stewart and Cohen won’t be mistaken for great prose stylists anytime soon, but their affection for their imagined aliens shows through, and it’s a minor marvel that they can make a deeply alien life form so compelling. Their specialty is xenobiology, and it shows in their portrait of a aquatic life-form with a strong kinship to coral. Comfortable with the language, the common assumptions and the writing quirks of genre science-fiction, the authors then proceed to deliver an unusual adventure that plays with the usual tropes of SF.

    It’s not a book that I would suggest to someone who’s new to Science Fiction, since it fills a very intriguing niche in the SF ecosystem: The kind of novel written by practicing scientists, far more comfortable with ideas and conceptual issues than in delivering a standard reading experience. Fans of Hal Clement, Charles Pellegrino or John Cramer’s regrettably few novels will understand what kind of SF this is: the pure bedrock of the genre, crammed with speculations while unburdened by notions of literary respectability.

    And yet explicit comparisons with Cramer and Clement do a disservice to the considerable reading pleasure offered by this novel once the basic language of the novel is established: There are a few neat tricks in Heaven‘s prose, the coolest of which being a discussion between chunks of a planet-spanning intelligence. The novel doesn’t always make sense, but it usually sacrifice logic for hard-hitting visuals: The scene that illustrates the titular “heaven” is nonsense, but it’s an utterly memorable image nonetheless.

    All in all, Heaven ends up being a small surprise. It doesn’t try to be for everyone and so will probably appeal to those who are already familiar with genre SF, but it’s an overlooked delight for that readership. The lesson learned here is that authorship should trump subject matter in choosing a book to read. If you loved something by an author, don’t be afraid to disregard what you think you know about the subject of their next book. You may be pleasantly surprised.

  • The Mirrored Heavens, David J. Williams

    The Mirrored Heavens, David J. Williams

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 2008, 409 pages, C$14.00 tpb, ISBN 978-0-553-38541-0

    I didn’t like this novel and it feels like a defeat.

    I started it with the best intentions, after all: I love high-tech SF thrillers, and everything about The Mirrored Heavens suggested the equivalent of a techno-thriller kicked a hundred years in the future, with super-powered operatives, competent terrorists, tensions between global power blocks and spectacular disasters. It’s got effusive blurbs by authors I like a lot, leading with a front-cover blurb from Peter Watts. I like SF, I like thrillers. What could possibly go wrong?

    Indeed, from some angles, The Mirrored Heavens still feels awesome. The complex power dynamics within the dystopian world described by Williams are credible and unpredictable. The relentless pacing of the book, where crises barely resolve themselves before there’s another rushing at full speed, is the type of breathless rhythm that’s missing from several novels. Some of the set pieces are spectacular in the way only wide-screen action sequences can be. Heck, even Williams’ staccato prose is among the best I’ve read this year. Try this early paragraph for a taste:

    Marlowe opens up on the two suits at point-blank range, his wrist-guns set for flechette swarm. The armor worn by Marlowe’s targets is good. It’s nowhere near enough. Marlowe cuts through it like he’s wielding a giant buzzsaw. The figures he’s facing suddenly aren’t figures anymore. Marlowe fires his thrusters, plunges down the shaft toward what’s left of them. He lands on the roof of the elevator car. He leaps through the open doors from which the dead men emerged. [P.34]

    Now imagine 400 pages like that.

    And that’s part of the problem: As the book’s events accumulated, as the four main characters dispatched entire armies of faceless opponents, destroying chunks of cities and changing the history of their world by their actions, I found myself increasingly numb to the novel’s impact.

    This isn’t normally a problem: My number-one complaint about novels these days is that they’re too long and too dull. 400 pages of action ought to have been a plus, not a minus.

    I finally realized what had been bothering me upon reading the novel’s Appendix, which presents a time-line of world history for the next hundred years. The amazing thing about it is that year by year, item by item, things get constantly worse in order to lead to Williams’ nightmarish future where even the U.S. is under martial leadership. There have been a lot of SF thrillers in the past few years (indeed, they make up most of the output of acclaimed new authors such as Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds and Richard Morgan), but their menagerie of secret agents and super-powered operatives are usually fighting to preserve or bring about a desirable world: they’re the wolves guarding the sheep with whom the readers are supposed to identify. But there’s no such thing in The Mirrored Heavens: The entire world is bleak and whatever the characters will do won’t change a thing in improving everyone’s lot. It’s like having gunfights and car chases on the deck of the Titanic: they’re all doomed anyway.

    The novel’s other annoyances (a punchy style that never lets up; ridiculously over-powered characters; humorless tone) would not have been problems in other circumstances, but here they feel magnified by the novel’s lack of success in earning at least a bit of empathy.

    On of the toughest skills in being a reviewer is trying to dissociate a personal distaste from a more dispassionate consideration of a work’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s an admirable but futile quest since all reviews are subjective, but trying to explain where The Mirrored Heavens goes astray raises an uncomfortable doubt: The fact that I don’t like it right now doesn’t mean I may not like it in other circumstances; once I won’t be overdosing on SF thrillers, for instance. Fortunately, everything about this book screams of a sequel: we’ll see then if there’s any improvement.

  • You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (2008)

    You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2008) It’s easy to be harsh on Adam Sandler and the crude messy vehicles he chooses. But there’s something else going on with this generally harmless comedy about a libidinous Israeli agent faking his own death to become a New York hairdresser, subsequently falling in love with a Palestinian. It’s a big dumb populist comedy using very serious themes as comedy fodder, exploiting the evening news as a baseline against which to deviate. Sure, the Sandler character is still dumb as bricks (albeit ridiculously gifted in the finer point of counter-terrorism) and the hummus/Fizzy-Bubblech/hacky-sack shtick can wear thin, but a large chunk of the film can also be spent wondering how serious geopolitical issues can end up with Rob Schneider playing an Arab terrorist sympathizer. It’s a reasonably funny film in a lazy and easy way (the sequence in which Sandler and friends play hacky-sack using a curiously willing pet cat as a ball is pure whimsical fun, for instance), but it works more than it doesn’t, even when it veers away from normal comedic unreality into sheer fantasy. Props be given to the man, Sandler actually comes across as a believable action hero in the film’s most outlandish scenes, and manages to old ladies seduction look endearing rather than creepy. But even his better-than-average performance takes a back seat to the audacity of the film’s concept, and the almost schizophrenic way it boils down complex issues to matters that could be settled with inter-cultural dating, American integration, competitive sports and a bucket of hummus. One wonders how much better Munich would have been had it had it adopted the same viewpoint. At the very least, it got me started on a hummus binge.

  • Wanted (2008)

    Wanted (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2008) Perhaps the best and biggest surprise of this film is how it manages to remain faithful to a certain facet of the source material despite changing nearly everything else about it. The comic-book super-villains (and their associated powers, quirks and backstory) are out; instead we get super-assassins controlled by a magic loom. Yeaaaah. But the first two minutes are nearly word-for-word recreation, and the adaptation even finds a way to spark the memory of the comic book’s infamous last two pages. (Sadly, the leads are not played by Eminem and Halle Berry.) The next-best thing about Wanted is Timur Bekmambetov’s insanely kinetic direction, which picks up where the Wachowski Brothers left off: Plenty of CGI-boosted sequences with long tracking shots, wild camera tricks, subjective point-of-view and variable-speed shots: The film defies the laws of physics with gusto, making one appreciate the attempt even as it trips up every single nonsense detector: The “curving the bullet” shtick (overplayed until exasperation) is a perfect example of style over credibility: Makes no sense, but sure looks cool. And that goes for much of the film itself, which is borderline trash on paper (binary code generated by a thousand-year-old loom that predicts the future?) but manages to keep things hopping through constant eyeball kicks. Alas, what feels pretty cool in the theater disaggregates soon afterwards, and ends up feeling far less substantial a short while later. Even Angelina Jolie seems wasted here, playing a surface caricature of herself as a sex-symbol while not actually doing anything sexy beyond showing up in the film itself. The biggest irony of those statements, of course, is that a script is cheap to fix early on, while all of the stylistic refinements that cover up the hollowness of the film are expensive to perfect. What could have this film been with a little more cleverness? Consider this: While a surprising amount of the comic has been kept intact (considering the comic book’s ultra-violence), very little attempt has been made to apply to the action movie genre the same critique than the book did: It’s all surface escapism, with a last-moment dash of wish fulfillment. What if Wanted-the-movie had gone after the action-movie geeks the same way Wanted-the-comic-book wiped the floor with comic-book fanboys? Ah, but that would have required the intent to question the assumptions of action movies…

  • Zima Blue, Alastair Reynolds

    Zima Blue, Alastair Reynolds

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Night Shade, 2006, 280 pages, C$17.95 tpb, ISBN 978-1-59780-079-2

    The stories in this Alastair Reynolds collection have two things going for them when compared to the rest of the author’s work: They’re short, and they’re not part of his Inhibitors future history.

    Given that the vast majority of Reynold’s work so far is made of thick fat novels all taking place in the Inhibitor universe, this may sound like damning with faint praise. But my problem with Reynolds’ fiction is simple: His novels are far too long, and they keep happening in a universe that I don’t find particularly interesting. In fact, some of my favorite Reynolds stories so far (Chasm City and The Prefect) and quasi-standalone stories that explore outskirts of the Inhibitor universe. Reynolds is a capable author, but he’d be even better if he showed some control over his prodigiously lengthy output.

    Considering those objections, Zima Blue seems tailored for optimistic nay-sayers like myself. A collection of Reynold’s non-Inhibitor short stories so far (the Inhibitor short stories are in Gollancz’ Galactic North) they offer a look at what he can do with a smaller freer canvas. It’s an ideal introduction to his work, and it may even please those who couldn’t stand the verbiage of his novels. Every one of the collection’s eleven story is accompanied by notes giving a glimpse into Reynolds’ life and inspirations. An introduction by Paul J. McAuley completes the content.

    The two stories that bookend the collection offer a good way to go from the Inhibitors stories to the more varied universes in this collection. The last story, the titular “Zima Blue”, is a meditation about memory and art placed over an imagined universe that teems with possibilities. It’s a companion to the first piece “The Real Story” in that both take place in a fairly optimistic universe in which a journalist named Carrie Clay goes around trying to understand celebrities. (In his story notes, Reynolds hopes to write more of those stories, but warns us not to hold our breath.)

    It’s not the only pair of linked stories in the collection: “Hideaway” and “Merlin’s Gun” share a common character and a baroque space-opera setting, but I regret to say that neither particularly grabbed me. Perhaps the next time I re-read them…

    Given that most of Reynolds’ short-stories so far have been published in the United Kingdom, most of the stories collected here will be unknown to American readers. Of the two exceptions collected in Hartwell and Cramer’s year’s-best anthologies to date, only “Beyond the Aquila Rift” is reprinted here, and it’s just as good now as upon a first read –perhaps even more so, given the big twists. (The other year’s-best story, “Tiger, Burning”, was published too late for inclusion.)

    One story is original to this volume. “Signal to Noise” is a strong and memorable narrative of parallel universes and lost lovers, a rare near-future story that shows a promising direction for Reynolds should he choose to step back from the far-future space opera that has been his specialty until now.

    The other standout piece in the book, “Understanding Space and Time”, neatly encapsulates its goal and appeal in its title. I suspect that this is one of the pieces that immediately serve to distinguish those who love SF for its aspirational attitude toward knowledge from those who just like the stuff for other reasons: It’s both overwritten and simplistic, but I’m reasonably certain that it will leave other SF fans thrilled with a glimpse at the unknown.

    On the design side of things, Night Shade Books should be praised for having been inspired by the design of Reynolds’ Gollanz/Ace books to deliver a cover that fits well on the shelf with the rest of the author’s work. It’s a small detail, but the kind of service that makes Night Shade such a dependable publisher both for readers and authors. Zima Blue is the kind of single-author short story collection what too often gets forgotten by major publishers, much to the detriment of everyone. If it can manage to make me look more favorably upon Reynold’s works… imagine what it can do for you.

  • Wall·E (2008)

    Wall·E (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2008) Even at its worst, Pixar makes better movies than 95% of what’s out there, and if Wall·E leaves too many uncomfortable questions open to debate, its willingness to raise such questions is enough to make this cute-robot movie one of the best SF movies of the year. There’s something admirable in how it manages to present a complete (even surprisingly deep) story with two main characters that barely share a twenty-word vocabulary: Lengthy moments pass without much more than sound effects, the plot building up through an accumulation of visual clues. When Wall·E expands to reveal a very different setting, more characters and a more urgent rhythm, it’s a minor miracle that it holds together. Beyond cute robots and slapstick gags, you’ll find a criticism of consumerism and at least three references to 2001. While some quieter bits are overdone, the rest of the film showcases Pixar’s trademark self-confidence in squeezing all potential out of their premises, flashing by the implications almost faster than anyone can catch. But by the end of the film, we’re left with a few issues that still haven’t been solved: There’s little indication that the errors of the past won’t be repeated and that the decision to come back won’t prove to be a pain for most: all of this is glossed over with an elaborate (and rather clever) epilogue-as-a-credit-sequence. Hm. But never mind that: It’s still one of the best movies of the year.

  • The Silent Partner (1978)

    The Silent Partner (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2008) Both good enough to be entertaining and bad enough to be amusing, this drama benefits from a good script by Curtis Hanson (who would later achieve notoriety with L.A. Confidential), capable actors, and a very Torontonian setting to overcome thirty years of bad editing, ridiculous replies and stiff direction. This low-budget film has definitely aged, but more in individual moments rather than overall story: The plot (about a bank clerk who matches wits with a robber) still works wonderfully well today, as the protagonist (Elliott Gould) proves both resourceful and sympathetic in a cornered-sad-dog fashion. A slick-faced scenery-chewing Christopher Plummer plays the devilishly evil antagonist, while John Candy makes an appearance as another bank employee. People familiar with Toronto will get plenty of small thrills as the film is largely set in the Eaton center, features shots of City Hall and the CN Tower, and even has its characters talking while driving a convertible down the Gardiner Expressway. The film isn’t so successful in its shot construction, reflecting the stiff pre-digital low-budget conventions. But once that’s past (and once given the indulgence to laugh over some unexpectedly terrible moments), The Silent Partner remains an effective little crime drama, with unexpected twists, a better-than-average duel between protagonist and antagonist, and a uniquely Canadian flavor.