Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Beyond Recall, Stephen Kyle

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Vision, 2000, 438 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60809-2

    Thriller readers are most often presented with grotesquely non-negotiable alternatives. Evil terrorists versus pure peacekeepers. Democracy versus dictatorship. Blood-giving heroes versus puppy-kicking villains. Some will say that it’s typical of the American binary mindset: It’s much easier to make choices when you demonize the alternative, as it all too often happens during American elections.

    On the other hand, such easy choices usually mean more straightforward entertainment. What would QUAKE be if you could choose to negotiate with your opponents? What if the terrorists in the latest Hollywood blockbusters were working toward a laudable goal? (To be fair, THE ROCK did this… only to turn around at a critical moment and have some terrorists “go renegade” on their leader, thereby re-establishing comfortable polarity) What if, instead of simple entertainment, we had flawed heroes and virtuous villains, setting up true drama in the process? With Beyond Recall, “simple thriller” readers get the chance to find out if such departures from the norm offer something more than the usual black-versus-white mentality of genre entertainment.

    The premise is apparently simple: terrorists threaten to unleash a biologically-engineered plague on the United States if their demand are not meant. But the complications begin as soon as you look into it a bit further: The plague will target only women. The demands are to set up a multi-billion fund for the education of third-world women. The terrorists’ ultimate goal? To halt ecological damage through population control, one way of the other: Educate the women (a proven way to lower population growth and raise standards of living) or sharply reduce the reproductive capacity of the consuming nations.

    Already, we’re presented with a moral dilemma: Though the ends are good, the method isn’t. And as the United States do not negotiate with terrorists, there’s a significant potential for mutually assured incomprehension.

    Beyond Recall‘s basic premise is fascinating. Things don’t go as well as the various characters are introduced. To heighten drama, author Stephen Kyle basically interrelates everyone involved: The chief terrorist is the White House advisor on bio-terrorist matter but also the mother of a lobbyist who’s married to the FBI’s main man of the affair. Meanwhile, the chief terrorist is the ex-lover of the only doctor able to build an antidotes except that the doctor’s wife was one of the first victims of the virus’ test run… I’m not making any of this up.

    The melodramatic (and somewhat ridiculous) interrelation between characters easily destroys most of the novel’s power though soap-operatic plot dynamics and god-awful resolutions. By the epilogue of the novel, the good doctor is doing the wild thang(s) with the lobbyist, which practically smacks of incest or, at the very least, of Hollywood-style old-man/young-girl power fantasies. Creepy, and maybe more than the premise.

    When the novel fails at that level, it doesn’t take much to make it fail at other levels too. The pacing is deficient in the second half of the book. Kyle also blurs the distinction so much between good guys and bad guys (the President is painted as an angry idiot, the FBI agent as a bad guy for no real reason than he’s opposed to the chief terrorist which is set up as the protagonist, etc…) that readers might just give trying to find someone to cheer for. It’s all quite unbelievable, and that’s ultimately the impression left by the book.

    If you’re going to blur good and evil, it takes a lot of skill to keep the reader going without clear reasons to cheer or jeer, and I frankly don’t think that Kyle is experienced enough. No reason to condemn the author in perpetuity; it’s still his first novel, after all. (And, heck, he’s a fellow Ontarian writer, so he deserves a little home-grown respect) But he still fails to deliver on an intriguing premise for reasons not entirely related to the premise itself. Veteran thriller readers might find Beyond Recall an intriguing experiment because of its failing, but readers looking for some comfortable summer beach reading are advised to skip this one.

  • The Great Escape (1963)

    The Great Escape (1963)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2000) Allied prisoners-of-war try to escape a high-security Nazi camp. Ingredient for a classic? Absolutely! A totally satisfying film experience? Not quite. If the first two-third of the film are a fascinating parade of clever ways to escape the camp, the film is dragged down by a depressing last third, in which the logical conclusion of the great escape (it ain’t a spoiler, it’s the title!) are played out. But don’t interpret that as an excuse not to rush out and grab the copy at your nearest video store: The Great Escape withstands the test of time quite well, with its top-notch technical credits, all-around great performances (Steve McQueen!) and nifty script.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2021) Clearly hailing from the war-is-an-adventure school of filmmaking, The Great Escape is never quite as good as when it details how a group of allied prisoners plot their escape from a Nazi camp. Much of the film’s first act is a pure procedural, as the locked-up allied flyers poke and prod at the camp’s weaknesses, find ingenious ways to plan their escape and react to unforeseen circumstances. The middle portion of the film is the escape itself, a tense but fascinating sequence in which a few of them make it outside the camp. It’s perhaps inevitable that the film loses some steam in the last third – if you accept the escape as the climax, the rest feels like an extended epilogue, and a somewhat grim one considering that many escapees are not brought back to camp. Still, The Great Escape does make for some fascinating viewing, especially when you start looking at the cast. It’s impressive how the film managed to find a place for a loner persona such as Steve McQueen’s, even in the middle of an ensemble cast. Otherwise, well, you get to pick from James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Plesance or James Coburn, among others. It’s fascinating to read about the real events that inspired the film – while many details have been modified or stripped away (including the Canadian participation, grump grump), a good chunk of authenticity has been kept after Hollywood’s alterations. It all makes for a film that has aged quite well and will continue to find fans for a while longer.

  • Coyote Ugly (2000)

    Coyote Ugly (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) Ay-yay-yay, how ordinary can you be? I imagine the pitch for this film being roughly “Hey, I’ve got twenty minutes of wild Cocktail-for-chicks bar stuff! Any one of you can dust off one of your rejected romance plot to fluff it up?” Sure, Piper Perabo look cute and the rest of the waitresses at the “Coyote Ugly” (that wiiild bar) are pretty hot even when fully clothed, but the rest of the film is a complete bore, showing us a trite romance that we must have seen countless times already. Shamelessly manipulative, often ridiculously implausible, laughably “edgy” (being a struggling songwriter is never so glamorous as in a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film) and all-and-all rather forgettable, Coyote Ugly delivers what no one expected from it; utter averageness.

  • Charlie’s Angels (2000)

    Charlie’s Angels (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) Halfway through the film, I leaned over to a friend and whispered “I can’t decide whether this is getting better or worse” and that will stand as a nutshell review. On one level, it’s one of the worst blockbusters of 2000: Hyperactive editing, sexist imagery, thin characters and one of the most incoherent script seen so far. On the other hand, it’s directed with such reckless audaciousness and played with such bouncy abandon that it’s hard not to be swept along with the fun. The film starts in high gear and never lets up. Film students will go bonkers trying to decode the cinematic techniques used by director “McG”, as he throws everything at the screen, often at the same time. Surprisingly or not, Charlie’s Angels pushes back the cinematic techniques at a pace comparable to the more “serious” filmmakers. What helps to swallow the disjointed script (obviously written on-the-fly, as demonstrated by out-of-nowhere sequences like the car chase) is an intermittent self-awareness that winks at the audience. Also notable is the great soundtrack, which often doubles as ironic commentary (the use of The Prodigy’s “Smack my bitch up” during a fight scene between the thin man and the three angels is either a product of complete cluelessness or subversive brilliance) Despite a reportedly difficult shooting, all of the four main players look like they’re having as much fun as we do: Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz are adorable as always, Bill Murray is his usual dependable self and Drew Barrymore is surprisingly good. (A mention goes to Crispin Glover in a silent, but effective, role) Charlie’s Angels will probably remain as a film that gets no respect, but tons of fans.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, July 2001) I’ll admit that this isn’t a movie for everyone. Animated with a hyperkinetic energy that tramples down any attempt at conventional criticism, Charlie’s Angels nevertheless features a basic self-awareness that helps a lot in respecting the film for what it is, and the DVD version of the movie confirms many suspicions in this regard. Surprisingly, the film is almost as much fun on a second viewing, mostly because there’s never a dull moment. The editing is rapid but not chaotic, the directing is much better than initially apparent (watch for those lengthy single shots, a clear indicator that director “McG” is more than your usual music-video director) and the overall sense of fun simply doesn’t let go. Great action sequences, a fabulous soundtrack and oodles of sex-appeal are the icing on the cake. Dig down through the plentiful extra features on the DVD, and you’ll understand why the film works so well: The lively audio commentary makes it clear that everyone involved in the film knew they were doing a comic-book film, and they’re justifiably proud of what they achieved. No social relevance; just fun. Worth not only a look, but a second look.

  • Bring It On (2000)

    Bring It On (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) You can evaluate films on artistic merit, or you can just measure how much fun you had while watching it. Well, Bring It On is unquestionably one of 2000’s most enjoyable films, an irresistibly bubbly teen comedy executed with skill and above-average intelligence. A rather complete surprise, considering that you wouldn’t except a teen sport comedy about cheerleading to be anything but fluff. But while Bring It On doesn’t break out of the teen genre as, say, Election did, it remains as one of the best recent entries in the genre. The script very good, filled with good one-liners, properly acknowledging clichés and managing non-boring relationship scenes. The actors all look like they’re having fun, with Kirsten Dunst continuing her good career choices. (In fifty years, I suspect she’ll pop up that film once in a while just to bask in the glory of how good she looked and how well she performed.) Technically, the choreography of the cheerleading scenes is really impressive and the soundtrack is very good (Even somewhat clever, linking 2 Unlimited’s “Are you ready for this” to a trite, unoriginal routine. Ho-ho!) From its incredible first scene (a masterwork of structure, introducing the main characters in a wild-out dream sequence) to its bouncy sing-along credits, Bring It On is one of the year’s surprise delights, a teen film that’s enjoyable well beyond its simple voyeuristic appeal. Though that’s not to be neglected either.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, July 2001) Among the dreck that passes off as teen films, you occasionally get a smart film that either goes beyond the teen genre (Election) or simply works so well that everyone can get into it (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Bring It On is another example in that last category, a fun film without any pretensions, but made with considerable cleverness by people with perspective and respect for the audience. The film is a blast even on a second viewing, and the director’s audio commentary is worth another viewing by itself. (Choice quote, which probably explains the appeal of Bring It On to me: “I tried making a cheerleader film with a punk sensibility”.) You might even pick up a few of the subtle messages (No!) vehicled by the film. Impossible not to smile and cheer for a film when everyone involved looks like they’re having that much fun! Be sure to check out the “deleted scenes” section of the DVD, which features great scenes you’ll wish had remained in the finished product. I love the film more than ever, and easily confirm its standing on my 2000 Top-10 list.

  • Breaking The Waves (1996)

    Breaking The Waves (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2000) Not all films are for everyone, but frankly I’d start worrying about anyone with the inner will to sit through Breaking The Waves‘s seemingly interminable duration. If the annoying characters don’t make you run for the exits, the “naturalistic” dialogue and the awful shaky-cam direction will surely make you hurl. If I wanted to be generous, I’d say that the “realistic” style of the film is exceptionally good at representing the unpleasantness of the story, but that’s really faint praise compared to the rest of the film’s flaws. My attention eventually drifted off, only returning occasionally for nude scenes (nothing to see here) or a character’s death. (which was applauded, for it signaled the impending end of the film.) Only hard-core art-film buffs need apply, I guess.

  • Blood Simple. (1984)

    Blood Simple. (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, November 2000) This thriller by the Coen brother takes a long, long, long time to get going, as we’re introduced to an array of increasingly unsympathetic characters who all seem to be doing their best to become even more unlikable. Eventually, though, the plot mechanics so laboriously introduced all come into play, and the film gets progressively more interesting. Already obvious from their first film is the Coens’ eye for good images, which remains interesting even when the rest isn’t.

  • Bats (1999)

    Bats (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, November 2000) Horror film, released on Halloween weekend 1999 and in the “classic” section of your video store barely a year later. Sounds bad? It is. Ridiculous script, unconvincing special effects, adequate acting (at least it’s good to see Lou Diamond Philips and Dina Meyer working again) and familiar plotting make this a rather innocuous film, not worth a bother but with the potential to amuse (perhaps not as intended) if there’s nothing else to do.

  • The Abyss (1989)

    The Abyss (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, November 2000) Unjustly forgotten by audiences and dismissed by critics upon its initial release, James Cameron’s underwater epic was partially redeemed in 1992 is it was re-released on video as a longer “special edition”. But this fantastic two-disc DVD edition really does justice not only to the exceptional film, but also to the stunning technical difficulties encountered during the film’s production. Tons of extras make this edition a must-buy for the film’s fans. (Don’t make the mistake of renting it, or you’ll despair at how little time you’ll have to watch it all.) Technical production values are insanely high, and they hold up amazingly well in this era of computer graphics (which it helped along, really). A great film by any standards. See it again.

  • The Bear and the Dragon, Tom Clancy

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Putnam, 2000, 1028 pages, C$39.99 hc, ISBN 0-399-14563-X

    Well, America’s master techno-thriller writer is back with a new book, and the overall feeling is one of… déjà-vu.

    Tom Clancy fans will remember that the last “Jack Ryan” novel, Executive Orders starred Ryan as the President of the United States, confronted with multiple crises, both internal and external. It all got solved neatly by huge military battles and other assorted action scenes. America was safe once again, and everyone went to sleep satisfied until the next Clancy novel.

    This time around, we get more of the same. Except much more of the same. Ryan is still president, except he’s been legitimately elected and now has a mandate to preserve American hegemony. The evil bastards threatening said hegemony are still these cackling Chinese baddies, given that the cackling Russian baddies have retired and are now America’s partners. All of these alliances will come into play as huge resources are discovered in Siberia and China is forced to choose between bankruptcy and invasion.

    A big China/Russia war has often been mentioned as a potential threat in military techno-thrillers, but rarely represented (only Slater’s WWIII series has done so, if I remember correctly) because it raises so many random factor (such as historical rivalries, alien mindsets and, oh, nuclear weapons on both sides) that any lesser writer can only feel daunted at the prospect.

    Not Tom Clancy, obviously. With The Bear and the Dragon, he tests the patience of readers across the world as he clocks it at 1028 pages, his biggest novel ever and a serious contender for heftiest non-fantasy bestseller of the year. Filled with extravagantly presented plotting, multi-page technical details, chapters of back-story and a surprising grasp of political complexity, The Bear and the Dragon exasperates as it fascinates. Half the novel is figuring out when all these interlocking plotlines will intersect, and the other half is spent admiring how neatly everything fits together. Like it or not, the depth of The Bear and the Dragon makes any other political technothriller seem naive and superficial. If anything, the description of the presidency even feels more accurate here than in Executive Orders. There’s even a stronger conclusion, though it’s considerably diluted by the sheer number of pages setting it up.

    A large number of Clancy’s surviving characters from previous novels come back in this one. Fine if you remember all these people; less if you don’t. At this point in time, the Clancyverse is so cumbersome that novices are advised not to apply.

    It’s a bit irrelevant whether the novel is good or bad: Fans will love it, and non-fans won’t. As a Clancy devotee, I liked it, but as a base reader, I’m pining for the moment where Clancy’s current editor will explode from overwork and his replacement will force the author to write shorter, tighter novels. It’s common wisdom that Clancy’s earlier novels (The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games) are his best, and that’s in no small part due to the better action/pages ratio. Heck, with Red Storm Rising, he did World War Three in fewer pages than the skirmish in The Bear and the Dragon!

    But such a radical shift is unlikely to happen. If anything, I don’t even think that Clancy has an editor any more. (One particularly annoying tic in The Bear and the Dragon is a tendency to repeat every good line at least twice during the novel. They probably hired multiple copy editors to bring in the book under deadline, and they didn’t consult.)

    In the meantime, you can get The Bear and the Dragon in hardcover for not even 4c a page. If nothing else, you’ll gain in volume what you don’t in page-per-page quality.

  • Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams and Mark Cawradine

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Stoddart, 1990, 208 pages, C$??.?? hc, ISBN 0-7737-2454-0

    British writer Douglas Adams has already earned a place in SF’s hall of fame with a series of zany SF comedies beginning with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Depending heavily on a keep sense of the absurd and a deep knowledge of genre conventions, the series has known enormous success, and rumors of a cinematic adaptation have been going on for at least twenty years.

    This has made Adams simultaneously rich and annoyed. Sure, now he’s worth millions due to enormous sales. On the other hand, it must be tough to deal with those hordes of fans constantly demanding a sequel to the Hitchhiker’s series. (Some conspiracy theorist insist that the fifth and so far final book of the series, 1992’s Mostly Harmless, was deliberately awful and depressing to ensure that no one will even demand another sequel.)

    With Last Chance to See, Adams gets as far away from interstellar adventures as possible, yet wisely keeps all the elements that have made the success of his best-known works.

    Last Chance to See is about animal species being driven to extinction. With a subject like that, you’d be forgiven to expect preachy moralism and dramatic didactism. But that isn’t Adams’ style: He makes the unusual choice to go for comedic earnestness. In short, he considers Earth as a foreign planet.

    Fortunately, he’s got a lot of material to work with: As most endangered species are located in hard-to-reach places far from civilization, the travel accommodations of Adams and straight-man zoologist Mark Cawradine often make up for quasi-alien strangeness. Not everyone around the world believes in punctuality, honesty, integrity or even safety. To see our intrepid -but incurably British- travelers deal with the travel difficulties is one of the highlights of the book.

    And this is a book with so many highlights, so many delights, so many laugh-aloud moments that it’s hard to isolate favorite excerpts. Adams plays a perfect buffoon, and makes of co-writer Cawradine a splendid foil. Their comedy duo adds a lot to a book that’s already quite enjoyable as it is. I defy anyone to come up with many other examples of such compulsively readable travel journalism. Not only won’t you be able to put it down, but you’ll also want to give copies to your friends.

    But don’t get the impression that even though the book is a laugh riot, that it’s completely without deeper meaning. If anything else, the comedy makes the pathos even more poignant, giving to the book an air of playing a funny violin air as a library is burning. Adams’s talent at perception reversion through absurdity illustrates splendidly the oft-unbelievable ironies of the world. It’s not hard to imagine Adams as an alien journalist commenting upon the world. But they again, he’s had plenty of practice at that.

    Simultaneously moving and unbelievably funny, Last Chance to See is a curiosity, a moralistic book that can be enjoyed without guilt, and a goofy style that’s nevertheless devastatingly intelligent. It’s going to hold up very well to a re-reading in some time. You might have a hard time finding a copy, but it will be worth it. It would be even better if some publisher re-edited the book with an updated epilogue.

    If Douglas Adams wants to give up SF comedy for non-fiction on a regular basis, consider me subscribed.

  • Death du Jour, Kathy Reichs

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1999, 451 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-01137-5

    It has to be difficult, being a mystery fiction author. Not only do your stories have to be sufficiently easy to read on the bus (where, I’d wager, most of America’s crime-fiction reading takes place), but it’s got to be sufficiently complex as to not disappoint die-hard fans of the genre. Add to that the usual trappings of a writer’s life (like, oh, finding inspiration, finding the time to write, finding an audience and keeping all of those) and you really feel sorry when a novel somehow doesn’t match expectations. Such is the case with Kathy Reich’s second novel, Death du Jour.

    As a French-Canadian, I have a natural liking for Reichs’s series of novels featuring Temperance Brennan, an American forensic anthropologist working in Quebec. Most of Brennan’s adventures take place in or around Montreal, the other characters are often francophones and the Quebec-related details are usually adequate. Brennan (and Reichs) being outsiders in “my” culture, they can bring a different perspective that’s always interesting. I can never quite escape the feeling of “animal in a zoo”, but that’s not so bad.

    The first novel, Deja Dead, was decent, though it nearly approached cliché in its depiction of yet another crazed serial killer and the spunky female protagonist that tracked him. (Readers across North America yawned in unison when the two finally fought each other in the heroine’s apartment at the end of the book. Deja vu, all right! Pundits bitch about the effect of movies on people, but I bet they never mean that.)

    At least Death du jour avoids dealing with yet another another crazed serial killer by focusing on… something else. Though initially about a set of corpses discovered in a burned-up house, it’s quickly obvious that Reichs’s second novel will be about crazed killer sects. How quickly obvious will depend on your knowledge of Quebec criminal history and general crime-fiction. On that, in turn, will hinge your appreciation of the novel.

    Allow me to explain: Quebec is such a small province (7 million people, roughly half that around Montreal… that’s even less that only the city of New York!) that major criminal matters tends to be infrequent, and well-publicized when they do happen. Hence the publicity made around “L’ordre du Temple Solaire”, a cult that ultimately self-destructed by mass suicide, in Quebec and in Switzerland. The fallout of this affair, a mysterious fire that took a few more victims, made news for a week or so.

    Guess what happens in Death du Jour? Granted, not everyone will make the links, but those who do will have to tolerate another hundred pages as the cult angle becomes clear.

    Worse is Reichs’ frequent use of interconnections between the novel’s characters. A randomly-chosen university professor is tied with a cult leader and with a student whose friends are coincidentally discovered murdered and so on and so forth. Those who hate coincidences in novels should stay clear of this one, where it smacks of bad plotting.

    The complete cluelessness of the characters is another sore point, as they fail to links event that are nevertheless obvious to the reader. It doesn’t help that Reichs’s is downright lazy in her plotting: When Brennan’s sister attends “a lifestyle seminar” in the middle of a cult-driven novel, you don’t have to be a genius to know what’s going to happen.

    Oh, and the climax takes place during The Ice Storm of 1998. Isn’t stealing from The Montreal Gazette wonderful?

    Reader reactions will vary depending on their tolerances for such writing laziness. Even though I really wanted to give a chance to Death du Jour, there were simply too many annoyances to give it anything better than a disappointing grade.

  • Cave of Stars, George Zebrowski

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Prism, 1999, 276 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-06-105299-X

    It often happens, especially in Science-Fiction, that a book that starts off in an entertaining, dynamic, innovative fashion runs out of steam midway through, falling back on stock situations to resolve an intriguing premise. Not every writer can sustain far-out speculation and appropriate style for 300+ plus pages. Then there’s the Hailey syndrome (from Arthur Hailey, the author of contemporary docu-fiction such as Airport, Hotel and The Moneychangers) in which the author spends almost half the book exploring a neat setting, even or concept, only to wrap a quick, trivial and unsatisfying story at the end to justify the “fiction” label.

    It’s far less common, however, to encounter a novel that starts out in a dull and tepid fashion, only to become steadily more interesting as it goes along. Given that the first few pages of a novel are supposed to hook the reader and give his the impetus to read the whole book, authors often consciously take care to punch up the introduction.

    Not with George Zebrowski. Cave of Stars begins as so many bad SF novel begin: A few scenes on a distant human colony, sketching a rigidly conservative society whose power is wielded by priests all the way up to the emperor/pope. Stock characters are also introduced; the star-crossed couple from different social levels, the assistant to the emperor, etc… Not a very good start, because we’ve seen all of this before, and usually handled in a more entertaining fashion. It’s dull, it’s boring, it doesn’t show any sign of improving over the first thirty pages. If anyone quits reading at this point, it’s perfectly understandable.

    But stick around; in a short while, a massive space colony (a macrolife habitat from Zebrowski’s previous novel Macrolife) arrives in the vicinity of the colony and makes contact. They bring new technology that worry the religious elite. Among them; a cure for mortality, which immediately interests the pope who seeks it for himself. His petition is refused, which provokes an answer so terrible that it alters the whole course of the novel to something you really haven’t seen before.

    It takes time, but Cave of Stars really cooks past the novel’s halfway point. As if the weak planetary romance of the first few pages was only a setup for one of Zebrowski’s big “What if?” concept. The writing becomes clearer, the goals more sharply defined and the narrative tension definitely heightened.

    By the end, Cave of Stars doesn’t somehow become so good that it overwrites the bad impression left by its weak beginning, but it becomes a decently entertaining novel. (It’s not as if the latter part is so good; some choices are definitely bizarre, and the ending is a half-downer. It’s obvious that this is an author-driven novel as compared to a character-driven novel, and the result is a bit too forced to feel entirely natural).

    As a side-show to Macrolife it’s actually better than the middle portion of Zebrowski’s 1979 novel. (Which was, as stated in my previous review, so idea-packed that the rotten fictive aspect of the novel didn’t really matter.) As a stand-alone SF novel, it comes out as being average, dogged by its beginning and ill-defined characters but partially redeemed by a steadily interesting plot. Goes straight in the “if there’s nothing else to read” pile.

  • Blood Moon, Sharman DiVono

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    DAW, 1999, 441 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-88677-853-0

    In 1997, the movie EVENT HORIZON arrived in theaters… only to disappear almost immediately, unseen by most moviegoers and destroyed by critics, who saw in it yet another slasher film crossed with yet another ALIEN clone. Not a bad description, really; In the film, a rescue crew sent to investigate the mysterious appearance of an experimental ship discovers evidence of supernatural influence in the original crew’s demise.

    I was one of the lucky few who saw EVENT HORIZON in theaters, and somehow loved the film unconditionally. For some reason, it worked very well on me and even today, you can get me going on a ten-minute monologue on the rationality-versus-superstition motif in EVENT HORIZON and how, with a few tweaks, EVENT HORIZON could have been a modern SF/horror classic. It remains one of the few horror films which made me lose some sleep, though I was kept awake more by the potential of the film than its execution. And the same elements that attracted me to EVENT HORIZON are probably those which compelled me to read Blood Moon.

    The novel wastes no time in starting in full-blown hard-SF mode. As a rescue team lands on the moon, the reader is subjected to a barrage of acronyms, technical details, techno-speak and steel-gray descriptions. In this context, the initial horrors contained in Moonbase (where, is it useful to add, a previous astronaut team has abruptly ceased all communications with the home planet) seems all the more shocking. Graffitis everywhere in dried blood (“Food for the Moon” plus a few extra occult signs and obscenities), trashed equipment and no sign of anyone are the initial jolts. Worse is the presence of swarms of flies, not only because of their unpleasant associations with devil imagery (Beelzebub by any other name) but mostly because of their invasion of a traditionally antiseptic environment.

    Things go from bad to worse, as a survivor dies of fright upon seeing the rescue team, and the only last live member of the previous team is stark raving mad. The novel then shifts in procedural mode, as everyone, on the Moon or on Earth, tries to figure out what’s happening.

    Things get weirder after that, as we’re constantly see-sawing between rationality and pure horror in trying to reconstruct the last moments of the previous expedition. DiVono drags things out for too long, unfortunately, and the novel could have used tighter editing. No less than two romantic subplots seem tacked-on for no useful reason, and the continuing lack of commitment to either hard-SF procedure or occult manifestations eventually grates when carried on for this long. Most characters are indistinct and there aren’t as many “cool scenes” as you would expect from the above premise. Fortunately, the conclusion is rather good (not to mention fascinating in its cosmological implications), which goes a long to redeem the novel.

    (Alas, there are also a few errors. From a cursory reading, at least three minor mistakes really stand out: The moon isn’t a planet, mass is not equivalent to weight (which is why a hammer does not have to be heavier on the moon) and it is the Apollo 1 astronauts which died in their capsule, not Apollo 7, though you can probably chalk the last one to the copy editor. None of these mistakes really affect the plot, but -hey-, if you’re going to play the hard-SF game, you might as well play it right!)

    But ultimately, none of these problems detract from the sheer curiosity of a book willing to try to merge hard-SF and horror. Good or bad, it doesn’t really matter when it’s so interesting. In a time where publishing genres are merging, fusing and borrowing from each other, Blood Moon stands as a particularly absorbing and unusual offering. Base readers will love the entertainment and serious SF scholars will delight in its meta-fictional significance, but Blood Moon is worth a read one way or the other.

    Too bad it’s not all that scary. But then again you can’t put a shrieking violins soundtrack in a book.

  • What Lies Beneath (2000)

    What Lies Beneath (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, October 2000) This exasperates the seasoned moviegoer at the same time than it thrills everyone who seen only one of two films a year. The endless use of jump shots (you know the drill: everything goes quiet when suddenly -WHAM- something appears in the frame.) is not only overused (there are nearly a dozen of them in the film) but they’re so obviously predictable that they’ll cause more groans than shrieks. The plotting plods along, wasting at least forty minutes of everyone’s time (and a few million dollars) with useless subplots and red herrings while, at the same time, the poster, trailers, ad copy and video box cover all jump-start the film by basically telling everything but the last fifteen minutes (which can be easily predicted by, again, the seasoned moviegoer, who’s seen this stuff far too many times already.) The setups are all so obvious that they might as well be underlined with subtitles stating Pay Attention. This Will Come Up Later. Still, not everything is awful; the film is boring until maybe thirty minutes before the end, when we move in true thriller territory and the directing itself seems to break loose from the pedestrian form it had followed this far. (And so we find ourselves peeping through floors and tracking someone from a long shot of a bridge to inside a truck cabin.) The awfully convenient ending (crashing through all this shrub to end up at this exact spot?) is way overboard, but by this time, the audience (seasoned or plain) is just grateful that stuff’s happening and special effects are used that it doesn’t really matter any more. A shameless, big-budget, big-stars film that doesn’t have a clue, but which will most certainly fool every casual viewer that it’s somewhat good.