Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)

    Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2004) Well, it’s obvious that Chris Columbus is out of the picture for the third instalment of the Harry Potter series: the colour palette is harsher, Hogwarts has abandoned its all-Caucasian student policy and the camera actually moves once in a while. Hurrah for Alfonso Cuarón! But it takes more than pans and swoops to make a good film, and if Harry Potter 3 is a lot more fun to look at, it’s curiously not as steadily compelling as the first two films. The film even become literally repetitive toward the end, capping a curiously tepid dramatic arc. It certainly doesn’t help that the script cut a lot of the original story to fit in a reasonable length: some details didn’t make sense until they were patiently explained to me by other Potterphiles. (The ending is particularly chaotic, pulling thin threads out of nowhere) But let’s not go overboard with criticism: Even when it’s middling, the Harry Potter series has enough good stuff to leapfrog over most of the other movies of the year. Acting-wise, the lead trio does a fine job, and will hopefully be able to follow the series along until the end. Onward to the fourth volume, then.

  • Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

    Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2004) Devastating. It’s not that there is a lot of new material here (reading a lot of left-wing blogs helps in being jaded), but the way Michael Moore arranges nearly four years of American history in a coherent opinion piece is unbelievably effective. From Bush’s incompetent first few months in power to the trauma of September 11th and the terror hysteria leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Moore says out loud what an increasing number of people are thinking. His use of archival footage is nearly flawless and speaks for itself (though I would have used dates and attributions on every single frame); compared to his previous Bowling For Columbine, Moore manages to avoid being on-camera most of the time and the film is much more effective for it. I defy other movies this year to do what Fahrenheit 9/11 does on an emotional register; in a large crowd, you can hear the laughs, the crying, the gasps and the stunned denials. The music also helps a lot, going from the unsubtle (“Vacation”) to the ironic (oscillating between happy and ominous music between shots) to the breathtakingly nasty (I wonder how many people noticed the “Cocaine” riff?) Yes, it’s a mash-up of two movies (the pre-Iraq treatise on Bush’s incompetence and corruption; then the Iraq mess), but that’s at the image of what has happened to Moore, heck, to America itself in 2001-2004, smashed from one narrative to another whether they liked it or not. All in all, a wonder of a movie, one that actually dares to push back the establishment, and even veers into highly subversive territory mere moments before fading to black. Whew!

  • The First Wives’ Club, Olivia Goldsmith

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Poseidon Press, 1992, 441 pages, C$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-671-74693-6

    As a science-fiction geek, a techno-nerd, a cynic, heck, a young man, I’m not exactly the poster-perfect fan for Olivia Goldsmith’s oeuvre. But look closer: Not only will I admit a deep romantic streak, but Goldsmith’s books aren’t quite your usual run-of-the-mill romantic fiction for women.

    All of the reasons why are obvious in The First Wives Club, Goldsmith’s first published novel. (and the one most likely to be remembered given its status as a mildly successful film back in 1996) All the ingredients that would later surface in what I’ve read of hers (from Fashionably Late to The Bestseller) are all there: the frank language, the adult content, the heavy-handed morality, the use of strong female protagonists, the delightful prose style… For a novel, it’s a pretty good read. For a first novel it’s even more impressive.

    The main dramatic arc (though it would be more appropriate to speak of a comic arc) is straight female-empowerment stuff: Dumped by their husbands for younger, more vapid second wives, our heroic trio decides to get mad and get even. Add to that the new romantic interests of the trio and their ex-husbands, the usual gallery of helpful secondary characters (including the de-rigueur flamboyant homosexual confidante) and you’ve got a cast of dozens with plenty of potential for social satire. There’s a “no trophy” icon embedded in the binding of the Pantheon Press hardcover edition, and it effectively summarizes the take-no-prisoner attitude of the protagonists. Hell hath no fury…

    Some may be tempted to describe the book as man-hating propaganda. But those tedious pundits would probably be the kind of people to protest the oppression of the modern male, and you won’t get two guesses as to what I think of those people. (Or why they’d be better off in self-assertion therapy.) The truth is that the Wives’ revenge would have been useless if their ex-husbands hadn’t all been crooks and perverts. Sicking the IRS one someone is useless unless there’s real financial trickery involved, right? Painting the antagonists as out-and-out villains may not be especially subtle nor realistic, (nor does it reflect well on our poor heroic trio; what the heck were they thinking when they married these guys?) but it’s not gratuitous man-bashing. Goldsmith, more than in any other of her other books, deals in archetypes. It is, after all, a light-hearted revenge fantasy: It’s not as if knives and squishy body parts are involved.

    What is involved, however, is a series of good scenes, especially if you’re a fan of over-the-top bonkbusters. You can almost see the blueprint behind the prose, the conscious attempt to write commercial fiction, the carefully-measured doses of sex and foul language. But scarcely any of that matters once you’re willing to play ball and sympathize with a trio of too-rich women with something to prove. The prose flies, the characters are speedily defined and scarcely any time is lost in attempts at sophistication. The New York social scene takes its lumps and even if there’s something almost annoying in how Goldsmith makes the same points over and over again, it’s hard to be resentful (or even dismissive) when we’re having some much fun.

    As a first novel, it’s a good prototype for Goldsmith’s later string of novels. The one thing that seems to have been refined later on is not the heavy-handed moral ending of her stories, but the delightful suspense in knowing if a character will commit to good or evil. Here, everything initially painted as one or another ends up with the same alignment. Latter books would at least allow some latitude in that choice (though appropriate fates would still befall the characters). I can’t help but think that in a latter book, Mort Cushman’s purgatory would have resulted in moral re-alignment, redemption and maybe even a faintly positive ending. Here, well… maybe in the sequel.

    All in all, though, it’s a worthwhile fun book, not particularly deep but amusing enough to please anyone looking for a few hours of entertainment. I wonder how the film compares, though…?

  • Ella Enchanted (2004)

    Ella Enchanted (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2004) Virtually unnoticed by critics and audiences, this fairy-tale satire actually works surprisingly well, solidly claiming a tradition in the vein of The Princess Bride. Part of the considerable charm of the picture rests squarely on the adorable shoulders of headliner Anne Hathaway, whose charisma shines throughout. (It’s not simply how cute she looks when she shakes-shakes-shakes her booty, though that also helps. For a kid’s film, its scores fairly high on the sex-appeal meter, what with perennial favourites Minnie Driver, Parminder Nagra and Vivian E. Fox all showing up for too-few scenes.) The premise (a mish-mash of fairy-tale sorcery and gentle political satire) has the potential to be annoying, what with its unconvincing “obedience” shtick, but it manages to go beyond the obvious gags and present something more interesting. The script eventually finds its voice, with some surprisingly clever moments. (it’s probably not accident if it’s adapted from a book) Special effects are uneven, through the opening fly-by is a thing of beauty. All in all, a fine time at the movies, and a film that can be enjoyed by the entire family.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, March 2005) Capable comedy riffing off fairytale motifs, holds up quite well to a second viewing. Good jokes, well told and quickly lined up. The limits of the budget are obvious, but the charm of Anne Hathaway in the lead role more than compensates for any sub-par special effects. Charming, fun and fit for the whole family. The DVD includes an adequate audio commentary and a number of supplements worth watching once, at the exception of the dull and repetitive featurette.

  • Connie and Carla (2004)

    Connie and Carla (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2004) Some movies are almost too fluffy to talk about. Such is the case here, with a light and inconsequential comedy in which two women on the run from the mob disguise themselves as… drag queens. Nia Vardalos is almost unbearably cute, but (as in the beginning of her previous Big Fat Greek Wedding) she’s not afraid to lather on repulsive coats of makeup for comic effect. Aside from her performance and her blandly pleasant script, the rest of the film is scarcely unremarkable, defusing stereotypes by sheer virtue of being inoffensive in all other aspects. I’d wonder about the reaction of actual drag queens to the film, except for the nagging suspicion that, like everyone else, they’d find it so darn hard to say anything less than nice about the film. It’s a campy comedy by the numbers; let’s leave it at that.

  • The Chronicles Of Riddick (2004)

    The Chronicles Of Riddick (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, June 2004) Oh no; here I am, twisted between a bad film and a genre I love, a ridiculous script and a director who knows what he’s doing. In some ways, this film is the epitome of dumb people’s conception of bad SF. Would I be inclined to melodramatic statements, I’d probably say something like how it “sets back the general public’s perception of SF by decades”, except that Battlefield Earth already damaged the genre’s perception for years. On the other hand, I’ve professed my admiration for David Twohy just about everywhere else, and there’s no denying that he’s attempting something very ambitious here. Too bad that it’s pure bargain-basement nonsense: despite some nifty details here and there, this movie rarely makes sense and is content to rely on tired clichés (the Furian prophecy, the easy “victory by killing the head vampire”, etc.) rather than bring forth something new. It doesn’t help that the direction is just about as original as the writing. Scientifically, it’s all trash (don’t get me started on the impossible weather patterns of Crematoria), but that hardly matters given that the film veers more often in science-fantasy territory. As such, there’s something admirable about the grandeur of the visuals: even though the film’s design is singularly ugly, it’s big and bold. Much of the same could be said for Vin Diesel, who once again turns in a serviceable return performance as bad-boy Riddick, though he’s nowhere near the impact of his turn in the prequel Pitch Black. Judi Dench and Colm Feore spend the entire movie slumming in undignified and humourless roles. Still, there’s an undeniable appeal in seeing scorched-hot Thandie Newton vamp around in a snake-tight outfit, or even Alexa Davalos do her best with the usual “tough chick” shtick. So there I am, twisted between dull directing, bad writing, a love of the genre and respect for Twohy. What’s a critic to do?

    (Second viewing, On DVD, March 2005) Some movies improve upon a second viewing and some don’t. This one not only doesn’t, but actively suffers from the supplement of information that is to be found on the DVD. Sure, some of the action sequences aren’t bad, the art direction is imaginative and Vin Diesel has a screen presence that can do much to compensate for the material. But nothing can raise the quality of the atrocious script, nor make sense of the ridiculous excuse for a science-fiction story. In fact, the more information is presented to us, the less sense the film makes. Yikes. Don’t listen to the audio commentary!

  • Mystic River, Dennis Lehane

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Torch, 2001, 448 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-73185-1

    Books are usually better than movies; that’s not a revelation. But reading Mystic River after seeing the film may provide the clearest illustration of why this is so. Hint; it’s all about bandwidth, baby.

    The first mistake in comparing cinema with prose is using mis-matching examples. Bad books novelized from bad films. Great books that end up being sucky films. Good books that are adapted in good movies that are completely different from the source. No, comparing the two requires an adaptation that is as close as possible to the original material. Needless to say, there aren’t many of these: For some reasons (usually money, insecure production personnel and the perils of collaborative endeavours), film adaptation usually bear only a passing resemblance to the original material. Endings are different. Characters are concatenated. Subplots are eliminated. Only very rarely do you find an adapted film that adheres to the original. It’s even rarer to find a good movie that stays true to a good book.

    MYSTIC RIVER is all that. Scripted with great skill by Brian Helgeland, it does an astonishing job at following the novel almost scene by scene, beat by beat. It’s exceedingly rare to find such fidelity, even more unusual to find that both versions are excellent. (Helgeland himself is no stranger to adaptations, though his 1997 take on L.A. Confidential is a perfect example of a good book turned in a great film that is nonetheless very different from the source)

    There’s no doubt about it: Mystic River is a great story, on the page or on film. A rich crime drama featuring complex characters and heart-wrenching choices, Dennis Lehane’s story escapes from the strict confines of crime-fiction by studying the effects of a murder on the victim’s friends and family, not strictly through the lens of the investigating sleuths. There is a mystery to be solved (and entertainingly so, should I add), but it’s not the main focus of the story. It’s the fragile relationships between three old friends, the environment they live in, their grief and their misguided attempts at justice that end up providing a quasi-tragic feel to the story.

    Anyone with a good grasp of the mystery genre already knows about the book’s reputation or the honours received by the film. There’s no need for me to say that it’s almost an essential piece of genre fiction. Just read or watch it already.

    But for literary film geeks like myself, reading Mystic River after seeing the film is a breathtaking demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of cinema as an art-form. Given the fidelity of the story, it’s easier to see what, in the background, makes the two ways of telling the story so different.

    To put it simply, the book’s 450 pages allow for a deeper understanding of the story. There is simply more information given about the characters’ state of mind than on the screen. It may not be so atmospheric nor so immersive (It’s easy to sit and watch the film, giving it two hours and a half to just flow without conscious effort), but it certainly communicates the author’s intention more effectively. In On Writing, Stephen King memorably refers to writing as a crude attempt at telepathy. Here, it’s obvious that the prose gets to the marrow of the characters more efficiently that the complicated narrative mechanics of a film. It wouldn’t have mattered in an action-driven film (oh, why don’t you go read the Godzilla novelization?), but it’s absolutely crucial in a story that takes some much time and effort fiddling with its characters as Mystic River.

    Even for fans of the film, the book delivers an entirely new experience; it’s like getting the real story behind the story, with all of its ramifications, historical antecedents and complicated motivations. Suddenly, sketchy movie moments become iconic representations of messy situations. None of that should be a knock against Helgeland, director Clint Eastwood or any of the talented actors involved in the making of the film. It should just be seen as a honest, all-cards-on-the-table comparison between two ways of telling the very same story.

  • Eastern Standard Tribe, Cory Doctorow

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2004, 221 pages, C$33.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-30759-6

    By now, everyone connected to the SF field should be aware that Cory Doctorow is rushing on the scene like a demented man. His second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, will only add to his reputation. A jumped-up mix of fallible characters and five-minutes-from-now speculation, this is the kind of book you read in a single sitting and then browse over for choice quotes.

    What if, on this ubi-connected globe, one feels more kinship to people living in another time zone? What if it’s just more practical to live online than offline, eschewing physical days for virtual ones set on the rhythms of your chosen “tribe”? In some fashion, the idea sort-of works: One can imagine Indian technological workers synced to their Californian managers (or vice-versa). Otakus can live “on Tokyo time” given broadband Internet access and plenty of Japanese friends. You can tie it with the “Global Village” concept without too much trouble. Where it fails the real-world test is when you assume that those “tribes” can start playing seriously dirty tricks on each other, or are anything more than arrangements of convenience. Then there are literal objections to the concept of “Eastern Standard Tribe”, as if everyone in that particular slice of time, from Abitibi to Bogota, was part of a homogeneous group. But that’s a lame objection, especially given that Doctorow adopts a satiric approach to the whole thing. Here, minor crime reporting to the London police will result in about half a day of inconveniences. Sony rentacops will tear-gas you without much of a due process. Legal advice can be obtained through an IRC channel. And so on. This isn’t real: Like many of his contemporaries, Doctorow reacts to the increasing strangeness of our reality by laughing at it.

    Other objections are more serious: Eastern Standard Tribe is a very short novel, and leaving aside the cost/benefit ratio, the book suffers from a few dramatic shortcuts: Here, awfully convenient freak meetings drive the plot forward, with sometimes-annoying results. The ungraceful ending feels compressed in about half a dozen pages, with scarcely any place for resolutions. Is also feels like a more scattered novel than Doctorow’s debut Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Maybe it is time for him to start working on bigger things with tighter plots and stronger endings.

    Still, this is far from being a disappointing novel: The structure of the book, as it alternates between a third-person flashback and a first-person “present” narration, is initially quite dazzling. (Unfortunately, it falters at the end, when the “present” is explained and the “past” starts being repetitive; we can figure out some plot points ourselves, thanks.) For techno-geeks such as myself, the type of nerd-core prose used by Doctorow feels natural, maybe even a natural extension of what we read on the net every day. There’s a strong identification to that particular brand of fiction… but some of the more specialized passages may very well be incomprehensible to the mundane masses.

    Still, it’s hard to be mad at a novel that clocks in at nearly 200 pages per hour in a single sitting. The brisk style, amusing vignettes, take-no-prisoners approach to the future are all in good fun. While I’m not as floored by this novel as I was with Doctorow’s first, it’s still likely to end up as one of my top choices for 2004. Of course, it’s already making me look forward for his next novel.

  • The Depths of Time (The Chronicles of Solace #1), Roger MacBride Allen

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 2000, 426 pages, C$21.95 tpb, ISBN 0-553-37811-2

    Looking at Roger MacBride Allen’s bibliography, one gets an awful glimpse in the life of a professional science-fiction writer. It’s a bizarre mis-mash of media novel (including a Star Wars trilogy), sharecropped series (“Isaac Asimov’s”), an unfinished series (“Hunted Earth”), some small-press publications and a scattering of novels which may or may not be singletons. Then there is his latest “Chronicles of Solace” trilogy, of which The Depths of Time is the first volume.

    While I have generally enjoyed a few of his earlier single works (The Modular Man and Farside Cannon, both solid SF books), this bibliography shows how difficult it is to be a working mid-list SF writer in today’s industry. Media tie-in and sharecropped series may not be glamorous, but they help to pay the bills. Unfortunately, they also plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of fans like me; Is he still capable of writing “honest” SF?

    The Depths of Time answers that question reassuringly. Despite some annoyances caused by the book’s role as the first volume in a trilogy, it’s a solid SF novel that ought to satisfy anyone looking for straight-up genre fiction.

    By far the biggest flaw of the book is how long it takes to set up all the elements of its world. It takes seventy-five pages to explain how the “Solace” universe is linked by a complex system of long-cryo starships and time-travel wormholes. Then we spend a few pages in the Grand Library around Neptune. And then nearly twenty-five pages to show how badly the terraforming on Solace is failing.

    In short, it takes more than a hundred pages to get to the main story. It’s a lot for any 400-pages novel, but it’s marginally more palatable for a 1200-pages trilogy. (This being said, only sharp-eyed readers will discerns the suggestion, in the acknowledgements, that this will be a “two or three” book series. Even the moniker “Chronicles of Solace” is taken from the subsequent volumes sitting on my shelves. Stupid editor, Caveat emptor!) Fortunately, it’s not uninteresting setup: MacBride Allen is a professional, and all of this laborious background is dramatized in an interesting fashion. He even manages to make us sorry about the death of a character barely twenty pages after her introduction.

    At least the story starts rolling along soon after: As a starship captain wakes up from cryo, he finds himself in the right solar system… but more than a hundred and twenty-five years too late! The ship has been sabotaged, and one of the passengers has to face the fact that his mission has failed: How useful will his warnings of impending terraforming doom be if he’s more than a century too late?

    The most engaging characteristic of The Depths of Time is how is keep son piling revelations and further mysteries as it roars forward. All the setup of the first hundred pages progressively starts paying off and even if some revelations can be guessed simply from dramatic deduction (“Oh, I wonder why those two events are introduced…?”), there is a lot to like in the gradual discovery of secrets, all the way to the very last chapter. Time-travel, vast archives and terraforming aren’t new ideas, of course, but they’re here used in interesting fashions. This is a first volume of a trilogy and while it’s not satisfying by itself, it does a great job in setting the stage for the rest of the series.

    It’s also quite good in how it defines its characters. Protagonist Anton Koffield is tortured, humiliated, and marooned decades after his era, but he’s a solid and capable hero; I look forward to his next adventures. Minor characters also get some viewpoint time, with involving results. MacBride Allen even manages to give life to two characters whose presence in the action is more legendary than physical. All in all, coupled with the clear style and the top-notch technical aspects of the writing, it’s a good example of perfectly decent core science-fiction.

    I’m often prompt in bitching about media tie-ins, declining authors and substandard science-fiction, but The Depth of Time is none of those things. Welcome back, Roger. It’s been a long time since your last “honest” SF novel. We’ve missed you.

  • Bright Messengers, Gentry Lee

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1995, 447 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-553-57329-2

    Gentry Lee is, by all accounts, a formidable man. JPL engineer, father of seven, renowned public speaker, he is best-known in the science-fiction field for his four collaborations with Arthur C. Clarke: Cradle and the Rama trilogy that followed on Clarke’s classic Rendez-vous with Rama.

    But perhaps is it more accurate to says that Lee is infamous in the SF community for his collaborations with Clarke. Critics have not been very kind to any of those books. Clarke’s succinct, no-nonsense, steely-agnostic prose was transformed into a sprawling mess of mystical experiences, unlikable characters in overwritten adventures that had few, if any, of the originals’ charm. Cradle didn’t have to labour under the heavy burden of any classic predecessor, but even then few readers liked it. Now here comes Bright Messengers, Lee’s first solo novel which also doubles as a prequel to the Rama trilogy. (aaargh!)

    Lee’s track record in other fields suggest that he’s able to do many things exceedingly well. But writing novels won’t one of those things. Let us see why.

    Part of it has to do with the pedestrian nature of Lee’s imagined future. The year is 2141, but there are no details (save for a few colonies on Mars and the usual economic catastrophe) to indicate that this is any different from, oh, 2010. Granted, Lee ripped off his setting from the “Rama” trilogy (and that’s another problem right there), but even that doesn’t excuse much when his characters all act like refugees from the mid-nineteen nineties. All except for Sister Beatrice, a spectacularly grating model of perfection whose unshakable faith is held up as an example for all. Or something like that; it’s difficult to care for sainthood incarnate.

    But onward, for despite a particularly boring first hundred pages, things soon pick up once our characters fly off to Mars. There is a deliciously decadent atmosphere of decay in the “Valhalla” section, as the red planet’s colonization effort is failing. Thanks to a bad economy, governments and corporations alike have turned their back on Mars and are in the process of sending everyone home. Everything is falling to pieces, and so (among other things), a colony has to make a Faustian bargain with a dangerous engineering genius to survive. This is perhaps the only section of the book worth reading, as the tension slowly cranks up.

    Eventually, mysterious quasi-mystical appearances lead our character to an alien base, which whisks off our merry bunch of characters away in alien lala land. A psychopath hops along for the ride. The book gets worse from that point on. People who complained about the strange guilty mixture of sex and piety in the Rama trilogy won’t feel let-down by the even wackier mix in Bright Messengers. The psychopath (whose short stature and Arab origins are often highlighted) fulfils his obvious role in the narrative. It results in a gruesome death and an eyebrow-raising character reversal. What happens to poor pretty perfect Sister Beatrice is straight out of the Catholic “Greatest Martyrs” play book.

    Lee is an avowed theist, but his dumb use of pseudo-religious elements does a disservice to all believers. When, late in the book, something spectacular happens in an environment built and controlled by mysterious alien intelligence, stupid sister Beatrice goes on to exult at the visible proof of God’s intervention. When her sceptical companion replies with a variation of Clarke’s third law, she retreats into pouting and wishing for another companion. If someone can explain how an editor can let an author self-defeat himself in his own novel, I’d be most grateful. (Unless the editor was being deliberately unhelpful; I can understand that after reading the book.)

    (Shuffling through the novel to re-read that passage, I see that I forgot to highlight the dull and lengthy Hiroshima-and-Nazis virtual reality section, but that’s okay: I ended up browsing them anyway and then found out that they had absolutely no impact on the rest of the novel. Yes, it’s a book like that.)

    This book barely has any plotting (Ooh, psychopath! Booga-booga!), nor anything resembling sympathetic characters. Aside from brief moments in the Martian section, it oscillates between stupidity and boredom. At least the book solves one mystery; the question of who wrote most of the Rama trilogy: Obviously, the quality of Bright Messengers speaks for itself. And, presumably, so will Double Full Moon Night, the announced conclusion of this unfortunate piece of fiction.

    [June 2004: Wow, Double Full Load of Nonsense indeed speaks for itself. The heroes are still gratuitously marooned on one, then another alien environment. People reproduce (giving rise to even more twisted psychosexual dynamics), bicker, die horribly, etc. It’s not much of a Science-fiction novel, though. It really doesn’t help that it’s so dull and clunky, filled with character not worth caring about and long philosophical speeches that could be demolished by any high-school student. If you haven’t read the first book, don’t worry: it’s summarized in a pithy introduction that contains such wince-inducing phrases as “Leaving [protagonist] to die in his cave prison, [antagonist] repeatedly raped and humiliated [character] in many additional ways.” Plot-wise, I hope you weren’t expecting any developments nor answers, because there aren’t any: Even when the insufferable beatified Beatrice makes a return appearance as a helpful ghost, she remains coy about their situation and start spouting off nonsense such as “It is never necessary for us to have all our questions answered. [P.226] and later “For reasons that you would never be able to comprehend, I cannot give you any more specifics.” [P.258] But even these get-out-of-jail cards can’t hide the fact that Gentry Lee is a poser who’s making this stuff up as he goes along, with an appalling disregard for his readers that borders on a prolonged insult. The last section tries to tie the two books back to the Rama trilogy, which would be interesting if we actually cared about even a tiny sliver of those five books. ]

  • Darwin’s Radio, Greg Bear

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ballantine, 1999, 538 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-345-43524-9

    At a time where reality is out-imagining science-fiction, is it any wonder if the line between the two is getting blurred? Michael Crichton has been making millions for decades by passing off a kind of science-fiction as something that could happen tomorrow. Isn’t it time for genre-grown SF authors to cash in on the mainstream moolah?

    Surely Greg Bear’s reputation as a science-fiction author is unquestioned. While his novels have been hit-and-miss (Hit: Moving Mars. Miss: Dinosaur Summer. Your mileage will vary), it’s hard to say that the author of Blood Music is anything but a hard-core hard-SF writer. But even the paperback edition of Darwin’s Radio comes packaged as “Fiction” by generalist imprint Ballantine Books. It scrupulously avoids “Science-Fiction” on the cover and shyly mentions it once in the in-leaf blurbs. Bear isn’t the first one to leap from the SF ghetto to the bigger techno-thriller audience, but he’s not likely to be the last to annoy his core audience by doing so.

    But enough fanboyish kvetching: what about the book? Here too, it’s impossible to avoid snarky comparisons to Crichton et al.: Darwin’s Radio begins sometime soon, with two separate discoveries that are obviously linked: a mass grave in Georgia and three Neanderthal-era bodies in the Austrian Alps. In the process, we’re introduced to the two main characters of the novel: biologist Kaye Lang and rogue academic Mitch Rafelson. In the accepted manner of such thrillers, clues accumulate, events start to snowball and pretty soon a horrible truth is uncovered: There is a virus out there which is doing very, very nasty stuff to expectant mothers. The end of the species may be in sight.

    Now, before proceeding any further, let us highlight one very important thing: Science-fiction has not traditionally been very interested in the yucky stuff of procreation. Physics are fine insofar as they allow rockets and Big Dumb Object and space travel and rock-jawed starship captain heroes. But soft smelly biology, with its unreliable mechanisms and small-scale working, leads to the icky matters of reproduction, which in human terms leads to sex and emotions and relationships and uncomfortable things like that. I’ll come clean; as a science-fiction fan, I’m not alone in preferring the clean lines of a mile-long alien starship to the squishy stuff of pregnancies.

    So when Bear uses Darwin’s Radio as an excuse to study the implications of a world-wide plague directly linked to reproduction, it’s difficult to remain unmoved and unconcerned. However bad the evening news are, they can’t touch the nightmare of widespread miscarriages, deformed babies and massive riots. It cuts close to the bone, and props have to be given to Bear for tackling such a subject.

    Unfortunately, audacity isn’t enough: It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out that with two protagonists of reproductive age in a tale concerned with pregnancies, something will happen. It also doesn’t take much SF literacy to remember similar tales told with a much greater economy of means, in short stories less than a tenth of this length. Most of Darwin’s Radio is spent waiting for the next shoe to drop rather than more active plotting.

    At least techno-geeks and bio-nerds will enjoy the technical details. There’s a lot of evolutionary speculations in the book, and while some of it is too scattered, it’s not a bad read. (Some questions seems to be purposefully left unsolved for the sequel, though.) This is where Bear’s background as a science-fiction writer resonates most clearly, through extensive jargon and reasonably convincing technical details.

    As a science-fiction novel, it’s a bit basic. Hence my disapproval for Darwin’s Radio‘s Nebula Award for best Novel of 2000. It also, with hindsight, marks a turning point in Bear’s career, as his last three non-media novels (Including a sequel, Darwin’s Children) have also been in a techno-thrillerish vein. Good? Bad? If nothing else, Bear is hopefully getting filthy rich with Crichton’s target audience.

  • With Hostile Intent, Robert Gandt

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Signet, 2001, 368 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-451-20486-7

    One of the great genre fiction tragedies of the past decade has been the progressive atrophy of the military thriller. From the genre’s heyday in the early nineties, we’ve been saddled with a number of unconvincing stories written by authors whose technical knowledge greatly exceeded their ability to tell a story effectively. Numerous best-selling authors have become mere parodies of themselves (I’m looking at you, Dale Brown) as others have moved on to other things or simply stopped writing.

    In the absence of reliable authors, finding new material has taken a hit-and-miss quality. While there’s been a steady number of new writers coming out of the US military, their novels haven’t all been wonderful. A lot of these books are burdened with far too much military jargon and not much of a story. Most feature unpalatable characters. Many are contaminated with the kind of gung-ho militarism that makes them incomprehensible even to well-intentioned civilians. Of the late-nineties crop of military authors, only James H. Cobb has struck me as an interesting and reliable writer.

    While it’s a bit early to judge Robert Gandt on reliability, his first novel With Hostile Intent suggests that he’s an author worth watching. It’s not a perfect book, but it’s certainly one of the most promising military fiction debuts in recent memory. Simply consider this: It’s a thriller in which the action scenes are not necessarily the most interesting part of the book.

    It all takes place around the turn-of-the-millennium Persian Gulf, from Bahrain to Baghdad. In this pre-9/11 setting (Published in October 2001, With Hostile Intent may end up being the last thriller of the twentieth century), this is a familiar area: Saddam Hussein is the undisputed ruler of a sanctions-bound Iraq and the Americans are enforcing a no-fly zone over most of the country. The action begins as a mistake is made and an Iraqi fighter is shot down.

    What follows is a pretty darn spiffy story of professional rivalry, tangled romances, aircraft carrier life and occasional military suspense. It’s not the first novel to take place on an aircraft carrier (see whole sections of Stephen Coonts’ oeuvre, for instance), but Gandt shows an uncanny knack at combining shipboard politics with more straightforward naval aviation action.

    By far the best thing about With Hostile Intent is how it quickly develops sympathy for its characters. Protagonist Brick Maxwell may sport a pulp-fiction name, an outlandish biography and a steely behaviour, but he’s nearly the perfect viewpoint character: His undisputed skills don’t diminish his struggles as a new guy on the block. He’s got good friends and excellent enemies. Plus he gets to act like an idiot and atone for it. The gallery of supporting characters is also serviceable in creating an involvement with the book.

    As an added bonus, With Hostile Intent isn’t the kind of jingoistic propaganda piece that gives military fiction a bad name. There are several rotten apples in this aircraft carrier, and our protagonist deals with them. The main Iraqi antagonist is described with some degree of respect and sympathy. Even the “sold-out” American journalist gets his fair moment of glory.

    It’s stuff like that which gives With Hostile Intent an extra edge when comes the time to compare it to other contemporary military fiction. The writing style is limpid and uncluttered with the kind of techno-fetishism that ofter overwhelms similar books. It’s a welcome change of pace to find our interest as engaged in interpersonal strife than in the air combats. While parts of the book are unbelievable (isn’t anyone else paying attention to the number of crashes for this particular cruise?), they stand out because the rest of the book seems so realistic.

    Time and other novels will tell if Gandt can sustain the promise shown by his first novel. But judging from With Hostile Intent, he certainly seems able to juggle the various demands of military fiction and deliver a pleasant reading experience on top of everything else. I may be suffering from low expectations, but this book delivered everything I could ask from such a thriller.

  • Van Helsing (2004)

    Van Helsing (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) Whew! Logically, I should hate this film; its disregard for simple narrative coherency (full moons, chasm-running roads, oh my!) only matches its ignorance of physics (Jumping horses! Exploding coaches! Conveniently-placed ropes!) and muddled sense of narration. Yet unlike The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, you can sense an underlying method to this madness; writer/director Stephen Sommers knows that he’s being silly and isn’t being shy about it. (Heck, there’s even a reference to MAD magazine thrown in the mix!) Also, maybe more importantly, this film is seldom boring; while it runs too long (there should be a “only one massive castle fight” rule for movies like this), there’s rarely a dull moment. As a respectable film it’s a disaster, but as a homage to the whole monster-movie genre (with more than a bit of superhero action thrown in for good measure), it’s pretty darn spiffy. Special-effects-wise, some are great and some aren’t, but there’s certainly a ton of them! As if that wasn’t enough, Kate Beckinsale looks amazingly hot. (Hurrah for anachronistic hair!) Yes, I feel guilty for even thinking about getting the DVD, but too bad; it’s fun and I wasn’t asking for much more.

  • Atlantis Found, Clive Cussler

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Berkley, 1999, 532 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-425-17717-3

    In reviewing a Dirk Pitt[TM] adventure, there’s a tightrope path in between being an annoying spoilsport and a credulous fanboy. Cussler’s fiction is certainly not respectable litterature. Even allowing for the usual sub-standard latitudes given to genre fiction, Dirk Pitt’s adventures have serious problems. The structure of Cussler’s last dozen novels follow more or less the same template, down to the historical prologue. The breakneck pacing actually hides remarkably long stretches of nothingness. His protagonists are so invulnerable as to defy common sense. The series of whoppers he has managed to uncover in each successive novel have an uncanny way of disappearing before the next one.

    But that’s just your reviewer being a boring pedant: It’s not as if Cussler’s flaws aren’t already obvious to anyone who’s read even two of his novels. Find someone who has read more than two, however, and you’re likely to find someone who has learnt to enjoy the books on their own terms, as two-fisted adventures with some crunchy historical speculation. In fact, find someone who has read a third Cussler novel and you’re likely to find someone on their way to read them all: While a steady diet of Dirk Pitt adventures would be brain-damaging, there’s nothing wrong with a yearly shot of Cussler craziness.

    And there’s plenty of craziness in Atlantis Found for sure. Heck, even the title spoils very little: While stalwart Dirk Pitt indeed goes on to find the titular Atlantis, you won’t believe what else stands in his way: Modern-day Nazis, shadowy assassins, rotten weather, doomsday plans, nanotechnology and maybe even matrimony. Whew! As Cussler fans have come to expect, there’s the requisite archaeological expeditions, car chases, delicious dialogue, Clive Cussler cameo and a big race against time before Something Really Bad Happens. Good good fun.

    One could conceivably point out that the book hovers even more dangerously that usual above flat-out auto-parody, but that would be both self-obvious and, of course, annoying. Much like one could point out the scientific mistake in describing nanotechnology as a science with the potential to build things using new metals (P.243: er, no; it’s molecular technology, not atomic!): once again that would be criticizing the tree and ignoring the forest. After Cussler’s inclusion of a secret Lunar base in Cyclops, it’s hard to get worked up about his bad science or nonsensical plot developments.

    Heck, it’s difficult not to stand up and cheer considering the amount and quality of outlandish material crammed into Atlantis Found. Even casual Antarctic buffs will squeal in glee at the surprise appearance of the Snow Cruiser late in the book. Plus, you won’t believe what’s in the Nazi relics box (nor what happens to it). Ironically enough, all of this clever intellectual madness makes Cussler’s exposition scenes far more interesting than his action sequences; it’s easy to flip through the pages as Dirk Pitt(R) and friends mow down yet another squad of baddies, but the quiet discussions in which historical secrets are revealed are worth a careful read.

    True, internal consistency doesn’t match from one novel to another, the characters haven’t changed in decades (though some material late in this book may lead to romantic developments), the books keep expanding without good reasons besides repetitive action padding and the repetitive plotting is really starting to grate. But it’s all good fun: Atlantis Found even has this winking quality that also works on a second level for those jaded readers who know better.

    It sure looks as if Cussler is having fun too. His cameo appearance in the novel is amusing, and from what we can read elsewhere on the web, he’s busy re-investing his royalties in classic cars and underwater archaeological expeditions. Goodness knows there are worse ways to be a best-selling author… even if the latest flood of “Clive Cussler collaborations” suggests that the need to mint royalty money may outweigh his respectability as a writer.

    Um. Did I just associate “Clive Cussler” with “respectability as an author”? My mistake!

  • Troy (2004)

    Troy (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) Massive historical warfare! Plenty of special effects! Hot Greek chicks! What’s not to like? Whee! While this adaptation plays loosely with the “real” source material (if any can be said to exist), it manages to create the required epic feel of a war between Greece and Troy. The gods are thankfully left aside to make place for the real story. The battles scenes are a wonder to behold, as thousands of soldiers, both real and computer generated, fight it out in earnest. But just as impressive is the accessible nature of the story, which manages to fit lust for glory, lust for power and plain simple physical lust into a story of war between nations. It may be long, but it’s seldom boring. Brad Pitt does a fine job portraying Achilles as a bored and meditative rock star, but it’s Peter O’Toole and especially Eric Bana who steal the show with textured performances of curiously sympathetic antagonists. While some of the visuals can be outlandish (fortunately, the CGI team had hard drives big enough to generate those thousand ships!), the movie as a whole isn’t bad at all. Plus, as a bonus, you get to clarify some of that confusing Greek mythology.