Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Les Triplettes De Belleville [The Triplettes Of Belleville] (2003)

    Les Triplettes De Belleville [The Triplettes Of Belleville] (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) This film is nothing less than a tour-de-force, managing to tell a complete story with only a minimal use of dialogue. What fills the blanks is the fantastic visual imagination on display throughout the entire film, from off-beat character design (ugly, if you ask me, but certainly unusual) to elaborate Rube-Goldberg mechanisms. While we’re accustomed to scripts as being mere supports for spoken words, this one is a stripped-down thing of wonder, featuring a whimsical plot with strange characters and quirky developments… and almost no lines dialogue. Special mention must be made of Benoit Charest’s fantastic soundtrack, which mixes genres and ends up with a finger-snapping Oscar-nominated number. The film was conceived in Montreal with support from over the world, and its uniquely mid-Atlantic feel, halfway between French and American stereotypes, clearly shows it. Funny, weird, original and a success from start to finish. Copious sight-gags (like the grotesquely fat “statue of liberty”) will reward multiple viewings. Writer/Director Sylvain Chomet shows considerable promise.

  • Touching The Void (2003)

    Touching The Void (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) This fantastic re-creation of a true-life mountaineering odyssey is an unqualified success. Thanks to some clever editing, the film manages to wring a considerable amount of tension out of an event narrated by the principal actors themselves. The film alternates taking heads with re-created scenes from the odyssey, and the effect is mesmerizing. Touching The Void, among other things, manages, in passing, to give a proper presentation of the appeal and mechanisms of mountaineering: It’s easy to be taken by the gorgeous alpine shots, or fascinated by the way people manage to haul themselves up a cliff. But of course, it’s the adventure that takes over; the way it just keeps getting worse and worse even as things should get better is nothing short of admirable. The film may be a touch too long, but that merely heightens the experience for the viewer. (Plus there’s the torture of Boney M’s “Brown Girl in the Ring”)

  • Starsky & Hutch (2004)

    Starsky & Hutch (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) Some movies leave you with plenty of questions. This one doesn’t, because by the times the credits roll, you’ll be wondering about only one thing: Why was it ever made? It’s not particularly funny. It doesn’t do much with its Seventies setting. Its plot is strictly action-movie stuff despite an almost total lack of action sequences. For anyone not familiar with the original show, Starsky And Hutch just sputters along, occasionally scoring a slight smirk. While there are a few good moments (Will Ferrell, the pony, “Do it. Do it.”), there isn’t much to remember here. Snoop Dog plays a good Huggy Bear, but acting-wise, if what you want is Ben Stiller acting alongside Owen Wilson, it’s easier to just go out and rent Zoolander again.

  • Conceptual Blockbusting (4th edition), James L. Adams

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Perseus Publishing, 2001, 220 pages, C$25.95 tpb, ISBN 0-7382-0537-0

    At the intersection of psychology and business literature, it’s often difficult to separate useful works from loosely-outlined collections of pithy aphorisms. Businesses, by definition, have money and want to make even more money. There is no surprise, then, to see that there is a significant market for works promising untold riches in five (or ten) easy catchphrases. The “business” section of your local used bookstore is filled with past management fads, too-easy answers to complex problems and ridiculous attempts to exploit businesspeople’s massive insecurities. (My favorite in the genre being Richard Marcinko’s The Rogue Warrior’s Guide to Leadership.)

    If you don’t believe me, go ahead, take a trip and have a look. I’ll wait. But while you’re there, if you happen to see James L. Adams’ Conceptual Blockbusting, take it out of the stack and bring it home with you; it deserves better company than a stack of tomes on how to manage Japanese-style.

    For Conceptual Blockbusting is not your usual business psychology book, nor is its appeal strictly limited to anyone trying to get ahead in a corporate hierarchy. No; this is a book that, under a business guise, aims to teach everyone how to think better.

    In a nutshell, this is a book that purports to break the unproductive habits that defeat the most innovative thinking. But in doing so, it delves deep into the sources of inspiration and the methods of the human mind. The subtitle says that it’s “a guide to better ideas” and might as well believe it: in a succinct 220 pages, it delivers enough thinking material to keep anyone busy for a while.

    I’m hardly the first one to feel so positively about the book. “300,000 copies sold!” claims the title page. Not only is it at its fourth edition, twenty five years after its initial publication, but I was pleasingly surprised to recognize within its pages a few familiar classroom exercises. Adams’ work has been influential and this newly-refreshed edition is an ideal way to see why.

    More than half of the book is dedicated to the identification of conceptual blocks; the kind of constraints, acknowledged or ingrained, that restrict us in our quest for better ideas. Stuff like social taboos, hasty mis-perception of problems, personality quirks or lack of expressive knowledge can all contribute to dull solutions. By enumerating how we’re not quite as free-thinking as we perceive ourselves to be, Adams makes us conscious of the problems and gives us pointers on how to get around these blocks.

    Other areas covered in Conceptual Blockbusting include an examination of thinking languages (and how, say, mathematical or verbal thinking may not be universal problem-solvers, to the dismay of those trained in those techniques), ways to crack those idea blockers (far beyond the usual “brainstorming” cliché, though this is also covered and explained in good detail) and a savvy glimpse at how ideas can be nurtured in organizational structures.

    All of which could be trite stuff if it wasn’t for Adams’ polished delivery. After four editions, his material is optimized for both pleasure reading and reference purposes. His style is direct, dense but curiously pleasant to read and re-read. This is the kind of book worth refreshing once a year if only to ingrain those conceptual blockbusters in daily thinking. It doesn’t take much to see in Conceptual Blockbusting a good primer on the structures of human thinking and a springboard to deeper reflection.

    Or maybe not; if all you want are better ideas and a solid business psychology book, this one’s for you. Deceptively effective, solid without being flashy, there are good chances that James L. Adams’ book will still be available twenty-five years from now, in hopefully an even-better edition.

  • Spartan (2004)

    Spartan (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) David Mamet writes and directs this film, so you can expect an off-kilter result. Indeed, his take on political thrillers and special-operative character study features a few precious moments of pure genius. Twists are thrown, dialogue is barked, Val Kilmer is surprisingly good, schemes unfold, American politics are criticized and stoic characters fight for the right thing. Unfortunately, these good moments are intermittent and only get rarer as the film advances. The budget also seems to diminish as the film unreels, and we end up with a Dubai that looks a lot like the Boston we just left. Unfortunate, but not as much as the cold and methodical style of the film, which gets less and less efficient as the plot heats up. The ending features one unforgivable flying coincidence. Not bad, but a bit frustrating… a lot like his previous Heist and The Spanish Prisoner: Good bits and pieces in search of a coherent whole.

  • Soul Plane (2004)

    Soul Plane (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) Some films are good and funny. This one isn’t so good, but it’s twice as funny. An urban (read; “black”) take-off on the whole airplane disaster genre, Soul Plane is gloriously silly and doesn’t even try to hide it. There’s a joke every ten seconds and plenty of them miss the target (ie;whole subplots go nowhere in an dull fashion). But those who manage to hit the target actually hit pretty well: it’s hard not to be swept into the whole “airline with soul” premise. While some would like to make you believe that Soul Plane wallows in ethnic clichés, it’s more appropriate to say that it takes us in a very specific fantasy world packed with good music, infectious fun and bootylicious bodies. Few other movies of 2004 can match the sheer sex-appeal of Soul Plane‘s K.D. Aubert, Angell Conwell and Sofía Vergara. (There is zero nudity despite the film’s R-rating. Talk about a waste: even Airplane! had some.) This being said, it’s zaftig comedienne Mo’Nique Imes-Jackson who grabs the film’s best moments as an overzealous security guard. Sure, some moments go over the top and should have been trimmed out: Taste-wise, it’s an equal-opportunity offender. But why care when it’s so silly? “At ease, ladies” says Captain Snoop Dog upon boarding, and this kind of sexy insouciance is exactly the right frame of mind for Soul Plane. Step on the plane, and don’t forget to visit the upstairs club.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, December 2004) Some films really shouldn’t be watched more than once, and that goes double for lame comedies. Once the initial surprise of comedies has been blown, viewers have the right to be a little bit harsher on the actual quality of the film, and Soul Plane truly doesn’t do well at a second glance. For one thing, a second viewing clearly highlights the jarring dead moments when the main romance kicks in at the film loses all sense of humour. A similar “filial love” plot thread also falls flat in the context of a silly comedy that live or die on the strength of its pacing. Fortunately, the rest of the film’s silliness is preserved, though the repetitive nature of the film’s jokes starts grating midway through. I still like the booty, the silliness, the cheap gags and the performances of quite a number of the actresses. But it’s not nearly as The DVD doesn’t bring much more to the experience, and even hurts as the commentary track has an extra value of exactly nil. Warning! The DVD film is different from the version shown in theatres: Though I can’t remember the exact details, I clearly remember at least one theatrical scene between Tom Arnold and Mo’Nique that’s not on the DVD (has the old silly phobia of interracial romance reared its ugly bigoted head once more?), and the “unrated” version adds a few T&A shots –none of which do much to justify the unrating. (In fact, DVD reviews report that the R version and the unrated version have different outtakes. What the heck?)

  • Shrek 2 (2004)

    Shrek 2 (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) The Green Ogre’s adventures continue in this smile-a-minute adventure that starts where the first film left off. Technically, the film is more spectacular than the first one (just compare the “fields” sequences), but don’t worry; the quality of the script is just as solid. The outright laughs may be concentrated in small portions (the opening musical montage, the “Knights” segment, anything with Puss in Boots), but the giggles are steady through the entire film. Some unexpected gags (Love Potion Number 9, etc) and twists are also in the fine tradition of the first film. Otherwise, well, there’s not much to say: The whole family will enjoy the ride.

  • Monica La Mitraille [Machine-Gun Molly] (2004)

    Monica La Mitraille [Machine-Gun Molly] (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In theaters, May 2004) While it’s not true to speak of Monique “Machine Gun Molly” Sparvieri as a folk heroine, she does have a place in the small pantheon of French-Canadian criminals. Coming from the slums on post-war Montreal, her life in crime proved more acceptable than most other options, and if the film does one thing relatively well, it’s to depict the hard life she led. It helps that Céline Bonnier does such a good job portraying the title character, with all of her flaws and complicated relationships. (As usual with French-Canadian cinema, almost all supporting roles are filled with familiar faces) Unfortunately, the film isn’t as rigorous when comes the time to present a coherent story on top of its anecdotal scenes: The passage of time feels muddled, some events make sense only in retrospect and -to make things worse- a number of frustrating shortcuts are taken (such as having everyone meet repeatedly over the same stretch of The Main). The final impression is fragmented, leaving the impression of having seen a two-hour promo for Georges-Hébert Germain’s biography. While one gets that Machine-Gun Molly was a formidable woman, the film doesn’t care to spell out which kind of formidable.

  • High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Rusel DeMaria & Johnny L. Wilson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    McGraw Hill Osborne, 2002, 328 pages, C$24.99 tpb, ISBN 0-07-222428-2

    Faithful readers of these reviews may recall my teenage fascination for video games, but they may not suspect the depth of it. Simply put, from 1983 to 1993, I knew just about everything about the subject. Blessed with ample free time and a network of like-minded friends, armed with a trusty Commodore 64 (followed by the latter succession of PCs), I devoured the magazines of the time, played games obsessively, wrote about them in the high school newspaper and basically lived a decade under the influence.

    Then I discovered the Internet, went to university and, well, something had to give.

    But thanks to Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson, I now own a time capsule of the era: High Score! packs nothing less than three decades of video games in 328 gorgeously illustrated pages. Everything from Pong to the X-Box, complete with quotes from the industry’s historical figures, descriptions of games and companies and enough screenshots to make you feel as if you’re back in front of vintage games.

    Roughly divided in three chronological sections (the 70s, 80s and 90s), High Score! is crammed with material, both textual and visual. The scope of the book is, admittedly, bigger than my own experience with the subject matter: It delves deep into the prehistory of electronic games (namely; arcades and pre-Atari 2600 consoles), and then goes on to do a very good job balancing computer games with the series of consoles that developed concurrently. (Not being a console fan, I could only nod in recognition at memories of my friend’s video games from Nintendos to Playstations)

    The first part, “the 70s”, is the most linear of the three: Given the historical perspective and relatively uncluttered gaming landscape of the time, it’s easy for the authors to present a flowing narrative. One event clearly leads to another, copycats turn into innovators and there are so few games that they can be highlighted on a yearly basis. It’s a heroic age where personalities and individual talents are crucial.

    Some of that individual heroism carries through in “The 80s”, even as the field starts to mature and define itself as an industry. Small organizations start taking on the personalities formerly held by individuals. Mentions of Epyx, Electronic Arts, Activision, SSI and others all evoke warm happy memories of seeing those logos on my plucky Commodore 64. (“Accolade Presents”… Ooh, mommy!)

    Alas, the “narrative” of High Score! also starts to break down as the industry explodes in random directions. Whereas the book’s first third is linear and absorbing, it then switches to a more free-flowing approach as it tries to cover all facets of the field. Unfortunately, this leads to uncomfortable breaks; when covering a company like Sierra, for instance, there are clear differences between the King’s Quest Sierra and the Half-Life Sierra. Shovelling the entire history of the company between pages 134-143, in “The 80s”, is a jarring choice. Among many others.

    Given my declining interest in computer games during the nineties, it’s somewhat ironic to read how, in the introduction to the third part of the book, the authors had a harder time pulling together the final threads. Electronic gaming has since gone mainstream, taking over pop culture as yet another entertainment option. Oh well. Unfortunately (and this will only grow worse as we move away from 2002), High Score! ends at a curious junction, barely mentioning the Playstation 2 / X-Box / Nintendo 64 platforms, as well as Grand Theft Auto and other newer landmarks of electronic gaming which, after all, always marches on.

    But don’t think it’s enough to diminish my admiration for the book. High Score! and myself were fated to meet at some point. Especially noteworthy is the fantastic graphic design used to lay out the book. Every page is a thing of beauty, laid out clearly to highlight the interesting material. Screen-shots are crisp, quotes are appropriate and the material is well-written. I especially loved the profiles of specific games… especially when they matched my own favourites!

    No doubt about it: For an old-school computer game geek such as myself, reading the book was like surfing from one pleasant memory to another. You can keep your high-school photo album: This is the true record of how I spent my teenage years!

  • Les Invasions Barbares [The Barbarian Invasions] (2003)

    Les Invasions Barbares [The Barbarian Invasions] (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In theaters, May 2004) To be truthful, I wasn’t expecting much of this film: I’m not one for tearjerkers, gabfests, “populist” films (this film made a bundle at the Quebec box-office) nor melodramatic sequels. But there is something for everyone in the film, and if I could easily gloss over the melodrama of the dying protagonist, it was harder not to enjoy the witty intellectual dialogue between the band of literate, hedonistic friends at the centre of the film. Les Invasions Barbares is seldom as enjoyable as when they trade back salacious puns and philosophical references. (Sadly, the otherwise-decent subtitles completely give up during one such exchange… though at least we were spared the indignities of a dubbed film!) Otherwise, well, there is plenty of philosophical content to keep anyone busy, from a flash-analysis of 9/11 to a devastating scene literally showing the relics of Quebec’s Catholic church. (What this film isn’t is “focused”: the sprawling script touches upon anything and seeming everything.) In the end, I found myself cheering for the film, regardless of origin; it’s so rare to see liberal intellectualism so warmly portrayed than it is here, it’s just a shock to realize that it actually came from, in some sense, my own culture. Go figure.

  • Feardotcom (2002)

    Feardotcom (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2004) There’s a good reason why critics savaged this film when it first came out: It’s just not very good. Whatever visual polish the film may possess is bludgeoned into impotence through endless dark and damp cinematography. No point for variety here; the whole film quickly becomes annoying. While Feardotcom wants to explore the dark side of the Internet, it ends up feeling silly and forced; as the bizarre deaths pile up, one gets the impression that nothing will be explained. As it turns out, this is the correct impression: the conclusion devolves into silly serial murderer stuff, complete with a throwaway line about how the ghostly energy of mumbo-jumbo can leak (or leap, or squeak) from the Internet into the real world. Don’t gag me; I’m already doing that. Stephen Dorff and Natascha McElhone do their best with the material, but it’s a hopeless situation: McElhone is miscast (she’s better in more aloof roles) and Dorff is ineffective at giving life to the lame dialogue. The film descends so firmly into dull disinterest that I switched midway through my first viewing to the director’s audio commentary. Director William Malone seems well-intentioned, but Feardotcom can’t be salvaged with good intentions.

  • The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

    The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 2004) It’s either growing mellowness or creeping senility, but I seem to be liking Roland’s Emmerich’s catastrophe films more and more. Hated Independence Day, was okay with Godzilla and now The Day After Tomorrow actually manages to be even a little bit good. Sure, it’s crammed with silly dialogue, familiar plotting and dumb Action Movie Moments (including characters out-running a tidal wave). But on the other hand, the destruction sequences are among the finest ever filmed. Hollywood’s destruction by mega-twisters is worth the price of the ticket by itself: Add to that the spectacle of New York getting flooded, then freezing in place and you have enough eye-candy to satisfy anyone. (For more, er, conventional eye-candy, check out the luscious Tamlyn Tomita. Wrrrw!) I wasn’t so amused by the lack of cold-sense exhibited by the characters (In sub-zero temperatures, you close doors behind you) nor the silly way the action scenes got amped-up through magically appearing axes or CGI wolves. Still, there is an undeniable power to The Day After Tomorrow, even if it’s in contemplating a chillingly plausible disaster. It’s a catastrophe film that aspires to a conscience and a brain: Considerable death and destruction isn’t fought and stopped at the last moment; science is seen as a provider of answers and safety and people find safety at a public library, be still my nerdish heart! (Plus, who survives? The gifted teens and the librarians! Wooo!) Sure, the science is intentionally unrealistic. But once you see New York under dozens of meters of snow, hardly any of that matter: The Day After Tomorrow delivers the goods. Consider the DVD pre-ordered.

  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Random House, 2000, 639 pages, C$22.00 tpb, ISBN 0-312-28299-0

    Now that is one amazing book.

    Deftly mixing such disparate elements as World War II, New York City, Antarctica, homosexuality, the Empire State Building, the Holocaust, movies, Picasso and -above all- comic books, it’s a novel unlike any other, straddling history, alternate reality and a little bit of traditional fantasy. More than simply a snapshot of America between 1939 and 1954, more than a rags-to-riches story of successful artists, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay also stands as one of the few works compelling to both genre and mainstream audiences.

    It was inevitable, I suppose; after years of increasing literary sophistication in the comic book field, it was about time that someone on the other side of the fence took an interest in the world comic books. Michael Chabon isn’t merely just any mainstream author, though; without even looking at his biography, his love of comics shines through the book like a lighthouse. But as he sets out to tell the astounding story of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, it’s also obvious that he’s doing a lot more than pay homage to the wonderful Golden Age of Comics.

    1939: After many misadventures (soon described in the book’s first section), Josef Kavalier arrives in New York, seeking sanctuary as the situation in his hometown of Prague gets worse and worse for all Jews. Scarcely a few days after arrival, Joe and his cousin Samuel Klayman are able, through a fortuitous set of circumstances, to create a brand-new comic book for an ambitious publisher looking for another Superman. Soon enough, “The Escapist” is born and a new age in comic books is underway. Meanwhile, all the way over there in Europe, a war begins.

    As Chabon describes the war through the viewpoint of two comic book artists working in New York, sublimating their anger through art and doing their best to get ahead in the comics industry, it quickly becomes obvious that this is a big, big, big novel. Romantic entanglements, family tragedies, period detail and comic book scenarios all intermingle to form a single narrative. It attains a climax of sort on December 7th, 1941, but the story is far from being over; indeed, the next section titled “Radioman” may just be the best part of the book. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is an epic story about two guys and the whole world. The depth of detail that Chabon gives to the story is just astonishing; even for casual fans of the era, he manages to seamlessly insert Kavalier, Clay and their Escapist in 1940s New York, all the way to the (hiss!) Wertram era.

    But scope and verisimilitude aren’t the only virtues of this novel; more than anything, this is a book that succeeds on great characterizations and superb writing. Chabon is a playful stylist, and so the narrative is told from a modern perspective that recalls the work of an enthusiastic biographer, albeit one with the omniscience required to peek at unread letters and buried feelings. Comic book scripts are dramatized and inserted in the narrative. Some historical cameos will make comic book fans coo with glee. A touch of matter-of-fact fantasy is inserted in the best magical realism tradition. Flashbacks, flash-forwards and dastardly twists are strewn through the whole book. Packed with delicious prose from the first to the last page, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is hard to stop reading after even the first chapter.

    But as the title of the novel suggests, it’s Kavalier and Clay themselves, along with the rest of the supporting characters, who make the book such a unique reading experience. The partnership and contrast between tall, quiet, tortured Kavalier and stocky, hustling, equally-tortured Clay is credible even as outlandish events unfold in their lives. Great stuff, enhanced by sympathetic portraits of them both.

    All in all, a heck of a book. It has deservedly won a Pulizer prize, but more important, it’s a hugely enjoyable novel with wide appeal in and out the mainstream literary crowd. It’s the sort of thing to make genre fans fall in love with the straight-up fiction category and general audiences pay attention to comic books. Everyone gets ahead!

    [May 2004: As I finish my review, I see that a derivative comic book called “The Escapist” is out there, giving tangible form to the comics described in the novel. Neat!]

  • Invasion, Robin Cook

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Berkley, 1997, 338 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-425-15540-4

    Wow, that book sucked.

    I know; I know; I shouldn’t expect much from a paperback original adapted from a TV miniseries. I should expect even less from a thriller author meddling with science-fiction for the first time. And, goodness gracious, it’s not as if I had big expectations for Robin Cook after his execrable Fatal Cure. It’s not as if I hadn’t read bad reviews of the book already. But you never know. Sometimes, there are surprises.

    But then again sometimes, there are no surprises. From the opening prologue, if not the very first page, something is wrong: Cook uses scientific words and expressions in a sloppy fashion, as if he only half understood what he was describing. The sequence -the apparition and crash-landing of an extraterrestrial space-ship- wants to be exact but ends up muddled. (As if that wasn’t bad enough, we don’t even know at this point that what’s being described doesn’t even match what happens later in the book.)

    Things get worse in the first chapter, as Cook throws the book’s characters at the unsuspecting reader. They’re not introduced as much as they’re dropped on-stage, with cute names (“Beau”, “Pitt”, “Cassy”, “Nancy”, etc.) and threadbare personalities. Half of them are medical specialists or students, which will obviously be handy later on. Fortunately, it’s not required to learn anything about the characters yet: Invasion quickly settles into a quiet rip-off of INVASIONS OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and anyone even remotely familiar with tales of alien invasions can just relax and see where Cook intends to go.

    Very quickly, it becomes obvious that Cook intends to go where every other science-fiction writer has gone before. As hunky Beau is taken over by an alien parasite, his personality changes and he becomes prone to saying things like “Hmm, humans are so strange.” His girlfriend isn’t particularly bothered by the changes given how he’s suddenly really really good in bed. (One would question how the alien knows those mad lovin’ skillz, but then again one could forever question just about everything in this novel.) Still, when he goes out and buys a dog without telling the missus, enough is enough and so she decides to leave and confide in her other platonic male best friend. (Why the heck would Beau-alien so spectacularly blow his cover without first infecting his girlfriend is a plot-busting question best left to anyone with an average IQ and up.)

    It gets more or less worse from there, as alien crafts magically replicate, take over the population and create black holes whenever it’s convenient for the needs of the plot. Like most struggling SF writers, Cook conjures up all sorts of really creepy events, but never bothers to offer a unified theory of how they all interrelate. Things happen randomly and that’s that. The aliens are invading; screw any other rationale than pure evil. Whatever happens after the invasion is left blurry.

    By the time a rag-tag bunch of misfits cook up an antidote of sorts in an abandoned high-tech laboratory hidden under the desert (hey, whatever), the book reads like a parody devoid of humour or even self-awareness. Invasion has a unique moment of SF goodness when it is revealed that the aliens are building an inter-dimensional gate to link Earth with the thousands of other conquered planets. While SF fans will read this and think “Cool! Let us see more of that!”, the characters react like xenophobic rednecks and go “We must destroy the gate! Eew! Icky aliens!”. Naturally enough, it’s all solved in the last ten pages as a counter-infection is going to kill off all traces of alien invasions. (Meanwhile, SF readers are concerned about whether those “infected” humans can, in fact, be uninfected without massive casualties, but that’s something that Cook obviously doesn’t care much about.)

    Ultimately, though, a 700-words review isn’t enough to detail all the logical mistakes and deeply stupid moments in Robin Cook’s Invasion. Nor is it enough to give a sense of how tedious this book is, thanks to the lack of surprises and the flat characters. But it is just long enough to tell you to stay away from it, unless you want to see a real compendium of bad Science Fiction by an author who ought to stick to medical thrillers. And maybe not even that, judging how even that portion of Invasion fails to be any more credible. But what else did I expect?

  • Medusa’s Child, John J. Nance

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 1997, 388 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-385-48343-0

    Modern publishing is a weird beast, afflicted like it is with demanding profit margins from corporate owners, rising costs, fickle audiences and the incertitudes of marketing artistic products. In face of these dangers, the industry has developed defence mechanisms, the most visible of which has been a tendency to place authors in very narrow niches. How narrow? It depends on genres: Mystery fiction tends to recycle the same characters in dozens of adventures. Fantasy goes for fat trilogies of overlong material ripped off from earlier, better writers. In the thriller field, specialization can attain rarefied levels as some authors specialize in very specific environment. Dale Brown loves B-52s, Michael DiMercurio can’t get enough of submarines and John J. Nance is the field’s foremost commercial aviation thriller writer.

    The specialization is not accidental: Writers are admonished to write about what they know best, and these three men have taken this suggestion literally: Brown used to fly on bombers, DiMercurio was a submariner and Nance not only is an “aviation consultant” for ABC, but was also (as of 1997) a professional airline pilot. He’s got eleven novels to his name, and all of them involve aviation to a degree or another.

    In Medusa’s Child, the focus is on a tiny cargo airline, Scotair, the dream-come-true achievement of protagonist Scott McKay. But as the novel begins, the dream is about to end: Dogged by debts and bad luck, Scotair is down to it’s last reserves; if anything goes wrong –it’s the end of the line for everyone involved. And things are about to go very, very wrong indeed.

    Within a few pages, the nightmare begins: A mysterious pallet is loaded aboard the leased 727 plane that Scotair is using, escorted by an even-more mysterious woman. Before long, mystery is replaced by terror as the crate is revealed to contain a nuclear bomb with enhanced EMP-generating capabilities. It’s all part of a complex revenge plan, but the threat is clear: within a few minutes, the bomb will detonate, destroying Washington and wiping electronic equipment across half of North America. Throw in a hurricane, the FBI and the American Armed Forces and you’ve got all the elements required for a crackling thriller.

    One of the best things about Medusa’s Child is how it really compresses the action into a time-frame approaching real-time reading. Save for the prologue and epilogue, everything takes place in less than nine hours, exactingly minuted through section headers. Of course, thanks to some devilishly convoluted complications, there is scarcely a break available once the timer starts ticking.

    One thing that Nance does exceedingly well, here or in the other books I’ve read from him, is dangle the possibility of a early tidy ending throughout the book. Medusa’s Child is packed with subplots which contain the very real possibility of resolution. But something always happens to cut it off at the last minute. At least two ways to defuse the threat are discussed –but are revealed too late. I especially liked the way Nance toys with his readers’ expectations: Given that this is an airborne thriller, it can only end once the plane has landed, right? “Unity of setting”, isn’t it? Well, Nance serves one almost-landing, then another false one, showing that he understands the game being played with his audience. It becomes nearly annoying, but also very thrilling as things just can’t seem to go right for the protagonists. Even when you think that it’s over, there’s one final niggling detail to fix –and it’s a good one. That final stunt is a piece of work, even for a reader who has read techno-thrillers for years.

    Granted, Nance makes up in breathless pacing what he blurs in credibility. There are a number of logical howlers here and there (to say more would be a spoiler), but they’re difficult to notice given how they’re buried under the rhythm of the story. But that’s the prerogative of thriller writer; if they succeed at making the story fly, no-one is going to complain about occasional details. Suffice to say that Medusa’s Child is excellent entertainment and that beach readers shouldn’t look any further. Good stuff, well-handled by a professional writer and aviator.