Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

    Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Evil Dead II (1987)

    Evil Dead II (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

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

  • A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

    Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Deep Red (1994)

    Deep Red (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Deep Blue Sea (1999)

    Deep Blue Sea (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Canadian Bacon (1995)

    Canadian Bacon (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Brainscan (1994)

    Brainscan (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • The Blair Witch Project (1999)

    The Blair Witch Project (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Bad Boys (1995)

    Bad Boys (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

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

  • Icefire, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Next 500 Years, Adrian Berry

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Headline, 1995, 338 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-7472-0987-1

    So you want to know the future? Don’t worry; you’re not alone. From palm-reading charlatans to government-sponsored futurists to your humble reviewer, everyone has his or her idea on what’s going to happen sooner or later. The only thing every one of these apprentice-seers have in common is that they’re all wrong. The future never ends up being like we imagine it to be, which is both a terrifying and a comforting thought.

    This incertitude aside, it’s always a good idea to keep informed of what other people think may happen soon. Fortunately, a quasi-subgenre of non-fiction literature has popped up to fulfill this desire. Futurist books may be less entertaining than science-fiction, but they appear to have an extra sheen of credibility.

    Adrian Berry’s The Next 500 Years attempts to paint a cohesive and all-encompassing picture of humanity’s near-to-medium future. Though written with a certain sympathetic style and containing many good ideas, it nevertheless fails at being a satisfying read.

    The first half of the book lacks cohesiveness: Berry flits away from irrelevant panics to upcoming ice ages to undersea exploration with very little transition. This would have been fine if the whole book would have been done this way, but the second part of the book flow far more easily, reinforcing the impression that he’s anthologizing a few short pieces written separately.

    I still was about to give high marks to The Next 500 Years where two things happened to make me change my mind. The second thing was an overly condescending final chapter, where Berry abandons every pretence at cautious projection and confidently states such enormities as “politicians will disappear” and “religion is doomed” while “belief will still continue”. Not only is this contradictory, but the whole final chapter smacks of unproven assertions, and the effect is rather sobering, in a bad sense.

    The first thing was rather more damning. The Next 500 years contains several surprising counter-popular affirmations (The ozone hole is not a problem, the greenhouse effect is natural, etc…) One must take these affirmation on the basis that the author knows what he’s doing. But then, I discovered a huge mistake in one of the most basic equations of the books, where it is stated that passengers aboard a spaceship going to a star seven light-years away at a speed of .7c will only experience a trip of two-and-a-half years.

    This is incorrect for two reasons. One: a .7c trip won’t take (1/.7)*light-years-to-destination because of the gradual acceleration/deceleration of the spaceship. Second, the time-dilatation factor of .7c is closer to 2/3 than 2/5, but Berry translates his factors in minutes (1=60) and then takes the minute figures as decimal (1=.6) factors!! In both case, he really screws up.

    Pretty esoteric, true (I did research on this very subject for a short-story of mine, which is why I happened to know that much about it), but if I see such a stupid mistake, what about the remainder of the book? In one statement, Berry blows away most of his credibility. This is not complex science, but if it made its way through multiple revisions, then what about the more complex statements he makes?

    So, it is with reluctance (and, it is true, a giggle or two) that I would ask readers to stay away from The Next 500 Years. Fortunately, other resources can now offer a better picture of the future. (Beginning by the web, resources go from K. Eric Drexler’s Foresight institute at http://www.foresight.org/ to the very serious Futurist at http://www.thefuturist.com/).

    Let’s just hope that this future will include better book editors…

    [Update, November 2005: A reader writes to add…

    I spotted his use of Kinetic Energy = 0.5 m v^2 for input values approaching c in the BASIC program that appears in the appendix.  Slightly more entertaining (in a very sad way) was his claim that the origin of the factor of 1/30 in the reduction of energy required to lift matter from the Moon’s surface compared to lifting it from the Earth’s surface arises as the product of the ratio of surface gravities (1/6) and the ratio of escape velocities (1/5).  By my algebra, this equates to the claim that “all astronomical bodies are the same density”!

    Ouch…]

  • Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World, Lee M. Silver

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1997, 317 pages, C$32.00 hc, ISBN 0-380-97494-0

    The biggest hardship imposed on humanity by genetic engineering might not be the appearance of a race of supermen as much as it’s the flurry of bad jokes and titles oh-so-cleverly plugging in the expression “Brave New World” everywhere they can. Governments should seek a moratorium on that expression rather than looking to ban human cloning research.

    Lee M. Silver, author of Remaking Eden, doesn’t fear the supermen. In fact, his non-fiction exploration of the possibilities of genetic engineering seems to welcome the advent of homo sapiens plus. As such, he’s far removed from the usual naysayers and knee-jerk reactionaries: No wonder he spends most of his book addressing their objections.

    Genetic Engineering is not something we can forget about, for a variety of reasons. The first is that it is not, comparatively speaking, an expensive technology. In an age where any new important endeavor in the field of physics require multi-million equipment, genetic research -and, more significantly, the implementation of existing research- can be done in the confine of large private clinics. Much as computing was popularized by easy accessibility of computers to the masses, reproductive technologies will be used widely, whether we want it or not.

    Another reason why reproductive technologies will not be stopped is that the impetus driving them is no abstract business sense, national competition or far-off payoff: Research in this area is driven by the basic human need to procreate. Parents, not presidents, will insist that the newest technology be used to enhance their children. After all, what’s a tweaked gene or two when some of them are willing to pay for the best schools, the best music teachers, the best social clubs?

    Genetics is not a simple subject, so Silver can be excused to spend more than half the book discussing past and contemporary research. “Bottle babies” aren’t exactly making headlines nowadays, and that’s exactly the point Silver wants to make: These once-“immoral” technologies are now firmly entrenched into accepted social norms. Further genetic research -like cloning, or children born of same-sex parents-, will soon be here, and we can eventually expect them to pass into the same kind of acceptance.

    The book really hits its strides, however, in its last three chapters, where Silver really goes beyond today’s technology to explore the future possibilities offered by The “virtual” child and the “designer” child. The virtual child is an extension of today’s methods, except it consists in fertilizing several eggs, analyzing their genetic makeup and allowing the parents to select the “best” of the embryos. This is only a temporary step to the designer child, which lets parents specify the actual genetic makeup of their children. Of course, we’re not there yet: our knowledge of genes is still too primitive… but we’re getting there. To Silver’s credit, he sees it as a boon and not a doomsday device.

    Remaking Eden is a pretty good book for iconoclast, and a work of Satan for the fundamentalist. The first chapters pretty much destroy the notion that a “natural” threshold exists between living and non-living and that birth is the best compromise we can find. Even for stone-cold atheist humanists, Remaking Eden is at time a harsh read. Make no mistake: this is a book written for controversy. Silver uses the book at tribune to counter-argument some of the most persistent clichés against reproductive technologies. It’s a breath of fresh air to see that he’s so convincing.

    This brand of open-mindedness is absolutely essential to discuss this type of research convincingly. Cloning means, for instance, that there is essentially no conception. That someone’s grandparents can actually be his biological parents. It will take some heavy-duty mental reforms to ensure that these clone children find their harmonious place in society.

    Remaking Eden is a needed rarity: A well-written, accessible book about reproductive technologies that allows us to imagine a better future. Lee M. Silver has done us a real service by writing this book, and allowing to envision a future not necessarily dominated by fear and weakness. It’s well worth reading.

  • Headcrash, Bruce Bethke

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Aspect, 1995, 344 pages, C$6.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60260-4

    When future histories of SF will be written, some pundit will probably observe that cyberpunk died in the early nineties and that Headcrash was one of the pallbearers. When the satiric carrion-eaters start hovering in droves around a genre, you know it’s a pretty stinky corpse.

    But really; a genre founded on a bleak future dominated by corporations in this era of consumer-power? A genre glorifying street-smarts, as written by patsy-faced SF geeks? A genre wetting itself upon fancy cyber-virtuality when today’s networld is clogged to a grind by porn addicts? A genre where brain damage was the way to punch out, and no one ever though about a fuse-protector? What the hell were these cyberpunk writers smoking in their spare time? Who can blame Bruce Bethke for taking on such an obvious target?

    Headcrash is, simply, a satire on cyberpunk. Jack Burroughs is a nerdish compu-minion in a multi-megacorporation. By day, he slaves away at a dead-end job and fights office politics. By night, he’s MAX_KOOL and do pretty much whatever he wants in cyberspace. Unfortunately, the afore-mentioned office politics bite back and he finds himself “transitioned to Unpaid Administrative Leave” [P.117]. After being mugged by security guards in the parking lot (the bastards even cut off his tie!), Burroughs is offered a risky hacking job by a curvaceous cyber-babe…

    By any rational standard, Headcrash is pretty darn funny. “Here comes Bruce Bethke. And he’s got a chainsaw” blurbs Joel Rosenberg on the back cover. He’s not kidding. Bethke savagely rips apart cyberpunk from The Shockwave Rider to Snow Crash, with a hundred-page detour on the inanity of corporate life that reads a lot like Dilbert on acid. Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton also get their dues…

    The first-person narration is wonderfully funny and compulsively readable. Be careful about reading this one on the bus, unless you don’t mind everyone looking at you when you laugh aloud. Like most geek-fantasy tales, this one promises plenty of techno-gadgets and sex, though it eventually reneges on the latter. Disappointingly, many of the “surprises” are telegraphed miles in advance, with predictable results.

    (Warning; mild spoilers in this paragraph) Headcrash finely upholds the cyberpunk tradition of unsatisfying endings, by pulling a huge disappointment out of its bags of tricks. (One Amazon reader called it “a GPF of an ending”) The long-awaited relationship between two characters isn’t consumed and even if the effect seems conscious, it isn’t less damning. One get the feeling that even if the protagonist ends up pretty satisfied with himself, he should -and could- have had better. (Like, er, traveling with someone else.) I will note with some interest that another recent corporate satire -Mike Judge’s film OFFICE SPACE- ends on more or less the same philosophical point.

    Still, one would have to be really ungrateful not to like Headcrash —though it is entirely possible not to get it given the strongly satiric bent of the work. The dour cyberpunk genre really needed such a strongly-worded eulogy… and as far as send-offs go, this one is really quite decent. As if Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Douglas Adams, William Gibson and Scott Adams decided to celebrate the death of the genre by poking fun at each other, with Hunter S. Thompson crashing the party mid-way through.