Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Moonfall, Jack McDevitt

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Prism, 1998 (1999 reprint), 544 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105112-8

    Science-Fiction is often considered, justifiably or not, an escapist literature. One could make a good case that the ultimate escapist stories are end-of-the-world tales, and SF has made a tradition out of such drama. Whether we’re due to be destroyed by aliens, asteroids, black holes, plagues or nuclear war, we can vicariously enjoy other people’s plight while our lives are comfortably uneventful. Jack McDevitt finely upholds this SF distinction with Moonfall.

    The novel takes place in April 2024. While Americans are rushing to fill their tax papers and casting their ballots for the presidential primaries, scientists across the globe are preparing for a spectacular solar eclipse. During the eclipse, an amateur astronomer discovers a comet. Slight problem: the comet is going to impact the moon with such force that it’ll shatter it.

    Unfortunately, humans now have a presence on the Moon, and only hours after the vice-president inaugurates Moonbase, all six hundred residents must escape. As if losing the Moon isn’t enough, some scientists then announce that the impact will send multiple fragments crashing down on Earth, some as big as the one which destroyed the dinosaurs…

    You could do a checklist of expected elements in a disaster novel and Moonfall would have most of them. A large cast of characters. Disaster vignettes. Nick-of-time escapes. Media commentary. Politicians of all stripes. Stupid bystanders. If nothing else, McDevitt has done his homework in order to fulfill readers’ expectations.

    So far so good, but McDevitt’s novel has two significant weaknesses that diminishes its overall effect. The first is almost inherent in disaster novels; the second one is more serious.

    All disaster novels are based, of course, on the disaster. As such, a disaster happens only once, or -if it is averted- not at all. The rest is either apprehension or consequence. Catastrophe novel continually toe the line between impatient readers and let-down readers. Moonfall mitigates the problem with two crises, but spends far too much of its time in overdone suspense.

    The second problem is that McDevitt, by and large, misses the opportunity to create a gallery of compelling characters. Disaster novel characters are usually divided in heroic and anecdotal groups. Moonfall‘s core is fine, with a likeable vice-president and his entourage, but the other recurring characters are not given the chance to shine and distinguish themselves, with the result that they’re often indistinguishable from the one-shot characters seen only in a vignette and then gone forever. Not only would Moonfall have been a substantially shorter novel without these diversions, but the focus of the work would have been strengthened on the vice-president plot, which is really the central axis of the novel.

    Still, don’t get the impression that Moonfall isn’t a particularly enjoyable perfect piece of summer reading. “Not exciting enough” is a broad enough criticism that it can apply to some jaded readers and not to others simply in search of a good read. Richly detailed, carefully researched, Moonfall does so many things right than it’s ungrateful to be pickier than what it deserves.

  • Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

    Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) Gee, what can I say? This film is about review-proof as they come. Still, here are a few random impressions: The visual effects are simply awesome in the purest sense of the term “awesome”. The movie doesn’t take thirty seconds to make scientific errors. I’m feeling vaguely ashamed of my lecherous reaction to Natalie Portman. Jake Lloyd isn’t really annoying, though Jar Jar Binks is. The film is a failure at telling a good, original, independent story. The pod race is very exciting. You’re seen most of the movie elsewhere (including in the other Star Wars stories), sometime even twice in the case of Skywalker-blowing-up-enemy-bases-at-the-end. Was that A> ET, B> a chromed SR-71, C> A Trackball racquet, D> All of the above? I don’t find Darth Maul cool even if George Lucas has spent 2.5$ per man, woman and child in America to make me believe so. It wasn’t worth standing in line for. I can just see hordes of geeks without anything better to do creaming their shorts about the new bits of trivia from the movie; the horror, the wasted time of their lives! I’ll maintain that The Matrix was the coolest movie of Spring 1999, not Star Wars. Your handy guide to know who’s Natalie Portman: her two beauty marks on her cheeks. Me wanna see Samuel L. Jackson in big fight next movie. George Lucas should not only hire professional screenwriters, but also a scientific expert, a military advisor (because his tactics suck) and a director who knows what he’s doing. Immaculate conception? Maybe she was just drunk. “Mito-chloridian”… Is that the sound of rationalization I hear from you, George? Despite everything, Star Wars is loads of fun and will probably make my Top-10 list of 1999. Oh, heck, just go see it; it’s worth your money.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, April 2002) Upon initial release, I was cautiously positive about “Episode I”; good eye candy can compensate for many flaws in my own evaluation scale, and it was hard to argue against another dose of Star Wars goodness. Granted, it doesn’t recapture any of the original trilogy’s magic; George Lucas won’t take that kind of chances any more, and won’t allow better craftsmen than he to improve his silly ideas. On DVD, The Phantom Menace isn’t much more fun, but neither is it much worse. In fact, the added supplemental material is so plentiful that it transforms a marginal SF movie in a recommended purchase. From the audio commentary to the unusually candid making-of (without even discussing the special effects vignettes), this DVD edition is a treasure trove of glimpses in uber-technological filmmaking. It’s fascinating material for fans and techno-geeks like me. (Don’t feel any shame, though, if you start laughing out loud during the segments where they praise Lucas’ writing abilities.) Make no mistake; the film is as dull as it was originally, but unlike in the theater, you can fast-forward through most of Jar-Jar’s scenes.

  • Seong lung wui [Twin Dragons] (1992)

    Seong lung wui [Twin Dragons] (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) A typical Jackie Chan film. You either like or you don’t. Though not a particularly good Chan movie -too much forced humor, lack of pacing, overlong scenes- Twin Dragons nevertheless serves a hefty portion of kung-fu action and physical comedy. Just ignore the sacrilegious lack of bloopers at the end, and the really bad special effects in two scenes (a shame, considering that the remainder of the “twin” effects are very well handled.)

  • Showdown In Little Tokyo (1991)

    Showdown In Little Tokyo (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 1999) No masterpiece here, but a rather satisfying action/police martial arts movie. Brandon Lee is likeable and has a good rapport with his fellow policeman co-star Dolph Lundgren. (Tia Carrere also appears, though she does nothing more substantial than being the damsel in distress) A few good action set-pieces, some fun lines, ludicrous plot if measured against real-world aspects—but clearly not meant to be. The fighting sequences could have benefited from lengthier editing. Not worth renting, but worth catching on the late-night show.

  • All-American Alien Boy, Allen Steele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1996, 267 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-00460-1

    Several reviewers, yours included- have often commented of the different approach used by Allen Steele’s brand of science-fiction. Though he has shown his ability to write hard-SF like the best of them, he approaches his subject from a bottom-up perspective. He writes about the common man in exceptional situations, the worker who implements the grandiose plans for tomorrow. Orbital Decay starred criminals, dull-witted construction workers, insane officers and failed SF writers. The Jericho Iteration‘s protagonist was, like Steele, a St-Louis investigative journalist.

    With this background, the unusual focus of the stories collected in All-American Alien Boy all makes sense. His first collection (Rude Astronauts) was heavily concerned about the usual space exploration SF subject matter. (Though not, as Steele writes in his introduction to his second collection, “set mainly in outer space” [P.xiii]) All American Alien Boy is different, concentrating on near-future SF and historical alternate histories. Few stories are set in more than twenty years. The title refers to the adaptability required to cope with today’s pace of change; we are all a bit more alien than ever before.

    As a big supporter of author introductions to stories in collection, I was pleased to note that Steele wrote substantial introductions to his stories, detailing sources of inspiration and occasionally getting on soapboxes. Most introductions are interesting, some less so and others (like the last half of his introduction to the collection) simply pedantic. Still, it’s appreciated.

    As for the stories themselves, they’re vintage Steele: A clear and elegant style with occasional structural experimentation. Fortunately, there’s more variety than in Rude Astronaut. Like most novelists who started out as journalists, Steele’s prose goes straight to the story without useless detours. It’s no surprise if the two weakest stories of the collection (“See Rock City” and “A letter from St.Louis”, though the latter is from the perspective of a journalist… in 1900) are written with more elaborate style. It’s the more classical stories that shine.

    “Jonathan Livingstone Seaslug” owes a lot to Arthur C. Clarke, as Steele mentions in his introduction, and the result is a tale worthy of the master himself… though the conclusion is obvious early on.

    I thought that despite a fascinating premise, “Lost in the Shopping Mall” could have been stronger. No matter; it’s good enough as it is.

    “Whinin’ Boy Blues” is the sort of SF story that I like to read, with high-tech gadgets, unusual situations, an action-oriented plot and a happy finale. Just ignore the strange title.

    “Doblin’s Lecture” is sociological SF, with a touch of psychological horror. Thought-provoking and with an effect that’s ultimately contrary to what we may expect, a characteristic also shared with “The Good Rat”.

    Finally, I hope this review is just and equitable, because “Hunting Wabbitt” is a great revenge fantasy, from an author to a bad critic.

    No interplanetary spaceships, no aliens. A few giant robots, VR addiction, sea monsters and a crashed SSTO, but that’s as wild as we get. Still, a good author doesn’t have to rely on gadgets and All American Alien Boy is a pretty good collection. You could do worse than take a look at it.

  • Things to Come aka The Shape Of Things To Come (1936)

    Things to Come aka The Shape Of Things To Come (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 1999) It would be easy to dismiss this film on its artificial dialogue, unrepentant didacticism and sometime-ridiculous scenes, but it’s actually not too bad considering the time in which it was produced. Interesting special effects for the time and a message that just can’t be out of fashion: “The stars or nothing!”

  • Robocop 3 (1993)

    Robocop 3 (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 1999) Now that is a bad movie. I am no fan of the series, but even the excessive original instalment had some wit and twisted charm. The second movie was half-good, half-bad, but the third one is just plain awful. Handled with all the emotional subtlety of a jackhammer in the face, this film feels more like an extended episode of the terrible TV show than something that managed to swindle money from moviegoers’ pockets. Of a certain occasional value as MST3K material, but more often too depressingly pathetic to be laughable.

  • Hak Hap [Black Mask] (1996)

    Hak Hap [Black Mask] (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) I normally enjoy Hong Kong action movies a lot, but for some reason, Black Mask left me wanting something more polished. Never mind the silly story and lousy dialogue: the action scenes are what counts, and the fact is that they’re not terribly well-shot. In terms of editing, director Daniel Lee is actually worse than the excessive short-cutter Michael Bay, and the result is a fury of sound and action that doesn’t let us time to appreciate Jet Li’s martial prowess, or form a coherent picture of what’s supposed to happen on-screen. The excessive usage of blood also diminishes the enjoyment I was looking for. Still, it’s a dynamic picture, and Françoise Yip is always worth a look. The hip-hop music is an interesting dubbing choice. Jet Li otherwise rocks.

  • Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth, Jeff Greenwald

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Viking, 1998, 273 pages, C$33.99 hc, ISBN 0-670-87399-3

    I used to be a fanatic Star Trek fan. Raised on “Star Trek” reruns and fascinated by “The Next Generation” as a teen, my interest in the show ended at around the same time than I discovered the Internet and -maybe less strangely- as I discovered the really good (written) SF stuff. Since then, I have followed the series with only the sketchiest attention, as the newer series like DS9 and Voyager have failed to grab my attention.

    As a result, I know Star Trek but can’t really attach any deep non-nostalgic emotion to it. You will not catch me learning Klingon, dressing up in a purple skin-tight uniform or even reading *.startrek.* newsgroups. Though I did pay good money for three of the last four Trek movies and a few used Trek novels by good SF authors, (plus one Canadian dollar for a used copy of the English/Klingon dictionary, just for kicks) that’s pretty much the extent of my financial investment in the Trek Franchise. It’s a TV show, not a way of life.

    Not everyone sees it that way. All around the globe, fans are watching the show religiously and integrating its philosophy in their lives. Jeff Greenwald is, for lack of a better term, what we could call an intelligent fan of the series. “Not a rabid fan” he warns us “never one to squeeze my guts into a spandex uniform, but a fan nonetheless.” [P.3] Future Perfect is an attempt to find out why people are so fascinated with this long-running series.

    Future Perfect has a three-part entwined structure. The first is what you would expect from a standard examination of “Star Trek”: interviews with the actors, description of such oddities as the Klingon Language Institute, portraits of JPL engineers fascinated with the show, etc…

    The second is unusual for a book self-described as “not prepared, approved, licensed or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the Star Trek television series or films.”: Greenwald managed to be granted access to several crucial steps in the creation of Star Trek: First Contact, which opened in theatres in 1996 to both popular and critical acclaim. From last-minute script revisions to opening night, Greenwald is there, like a fly on the wall.

    The third part of Future Perfect is the one that earns the book its subtitle. Greenwald goes around the globe to find out why exactly Star Trek is such a world-wide phenomenon. From Klingon marriages in Germany to a delightful interview with the Dalai Lama, we truly get, for what is possibly the first time, an image of Star Trek across the planet.

    Greenwald doesn’t always succeed in his self-imposed task, but always remains interesting. His interview with Kurt Vonnegut has few relevance to Star Trek, but remains thought-provoking. If some of his stops on his world-wide Star Trek tour are disappointing in term of Trek, he never misses the chance to make us visit wonderful places. (viz; “The Wired Raj”)

    Future Perfect hasn’t managed to make me fall in love with “Star Trek” all over again, but it has certainly restored my respect in the series, and I can only be grateful to Greenwald for that. (I even took the time, midway through the book, to watch a Voyager episode. Though the story -“11:59”- wasn’t exactly good by most standards, it did mesh perfectly with Greenwald’s theories about Star Trek.) One might quibble with the limitations, the methods or the individuals that make up Star Trek (I came away from the book with even less respect for Brannon Braga, which is quite an accomplishment), but it’s essential to realize that for all its fault, the ideals of “Star Trek” are the same that drives more serious science-fiction. If more people can be inspired by those, great.

    Jeff Greenwald has written a book that is simultaneously about, and well beyond “Star Trek”. His writing style is almost worth the price of the book in itself. No boring interviews, but wonderfully crunchy encounters (drinking vodka with Kate Mulgrew, being gruffly treated by Patrick Steward, cruising chicks with Brannon Braga…) with the all-too-human beings that took millions among the stars. No ordinary Trek book, but a darn good, non-fiction account of human determination. Not bad for a TV show!

  • Gods And Monsters (1998)

    Gods And Monsters (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) This film manages, despite the rather distasteful subject matter and inevitable conclusion, to be entertaining, funny and even poignant. Everyone shines in their respective roles. The script deservedly won an Oscar, and transforms what could have been a ponderous tale of impending death into something far more interesting than it could have been.

  • Existenz (1999)

    Existenz (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) That wacky Canadian Cronenberg strikes again with an average “What is Reality?” tale made more memorable by the use of biological “technology” and some scenes rather suggestive of anal sex. No, really. Two actresses shine, what with Jennifer Jason Leigh (As a champ game designer with a lovely hairdo! In a tight blue miniskirt!) and Sarah “Raaah!” Polley. While rather slow in its first hour, Existenz picks up and ends with a really enjoyable last five minutes. Some may be disappointed with its The Usual Suspects-type ending, but I came out of the theatre with a big goofy grin on my face, and any movie that manages that can’t be half-bad.

  • Entrapment (1999)

    Entrapment (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) Now here’s a splendid example of a good potential turned into barely adequate material. Where to start…? Catherine Zeta-Jones may be breathtakingly beautiful, but she plays her character like a spoiled child and seldom appears believable in any of her incarnations. Sean Connery is his dapper self, so darn cool that we can only wonder why he keeps playing into these awful films. Ving Rhames is wasted. The script -filled with awful dialogue- smells a lot like a first unedited draft. The editing is weak, avoiding to film a car chase but choosing to spend almost a full minute on Zeta-Jones’ gymnastics. There are plot holes big enough to drive a train car through. The ending is weak. The age differential between the two leads borders on the laughable. (My sister suggested that Baker should have been MacDonald’s long-lost daughter, which would have been interesting. She -my sister- has a future in screenwriting.) Only the heist sequences are rather good, if you exclude the extremely convenient escapes. The overall result is muddled enough to avoid recommendation.

  • Election (1999)

    Election (1999)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, May 1999) This film despite what one might infer from the plot (which revolves around a High-School Council presidential race), is too original to be simply considered a “teen movie”. Unfortunately, as with Rushmore, it’s not enough to be original is you want to be enjoyable. Election is -fittingly enough for its chosen sub-genre- a film with identity problems. It’s a tale where the protagonist is not the good guy and the antagonist is not the bad girl. It’s a tragedy with pretensions of comedy seen through the eyes of the loser who thinks he did the right thing. I ended up cheering for Tracy Flick and agreeing with her assertion that “great minds are always brought down by idiots”. As a former High School council president, I experienced a bit of flashback when a candidate voted for the other because “it didn’t seem right to vote for myself”: Been there, done that, won the election. Election, on the other hand, is a mixed bag of elements not fully integrated.

  • Macrolife, George Zebrowski

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1979, 284 pages, C$3.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-55483-6

    One of the unique aspects of Science-Fiction as a genre is that is some instance, it’s possible for a novel to be completely interesting while also being completely rotten. George Zebrowski’s Macrolife is a good example of this.

    In many ways, this is an incompetent novel. For most of the books, you can’t discern the characters, and it doesn’t help that most are members of a same anglo-saxon family, so you’re stuck with boring names like Jack, Richard, John, James… Everyone talks the same way and act identically so that it’s a waste of time to figure out the characterization.

    The novel is divided in three parts, and I’ll be the first to admit that the third one should have been a two-page epilogue, not a thirty-five page chapter. The pacing is also sadly deficient in the middle section, with our protagonist going down on a primitive planet to… er… do some stuff I couldn’t get interested in. Whoever Macrolife‘s editor was, s/he could have spend some more time on its structure. The prose is okay, though Zebrowski didn’t bother with dialogue.

    Which leaves us with the first section and segments of the second part. Fortunately, the novel improves sharply in the fist section. “Sunspace: 2021” resemble Clarke’s work in many ways, with its portrait of a future human society just beginning to step into space. The near-magical “bulerite” element isn’t very convincing, but it does sets up a few interesting situations. More significantly, this section revolves around an event that doesn’t require a lot of effort to be gripping; the end of Earth always requires some attention..

    The beginning and ending of the second sections also have some interest, mostly in the description of how humanity is able to evolve beyond Earth and even thrive elsewhere. Though I’m not really familiar with the whole of Zebrowski’s work, this really fits well with the end of his 1998 novel Brute Orbits and elements of The Killing Star, his 1995 collaboration with Charles Pellegrino.

    The true value of Macrolife, as is the norm for a hard-SF novel, are the ideas that it showcases. Though it would be useless to pretend that the notion of space colonization is as surprising today as it was in 1979, Zebrowski makes an interesting argument and his “Macrolife” (ie; human settlements as cells of a super-organism) terminology is thought-provoking. Though the novel is twenty years old, it hasn’t perceptibly aged and compares in theme with the latest hard-SF. (It’s fun to see Greg Egan’s Diaspora as an update to Macrolife. Or maybe not.) In any case, this is a novel of considerable ambition. As the blurb says, “From the end on the world to the end of the universe”!

    One can’t say that Macrolife has much of a reputation today. (Though its worth noting that the Library Journal selected it as one of the “100 best SF novels”) It’s unfortunate, given that it seems as significant -in SF terms- as its contemporaries like Sheffield’s The Web Between the Worlds and Clarke’s The Fountain of Paradise. In fact, I’m surprised that “Macrolife” as a term hasn’t received much more attention (an Altavista search reveals only 35 mentions) in this age of enlightened environmentalism and impending private colonization of space.

    You can easily dismiss Macrolife on literary merits; no argument about that. You can scoff at the weak characters and chances are that they’d agree. You can even ditch most of the last two-third with nary a qualm. But you can’t really argue that the novel isn’t worth a look. Such is the strength of SF, which can get away with escaping most of the criteria of good fiction and still end up with a worthwhile result.

  • Desperado (1995)

    Desperado (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On TV, May 1999) “Oh, I’ll just re-watch the first fifteen minutes” (…) “Hmmm, I’ll just watch until after Salma Hayek comes in” (…) “Hey, there’s a good action scene coming up after the nude scene” (…) “Gee, what the heck, I’ll watch it all again”. Desperado sits on my Top-100 favorite movies list and re-watching it only highlights why it’s there: The story in itself is ordinary (man goes after bad guy, gets in gunfights, meets girl) but the treatment is superlative. The directing style is wonderfully kinetic, the script pushes everything over the top, Banderas and Hayek make a couple of Beautiful People… Desperado is a modern western with an far-east attitude, a mix of John Wayne and John Woo with a style of its own. If anything, it’s even more interesting the second time around, as you’re able to appreciate the technique even more. (Though the “missiles” effect now looks obvious.) Watch it again.

    (Third viewing, On DVD, April 2004) Goodness gracious, I so love this film. The action scenes are low-budget miracles. The character introductions have seldom been more effective. The whole western-meets-Hong Kong-action vibe is delicious. The principal casting is perfect. Salma Hayek has rarely been so drop-dead gorgeous. I’m still pretty annoyed by the let-down ending, but at least the good audio commentary by writer/director Robert Rodriguez helps to explain why it feels like such a cheat. (While a bit less polished than his usual commentaries, Rodriguez’s track is very informative as to the technical making of the film) A smattering of small documentaries complete the special edition DVD package, a must for any action enthusiast.