Author: Christian Sauvé

  • Matinee (1993)

    Matinee (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1998) Who would have thought to combine nostalgia for the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962 with an examination of B-grade horror movies of the same era? Director Joe Dante, that’s who. John Goodman is great as a horror-movie producer peddling his latest movie (“Mant!”) to a small Key West city. In fact, he’s so much fun (along with the fake movie itself) that the various adventures of the teen characters become more of an intrusion than an integral part of the movie. Uneven, but worth a look. Matinee‘s social commentary about horror movies does not go much further than a Stephen King essay, but is unusual to see in a Hollywood product.

  • The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

    The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1998) At first glance, there’s nothing very exciting about the concept of Zorro: A masked guy (yawn), swordfighting (yawn) evil Spaniards (yawn) in 19th century California (yawn). And yet, The Mask Of Zorro fills a need you didn’t think you had: To see one good swashbuckling movie about a stylish caped crusader. Antonio Banderas brings authentic looks, charisma and comic timing to the title character. Sultry Catherine Zeta-Jones burns the screen. The stunts are great, the swordfighting isn’t butchered by quick edits, the script is okay and the sheer style of Zorro isn’t overshadowed by the unobtrusive direction. One of this summer’s most satisfying blockbusters. Great fun for everyone.

    (Second viewing, On DVD, September 1999) Fortunately, this marriage of old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure with modern pacing still holds up amazingly well to a second viewing. This is obviously a by-the-number action script, but the whole atmosphere lifts the film up above your run-of-the-mill film. A trio of extremely capable actor (Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and the breakaway presence of the luscious Catherine Zeta-Jones) and some quasi-classical scenes complete the work. The DVD doesn’t add much besides an unremarkable making-of featurette.

  • Lethal Weapon (1987)

    Lethal Weapon (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1998) A routine “buddy” cop movie that raises itself above average with the inclusion of a few action sequences (the money shot being a car doing a vertical 180o in front of a bus) and the marvelous mismatched characters personified by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson. Exemplifies a certain archetype of 80s buddy-cop action pictures: I wonder how much of the film’s then-freshness is invisible today thanks to countless imitators?

  • Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

    Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1998) Once you’ve accepted that Lethal Weapon 4 is going to be an incoherent action comedy, the movie is a blast. Sporting no less than six big-name stars (Gibson, Glover, Russo, Rock, Pesci and Li) and numerous explosions, Lethal Weapon 4 is still a pretty good follow-up to the franchise. It’s certainly one of the first 1998 releases that can be enjoyed by a wide audience without too many problems. Again, the standout sequence of the film is a fabulous car chase that resulted in applause in my theatre. Rene Russo is criminally underused, the coincidental aspects of the plot are troublesome, the emotional content of the movie is manipulative, some of the comedy falls flat and most of the drama is quickly glossed over, but Lethal Weapon 4 delivers like few blockbusters this year.

  • Takedown, Tsutomu Shimomura with John Markoff

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Hyperion, 1996, 509 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-7868-8913-6

    As today’s world is becoming increasingly dependant on electronic networks for communications, business and entertainment, the potential for abusing these systems is also expanding. On one side, clever young anarchists with time to lose and the “Information should be free!” slogan. One on the other, computer security specialist and corporations with information to protect.

    It’s not only a technical issue. Without effort, it also touches ethical, philosophical and personal issues. In an age where the Internet is now offering more free information than was available to every human that ever lived before, property issues are become more important than ever.

    Unfortunately, Takedown only briefly touches on these important questions. This might not necessarily be a criticism of the work, given that the book is about one particular instance of computer crime.

    On Christmas Day 1995, somebody broke into Tsutomu Shimomura’s system, copied files and went away. Unfortunately for the cracker, Shimomura happened to be an expert in computer security. Takedown details Shimomura’s hunt for the culprit, a hunt that eventually took him to a Raleigh suburb for the apprehension of the suspect.

    There have been a few books on the subject of computer security, and Takedown is an average entry. It’s an enjoyable book: simply written, not too technically obscure, satisfyingly resolved. Despite the cover blurbs, it’s not as good as a detective novel, but it holds its own. The process of detection, identification and localisation of the computer cracker is gradually revealed, and the chase even becomes exciting when Shimomura has to go on the terrain to investigate. (You can tell that this isn’t a movie by the fact that the cracker and Shimomura don’t meet until after the cracker’s apprehension.)

    But somehow, Takedown isn’t as fascinating as it should have been. Worse, a better similar book exists. The Cuckoo’s Egg, by Clifford Stoll, told the tale of an eclectic astronomer who managed to catch teen crackers by luring them in a network of false information. Not only are the stakes higher in The Cuckoo’s Egg (military info versus cellular phone software), but Stoll is -I’m sorry to say- a far more interesting individual. Both books work in a considerable amount of detail of the two men’s personal lives, but whereas Stoll is a genuine eccentric, Shimomura comes out of it as a brilliant hacker desperately trying to pass himself as “normal”. His interests in skiing, hiking and other pursuits besides computers seem tacked-on to humanise the characters, not as essential parts of the narrative. His romantic interest also seems -with apologies to these two- pretty weak.

    In the end, we’re left with an interesting tale of modern detection, spiced up by a deliciously portentous “physical” dimension when the narrative moves to Raleigh. Critics voiced on the Internet have complained that the Intruder’s side of the story has been given short thrift, but that’s an insignificant assertion given the source of the story. Far more damaging is the rather obnoxious narrator and the sometimes-ridiculous attempts at humanizing the character. Whatever your opinions about cracking, Takedown is unlikely to convince anyone. Readers, let them be laymen, hackers or crackers, will get out of the book what they bring into it.

  • Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

    Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 1998) This sequel loses something of the initial interaction between the two lead characters, but gains fantastic villains and even better action sequences while retaining a certain dramatic edge that is nowhere to be found in latter films of the series. Series regulars may regard this one as a high point of the series, lame ending aside.

  • Das Boot (1981)

    Das Boot (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On VHS, July 1998) Incredibly convincing account of a U-boat submarine patrol in the middle of WW2, Das Boot ranks as one of the finest war movie I’ve seen. Mesmerizing, suspenseful, touching in its sincerity, Das Boot should be seen at least once. My “Director’s Cut” widescreen version was in German, with English subtitles. It works. This should be experienced on as big a screen as possible, with the best sound system you can afford to put together. It’s a bit longish in spots, but uses most of its long stretches to build suspense or develop characters. Don’t miss it. Makes a perfect double-feature for Saving Private Ryan.

  • Armageddon (1998)

    Armageddon (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 1998) It gave me a headache, it frequently didn’t make any sense, had some of the goofiest science ever and the worst editing I’ve seen lately, but Armageddon was definitely a perfect summer blockbuster. It’s the second “something’s going to smash into the Earth!” movie of 1998, but whereas Deep Impact was okay drama, Armageddon is slam-bang action. The goofs are innumerable and I could probably prepare a good hour-long seminar on “Physics Armageddon writers should have studied”, but you’re unlikely to be bothered with it: just consider it a caricature. Okay acting, spectacular Special Effects, adequate characters… Complete nonsense, but it delivers. One truly enjoyable brainless audiovisual stunner, just perfect for the 4th of July. I just wish for an extended director’s cut where they’ll use shots lasting more than three seconds.

    (Second viewing, On TV, February 2001) Watching this on a TV screen with three year’s worth of hindsight is an instructive experience. Stripped of the hype and of the audiovisual pummelling prepared by director Michael Bay, the film proves to be better and worse than remembered. For one thing, despite all his problems with coherent editing, it’s difficult not to be impressed with the dynamism of Bay’s direction: moving cameras, beautiful framing, interesting setups, wonderful colors. Indeed, the first half-hour of Armageddon is a top-notch, A+ thrill ride, with what may be the most extravagant action scene yet put to film (the destruction of New York, with its orgy of exploding cars). It’s in the latter part of the film that things don’t go as well. While the script works well as a comedic action film, it never takes off when it attempts to build love scenes (the infamous “animal crackers” bit), drama (“That salesman is your father!”) or heroic sacrifice ([spoiler]) The last half-hour is not only far too long and repetitive, but the editing problems get worse (it’s virtually impossible to have a clear idea of what’s happening) and the script problems also deteriorate in unintentional ridiculousness that clashes more and more with the heroic tone of the film. At least no dollar has been spared to bring us the pictures (some of which only last a flash or two) and most often than not, the pictures are worth looking at, while they’re still on the screen.

  • L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Mysterious Press, 1990, 496 pages, C$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-89296-293-3

    Faithful readers of these chronicles will remember that I had finally seen L.A. CONFIDENTIAL shortly after it was re-released in February. Given my reaction (“…as enjoyable as a good book… triumph of storytelling… masterful script… excellent performances… L.A. CONFIDENTIAL gives me back my faith in cinema.”), it was only a matter of time until I broke down and read the book.

    So, when I had the chance to buy a (very bruised, very tattered, very cheap) first hardcover edition, I didn’t hesitate and plunked down the change.

    No regrets.

    Opinions about book-to-movie adaptations are usually uniform: People prefer the book, are disappointed by the movie and hate the unnecessary changes the scriptwriters thought necessary. In the worst cases, the entire message of a book can be completely perverted by the adaptation, not to mention the novel’s storyline.

    So, it’s a surprise to notice that in the case of L.A. Confidential, they not only made significant changes, but that they work.

    Both versions of the story are about crime and corruption in Los Angeles during the fifties. Three cops must unravel a complex cover-up and learn to deal with each other: Bud White, a thug who likes to impose his justice on wife-beaters. Ed Exley, a straight-arrow policemen with dark ambitions. Jack Vincennes, Hollywood junkie and no stranger to the occasional bribe.

    The novel L.A. Confidential is huge and takes place over an eight-year period. The movie has an unspecified duration of about six months. Two of the three main characters are considerably less honourable in the book. The “dead father” subplot has been added to the movie, while entire chunks of the book are missing from the film. A significant character loosely based on Walt Disney is completely gone. The orders of certain event has been switched around, as well as who did them.

    Given this, it would be natural to believe that the movie has no resemblance to the book any more. That’s not far from the truth: Save from the opening sequences and the final scene, the film adaptation takes considerable liberty with the material.

    But what remains is the noir atmosphere, the attitude itself of corrupt cops, flawed protagonists, seedy crime and burgeoning California that permeates the book. James Ellroy’s sparse but incredibly dense style is the same one used in the movie. Despite the complexity of the tale, only a few rough spots exist.

    As a crime novel, L.A. Confidential deserves the term “epic”. It mixes together cops, criminals, Hollywood, politics and real-estate development. At least three separate crimes are intricately mixed up together. It features a breadth of characters that’s hard to match elsewhere. Ellroy has attempted big, and mostly succeeded.

    However, it might be a good idea to see the film first. Not only does it clears up the opening of the book considerably (and gives you the impetus to go forward), but it’s sufficiently different to keep you surprised throughout.

    In fact, I think I will take the heretical position of saying that I like the movie storyline more than the book: It’s more focused, offers more thematic closure and is probably more enjoyable as a movie than the novel is as a book. As William Goldman said in his March 1998 “Premiere” article, the final eight minutes are unnecessary, but it’s still a great movie. The screenwriters fully deserve their Best Adaptation Academy Award: They have produced a very complex yet gripping work of art from another work of art.

    Whether you’ve seen L.A. CONFIDENTIAL or not, James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential is still strongly recommended for crime fiction fans. Don’t miss it!

  • Year’s Best SF 3, Ed. David G. Hartwell

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 448 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105901-3

    Who do you trust?

    When you get down to it, that’s the only worthwhile question when you buy a “best-of” anthology. Normally, people don’t have the same tastes and chances are that once in a while, a gem to another will be garbage to you. In SF, there are now two annual “best of” anthologies. Gardner Dozois edits one, David Hartwell edits the other.

    I’ll state right up-front that from what I’ve seen, I tend to trust Hartwell rather than Dozois. Not only have I met Hartwell and heard a few suspicious things from Dozois about media SF, but the content of the anthologies themselves are very different.

    One thing that struck me of Dozois’s anthology is how… well… most of the anthology wasn’t true *Science*-Fiction. Fantasy yes, magical realism yes, social-fiction yes, but hard-SF was practically absent. Not so with Hartwell, who selects stories that are mostly, obviously, from the genre of true science-fiction. (Unlike Dozois, Hartwell has proven his knowledge of other fields by editing anthologies of Horror, Fantasy, etc… Maybe that’s why he doesn’t feel the need to put everything he likes in one big “SF” anthology.)

    Year’s Best SF 3 contains more than twenty stories in almost 450 pages. Fortunately, most of them are short and Hartwell avoids selecting interminable novellas (another pet peeve of mine; never mind). Most of them are readable, most of them are firmly based upon new ideas and most of them are enjoyable.

    Among those:

    • In “The Nostalginauts”, S.N.Dyer shows us a future high-school graduation where almost everyone there is present twice, at twenty-five years intervals. This is my favourite story of the volume: Densely written, credibly extrapolated, with a fun punch at the end. I look forward to see more of Dyer’s stuff.
    • Tom Cool continues to produce entertaining material (after his excellent debut novel Infectress) with the paranoid “Universal Emulators”, where matters of identities and counter-identities are much more complex -or simple- than we might think.
    • If Tom Cool takes on identities, Nancy Kress does new stuff with moods in “Faithful to Thee, in my Fashion”. Would you believe future seasonal mood fashions? Good sociological extrapolations, fascinating premise and Kress makes it work. Nicely subtle “unhappy” ending too.
    • Geoffrey Landis’s “Turnover” seems to me to exemplify the capacity of SF to provide creative freedom to unorthodox science. Best of all, Landis uses a silly tone to postulate silly theories. The result is a lot of fun.
    • Gregory Benford morphs himself briefly in Ray Bradbury to write “The Voice”, an updated version of Fahrenheit 451‘s basic premise. Meanwhile, Bradbury is in the anthology too, with a decidedly un-hard-SF tale named “Mr. Pale”. Complete fantasy, but enjoyable.
    • Greg Egan is up to his usually provocative self with “Yeyuka”, a tale of bio-technology and technological imperialism.

    On the other hand, I wasn’t able to finish the stories of William Gibson, Kim Newman and R. Garcia y Robertson.

    Still, given that the remainders of the stories are pretty impressive, Year’s Best SF 3 gets my recommendation for anyone wishing to get an idea of where the genre is going at the moment. Good for neophytes, good for jaded fans, good for everyone, Year’s Best SF 3 is a solid choice. Best of all, it’s even a bit cheaper than the usual paperback!

  • The Book of Knights, Yves Meynard

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 222 pages, C$29.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-86482-6

    I will freely confess that I do not read much fantasy at the moment. I used to be a fan a few years ago, but dropped out sometime since then.

    I’m not sure of my reasons. Maybe it’s the implicit rejection of technology and the unrealistic glorification of the European medieval era. Maybe it’s the casual acceptance of destiny as a way of life and the triviality of merit, or free-will. Maybe it’s the constant use of the monarchic system, with its rigid classes of royalty and commoners. Maybe it’s that my cartesian mind can’t deal with different causalities.

    Whatever the reason(s), I now usually end up bored stiff by fantasy. Even given that I’m a fairly fast reader, I won’t touch fantasy novels and much less fat fantasy trilogies.

    But (conflict-of-interest disclosure time) since I’ve met Yves Meynard a few times and since I like to do my part for Canadian SF&F&H, I decided to try The Book of Knights. Given its relatively thin 222 pages, at least I was assured of a fairly quick read.

    The novel begins as a young boy named Adelrune discovers a tattered volume in his parent’s attic. This volume is, of course, The Book of Knights. In a small town where official doctrine is rigidly followed, the book represents evasion for Adelrune and soon, he’s running away to become a knight.

    He eventually enters the service of a mage that will teach him, barring a hefty price. Then it’s off in the vast land, for Adelrune must prove his worth. Adventures ensue.

    From the plot synopsis, it might appear as if Meynard didn’t take any chances, combining a familiar premise with a surefire way to maintain interest. I found myself constantly reaching for my copy of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

    But it must be said that however classical The Book of Knights‘s premise is, Meynard does a pretty good job with it. Furthermore, the details themselves are original: We seldom feel as if we’re reading recycled Tolkien outtakes. Sagacious readers will experience a delicious thrill from time to time, as things suddenly go quite unlike how they could be expected to go.

    Better yet, The Book of Knights manages to be satisfying and morally ambiguous in a genre where whiter-than-white victories are usually the norm. Adelrune’s quest might tangentially resemble other quests, but the resolution of it is certainly different. The quest itself was probably not the point of the book.

    The Book of Knights is also unusually readable, something that may surprise readers of Meynard’s other stories. Despite a few longish passages (after the Inn passage, after the Ship passage), this novel can be read in almost a single sitting. Dialogues are written in a literate pseudo-medieval way (“I am very much older than I appear. All those whom I grew up with are dead; the country I dwelled in has been parcelled out into five duchies and patched back up several times.”) that somehow seems neither ridiculous, over-polished or intrusive.

    While my basic opinion of fantasy remains unchanged, even I have to admit that The Book of Knights is a pretty good book. Although the hardcover might still be a bit overpriced at this moment (borrow it at the library), the paperback should be a worthwhile investment for a large segment of the SF&F readership. A strong contender for next year’s Aurora awards, The Book of Knights also heralds the arrival of a major new talent on the Fantasy scene. I can’t wait to see what Meynard writes next.

  • The Intruders, Stephen Coonts

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1994, 375 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-87061-0

    Readers already familiar with military fiction already know that most of it takes place during wars. Whether historical or imagined, war seems a natural place for highlighting the efforts, sacrifices and emotions of average (?) military characters.

    Stephen Coonts’s first novel was Flight of the Intruder, a Vietnam-era story of naval aviators trying to do their job as well as they could under the hesitant American political system. It was turned into a movie, albeit not a very successful one.

    Afterward, Coonts branched out in fiction that was closer to thriller territory than military action… Terrorists taking over an aircraft carrier (Final Flight), a witch-hunt for soviet spies in a top-secret aircraft project (The Minotaur), drug dealers taking over Washington (Under Siege, not the Seagal movie) and hijinks in post-USSR Russia. (The Red Horseman)

    All these novels starred Jake Grafton, a professional naval officer. In Flight of the Intruder, he’s a pilot. In Final Flight, he’s an air wing commander. The Intruders fills in some of the gap between the two novels. What’s unusual about it is that it’s straight military fiction without a war.

    It’s 1973. The Vietnam war is over, at least for the Americans. Jake Grafton has narrowly evaded a court martial for his acts at the end of Flight of the Intruder and is now enjoying his leave in the United States. Things don’t go too well: Drinking in a bar after a stormy meeting with the parents of his wife-to-be, he gets mad and defenestrates a guy who’s ragging against the military.

    For his troubles, Jake gets an affectation on an aircraft carrier, teaching carrier aviation to Marines. What follows is almost two hundred pages of miscellaneous anecdotes and a seventy-page adventure tacked at the end.

    This is not meant to be disparaging: The Intruders is quite enjoyable overall, with its detailed description of life aboard an aircraft carrier cruise. Simply put, carrier aviation is not for sissies: There’s probably no more difficult task for a pilot than to land on the ridiculously short deck of a carrier, at night, during rotten weather where the landing deck can suddenly jump up and down by several feet. Even departing from a carrier, as Coonts shows us, can be hair-raising.

    Much like the movie MEMPHIS BELLE, Coonts compresses dozens of exciting incidents, big and small, in one trip. Most of them happen to protagonist Jake Grafton, (Someone is the book says: “Stuff keeps happening to you, man!”) who decides early on that this will be his last cruise. Of course he will stay (see the later novels), but why?

    Coonts’s characters have always been fairly interesting, and he surpasses himself in The Intruders. Not only are Grafton’s friends more polished than ever before, but Grafton himself acquires an extra depth during the novel: his evolution to the mindset of a professional Navy aviator is very credible. Meanwhile, we get an insight in the psychology of naval pilots, probably one of the toughest job on Earth.

    The novel suffers somewhat from the inclusion of a pirate adventure (really!) at the end, another case of “Uh-oh! Got to have a plot!” anxiety.

    Exciting, fascinating, gripping and not without an extra layer of significance, The Intruders manages to overcome the potentially off-putting barrier of “historical non-warfare” military fiction to produce a novel that’s commendable to anyone interested in the genre. You will learn stuff, and you will enjoy it.

  • Death by Deficit, Richard Rohmer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Stoddard, 1995, 234 pages, C$26.95 hc, ISBN 0-7737-2902-X

    It’s been said that Canada is a country shaped by paranoia. Given the antagonistic relation between the two original founding nation (France and England), the frightening bully-like power of its southern neighbour (The United States), the rebellious streak of its French province (Quebec) and the increasingly multicultural nature of its population, (see Toronto) it’s no wonder that the nation is always going from one overblown crisis to another, second-guessing itself and feeling terribly insecure about its future.

    In the process, Canadians have shaped the best country of the world.

    But insecurity sells, and Richard Rohmer has built a career upon this. Author of more than a dozen novels and half-a-dozen nonfiction books, Rohmer has specialized in intricate, high-stakes political/military thrillers featuring Canada as the protagonist. Ill-written and badly constructed, Rohmer’s novels often feel like solutions in search of problems; clever concepts ineptly inserted in rotten novels.

    Nevertheless… it sells. Provided you’ve got some time to lose and borrow the book from the library, Rohmer’s novels might even be not entirely unenjoyable. Death by Deficit goes straight in this category.

    A few years ago, in the middle of the latest recession, the Canadian economic and political scene went berserk on the concept that Canada was irresponsibly running a budget deficit of nearly forty billion dollars a year. After several years of profligate spending by parties in power, an effort was made to reduce the deficit to manageable levels.

    Today, the zero-deficit budget isn’t yet here, but it’s surprisingly close, especially given “common wisdom” of not even ten years ago. Through massive cuts everywhere (and quite a bit of screaming), the Canadian government is finally getting a hold of fiscal maturity. (Alas, the debt will remain for quite some time…)

    In 1994-1995, though, things weren’t so rosy and it seemed possible to imagine a future where Canada would simply go bankrupt. Quite a few people dwelled on the consequences, including Richard Rohmer.

    Death by Deficit is nothing but an intellectual exercise in which the goal is to un-bankrupt Canada. As a fictional work, it is simply laughable: Characters are ill-defined (and all women are beautiful), dialogue is hilarious, narrative flow is broken by the inclusion of a (real-life!) news program transcription, etc…

    But as a thought-exercise, it’s a pretty fascinating read. Rohmer exposes the problems and shakes the sceptre of the consequences, then proceeds to find three different solutions to the problem. Although none of them are terribly convincing, they offer some food for thought.

    The technical details of the inner workings of the government and national fiscal policy are credibly exposed: Chances are that you’ll learn a few things. Given its alarmist nature, Death by Deficit is frightening and memorable; The old scare tactics still work well.

    “Hard economy-fiction” might not be the best-selling category out there, but Death by Deficit shows that fiction, even incompetent fiction, can help a great deal to expose and sensitize readers to issues that might only be of interest to accountants and newspaper columnists. Don’t read Death by Deficit for gripping accounts of super-special economic agents or even decent storytelling, but take a look to appreciate what Canada might have narrowly avoided, and what may still be in store for us if we’re not careful.

  • The Divide, Robert Charles Wilson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1990, 249 pages, C$10.95 tpb, ISBN 0-385-26655-3

    Intelligence -and higher intelligence- has always been of interest to SF writers and readers. Maybe it’s because of the usual belief that persons interested in SF are, on average, more intelligent than the common person. Maybe it’s because highly intelligent protagonists suffer from a sense of alienation akin to what the usual SF fan feels. Or maybe because it’s SF’s job to fulfil fantasies… and being smarter is probably high on everyone’s list of fantasies.

    But high intelligence is often seen as much of a handicap than a blessing. From Stapleton’s Odd John (referenced to in The Divide) onward, high intelligence is a source of pain and misery. The Divide takes the normal/high intelligence difference further by creating a protagonist with multiple personalities: one of average wits, the other… definitely not.

    Robert Charles Wilson has never been a particularly inventive author with his premises. (Although his latest, Darwinia, is an exception) You can almost pick off the major themes he explored book-by-book: Time-travel/cyborgs in A Bridge of Time, alien invasions/metaphysical transcendence in The Harvest, parallel universes/alternate histories in Mysterium…

    But Wilson more than makes up for his pedestrian subjects by treating them with a sensitivity uncommon in SF. The characters in his stories are almost always fully realized, depicted like real humans, and given the chance to exhibits genuine traits. What’s more, Wilson writes with a commendable clarity: His books are difficult to put down because their narrative intensity -even for low-key novels!- is so strong.

    The Divide might not be Wilson’s best work (for reasons soon explained), but it is certainly a pleasant read. For a contemporary novel with a low body-count and a sentimental approach, The Divide grips its reader in the opening pages and doesn’t let go.

    John Shaw is the product of a secret government project (gee!) conducted thirty years ago to enhance human intelligence. When the project was disbanded, John was put in a foster home. Twenty-five years later, the scientist in charge of the project thinks that John is in trouble-and he’s not far from the truth: John Shaw’s mind has created Benjamin, an averagely-smart alter-ego. But now, Benjamin is taking over…

    As the scientist’s assistant tracks down John and Benjamin’s intrusion in John’s life are becoming more and more frequent, stakes are raised with the arrival of the brother of John/Benjamin’s girlfriend-a dangerously unbalanced young man with a troubling history of violence.

    In lesser hands, The Divide might have been an insipid rehash of old plots, stale Freudian (or Jungian) stereotypes and a sappy love story. But Wilson is aware of these pitfalls and the novel weaves well between these pitfalls. The only disappointment comes at the end, where the books ends up more like a trashy Hollywood thriller (fight in an abandonned warehouse, etc, etc…) than what we might have expected from the book so far.

    Nevertheless, this is a pretty solid choice for anyone interested in Canadian science-fiction, Robert Charles Wilson or “quiet” science-fiction in general. The Divide has tremendous potential to reach outside the borders of the genre. Toronto citizens will enjoy the cover illustration, in whose background the CN tower is hit by lightning…

  • The Green Progression, L.E. Modesitt Jr. & Bruce Scott Levinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1992, 312 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-51641-9

    Are you the kind of person that loves to say exactly the opposite of what everyone else is saying? Would you take on the job of being the devil’s advocate? Do you think that a bit of discussion is better than unthinking unanimous agreement, even if you happen to agree with what’s being discussed?

    If so, you should have a blast reading The Green Progression. Perennial libertarian iconoclast L.E. Modesitt Jr. has teamed up with relative unknown Bruce Scott Levinson to write a reactionary environmental novel.

    Everyone more or less assumes that the environment is something worth protecting. Everyone should cheer when Washington adopts stricter environmental standards, since it means that less pollutants will be released… and if there are less pollutants, it means the environment is better off, right? Anyone who complains must be evil industrialists trying to protect their profits, right?

    Modesitt and Levinson take the position that enough is enough, and that environmental standards in the US are good as they are. But how to spin a novel around this? You wouldn’t think a novel whose protagonists are lawyers, bureaucrats, researchers and politicians could possibly be exciting. And yet, The Green Progression is surprisingly gripping.

    Jack McDarvid is a former pilot, a former CIA operative, a former EPA staffer but a current husband, father and consultant at a law firm that specializes in environmental issues. At the beginning of The Green Progression, his boss is gunned down in a drug hit. Then, his inquiries in his former boss’s last case are proving very sensitive to some important people…

    Modesitt and Levinson happily mix a few other threads in the plot. A Russian operative is shown encouraging tougher environmental standards in the US to drive away the high-tech industries. McDarvid’s associate gets involved with a woman implicated in radical environmental movements. A humble staffer receives a scholarship for her daughter in subtle exchange for… information. CIA, congressmen, French industrialists, radical lefties and other characters all get caught in this political/bureaucratic thriller.

    The Green Progression is not an easy book to read. It uses more -much more- hard-science jargon, assumptions and concepts than most hard-SF novels on the market. (There’s a glossary at the end) The separate threads are difficult to differentiate at the beginning. The plot takes a while to coalesce, leaving the reader confused for the first part of the book.

    But then, the novel somehow pulls itself together and the result is a fairly enjoyable, mostly ingenious novel that doesn’t quite resemble anything else you’re likely to have read so far. There’s a happy ending.

    It’s a fascinating novel not only for its focus, but also for its attitude that takes pleasure is showing the reader how much of what he thinks he knows is wrong. The bureaucratic process involved in making new standards is very well described, with the result that the book expands your knowledge of how government works. (Whether or not you trust the authors is up to your confidence in their research and ability to represent reality!)

    Some readers will enjoy the anti-rabid-environmentalist viewpoint, others will loathe it. That’s normal. The Green Progression will probably find a ready home among hard-SF enthusiasts, most of them already receptive both to the pro-technology agenda and to Modesitt himself, who’s better known as a SF&F writer. Unusual thriller; worth a look.