Book Review

  • Jarhead, Anthony Swofford

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Scribner, 2003, 260 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-7432-4491-5

    Even at this politically-charged time where “support our troops!” has become a hollow synonym for “shut up!”, the first requirement for supporting our troops would be to understand them. And we won’t do that by listening to journalists, bloggers or self-important pundits: the troops themselves remain their own best advocates. Fortunately, every generation produces its share of able witnesses, and one of the latest ones is Anthony Swofford with his blisteringly honest autobiography Jarhead.

    Swofford, we quickly learn, was an odd Marine. Equally prone to spending his time reading classics or drinking to excess, Swofford was an insider and an outsider at the same time, completely part of the Marines Corps and yet (especially with hindsight) capable of stepping out and describing the Corps as an observer. This dual perspective, as a participant and an bystander, is invaluable in describing his experience to us.

    Jarhead is structured in an non-linear fashion, alternating between Swofford’s experience in the Marines with flashbacks to his personal history. Training, initial postings, difficulties with his family are all covered here, up to and including Swofford’s posting in the Gulf. As a Marine Sniper, Swofford could reliably be called one of America’s elite soldier. But the reality he reports is nothing like the spit-polish image of the army that some people would like you to believe. We all suspect that boys together will do some pretty stupid things, and this book confirms whose suspicions. We all know that war is hell, and being paid to go to war doesn’t leave much room for mellowness, even in horsing around. But what Jarhead does better than any other military book is portray the absolute boredom of being a soldier most of the time.

    Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe it’s in Gen-X genes to consider boredom to be a pervasive yet intolerable state of mind. Maybe it’s a modern affliction to say “but I was bored!” as if it was worthy of compassion. But maybe it’s what happens when you take thousand of soldiers and put them in a desert, waiting, waiting, waiting for what they were trained to do.

    Suffice to say that in time, Swofford gets what he wants: He gets to shoot and be shot at, even though his active participation in the Gulf War may be more underwhelming than you’d expect. Fortunately, Swofford writes with an eye for the killer detail and an excellent sense of place. Jarhead pulls no punches and presents the military life with all of its problems and whatever glory it offers.

    Clearly-written, this is a book that demands to be read almost all at once, page after page, chapter after chapter. Swofford knows how to write a story, and he’s got plenty of them to tell. Funny, direct, profane, sometimes infuriating in kind of a “what-are-you-doing-you-moron?” fashion, this autobiography can’t be confused with another era or another generation.

    I will let others debate the accuracy of Swofford’s depiction of Marines service. From my perspective as a civilian (and a Canadian one at that), Jarhead rings true, maybe a bit truer than I’d like to believe in an effort to keep some of that “support our troops!” feeling. It certainly made me re-evaluate BUFFALO SOLDIERS as a mite more plausible than I initially thought, what with Swofford’s tales of pervasive drug usage and self-destructive peacetime behaviour.

    It’s impossible to read Jarhead today without at least a passing thought about the current American-led occupation of Iraq, and the hardships endured by the military personnel stationed over there. Even if the Gulf War was a lightning romp compared to the lengthy nightmare of Iraq, even if tactics and equipment have changed, it’s hard to avoid linking the two. Swofford doesn’t exactly encourage us to think otherwise with his cynical view of oil as being the honest reason behind Desert Storm. Swofford had plenty of time to think about the reasons why he was stuck in the Arabian desert, and some of his conclusions can be jarring when juxtaposed against the mundaneness of wartime experience. Old men sending young men to die so they can profit…

    But even as candid as it becomes, Jarhead doesn’t do much to diminish a civilian’s awe for professional soldiers. At a time where one hears about war in clinical terms, as if it was yet another corporate challenge to be managed, it’s good and just to be reminded that war is a deadly matter, fought between men who curse, and bleed, and cry, and suffer. Support our troops; try to understand what they’re really going through.

  • King Rat, China Mieville

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 318 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-312-89072-9

    Quick: Name China Miéville’s first novel.

    No, it’s not Perdido Street Station. Miéville may have stormed the world of fantasy with his first Bas-Lag novel, but his true first novel was an urban fantasy novel set in London. Before becoming a Hugo-nominated, world-renowned literary superstar, Miéville wrote King Rat.

    I won’t try to be one of those snotty critics disdainfully pointing out that an obscure first work of a famous artist is totally better than the big hit that made him known to the mainstream (assorted with a contemptuous mention of how said artist “sold out”). King Rat isn’t up to Perdido Street Station‘s level of ambition and accomplishment. The prose is leaner, the characters are simpler and the plot is more derivative. It is, in many ways, the work of a young author.

    But this doesn’t mean that it’s not worth reading. While it withers in comparison to its younger, more vigorous siblings, King Rat is a perfectly serviceable example of contemporary urban fantasy, riffing off modern culture and ancient myths. Under any other name, it would be a book worth considering without unfair comparisons to the author’s other works.

    It begins as a young man, Saul Garamond, comes back home to London after a weekend of camping. A confrontation with his father is narrowly averted, but worse is to come: Shortly after waking up, he discovers that his father is dead, most likely killed, and he finds himself in prison as a prime suspect. But that’s not counting on a mysterious figure called the King Rat, supernaturally springing him from jail and bringing him in London’s underground. London’s real underground. Meanwhile, drum-and-bass DJ Natasha meets a strange flutist with a keen interest in overlaying rhythms…

    What gradually emerges from the story is a modern analogue to the Pied Piper fairy tale, although far more violent. There’s a war, you see, a war between the rats and the piper. Now that the story takes place in mid-nineties London, who is to say which technological advantages can change the equation? Poor Saul, stuck with serious paternity issues to solve in the middle of a city-wide fight.

    There’s a lot to like about King Rat, and not the most insignificant of those is the fabulous atmosphere that Miéville gives to his semi-imaginary London. His domain is not the tourist London, or the financial or political heart of the nation. His is a London of warehouses, of sewers, of ravers and teenagers.

    The novel also comes complete with some cool stuff about updating the Pied Piper myth to modern standards: Mixing in drum-and-bass music in the book’s plot is a minor stroke of genius. King Rat‘s final showpiece is the kind of thing you’d dream up after watching HELLRAISER and listening to too much Prodigy. And to think that we colonials are missing half the local references…

    You can also find the book a number of the ingredients that would later make Miéville’s work such a success: Careful prose, downtrodden characters, a fascination for urban spaces and a taste for the grotesque. (A chapter ends with “The glass front of the train burst open like a vast blood-blister. The first Northern Line train of the day arrived at Mornington Crescent station and plowed to an unscheduled halt, dripping.” [P.142] Hardcore!) No one could have predicted the Bas-Lag universe from King Rat, but the points of similitude are there.

    Also present, alas, are some of Miéville traditional weaknesses. As short as it is compared to his latter books, King Rat is still a bit overlong and under-plotted. The middle sections, in particular, have a hard time bridging the terrain between the intriguing opening and the dramatic conclusion. Fortunately, you won’t need a thesaurus to read the book: Miéville avoid florid touches and keeps the vocabulary appropriately close to the street.

    Fans of urban fantasy shouldn’t miss this book, nor should fans of Miéville’s work in general. It’s interesting even in its problems, and may show where the author will go once he’ll close the books on the Bas-Lag universe. It’s not as successful, nor as ambitious as the tales he’s best-known for, but it’s a good choice for urban fantasy readers. For Miéville’s fans, it should already be regarded as a must-read.

  • The Big Over Easy, Jasper Fforde

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Hodder & Stoughton, 2005, 398 pages, C$24.95 tpb, ISBN 0-340-83568-0

    If you have read any of Jasper Fforde’s previous books, you know what to expect from The Big Over Easy: zany fiction espousing genre-bending meta-fictional tricks, utterly readable prose, good gags and sharp characters embracing their clichéd (or counter-clichéd) nature. After four book in the Thursday Next series, The Big Over Easy is the beginning of a new series, very loosely connected to the previous one. (By this, I mean that the connections are one-way: readers of The Well of Lost Plots will have a blast reading The Big Over Easy, but there are no explicit references in the other direction) In this volume, detective Jack Spratt and his newly-transfered assistant Mary Mary investigate the unfortunate death of Humpty Dumpty, found cracked near a wall.

    Yup; After lampooning the entire genre fiction establishment in his previous four books, Fforde returns with a crossover between crime fiction and nursery rhymes. Jack Spratt’s world is just as likely to include three murderous pigs and women with really long hair than bad cars, office politics and forensic evidence. The Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department isn’t glamorous (in fact, it’s pretty much the local laughingstock), but Spratt is too conscientious a cop to let that drag him down. Still, he too would like to be part of the Guild of Detectives, and submit his thrilling adventures for inclusion in Amazing Crime Stories magazine…

    Oh yes, the patented weirdness of Fforde’s funny fantasy is back. While The Big Over Easy is generally more grounded and a touch more controlled that Fforde’s previous books, no one will mistake this for conventional fiction. Not when sight gags include nursery rhyme characters trying to fit in the real world, or a spiritual leader called “The Jellyman”. Fforde has a gift for heightening the fantastic with a good dose of the mundane, and so Jack Spratt’s affection for his troublesome car tend to be cute rather than annoying. (Well, cute to us and annoying to him)

    The Big Over Easy, as the title suggest, is perhaps more effective when it’s riffing on the conventions of the crime fiction genre. There is a lot of wonderful material about the convoluted nature of mystery plots in here, as well as how master detectives would be seen (or adulated) by their peers. Fforde’s plot itself cheerfully goes down a tremendously complicated route, so don’t be afraid to let go and not be too frustrated at the solutions pile up.

    Fforde’s sense of sly humour and limpid prose also remains intact. Reviewing one of his books tends to be an exercise in picking favourite gags, which I’m trying to avoid. What is certain is that next to The Eyre Affair, this is his most accessible book. Readers who haven’t tried any of his fiction yet will find much to love if they start here. (I doubt, however, that readers frustrated with Fforde’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to plotting will be any more pleased here, though The Big Over Easy is a bit more restrained in real-world matters.) A fair warning: Don’t be too surprised if, once firmly in the novel, you don’t want to stop reading.

    One thing that did trip me up, in the interest of full disclosure, is that my knowledge of nursery rhymes is sub-par: Having been raised in a francophone environment until way past the weaning age for comptines (and not being a parent myself), I don’t have the instinctual knowledge of nursery rhymes ingrained in native English speakers. Those for whom English is a second language, or who may have forgotten even the most basic nursery rhymes may want to sneak into a young nephew’s room and read up on his documentation before diving into The Big Over Easy.

    Otherwise, this book is all gold. Good solid concept, smooth execution and the usual Fforde laughs. Who could ask for more? Oh, wait, me! I can’t wait until Spratt’s next adventure, already announced as The Fourth Bear…

  • Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2002, 333 pages, C$21.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-765-30419-8

    It’s a fact of today’s Science Fiction publishing environment that successful writers, almost by definition, write novels. Short stories may be where authors begin, but they’re not where authors make money. For every short-story specialist like Harlan Ellison, there are ten Robert Silverbergs who put food on the table thanks to novels. At best, you get people like Greg Egan, whose excellent short-story output complemented a steady stream of novels.

    In this context, Ted Chiang is a bit of an oddity. In a career now spanning fifteen years (The earliest story in the volume was published in 1990), Chiang has found a place as an important writer of short stories. His first three published pieces alone netted him a total of two Nebula Awards and one Hugo nomination! At a time where short story anthologies by trade publishers are rare, his debut book was an anthology of eight pieces put out by no less a publishing house than Tor. With Stories of Your Life and others, Chiang reaches those SF readers (including your humble scribe) who would rather pick up a book than a series of magazines.

    It’s one heck of an introduction. While claiming that “there’s not a bad story in the bunch” would over-estimate the impact of a few average pieces, there’s a lot to like in Stories of Your Life and Others. It’s no exaggeration to say that there’s more to like here than in several “best of” annual anthologies out there. Chiang makes up in quality what most others can’t do in quantity.

    For instance, the very first piece in the book (his first published story), is a treatment of the “Tower of Babylon” myth in as realistic a fashion as would be possible. How could you build a tower to the sky? What if the sky was, could be breached? What would be mechanics of such a thing? Chiang treats the subject with a superbly entertaining mix of details and suppositions. Even guessing the end pages before it happens isn’t enough to sour the story’s considerable reading pleasure.

    The second story of the volume, “Understand,” is a look at the possibilities offered by unlimited intelligence. Unlike the classic Flowers for Algernon, Chiang has little patience for sentiment, and more than a passing interest in showing us how unbelievably cool such intelligence could be. Mix in a few fascinating philosophical question and a bewildering accumulation of details and the result is almost too good for words. (Though it proved good enough for a Hugo nomination) More than that however, is the sentiment of having read an exhaustive story: if someone wants to write another story about heightened intelligence (or another story about the tower of Babylon, for that matter), they will have to write in reaction to Chiang’s work.

    I didn’t find the rest of the book as fabulously interesting as its first two stories, but there are still plenty of great pieces later on. “The Evolution of Human Science” is a perfectly-paced text about post-singularity science. “Story of Your Life” made more sense to me the second time I read it, which is a strangely appropriate thing to say if you know about the story’s non-linear sense of time.

    Even the fantasy stories contain a treasure trove of originality. I wasn’t so fond of “Seventy-Two Letters” in general, but the magical system explored in great detail throughout the novella is enough to make your mind go out for a spin. The Hugo-winning “Hell is the Absence of God” takes fundamentalist Christian mythology and runs away with it to literal extremes. What if the appearance of angels took on a terrifying arbitrary quality? Not bad at all, especially when it gets down to the fine distinction between religion and faith.

    Even Chiang’s lesser stories still have a kick to them. “Liking What You See: A Documentary” runs about twice too long on an empty middle section, but the basic concept (what if there was a neural tweak to make you insensitive to beauty or lack thereof?) is well-explored. I may not care too much for the deliberately challenging end of “Division by Zero”, but the otherwise clean writing and the awe-inspiring premise makes it a joy to read.

    I may have been sceptical about this collection’s hyperbolic reputation, but the end result is a very good anthology, well-worth reading for any fan of the genre. It remains to be seen whether Chiang will continue to release stories at the quiet rhythm of his first decade of work, or if he’ll go ahead and commit to a novel, but whatever he decides to do, I’ll be standing in line to buy his next book.

  • Dark Matter, Garfield Reeves-Stevens

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 1990, 375 pages, C$24.95 hc, ISBN 0-385-24756-7

    While Garfield Reeves-Stevens is now best-known for his work on various media properties, most specifically his involvement with the Star Trek franchise, he has also produced a small but significant stream of original projects earlier in his career. (And then -along with his wife Judith- a number of very good techno-thrillers, the latest of which is the excellent Freefall.) Dark Matter is one such early work, combining criminal horror with scientific content and ending in far-fetched Science Fiction. It’s not an excellent book, but it’s suitably entertaining and it’s definitely worth a look if you like horror/crime/science hybrids.

    The very first scene sets the tone, describing a gruesome murder that makes the “last supper” scene in Hannibal look like a charming romp. Someone, somewhere, likes to kill young blond students while educating them about quantum mechanics. Coincidentally (but not really), the very next scene takes place in Stockholm, as three American scientists are set to receive the Nobel Prize for Physics. Soon after, a mysterious man makes them an offer they can’t refuse: A fully-financed lab, and the promise that all of their wishes will be catered to. All of their wishes…

    Flash-forward three years. A dismembered body is found in a Los Angeles apartment…

    Perhaps the best thing about Dark Matter is how it combines a procedural crime novel with hard-science content. On one side, scientists explore the mysteries of quantum mechanics, speaking well over the head of the average reader. Meanwhile, a policewoman with plenty of personal problems investigates a stomach-churning string of murders. We know they’re linked (in fact, Reeves-Stevens waits far too late to make explicit a link that is patently obvious from chapter two) and so the fun of the novel is in seeing these two universe intersect. The investigation is well-handled while the scientific content is as flawless as can be determined by laypeople.

    While most of the scientific content will be lost on readers without specialized knowledge in high-energy physics, Reeves-Steven’s gift for clear prose and steady narrative rhythm is enough to keep turning the pages. His ability to write scientific vulgarization is astonishing. His characters are well-developed, and whoever still believes that fictional scientists should behave like robots are in for a refreshing dose of (in)humanity. Among the book’s best moments is a demonstration of a high intellect at work, solving a complex problems in a matter of seconds, each step carefully described. Reeves-Stevens tackles complex characterization issues with Dark Matter, and he’s more than partially successful in achieving what he’s trying to do.

    There are also a number of interesting thematic issues raised by the characters’ willingness to do unspeakable things (or allow unspeakable things to happen) in search for inspiration. The link between genius and madness often leads to trite ethical dilemmas (“What’s one life compared to an innovation that could benefit billions?”, etc.), but Reeves-Stevens navigates a hard course and avoids on-the-nose moralizing.

    But none of that will prepare readers for the last third of the book, as the the novel abruptly jumps tracks from criminal scientific fiction to far-out science-fiction. Even hard-SF readers are liable to feel that the book goes too far, too wide-scale at once. The protagonist’s quasi-magical abilities take the novel well beyond the realistic parameters followed by the novel thus far, and it doesn’t help that the pacing suddenly slacks (and takes off for Boston) in the middle of what should be an acceleration of events. The ending predictably veers into the usual metaphysical nonsense, trying too hard for enlightenment when denouement would have been enough. Weird choices for a novel that, up until then, had been kept under control.

    The irony, of course, is that from a critical standpoint, the novel’s late slide into more fantastic territory makes it a lot more interesting to discuss. It’s up for debate whether a tighter, more focused version of Dark Matter would have warranted a review. (Probably, given the successful melding of horror, crime and science) As it stands, Dark Matter isn’t really recommended, but it is interesting enough to be worth a look if ever a copy should falls in your hot little hands. And not just as the early work of an author who went on to become a best-selling Star Trek co-producer!

  • Pattern Recognition, William Gibson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Putnam, 2003, 356 pages, C$39.00 hc, ISBN 0-399-14986-4

    First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: This is not a Science Fiction novel. It’s a novel formed and informed by the tools, methods and outlook of SF, but it takes place in 2002 and contains nothing that wasn’t possible then. Yes, it’s another “rewind” for Gibson, who’s been writing closer and closer to the present since 1984’s seminal Neuromancer.

    It may be that the present interests Gibson a lot more than some imagined future. Pattern Recognition, if thrown in a time machine and sent back to 1984, would certainly read like a science-fiction novel, packed with matter-of-fact acceptance of a global communication network, virtual relationships, catastrophic imagery from an event called “9/11” and post-cold-war geopolitics. Gibson studies the world and presents it with the same amount of clinical detail than he’d use to describe a far-off alien society. It makes for a nice little bit of estrangement, and it’s not entirely inappropriate to the subject matter.

    It also fits Gibson’s protagonist who -like most Gibson protagonists- is a loner, an outsider and a misfit. Heck, she can’t even see some trademarks without experiencing a violent allergic reaction. Everything she uses is carefully de-branded. Ironic, because Cayce’s speciality is hunting cool, identifying “the next big thing” and making others profit from it. As Pattern Recognition begins, she’s in London, jet-lagged, and about to see a banal logo-proofing assignment turn into something very strange. You see, compelling bits of anonymous Internet footage have fascinated her for a while, and now her employer wants her to get to the bottom of the mystery. Who makes they footage? Where are its creators? Why do they do it? And, perhaps most importantly in this twenty-first century, how have they managed to create a cult of thousands, all fascinated by this brand new meme? Could there be… commercial applications?

    And so the hunt begins. To everyone’s sighs of relief, Pattern Recognition doesn’t abandon Gibson’s root in action/adventure fiction. While the action may be slight and the adventure is definitely Earth-bound (well, aside from the many plane trips), this is a thriller built around a few mysteries and the shadowy influence of powerful people. Thanks to this strong narrative drive and some of Gibson’s most elegant prose so far, Pattern Recognition races forward, demanding to be read until all is revealed and played out.

    To this narrative energy, one has to add the careful thematic content skillfully integrated through the entire novel. Gibson writes as if he was delighted at the weirdness of the twenty-first century (so far) and he wanted us to see it as he does. In doing so, he makes the most out of today’s environment and power dynamics. Out of the gate in 2003, Pattern Recognition also tackles post-9/11 issues with something approaching maturity. Grad students and lit-crits will have a blast dissecting this book. (I myself would probably mumble something about this being a novel of cities: London, Tokyo, Moscow and New York in flashbacks, all standing for something different, all on a continuum of progress taken or left untapped.)

    But I’m happier to report that this is a good read and a satisfying work even as it strays (but not too much) from the SF genre in which Gibson has made his mark. While my rabid admiration of Gibson is strictly limited to Neuromancer and Burning Chrome, this is a step up from most of his non-Sprawl output, regardless of genre. It portends well for the rest of Gibson’s career, even if he consciously stays away from Science Fiction: I don’t know what he’s going to write next, even less where and when it will take place, but if it’s anything like Pattern Recognition, I’ll read it with pleasure.

  • βehemoth, Peter Watts

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2004-2005, ??? pages, C$??.?? hc, ISBN Various

    βehemoth: β-Max, Tor, 2004, 300 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-30721-9
    βehemoth: Seppuku, Tor, 2005, 303 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-31172-0

    Regular readers of these reviews may recall my cool but generally positive impressions of the first two volumes in Peter Watt’s “Rifters” trilogy. Starfish and Maelstrom may have been a bit dour and depressing, but they had enough hard-SF goodness to keep me coming back for a third helping. (Or rather a third and fourth helping, Tor having decided -in their usual market-savvy attitude- to split the third instalment in separate books.) Now that I’ve read the full story, my irrational optimism has been fulfilled: With βehemoth, Watts delivers not only a good book, but a great ending to a trilogy that retrospectively makes a lot more sense.

    It’s amazing how a short story (1990’s “A Niche”) has grown to this apocalyptic 1,200+ pages epic about free will, evil and the end of the world. We remember the situation at the end of Maelstrom: an archaic super-microbe killing off most of North America; the rest of the world teetering on the edge of self-annihilation; the Internet contaminated by malicious entities. βehemoth picks up five years later, at a time where the whole collapse into fire and rubble has stabilized to a slow glide. Deep below the sea, rifters and corporate elites are about to see their balance-of-life issues settled thanks to the introduction of something even worse than everything they’ve seen so far. When you consider what Watts has introduced in the first two books, that’s saying something.

    I’ve alluded (above) to the splitting of the novel in two separate parts, but one of the happy surprises of βehemoth, even chopped up, is how the two halves feel like separate stories. The three main characters may be the same, but the setting, the dynamics and the storytelling are different. β-Max mirrors Starfish in taking place under the surface, in what feels like a closed set. But you know what they say about conflict in small spaces: it’s all knives and bare hands…

    The second half, without spoiling much, takes place over a wider canvas (yes, much like Maelstrom) and steadily plows forward in order to orchestrate a final confrontation between the three main characters, each of which approach issues of guilt, free will and responsibility in a different fashion. Seppuku is also notable in that the mantle of the protagonist, regardless of POV, shifts away from Clarke to Lubin: it’s no accident if Clarke’s role in the conclusion doesn’t amount to much.

    It’s no big insight at this point to say that the Rifters trilogy is one grim ride. What’s more useful to say is that once you start studying the shades of black that are left behind, truly interesting morality conflicts start to emerge, usually demonstrated through power plays of various kinds. Reason versus emotion, free will versus neurological imperatives are all explored to some degree and the result is fascinating. (Though it brings back to mind movie tag-lines like “fight evil with evil”.) Characters finally come into focus here, with complex motivations-upon-impulses. (or is it the other way around?)

    If I have issues with the books, it’s that if Watt’s prose has seldom been more engaging, he could use a bit of polish in the way he allows readers to absorb information. Sometimes, revelations are made and the story hops to another plot point, without letting implications sink in. It’s not uncommon to go back a few paragraph with the nagging suspicion that something very important just happened.

    I suspect that my growing enthusiasm for the series has much to do with learning how to cope with Watts or (if you prefer a reformulation), figuring out what were Watts’ intentions with the trilogy. In retrospect, even the features of Starfish that annoyed me so much all fit in place. Readers who start reading the first two volumes now (and the author has made them freely available on-line, so you’ve got no excuse) will do so knowing that this is a trilogy: their initial reactions will adjust accordingly. As it turns out, the protagonist of “A Niche” are named Ballard and Clarke for a very good reason.

    Finally, one loud hurrah for the scientific content (and the crunchy “notes and references” essay at the end of the book). I’m not sure what’s in the Canadian water supplys these days, but we seem to be producing more than our fair share of good hard-SF. If nothing else, I can’t wait to see Watts’ next novel, Blindsight, especially given the tasty treats suggested on rifters.com…

  • The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, Minister Faust (Malcolm Azania)

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Del Rey, 2004, 531 pages, C$22.95 tpb, ISBN 0-345-46635-7

    Now that was one interesting fantasy novel.

    Interesting as in different, interesting as in readable, but also interesting as in flawed. A too-quick plat description of The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad would be something like “the lives of two twentysomething friends changes dramatically after one of them falls for a mysterious woman”. But given that this encompasses everything from DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? to WHITE SKIN, maybe it’s best to describe how this novel is different from the standard Echo-Gen lad-lit template.

    For one thing, our two protagonists are pure-breed Science Fiction geeks. Hamza may be more of a media/comics fan whereas Yehat is closer to the hard-SF genre, but that doesn’t make them any less geeky. They’re the protagonists and that makes them cool –especially, I suspect, to the intended readership. But their comfortable wasted lives (Hamza washes dishes for a living; Yehat is a video store clerk) spent in pop-culture ephemera are about to get interesting (as in unpredictable, as in weird, as in dangerous) as soon as Nubian goddess Sherem starts taking an interest in one of them.

    I wish SF could be diverse enough that a novel featuring two black Muslim Edmonton-area heroes wouldn’t in itself be worth singling out. But it’s not, and The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad is a welcome bit of difference. The novel soon delves deep into mythology, and it’s thankfully unlike anything west-European writers have done before. Minister Faust (pen name of Edmonton activist Malcolm Azania) bridges the SF culture with his own, and the result is a book that’s quite unlike anything before, melding modern pop hipness with African roots.

    This difference carries through to the prose style, which is driven by the same cooler-than-thou energy one often sees in mainstream novels destined to the younger generation. The prose style is packed with CAPITAL LETTERS-

    -abrupt line breaks-

    -and tons of references that will be lost on anyone who failed pop-culture 101. The book is set in 1995 for some reason (perhaps because that’s Faust’s “best year” as far as pop references are concerned), but it certainly feels like the work of a modern young writer.

    It can be a lot of fun, but as with most first efforts, Coyote Kings is also harmed by a number of miscalculations, or unsuccessful attempts to do too much when little was required.

    First, it should be said that the novel is told through multiple narrators: almost a dozen of them. While most of the novel is told by Hamza and Yehat, many of the antagonists get two or three chapters in which to say their piece. This causes a number of problems: It’s confusing (the first few lines of every chapter are spent figuring out who’s talking), it’s unnecessary (even bordering on gratuitous showboating, as if Faust was trying to show that he, too, can write accents) and it takes the action away from the compelling protagonists. Hamza and Yehat are the core of the novel, and every moment spent away from them seems superfluous. While I will recognize that the antagonists’ viewpoints often present information that would otherwise be unaccessible to our heroes, they also feature “the FanBoys”, maybe the most unlikely aspect of the entire novel. Faust smothers his novel with terminal hipness, but even lively writing can’t hide the unevenness of tone that can make Coyote Kings a bit of a bother.

    Then there is the ending, which culminates almost as an easy afterthought. While there is definitely a conclusion to the events of the book, it seems to be one borne out of desperation. At least one major loose end remains untied; I wouldn’t care to guess whether this means a sequel, but there’s a sloppiness to the last few chapters that is really annoying.

    This doesn’t make Coyote Kings a disappointment, but that’s because it’s so different that the difference itself overwhelms the annoyance. Still, it makes it difficult to praise the novel beyond the prose and the unusual setting. It could have been shorter, better and more focused, but it’s not… and that’s really a shame because the rest of it works quite well.

  • Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2005, 315 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-31278-6

    (Also freely available online at craphound.com/someone)

    While his reputation in Science Fiction fandom is that of a die-hard tech-head, Cory Doctorow heads in a slightly different direction for his third novel: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a self-consciously weird urban fantasy involving, to quote the jacket blurb, “secrets, lies, magic —and Internet connectivity.”

    It begins as the amiable “A” moves into one of Toronto’s bohemian neighbourhoods, renovates a house and sets out to write a story. But “A” is no ordinary guy: Son of a mountain and a washing machine, his brothers are (in chronological order), a clairvoyant, an island, a psychopath and a set of three nestled men (like Russian dolls). What’s more, he hasn’t yet met the neighbours…

    Oh yes, there’s little doubt that Doctorow is going for weird in his third novel. No one will be blamed for thinking, early on, that he’s laying on the strange paste a bit too thick: For the first few pages, one wonders if this novel is ever going to have internal coherency, or if this is just a random word salad.

    What becomes clearer is that if the basics of Someone may have been random free-association, Doctorow spends so much time describing and explaining the mechanics of how, say, a mountain and a washing machine can raise children, that it almost ends up making sense. Somehow. In fact, it doesn’t take much time for more impatient readers to say “enough! Too much useless information!” Doctorow never knows when to stop, and things that are perfectly clear in the present-day storyline are nevertheless re-explained in detail through flashbacks.

    Then there is the imperfect integration of the modern-day techno-thriller. This being a Doctorow novel, it doesn’t take a lot of time for protagonist “A” to become fascinated by the possibility of blanketing Toronto with wireless points of Internet access. It becomes a major subplot of the book, complete with pages of exposition on how neat this is all going to be. Not uninteresting, but seriously out of whack with the rest of the novel: Part of it feels like a bone thrown to Doctorow’s usual audience to keep them interested in the other stuff. The brute-force lectures may be fun to read, but do they mean anything in the context of the novel?

    The “other stuff”, as it happens, is hit-and-miss. Doctorow’s basic ability to write readable prose remains unchanged, but even clear writing can’t mitigate the growing sentiment of exasperation as the story spends too much time in its own back-story, and not enough in advancing the plot. Once that is finished, however, things become a little bit more interesting, and the last third of the book is somewhat more user-friendly than the rest.

    On the other hand, the ending crashes down like an after-thought. Stuff happens, fulfilling the basic requirements of “an ending”, but elements of the conclusion end up raising thornier issues than they resolve. A very important plot thread is displaced, and then flees without further news. The protagonist retreats, and that’s the end of that. The rest just goes up in flame. That may be an ending of sorts, but that’s not a conclusion. It certainly leave the reader with an unfulfilled yearning: this is a weird story, yes, but what is the point of it?

    Part of the problem is that Someone is at least twice the size of Doctorow’s previous novels. Those extra words don’t necessarily add up to extra depth. There doesn’t seem to be any interaction between the subplots, no deeper meaning to the metaphors and not much of a metaphorical value to the fantasy elements.

    I had too much fun reading the book to call it a failure. But it’s certainly Doctorow’s weakest novel yet, and taken with the deficiencies of Doctorow’s first two novels, it suggests a number of things to fix if his next novels are to improve. It’s not simply because Someone dares to be unusual that it’s any better. At this point, his best work remains Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which also had a pleasantly high quotient of weirdness.

  • Lady of Mazes, Karl Schroeder

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2005, 286 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-31219-0

    After only two solo novels (Ventus and Permanence), Karl Schroeder has already established himself to be one of the best Hard-SF writers in the business. Combining deep characterization with far-ranging speculation, Schroeder has wowed critics and earned a small legion of loyal fans —not to mention an Aurora Award for Permanence. His third solo novel was eagerly anticipated. Now Lady of Mazes comes to fulfil all expectations.

    Almost jokingly set in the same universe as Ventus, Lady of Mazes owes more to the short scene in Permanence where the characters’ reality is altered by an interface sitting between their brain and their senses. Inscape, as it’s called, can be used to augment reality in different fashions. An elementary application would be to kill-file people in real life: Inscape would simply “blank out” the person and steer us around that person should they be in the way. (Kill-filing would presumably be most effective when it’s mutual.)

    But that’s just small potatoes when you consider the logical ramifications of Inscape technology. Why bother kill-filing one person when you can get rid of an entire segment of the population? Why not create a conservative utopia by getting rid of all of those icky liberal meddlers –and vice versa? What’s to prevent several mutually invisible population from co-existing in the same physical space?

    And that brings us to the first few pages of Lady of Mazes, a story largely set on a ringworld where Inscape technology is universal. Several populations co-existing in the same place, completely ignorant of what the others are doing. You want to ignore certain types of technologies? Join the appropriate reality. One of Schroeder’s key notions are “technology locks”, the idea that societies choose their appropriate levels of technology for their preferred existence and then implement safeguards to prevent further progress.

    Our heroine, Livia Kodaly, may exists in one reality, but she also has the unusual ability to “travel” to other realities, acting much like an ambassador. Not an esy job, and it becomes even more complicated when the ringworld is attacked and the help she needs exists in a completely different way of life. Post-human power games and unusual social structures suddenly acquire some importance as she tries to go back and liberate her home reality…

    Lady of Mazes may be significantly shorter than Schroeder’s previous solo novels, but don’t be fooled by the size: There are enough Big Ideas here to make you go “Whoah!” ten times over. Schroeder tackles new and fascinating concepts at a furious rate, showing us a complex future crammed with original possibilities. Your head will hurt, but in a good way. Inscape alone is the kind of new idea fit to be stolen by a generation of other writers and integrated in the core of SF’s bag of gadgets.

    But in Lady of Mazes, Schroeder has also managed to fashion a cheerfully political novel. Pure politics, not simple dumb partisanship: Lady of Mazes takes a long hard look at how humans can live next to another —or choose not to. It studies concepts such as “adhocracies” and “open source politics” and “emergent social organization systems.” It stares at post-humanism and laughs at it.

    Exhilarating stuff, with the proviso that you almost have to be a hard-core SF fans to make sense of it. Lady of Mazes is a pure genre novel in that it requires a lot of background information in order to make sense. Can’t distinguish animas from AIs? Tough luck.

    To this, one has to add that Schroeder loves to throw his readers in the bath before handing them the soap: The first hundred pages of the novel are high in unexplained weirdness and low in straight-up exposition. Don’t be surprised to find the first third of the book to be a difficult slog. It clears up shortly afterwards, once we’re back in a reality whose language is more familiar to ours. But then buckle up, because the rest of the novel rarely lets up. The conclusion appears a bit rushed and easy, but by that time the chances are that you’ll be too exhausted to care.

    It’s definitely a trip, and a strange one at that. With this third novel, Schroeder proves that he’s among the vanguard of modern SF writers, not afraid to confront a new future by wrapping fascinating speculation in good storytelling. Fabulous stuff for SF fans: it’s the kind of novel that makes Science Fiction look good.

  • Getting Near the End, Andrew Weiner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Robert J. Sawyer Books, 2004, 268 pages, C$26.95 hc, ISBN 0-88995-307-4

    In his introduction to this novel, writer/editor Robert J. Sawyer mentions that Andrew Weiner’s “favorite writers are J.G.Ballard, Barry Malzberg, and Philip K. Dick.” As a set of reference, this more or less represents the key to the entire novel that follows. Three paragons of seventies SF slipping toward mainstream nihilism; can you guess where Getting Near the End is going?

    Heck, the title alone nearly says it all. In the decaying wreckage of a collapsing society, mega-star singer Martha Nova is a seer and a guide. Her visions of the future inform her songs, and her songs are taking the world by storm. Getting Near the End begins on The Final Night Of Something, and through flashbacks we come to understand how The End is shaped.

    Adapted from a 1981 short story of the same title, Getting Near the End may take place twenty-three years later (the original story took place, of course, on December 31st 1999), but it doesn’t really add much meat to its original material. The story beats are roughly similar, the characters are essentially the same and the ending is identical down to the final lines. There are a lot more flashbacks explaining the background of the story, but otherwise it’s more or less the same content.

    How you feel about the novel will depend on how you feel about those seventies SF stories that promised doom and gloom for everyone. Getting Near the End does a faithful job at recreating the kind of future that seemed so inevitable thirty years ago. Ballard, Malzberg and Dick indeed: You don’t have to look any further than the title to know that the only suspense here is if this will be The End, or just An End leading to a new beginning. (Even then, would you be surprised to find an ambiguous ending?)

    The above may suggest that I was less than impressed by the book, but that’s not quite the case. Weiner is a fantastic short story writer (have a look at his collections Distant Signals and This is Year Zero for proof) and his clear prose style does much to propel the reader forward even if the story advances only by fits and spurts. If you want the plot, read the short story. If you want the atmosphere and the characters, have a look at the novel. Weiner’s technique is superb, his understated prose works well and if one can quibble about the extended flashbacks, the overall impact of the novel is strong and distinctive. Getting Near the End is, simply put, a pleasure to read despite the depressing content. Readers looking for more of “that seventies groove” will certainly find it here: One can easily imagine this book escaping from 1975 and time-travelling intact to the present.

    Robert J. Sawyer Books (which I constantly want to write as “RJS Books”) was created, in part, to give a chance to novels that may not find favour with today’s corporate-driven mass-market publishers. Getting Near the End is a near-perfect example of that kind of novel: Well-written, but a bit depressing and without a definitive ending. The kind of novel that could be well-received three decades ago at the end of the New Wave movement, but would be a hard sell today. Perhaps best of all is the idea that this publication may cause Weiner to write some more material: He’s been absent from the scene for too long, and it’s been a long time since This is Year Zero.

    Briefly: You will have to haunt used bookstores for a long time before finding copies of Andrew Weiner’s Distant Signals, but the results will be more than worth it. A severely underrated short story writer, Weiner has an amazing ability to come up with one worthwhile story after another. Collections are usually hit-and-miss affairs, but save for Weiner’s earliest story (“Empire of the Sun”, originally published in 1972’s Again, Dangerous Visions!), all of Distant Signals is delicious reading. Weiner writes with a sly sarcastic voice, and his talent doesn’t lie in his ability to generate original ideas (although one story, “The News from D Street”, anticipates the whole MATRIX craze by a dozen years) as much as his skill in telling stories. His prose is a model of clarity and accessibility. It’s hard to pick favourites, though “The Man Who Was Lucky” has undeniable charm and “Fake-Out” manages to go to the logical conclusion of its premise. Also included: “Getting Near the End”, the short story that would later be expanded in a novel of the same name.)

    [January 1999: I have rarely read a short story by Andrew Weiner that I didn’t like, and this statement remains true after This is Year Zero, his second anthology of his short stories. Short (192 pages) but packing 13 stories, this collection is a constant delight. Each story is short, to the point and usually enjoyable even despite the impression that some of them are jokes without punchline (The is Year Zero) or punchlines without jokes (The Alien in the Lake). Weiner obviously has a fascination for the alien, but his aliens are far closer to us (or representations of us) that otherwise. The iconoclastic sense of Weiner is also evident in his perversion of the usual unwritten SF assumptions. An alien is gunned down in matrimonial dispute—and there’s no further repercussions. Humans are conquered by aliens—and stay conquered. A man has to choose between boring, ordinary life and space colonization—and makes the boring choice. Few writer could get away with this kind of constant genre perversion, but Weiner’s prose style is such that is stories are so readable you won’t mind at all. One of my leading choices for the 1999 Aurora awards.]

  • Relativity, Robert J. Sawyer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    ISFIC Press, 2004, 304 pages, US$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-9759156-0-6

    You may not have heard about ISFIC Press before, but don’t feel bad about it: Robert J. Sawyer’s Relativity is their first title. Following in the footsteps left by the venerable Boston-based NESFA Press, the ISFIC (Illinois Science Fiction in Chicago) fan association has decided to publish anthologies of material from their WindyCon Guests of Honor. Whether this represents another encouraging sign about small-press genre publishing will be a question best left to other pundits; what is certain is that the quality of Relativity promises much for the publisher’s next projects.

    Naturally, Relativity is aimed at fans and collector of Robert J. Sawyer’s work. Few of the material included here is original. Half of the short stories have appeared in Sawyer’s fiction anthology Iterations, and almost all of the non-fiction content is already available on Sawyer’s web site.

    But as even e-book enthusiasts will admit, there is something nice about well-designed paper copies of on-line material. There is something even nicer in bringing together a bunch of material in a carefully-crafted package. I may have already read more than three-quarter of Relativity over the years, but that didn’t stop me from re-reading it almost cover to cover: Sawyer’s prose may sometimes be clunky, but it’s seldom any less than compelling.

    The biggest strength of Relativity compared to Iterations is that it reprints mostly non-fiction and has carefully selected which stories to reprint. (Not all of Sawyer’s short fiction is worth re-reading twice; the man’s a natural novelist and he doesn’t cope well with the constraints of the short form).

    In the fiction category, Relativity deservedly re-prints a number of Sawyer’s best stories, including “Just Like Old Times”, “The Shoulders of Giants”, “The Hand You’re Dealt” and “Star Light, Star Bright”. To those, it adds a number of stories published since Iterations‘ release: “Immortality”, “The Stanley Cup Caper” (Ergh said the critic), “Relativity” and the Hugo-Nominated “Ineluctable.”

    The decision to focus the rest of the book on non-fiction is for the best: Sawyer’s non-fiction work is a model of clear writing and even those who can’t read his fiction without wishing for a red pen will be a lot more enthusiastic about his essays. The real meat of the book comes after the stories, with essays, columns, articles, speeches and a lengthy autobiography. As mentioned before, most (if not all?) of that material is available on Sawyer’s web site. But that doesn’t make it any less interesting.

    For instance, I have heard “The Future is Already Here” once and read it another time (vehemently disagreeing with parts of it both times), but I couldn’t help but read it another time here. Also included in the speeches section are short gems like Sawyer’s 2003 Hugo Awards acceptance speech, a reference-studded speech about AI in SF and an off-the-cuff speech about SF’s relationship with social change. Whoever has seen Sawyer at conventions knows that he’s a capable public speaker, and part of his success depends on his well-written source material.

    Relativity continues with a series of shorter pieces on subjects as diverse as Canadian SF; SF conventions; Judith Merrill; God and SF; why write trilogies; why privacy may not such a good idea; three pieces about the future and two more articles on Margaret Atwood. While many of Sawyer’s references will be familiar to genre readers, those pieces were usually destined to a more general audience, and despite some repetitious content, they’re still well-worth reading.

    The next fifty pages bring together twelve short columns about the craft of writing, columns originally published in On Spec magazine. Here Sawyer reveals a few tricks of the trade in his usual lucid fashion. People interested in the nuts-and-bolts of Sawyer’s technique may learn much here: not just about writing, but also about the way would-be professional authors should act when confronted with the cold realities of the marketplace.

    Relativity ends with a lengthy but highly informative autobiographical essay, as well as a complete bibliography. Another end-piece by Valerie Broege is billed as a “critical essay”, but it’s far more laudatory than critical, not to mention repetitive after the previous 300 pages of material: Sawyer simply does a better job at speaking about himself. Mike Resnick’s introduction is much more interesting. Oddly enough, a crossword completes the book.

    People who already like Sawyer’s work won’t need to be told twice about this book, though its limited availability may mean that they’ll have to wait until the next convention dealer’s room to find a copy, or simply order it on-line. Even those who are skeptical about Sawyer’s short stories may want to give a look to the non-fiction material –although it must be said once again that most of it is available on-line. In the end, Sawyer fans and collectors will know whether they want the book or not: As it stands, it’s a beautiful collection of material, worth reading or re-reading.

  • Gravity Wells, James Alan Gardner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    EOS, 2005, 344 pages, C$21.50 tpb, ISBN 0-06-008770-6

    For mid-list writers, simply getting a short story collection published is a small coup: anthologies are notoriously unpopular with mass-market audiences, and most trade publishers look upon them as favours, not money-makers. James Alan Gardner’s satisfaction at placing Gravity Wells with his regular publisher EOS must be considerable. With it, he not only gets a chance to republish a few worthy short stories, but also show a wider stylistic range that is to be found in his novels so far.

    The very model of a modern mid-list SF writer, Gardner has, until now, written half a dozen engaging space adventures, recently making the jump from paperback to hardcover format with Radiant. I have not, to be entirely truthful, read all of his novels, but what little I have (Expendable and Commitment Hour) were… okay. Unremarkable. Maybe a bit boring, if you want me to be excessively negative.

    But part of that lack of verve is due to the imperatives of mass-market fiction. For someone who intends to keep working in the industry, the most prudent course is to stay within the conventions of the genre, avoid stretching the envelope and stick to a prudent style.

    With short stories, most of those restrictions don’t apply. Authors aren’t investing months of effort in one piece than may not sell. Experiments become possible. Gardner-the-novelist is a very different writer than Gardner-the-short-story-author. He’s looser. Funnier. If Gravity Wells does one thing better than anything else, it’s to highlight how daring Gardner can be when he wants to be.

    Just look at the titles: Could you imagine a novel named “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream”? How about “Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large”? Now imagine the content and the structure of the stories. The Aurora Award-winning “Three Hearings…” for instance, takes the form of three inquisitions dozens of years apart, tracing the evolution of a difference between humans throughout our understanding of science. Ambitious stuff, well-handled with an original approach.

    Other “stories” have similarly slippery relationship with traditional narratives. “Lesser Figures of the Greater Trumps” is closer to a collage of odd descriptions, some more interesting than others. “A Changeable Market in Slaves” tells the same simple thing two dozen times, with hilarious variations –though it may take a second reading to extract its full flavour. “Kent State Descending the Gravity Well: An Analysis of the Observer” is a fascinating examination of a writer (not necessarily Gardner himself) as he struggles with how to fictionalize real-world tragedy. Perhaps my favourite piece of the book, “Sense of Wonder”, discusses unimaginably big concepts through a schoolyard dialogue.

    In Gardner’s experimental style, even traditional narratives can be presented differently. “Shadow Album” tells a story through descriptions of still pictures (good concept, so-so execution). Meanwhile, “The Young Person’s Guide to the Organism” is a first-contact story taking the form of speeches from elder to younger –and sustains that premise for the length of a novella.

    Gardner’s versatility also applies to the genre of the stories. He writes Science Fiction, but does not pretend to be a member of the hard-SF school. Most of Gravity Wells is closer to speculative fiction, some of them crossing over to the fantastic. “The Reckoning of Gifts” is SF clothed in fantasy garbs, but “Withered Gold, the Night, the Day” is straight up fantasy, as is “Reaper”.

    Meanwhile, fans of more traditional SF will also find plenty to like. “The Last Day of the War, With Parrots” is classical Science Fiction, with a straight-up narrative, interesting inventions and a terrific rhythm. “The Children of Crèche” is also the kind of well-handled SF made accessible through clear prose. Finally, “Hardware Scenario G-49” is perhaps the most obviously funny tale in the book, the kind of story that never fails to leave a smile on your face.

    I may not care too much about Fred Gambino’s cover illustration (a surprise, given that I love most of what Gambino has done elsewhere), but the content of the anthology itself is well worth your time. Aside from three of four weaker pieces, Gravity Wells is diverse, entertaining and more original than you’d think. I’m tempted to rate it above what I’ve read of Gardner’s longer fiction.

    Now, if we could just convince EOS and other trade publishers that they should take chances on more short story collections…

  • The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, Ed. Jeff Vandermeer & Mark Roberts

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 2005, 297 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-553-38339-6

    Humour is a subjective thing, and medical humour even more so. My encounters with the health care system have so far been mercifully brief, but I still find myself a hard sell when it comes to humour in a medical… vein. Pain, diseases, death: not funny!

    So imagine the uphill battle when it comes to reading and appreciating The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. As the title suggests, it’s a book of weird medical conditions. What the title doesn’t tell you, however, is that it’s a humorous anthology of fake diseases imagined by a bunch of science-fiction and fantasy writers.

    So don’t be surprised if you happen to read about a disease in which bones migrate outside the body (eventually leaving the invertebrate patient quivering like an old squid) or one where the sufferer’s organs slowly transforms themselves into fruits. Despite the hair-raising farther reaches of real medicine, the contributor to the Guide manage to invent an impressive number of even more extreme conditions.

    Take, for instance, Steve Aylett’s “Download Syndrome”, in which people rely so much on electronic devices for memory that they become empty vessels. Or Brian Stableford’s “Ferrobacterial Accretion Syndrome”, describing how some individuals form metal sculptures within their bodies. (Not to be confused with Jeffrey Thomas’ “Internalized Tattooing Disease”.) Not to mention Jeff Topham’s “Logopetria”, a condition where patients’ words are, um, literally spat out. And who can forget Michael Bishop’s “Biblioartifexism”; the delusion that one has re-composed a classic work of literature?

    Not all entries are so amusing. A number of them aim for horror rather than humour, and if the results can be effective (I’m unaccountably fond of Jeffrey Thomas’ “Extreme Exostosis”, for instance), many of the others simply fall flat. What may seem amusing to a writer may end up looking lame to readers, and so a fair chunk of Thackery lands with a gross thud. But as with any other anthology, you learn to remember the best and forget the rest.

    Some of the book’s most effective moments come as it starts playing subtle tricks on the reader. Pay particular attention to the diseases flagged as “contagious”, as those often indicate a writer in the full grip of the condition he’s describing. I was completely charmed by Rhys Hughes’s “Ebercitas”, but then again who could resist the beauty, even unseen, of Eber M. Soler? (Example!) In a grimmer but no-less hilarious fashion, China Mieville’s “Wormword” does a lot of mileage out of a simple memetic concept. David Langford turn in one of the shortest entries with “Logrolling Ephesus”, but as Langford fans know, the man can do miracles in less than a thousand “words”.

    Thackery also earns top marks for its sumptuous design, consciously modelled on Victorian-era medical textbooks and often implemented hand-in-hand with the content. John Coulthart’s “Paper Pox” and Brian Evenson’s “Worsley’s Supplement” visually demonstrate their afflictions (chilling and amusing readers in the process), whereas the last third of the book does wonders in re-creating snippets of the Guide‘s “previous editions.”

    Maybe a third of the book is not dedicated to the actual description of fake diseases, and that part of the Guide isn’t as successful as the rest. The character of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead may not be as hilarious as the editors may think he is, and his adventures across the world during the twentieth century are sometimes more tedious than amusing. The “secret history” of the twentieth century as influenced by the Guide is a good concept, but the execution is hit-and-miss.

    But, as I said, humour is subjective, let alone medical humour. The Guide has received lavish praise from critics and readers; who am I to spoil the fun? At the very least, I should acknowledge the considerable amount of effort that went in putting together the guide (the visual design alone is worth a peek in the bookstore), even if the ultimate impact is mixed.

    Wait… perpetual hunger for better books, lack of satisfaction regarding most things, irresistible compulsion to chronicle inner disappointments on “the web”. What if I have a condition?

    Is Dr. Lambshead taking submissions for a second edition?

  • Old Man’s War, John Scalzi

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2005, 316 pages, C$33.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-30940-8

    It doesn’t take a long time to become a John Scalzi fan. One look at his on-line blog, “Whatever”, is usually enough to put him on your list of daily diversions. A true writing professional, Scalzi has perfected his on-line voice for maximum impact: It’s clear, strong and immensely entertaining. It’s not much of a surprise, then, to find out that his “first” novel be such a readable piece of work. (“First” novel in a big-publisher sense; a truer first novel, Agent to the Stars, is available on-line and will soon be published by speciality publisher Subterranean Press)

    Old Man’s War is self-consciously a derivation on the kind of military SF best exemplified by Heinlein’s Starship Troopers: a novel whose first half is spent seeing our protagonist through training, and the second in actual combat. The main tweak of this well-worn story, in this case, is that the protagonist of the tale is a 75-year old man. John Perry is widowed, bored and enlisted: what sweetens the pot for him is that the Colonial Marines are ready to rejuvenate anyone willing to sign up for a tour of duty.

    I expected to enjoy Old Man’s War, but I’m still surprised at how quickly and how effectively Scalzi can hook his readers. The prose style is a model of easy reading, and Scalzi’s got a practised eye for the small details, the mini-scenes, the rich dialogue, the background material required to make readers race from one chapter to the next. His protagonist undergoes his “going of age” adventure with believable reactions given his life experiences. John Perry is a tough guy, but not without his soft side: he misses the simple pleasures of matrimony, is properly grateful for what his old body has done for him and can’t let go whenever he think he has seen something important. This is a bookmark-optional book: Don’t be surprised if you end up reading it in a single sitting.

    The military-SF aspect of the story is also handled with plenty of skill. The problem with a lot of industry-standard military SF is that it often seems as if it’s written by soldiers for soldiers. Even well-meaning civilians can have trouble understanding the tactics, the jargon and the common assumptions. Scalzi is not a veteran, even comes from the left side of the political spectrum, but he understand how to treat the subject respectfully. This detachment has a lot to do with the perfect accessibility of his novel for everyone: Even readers unfamiliar with hard-core MilSF will be able to read Old Man’s War without too much trouble. (Naturally, sub-genre devotees will find themselves at home. Through I wonder if the Thaddeus Bender sequence is a bit of red meat thrown to that particular segment of the audience.)

    This being said, the plotting isn’t up to the polish of the prose. Scalzi has an annoying penchant for plotting-by-coincidence, and so Perry benefits from a few unbelievably convenient chance encounters: First with his biggest off-planet fan (netting him some initial advancement), then (twice) with someone familiar to him. Once may not have been so bad, but more than that is a bit too much.

    I also have issues with some of the background coherency of his universe: Some arbitrary restrictions are made necessary by the plot, (no higher-tech on Earth; permanent exile of the Marines) but the rigid enforcement of those rules are inconsistent with how things work in the real world. Scalzi also struggles with his high-tech toys: the level of technology used by the Colonial Marine isn’t evenly distributed, and even his acknowledgement of those inconsistencies (eg; the discussion of why the “Ghost Brigades” don’t make up the bulk of the Marines Corps) seems a bit evasive. Which is a shame, because Scalzi understands the tech and slings the jargon better than many of his peers: His use of SF tropes is consistent with his goal of updating Starship Troopers to today’s tech standards.

    But even with the awful coincidences, even with the iffy parameters of his universe, Old Man’s War remains a delight from beginning to end. I’m not just saying that because it’s a near-certainty that John Scalzi will eventually read this review (sorry for those last two paragraphs, Mr. Scalzi), but because I have rarely seen such a compulsively-readable novel. In terms of pure reading fun, it brings to mind some of the slickest Frederik Pohl novels, or -dare I say it- Heinlein’s Starship Troopers itself. A number of so-called fine writers could take note of the technique. Scalzi is a professional, and when it comes to my entertainment dollars, I’ll bet on the professional over the artist all the time.