Book Review

  • U.S.S. Seawolf, Patrick Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Torch, 2000, 482 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-103065-1

    Show me a critic without an author they love to hate and I will show you a reviewer without passion, without the killer instinct so necessary in this often-dreary job. While some will save their bile for Piers Anthony, Kevin J. Anderson or William Shatner, I’ve had three remarkably enjoyable occasions so far to slag the work of Patrick Robinson: His Nimitz Class, Kilo Class and H.M.S. Unseen remain some of the most pathetic attempts at the techno-thriller genre ever written.

    (Note for sensible readers: No, I don’t hate Patrick Robinson as a person. For all that I know, he’s probably a great human being who’s kind to humanity, fond of little animals and respectful of the biosphere. We could probably enjoy a fascinating conversation over a good meal and I’d feel ashamed of everything I’ve written about his books. Until then, however, his books don’t measure up to the accepted standard and you can read my reviews to understand why.)

    Given such past credentials, I was all ready and anxious to start reading U.S.S. Seawolf: Hurrah! Another occasion to make fun of Robinson’s right-wing raaah-America screw-international-relations politics! Another sorry attempt at “plotting”! Another set of unlikable cardboard characters! Another book packed with clunky exposition! Whee!

    Imagine my surprise when I started thinking that U.S.S. Seawolf wasn’t actually half-bad.

    Don’t make any mistake; it’s still not a very good techno-thriller. But as compared to his other three books, it actually holds up a lot better.

    For one thing, there is a plot of sorts that goes beyond the sort of sloppy “let’s destroy foreign submarines” excuse passed off in Kilo Class. This time around, an American submarine (the titular Seawolf) doing stupid things off China’s coastal waters is accidentally damaged by the Chinese navy, captured and dragged to a Chinese port. It’s an eerie scenario, especially given how, in early 2001, an American plane doing stupid things off China’s coastal waters was accidentally damaged by the Chinese Air Force, captured and dragged to a Chinese airport. (Ooooh.) From then on, the Americans implement a rescue mission, which is implemented with the usual thrilling amount of difficulty. It’s not Shakespeare, but it works rather well. For one thing, U.S.S. Seawolf avoids the lengthy useless stretches of, say, H.M.S. Unseen.

    One annoyance left intact from Robinson’s earlier novel is his casual disregard for the niceties of diplomatic intervention. As a true Republican believer in the Bush doctrine, Robinson’s novels are packed with preemptive (and excessive) strikes against foreign targets, usually resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths that are shrugged away with choice racial epithets. Here, it’s not a hydro-electrical dam in Iraq (U.S.S. Nimitz) or a number of Chinese submarines (Kilo Class) but the intentional meltdown of a nuclear reactor, leading to entire blocks of a Chinese city being showered with radioactive slag. Thoughtful. Given the number of offencive racial slurs used by Robinson’s so-called protagonists, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if his next novel features a warship manned by members of the Aryan Nation.

    Moving on… Robinson usually has some trouble ending his novel, but here again U.S.S. Seawolf manages to be only slightly better than the rest of his usual crap: After a triumphant rescue in which most members of the submarine are rescued, ugly politics intrude thanks to a no-good son-of-a-politician and a protagonist ends up killing himself. Whee, what fun! But have no fear, because series superhero Arnold Morgan, in between chewing cigars, spitting at presidents, planning genocide, insulting countries and boinking his sexy secretary (whose characterization seems taken from Playmate profiles), decides that he can’t have that and tenders in his resignation. Or something like that. Read the rest in the next thrilling instalment. I might have cared had it been even a mediocre book.

    Wait! Wait! Did I say that U.S.S. Seawolf was better than Robinson’s other novels? What was I thinking? Was it the deliciously ambiguous portrait of an incompetent military officer? The rather good SEAL-team operational details? Or momentary delusion brought about by disbelief? Goodness gracious! It is as bad as his other novels! Hurrah! Bring on the fifth one! Patrick Robinson; I love to hate your stuff! More, please!

  • Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Perennial, 1994, 272 pages, C$16.95 tpb, ISBN 0-06-097662-4

    After discovering the silliness of Christopher Buckley in Little Green Men, it didn’t take me a long time to bring back home other examples of his work. Alas, as if often the case when picking up authors in mid-career, going back to earlier works can be disappointing, as we regress to a more unpolished style and less-controlled plotting. No, I didn’t go nuts for Thank You For Smoking nearly as much as Little Green Men. But don’t let that stop you from reading the book.

    Christopher Buckley, novelist, is really a social satirist. Before tackling the world of UFO conspiracies in Little Green Men, his Thank You For Smoking took careful aim at the special-interest community. Our protagonist and narrator, Nick Taylor, is a spokesman for the tobacco industry. The job has its small annoyances (like being likened to Nazis and various creatures of the underworld) but it pays the bills, represents a constant challenge and allows Nick to travel around the country and attend public events where participants hiss at him. It’s, all things considered, a good life. That is, until Nick starts making too many waves and someone, somewhere wants him dead through an ironic execution.

    Suddenly, Nick doesn’t know who to trust. Even as he’s enjoying his highest media profile in years, even as the leaders of Big Tobacco start noticing his efforts, even as he sleeps with just about every available female character, his enemies start to accumulate. Are they anti-smokers or pro-smokers with twisted motives? What about Nick’s colleagues in the special-interest community? Are those NRA spokespersons jealous of Nick’s sudden celebrity? Unless… what if the Tumbleweed Man, ex-industry icon now living off oxygen bottles, has decided to take his final revenge?

    General points of comparison with Little Green Men abound. Both novels revolve around Washington, as Buckley demonstrates his inside knowledge of how the machinery of influence really works. Both novels feature a protagonist who comes to reconsider everything he believes in, even if it results in him losing everything he holds dear. Both novels do believable jobs of creating their own brand of reality slight off-kilter from our own, while remaining credible. Both can be read in a flash.

    The main difference is that Thank You For Smoking is somewhat less funny than Little Green Men. The latter novel had the good sense to go for the jugular and be hysterically silly when it needed to be. No so here, as things are carefully kept from going over the edge of reality. It’s off-beat but not zany. Whereas Little Green Men was funny, Thank You For Smoking is merely amusing.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with being merely amusing. In fact, some readers are more likely to prefer a novel that stays within the bounds of a certain recognizable reality. It’s not as if I disliked Thank You For Smoking (well, aside from the impression that the narrator was a slut for sleeping with every female he could lay his hands on) as much as I thought it was a let-down from Buckley’s later novel.

    Certainly, Thank You For Smoking is well-worth reading for light entertainment. (The progressive transformation of the protagonist in someone we can cheer for is remarkable in itself.) There’s plenty of satiric content for anyone even remotely familiar with special-interest groups, and even if the ending isn’t completely successful (what is with chapter 29, anyway?), it’s not as if the rest of the novel isn’t pure fun. As for me, well, I’m not done with Buckley’s other novels yet.

  • Meltdown, James Powlik

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Dell, 2000, 445 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-23509-X

    I remember reading James Powlik’s first novel, Sea Change, with some interest but not much enthusiasm. It was a solid, competent thriller with good sequences featuring familiar elements. Some silliness here and there, but nothing bad enough to make anyone stop reading. In other words, a thoroughly adequate thriller.

    Meltdown doesn’t step too far off the mark set by Powlik’s first novel.

    At least it has (for this Canuck reviewer) the added interest of taking place in Canada. In Canada’s extreme North, mind you (somewhere at large of Baffin Island), but in Canada nonetheless. The prologue bashes Canada’s treatment of its Inuit population, there’s one amusing reference to Ottawa’s Sparks street and the Canadian Coast Guard gets to be mentioned a few times, but otherwise it doesn’t matter much: Meltdown is simply set in a cold and desolate location where something very bizarre is about to happen.

    In the first few pages of the novel, two divers are severely affected by a short dive in glacial waters. Suffering from an extreme form of radiation poisoning, they die within hours, prompting their colleagues to call for help. If you’ve read Sea Change, you may already expect a certain someone, and you won’t be disappointed: Brock Garner, renegade oceanographer extraordinaire, is more than willing to answer distress calls from a beautiful woman, especially if she just happens to be his very own ex-wife Dr. Carlon Harmon. (Yes, there’s still something between them.) Before long, he’s on a plane headed north, having packed both his long johns and his advanced oceanographic gadgets.

    What he discovers up there is alarming enough: massive radiation contamination, with drastic effects on everything it touches. Left unchecked, this terrible environmental disaster could heat up the Gulf Stream (or something like that) and usher in a new Ice Age. What is the source of the contamination? What can be done to stop it? And how is Brock going to escaped unharmed from everything that’s sure to happen to him in a thriller?

    To be fair, Meltdown starts with an intriguing mystery and milks a lot of interest out of the source of the radioactive spill. Is it natural or man-made? Accidental or intentional? Civilian or military? Water is the great unifier, and so Powlik’s novel is a grand excuse to learn a little bit about tons of subjects, from radioactivity to metal-eating bacteria to secret military catastrophes. Techno-thriller fans; welcome, please enjoy the book.

    Unfortunately, there’s a palpable lessening of tension once the source of the radiation is identified. Silly little side-plots mixing Chinese (or is it Indian?) spies and super-absorbing molecules start appearing suddenly with various degrees of effectiveness. I quite liked one unfortunate accident three-quarter of the way in, but the latter half of the novel was uneven, sometimes grabbing my interest and sometimes not. The ending is a bit too tidy: I happen to believe that eco-catastrophes can’t be solved with a magical silver bullet; unfortunately, that seems to be the case here. (Amusingly enough, while Sea Change had an ominous epilogue, it doesn’t appear to be the case with Meltdown. Another case of an author settling for easy answer in order to stretch a series of thrillers? We’ll see.)

    Still, the book is easy enough to read, and there’s plenty of fascinating asides to satisfy any beach reader. Some vivid action scenes stand out despite the uneven nature of the narrative. The characters may be unpolished, but they’re efficient at moving the action along and don’t torture themselves endlessly with moral dilemmas. It would be helpful if Powlik could sustain interest in both his plot and his characters, but Meltdown isn’t particularly worse than Sea Change. (Indeed, reviewing my notes on the previous novel, it looks as if Meltdown isn’t quite as silly as the first book, which is already something.) I may not be overly enthusiastic about Powlik’s oeuvre so far, but I’m not repelled either; if nothing else, I’m more than willing to try his next effort. After all, if nothing else, I’m a sucker for tons of techno-jargon.

  • Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age, Lin Sten

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Paragon House, 1999, 250 pages, C$37.00 hc, ISBN 1-55778-779-4

    As someone with, thanks to Science Fiction, a deep interest in technology and its impact on society, I’m part of the natural audience for an essay like Lin Sten’s Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age. This little-known book, found at a remainder sale, promised much: “Compared to the past gradual evolution of our natural and technological environments,” says the dust jacket blurb, “the rate of evolution in the next decade will be revolutionary. In the new environment, the mans of survival will be so different and the need for adaption so extreme, that few humans may survive.” Hot stuff! Could this be a book-length version of Bill Joy’s qualms in his landmark article “Why the future doesn’t need us?” A critique of nanotechnology by someone unconvinced by The Foresight Institute?

    As it happens, Sten’s book is almost exactly that. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to make it worthwhile.

    His main thesis is interesting and worth discussing. He fears that with the progress in nanotechnology (here gratuitously called “molecular nanotechnology”, or “molenotechnology” for short) and associated sciences, humanity is headed toward a dead-end of sorts; when people will be able to manufacture tactical nuclear bombs in their home-based Universal Assemblers, human nature will naturally lead to widespread death and destruction. Increasingly omnipotent power in increasingly unaccountable hands is not a recipe for social harmony, despite what most gun advocates will tell you.

    It’s an interesting thesis (I myself have referred to something like it as “the rabid wolf problem” in other venues) and so I’m doubly disappointed that Sten wasn’t able to it justice in this book. Sometimes, it’s his fault; sometimes, it’s mine.

    Mine first; I have read copiously on nanotech and associated issues. Decades of Science Fiction consumption, occasional scribblings on “Terror in Hard-SF” and outlines for stories yet to be written have, shall we say, made a nanodanger buff out of me. In this context, Sten’s speculations often read as introductions or basic thinking on a complex subject. I can’t reasonably fault him for not pushing the envelope when I know so much about the field, but I can be disappointed that I haven’t been able to find much new material in this book.

    But that’s just me; your mileage may vary on this particular subject. On the other hand, this book has other flaws that may run deeper.

    The writing and (lack of) organization is one: Despite a relatively uncomplicated vocabulary and a short length, Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age is not very pleasant to read. I suppose that a better editor may have been able to clarify some of the mess and straighten out some dull passages. But as it currently stands, this book is a singularly tepid take on a fascinating subject. That hurts, especially when the goal of the book is to send us in a tizzy of concern. Instead, readers are more likely to shrug.

    Then there the “Cabal” issue. As the book advances, more and more time is spent discussing shadowy interest groups, “cabals” of common interest that will some to enslave humanity through ever-more powerful molenotechnology. While I can recognize the inherent danger and historical precedents for such things, Sten’s use of the “cabal” concept is far closer to conspiracy theory than to careful social explanation. It throws a blanket of wacky unreality on a book that desperately wants to be taken seriously. It’s a small detail, but you know how things work: when you’re ambivalent about something, even trifles can have an impact one way or another.

    Ultimately, though, I didn’t get the impression of learning much from Souls, Slavery and Survival in the Molenotech Age. There are a few ideas here and there, but few of them haven’t already been mentioned elsewhere in contemporary Science Fiction or in Wired Magazine. No small wonder, then, if the book remains obscure even today.

  • Double Fold, Nicholson Baker

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Vintage, 2001, 370 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-375-72621-7

    For someone who spends so much time tinkering with computers and using the Internet, I have a decidedly classical relationship with paper. I love books, I print digital stuff for archiving, I think libraries are holy places, I like the feel of good paper and I can do wonders with cardstock, scissors and a fancy printer. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever made your own book. Uh-huh.) While ebooks are a wonderful thing and have undeniable data advantages over dead-tree versions of the same content, my dead-tree-parts collection is one of my favourite things in the whole world. No data storage backup concerns; no anxiety about the quality of the digital capture; no usability trouble in case of power failure or electromagnetical pulse. I just love paper.

    Double Fold is a book for people like me and Nicholson Baker is a guy I like.

    Anyone with a college-level education is probably familiar with microfiche. Those tiny black-and-white reproductions are often the only way to consult past issues of newspapers in university libraries. Even as the magical age of digital information advances, there is still plenty of content locked away on those tiny plastic sheets. Anyone who’s used them is also aware of their deficiencies: those muddy, often-unfocused black-and-white reproduction of the original content can often be a headache to read. It would be so much better to be able to consult the original… but where can you put all of those newspapers?

    The truth is that several large libraries, until the 1950s, actually did keep, bind and store paper archives of newspapers. Then microfiche came in and promised incredible space savings at very little cost for “the same amount of information”. And so went the bound newspaper paper archives: Sold to the highest bidders or thrown in the trash when they weren’t simply left to rot in damp basements. In several cases, there are no paper copies left of several important newspapers.

    That in itself is not a very pleasant thing. But as far as Double Fold goes, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg. Baker spends the rest of the book detailing how, for now more than fifty years, American libraries have vigorously pursued policies that led to the destruction of priceless documents, all in the name of ill-defined conservation, space savings and unfounded worries about the durability of even pulp paper. (The CIA is involved, believe it or not.) It’s a fantastic story, even more so when Baker puts his retirement funs on the line to preserve a few historically-important bound newspaper runs. And that’s not even mentioning Egyptian mummies and explosive de-acidification processes!

    Double Fold is as much a documentary as an essay against the incalculable damages brought by short-term thinking in libraries. Books destroyed to make imperfect, often incomplete microfiche copies. Perfectly adequate books discarded over ludicrous “double fold” testing results. The systematic elimination of priceless pieces of history. An all-out war on paper. Even sceptics are likely to be moved as Baker suggests, at the very least, a smoother gradient between the roles occupied by librarians and archivists.

    For bookish fellows such as myself, Double Fold is a significant book. Baker does a superb job at revealing the seedy underbelly of libraries, presents exquisitely-researched details (the “notes” section takes up nearly a fifth of the book) and manipulates his audience like a puppet master. It’s informative, frequently outrageous, packed with fascinating details and likely to inspire either tears, disbelieving moans and a fair bit of anger. It deservedly won a National Critic Board award for best non-fiction book of 2002 and it’s likely to inspire both debate and action everywhere it’s read.

    Infuriating, fascinating and shocking at times, Double Fold easily gets my recommendation as a must-read if you’re even slightly interested in books. I’d love to press a copy in the hands of every librarian on planet Earth, but in the meantime I’ll be content in shouting out its praise over my web site. If it can eventually save even one book from too-hasty destruction, then it’ll be a job well-done.

  • Web Design on a Shoestring, Carrie Bickner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    New Riders, 2004, 215 pages, C$37.99 tpb, ISBN 0-7357-1328-6

    Regular readers of this web site will scarcely be surprised by my librarian fetish (though it still creeps them out). As keepers of books, masters of reference information and holders of library keys, librarians secretly control the world and that just makes them unbelievably hot. (And this regardless of whether they hold their flowing locks of curly hair in a bun or not.) Certainly, Carrie Bickner of www.roguelibrarian.com fame does nothing to quell my fascination for book-indexing ladies. Heck, by embracing the information age and leading the way for web standards, Bickner is the pin-up girl for what modern librarians should be. Entire crowds of geeks mourned when she married master web designer Jeffrey Zeldman (of, yes, www.zeldman.com fame), but she’ll forever remain special to all of us. Who hasn’t bookmarked her NYPL web style guide, already?

    With Web Design on a Shoestring, Bickner carries the torch of efficient web standards from the virtual world to the real. The book sets out to help over-worked and under-resourced web professionals do the most with the least. In a post-dot-com-bubble world where the web has remained essential even as budgets for it have shrunk to almost nothing, this book is a sign of the times and a harbinger of things to come. Everyone needs a web site, but there’s not much money for it. Welcome to the real world.

    As a public sector web designer and an occasional free-lance web expert, I could read the book as a member of two audiences, and Web Design on a Shoestring does indeed try to cover as many situations as possible. As long as you’re trying to make web design more cost-effective, this book has something to offer.

    Bickner, for instance, illustrates the importance of web standards in bringing down costs; by designing to standards and doing cost-efficient usability testing, it’s relatively easy for web designers to sidestep incompatibilities between web browsers, simplify the design template of sites and be reasonably confident that they’re satisfying the vast majority of their audience. Further tips on typography, hosting, images and web writing help the book cover a very large subject.

    There is, all told, a lot to like about this book. As is the norm with books by New Riders, it manages to provide a lot of technical information without being dull. The writing style is conversational, often quite amusing. The organization of the book is logical. It’s quick and to the point at just over 200 pages. There are plenty of summary points to recap the book’s most useful passages. Some of the material is unique or very handy, such as the very interesting chapters on Content Management Systems or how to deal with image sources.

    Still, I can’t help but feel let down by the book. Having borrowed it from my employer’s corporate library, I’m not very well-placed to say that the book is page-per-page expensive. But even as short as it is, I know enough about a few subjects to see parts of the book as pure filler; the primer on XHTML and web design standards goes in too much detail as compared to the rest of the book, and yet doesn’t say much compared to other resources on the subject. (Furthermore, it’s not unreasonable to assume that most of the book’s target audience is already well-versed in XHTML.) Like a few other “name” web design books, parts of Web Design on a Shoestring feel like a “greatest hits” of the author’s knowledge, complete with a few technical how-tos that feel a lot like padding. Some of it is essential; some of it is practically useless and redundant.

    I still think it’s a reasonably useful guide for the vast majority of web designers stuck doing much with less. But I’ll stop short of calling it an essential read: Most of the information can be picked up elsewhere on the web for far less than C$37.99 (how’s that for being cost-effective?) and whatever is left can be read at the bookstore if needs be. Too bad; there’s a lot to like about Bickner and her practical approach to web design. But when you call a book Web Design on a Shoestring, you have to deliver the best shoestrings possible.

  • Trump: The Art of the Deal, Donald J. Trump & Tony Schwartz

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1987, 372 pages, C$6.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-35325-6

    Like many North-Americans in early 2004, I was taken by the reality-TV show “The Apprentice”, a series in which sixteen ambitious tyros competed to become one of Donald Trump’s cadre of executives. It’s easy to see why the series was such a success: Beyond the good visuals and taut storytelling of Mark (“Survivor”) Burnett’s production, the series revolved around a larger-than-life character. At a time where the reality-TV craze was in danger of crumbling upon itself for being too close to the boredom of reality itself, “The Apprentice” went the other way and found what is nearly a fictional character in a fictional environment: Donald J. Trump in New York City.

    You will not find any explicit reference to “The Apprentice” in Trump: The Art of the Deal (it is, after all, a 1987 book), but it doesn’t really matter: Trump is Trump, and even the 1987 version of himself has all the hallmarks of the gruff 2004 reality show superstar. In the “real world” interval, Trump nearly went bankrupt in the early nineties and then climbed his way to a vast fortune all over again. So reading his portrait as he stood on top of the world in the late eighties makes it appear as if nothing serious had happened in the interval; certainly, Trump’s self-assurance is identical.

    Certainly, there aren’t many better book from which to learn about the man himself. He has published other books since (including the aptly-titled “Trump: The Art of the Comeback”), but this first one is closest to a straight-up autobiography, complete with childhood recollections, the adventures of a budding tycoon in midtown Manhattan and the making of his first blockbuster deals. After reading this book, it’s easy to see where Trump comes from: a father already familiar with the workings of real-estate deals and a thirst to do even better. It’s an interesting story even though it’s not exactly a rags-to-riches one. (Young Donald Trump, without being very rich, was comfortably set by just about any measure.)

    But Trump: The Art of the Deal is more than an autobiography and a recollection of biggest deals: It’s first and foremost a tribute to, well, the sacred art of the deal. Through Trump’s advice and recollections, it’s easy to see what is so attractive about deal-making. It is, after all, what best defines Trump and what he does. How to negotiate and get something from someone else while still both feeling good about it. The book is stuffed with complex wheeling and dealing with dozens of stakeholders and tight deadlines. It’s hard, through it all, not to develop a stunned admiration for anyone with the sheer audacity to go after such negotiations. Anyone with an interest in business probably has a copy of the book already: it’s just such a great primer on business.

    For fans of “The Apprentice”, the book also details the making of several of the show’s backdrops, from the Wolfram Ice Rink to the world-renowned Trump Tower. (Warning: Many of the references may be wasted on anyone not familiar with the eighties’ New York City) Great stories in almost all cases, even as Trump doesn’t miss an occasion to blast bureaucracy, tenants, politicians and the media. As with all great works of propaganda and self-aggrandizement (and I say this in the best sense of the term), we read the book firmly on Trump’s side even as our natural sympathies may actually rest with the opposition. (Has anyone ever compiled a “companion guide” detailing the context, alternate viewpoints and ultimate fate of people, projects and places mentioned in the book?)

    Now, it’s ridiculous to imagine Trump carefully poring over the prose of this book and so considerable credit must be given to his co-author Tony Schwartz. The best measure of his success is that the written Trump sounds almost exactly like the Trump we know from the media: You can easily imagine his brash no-nonsense voice narrating the book’s chapters. It also helps that it is compulsively readable like few other business books: Packed with great anecdotes and glimpses in the life of the rich, busy and powerful, Trump: The Art of the Deal is just a terrific piece of entertainment.

    What is certain is that the story of Donald J. Trump is far from being over yet: He may have seven books to his credit already, but with decades to go in the shaky world of business, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next to “The Donald”. But to judge from his story, his charisma and his appreciation for the art of the deal, it’s a safe bet that he’s never going to be all that far away from the public eye.

    [June 2004: Trump: Surviving at the Top, his 1990 follow-up tome, is more of the same, without the novelty interest but with an interesting look at a Trump on the verge of his early-nineties troubles. His marital difficulties are briefly discussed, but once again it’s The Donald’s dealmaking that deserves center-stage.]

    [July 2016: I’m not going to discuss Trump’s presidential run, but anyone interested in The Art of the Deal should take a look at the recollections of its ghostwriter, nearly thirty years later.]

  • Proxies, Laura J. Mixon

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 468 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-52387-3

    Years ago, in his influential essay Comme un roman, French writer Daniel Pennac outlined a series of unalienable “reader’s rights”, one of them being “the right not to finish a book”. I firmly believe in this particular freedom, even though I don’t usually take advantage of it. In my experience, there are times where a book can actually improve as it goes along. Though quite rare, I have too fond a memory of Walter Jon Williams’ Aristoi (difficult first fifty pages; wonderful rest of book) to quit SF books halfway through. I nearly gave up on Laura J. Mixon’s Proxies but decided to read a few more chapters, and if the end result isn’t up to Aristoi, I think it was good enough to make the first half worthwhile.

    The initial difficulty with Proxies isn’t that it’s incomprehensible as much as it’s just not very interesting. Sometime before the end of the 21st century, humanity perfects a technology which allows operators to control other humanoid bodies across distances. Those proxies are perfect for work in dangerous environment: Space explorations, dangerous manual labour, military operations, etc. But the technology isn’t cheap nor easy to use, and so it hasn’t proved to be the end of menial labour. As you can expect, the gulf between rich and poor has widened even further. And as if that wasn’t enough, Earth’s environmental situation has degraded to the point where normal temperatures are equivalent to today’s worst heat waves.

    But things are about to heat up even further as politics start messing with science and top-secret experiments. Before long, complex power struggles emerge, and they all seem to revolve around Carli D’Auber, a recent unemployed super-scientist who just happens to be the daughter of an influential politician.

    There’s a lot to shrug about in the first half of Proxies, as this new world is chaotically introduced and the complex power politics of the various plots in motion are hesitantly explained. Mixon’s imagined future is a mixture of the new and the old, with familiar elements competing against more exciting ones. There’s a post-cyberpunk feel to it all that’s neither fresh nor inventive and as the pages are turned, it seems as if Proxies isn’t going anywhere.

    But it start coming into focus half-way through. Suddenly, the issues are clearer, part of the background is explained, the characters truly come into their own (though some, like, “Dane Elisa Cae”, still end up feeling over-developed for their narrative importance) and the reading takes on a smoother quality.

    The third fourth of Proxies is the kind of stuff we SF readers are looking for. Neat sequences, crisp writing, a dash of humour and some increasingly sympathetic characters. Our poor heroine is insulted, dismissed, battered, blackmailed and kidnapped. It may not be all that great for her, but it’s surely a lot more fun for us readers. Then there is the pleasant patina of “real-world” political sophistication peeking through; for all other flaws, Proxies ends up with an impressive amount of complexity that feels as if, yes, this is a work of true anticipatory science-fiction more than a cardboard future created for a story. Heaven knows that there are worse (and sillier) SF novels out there. If the first half could have been shortened and cleaned up a little bit, maybe Proxies could have been a novel worth commending without reservations. As it is, though, there’s a lot to slog through in order to get to the good parts.

    Then there’s the ending; Though not a bad ending by most sense of the term, Mixon so diffuses the climactic elements of her conclusion (by discarding plot threads hastily, by placing the Big Decisions in off-stage minds, by having characters abandon their goals) that the pay-off of the book is similarly diluted. The first half of the book feels overlong and indulgent and so does the conclusion. Some more judicious editing could have improved the impact of the whole thing, along with a hyped-up pacing where all the elements of the conclusion are properly done justice.

    As it currently stands, there’s a lot to like about Proxies, but it’s a shame that the readers have to work so hard to get to them. I’m curious enough to go read Mixon’s other novels, but anyone who wants to tackle Proxies may want to keep in mind another item on Pennac’s bill of “readers’ right”: “The right to skim”.

  • Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster: Why the official story of 9/11 is a monumental lie, David Icke

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bridge of Love, 2002, 514 pages, C$41.95 tpb, ISBN 0-9538810-2-4

    What a long and strange trauma it’s been.

    The events of 9/11 were a shock to all, myself included. Some of this shock even made its way to these reviews and there’s no use apologizing or recanting this: It’s a reflection of what was happening at the time. (see my comments on Nelson DeMille’s The Lion’s Game for an illustration of my immediate reactions to the events)

    But now, more than two years later, things have changed. The “day that changed everything” is sinking back in history, and we now have the advantage of that tiny hindsight in reconsidering our reaction to the event. Reviewing a book like Alice in Wonderland, which purports to tell the “real story” of 9/11 in the tradition of the best conspiracy theories, would have been impossible in, say, October 2001. When French journalist Thierry Meyssan published L’Effroyable imposture in March 2002, accusing the Bush government of the worst possible conspiracies in creating 9/11 (including the “no plane crashed in the Pentagon” theory), few were ready to do anything but dismiss the book as knee-jerk anti-Americanism. I should know; I was among those who called the book despicable.

    But, as I said, things have changed. Two years later, tempers have cooled and logic is once again prevailing. And so it is possible for me to be at a used book sale, see a book like David Icke’s Alice in Wonderland, peek inside, see something about “world government” and “mind control”, shrug, smile at “those conspiracy nuts” and buy it.

    The book’s first two chapters are indeed a masterpiece of crackpot writing. Here, shapeshifting reptilian bloodlines are controlling the world through the Illuminati, and nothing (nothing, from presidential elections to the death of Princess Diana) is anything but further evidence of a plot by “them” to control “us”. It’s easy to laugh and dismiss such rantings, mostly due to the feverish way Icke (like his partners in conspiracy theories) manages to bring everything together as a coherent whole. This is conspiracies-as-religion: the belief that, yes, everything can be tracked to wilful intentions and nothing is left to the vagaries of pure change and competing interests. There isn’t much in these first few chapters that’s not already known to conspiracy buffs, 9/11 or not.

    But the book changes gears when Icke starts looking at the 1991 Oklahoma City bombing and then delves into the events of 9/11. In 400+ densely-detailed pages, Ickes raises dozens of questions and inconsistencies with the “official” version of the events. Contrarily to the “Illuminati” material of the opening (which is sourced back to Icke’s previous books), this stuff depends mostly on articles and testimonials published in the mainstream press. There are tons of real-world references and dozens of Really Good Questions. While a lot of Icke’s point can be explained by incompetence, slips of the tongue (saying “Monday” rather than “Tuesday”) and just plain confusion in the heat of the events, there are enough discrepancies to arouse interest.

    In some ways, it’s just too easy to disbelieve the assertions of Alice in Wonderland. Icke has an unfortunate tendency to pepper his narrative with gratuitous references to “The Illuminati” and that makes as much sense as blaming Santa’s Elves for everything. It doesn’t help that his sources are inconsistently convincing: He makes a lot out of a rather suspicious book called The Trance Formation of America, in which George Bush Sr. (among many others) Is revealed to be a sodomite pederast who takes delight in describing his favourite perversions to an aroused Dick Cheney, who ultimately comes to join Elder Bush is his lascivious satanic activities. (!!!) Who can be blamed for dismissing such a narrative, tentative as it may be?

    The last two chapters don’t help: Here, the shape-shifting lizards bloodlines make their way back in the narrative, assorted with a dastardly plot to take over the world as we know it. Parallel dimensions are discussed, along with a “solution” that isn’t much more than holding hands and believing in the power of each other. The last section of the book is poignantly titled “I love you, George Bush”, and features such gems as “I love you George Bush, father and son; I love you Cheney and Powell and Kissinger and Carlucci and the Illuminati High Council and the reptilian hierarchy in the inter-space plane.” [P.486] Woo!

    There’s no need to point out that Icke’s all-encompassing Illuminati plot is ludicrous, or that he seems uncommonly adept to twists facts to fit his grand conspiracy and ignore those who don’t fit. Never mind that his interpretation of rigid top-down hierarchies fly in the fact of demonstrated incompetence. One wonders if such things as the Lewinski affair, the Enron scandal or the spectacular failure of the XFL can also be explained away by Illuminati links. No doubt he’ll find a way to make them fit in his next book.

    But I found my own reaction to Alice in Wonderland to be revealing, regardless of alleged plots by shape-shifting reptilians. Strip the first and last few chapters of Alice in Wonderland, replace instances of “Illuminati” by “the abstract concept known as the cold invisible hand of western capitalism”, ignore the Bushes as child-abusers and the book simply reads as an extreme version of what many have been saying since the inauguration of the Bush II administration. The section where Icke details the biographies of the two Bush presidents and their cadre of advisers is packed with very familiar information and connections. The links between the Bushes and the bin Laden families, for instance, have been well documented in the mainstream press, and so have many of the relationships between the Bush advisers and their looong association with various Republicans administrations. Alice in Wonderland is insidious as it takes well-know facts and weaves them back into its own conspiracy theory. Bits and pieces of the book can’t be completely dismissed, and the line between truth and conspiracy is a lot harder to draw than it was even years ago. While I’m not terribly convinced that the “official story of 9/11 is a monumental lie”, let’s just say that I’d appreciate a thorough debunking of Icke’s assertions.

    The reason for this is obvious: Over the past few years, the entanglement of business/government relationships in the Bush II administration, coupled with “Boy George”’s uncanny talent for acting as a divider (not an uniter), coupled with the cold wind of post-9/11 law-enforcement, coupled with the rise of corporate power over individual freedoms (see DMCA, Eldred vs Ashcroft, etc.), coupled with such things as the Guantanamo concentration camp… have all taken their toll. Anyone who still had a smidgen of respect for presidential honesty got bitch-slapped by the cold realization that the White House lied in order to manipulate America towards the invasion of Iraq. Who, a
    fter those crazy four years, can still regard conspiracy theories as completely unlikely? We’ve seen one unfold before our very own eyes, in daily headlines. As Teresa Nielsen-Hayden has said time and time again on her blog, “I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.”

    And so I find myself, as someone who’d rather not believe in conspiracy theories, slightly shaken by the mass of assertions made in Alice in Wonderland. The most troubling thing, I believe, is the common-sense remark that even at this moment (and here I mean “March 2004”, two-and-a-half years after 9/11), we still haven’t seen an entirely transparent congressional investigation in the events of 9/11. And what investigations have taken place so far have been marred with censorship, closed-door sessions and allegations of partisanship. It won’t take much to bring me back in the mainstream camp; just answer the questions already. [January 2005: I’ll let you know as soon as I finish The 9/11 Commission Report.]

    And that takes me back to another surprisingly positive appeal of Icke’s work (and conspiracy theories in general): the doubts regarding the official version of events, the impulse to ask ever-more probing questions. “Question authority” could be the uniting slogan of all conspiracy theorists, and after seeing the meek way in which the Bush II administration was treated by the press and most of the American public, it’s hard to avoid thinking that we could all use an extra dose of scepticism. What if this book, as ludicrous as it may sometimes be, forces you and me to ask better questions? What’s the harm in that? What if more people read Alice in Wonderland?

    It’s somewhat of a marvel that I’ve come so far as to take nutty conspiracy theories semi-seriously in barely thirty months. Certainly I’d like to be able to say “claptrap” and throw back the book in disgust. But as, say, newer facts start to emerge from disgruntled ex-members of the Bush administration about the inside view of the lead-up toward the invasion of Iraq (ie; that it had been planned early in the administration and that 9/11 proved to be a convenient way to justify it), the true story of what happened seems to be validating those who, at the time, had been branded as anti-patriotic conspiracy theorists for doubting the official motives. As for Icke’s depiction of 9/11 as a vast conspiracy to take over basic rights and freedom, well, can you reasonably affirm that Americans are freer now than they were in August 2001?

    Uh-huh. Sometimes, it doesn’t take a conspiracy to enslave us. Maybe that’s a lesson we can now see, thirty months after 9/11.

  • Commitment Hour, James Alan Gardner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    EOS, 1998, 343 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-79827-1

    First, a truly horrible confession, then the review.

    My truly horrible confession is that I don’t care all that much about Science Fiction that sets out to explore the limits of gender identity. It’s a theme that just doesn’t interest me. Now, this wouldn’t mean much to most, but in a field which has hailed works like The Left Hand of Darkness and pioneered feminism before it was hip, well, it’s a bit like claiming to be a heretic. Broadly speaking, I have a really hard time getting excited about anything that makes in on the Tiptree Award ballot. (“An annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” says www.tiptree.org)

    Which makes my reaction to Commitment Hour even more surprising.

    Shortly stated, Commitment Hour is the story of a small village in a distant future in which the young ones switch, year after year, from one gender to another. After their twentieth year, they get to choose what gender they’ll remain for the rest of their lives.

    Normally, I would simply shrug at the premise and grit my teeth at having to read hundreds of pages on the subject. But the wonder of Commitment Hour is how it quickly and efficiently draws its reader in the lives of protagonist Fullin and the rest of his/her village. Before long, their calm routine is disrupted by the arrival of an outside observer and his neuter companion, an especially troubling event given the village’s widespread hatred of neuters.

    As the story unfolds, so do the layers of meaning and purpose behind the village’s unusual society. While the story may start in a cheerfully retrograde pastoral fantasy setting (another one of my pet peeves), Gardner slows strips away the false simplicity of Fullin’s life until we’re left with brushed steel and active nanotechnology. Good stuff.

    All the while, Gardner’s voice does wonder at keeping the preaching to a minimum. A few lines are surprisingly funny (“As a forty-year-old woman, (she) actually had a remarkable body… then it struck me that I was ogling (…) my mother. I shuddered with a sudden case of the icks.” [P.151]) and the overall light tone of the novel is a welcome change from the dreary self-importance in which most Tiptree-Award nominees usually smother themselves. The accumulated goodwill created by the novel is strong enough that its impact isn’t soured when the story hakes an abrupt turn toward dramatic intensity during the course of its conclusion. Then again the conclusion is suitably uplifting, a minor miracle given the twenty or so ghastly pages leading to it. A lot of it has to do with the novel’s plot-driven thrust: Here, the genre-switching is an important part of the story, but certainly not the end of it; it’s only a part of a larger mystery and a good excuse for exploring other issues. Could this be why this book interested me despite elements I wouldn’t normally go for?

    Technically, there isn’t much that’s wrong with Commitment Hour. The writing is efficient, the numerous character are well-sketched and the story steadily advances, page after page. The protagonist has a few unpleasant choices to make, and every chapter seems to be bringing extra complications. The only aspect where I felt a discontinuity between the author’s intentions and the actual execution were in presenting the protagonist’s different thought processes as s/he switched from male to female personalities.

    But no matter. Commitment Hour is still an unexpected good read. In fact, it’s even more surprising given how little I had cared for Expendable, Gardner’s first novel. His second effort seems more compelling, more interesting and, yes, more successful. You can reliably bet that I’ll be taking another look at this author’s works from now on.

    Even my reluctance to appreciate works lauded for the Tiptree award can be explained after all; while doing research for this review, I cam across the “long list” of works considered for the 1998 Tiptree, and saw that Commitment Hour had been dismissed as too conventional and mainstream. Go figure. Show’s em how much they know.

  • Spencerville, Nelson DeMille

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1994, 639 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60245-0

    Ten, maybe fifteen years after the fact, it’s obvious that the end of the Cold War has been a disaster for thriller authors. No longer could they rely on their favourite Soviet villains as convenient plot devices to rile up their audience. Columbian drug lords, Russian mafioso and right-wing militia groups kinda did the trick until everyone re-discovered Islamic fundamentalism, but for a while the American thriller has in serious trouble.

    And so it’s not difficult for bestselling thriller writer Nelson DeMille to create a convincing character in Keith Landry, a freshly-retired master spy at loose ends after being taken off the global chessboard as part of the “peace dividend”. Looking for something to do, he travels from Washington to his old hometown of Spencerville (after an absence of twenty-five years) and starts puttering around his parent’s farm while they live the easy life in Florida. But they say you can never go home again, and in Landry’s case that’s truer than usual: For he’s sharing the small town with an old flame and her husband, a man who uses his job as the sheriff to do terrible, terrible things.

    The most interesting thing about Spencerville is how much of a romance it is. Yes, it’s coming from an author who specializes in suspense novels. Yes, it’s a cheerfully macho story of good versus evil. Sure, it’s got pages and pages of detail about spycraft, guns and torture. But at its heart, it’s the story of a romantic relationship and all the obstacles in the way of this union. While the book’s protagonist is Keith Landry, you could make the argument that the true hero is Annie Prentis. Add the despicable (boo, hiss) Cliff Baxter to the mix and you’ve got a classic love triangle.

    A love triangle that deals in automatic weapons, dirty tricks and dripping violence, mind you: It doesn’t take fifty pages for major characters to start pointing guns toward each other: Even before Keith’s arrival, Cliff is depicted as a wife abuser who may be running out of time. Add to that the rampant police corruption and Spencerville starts looking more and more like a lawless town in a western epic, waiting for a no-name man to take down the rot.

    There are many pleasures in Spencerville and not the least of them is seeing a covert operative apply his skill to a town in mid-western America. As Landry finds out, the basics of overthrowing a corrupt police work aren’t terribly different from operating in Eastern Europe. In return, reading about small-town policemen trying to impress a man used to the KGB’s methods is rather amusing.

    But the comedy soon turns to drama as the emotional stakes are driven even higher. Romance blooms, and so does the antagonist’s madness. By the time the book is midway through, well, there isn’t much doubt in how the book will end.

    Which makes the book’s latter half even more disappointing. At more than 600 pages, Spencerville is far too long for what it has to say. The last hundred pages are especially tedious, as the resolution is obvious and extra obstacles are placed in the way just for the sake of further obstacles. The contrast with DeMille’s fast prose and his tepid pacing becomes increasingly uncomfortable and the book’s impact suffers because of it. But then again, this is neither the first nor the last work from this author to suffer from drawn-out endings. (See his latter Plum Island, etc.)

    Overall, though, Spencerville is an unusual and slick thriller, with just enough off-beat elements to make it stand out in its field. Overlong but never less than interesting, it’s a really good choice for DeMille fans and general thriller readers, with some cross-over potential for romance readers. If nothing else, it’s a way of showing that there’s no need to time-travel to 1980s Moscow to find good suspense, even as the genre’s favourite playgrounds have been closed.

  • The Physics of Immortality, Frank J. Tipler

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 1994, 528 pages, C$25.00 tpb, ISBN 0-385-46798-2

    The dust jacket copy suggests it all: An attempt to bring religion under the aegis of science. The physical proof for God. Equations proving that we’re going to be resurrected sooner or later. Whew!

    It has now been ten years since the publication of The Physics of Immortality and the book has had time to percolate through the noosphere. Science Fiction has (somewhat) embraced a few of the book’s arguments: Frederik Pohl wrote a trilogy about Tipler’s “Omega Point”, and the same rough outline of divinity can be found in works such as Robert Charles Wilson’s Darwinia and the Clarke/Baxter collaboration The Light of Other Days. I suppose it’s appropriate for SF to take back a little bit from a work which itself owes a lot to Science Fiction.

    Tipler’s “Omega Point” theory, as I understand it in a nutshell, is that as life inevitably spreads through the universe (don’t worry: even his postulates are grandiose), it will come to achieve a complete mastery of space/time, develop ultimate computing capabilities and generally achieve god-like powers. In addition to that, life (being all-good) will do everything in its power to recreate past life through fantastically detailed simulations and, yes, will end up recreating you at the moment of your death, and then keep simulating you in a perpetual state of bliss forever and ever, amen.

    Yes, it sounds silly. But Tipler certainly doesn’t think so, and he spends a lot of the book’s 528 pages proving to his satisfaction that mathematics and physics and computer science and general relativity are on his side. In one way, this is a book-length rationalization where physics are used to prove wishful thinking. Or at least that’s the impression I got. But I’m no scientist, and the 150-pages “Appendix for Scientists” (where the book’s equations are carefully contained, though this is no way implies that the rest of the book is unusually accessible.) looks exactly like the kind of stuff that should intimidate me into silence. As Tipler points out in his foreword to the Appendix, “the science (here) is extremely interdisciplinary. To comprehend it all without reference to a research library would require Ph.D.s in at least three disparate fields: (1) global general relativity, (2) theoretical particle physics, and (3) computer complexity theory” [P.395] Oookay.

    But that doesn’t mean that I can’t comment the book from the perspective of a science-fiction reader, right? In the absence of rigorous peer-reviewed eschatology papers in Nature, it may be the most appropriate way to tackle it. (Certainly, some of the book’s premises are already untenable; ten years later, the “Big Crunch” is thought unlikely to happen) There is no shame in browsing parts of this book for lack of interest; not everyone is dying to know how Tipler’s “Omega Point” theory fits with other major religions, much like few will care about the topology of a contracting universe.

    The least you can say is that Tipler thinks big. Universe-wide concepts reaching to the end of time are bandied about with ease, through -ironically enough-, SF readers are liable to feel restless through them, as they’re either taken straight from SF or have since been re-appropriated. As a fun theoretical supposition to play with, the “Omega Point” theory is a nifty thing: With it, you can effortlessly tie THE MATRIX with God, time-travel and faster-than-light voyages.

    It’s even more interesting as a philosophical point, though: By arguing that God doesn’t yet exist, but will be created by the perfection of humankind, Tipler is essentially shifting religion from the past (and the creation of the universe) to the future, leaving aside the still-troubling questions of where the universe came from. And yet the practical “moral guidance” implied by a resurrection by the hands of a future God is identical to traditional theology: work hard at perfecting the world so that your descendants can keep making progress toward the Omega Point, and do so nicely, because this future God may not want to resurrect its undeserving ancestors. Cute, and entirely consistent with the pro-knowledge, good-triumphs-over-evil ethos of traditional Science Fiction.

    If only for that, here’s a lot to like from The Physics of Immortality, even though it’s kind of cruel to ask readers to slog through hundreds of pages to get to that point. There’s no denying that Tipler’s book is almost the ultimate in self-rationalization. Even though I’m looking at it from a singularly uninformed perfective, it doesn’t strike me as serious science nor serious theology. But the central point is worth mulling about. And, who knows, it may even act as a source for other good SF stories…

  • The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 2002, 466 pages, C$36.95 hc, ISBN 0-446-53022-0

    At first glance, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s The Cabinet of Curiosities seems to be breaking new ground for the authors: The dust jacket promises a mystery in which a contemporary serial killer uses the deadly signature of a long-dead historical murderer. But don’t be mislead; in most ways, this is yet another rather good Preston/Child thriller, with their typical flaws and strengths.

    Even though there’s a great deal of emphasis on historical New York, this isn’t even remotely similar to Caleb Carr’s historical mysteries: For one thing, the action is set strictly in the present. For another, The Cabinet of Curiosity is a clear descendant of the authors’ previous thrillers. The protagonists are characters from previous novels: Archaeologist Nora Kelly and journalist Bill Smithback, fresh from Thunderhead and still dating after her move to New York. Then there’s Special Agent Pendergast, in a follow-up performance after Relic and Reliquary. And there is no doubt that The Cabinet of Curiosities is his novel: Even before the novel gets underway, Pendergast is introduced with an appropriate amount of panache: while the two other novels gave a hint of his personality, this is the first one to truly explore the dimensions of his character, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes with quasi-supernatural mental tricks up his sleeve and a fabulous lifestyle that, yes, is somewhat explained in the course of the novel. While Nora and Bill are not uninteresting (Smithback’s mistakes are constantly infuriating), they pale in comparison to Pendergast.

    But this is a genre novel with the firm intention to thrill, and so it’s no surprise if Pendergast himself pales in comparison to the plot and atmosphere. Like with Relic and its sequel, the action initially revolves around the New York Museum of Natural History, a fantastic neo-gothic establishment dropped straight in the middle of New York City. Something evil still lurks within the labyrinth of the Museum, if not in New York City itself.

    Almost all Preston-Child novels so far have included elements of archaeology, and this one is no exception. Like with Reliquary, New York City is revealed as a treasure-trove of secrets hidden under ordinary apartment, on dusty archive files or in abandoned mansions. The historical mystery aspect of The Cabinet of Curiosity is one of the book’s chief delights and an engine for some powerful scenes, including one in which a basement apartment in Chinatown ends up being an ideal starting point for an archaeological dig. Indeed, fans of edutainment will probably learn a lot about how those charming “cabinet of curiosities” of the nineteenth century eventually became the starting point for our modern museums.

    Just be sure to set aside enough time to read this novel; like the author’s other works, but perhaps even more so than their previous books, The Cabinet of Curiosities is a ferociously slick page-turner. It’s hard to slow down, let alone stop reading. Characterization is part of the book’s appeal and so is the carnival of fascinating details, but the clarity of the prose itself is impeccable. Coupled with good pacing, it goes straight to the core of the story and doesn’t let go. Its unfortunate that the drawn-out climax leads to a conclusion that smack too much of deus ex machina, and that some early coincidences are never convincingly explained. Not that it’ll slow down anyone.

    It’s become a staple of Preston-Child novels (in the tradition of most techno-thrillers) to punish any intellectual ambition and cork genies back into their bottles. So it’s no surprise to see the triumphant ending of The Cabinet of Curiosities sport some variant of the usual “there are things that humankind should know” crap. (Yes, a lot like Riptide and The Ice Limit; too much knowledge is seen as an evil thing) This, coupled with what seems to be a growing tendency to recycle their cast of characters, certainly makes me worry about their long-term plans. If they’re not willing to gamble their entire universe at the end of the novel, why care? Wouldn’t it be a lot more interesting for the genie to escape from the bottle? Oh well; I guess that’s why they invented real Science Fiction: To go where timid thriller writers fear to go…

    But if Preston-Child’s next efforts are as interesting as The Cabinet of Curiosities, there isn’t much to worry about; their narrative abilities are getting better even as their prose is leaner and cleaner. Save from some late-book problems, there’s not a lot to dislike here: Perfect entertainment!

  • Author Unknown, Don Foster

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Henry Holt, 2000, 318 pages, C$38.95 hc, ISBN 0-8050-6357-9

    Literary sleuth! It sounds like a concept for an unlikely comic-book superhero, but Don Foster was, for a while, the world’s closest equivalent to such a thing: Someone who could sit down at a computer, read volumes and volumes of prose, develop a feel for the mind of the author and then apply this feel to evaluate the authenticity of a suspicious piece of writing. Whether the object is scholarly or criminal, curious or political, Author Unknown is a fascinating exploration in literary analysis and a book that should make any author nervous.

    Don Foster became a literary sleuth by accident. A graduate student in English Studies, he became fascinated by the possibility that an obscure pseudonymous poem may have been written by none other William Shakespeare himself. The results of his investigation led to media notoriety, then on to the analysis of “Anonymous”’s Primary Colors and, later, criminal investigations. Author Unknown is part biography, part explanation regarding the amusing art and science of textual analysis.

    The most intriguing chapter is doubtlessly the prologue, a breathless tour through his office in which he promises much… to be told later in the book. True crime fans may take note, however, that no criminal investigations are detailed in Author Unknown: For reasons of confidentiality, Foster wasn’t able to share the content of his files in this area. An understandable decision, but also a disappointing one given the wealth of material he alludes to.

    More satisfying is his “unmasking” of William Shakespeare, the cornerstone case of his career. It’s a fascinating chapter not because of Shakespeare’s ID, but because it takes us through the treacherous halls of academia. It’s also deeply amusing in how it (twice) demonstrates Foster using his textual-analysis skills to pierce the identity of “anonymous” peer-reviewers. Alas, don’t believe everything you read, especially not the conclusion: Some quick Googling for (“Don Foster” Shakespeare “John Ford”) will give you the not-so-triumphant epilogue to this tale.

    On the other hand, the second chapter is pure dynamite: It concerns Foster’s search for the identity of “Anonymous”, the pseudonymous author behind the political satire Primary Colors that so fascinated official Washington D.C. in early 1996. Foster details, in vivid prose, how he came to be hired for the job and how he managed to identify journalist Joe Klein as the true author. It’s by far the best tale of the book in part because there’s a clear conclusion. After months of nearly pathological denials, Klein was confronted with further evidence and confessed. Such definite resolutions aren’t common elsewhere in Author Unknown.

    For instance, Chapter Three proceeds backwards, taking the identity of the Unabomber and working backwards to “prove” that he could have been connected to Ted Kaczynski well before his brother turned him in. Chapter Four is a classic exercise in frustration: The Monicagate “talking points memo” are analyzed without a straight conclusion and it doesn’t help that the subject really just isn’t exciting.

    The last two chapters are a mixed bag. Chapter Five is an exercise through a small community of writers in an effort to prove that a pseudonym was not that of Kurt Vonnegut. Chapter Six is an exploration of the true author of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”, a subject about which I couldn’t be any less interested. The conclusion states Foster’s intention to retire from this crazy stuff, which obviously brings the book to an end.

    Obviously, this Author Unknown is a mixed bag. The Primary Colors chapter is excellent material, especially if you’re familiar with the original novel. The Shakespeare chapter is interesting, but ultimately less than convincing. Pynchon fans won’t be the only ones to enjoy Chapter Five, but it’ll take die-hard political junkies to care about the “Talking Points” memo. As for the rest, your mileage will vary.

    On the other hand, it’s impossible for even amateur writers to read Author Unknown without becoming acutely self-conscious about just any type of writing. Foster’s insistence on unconscious “signatures” is convincing, and it’s fertile material for paranoid thinking, especially for those engaging in pseudonymous writing. Authors: Don’t read this book before bedtime! The Literary Sleuth is after you!

  • Deepsix, Jack McDevitt

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    EOS, 2001, 432 pages, C$37.95 hc, ISBN 0-06-105124-1

    [Disclaimer: I received a copy of Deepsix straight from EOS after winning one of their online contests. This review wasn’t solicited, but I always feel better specifying which books I didn’t buy.]

    Every author has its own set of pet obsessions, and after half a dozen Jack McDevitt novels, it’s fair to say that he’s got a major fascination for history and archaeology. Invented future histories and archaeologies, mind you; his protagonists are constantly digging through ruins, uncovering past secrets and saving precious relics. That they do so in the far future, about ancient events (to them) that haven’t yet happened (to us) is part of the attraction.

    Perhaps his best novel to date is The Engines of God, which starts with a bang as a team of archaeologists races against time to save alien artifacts from certain destruction from an imminent Richter-10 earthquake. If you want an idea of Deepsix‘s plot, take the tension of that opener and spread it over 400 pages.

    The links to The Engines of God run a little deeper than that, actually: Deepsix takes place in the same universe, and also stars plucky pilot Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins. This time, the planet being threatened with total destruction is Maleiva III. At the start of the novel, mere days remain until it’s slated to be absorbed by a gas giant in a cosmic game of pool. But things are never simple in a McDevitt novel: Suddenly, after decades of neglect, a last-minute expedition discovers remnants of an advanced civilization. Interesting, but there are further complications: There aren’t enough ships nor qualified personnel to explore the planetary surface.

    None? Not so fast: Hutch is nearby, along with a capable planetary lander. So she’s ordered to go take a look. Of course, stuff happens, tragedy strikes and before you know it, they’re stuck on the surface of the planet with no way to get back to safety. Ay-yay-yay, what next?

    Well, what’s next is the bulk of the novel, a grand-scale rescue attempt involving treks over vast distances, fancy orbital mechanics, abandoned equipment from a disastrous mission decades earlier, tantalizing alien mysteries and a nick-of-time conclusion. McDevitt is too much of a professional to simply write a smash’em-up brawl, and so his heroes have to rely on their cleverness and toughness far more than their strength or aggressiveness. Running against them: corporate greed, human faults and simple incompetence. Whew!

    As a straight-up action/adventure SF, Deepsix is maybe a touch too long, but it certainly fits the bill. The thrills are there and the delicious balance between hope and doom is effectively maintained. Characterization is initially shaky, but all characters come to emerge effectively —even the ones that may not be overly likable at first. Then there’s the writing; like most other aspects of the book, it takes a while to engage, but eventually develops its own nice little cruising speed. There’s no need to be fancy when writing a book of this nature, and so Deepsix flows unimpeded.

    The problems arise when trying to consider Deepsix as anything more than a Science Fiction adventure. While there are enough interesting details, here and there, to set this story in a believable future, there isn’t much that’s startlingly new or original. The Engines of God could rely on a staggering concept, but Deepsix is merely an adventure. I suppose that most readers will be satisfied, but as far as the state of the art goes, this isn’t it.

    But I don’t think it’s a serious problem for McDevitt. He’s written other fine adventures before (See Moonfall for his version of a catastrophe movie) and other more ambitious novels as well. This one happens to fall in the first category and not the second. I’ll be there for his next books, but hoping that they’ll be more similar to his other novels than the merely adequate Deepsix.