Book Review

  • The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, Lawrence Block

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Dutton, 1994, 293 pages, C$31.95 tpb, ISBN 1-874-06147-5

    (Read in French as Le Blues du Libraire, translated by Robert Pépin)

    Writing a novel about the virtues of books is clearly an exercise in preaching to the converted, but then again, so is going to the church to hear a sermon, and I haven’t heard anyone complaining about that lately. Some of the best crime mysteries I’ve read over the past year have been John Dunning’s “Cliff Janeway” mysteries (Booked to Die and The Bookman’s Wake) if only for the sheer love of books exhibited in those novels. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams is another title in the same vein, about a protagonist who loves books.

    Now, I’m probably showing my ignorance of Lawrence Block’s entire oeuvre by comparing The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams to Dunning’s diptych. A cursory glance at his entire output so far, courtesy of Amazon.com, shows a number of other novels starring Bernie Rhodenbarr, the protagonist of the novel discussed here. For all I know, those are all better books.

    But if they are, I’m impressed. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams is the perfect example of the evening time-waster, the kind of novel fit to be read in a single sitting. It features, conveniently enough, a ex-con bookseller who’s trying to stay straight even ten years after his last conviction. But like an addiction to liquor, thievery is hard to resist, especially when events are driving him to desperation: It’s not easy being a used book seller in New York. When his landlord drops in to confirm a vertiginous hike in building fees, Bernie is at a loss. But when an alluring hint is dropped about a rich couple being away from their apartment for months, well…

    That’s barely the setup of the novel, mind you. Once Bernie dons his cat-suit for the first time in a decade, trouble just keeps on piling over him. He’ll discover a body hidden in the empty apartment, puzzle over a locked-room mystery, realize he’s been set-up, answer to the police, perform a few “exceptional” services and discover unsettling links between his predicaments and his landlord. Plus, yes, he will trade Ted Williams as he’ll piece together the mystery.

    Some crime novels are written to heavy metal, some to Latin salsa and some to classical opera. This one is closer to cool refreshing jazz, seeing how comfortable it all feels. Bernie may often omit crucial details in his narration, but what would be unforgivable in another context seems almost inconsequential here as we’re swept away in Bernie’s tale. It’s useless to be picky about the way the narrator lies to us: The details don’t matter very much (in fact, I can’t even remember whole chunks of the plot even days after reading the book), but the atmosphere definitely persists. The matter-of-fact way Bernie describes his illicit escapades hides a variety of procedural details in plain sight, allowing us inside Bernie’s head as he goes through other people’s houses.

    A subtle humor permeates the book, including a discussion about the sexual orientation of famous mystery protagonists. Few will be surprised to see a cat being part of the tale. And all throughout, the carefree, easy-going narration of Block/Rhodenbarr just helps the reader turn the pages away. It ends, classically enough, with Bernie rounding up the usual suspects and giving them the straight story. It’s all very amusing.

    One doesn’t have to love books, or cats, or baseball to like The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams. It’s a perfectly respectable mystery novel on its own. Just relax and be swept away.

  • A Short Victorious War (Honor Harrington 3), David Weber

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 1994, 376 pages, C$7.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-87596-5

    By this third volume of the Honor Harrington series, readers know what to expect, and for Weber not to deliver would be cruel given the exciting setup suggested by the title: war! Once again, we will see protagonist Honor Harrington battle against impossible odds and triumph after numerous obstacles. What can I say? It’s a best-selling recipe. Weber has already won the hearts and the minds of most of the military Science Fiction readership.

    Avoiding ennui may be slightly harder for readers not entirely devoted to the military-SF sub-genre. It’s all good and cool for Harrington to unleash considerable whup-ass on her adversaries, but after three volumes, it gets to be tiresome.

    Let’s see: Once again, the eeevil Havenites socialists (grrr!) are on the warpath. They think they can simply wage a little war against Manticorian allies, win it in a flash, bolster their treasury and quieten domestic dissent in the process. Naturally, there is one slight unpredictable factor in their plan: Honor Harrington, who has recently assumed command of the battlecruiser HMS Nike. She’s mean, she’s tough and she’s got a score or two to settle with the Havenites. Alas, she’s also stuck around Pavel Young, another old adversary who also has a score to settle with her…

    At least A Short Victorious War manages to widen the scope of her actions. Whereas the action of the first two volumes was focused on one-on-one naval battles, this third entry shows us not only part of the action behind Havenite enemy lines, but expands Harrington’s field of command to encompass a small fleet of ships. It also delves a little bit deeper in the political and diplomatic ramifications of her career, expanding the credibility of the universe she evolves in. Obviously, Harringtons’ future adventures should evolve beyond the strictly military aspect, and this third volume is a promising development.

    On a personal level, this is also the book in which Harrington comes to grip with her injuries of the previous volume. It is also the novel where She Gets Some (and, surprisingly enough, the one who gives it to her doesn’t Get It by the end of the story). Her cadre of friends and influential allies is strengthened; I was particularly enamoured by Michelle “Mike” (ugh) Henke and the growing influence of the Earl of “White Haven”.

    Fortunately, the readability of Weber’s prose here is still as good as anything else he’s done; it helps enormously that Harrington is a wonderful character; the interest of A Short Victorious War diminishes sharply whenever she’s off-screen. (Hence the consequent lull in the middle of the book, though it can also be blames on the necessity to place all pieces in play for the last big battle) It also seemed to me as if he also managed to improve the pacing of his strictly military action scenes; the ending of this third entry is improved by some personal stakes in the final battle.

    All good, then, for the series. As you may infer, I’m still wishing for a greater variety in the plotting; those big final battles are getting tiresome, especially when there’s no doubt as to how they’ll turn out. Still, the series keeps most of its interest, and all signs point to an expansion of the series in latter volumes. Bring on the fourth.

  • Blood Work, Michael Connelly

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1998, 498 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60262-0

    Anyone with the slightest interest in how badly Hollywood can botch a book adaptation has to take in account Clint Eastwood’s 2002 take on Michael Connelly’s Blood Work. While I’m sure this is hardly a unique case of a screenwriter savaging an original work, BLOOD WORK has the particularity of featuring not only a completely new ending (a common enough event in cinematic adaptation) but a brand-new villain! Indeed, the identity of the serial killer is switched from one character to another from book to movie, along with the villain’s family name just to make things even more confusing. The result, as you may expect, is a bit of a mess, bringing down a rather good novel to the level of a predictable crime thriller.

    In light of this, reading the novel after seeing the movie can be a very interesting experience.

    The initial premise stays the same, mind you: A convalescent detective (Terry McCaleb), recuperating from a heart transplant, is asked to investigate the murder of his very own organ donor. Mix in a romantic entanglement with the client, (the sister of the donor), a steady accumulation of clues as well as a sadistic serial killer who just won’t quit and you’ve got yourself a delicious little crime thriller.

    Alas, other aspects are decidedly less endearing. The various nauseous double-entendres about hearts, blood, love and whatnot are tiresome, and so is some of the romance between McCaleb and “the client”. Feel free to be queasy as you see fit.

    Also less successful is the exasperating ending, which was thankfully shortened in the movie. Rather than wrap up the book in a timely fashion, we get an entirely new act in isolated Mexico. The movie’s wrap-up may have been indistinguishable from dozen of other movie shoot’em ups, but at least it had the merit of being over in five short minutes.

    Fortunately, Connelly’s writing is fluid enough to make even a padded ending still feel interesting. His writing is crisp, flows well and has an eye for detail. The novel usually hits its stride whenever it turns to the purely procedural elements of the plot. Our protagonist’s forays in the workings of the organ donor system, his careful examinations of crime evidence, his intuitive leaps of logic are easily the most fascinating elements of the book.

    It adds additional interest that McCaleb is a convalescent detective. Unlike the usual manly, two-fisted private detectives that usually drive crime thrillers, McCaleb needs a driver, can’t get too worked up and has to consult a medical specialist before engaging in strenuous activities. I’ll bet you haven’t seen that elsewhere in crime fiction. The biggest difference between the book and the film, and the biggest mistake made by the film, isn’t the ending or the different identity of the serial killer, but the nature of the changes made to McCaleb. Whereas he’s a portly forty-year-old in the novel, production concerns dictated that the protagonist of the film became none other than seventy-years-old Clint Eastwood. (It’s hard to say no when he’s also directing the film) This completely modified the impression left by the story on-screen, where we’re more liable to worry about Eastwood slipping and breaking a hip than having a heart attack. The various action scenes gratuitously thrown in the script also didn’t help the film’s credibility given the condition of the protagonist. One thing is for sure: you won’t read about McCaleb firing a shotgun at a speeding car in this novel, no sir!

    None of this matters, of course, if you’ve never seen the film. All in all, you’re still better off reading the book. The story slowly gives way to a pretty cool twists (which most seasoned readers will see coming, but is still pretty nifty nonetheless) and the wealth of procedural details is fascinating in its own right. Blood Work is worth a look regardless of the movie tie-in. After all, it surely doesn’t come across as any surprise to learn that the book is usually better than the movie, right?

  • Pallas, L. Neil Smith

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1993, 446 pages, C$6.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-50904-8

    Libertarian fiction can be very amusing if it’s done right. “Done right”, in this instance, can be as simple as arguing vigorously in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a moron or, maybe more importantly, as if the author himself isn’t a moron —or even worse, a righteous son-of-a-Birch.

    It’s a delicate balance. Libertarianism is so orthogonal to the classical false left-right axis that like truly good ideas, it takes a light touch to explain. L. Neil Smith has done so previously with The Probability Broach, a compulsively readable novel in which we were shown the wonders of a Libertarian parallel-universe utopia. Not only was it a heck of a read, but it made a few points about Libertarianism that were worth considering.

    Pallas isn’t comparable. Oh, it’s serviceable enough as a story of Emerson Ngu, a young man living on a terraformed asteroid (Pallas) who defects from a socialist enclave and escapes to the larger Libertarian society (Curringer) that surrounds it. Free of restrictions on his personal freedom, he will make friends, meet love, become an entrepreneur and radically alter the future of the human race. No, I’m not really kidding.

    At least Pallas makes for decent entertainment: the writing style may not match the one in The Probability Broach for ease of reading, but it’s certainly more accessible that in Smith’s Martyn series. Despite some dangerously boring passages in the first few dozen pages that have almost no relation to the rest of the story, Pallas picks itself up whenever it focuses on Emerson and his perils. As a coming-of-age novel, it’s more than halfway readable.

    Where, technically, the book stumbles is when it describes the rest of Emerson’s life. Suddenly, events are telescoped, years are jumped, and the narrative accelerates to an ending that feels a touch too forced through too many coincidences. Along the way, the charm of Emerson’s first discoveries gets lost in the rush to an accelerated second half.

    If my problems with the book stopped there, it still wouldn’t that hard to recommend the book. Unfortunately, more serious problems abound with Pallas, some of them intrinsic to the plotting, some of them more closely related to either Smith’s ideology or basic Libertarian principles.

    Plotting first (beware slight spoilers): So we are to believe that an entirely libertarian environment would accept a socialist enclave. Okay, sure, I’m game. But then we’re to believe that for the entire decades-long history of Curringer, no one of the die-hard libertarian colonists before Emerson ever though of manufacturing guns or personal transporters? C’mon, Neil: You’re taking your readers for morons.

    In fact, that “readers are morons” assumption seems to contaminate more than the plotting. Characterization, for instance: It’s not enough for the lead antagonist to be a socialist (egawd, eek, etc.), but of course he had to be a pedophile and a woman-beater. This, taken to a larger extent, is emblematic of one of the most obnoxious aspects of Libertarian/Objectivist fiction (yes, there is a suspiciously Ayn Rand-like character in Pallas): if you’re not a full-bore militant Libertarian, you have to be not just stupid, but evil too.

    For a political ideology that prides itself on considering everyone “as adults”, Libertarianism often feels like a cult that loves to paint everything in black and white, with friend or foes, unable to compromise and find middle ground like, well, true adults. In Pallas, another villain conveniently does something so incredibly stupid that he gets killed as our heroes essentially nod and say “What did you expect? He wasn’t one of us.” Reading the novel, you’d be prone to associate vegetarianism with child-abuse and totalitarianism, whereas the good meat-eating hunters of Pallas’ utopian society are all vigorous, valorous and virtuous.

    Marxism, Libertarianism: different ideas, same dogmatism? I actually liked Pallas quite a bit, but it’s broad simplifications like the ones above which make me reluctant to recommend a novel despite whatever sympathies I may have for some of its ideals. If your tolerance for some of these ideas is different than mine, please adjust accordingly.

  • Permanence, Karl Schroeder

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2002, 447 pages, C$38.95 hc, ISBN 0-765-30371-X

    Finding a good book is great, but finding a new author is even better. It’s not as if I’ve never raved about Karl Schroeder before (you can find reviews of his previous work elsewhere on this site), but with his second solo novel, Permanence, he proves that his first novel, Ventus, wasn’t a fluke and that he’s worthy of being on my list of authors to buy in hardcover.

    And that, constant reader, takes some serious talent. For hard-SF geeks like me, to-buy authors must demonstrate that they play the game as well as the best: They have to include a lot of new ideas, cool concepts and a vigorous story to back it all up. (Well, okay: I admit that I can do without a story if the ideas are cool enough.)

    Fortunately, Schroeder is already a dependable professional in his second outing. He co-wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing SF, after all. He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to delivering a polished commercial SF product.

    The opening of Permanence itself is a model in how to introduce a brand-new universe: Modeled on teen adventure SF novels (as a teenage girl escapes an abusive family situation by taking over a spaceship and fleeing to another solar system), it allows us to peek at this new world through the viewpoint of a character that knows just enough to guide us while still having a lot of room to marvel at the cool stuff.

    And there’s a heck of a lot of new stuff to behold. Schroeder has taken a look at the latest astronomic discoveries, which suggest a large number of brown dwarves star scattered across the cosmos, and built a brand-new future that takes advantage of this new knowledge. Here, humanity is divided between the “lit” worlds around stars, linked together through FLT travel, and “halo” world around the brown dwarves, struggling along through regular Slower-than-light cargo trips. The differences run deeper, mind you; the “lit” worlds are pretty much all members of the “Rights Economy”, a form of capitalism gone mad where every object and service has been nano-tagged and requires micro-payment. The implications of this economic structure are vertiginous and it’s one of the book’s flaws that we never get a better look at it.

    To this concept, Schroeder deftly adds evolutionary biology speculations, bigger-than-life engineering, ice worlds and tons of other cool stuff. The plot revolves around an intellectual debate raging in Permanence‘s future; is it possible for an intelligent civilisation to survive indefinitely? Are there built-in limits to sentience?

    A cast of characters struggle for control of an alien space-ship that may settle the question. Smirking villains just want ultra-capitalism to triumph while our heroes try to pierce the secrets presented to them. It takes place over years, several planets and plenty of action.

    There are flaws to Permanence and they’re the ones most common to large-scale adventure novels. Some characters are unceremoniously removed (or forgotten) from the narrative. Not all adventures are equally interesting. Some parts, mostly towards the end, drag a bit. The motivations of the antagonists aren’t terribly convincing.

    But cool ideas go a long way in compensating for other deficiencies. Add Permanence to Ventus and I feel as if I’ve discovered another must-read Hard-SF author. From the density of ideas and the narrative control exhibited both of his novels, it certainly looks as if Schroeder can fit in with the other members of that list.

  • Thunderhead, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1999, 533 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60837-8

    By now, every serious beach reader should be familiar with Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s shtick. As “commercial” writers whose objective is simply to make a living writing bestsellers, their modus operandis is clear after half a dozen such works… and Thunderhead is in no way a departure. Most of their usual elements are somewhere to be found in here.

    It starts with a family trauma and a dash of archaeology. Plucky heroine Nora Kelly is a gifted but unfocused archaeologist, following in the footsteps of an absent father who disappeared sixteen years previously on a quest to find Quivira, the lost city of the Anasazi in south-western Utah. Suddenly, a letter from her father lands in her mailbox, a mystery that may reveals the location of the lost city and the fate of her father.

    In fairly short order, she uses space-age techniques to track down a promising path and convinces a rich backer to finance her expedition. A few pages later, she’s headed in the wild with a group of explorers whose personalities will form a lot -but not most- of the book’s suspense. Also tagging along is Bill Smithback, the journalist protagonist of Preston and Child’s previous The Relic and Reliquary.

    In many ways, Thunderhead is a pleasant throwback/update to the type of lost-civilisation adventure novel that was so popular when our planet wasn’t so civilized. With satellite imaging, all-terrain trucks and computer analysis techniques, lost civilisations have disappeared faster than a new suburb can take over another farm. But in this novel, we’re back on the hunt in narrow canyons, tracking a city that may or may not contain tons of gold.

    But who says gold or even “new discoveries” in a Preston and Child novel inevitably implies an excruciatingly painful death for the discoverers (Hey, they’re just borrowing from Crichton: “thou shall not want wealth or forbidden knowledge, especially if thou love high technology.”) Pretty soon -what do you know- the members of the small expedition start dropping dead in a way that may or may not be a supernatural fashion.

    Well, okay, it’s not supernatural, but with the usual wildebeests running around and slaughtering the protagonists, you wouldn’t expect anything else. In any case, the innocents are butchered, the evil characters soon exhibit psychotic tendencies and some protagonists may -or may not- find the loot, explain the mysteries and escape with their lives.

    Fans of lightly-didactic escapist reading will have a lot of fun reading about the lost-lost Anasazi, the archaeological mystery of their disappearance, the techniques used in modern archaeology and how the space shuttle can help find forgotten trails. Child and Preston, like many if not most of their bestselling colleagues, understand the importance of research and little bundles of fun facts to keep their readers happy.

    As a matter of fact, there’s a lot to be happy about in Thunderhead. It’s not terribly new, fresh or subtle, but it just works. Despite my sarcastic attitude, I had no problem reading through Thunderhead in fairly short order. The book doesn’t quite have a perfect rhythm (some parts do drag, especially when it comes to Nora’s brother subplot) but it works more often than it doesn’t, and that’s the most important thing when it comes to escapist summer reading.

    Fans of the authors’ previous books will find plenty of the same here. There are plenty of thrills—natural, artificial or human. The conclusion seems hopelessly copied from one too many Hollywood thrillers (note to bestselling authors; stop assuming that all your novels will be optioned). Even as far as best-selling writers go, Preston and Child still manage to be reasonably original: Every book changes venue and is reasonably distinct from one another. (It would be time to ditch the “ultimate rainstorm” plot point, though; after four books, it’s getting old.) Still, readers should know the drill by now; their name is a stamp of equal quality, whatever the book you’re picking from them.

  • The Honor of the Queen (Honor Harrington 2), David Weber

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 1993, 300 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-57864-2

    (read as an e-book, from the War of Honor CD-ROM)

    Honor Harrington is back in this second instalment of David Weber’s wildly popular military fiction series. After being introduced to readers with On Basilisk Station, the capable officer faces another set of impossible odds in this new mission.

    This time, she’s supposed to be on diplomatic duty; the Manticorian Republic is courting another solar system as an ally in an effort to protect itself from the evil socialist Havenites, and so they send in a military/diplomatic delegation to offer support and comfort to a government that has other enemies of its own. Said enemies, naturally enough, are backed by Haven. You can guess what happens from here.

    “Bigger” and “better” are usually the operating directives for sequels, and The Honor of the Queen is no exception, with a structure that is essentially reprised from On Basilisk Station while allowing for more fireworks. It ends with the expected space battle in which Honor triumphs over a vastly better-equipped enemy. Repetitive, but it works; fans of the first volume shouldn’t be disappointed by this one.

    What’s not as successful, though, is the explicit Women-are-people-too content in this entry. One of the most refreshing aspects of On Basilisk Station was how it handled the matter without comment, simply by putting men and women alongside in a military setting, The Honor of the Queen makes it an integral part of the plot, as Honor must demonstrate her competency to the fundamentalist characters she encounter. That smacks of overt preaching, and it’s something I’d like to avoid as much as possible. Oh well; maybe Weber now got it out of his system. Fortunately, Weber avoids the “all theists are evil nuts” cliché by featuring a few sympathetic characters whose beliefs are opposed to Harrington’s. (But they respect her. In this series so far, “goodness” and “badness” can reliably be inferred from anyone’s respect for Harrington.)

    I was rather relieved to see that Honor “gets her patch” in this volume; glancing at the cover art for the latter books, I was sort of worried this would be an important spoiler for a subsequent volume. While I expect some kind of fix in the next few books, at least it explains War of Honor‘s illustration.

    I was also pleased to see Nimitz (Honor’s treecat “pet”, though the term must be used lightly) get a good role. In itself, that compensates for a certain repetitiveness of the structure. It does lead me to ask, though, if every single Honor Harrington book will end with a naval engagement in which Honor is severely outmatched. I recognize that military fiction has a few basic demands and that this is, after all, only the second volume, but it does raise a warning flag.

    Still, despite the familiar feel, there is a lot to like in this entry, from Weber’s unpretentious prose to his willingness to kill a few characters. It’s a pleasant surprise to see Honor’s parents turn in for a few pages. (And I’m even more pleased to notice ethnic diversity creep in Harrington’s very Anglo-Saxon universe, starting with her own Asian-ethnic mother) It’s a weaker entry than the first volume, but patience; this series is barely getting started. I have reason to believe that better stuff awaits.

  • Coercion: Why we Listen to What "They" Say, Douglas Rushkoff

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Riverhead, 1999, 293 pages, C$20.00 tpb, ISBN 1-57322-829-X

    Like most of your contemporaries, you probably think of yourself as a smart, savvy, independent person. You like to make up your own mind: Advertisements don’t work on you, and neither does the cheap rhetoric of politicians, media spokesperson or car dealers. You’re too smart to be taken in by those blatant techniques.

    Well, good for you. But chances are that you’re fooling yourself. Today’s methods for changing your mind on just about any subject are more subtle than a gross sales pitch. They seek to bypass your intellect and get you through your emotions. Sometimes, they actually want you to be so smart as to see through them. Politicians, corporations, religions, celebrity-makers and con artists alike are fighting for a piece of your mind with a desperation that leads to a memetic arms-race: As the target (you) get smarter about their methods, they’ll switch to a new one against which there is no predefined defence.

    In his introduction to Coercion, Douglas Rushkoff describes the strange path that has led him to write the book. From media pundit who took a delight in pointing out how the media was being subverted from within (in Media Virus!), Rushkoff found himself increasingly solicited by ad agencies and media think-tanks, asked to help them harness the power of subversion in order to better market their wares. “Going underground”, so to speak, he collected notes and Coercion is the result of his journey in the underworld. Either that or it’s just another way for him to sell more books; from the start, Rushkoff takes an impish pleasure in pointing how he himself is selling his book to a potential audience. Unless he’s simply being meta-clever, hoping to attract readers who think they’re smarter than him? Hmmm…

    Still, most of Coercion is a description of how sophisticated the battle for mindspace has become. Salesman techniques borrow from CIA interrogation manuals (or the other way around); malls and supermarkets use psychology in arranging their displays layouts; sects and scams alike are optimized in a pyramidal model (so is the stock market); religious groupings share traits with political rallies, rock shows and wrestling events; public relations take the unpleasant truth and twist it in a logical feel-good story ready for mass consumption; publicity campaigns resort to cynicism in order to be hip for the media-savvy audiences. Oh, and the Internet isn’t the consensus-busting tool is promised to be, but has become jut another marketing tool. (Surprise!)

    All fine and well (and familiar to anyone who’s well-read in psychology, specialized media and counter-literature such as Adbusters magazine) but one of Rushkoff’s main sub-themes is to illustrate how this incessant war for your attention is having an impact on the Rest of Your Life. Friendly Salespersons compliment your figure in order to sell you clothes, but isn’t the same duplicity undistinguishable from comments received by friends? When the government distorts the truth to manufacture consent for another war in the Gulf, doesn’t this undermine what they’re saying about other things? What about spam: deluged by a flow of trash, some people are simply abandoning this mean of communication. Indeed, argues Rushkoff, as marketers are becoming more desperate and devious, they are threatening the fabric of civility. That’s the nagging feeling most of us get when marketing makes a new intrusion in our lives.

    Indeed, it’s difficult to read Coercion without tying it with our own lives. I myself was shocked, not as much in seeing what techniques were “used” on me, but how I was using some methods -notably at work- to facilitate my life. Brr!

    But it’s easy to become paranoid when reading this book, and that’s something against which Rushkoff warns us. Being aware is good; being paranoid makes us needlessly fearful, dismissing the good along with the bad. Still, a faint doubt remains, and that should also be the case for you: What if this web site, these hundreds of pages, these millions bytes, are nothing but a subtle way to sell you Rushkoff’s book?

  • The End of War, David L. Robbins

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 2000, 506 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-553-58138-4

    Early 1945. The Third Reich is crumbling, attacked from two fronts: The Allies have been in Europe for six months and the Russians are pitting the might of their war machine against a battered German army. Both sides are rushing towards Berlin. Whoever first captures the capital will get to dictate Europe’s geopolitical history for decades. As high-level talks divvy up lines on a map, it’s up to the soldiers to suffer through the consequences of these decisions.

    After writing about the battle of Stalingrad in The War of the Rats, David L. Robbins goes back to World War II with The End of War, a novel about the race for Berlin in the last few weeks of the European front. Not only a story about the end of WW2, The End of War is also a portentous narrative that suggests most of subsequent European history.

    It is, naturally enough, a big subject, involving millions of men from more than three nations on two continents. The sweep of the events may be epic, but Robbins carefully restricts his characters to only a few. As he point out in the author’s foreword,

    The End of War is constructed along the lines of a Greek tragedy: the gods discuss the affairs of man, then their Olympians intents are played at human level. In this novel, the gods are Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt. Lesser deities include General Dwight Eisenhower and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The book’s corresponding mortals are three fictional characters – one Russian soldier, one German civilian, and one American photojournalist.

    As the race toward Berlin heats up, the novel describes the high-level negotiations -Malta, Yalta, etc- that led to the Russian takeover of Berlin. Naturally enough, the most interesting storyline is the American one, as photojournalist Charley Bandy is closer to our own viewpoint. As an observer, he witnesses the battlefield as we would, and reacts to the discovery of Nazi atrocities much like we would too. The next most interesting storyline is Lottie’s story: as a female cellist stuck in Berlin as the two armies converge on their ultimate objective, she’s the viewpoint by which we witness the city being bombed in submission. Finally, the third storyline is a young Soviet Soldier’s perspective as he fights his way to Berlin. Some readers will probably find this to be the book’s strongest storyline, but it just seemed dull compared to the more immediate plights of the two others.

    Yet, The End of War does a good job at telling the story leading up to the last few days of the European front. The historical credibility of the novel is high thanks to the depth of research demonstrated by the details of the narrative. But what’s even more effective is Robbin’s ability to convey the lassitude of the characters involved in the events. The endgame is as much a matter of endurance as of might, and the fatigue that permeates everyone’s decisions is palpable.

    History buffs will undoubtedly devour The End of War as a compelling war story. There is a lot of material packed in those five hundred pages. While not stories here are as equally compelling, they all add up to an impressive historical portrait. It’s another splendid effort by Robbins; maybe not as memorable as the very personal sniper duel in War of the Rats, but impressive in its own right.

  • The Third Option, Vince Flynn

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 2000, 402 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-04732-9

    Vince Flynn’s first thriller, Term Limits, was a provocative thriller in which super-patriot terrorists began killing corrupt politicians. While the novel later settled for a very disappointing conclusion closer to what we’d call “the usual thriller”, it was an original debut from a writer with potential. Flynn once again delivered the goods with Transfer of Power, a by-the-number hostage thriller in which the White House was taken over by Middle Eastern terrorists. Despite familiar plot mechanics, it was a decent enough novel with enough dynamic energy to make it interesting.

    Sadly enough, Flynn’s third outing displays none of the interest and most of the flaws of his previous efforts. It’s dull, pointless and reminiscent of the type of so-called “thrillers” churned out by Robert Ludlum in his most featureless period.

    There isn’t even a decent hook to draw us in. Once again, an American secret operative is double-crossed and left for dead. Naturally enough, he’s barely wounded and vows revenge on whoever betrayed him. There are friends in high places, enemies in equivalent positions and high-level political intrigue. Our hero is forced to flee, infiltrate, attack and punish. All of which has been done before in much more interesting stories.

    Worse; in The Third Option (which refers to “special” intelligence work, once diplomacy and military force are no longer practical), Flynn explicitly brings back characters from his previous two novels. Super-agent Mitch Rapp is back as the protagonist (along with his girlfriend, with predictable plot developments) and Congressman Michael O’Rourke follows up from the events of Term Limits.

    The biggest problem with continuing series is that it robs the reader of a sense of unpredictability. While this is acceptable -even comforting- in some genres such as the mystery genre (see Robert B. Parker’s Spencer series), it’s not an option in the thriller genre. Here, part of the pleasure of reading is in not knowing what can happen at a very high level. The president can be assassinated; a city can be incinerated; conspiracies can be uncovered; protagonists can die. Here, the stakes become correspondingly smaller. The magnitude of the thrill is reduced by built-in constraints. Any writer tempted to write, as Flynn is doing, “a series of political thrillers” would be advised to reconsider. (This goes double for editors trying to sell this stuff.)

    The Third Option‘s conclusion is a splendid example of how series can hamper the thrills; all of our protagonists survive and some of the villains are caught while the bigger villains escape to strike another day, much like in any bad cartoon made for children. Thrills? Slight. Memorable impressions? Even slighter. Worse; the novel is padded, drawing out the unsatisfying conclusion. Some of the political manoeuvring is implausible even for a guy stuck in Ottawa, a fatal blow to a so-called serious “political thriller”.

    To be entirely fair, it’s impossible to know at this point what Flynn has in mind for his series. Is it all leading up to a concluding tome which will kill the whole cast and send Washington in orbit? Maybe. In the meantime, though, does it mean his readers are going to be teased at every “thrilling” instalment waiting for something to happen? Why should their pay money and waste their time for this dubious privilege?

    As it stands now, The Third Option is a setback for anyone paying attention to Flynn’s career. He’s not a terribly gifted writer on a technical level, so the success of his books tends to depend a lot on the plotting. Consequently, he can’t manage to hold any interest in a very average third novel. Worse; chances are that he’s managed to make anyone very indifferent to the prospect of a fourth one.

  • Tomorrow Now, Bruce Sterling

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Random House, 2002, 320 pages, C$37.95 hc, ISBN 0-679-46322-4

    Anyone who’s been following Science Fiction over the last decade knows that Bruce Sterling is The Man. Since 1992, he has produced an impressive series of solid, cosmopolitan, cutting-edge stories. He writes with a degree of originality and complexity that is seldom seen amongst his contemporaries. At a time when SF is massively retreating back on its past glories, Sterling dares to look in our current future and write delightfully energetic Science-Fiction. He’s one of the best, if not the best SF writer today.

    His latest non-fiction book, Tomorrow Now is a reflection of the abilities that have propelled him to the top. Sterling has grown up, and this book demonstrates it. Billed as “envisioning the next fifty years”, this book is more akin to a wide-ranging lecture on a variety of subject.

    It’s loosely structured around Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man” (as outlined in As You Like It) First on the list is “The Infant”, along with a discussion of the possibilities of biotechnology. Standard futurist stuff, though with an emphasis on the disturbingly sceptic feel these innovations will take. The rest of the book is as much about now as it is about tomorrow. “The Student” looks at today’s innovation in education through the Internet while “The Lover” examines technology made “lovable” through personalization. In both cases, Sterling isn’t predictive as much as he studies what is happening today.

    This impression strengthens in Chapter 4, “The Soldier”, as it reads like a Wired article describing the careers of three unorthodox military leaders. The portrait is fascinating; chances are that even though all three have lived and fought during the 1990s, you’ve never heard their names. And yet, taken together, these three show the way towards a future type of warfare. “The Soldier” may be the book’s most interesting chapter. It clearly shows where Sterling got his ideas for his previous novel Zeitgeist, uncovers a facet of recent history few of us even know about and manages to spin it in a blueprint for the next few decades.

    But Sterling also stretches his scope outside simple prediction. In “The Justice”, he discusses the growing complacency of government and becomes a political theorist. In “The Pantaloon”, he tackles economic matters and mentions his invitation to the Davos World Economic Forum with a proper degree of humility. (“If I were to cut and paste my latest 1040 tax form onto the page here, it would be far worse and more shocking that posting nude pics of myself on the Internet.” [P.216]) Finally, in “Mere Oblivion”, he muses on the environment and the dangers of global warming.

    All in all, it’s fantastic reading even if he doesn’t always deliver on what we may expect from a “book of predictions.” Tomorrow Now may meander and end up being too short, but there’s no denying that it’s a new-thought-a-minute, two-quotes-a-page peek in the mind of a genius.

    The only thing that really annoyed me about Tomorrow Now is the physical object itself. Published as a stunted hardcover scarcely bigger than a regular paperback, Tomorrow Now‘s presentation feels a lot like an attempt to camouflage a short book as something worth 40$. Granted, the calibre of the ideas contained therein is certainly a cut above the usual hardcover, but it still doesn’t make up for the perceived loss in value. I’m still glad I sent some money in Sterling’s pocket, but readers without my generous book-buying budget may want to borrow this one at the library… or wait for the paperback edition. I also hated the translucent cover and the title-less design of the dust jacket… but that’s just me.

    Despite the above caveat, I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest that this is a book that deserves to be read. Despite the often-frustrating rambling and dodgy structure, there is a lot of material here for Sterling fans, think-tanks, techno-geeks, SF writers and anyone else interested in what a fun guy like Sterling may have in mind. As he points out, “you don’t want a free author in your house” [P.230] but Tomorrow Now is the next best thing. Fans of the authors are free to ponder one thing: much as his previous non-fiction book The Hacker Crackdown marked a significant shift in his fiction, what will happen after Tomorrow Now?

  • On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington 1), David Weber

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 1993, 422 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-72163-1

    I’ve been eyeing David Weber’s Honor Harrington series for a while now, feeling as if I should give it a try while simultaneously being intimidated by the series’ growing number of volumes. I kept buying the books at second-hand stores, hoping to complete the dozen-book set before diving in. But that could have taken a while. Happily, Baen neatly solved the problem with the tenth novel in the Honor Harrington series, War of Honor: The C$41 hardcover included a CD-ROM containing, yep, the whole series (and more) in electronic format. No more worries about missing volumes; I could just start reading what I had and “fill in the blanks” with the electronic version on my trusty PDA.

    First stop, then: On Basilisk Station, Honor Harrington’s first adventure.

    Who’s Honor? She’s a starship captain who, at the start of this first novel, assumes her first command, a decrepit cruiser optimistically christened Fearless. But Honor is the embodiment of her ship’s name and at the first training exercise opportunity she gets, she severely embarrasses a cocky superior by beating him at his own game.

    Mistake. Before long, she’s exiled to a trivial faraway post, where she meets an old nemesis who -in cowardly fashion- flees and leaves her to perform a wide variety of tasks with almost no assets. What others would consider impossible, Honor sees as opportunity: before long, she shapes up everything in fine fighting form. But don’t be bored yet; an enemy attack looms…

    A lot of things are obvious from On Basilisk Station: First, that it’s a classical underdog-against-all-odds story featuring a plucky heroine who deserves our unqualified admiration. Second, that it’s a direct descendant of the Horatio Hornblower naval adventure stories. Third, that’s it’s completely successful as an introductory volume to the Honor Harrington series.

    I’m hooked, no doubt about it: Weber writes honest military SF, sure, but unlike too many of his immediate colleagues, he never forgets that he’s primarily telling a story, not recreating a tactical engagement for the enjoyment of the armchair strategists in the audience. His secondary characters take a while to come in focus, but they do and Honor Harrington herself is the type of archetypical heroine worth absolute devotion. Similarities with Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan go beyond the fact that they’re both published by Baen books.

    At least Weber’s political prejudices are obvious. The evil Havenites have a policy of expansion made inevitable by “almost two T-centuries of deficit spending to shore up an increasingly insolvent welfare state.” [P.52] Tee-hee! Then there’s the not-so-good Liberals, whose dedication to maintaining a military presence on Basilisk Station is traitorously suspect. The political system in which Honor lives is adapted directly from the English’s parliamentary monarchy: a nod to Hornblower and C.S. Forrester, sure, but also a rather convenient setting for true-blood Anglo-Saxon space opera… but I’ll hold off on any potentially embarrassing comments on the ethnicity of the series until I’ve read more of it. At least the complete gender integration of Honor’s universe is a laudable assumption.

    In short, On Basilisk Station is addictive reading. I’m definitely in for the duration of the Harrington series. At one book per month (and, presumably, one review per month), I should reach War of Honor by October 2003. Stay tuned!

  • Terminal Event, James Thayer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Simon & Schuster, 1999, 347 pages, C$37.00 hc, ISBN 0-684-84210-6

    Don’t trust Terminal Event‘s cover blurb. It says something about an air-crash investigator fighting against colleagues who think a crash was human error. It suggests something about a battle of wit between the investigator and a mad serial bomber. It’s even more deceitful than the usual cover blurb. (Though it gets the protagonist’s name right) It’s a disservice to the book, really, because Terminal Event is a much, much better book than what the blurb may lead you to think.

    This novel opens with a harrowing scene: Narrator Joe Durant, formerly of the National Transportation Security Board, walks through a forest peppered with the aftermath of an airplane crash. Metal fragments are scattered along with human body parts as Durant quickly assesses the situation and realizes what has to be done. He barely has time to cede control to authorities before upchucking his lunch. His wife was on the flight.

    Before long, he’s back in with the NTSB. Grieving (but not too much), he helps in piecing together a theory about what happened. His is not the only theory: others ideas are floating around, and one of Terminal Event‘s rare pleasures is in tracking down some very different red herrings. In some ways, it’s an interesting dilemma: Joe’s theory isn’t sexy, but it’s his. As readers, do we want the drama of, say, a surfaced-launched missile or do we want to see our hero being proven right with a decidedly less exciting theory?

    Joe is not alone, of course. In addition to his colleagues, he’s also assigned a hard-as-nail female FBI liaison. She gets to see what he does at the NTSB; he gets to see what she does at the FBI. In one of those easy dramatic shortcuts jaded readers learn to ignore, Joe ends up being present at almost every twist and turn of three different investigations. He’s threatened, bribed, confused, decried and -surprise!- ultimately triumphant… though not in the way anyone could expect.

    There is no doubt that Terminal Event is a techno-thriller that veers very close to engineering fiction. The details about the work the NTSB performs are endlessly fascinating, but for a specific crowd. Tom Clancy fans will go nuts for the nuts-and-bolts minutia of air-crash investigations. But more casual thriller writers shouldn’t despair; Thayer is remarkably efficient in turning out accessible prose. Terminal Event passed the acid test of thrillers by making your reviewer read far too late in the night for “just one more chapter.”

    There’s a lot to like about this book, from the narrative energy to the sympathetic narrator. Even better is the book’s multiple competing plot threads, one (or none) of which may just be the solution to the whole sorry mess. Unlike other novels, Terminal Event seldom tips its hand, keeping those storylines equally compelling all the way through. Also refreshing is a light romance that never overwhelms the book, and the resolution of said romance.

    What isn’t as successful is the storyline following the narrator’s grief, which is seldom brought up and almost ends up as an incidental subplot. A long time passes during which the issue of the dead wife isn’t even brought up. The discovery of her body, for instance, is mentioned almost casually as something having happened days before. In fact, the subjective duration of the events in Terminal Event is puzzling; all the action is supposed to “fit” in ten days, but it seems considerably longer, especially during the first half of the book.

    But no matter; Terminal Event is a deeply original, constantly interesting thriller. It’s readable like few others and contains enough details about the NTSB to double as a light non-fiction article on the mindset of its investigators. Just buy it without reading the cover blurb.

  • The Bridge, John Skipp & Craig Spector

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 1991, 419 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-553-29027-4

    A drum filled with toxic chemicals falls from a truck into a body of water. It breaks open, releasing nasty industrial waste into the wilderness. Then a horrible mutation takes place and people start to die!

    The above is the initial story trigger for EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS, a delightful 2002 comedy that apes the hackneyed conventions of 1950s giant-insect B-movies. As it happens, it’s also the premise behind The Bridge, a gore-filled horror novel by John Skipp and Craig Spector. Whereas EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS is a comedy, well, there’s not much to laugh about in The Bridge —even as ludicrous as it is.

    The problems start early on in this quasi-earnest tale of environmental catastrophe. It’s hard not to giggle as a random accumulation of toxic waste somehow creates a brand-new monster. You thought that type of easy plotting went out with comic books and B-movie from the fifties, but no, Skipp and Spector seem determined to play this silly concept in a relatively straightforward manner. (Or rather as straightforward as they want, which may not be very much given the whole novel’s overblown quality.)

    Suffice to say that in a few dozen pages, our eeevil toxic dumpers are severely punished and that a toxic overmind is attacking a small town in Northeastern America. Even at this point, the level of nastiness exhibited by the authors is impressive: Characters are killed before we can even get to know them. (I’ve heard “splatterpunk” used to describe this book, but even if I can recognize a heck of a lot of splatter in The Bridge, I’m not familiar enough with the sub-genre to be comfortable in designating the novel as such.)

    But no problem; there are always more characters to feed in the good old gore-chipper. Too many of them, in fact; while Skipp & Spector need ever-expanding battalions of monster-fodder in order to tell their story, it quickly becomes apparent that none of them is going to be important enough to remember. In fact, it’s worth noting that The Bridge doesn’t have a plot as much as it has a list of victims. There is scarcely any further narrative arc than the characters discovering that the toxic blob is out to get them. No serious efforts are conducting at fighting back; there is only escape, and not a very effective escape at that.

    The cumulative effect of this realisation is a steady loss of interest in a novel that is already too scattered to be gripping. While The Bridge constantly teases us with interesting elements and the promise of hard-core horror, it never achieves critical mass.

    Another part of the problem is that Skipp and Spector try to have it both ways: First, as a serious commentary on the environment (including, I kid you not, an eighteen-pages appendix on how to be an environmentalist), but also as a novel of supernatural horror. One defuses the other in much the same way that Peter Straub’s Floating Dragon trivialized its man-made threat by putting it alongside a supernatural monster. Who even cares about pollution when zombies want to eat your brain?

    On the other hand, there’s a steadily mounting glee at seeing Skipp and Spector overturn almost every tradition in their quest to kill as many characters in the messiest ways possible. The last few pages will have even the most jaded readers go “eew” as the novel moves far, far away from the watered down simulacrum that passes as “horror” nowadays.

    But even though a good ending can redeem a lot of things, The Bridge‘s conclusion seems to stop for lack of people to kill, not out of story to tell. Heck, the real story of The Bridge begins after the last page, and the authors quit before it truly gets interesting.

    In the end, The Bridge is a half-interesting, half-frustrating novel of hard-core horror. Readers with strong stomachs might enjoy aspects of it even as the sum of all parts fails short of satisfaction. While it’s considerably nastier than “mainstream horror”, it’s equally less successful in narrative qualities. On the other hand, it’s an effective cautionary tale against the evils of toxic waste dumping… Oh, who am I kidding!? Let’s go watch EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS again.

  • Long Bomb: How the XFL became TV’s biggest fiasco, Brett Forrest

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Crown, 2002, 254 pages, C$37.95 hc, ISBN 0-609-60992-0

    The more cynical among us (your reviewer included) would like to make you believe that we live in a age where everything is controlled, calculated, test-marketed and over-designed. All of our entertainment options are manufactured to order in a society dominated by consumerism and obedience. Britney Spears is less of an artist than a marketing vision given curvaceous form. MBA-holding executives are assembling movies from pieces defined by statisticians, psychologists and market analysts. We simple-minded consumers have no chance: we can only bleat and accept what we’re given.

    In this context, the complete failure of the XFL in early 2001 is something worth celebrating. World Wresting Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) CEO Vince McMahon buddied up with NBC executive Dick Ebersol to given us a brand new football league, the XFL. Combining NBC’s sportscasting expertise with the WWF’s flair for showmanship, the XFL was supposed to be a more exciting, less expensive alternative to the tired old NFL.

    In retrospect, it’s hard to say whether this was a great or terrible idea. Certainly, NBC thought it was getting good broadcasting material for almost nothing: Founding the XFL was considerably cheaper than forking out billions for NFL licensing. Vince McMahon wanted a respectability that wrestling could never provide. Hundreds of players wanted another chance to strut their stuff in front of an audience. And maybe, just maybe, the American public could find a spot in their schedule for another sport league.

    It didn’t turn out that way.

    The first game of the XFL drew respectable numbers. Rating for subsequent games, though, melted down until the last few games, which pulled in the lowest numbers ever recorded for prime-time shows in network broadcast history —scarcely a few hundred thousand viewers across North America. Pundits, journalists and comedians skewered the new league mercilessly. The experiment was not repeated; no second season of the XFL was ever seriously considered once the ratings crashed through the floor.

    Long Bomb recounts all of the above is sarcastic glee. Brett Forrest presumably hung around the league as everything happened, and if the book doesn’t feature his own adventures (indeed, there are scenes where a gaping obscurity occupies the place where a first-person narrator should be), the narration clearly indicates someone who paid attention. Far too much of the book reads like a sardonic description of the TV newscasts, but from time to time we go behind the scenes and get a glimpse in the life of the real players in the XFL.

    The writing style has its moments, but all too often loses itself in flight of fancies that are not entirely appropriate to the subject being discussed. Still, Long Bomb is a compulsively readable account of a recently fascinating subject. It’s a bit of a shame that there’s no DVD companion featuring telecasts of what he discusses, but given the difficulties Forrest had in dealing with XFL, WWE and NBC executives, well, maybe we should just be happy that the book exists at all.

    But maybe above everything, Long Bomb is an account of a gigantic failure, one of the most spectacular miscalculation in recent memory. The XFL existed at the crossroads of sports and entertainment, and an account of its history must consider implications in both fields. In some ways, it’s a refreshing reminder that despite all the expert advice and pre-manufactured elements you can throw at a money-making venture, it can still fail as soon as no one is watching. And even gibbering football fans familiar with wrestling can choose not to watch.

    Somehow, that’s a reassuring thought.