Book Review

  • Her Name, Titanic, Charles Pellegrino

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1988 (1990 reprint), 283 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-70892-2

    Regular readers of these reviews will certainly remember my overall affection for the work of Charles Pellegrino. Here’s one author who, in my humble opinion, has rarely done wrong. (Notwithstanding his curiously inept Star Trek novel) Over the past few years, I have read one Pellegrino book after another, always managing to avoid his best-known work, Her Name, Titanic.

    After reading the “sequel”, Ghosts of the Titanic, this seemed like an increasingly ridiculous situation. Fortunately, I was able to secure a copy of his 1988 bestseller and dug in, knowing that I’d get my time’s worth of pure enjoyment.

    Once again, I wasn’t disappointed. Her Name, Titanic is fully the equal of Pellegrino’s other non-fiction books. Ghosts of the Titanic had a scattershot approach to the subject, leading me to speculate a more strictly chronological run-through of the voyage for the first volume. Fortunately, this isn’t so.

    In fact, if you want an overview of the events surrounding the Titanic, you’d be better off watching the film. (Though the graphic inset between pages 92-93 will do just fine) Her Name, Titanic is as much about the 1985 re-discovery of the sunken relic as it is about the 1912 catastrophe. We’ll spend as much time with Robert Ballard and the Argo as with the ill-fated passengers of the ocean liner.

    Perhaps more interestingly, we’ll spend all of this time with Charles Pellegrino himself. Her Name, Titanic is the centerpiece of his literary output; all of his other books refer to it in one way or another. (This is unfair actually; all of Pellegrino’s books refer to each other in what are often very, very twisted ways.) His books are unlike any others in that they present a glimpse in the scientific strangeness that’s just lurking beneath the surface of our humdrum lives. History isn’t something that happens in the past for Pellegrino; he’ll uncover jaw-dropping links between seemingly disparate events and present them with a passion that will leave you breathless. His writing style is very deliberately dramatic, though never without a deeply respectful quality. You might not be moved to tears by Her Name, Titanic, but don’t be surprised to find a few lumps in your throat.

    The tangents explored by Pellegrino as almost as fascinating as the events themselves. Pellegrino is a man of eclectic interests, and he effortlessly links the Titanic to World War One, to the Challenger Shuttle disaster, to the life of Bob Ballard, to Apollo 11, to obsession. He admits in the introduction that he’s become obsessed with the ship, and this is, perhaps most of all, a book about this obsession. (Indeed, one of the most memorable passages of the book is a conversation with members of the Alvin crew who don’t share this obsession; “It was a job and we did it the best we could.” [P.221]

    But don’t worry; by the end of the book, you’ll share Pellegrino’s fascination; I certainly did. His effective writing style, love for oddball details, ability to effectively present important information and keenness of mind will have you reading well after the point when you should reasonably stop. Heavens help you if you have the sequel nearby after you’re done with Her Name, Titanic, because you won’t be able to stop. Any Titanic buff pretty much has to read this one, and even casual reader will want to grab this book. It’s powerful writing, and memorable reading.

  • Ventus, Karl Schroeder

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2000, 662 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-57635-7

    Some human endeavours are harder than others. While no one will ever confuse writing a novel with performing brain surgery, writing a mathematic Ph.D. thesis or even raising a child, no one will ever say that writing a good professional novel is easy. You have to balance narrative exposition with careful character development, dramatic tension and basic writing abilities. Analyse any random 600-pages novel and you’ll quickly find a bunch of interlocking factors in a framework so large that it’s almost a wonder to realize that people actually pull this off.

    Science-fiction writers must be even more masochistic than most other novelist. To the already mind-boggling demands of novel-writing, they add the necessity to construct a wholly fictional world and present it to the reader in a seamless fashion. Oh, and explain new complex concepts to the average readers. Why would anyone willingly choose that job?

    Karl Schroeder did. Ventus isn’t his first novel (he co-wrote The Claus Effect with David Nickle), but it’s certainly the one which will make the SF world stand up and take notice of his potential. It’s a massive, epic story about a planet with many secrets, spanning dozen of very different characters and a conflict with galactic repercussions.

    Yet we begin this hard-SF story in a fashion that is almost identical to most fantasy trilogies. Young Jordan Mason is an apprentice on a vast estate. While the first chapter hints strongly at a SFictional tone -what with an attack by a silver mechal life form-, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything radically different between him and some medieval squire. Gunpowder has been invented, but what’s this about flying creatures attacking any higher technology?

    As the story unfolds, both Mason and the reader discover that the ground beneath their feet isn’t nearly as stable -nor natural- as it may first seems. Jordan is almost kidnapped by strangers, thrust in complex political games and eventually made to realize an awesome untapped power. Before the book is through, we’ll visit a fantastically advanced Earth, be privy to scenes of devastating scope and -maybe more importantly- witness the emotional evolution of a cast of characters.

    Ventus is a big, satisfying book, the kind that’s made for you, a comfy chair, plenty of hot chocolate and a long Sunday in front of a fireplace. It takes a while, more than a long while, to get going, but once it ignites, it’s a highly enjoyable read. Most notable is the changing nature of the characters; those who seems initially reliable end up as raving psychopaths and those who seems singularly inept ends up controlling everything. Then there’s the impressive feat of managing more than a dozen major characters without fumbling too much. Ventus doesn’t feel like a first novel; you’d be hard-pressed to consider it as being anything less than a great work by a professional author at the height of his powers. You’ll love the SF elements and the characters.

    The science-fantasy aspect of the tale is annoying at first, but makes increasing sense as the underpinning of Ventus is explained. After that realisation, one can only be impressed at how well the tale unfolds, how the technological/scientific themes are well-exploited in order to give meaning to the story. The narrative even introduces interesting philosophical elements late in the story without undue effort. It’s also one of the smoothest blend of science and characterization to come along in recent memories.

    After the impressive Ventus, it’s hard to wait until Schroeder’s next novel. Canada has produced several impressive SF writers in the past few years, but few seem to be audacious enough to turn out stories with the epic scope of Ventus. Schroeder seems, with his first solo novel, to aim for a spot aside Vernor Vinge and L.E. Modesitt Jr. If everything goes right, get ready for a memorable career.

  • I. Asimov, Isaac Asimov

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 1994, 562 pages, C$32.50 hc, ISBN 0-385-41701-2

    Any discussion of Isaac Asimov, the writer, must inevitably dwell on how prolific he was. In roughly fifty years, he wrote more than 470 books (yes, more books than most people will ever read in their lifetime!), and that’s not counting the various articles, speeches and assorted miscellanea he also penned during his career.

    Asimov died in 1992, but it took a few more years to publish everything he was working on at the time. One of those projects was an autobiography, I. Asimov, in which he more or less summed up his life. Incredibly enough, this wasn’t even a first autobiography for him: In 1979 and 1980, he wrote In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt. While I. Asimov acknowledges these previous autobiographies, it’s also a stand-alone work. (As Asimov explains in the introduction, the first two volumes have long been out of print) Anyone interested in the writer’s life should pick up this work; it’s pretty much “the ultimate Asimov.”

    Hefting in at more than 550 pages, this book is divided in 166 short thematic chapters arranged in rough chronological order; while he’ll occasionally break his narrative to describe his relationship with other persons or to give a general opinion about a given subject, most of the book proceeds from childhood to education to early adult life to late adult life to semi-retirement. Each chapter clearly announces the subject, and even though there’s no index (argh), the table of content should be sufficient for most casual reference use. A 1994 bibliography completes I. Asimov.

    As far as autobiographies go, this one is quite satisfying. The scope of it is ideal, of course. There isn’t much to Asimov that’s left unexamined by the time we read Janet Asimov’s epilogue. The writing style is compulsively readable, with a good mix of humour and information, of dry self-depreciation and proper acknowledgement of his strengths. You can easily get through this tome in a few days.

    Asimov is also surprisingly candid, maybe a bit more than some fans might have expected. He makes no excuses, for instance, of his rather libertine attitude towards affairs during his first marriage. He can be quite cutting regarding whom he considers idiots. The failure of his first marriage is described quickly, as is his disappointment in his son (who he describes as a “gentleman of leisure.” [P.176]) (At least Asimov didn’t live to see him implicated in a child-pr0n scandal in 1998. Oh, the things we learn while fact-checking on Google…)

    But don’t assume that these few issues are emblematic of the rest of the book. When Asimov loves, he loves a lot. It’s impossible to close the book and remain un-moved by his pure love of writing. (See his notes on his divorce, P.336) His own pleasure in public speaking is also obvious, and even quite charming; he was good at it and took considerable pleasure in delivering the goods as needed, even without notes or time-pieces. His devotion to his daughter Robin is touching, and his love for his second wife Janet is the source of considerable emotion late in the book.

    Isaac Asimov has not in good health for the last decade of his life, and the last fourth of I. Asimov reflects the tragic dignity in which he left. The whole book itself was written with the mindset that it would be Asimov’s final word on himself, and by the end, it’s hard to escape impending death. The last few pages are especially poignant, as we’re left to contemplate what such a first-rate mind could have done had it been allowed five, fifty, five hundred more years. Alas, Asimov is gone, and there won’t be anyone else like him. Ever.

    While Asimov may take delight in presenting himself as the humble son of an immigrant shop-keeper and in assuring us that nothing spectacular ever happened in his life, he misses the point: Asimov himself is the highlight of I. Asimov, not his life history. For any fan of the author, casual or obsessive, this is the definitive book so far.

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Raincoast, 1997 (2001 reprint), 223 pages, C$9.95 tpb, ISBN 1-55192-398-X

    “Well, I’m surprised to see that you’ve condescended to read Harry Potter” said my uncle’s girlfriend when she saw me with the first volume in hand.

    The only really surprising thing is how long it’s taken me to actually read the darn thing.

    I’ve always been deeply suspicious of the popular intellectual snobbery that states that “if it’s popular, it can’t be good”. Without citing too many examples, there are times where something is famous because it’s good. It might not be better than your favorite obscure painting/movie/author, but that in itself isn’t a reason to criticize anything wildly fashionable.

    I first wanted to read Harry Potter a long time ago. I downloaded the pirated electronic versions of the whole series late in 2000, only to realize that I just don’t read novels on screen; my reader’s reflexes are still hard-wired to paper, ink and glue. My sister bought and read the first two volumes. Ages passed. A movie got made. I borrowed the first volume from my sister, then consciously put it away and enjoyed the movie on its own terms. A few more weeks passed and then I decided to celebrate the end of 2001 with a good fluffy read.

    I enjoyed almost every page of it.

    Before gushing, though, allow me to say that there are two criticisms I can heap upon J.K. Rowling and the first Harry Potter novel.

    First, how deliberate it all seems. Let’s see: to ensnare kids, what better than a misunderstood, under-appreciated hero who really has exceptional magical powers and whose parents are really powerful magicians? You couldn’t design a better hook on purpose, much like Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game seemed mathematically designed to hook young teenagers with pretty much the same levers.

    Second; how conventional it all is. Tales of magical academies and of young magicians have been written before. Some of them quite good. Almost every gadget used in The Philosopher’s Stone has been invented elsewhere, used elsewhere and seen elsewhere. There isn’t a lot of new, inventive fantasy material in Harry Potter. (So far.)

    But guess what? None of these two objections matter very much to the base reader that I am. What is far more important is how clearly Rowling writes, how well she builds her characters and how many little flourishes she manages to pack on every page of her novel.

    I attended the World Fantasy Convention in early November 2001, and the slightly dismissive tone in which Harry Potter was discussed struck me as unfair. While elements of the Pottermania leave me nonplussed (the fourth volume shouldn’t have won the Hugo, for instance), a lot of it struck me as simple sour grapes at someone outside the genre reaping all the attention and the money.

    The first volume of the series, whatever the objections of the fantasy litterati are, is a wonderful little book that didn’t feel at all like a kid’s novel. I’ve always been a sucker for the “academy” type of novel, from Starship Troopers to, say, Gravity Dreams, and The Philosopher’s Stone ranks among the best of them. It takes conventional elements of magical training and cleverly stuffs them in the British educational system. Simple and obvious, but not so obvious that it’s cliché. And, like it or not, Rowling’s produced a fantasy novel that is immeasurably more enjoyable than at least 90% of what’s published in “adult” fantasy today.

    While I’m not completely bowled over, I still feel that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is a great little book that will make you -even you!- fall in love with reading all over again. Embrace Pottermania. In this case, what’s popular is what’s good.

    (A few words about the movie vs the book: Amazing fidelity, though the book “feels” more adequately paced. The novel also provides more details on Harry’s family life, Hagrid’s past and one or two extra challenges before the end, not to mention a second Quiddich game.)

  • One Point Safe, Andrew & Leslie Cockburn

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Anchor, 1997, 288 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-385-48560-3

    In 1997, then brand-new studio Dreamworks released its first film, a techno-thriller called THE PEACEMAKER. It starred Nicole Kidman and George Clooney and dealt with their efforts to retrieve a few nuclear bombs stolen by a terrorist. Unfortunately, the film received a mixed critical reception and quickly sank at the box-office, pulling in only $41 million US and quickly fading in memories.

    Too bad; I enjoyed the film a lot, finding it to be one of the only good techno-thriller of the late nineties. It seemed reasonably authentic and adequately detailed; the film is still the only one I recall in which the protagonists realistically disarmed a nuclear weapon. Small surprise to learn -later- that it was based on Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s One Point Safe, a non-fiction book about the nuclear dangers to come out of the ex-USSR. Both writers were even credited as the co-producers of the movie and penned the original story.

    What you can’t know until you read the source book is how the reality is presented as being far more chilling that the fiction.

    One Point Safe begins with a bang, as it describes how a team of German terrorists tried to steal a tactical nuclear weapon from an American base in 1977. Their assault was thwarted by the failure of their diversion, but as the authors write, “No longer was it a question ‘if’ terrorists wanted to steal a nuclear weapon.” [P.6]

    It gets worse. Much worse, as the Cockburns delve deeper in the wreckage of the ex-Soviet Union. In a few chapters, they describe the awful conditions to which the once-proud Soviet military has been reduced to. Officers in charge of nuclear weapons now starving, multi-megaton storage facilities rusting out of neglect. Plutonium depots left un-garded. The problem with the collapse of an empire is that after the collapse, all the nasty stuff is still there even if the people aren’t.

    The crux of One Point Safe is to show the various nuclear dangers in this post-cold-war era. The guards are gone, corrupt or criminal, but their deadly possessions remain. So the Cockburns describe actual cases of radioactive material theft, the lax security measures in Russian weapons depots, the new ultra-capitalistic Russians trying to make money off the Soviet arsenal and how nuclear non-proliferation agreements aren’t worth much when transgressions mean eating again.

    Things aren’t necessarily better in the United States. The Cockburns take an almost sadistic delight in describing a botched anti-terrorism exercise gone hilariously wrong. “Mirage Gold” becomes a parade of mistakes, and latter exercises designed to intercept nuclear smuggling aren’t any more successful. Those mistakes are compensated, somewhat, by a few intelligence coups, such as the American purchase of important quantities of plutonium from Russia. Once such operation, codenamed Sapphire, is a marvel of logistics meticulously described by the Cockburns.

    Still, as the book advances, you can’t help but feel increasingly spooked by the missing “backpack nukes”, the widespread corruption, the “accidentally discovered” smuggling rings, the open borders, the broken Russian chain-of-command and, oh, the narrowly-avoided nuclear war of 1995.

    All of which raises the question, of course, of the veracity of One Point Safe. Certainly, the tone is cheerfully sentionalistic. Online ( www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1998/jf98/jf98arkin.html ), you can find a letter from an atomic scientist protesting the alarmist tone of the Cockburns. Indeed, they probably overstate their case. But even if half of what they say is true… In any case, it makes for exciting reading.

    Beyond the compulsive narrative drive of this book, you can also look at One Point Safe for one of the clearest description of how executive policy is formed, as a team of analysts tries to convince the Clinton administration to do something about the Russian situation.

    In short, One Point Safe is a meanly effective read. Sensationalist but always effective, this non-fiction account will make you cringe and hope that the intelligence community is doing its work. Because otherwise…

  • Our Dumb Century, The Onion

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Three Rivers Press, 1999, 164 pages, C$24.00 tpb, ISBN 0-609-80461-8

    It always amazes me whenever someone opines that history is boring. To hear them talk, history’s just a dull recitation of dates, names and events. Don’t they realize that history can explain everything that happens today? Don’t they know that the best stories ever published don’t even equal some of the amazing stuff that has truly happened in the past? Don’t they even remember Santayana’s admonition?

    Maybe all that’s missing is a gifted vulgarizer, someone to make the study of history amusing, accessible and worthwhile. I don’t think that this is what the staff of The Onion had in mind when they set out to put together Our Dumb Century, but the result certainly makes history a lot of fun again.

    You might or might not already be familiar with the web humor magazine The Onion ( http://www.theonion.com/ ), but it doesn’t really matter; all you need to know is that Our Dumb Century‘s shtick is to “reprint” a hundred year’s worth of front pages from the Onion as a retrospective of the century. None of it is available on the web site.

    Of course it’s all made up. Headlines like 1917’s “Pretentious, Goateed Coffeehouse Types Seize Power in Russia” or 1953’s “A-Bomb May Have Awakened Gigantic Radioactive Monsters, Experts Say” should be a giveaway. But the most amazing thing about Our Dumb Century (past the funny stuff, of course) is how real it looks. The front pages from the beginning of the century look exactly like the old newspapers did, with shaky typography, badly-reproduced graphics and overstuffed layout. The graphical team responsible for the design of the book truly did their homework, and visually, there isn’t a single detail that looks out of place. It’s one of the small pleasures of the book to flip from page to page and see the evolution of “The Onion” through the century.

    All of which is considerably reinforced by the pitch-perfect style of the writing. The Onion’s writers have convincingly re-created the characteristic tone of reporting through the century, through the biased, wordy style of the 1900s to the carefully antiseptic prose of the 1990s. It may or may not be exact, but it adds a lot to the impact of the jokes.

    And what jokes they are: From 1900’s “Death-by-Corset Stabilizes at One in Six” to 2000’s “Christian Right Ascends To Heaven”, Our Dumb Century offers a century’s (and 164 pages’) worth of satire. Every page is shock-full of stuff in 8-point type, with enough nastily funny headlines to make you groan in pure sadistic delight. (How about 1963’s “Kennedy Slain By CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemason: President Shot 129 Times from 43 Different Angles” or 1937’s “German Jews Concerned about Hitler’s ‘Kill All Jews’ Proposal”?)

    Naturally, this isn’t for everyone. The level of sadistic irony can be shocking (1976: “Cambodia to Switch to Skull-Based Economy”), as can be the intentional profanity (July 21, 1969. ’nuff said.)

    Historical figures are in for a thorough irreverent thrashing, of course. There’s an alternate-universe arrest/getaway/manhunt/shootout involving Nixon (1974), a few good slams at FDR (1933: “President confronts depression with ‘Big Deal’ Plan: ‘Big Deal, I’m Rich’ Roosevelt Says”) and welcome nastiness about various great villains of our century (1977: “Idi Amin Praises Former Ugandan Defense Minister as ‘Delicious’”)

    A sense of history is, of course, as useful as a sense of humor, but while Our Dumb Century can motivate anyone to learn a bit more, it’s unclear whether a sense of humor can be developed. For those with some knowledge of the past hundred years, though, the payoff is enormous. The staff of The Onion laughs at an astonishing variety of subjects, from arts to politics, military affairs to fashion fads and you never know when your favorite areas of interest might pop up.

    The only flaw of the book that I could find was a loss of historical perspective over the last 30 pages of the book in favor of lighter pop-culture references. Maybe inevitable given the lack of perspective… or accurate given the real nineties.

    Not only is Our Dumb Century an instant classic and one of the funniest books of the twentieth century, but it’s also one of the best gift ideas I’ve ever seen for smart people. Buy a crate, encourage The Onion, distribute at will and get compliments on your impeccable taste. Easy!

  • H.M.S. Unseen, Patrick Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper, 1999, 526 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-109801-9

    There are times where I seriously wonder if reading more than 170 books a year is somehow rotting my mind. Why else to explain peculiar attachment to authors I don’t care about? H.M.S. Unseen is Patrick Robinson’s third novel and freakishly obsessive readers of my reviews will remember that I haven’t liked either Nimitz Class or Kilo Class very much. Robinson writes badly, has no gift for effective characterization, doesn’t know how to structure his stories and has a rather curious sense of global geopolitics. I might have picked up H.M.S. Unseen with the hope that he has improved, but he really hasn’t.

    The story is a loose follow-up to Nimitz Class in that the terribly anticlimactic death of the first novel’s antagonist is revealed to be the sham we suspected all along. Ben Adnam is back in action, but maybe not as smoothly as he wants to: The first few dozen pages of H.M.S. Unseen describe how the Iraqi government decides to get rid of their most troublesome agent, and how Adman escapes through marshes and deserts to join Iran’s government. His proposition? To exact revenge, he will frame Iraq for a series of devastating terrorist attacks.

    I’d say “so far so good” if it was the case, but it isn’t. Early on, all of Robinson’s usual faults come back to haunt us. He can’t write. Still. Clumsy exposition drowns out dialogue to such an extent that there isn’t any dialogue left. His sense of dramatic structure is shaky at best; events happen out of nowhere without preparation and then he’ll spend dozens of pages on the most insignificant details before kicking the plot in an entirely different direction again. The downing of the experimental plane is a perfect case in point; what could have been milked for drama simply becomes another plot point without too much importance. But, oh, Adnam’s Scottish escape becomes a marathon of tiny details we couldn’t possibly care about, given that we know he will do it.

    After three connected novels, I still can’t care about one single character in Robinson’s oeuvre. He tries to make an antihero of his terrorist villain, but it comes across as just… insipid. Late in the book, he tried to make me pity the antagonist (aw, looove… and it just so happens that the girl is now married to the protagonist of the first two novels!), but my only wish remained for the bad guy to irrevocably die so that I could move on to other things.

    More and more, it looks like Robinson simply has no clue about what makes a good technothriller, whether it’s the tiny (oh; the writing, maybe?) or the grand. On an overarching level, I just can’t believe in what Robinson does. Late in HMS Unseen, for instance, Adman encourages the United States to destroy -with cruise missiles!- a large dam in Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, setting back Iraq a few decades in hydro-electrical capacity and, oh, provoking a major international incident in the process. (The characters pooh-pooh such objections as “we’ll be caught!”) Utterly unbelievable, especially in a context where the States are already being unjustly blamed for “hundred of children dying every day because of sanctions”. Now imagine actually destroying a dam. I was practically screaming at the novel “No, you moron! Leave the civilian targets alone!” No such luck.

    The structure of the novel is even more insipid, bouncing from situation to situation without a sense of heightened stakes. The final few pages are emblematic of the problem, as the villain is dispatched almost with a yawn and a wave of the hand. Almost as if by then, Robinson hated his novel as much as I did.

    Still, you got to hand it to the guy. To be able to publish three awful novels in a row (and to get me to read’em) takes a special skill. You know what? I’m almost certain I’ll read his fourth. I might spend my time cursing at it and muttering dark promises of retribution, but at least it’ll be more entertaining than reading, say, yet another dull and tired Dale Brown B-52 fantasy.

    Egad. Maybe I am brain-damaged after all.

  • Marrow, Robert Reed

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2000, 502 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-56657-2

    Readers of these reviews won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t necessarily review everything that I read. Aside from my technical/reference reading, there are a considerable number of books that are either too inconsequential or too boring to review at length. Over any given period, I will review one book in three or four that I read.

    While it’s relatively easy to praise or condemn a book, it’s much harder to find ~650 words about a book that didn’t even register in the first place. Unfortunately, I also try to review every recent SF book that I buy, if only to justify my SF purchases. With Robert Reed’s Marrow, I find myself with a conflict. I want to review it because it’s recent SF. Yet I don’t want to review it because it’s such a blah book.

    It’s long. It takes place over thousands of years. It features only a dozen characters, and not many of those are of any interest. For ten Canadian dollars, you can get a much better book.

    And yet… here goes:

    Let’s start with the premise, arguably the best thing about Marrow: It all takes place in a big alien ship. A really big alien ship. I don’t exactly recall the dimensions, nor can I be bothered to dig them up, but it’s such a big alien ship that humans eventually discover a Mars-sized planet deep inside after a few hundred thousand years of occupation. Mars-sized. And they’d sort of never found it before. Big alien ship.

    Due to life-extension technology, the lifespan of our characters is virtually infinite barring any unfortunate accidents. This has two important consequences on the plot of the novel. First, these characters think nothing of waiting a few hundred years before doing something. Second, we can never be totally sure they’re dead until their individual atoms are fissioned. There are more fakeouts in Marrow than there are in an entire season of your favorite soap-opera.

    The plot involves a few hundred senior ship officers being stranded on the Mars-like planet as no-one ever goes to look for them. Thousands of years (and hundreds of pages) pass. They eventually manage to re-create a complete industrial civilization and go back to the ship, only to discover a dastardly plot to take over the ship. There’s a war in which millions of sentient beings die. There is an ending of sort. The end.

    Now milk out all the drama out of the above, add in some spurious pseudo-melodrama and let fester for five hundred pages. Your result will look a lot like Marrow; good potential, but it’s just not a lot of fun. I was lucky enough to be stuck witnessing a day-long management conference with the book as my only friend. It was probably the most efficient way to make me read a book I didn’t care too much about.

    And that, in a nutshell, is all you need to know about Marrow: I didn’t care too much about it. Certainly didn’t love it, but neither did it actively start annoying me. It just… was.

    Unfortunately, that means that your hard-won entertainment dollars (and your even more precious entertainment-time) can be spent more efficiently elsewhere. Bruce Sterling. Learning Spanish. A yo-yo. Heck, even a Hollywood movie. Oh, Reed completists will presumably love it, if they exists. Some SF critics may be tempted to read it if only to find out how some exciting ideas can be ruined by tepid writing. Many of us, though, may very well just not care. Too bad.

  • Sea Fighter, James H. Cobb

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Jove, 2000, 513 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-515-12982-8

    Over the past year, I’ve read so many limp military thrillers (Brown’s Fatal Terrain, Rugerro’s The Common Defense, Stewart’s The Kill Box, etc…) that I had almost forgotten what it felt like to read a genuinely entertaining one. Fortunately, James H. Cobb’s Sea Fighter was there to make me believe in the genre again.

    What often happens with military-series writers is that they eventually get stale, don’t renew their premises, barely allow for character growth and simply lose touch with how to write an exciting novel. Not so here: After two similar novels, Cobb shuffles the deck with skill, and Sea Strike continues the series with sustained originality.

    The novel’s first few pages are deliciously jarring, as protagonist Garrett writes a “If you read this, I’m dead…” letter from a marine platform a few miles away from the African coast. Veteran readers of the series will be immediately concerned; where’s “the Duke”, the high-tech destroyer that starred in the first few books? What is Amanda doing, planning to lead a ground expedition in Africa?

    The next few pages lay it out for us; the USS Cunningham is in dry-dock for repairs after the events of Sea Strike, and Amanda Garrett’s been offered a post coordinating the UN forces in a nasty little war in Africa. This sets up a devilishly clever scenario where the might of the US military is handicapped by political concerns to such a degree where a battle with an African navy becomes more of a test of cleverness than a war of firepower. Garrett is forced to out-think a dangerously intelligent antagonist and win the war through unconventional means… a intellectual contest in which the biggest winner is the reader.

    From large-scale naval engagements, Garrett is forced to move to coastal tactics and gadgets. Amphibious crafts and SEAL-team tactics are in the foreground in Sea Fighter, which is a nice change of pace and a welcome renewal of Cobb’s fiction. The featured techno-gadgets here are the titular “Seafighters”, experimental armed hovercrafts that do pretty much everything including cutting and dicing. The new tactical capabilities of the “Air Cushion Gunboats” are a good excuse for new tactics and original spectacular scenes; Cobb has a lot of fun with his gadgets, and so do the readers. Now that we’ve seen the first military novel about hovercrafts, I’m waiting for one on hydrofoils.

    It’s been an axiom of mine that you can reliably gauge the worth of a military technothriller by the number of Cool Scenes it features. Sea Fighter ranks highly on that scale, with an assortment of well-narrated battle scenes, clever maneuvering on both sides of the conflict and accessible political/strategic considerations. The care with which the antagonist is established as a nuanced opponent is one of the highlights of the novel and yet another facet of Cobb’s skill.

    While war is a grim subject and current real-world conflict headlines are hardly amusing, military novels are a different things, and indeed the best of them can also be distinguished by a sense of compulsive fun. Sea Fighter understands this perfectly and is quick to establish the book’s main conflict as a chess game in which moves and countermoves alternate in a compulsively readable fashion.

    Don’t make the mistake of assuming that it’s all simplistic fluff, though; the geopolitics of Sea Strike are plausible and realistic to a degree that is far more convincing than some of its brethrens. Cobb can also rely on an impressive catalogue of historical references. Here, a raid on enemy lines isn’t presented as a cowboy manoeuvre, but a Civil War tactic adapted to modern times.

    It all adds up to an intelligent and entertaining war novel. Dig deeper and you’ll see Sea Fighter as a true example of the dirty-little-wars era military novel, where reduced stakes don’t mean a reduced interest for the reader. Grab it as soon as possible if you’re a fan of the genre. Don’t forget to pick up the rest of the Cobb oeuvre while you’re at it.

  • The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction, Cory Doctorow & Karl Schroeder

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Alpha, 2000, 360 pages, C$25.95 tpb, ISBN 0-02-863918-9

    One of the most unlikely publishing trends of the nineties has been the Dummies’ Guide to… series of books, along with the inevitable knock-offs, such as -surprise- the Complete Idiot’s Guide to…. Using a voluntarily provocative title as a hook for a series of excellent reference works, the publishers of these two series have moved away from the obvious computer training manuals to delve into subjects we might not have expected from dummies guides.

    Publishing Science-Fiction is one of those unlikely subjects. Few would be prompt to categorize idiots as a prime demographic for writing SF—though the jury is still out on Star Trek readers. Delve beyond the silly title, however, and you’ll find the best book on the market to teach, as it says, how to publish Science-Fiction.

    Rising Canadian SF superstars Cory Doctorow (2000 Campbell Prize Winner) and Karl Schroeder (Ventus, The Claus Effect, etc.) have put together a step-by-step guide to writing SF where the only ingredient missing is determination. This Guide starts with an introduction to the genre, of course, then moves on to the essential mechanics and techniques of SF writing. The authors don’t try to teach how to write as much as they highlight the differences between SF and other types of literature. As could be expected from a general guide, their explanations are limpid and eminently accessible.

    But the Guide doesn’t stop there. Once the stories are written, the hard part begins: they have to be sold! It’s no accident is this is a guide to publishing rather than writing SF: Doctorow and Schroeder spend more than half the book discussing how to build a professional SF-writing career, from the initial story sales to fiscal considerations whenever a significant fraction of your income comes from book royalties. While this will probably annoy any “true artist” in the crowd, very few resources actually deal with material considerations for budding authors.

    Through it all, the Guide really represents a cause for minor astonishment at market forces: Given such a niche market fed by only a few hundred authors, who could have contemplated a market for a book on how to become a pro SF writer?

    This being said, it’s not as if only budding writers will benefit from reading the Guide. By lucidly explaining the mechanics and distinctions of SF, Doctorow and Schroeder have also allowed the rest of us a glimpse at the hidden engines of modern Science Fiction. For instance, their discussion of SF character-building [Chapter 11] -and the embodiment of SF themes in events rather than characters-, will be enlightening to fans and critics of the field by explaining why SF works like it does. The first part of the guide, which introduces SF to the masses, is also invaluable in providing a succinct, but thorough overview of the field. Naturally, the glimpse in the dirty mechanics of the SF publishing industry will also help any avid fan to understand the market forces driving the field.

    The Guide is a reference book that knows how to grow with its owner. While most will initially pay more attention to the earlier parts, the latter sections of the book -on self-promotion, awards and contracts- become more important as the writer matures in his chosen profession.

    Finally, it’s worth noting that the book is a delight to read from start to finish, thanks to its efficient structure and the accessible style of the authors. Good fun, even if it doesn’t directly concern you.

    In short there isn’t a lot to dislike about the Guide. While already occasionally dated barely a year after release (Please note that the accompanying web site has moved to http://www.kschroeder.com/guide/ ), most of its advice will remain effective for a long time. Check it out at the local library if it sounds interesting to you, and definitely consider buying it if you think you want to be a pro SF writer.

  • Time Future, Maxine McArthur

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Aspect, 1999 (2001 reprint), 445 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60963-3

    Looking at the recent SF production of 1999-2001, it does seem ironic that at the very turn of the century, some of the most vital novels of the genre are from non-American authors. You might even call it the revenge of the British Commonwealth, what with Britain (Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter) and Canada (Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Charles Wilson) churning up excellent material. Now Australia joins the pack, with the ubiquitous-yet-unseen Greg Egan, and now Maxine McArthur. It’s much too early to say whether McArthur will establish herself as a first-rate writer, but Time Future is an interesting first novel that bodes well for her next.

    Arriving on American shores in paperback form nearly two years after original publication, Time Future comes pre-packaged with a few choice quotes and even an award, the George Turner Prize for best Australian SF novel. Try to lower your expectations, though; at its heart, Time Future remains a standard space-station-bound space-opera the sort of which Babylon-5 did so well.

    On the other hand, Babylon-5 never dropped its characters in such a prolonged nightmare: As Time Future begins, the Jocasta station’s been under siege for over a year. No transit, no supplies, not even any communication with the outside universe. No trace of a rescue attempt either. Inside the station, things are looking grim, what with a growing refugee problem, failing environmental systems, increased hysteria amongst the factions aboard the station and no hope in sight.

    Commander Halley is the one who must deal with this situation, and after more than a year, even the strongest women can falter under the constant stress. Nightmares, personality conflicts and plain desperation are her daily torments. As if that wasn’t enough, the novel piles up the difficulties: The blockading aliens want to talk to her, the alien factions inside the station aren’t helping at all, a mysterious ship is cause for more questions than answers, an alien trader is killed in an impossible fashion and her estranged alien ex-husband comes back to haunt her.

    It’s definitely not a cheerful novel. No one will be blamed if they’re tempted to fast-forward rather than slog through more than 400+ pages of claustrophobia, depression, no hot showers and constant peril.

    Through it all, though, McArthur creates a fascinating universe. Perhaps reflecting Australia’s geopolitical status vis-a-vis the United States, her humans are merely bit-players on the galactic stage. They barely rent out faster-than-light travel, own a station more through chance than merit (it’s not even human-built) and more or less acknowledge that they can be wiped out at any time. Hmm. (Someone could build a fascinating thesis comparing and contrasting this attitude against the British post-colonialism and the American hegemonism. But that’s not going to happen in this review.)

    As far as the novel itself is concerned, Time Future is merely adequate. It can be read, and eventually picks up some narrative steam, but it’s not much of a page-turner. The details are convincing but not mesmerizing. The writing doesn’t flow as easily as it should for a mystery/adventure such as this one. The characterization is well-done, though maybe more by piling up problems on the characters rather than making them sympathetic. (The protagonist herself is afflicted with yet another one of those “murdered relatives” trauma.)

    Still, it’s a relatively enjoyable novel. The mystery isn’t as interesting as it thinks it is (not all the required facts are available to the reader from the onset), but it’s fun to piece together the various parts of the narrative. Hey, it’s a promising debut.

    Finally, it occurs to this reviewer that the claustrophobic setting of the Jocasta station is in fact an ideal way to introduce the first novel in a space-opera series. Further volumes may uncover and fully use the complexity of the galaxy unveiled in Time Future, much like David Brin’s Uplift series had to wait until volume six to really expand the scope of the action. Who knows?

  • Dispatches from the Tenth Circle, The Onion

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Three Rivers Press, 2001, 174 pages, C$24.00 tpb, ISBN 0-609-80834-6

    I have long been a steadfast admirer of The Onion, a devastatingly funny web humor magazine with the guts to say out loud what most of us can’t even conceive. That admiration became nothing short of worship on September 26, 2001, when The Onion was the first publication to face the 9-11-2001 tragedy with smart satire. (The “Holy F*cking Sh*t! Attack on America!” edition included such disturbing gems as “God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule”, “American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie” and “Hijackers surprised To Find Selves in Hell”)

    While Dispatches from the Tenth Circle doesn’t contain post-2000 material, it represents your most accessible option to reward the good staff of The Onion: rush out to your local bookstore and pick it up, along with their previous Our Dumb Century.

    Inside, you’ll find 174 densely-packed pages of the best of The Onion over a period of a few years (roughly 1998-2000), a steady assortment of howlers and an unflinching look at today’s North-American society. There aren’t very many book out there that fully deserve their price tag, but if anything, Dispatches is a bargain even at cover cost.

    I’d classify the Onion’s shtick to be divided in four rough categories. My general favorite is the “full-blown satire” mode, with such articles as “Doritos Celebrates One Millionth Ingredient”, “South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year”, “Coca-Cola Introduces New 30-Liter Size” or “Video-Game Characters Denounce Randomly Placed Swinging Blades”

    Then there are the “Ironic twist on common headlines”, such as “Supreme Court Overturns Car”, “Loved Ones Recall Local Man’s Cowardly Battle With Cancer”, “Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids” or “ACLU Defend Nazis’ Right To Burn Down ACLU Headquarters”

    Some of the best laughs, of course, come from the “Slice of Daily Life” features, where stupid everyday stuff somehow headline material. Who can resist “Woman Who ‘Loves Brazil’ Has Only Seen Four Square Miles Of It”, “Twelve Customers Gunned Down in Convenience-Store Clerk’s Imagination” or “Graphic Designer’s Judgment Clouded By Desire To Use New Photoshop Plug-in”?

    I’m not generally a fan of the “Other Features” of The Onion, but the “What Do You Think?” often features small gems. A few Point/Counterpoint features (“You The Man / No, You The Man!”, “My Computer Totally Hates Me! / God, Do I Hate That Bitch”) can be priceless.

    Don’t skimp out on the details, either: Some of the best lines in Dispatch are hidden on the margins. Granted, the “STATshot” features are usually lame, but you can’t beat such one-liners as “Standard Deviation Not Enough For Perverted Statistician”, “Georgia Adds Swastika, Middle Finger To State Flag” and “Artist Starving For A Reason”.

    Funny? Damn straight. Expect to laugh aloud, groan, roll your eyes and quote the book for weeks afterward.

    It’s not stupid humor, mind you. If ever you happen to be familiar with one of the subjects lampooned in The Onion, you’ll find that these guys know their stuff; it’s very, very rare to catch them using an improper reference or to make an unintentional factual mistake.

    Of course, the most seductive aspect of Dispatches is how clever it is underneath that veneer of hilarity. Pay attention, and you’ll acknowledge hidden truths about today’s world. The Onion‘s staff is not merely skilled at humor, but at social commentary. (A “vox populi” about middle-east violence includes “Maybe we should stop thinking of it as middle-eastern conflict and start thinking of it as middle-eastern culture.” Ouch.)

    Needless to say, Dispatches from the Tenth Circle is highly recommended. It makes a great gift, and should provide you with enough quotable/photocopiable material for a while. Don’t you dare miss it, nor any of The Onion’s other collections. Needless to say, you can always go to http://www.theonion.com/ for your weekly fix.

  • Lunar Descent, Allen Steele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1991, 325 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-50485-X

    All too often, catching up on an author’s entire oeuvre is an exercise akin to completing a puzzle. You’ll read the most available/important/distinctive works first, then work your way to, eventually, the rest of the picture. Whenever you do complete your work, though, you might find out that the smaller pieces illuminate something unexpected in the panorama.

    So it was that I began to read Allen Steele with his ninth book, and gradually worked my way to the rest of them in time. With Lunar Descent, Steele’s third novel, I finally put in the missing puzzle piece, and it all forms an interesting portrait.

    Orbital Decay was about a semi-rebellion among workers building a space station. Clarke County, Space was about a semi-rebellion among residents of a space station. Lunar Descent… is about a semi-rebellion among workers on the moon. Okay, so the details differ (Clarke County, Space isn’t about the rebellion, though it happens shortly after in the same timeline and Lunar Descent is about a strike action), but at this stage we’re merely playing with words. Suffice to say that some recurring themes do figure pro-eminently in Steele’s fiction.

    The style, too, has similarities. Most of his novel are built around straight-ahead prose supplemented by other forms of writing; interviews, oral testimonies, media articles, etc…

    Both of the above similarities, make sense when you know about Steele’s background as an investigative journalist before he started writing SF full-time. It’s no accident if he’s one of the most liberal SF writers in the business. His blue-collar characters like to have chemically-influenced fun, disrespect authority and do the job their pointy-haired managers have assigned them.

    The protagonists of Lunar Descent are no exception. Our “moondogs” are the few, the brave, the proud men and women mining ore on the moon for the Solar Power Satellite projects back on Earth Orbit. Think about those hard-workin’ oil rig personnel and you’ll have a fair idea of their mindset. Sure, they get high and mean from time to time, but -wink, wink- work hard, play hard, right?

    Apparently, the evil corporate villains of Steele’s fiction don’t think so, and before long they tighten the screws on operations, replacing half the personnel, finding a wholly unsuitable station manager, clamping down on “non-essential” imports and generally doing everything in their power to be completely unlikable. Boo! Hiss! Fight da power!

    So our guys strike, and unfortunately, their evil managers declare their SPS work crucial to national economic indicators, and send in the space marines to quell the rebellion. So it’s exoskeleton-boosted marines against weaponless marines. Who will win? Well, yeah, but not in the way you’d expect, fortunately.

    All and all, even though we’d seen this before, Lunar Descent is a success because of its likable characters, the vivid description of life in a workplace 300,000 kilometers away, the snappy writing and the good humor with which Steele nails down the essential details. Some stuff doesn’t ring true (why is it, for instance, that characters born in the 80s or 90s will always be fascinated by the same classic-rock enjoyed by the author? Hmm.) and Steele’s usual biases make the action predictable at times, but no matter; here’s another solid hard-SF book well worth your time and money. Lunar Descent is what the SF mid-list is all about.

  • First Contract, Greg Costikyan

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 2000, 287 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-54549-4

    You would think that more than a hundred years after H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, Science-Fiction would have managed to come up with every single imaginable twist on the “First Alien Contact” scenario. And yet here’s First Contract, a refreshing take on the subject that will make you smile in amusement even as it describes the complete economic collapse of Earth.

    The hook is simple: Aliens descend on Earth, say “hi!” and propose a small trade; a copy of the galactic encyclopedia in return for the low-low price of, say, Jupiter. Before anyone can scream out “REMEMBER MANHATTAN!”, the deal is done and humans are stuck with a set of UN-controlled data files that no one can figure out. Meanwhile, aliens set up shop on the planet and destroy most of our industries by offering better products. The resulting economic catastrophe makes the depression of the Thirties look like a trifle.

    I won’t pretend that this type of scenario has never been explored before in SF (who knows what might have been published in “Analog”, not to mention Costikyan’s own seed novella, “Sales Reps From the Stars”), but it’s certainly not a common spin, and the style with which it’s explored deserves mention.

    In many ways, this is a novel that should have been published by Baen Books. The glorification of market forces, the deep and thorough knowledge of economic drivers, the quasi-encyclopedic knowledge of past historical precedent all bring to mind the usual Baen potboiler. But no, surprise, this is a Tor book… Jim Baen must be kicking himself.

    The story takes the form of a narrative by Johnson Mukerjii, initially a hard-working high-tech CEO whose business, marriage and life are irremediably destroyed by the aliens. Before long, he’s huddled underneath a bridge, plotting his revenge. Mukerjii makes a perfect narrator, his lively wit illuminating the dry exposition passages he must dish out throughout the story. Hey, it works; expect to know a lot more about stock markets, financial statements and trade shows by the end of First Contract. Heck, the novel will even make you understand how third-world countries have to behave in light of rich-nations imperialism.

    It’s worth repeating that even though the novel deals with heavy-duty economic SF theory, it’s never dull or difficult; Costikyan vulgarizes quite well, and if the novel isn’t all hilariously funny, it’ll leave a quasi-permanent grin on your face while you’re reading it. Which isn’t as straining as you might think; you’ll probably end up reading this book in a single sitting.

    Dig a bit deeper and, of course, you’ll find here a deep and knowing satire on corporatism and the new feudalism. Or is it? Costikyan understands his subject so well that it can play both ways. Certainly the last few pages of the book take the Wal-Mart philosophy of retail (and supply) to its logical galactic extreme… and if that’s not satire, well, I’m ready to send back my SF-Critic’s license.

    It helps, of course, that the book is a throwback to the plucky-humans-über-alles philosophy of so much golden-age SF. Despite being technologically pounded, economically colonized and spiritually destroyed, humanity -through our stalwart hero- finds a way to make a good deal. We haven’t conquered back the universe by the last page, but it’s obvious that we’re on our way and it’s only a matter of time. Say what you want about self-image and wish-fulfillment, but that type of attitude usually earns a bonus point or two in my ratings.

    I wasn’t so taken by the last two pages, which seem a lot like a gratuitous extra spin than a knock-out ending. (Cut it, and the true ending sentence is much funnier. You better believe they’d ship on time.)

    But taken as a whole, First Contract ranks as one of the best SF novels of 2000, a unique blend of big business and alien invasion. Cleverly imagined, compulsively readable and constantly amusing, this is a book that should please a wide array of readers. Don’t miss it.

  • Die Hard [Nothing Lasts Forever], Roderick Thorp

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ivy, 1979 (1988 reprint), 232 pages, C$6.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-8401-0229-5

    You remember DIE HARD? Bruce Willis stuck in a skyscraper with terrorists? Alan Rickman as the bad guy with a weird European accent? “Yippey-Ka-Yay”? The hero throwing himself down the roof with a fire hose attached to his waist? Exploding helicopter? Glass shards embedded in foot? “I now have a machine-gun, ho-ho-ho?” One of the best action movies ever?

    Of course you remember DIE HARD. Everyone does. It’s a bona-fide modern film classic. It’s worth viewing every Christmas.

    But what you probably don’t remember is that the film is based upon a novel, Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever. And what you really don’t know is how much the film improves upon the book.

    Oh, it’s obvious that the two works are connected. In both cases, one lone man dispatches a busload of terrorists inside a high-rise building. The various action beats of the film are generally original to the screenplay, though the same general locations (elevator shaft, executive suite, roof) are used. The dramatic arc is identical, gradually mowing down through enemy ranks up to the final mano-a-mano showdown. But even with similar premises, the differences can be dramatic.

    Most significantly, the protagonist of Nothing Lasts Forever is nothing like Bruce Willis. Joe Leland (not John McClane) is a sixty-something man, an ex-New York detective with a clouded past, a wrong-man-condemned affair presumably stemming from a previous novel. He’s divorced, slightly bitter and not really prone to wisecracks. The author doesn’t wait a long time before using his alter-ego to fulfill deep wishes; barely twenty-five pages in the novel, Leland’s get a date with a woman nearly half his age. Creepier: the damsel-in-distress in the novel is the daughter of the protagonist rather than his wife.

    Where it gets interesting, though, is in the tone shift from novel to screenplay. Whereas the book is dark and nasty, the film is joyful and uplifting. Antagonist-wise, we go from political terrorists to high-tech robbers. Thorp intended to write a “serious” thriller; Screenwriter Stephen de Souza, coached by producer Joel Silver, obviously meant to sketch a mass-market blockbuster. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the conclusion of the novel, in which not only does Leland learns that his daughter is up to no good (P.207-208: “’Klaxon Oil has promised to supply the Chilean fascist regime with arms… Your daughter is one of the principals in this illegal transfer of weapons.”) but she actually dies, dragged outside the skyscraper’s 32nd floor by the corpse of the lead terrorist as he’s shot by the protagonist. Talk about a downer!

    But outside the obvious cheer of DIE HARD’s revised ending, the clean mechanics of the film contrasted to the often-muddled structure of the book clearly illustrate what a good cinematographic adaptation should be. The temporal unity of the action is tightened: The film ends at dawn while the novel drags on until nearly eleven AM. The film squeezes in an early ironic confrontation between hero and villain. Comparing both versions, the film comes out as a leaner, more focused work, a pure thrill machine unburdened by any higher aspiration, yet more effective because it doesn’t dwell on whatever issues bugged the novelist. Compare and contrast Leland’s internal monologue about women in positions of authority versus DIE HARD’s elegant watch symbolism and you’ll see for yourself.

    That’s not even touching upon the things that film can do better than prose. While the jumping-off-roof, breaking-window, being-dragged-by-falling-hose scene is in both the book and the novel, the written version seems limp and lacking in energy compared to the taut filmed sequence.

    In the end, Nothing lasts Forever is an average novel turned in a superior film, a book more interesting as an origin piece than a work by itself. Worth a look for fans of the film who want to understand why it’s so good.