The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula 1918, Kim Newman
Simon & Schuster, 1996, 358 pages, C$32.50 hc, ISBN 0-684-81744-6
Book Review
-
-
Job: A Comedy of Justice, Robert A. Heinlein
Del Rey, 1984, 376 pages, C$23.00 hc, ISBN 0-345-31649-5
It’s generally acknowledged amongst Robert A. Heinlein fans and scholars that the science-fiction author started writing in 1939 with “Life-Line”, stopped in 1987 with Beyond the Sunset but “lost it” as a compelling novelist in 1973 upon publication of I Will Fear No Evil, a long and rambling message novel that left many unsatisfied. Certainly, Heinlein’s near-fatal health problems in early 1973 had something with the lack of editorial discretion exhibited in the final version, but the problem seemed to run deeper: While Heinlein remained a deft storyteller, it seemed as if he had no more stories to tell.
Most of his subsequent novels seemed more preoccupied with tying up together all the diverse universes of his fiction in a single incoherent metaverse where it seemed as if everyone was surprisingly related to everyone else. The stories… well, the stories never got any better. Material for a short story suddenly found itself blown over four hundred pages and scenes that should have been over in an instant suddenly took whole chapters.
But somehow, it all remained interesting. Heinlein’s writing style redefined “limpid” for generations of readers, always clearing the way for the story while polishing it up for memorable epigrams. It’s no accident if most of Heinlein’s work is narrated in the first person; it’s a natural device for allowing the storyteller full access to his repertoire of tricks, devices and character insights. (It also allowed every protagonist to sound exactly the same, but let’s not go there.)
In this context, Job stands as perhaps Heinlein’s second-best post-1973 book. (I still think that Friday isn’t all that bad despite a considerable mid-book lull and some rather strange psychodynamics.)
The plot is self-explanatory from the title (with an SF twist). Our protagonist, a church man from a radically fundamentalist culture, is arbitrarily yanked through alternate universes, reduced to abject poverty, forced to menial work and constant vigilance by the whims of two supreme entities on a bet. As I said; good material for a short story smeared over far too many pages. But at least it all builds up to something grand, which is considerably more than one can say about, oh, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
Fortunately, one thing that has only improved with age is the way Heinlein told his story. It’s a testament to his verve and overall skill that even at his worst, Heinlein remained a compulsively readable author, someone whose books could be loads of fun without necessarily leading somewhere. Even in Job‘s dullest moments -the first half of the book is a succession of adventures that might or might not have any meaning- there’s always a comforting, witty narration to help us through.
Alas, another trait that became more obvious through Heinlein’s latter year is his delight in didactism. Heinlein was, in many respect, an exceptional man who aimed at becoming even better. This credo of his, when practised properly, gave form to some of the best juvenile fiction out there (Hey, I got in SF solely because of Space Cadet), but at its worst gave rise to message-fiction so thinly disguised it was embarrassing (The Number of the Beast). Job is halfway between the two, poking fun at religion in a significant, yet respectful, fashion. The old man knew what he was doing.
The end result of Job’s travails is not quite as impressive as you might think. Some late-book developments will make you go “huh?” and some promising early leads are never followed, such as the “money case” that gives the impression that Heinlein started writing an action-adventure story, then got a better idea.
But it all leads somewhere somewhat satisfying. An embarrassment of rich epigrams is also available for the retelling. If I pity those who have read Job more than those who haven’t, it’s because they can now look forward to one less Heinlein book. That’s how good he remains, despite everything.
-
The Nudist on the Late Shift, Po Bronson
Random House, 1999, 248 pages, C$38.00 hc, ISBN 0-375-50277-7
When charting the evolution of human civilization, things inevitably get rolling in Africa. After some time in the Middle-East, the vanguard of human society eventually moves to Europe. (And China, which for the purposes of this review, we can pretty much ignore.) Then it’s off to the New World, where the (North American) East Coast enjoys its moment of glory before passing the marker to the West Coast. Interestingly enough, new territories, unmarked as they are by existing social conventions, are always fertile breeding reactors for new social experiments.
Lacking habitable land on Mars or Venus, the cutting-edge of humanity has remained in California, making movies, enjoying the surf and increasingly pushing back the limits of technical knowledge and capacities. The so-called “Silicon Valley” has sprung up from relatively sedate farmground, pushed by university graduates, venture capitalist and, let’s just face it, plain weirdos.
The Nudist on the Late Shift is an attempt to explore what is Silicon Valley, through various aspects of life in the Valley. It reads a lot like a collection of articles in Wired, which in fact it is at a certain degree: Bronson is a regular contributor to the magazine, and certain parts of the book did seem awfully reminiscent of previously read material.
But the book has an advantage that Wired doesn’t, and it’s that it’s going to be shelved in libraries for a long time, explaining to future generation what was, for a brief time, Silicon Valley. Whether they find it amusingly quaint or unbearably insane will say a lot about the final impact of the Valley on the world at large.
In eight chapters, Bronson explores “the culture” of the Valley through its various inhabitants. There are The Newcomers, The financiers (in The IPO), The Entrepreneurs, The Programmers, The Salespeoples, The Futurist, The Dropout and everyone else in “Is the Revolution Over?” With them, we visit the Valley’s Internet Hub, we go through the nerve-wracking process that leads to an Initial Public Offering, we envision a clock that will still be standing a thousand years from now, we sell software, we cheer for the immigrant-cum-millionaire, we demo hastily-programmed software for a major Internet player, we gaze in the future of the business and peek under the belly of the gleaming techno-beast to see if the dream’s alive for everyone.
It could have been any book, but isn’t thanks to an impeccable writing style. Bronson is used to the magazine crowd, and that’s why his book constantly switches narrative gears, displays an amazing range of techniques and generally makes itself so compelling to read that you’ll read whole chapters in one sitting. There are many impressive moment, whether dramatic (the IPO chapter is a must-read for everyone interested in this type of financial event) or hilarious. (don’t be surprised to laugh aloud during sections of the book, as Bronson’s narration is so amazingly pitch-perfect.)
Best of all is that there doesn’t seem to be any technical mistakes. Bronson gets the details right and doesn’t overly dumb them up for the general audience that his book is trying to reach. Add to that the reams of useful or plainly odd information contained in the book and the witty style and you’ve got yourself a winner. Read it as a time capsule, or as a plain entertainment: Either way, it’s a success.
Useless note for the amusement of the reader: I bought my copy of The Nudist on the Late Shift at a used-book sale in one of the richest neighbourhood of Ottawa. Imagine my surprise at finding, inside the book, a “Review Copy from Random House” note addressed to a book reviewer at the National Post newspaper! The highlighted sections were informative.
-
Enigma, Robert Harris
Arrow, 1995, 390 pages, C$11.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-09-999200-0
March 1943. It’s not the darkest hour of the Second World War, but it’s still somewhat bleak. While the Nazis are getting stomped on by the Russians at home, progress is being made in Africa and supplies are getting through, the war isn’t quite won yet. Convoys from America are still the thin lifeline sustaining England and it is essential to keep the U-Boats at bay (or, more accurately, safely sunk on the ocean floor) if the fight is to go on.
Fortunately, the bright fellows at Bletchley Park, a top-secret English codebreaking centre, have cracked the top-secret encryption used by the U-Boats to communicate with their home bases. This allows the British Royal Air Force to oh-so-conveniently patrol the areas where -surprise!- they discover U-Boats ripe for sinking. A cozy arrangements for all except the Nazis and the U-Boat crews.
Naturally, the Germans can’t be allowed to find out that their codes have been broken, right? Otherwise, they’d change it to something completely different and the RAF would be back to totally random patrols. The expression “national security” was invented exactly for situations of this type.
As Robert Harris’ Enigma opens, a “brilliant young mathematician” (it’s in the job description) named Tom Jericho has two problems. First, he’s recalled to Bletchley Park from his self-imposed exile because the Germans have finally switched encryption. Second, but far more importantly, he’s still moping over the cause of his exile, a small love disaster with a girl named Claire.
The fact that their relationship isn’t too spectacular, remains safely in the background or that Claire emerges as something of a trollop isn’t the novel’s principal flaw.
In any case, Jericho is driven back to Bletchley Park, where we get a tour of the facilities with the care we could expect from an author who’s made his reputation with intricately detailed “alternate histories” novels of Nazi-occupied England. The technical details all sound right, and we can only be grateful for yet another good record of not only one of the war’s biggest stories, but also the birthplace of computer theory.
Bletchley Park is a great setting for a spying thriller, mixing dramatic importance with technical possibilities. Enigma also has the advantage of covering what was at the time (1995) unbroken ground for thriller writers. (Ironically enough, the first histories of World War II completely ignored Bletchley Park because all the details were still classified. It is only since the seventies that the relevant papers have been declassified and that the true significance of Bletchley Park has been integrated in the “official” history of the War.)
Well, mostly unbroken ground now. Technically-competent readers have since had the chance to read profusely on the subject of cryptanalysis, and the definitive fictional treatment of Bletchley Park is now to be found in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.
In other words, try to read Enigma before Cryptonomicon, otherwise Stephenson’s irresistible prose may spoil Harris’ soggy narrative. It’s not that Enigma isn’t a good book (it’s quite good, actually), but it shares with British cuisine an overall air of sophisticated detachment, of carefully studied blandness. Hey, don’t be fooled: it’s still good, smart, perfectly adequate entertainment. But don’t be surprised if you find out that the tough unpleasant British wartime conditions start mirroring the novel’s overall appeal.
(As of this writing (January 2001), the film version of Enigma has screened at the Sundance film festival, garnering mixed critical notice. Perhaps the most puzzling thing about the film is the casting, with Dougray Scott (Jericho), Saffron Burrows (Claire) and Kate Winslet as the “plain” Hester sidekick. Ah, only in the movies… It should open continent-wide sometime in 2001 whenever it finds a distributor.)
-
Tesla: Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney
Dell Laurel, 1981, 320 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-39077-X
I sincerely pity those who don’t take the time to study history. Not because of Santayana’s admonition or out of a feeling of cultural superiority, but mostly because these people tend to miss great stories and impressive characters. The Yom Kippur war of 1973. Francis Drake. World War II. Scott and Amundsen’s race for the South Pole. Disraeli. Xenophon’s Ten Thousands. Our history is filled with dramatic event, major characters and important knowledge that tends to be swept away by time unless they’re studied by modern audiences.
It’s a fair bet to say that while many remember Thomas Edison, few can precisely identify Nicola Tesla. Even I, no stranger to scientific history, somehow ended up with the misapprehension that he was Russian. Well, if anything can correct this regrettable oversight, it’s Margaret Cheney’s book-long biography Tesla: Man Out of Time.
Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Serbia. An early prodigy in physical sciences, Tesla dropped priesthood studies in order to become an engineer. Disappointed in the lack of interest for his inventions in Europe, he emigrated to the United States in 1884 where he worked a few months for Thomas Edison before striking out on his own. Shortly afterward, he invented and patented the basic elements of alternating-current electricity, which is still used today. Unfortunately, this was in direct competition with Edison’s direct-current systems, which caused a lifelong war between the two men. Unfortunately, Edison was far more organized than Tesla, which explains the current reputation of both men despite widespread technical recognition of Tesla’s superior technical achievements.
Make no mistake: Tesla: Man Out of Time is, from its title onward, a gee-whiz popular biography. There isn’t a lot of scientific or technical detail (Despite the blurb that claims that Cheney is “a science writer”, I fail to see any degree of technical comfort in her writing) and what little is there doesn’t impress by its clarity or precision. The book is filled with statements that Tesla invented something that’s still in use today, even if the difference between idea and actual implementation is often enormous. (The passage on VTOL aircraft on page 201-203 illustrate this very well.)
It’s obvious that Cheney’s goal is to make some sort of quasi-magical super-inventor out of Nikola Tesla. One of the biggest failing of the book is its uncritical acceptance of parapsychological events surrounding Tesla’s eccentricity. (Even citing now-discredited ESP research as “proof”) It smacks of seventies’ ESP craze and casts a shadow on the rest of the “harder” assertions. And that’s not even mentioning all the bow-wow “this effect was never replicated after Tesla’s death” passages.
But even allowing for a considerably margin of error, fudging and outright statue-building, Nikola Tesla remains a fascinating individual. The patent record speaks for itself as for the technical genius of the man. The book does the rest for his freakish personality. His considerably ingenuity never translated in financial success due to stupid decisions, lack of discipline and Edison’s mud-throwing. What didn’t help was Tesla’s incessant boasts which might or might not have been based in reality. (Of course, Cheney seldom expresses doubts as to the validity of these impetuous declarations, further enhancing Tesla’s mythical status and devaluating her credibility.)
But even given those provisos and assorted warnings, Tesla: Man Out of Time remains an exceptional introduction to one of history’s most interesting inventor. While I’m not as convinced that Tesla single-handedly invented the basis of modern civilization as Cheney seems to be, she did manage to convince me that Tesla is an unjustly-forgotten character whose likes we’ll probably never see again. A fascinating man, and one deserving of further study.
As well as of a second opinion.
-
Exclusive, Sandra Brown
Warner, 1996, 469 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60423-2
I’m usually a very demanding reader. I expect intricate plotting, well-defined characters, strong realism, exact technical details and, generally, a novel that doesn’t assume that I’m an idiot.
But then again, I like to think of myself as a reckless book critic who likes to take chances and isn’t afraid to look like a moron.
In short, I liked Sandra Brown’s Exclusive even though on many level it’s an awful novel.
For starters, it doesn’t even attempt to be realistic. The First Lady of the United States invites a low-level TV journalist and suggests that her newborn child was murdered. Cut to the president scheming how to shut up the TV journalist. Cut to the journalist checking out an ex-presidential aide now retired in the wild. Insert gratuitous sex scene. Cut to president demanding that the ex-aide be disposed of. Insert revelation that the child might have been the aide’s because the president had a vasectomy without telling his wife. Add presidential murders, infanticide, double-crosses, torrid sex, false fakeouts, conspiracies, FBI agents, strong-and-deadly protagonists, houses blowing up and you’ve got something akin to a weird hybrid between men’s adventure novels, X-Files episodes and Harlequin romances.
Exclusive never attempts to cultivate an aura of realism. The cackling evil president has no basis in reality (not even as a cross between Clinton and Nixon), the secret agents seem to come straight from Men in Black and the intricate interrelationship are stolen straight from daytime soaps. Sloppiness or cheekiness, the effect is the same; a novel that’s enjoyable because it’s so honestly over-the-top.
The writing style reflect this willingness to plow forward without attention to verisimilitude: This is a one-day no-bookmarks novel designed to make you turn the pages as quickly as possible. The writing is simple, direct and to the point.
Which doesn’t preclude some annoying quirks. The last act of the novel is precipitated by a preposterous link with a minor background detail that borders on sheer coincidence if not outright authorial intervention. It’s not the only, nor the least, of the outrageous plot development. Brown is also fond of fakeouts, which will quickly cause experience readers to fall back on their most paranoid ain’t-dead-until-you-kick-the-body attitudes. Finally, for some reason, it’s really hard to warm up to Exclusive‘s protagonist, who comes across as a none-too-competent whiner more than a true heroine. But then again, Brown’s sarcastic dialogues would make a shrew out of Mother Theresa.
And yet, for all its excessiveness, multiple twists and eye-rolling revelations, Exclusive is a heck of a lot of fun. Granted, it’s hard to make an outright comedy with infanticide, presidential murders and other cheery material, but Exclusive is best seen as a tongue-in-cheek quasi-parody of those oh-so-serious political thrillers available elsewhere on the shelves. Somehow, I don’t think that Brown was quite aiming at this territory when she set out to write this book, but given that this is her sixteenth novel, she’s professional enough to make it a lot of fun anyway.
Surprisingly enough, while occasional readers might like Exclusive on its most basic level, it’s the jaded readers who might the biggest kicks out of Brown’s novel, with its lively tendency to do exactly what you wouldn’t expect. Considering it a comedy might be unfair and extreme, but then again so is Exclusive.
-
Mars Crossing, Geoffrey A. Landis
Tor, 2000, 331 pages, C$35.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-87201-1
Like with so many SF authors known uniquely for a string of excellent short stories, Geoffrey A. Landis’ first novel was eagerly awaited by readers of the genre. As a particularly gifted representative of the Hard-SF school of writing, Landis had demonstrated, through his stories, a talent for complex characters, lucid prose and a fertile imagination. Mars Crossing arrived on shelves in time for Christmas and the new millennium, hopefully satisfying a legion of eager fans.
Landis plays it safe by setting his first novel on Mars. In the past few years, SF has seen a renewed interest in the Red Planet outstripping even the early-nineties boom which had given rise to, most famously, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. He takes a half-serious, half-adventurous approach to the planet halfway between the nuts-and-bolts of Stephen Baxter’s Voyage and the wild ludicrousness of Hollywood’s Mars blockbusters. The result is uneven, but entertaining.
As with several of the other Mars novels, Mars Crossing spends half its time describing the trip on Mars, and the other half explaining how the various members of the expedition ended up there. The current section of the novel is fine, concerning itself with a series of nick-of-time adventures aimed at getting the astronauts off Mars after a disastrous technical problem shortly after landing. Parallels are made with the exploration of Antarctica, which should give you an idea of the book’s body count. Canyons are crossed, planes are flown, calculations and stupid mistakes are made, people are killed or murdered and during all that time, as with all Mars novels, the stupid people on Earth couldn’t care less about space exploration. Thrills and chills abound and the pacing is snappy.
It’s the other half of Landis’ novel that isn’t so good. In an effort to bring more drama to a survival adventure story, Landis makes sure that every one of his characters (except the guy who buys it barely fifty pages in the novel) is jam-packed with past traumas, deep secrets, unchivalrous motives, hidden identities and severe sociopathologies. While it would have been fine for one or two characters, the cumulative effect invites disbelief. It’s entirely possible to come to a point where you can’t care about the next big trauma that Landis will reveal.
On the other hand, this does make up for a bunch of interesting characters. Those who thought that the “Survivor” casts had interesting problems and treacherous personalities are bound to be pleasantly surprised here.
Fortunately, despite everything, “Survivor” addicts are not the only one likely to derive some satisfaction from the novel. Landis wrote a lot of short stories before sending Mars Crossing to Tor, and it shows through the limpid writing style as well as the numerous short chapters. While the flashback to the characters’ previous lives might be exasperating at the macro-level, they’re handled with the right amount of detail and attention. As with all good adventures, Mars Crossing moves with the proper pacing. And, Landis being a working scientist in his non-writing time, you can be assured of the novel’s aura of technical authenticity. He’s less successful in describing future social trends and musical styles, but at least he makes an effort at it.
The end result, all things considered, is a honest first novel with some flaws, but also with enough strengths to recommend to the hard-SF audience. While a slight disappointment on some levels, Mars Crossing promises a lot for Landis’ future career as a novelist, as well as for his expectant fans.
-
Transfer of Power, Vince Flynn
Pocket, 1999, 549 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-02320-9
With the first part of Vince Flynn’s first novel, Term Limits, it was possible to imagine reading something new: A libertarian thriller backed by a major publisher. As corrupt politicians were offed by patriot executioners with nary a second thought by the author, it was a memorable departure from countless other thrillers stuck in their black-versus-white worldview. Of course, the book lost its nerve shortly afterward, and the rest of the narrative was focused on a chase to apprehend more classically evil “copycat” terrorists. (Though it’s worth remembering that the original virtuous terrorists almost get away with it.)
Transfer of Power is Flynn’s second novel, and as with many sophomore efforts, it’s more technically successful yet ultimately less satisfying.
It begins as so many other thrillers do, with an American operation deep behind enemy lines. Before long, a well-known terrorist is captured and brought back to the United States. During his in-flight interrogation, he reveals that his buddies are preparing something big. Against the President of the United States.
The alert is given too late, but not entirely too late. While the White House is taken over by the terrorists, the security service, warned by the CIA, manages to escape the threat and take refuge in a half-completed bunker. A jammer is installed, cutting off all contact between the president and his forces. The Vice-President takes command. Demands are made. No one can agree on what to do next.
Well, almost no one. As could be expected in this type of story, there is always one lone maverick who won’t hesitate to talk straight, think tough and act decisively. In Transfer of Power, this man (it’s always a man) is Mitch Rapp, a special forces operative who has pretty much all the talents needed to retake the White House.
The rest of the plot you can pretty much figure out by yourself, especially if you’ve seen DIE HARD and its imitators. No troubling moral questions here. There’s one shock moment near the end that is inevitable in retrospect, but still shows some guts. But most of all, Transfer of Power is built and executed according to formula. Nowhere is this more visible in the tacked-upon romantic subplot, which annoys and slows down the novel more than any other factor.
But if we discard the conventional structure, length is by far the worst of Transfer of Power‘s faults. Flynn’s novel simply doesn’t have the depth or complexity to sustain very nearly 550 pages. This type of book, to be efficient, needs to be snappy. And snappy it is not, with endless delays, romantic uselessness and far too much time spent waiting for something.
Still, if you’re after an averagely satisfying thriller, you could do worse than to try Transfer of Power. Despite the length, Flynn keeps things interesting, integrates interesting details in the narrative, adequately sketches his characters with effectiveness and generally knows how to deliver.
Expect a dumb-as-dirt Hollywood version sometime soon.
-
Storm of the Century, Stephen King
Pocket, 1999, 376 pages, C$22.00 tpb, ISBN 0-671-03264-X
EXT. ROCKLAND, ONTARIO: MIDDLE-CLASS SUBURBAN NEIGHBOURHOOD—NIGHT
A lone Saturn car makes it through the streets of Rockland. It is snowing heavily, and only the excellent driving skills of THE REVIEWER, plus the front-wheel drive of the Saturn, manage to overcome the blizzard. The town is blacked-out: Only the headlights of the car illuminate the streets.
The Saturn finally turns in a driveway and stops besides a modest home. The REVIEWER gets out of the car and enters the house. Behind him, his footsteps in the snow are erased by the howling wind.
INT. HOUSE, HOME OFFICE
The REVIEWER tries to open the light, but the power is obviously out. Ever-prepared, he opens a drawer and takes out candles and dry food.
He settles down in his favourite reading chair. Looking on his coffee table, he notices that the next book on his reading stack is Stephen King’s screenplay for the TV movie Storm of the Century, published in book form by a publisher eager to make a few extra dollars.
The REVIEWER takes the book, looks at the white blackness outside and smiles. How appropriate. He sits down and starts to read.
There is a battery-operated alarm clock besides him. Five minutes pass.
REVIEWER (VO)
Wow, King surely loves to spoil things in his introduction. Should have been an afterword. I’m worried about his comparison with Needful Things, because so far the plot of both stories seem identical. Let’s read on.
Five minutes pass.
REVIEWER (VO)
No small surprise that King loves the script format. It’s as descriptive as his usual writing style, and he can’t help but comment on the action.
Twenty minutes pass.
REVIEWER (VO)
Nothing much has happened so far, but I’m intrigued. Who’s that Limoges fellow who kills and then asks for something? What’s that something? If it wouldn’t be for that question, the rest of the setup would be unbearably slow.
Another twenty minutes pass.
REVIEWER (VO)
You know, King, it might be time to start the action. Halfway through, and half the dialogue’s so far is Limoges saying “Gimme whatta want and I’ll go away.”
Five minutes later.
REVIEWER (VO)
Ah! More people die!
Ten minutes later.
REVIEWER (VO)
Okay, stop the body count, I think I get the point.
Five minutes…
REVIEWER (VO)
No, but really!
Ten minutes.
REVIEWER (VO)
So that is what he wants. Is that it?
Thirty seconds.
REVIEWER (VO)
Apparently so. I can see where this is going.
Ten minutes. The reviewer snaps the book shut.
REVIEWER (VO)
Pretty much of a downer. Doesn’t deliver much, but that’s okay since we weren’t expecting much. Not one of his best, obviously.
The REVIEWER gets up, shaking his head. At least he’ll be able to read something more interesting right away. He glances at his reading table and sees that all the books are more copies of Storm of the Century
He gets up, shocked. He runs to his library and looks at the shelves. More copies of Storm of the Century. In all formats: paperback, hardcover, audiobook, videocassette, DVD…
STEPHEN KING (VO)
Give me the review that I want, and I’ll go away.
The REVIEWER hyperventilates and screams.
REVIEWER
NOOO!!!
Outside, the storm continues, unabated.
-
Voyage, Stephen Baxter
Harper Collins, 1996, 772 pages, C$6.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105708-8
It’s nearly impossible nowadays to have more than a passing interest in space without feeling betrayed by politics. It’s a sobering thought to realize that no one has left Earth’s orbit in more a quarter of a century, or, personally, in my lifetime. The glorious results of Apollo have not been, to speak like managers, “leveraged” to better and bolder things. No Moonbase. No exploitation of lunar resources. No expeditions to Mars. After a few spectacular missions, the United States just… stopped. Politicians cut NASA’s budget, essentially stopping space exploration in favour of some ill-defined social programs that, frankly, don’t seem to work very well.
This theme of betrayal runs deep in Stephen Baxter’s fiction. In Traces, Baxter collected several short stories about alternate space programs. In Titan, astronauts steal a shuttle to go to Jupiter. In Moonseed, Baxter rails on for a while on NASA’s shortcomings. And now, in Voyage, Baxter really lets himself go and describes an alternate space program in which Americans land on Mars… in 1986.
The point of divergence between our universe and theirs, surprisingly enough, turns to be the oldest of those “what if” scenarios, which is to say a different fate for John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. JFK lives to be an indefatigable booster for the space program, which realigns its priorities after the first moon landing to develop a one-shot Mars mission for 1986. Various difficulties intervene, stuff and marriages blow up, people are selected to go to Mars and, as you might guess, the novel ends on Mangala Valles itself.
As suggested by the introduction to this review, Voyage is less of a story and much more of a book-length treatise and analysis of the impact of politics on the space program since the sixties. As such, don’t expect compelling drama, heart-stopping suspense or heavy theatrics. In his quest for verisimilitude, Baxter concentrates on how it might have really happened rather than on constant jolts of action. (There is one good jolt midway through, and it has more impact due to the lack of action preceding it.) Even the structure of the novel -told in flashbacks between liftoff and Mars landing- seems to conspire against heightened tension. There isn’t really any suspense in knowing if the mission will make it to Mars. Indeed, the novel ends on a note that seems to suggest that the return from Mars itself is unimportant.
But, ah-ha, the “getting there” aspect is very well-done. The amount of detail that Baxter packs in Voyage are nothing short of awe-inspiring. In his mind, he’s obviously setting out to re-create a complete space program, and he achieves it successfully. All levels of the space program are covered, from the astronauts to the NASA administrators to the humble contractors doing more than “just their job” in order to put Americans on Mars. Authentic documents are reproduced, and seemingly-authentic ones are written.
One small nit I had was the lack of other changes in this alternate history. The presidents remain the same. Moon landing date and Apollo 13 are unaffected. Historical events don’t seem to be disturbed by JFK’s survival. Sure, it focuses the interest on the Mars mission, but still…
A more serious issue (which is not necessarily a complaint) is that for all its intricate detail and constant proselytism, Voyage fails to convince that this alternate history is somehow better than ours. It makes a powerful argument that we should go to Mars, but the post-Voyage space program seems poised to stop like ours did, except without any Shuttles or Voyagers in service. Voyage literally ends once someone steps on Mars. Maybe Baxter wants to give us an idea of the required trade-offs?
But if your kicks tend to be space-related, and/or if you have a fondness for Hard SF and historical novels, give Voyage a try. It’s an ambitious work that highlights new possibilities for the genre, and represents an impressive intellectual achievement in its own right.
-
The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay
Penguin, 1995, 582 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-14-024313-5
I’ll be prompt to confess that I don’t read a lot of fantasy. Science-Fiction, thrillers and military fiction are my chosen genres, but fantasy… well, I’ll leave that to other people. We can get along.
But that doesn’t mean that I read no fantasy. It just depends on the circumstances. For instance, I found myself, during Fall 2000, rummaging through a table of books at a goodwill sale, ending up with 11 choices. The salesperson counted them and asked if I minded picking another book to make it an even dozen to simplify the bill. Always glad to oblige, I looked over to the nearest section and saw, in the middle of a tapestry of Harlequin novels, Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Lions of Al-Rassan. I had known for some time that I would read Kay sooner of later (after all, he’s a fellow Ontarian), so luck decided that I’d end up reading Kay sooner rather than later.
And a fortuitous choice it was. The Lions of Al-Rassan sucked me in its narrative like very few fantasy books have managed to do. From the opening pages, where a young doctor is forced in a campaign against the king, Kay is a professional who knows how to hook his readers. In short time, we’re effortlessly introduced to a historical setting with troubling similarities with medieval Spain, but also quite unlike it. Three major culture clash on a single peninsula, with assorted third-parties jumping into the fray as needed.
Even though The Lions of Al-Rassan is usually labelled fantasy, it’s not your usual Tolkienesque heroic fantasy ripoff. There is one single element of “impossibility” in the novel (a remote viewing sense which could have been written out, slight as it is); the rest is strictly realistic. Kay has written sort of an extreme alternate history of medieval Spain and the result is astonishing by its depth, accessibility and cleverness. There is a lot of material here, especially for a one-shot novel that could have been (unfortunately) turned into a full trilogy. Kings are killed, empires fall, wars are waged in an unusually zippy 582 pages. The depth, complexity and realism of Al-Rassan’s complex universe is nearly awe-inspiring.
But to spend much time on the empires and the cerebral qualities of The Lions of Al Rassan would be ignoring the novel’s biggest strength, its unusually well-developed and sympathetic protagonists. A trio of linked characters—a doctor, a warrior and a politician/poet—form the access point through which the land of Al-Rassan is revealed to the reader. These Lions are at the center of the upheavals described in the novel, and while the narrative may often feature royal palace intrigues, it is most compelling when focusing on the three protagonists. “How-to” writing books repeat that good characters are the key to sweeping fiction: you will not be able to find a better illustration of this maxim than with The Lions of Al-Rassan.
Kay is gifted in that he can write a prose that is polished, beautiful and completely understandable at first glance. Breathtaking descriptions of Al-Rassan co-exist with clever dialogue and pulse-pounding action scenes that would belong in action movies. It’s hard not to like an author who delivers the goods like that.
If there are things to dislike, they come at the end, where Kay seems to delight in obscuring some information in order to maintain suspense for a few more pages. Unfortunately, the effect is closer to exasperation than suspense, as we’ll just rush through the rest of the book to find out who won and who didn’t.
But never mind that: I won’t go as far as saying that The Lions of Al-Rassan single-bookedly restored my faith in Fantasy, but it’s certainly an exceptional, memorable work by a professional of the genre. As my testimony might suggest, even non-genre readers might enjoy this book. At least give it a try.
-
Bordering on Aggression, Floyd W. Rudmin
Voyageur, 1993, 192 pages, C$14.95 tpb, ISBN 0-921842-09-0
An American invasion of Canada has long been a favorite topic for humor writers. While no one would seriously question the military superiority of the United States of America versus Canada’s mostly figurative military forces, it’s hard to imagine why the Americans would do such a thing. Canada and the States have been good buddy-friend nations for so long that the mere thought of a war between the two countries is enough to elicit giggles. US invading Canada (or the reverse) spawned one comedy film, CANADIAN BACON, and at least a few hundred “humorous” web pages.
But Floyd W. Rudmin is dead serious when he discusses the subject in Bordering on Aggression, a book examining motives, plans and means by which the US could, if it was so inclined, take military control of Canada.
The first myth that Rudmin destroys is the so-called long-standing friendship between the two countries. As most alert Canadian high-schoolers remember from their history course, Americans invaded Canadian soil in 1812 and again decades later during the Fenian insurrections. But Rudmin digs deeper in American military archives and starts uncovering detailed invasion plans all the way through middle twentieth century, the latest date at which such documents were declassified.
Why invade Canada? Well, if ever the northern neighbours get a bit uppity about selling their natural resources at a fair price, then the US might take away what it needs. If that’s too unsubtle for you, just consider that in the event of Quebec independence, the US might take steps in order to protect its borders by pre-emptively securing trouble areas. If that wasn’t enough, just consider the old Manifest Destiny doctrine…
Paranoid? Rudmin would rather maintain that he’s well informed. A large section of Bordering on Aggression details the military build-up at Fort Drum, ideally positioned to unleash a strike at the Canadian heartland. Rudmin argues at length that the official mission of the base makes no sense but is ideally suited to Canadian invasion.
A lot of what Rudmin advances does fall under the “contingency” header. Somehow, I’d worry more about a US military that does not plan for all situations, including trouble in Canada. But, as could be expected, Rudmin maintains that US preparations go well beyond simply planning…
While the above premise may still sound completely implausible, the book does a good job of developping the concept. Rudmin has included many sources and even though his sensationalistic bias is obvious, he should be able to instill a flicker of doubt in any reader’s mind. He’s most adept at anticipating criticism, though: He begins the book by warning us against the giggle factor inherent in discussing the subject, later stating flatly that “ridicule has historically been the technique favoured to dismiss concern” [P.179] Rudmin’s insistence to protect himself against almost all objections often make his argumentation seem somewhat defensive, but it also defuses many of the point that smart-alecky reviewers such as myself might be tempted to make.
Even the ultimate concern is addressed: While most Canadian would welcome the news of American military preparations with a fatalistic shrug (“What can we do anyway?”), Rudmin cleverly concludes his book by suggesting that all Canadians learn Civilian Nonviolent Defence, a set of passive strategies designed to promote civil disobedience and economic sabotage. Rudmin suggests that such strategies worked previously in Denmark, India and Eastern Europe, so why not do the only sensible thing left to us? It’s an intriguing conclusion to an interesting book.
Even if you’re not overly swept away by Rudmin’s thesis, the book appears too well-researched to be dismissed easily, and in any case makes several interesting points, independent to its main argument. The historical sections by themselves are fascinating. Worth a critical look.
-
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
Gollancz, 2000, 476 pages, C$22.95 tpb, ISBN 0-575-06876-0
Any novel with the gall of putting “The first great science fiction novel of the century” on the cover upon publication in January 2000 is setting itself up for huge expectations. Things get more interesting when you realize that it’s a first novel for British SF writer Reynolds. Portentous announcement, or mere marketing hyperbole? Let’s find out.
The first hundred pages of the novel are both promising and disquieting. While Reynolds shows a comforting writing ability and packs a high density of concepts in a few pages, he deals with at least three different story at several different times. Though things eventually converge, they are cause for some confusion, especially when the narrative jumps in time.
Eventually, though, a story emerges, one of a dedicated (maybe mad) scientist named Dan Sylveste, who is much, much more important than he initially seems to be… or at least that’s why an elite assassin and a spaceship crew are willing to cross light-years and realtime decades in order to get him. Of course, Revelation Space wouldn’t be a grandiose space-opera without a few alien races, terrible galactic dangers and shattering betrayals. Those come in time.
Fortunately for its own good, the book’s pace accelerates in time, and while it might take some work to get going through the first half, the rest of the book is as compulsively readable as anything published in the genre. Even clocking at nearly 500 dense pages, Revelation Space almost feels too short at times. The intricate detail in no way detracts from the pleasure of reading once all the necessary pieces have been assimilated by the reader. There is a lot of setup, but also a lot of sustained payoff. (Though the action often skips too quickly over dramatic moments, then settles down for long stretches of exposition. First novel technical faults.) Interactions between the characters are complex and multi-layered, often changing dramatically over time. Gadget freaks will find a lot of those, and even more socio-technical concepts scattered here and there.
This might be Reynolds’ first novel, but he already shows most of the skills required to compete with some of his best contemporaries. Indeed, Revelation Space has much of the same feel than recent novels from the Brit school of Hard-SF as practiced by such authors as MacLeod, Baxter, MacDonald or Banks. No wonder if many formerly-disappointed fans are coming back to the genre because of these writers: It’s nothing short of a revitalization of the smart space opera / Hard-SF sub-genre that they’re bringing forth.
As an SF novel, Revelation Space is very very good. Good enough to be, yes, “the first great science fiction novel of the century.” As a first novel, it’s so accomplished that it’s almost scary. I was lucky enough to find a British edition only a few months after its initial release in England and well before its release in North America. You’ve been warned; don’t miss it.
-
Gravity Dreams, L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Tor, 1999, 468 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-56661-0
In his previous novel Adiamante, R.L. Modesitt Jr. proved his talent for taking a standard space-opera premise and turning it into an unusually thoughtful piece of true science-fiction. Readers enthralled by that novel were more fascinated by social moral dilemmas than with the inevitable pyrotechnics. One reviewer coined (or re-used) the term “intellectual suspense” in reviewing Adiamante, and it still stands as one of the best general descriptors of Modesitt’s fiction.
With Gravity Dreams, he applies the same willingness to peer behind some of SF’s standard gadgets to draw a wide-scale portrait of a new society built on better foundations than ours. If the plot is less satisfying than Adiamante, the book is nevertheless an improvement over his previous effort.
To immerse the reader in thirty-first century Earth, Modesitt begins by using the time-honored device of the innocent. Few would call Tyndel, Gravity Dreams‘s protagonist, an innocent in the confines of his native society. He is initially, after all, an apprentice Dzin master, a teacher/mentor of the fundamentalist state religion.
But keeping him in this state would make a rather boring novel. So Tyndel (through a somewhat bizarre set of events) is exiled outside his community to the neighboring Lyncol, a high-tech society that looks upon Tyndel’s community as charmingly quaint. Unfortunately for him, his rescue from Dzin required expensive treatment, which he will have to repay.
Before he can even properly learn the rules of his new environment, Tyndel is exiled again, this time as a laborer in a distant space station. Don’t worry, he’ll eventually learn to cope. The novel is obviously a bildungsroman in which the author can indoctrinate both protagonist and readers to cool new social ideas.
I may sound flippant, but the truth is that I enjoyed Gravity Dreams a lot, especially the ideas that are brought forth by Modesitt. None-too-convincingly disguising his libertarian sympathies, Modesitt writes of a society where widespread nanotechnology has brought forth a non-negotiable need for personal responsibility. A large portion of Gravity Dreams‘s thematic strength is built on an exploration of a society that expects responsibility from truly adult citizens.
Tangentially, that strikes me as one of SF’s next big themes. With emerging technologies putting ever-more powerful capabilities at the grasp of everyone, the need for everyone to behave responsibly. Call it the “polite society” argument of gun enthusiasts. Unfortunately, recent history has proven that there’s still a long way to go before reaching this point, as numerous cases of vandalism, real or virtual (think spamming, online harassment or website defacement), continue to make headlines. Like it or not, increased power without increased accountability cannot depend on the assumption of good behavior.
While the above may not be explicitly mentioned in the book, it is the type of reflections inspired by Gravity Dreams, a novel that could have been a perfectly good space-opera without depth. Ironically, the most plot-driven moments of Gravity Dreams (with its late-coming revelation of interstellar Dangers That Must Be Conquered) are the weakest parts of the narrative, paling in comparison with Tyndal’s training and relationship issues.
Moral lessons served as entertainment aren’t rare, of course, but it’s always pleasing to see a result so professionally realized. Instead of turning in run-of-the-mill space adventures, Modesitt chooses to inspire as much as he entertains, and the result is not only one of the best SF novels of 1999, but also another proof that Modesitt is one of our best SF writers around.
-
Back to the Moon, Homer J. Hickam
Island, 1999, 494 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-23538-3
There are thrillers and then there are superthrillers.
Thrillers are usually adequate beach reading, stories of evil conspiracies, military skirmishes or criminal affairs. They feature ordinary characters, plot puppets moved by an author writing as fast as he can to ship off the manuscript to his editor and make up payments on his mortgage. Thrillers are entertaining, but not much more; most of them will be undistinguishable only a few weeks after closing the last page. Thrillers abound on the shelves of your local bookstore; just pick’em up and you get instant entertainment.
Superthrillers, on the other hand, are another thing entirely. They are, most noticeably, bigger. Bigger in terms of scope and ambition, not necessarily in terms of stakes or length. They go to fascinating places we’ve never seen before, display prodigious amounts of well-integrated details, involve original gadgets and ideas, feature Cool Scenes and end on a succession of ever-more exciting thrills. Super-thrillers are thrillers that are a magnitude over and above what we can expect from a normal thriller. And Back to the Moon fits this description perfectly.
Oh, it doesn’t start that way. The first hundred pages are fun but oddly reminiscent of other thrillers, as it looks like terrorists are getting ready to take over a shuttle flight. The fun starts when things go wrong and the “terrorists” explain their mission and their motives.
Like other superthrillers, Back to the Moon takes risks that might doom it to failure. It uses Cold War weaponry hidden at an unlikely place, a last-minute revelation, a secret conspiracy to control nations and reckless opponents willing to combine unlimited means with inexistent morals to stop the protagonist. Not all of these work perfectly (one last-minute revelation smacks of desperation; the secret conspiracy seems stolen from the X-Files) but they do bring extra interest to a novel that already have more than enough to sustain a quick read.
When Back to the Moon works, it works extremely well. The various battles keep on getting better and better, the power alliances keep shifting and reforming in every-threatening configurations, the hardware is ingenious, the technical details are convincing without being overwhelming and the characters are well-defined. In fact, the novel even manages to create an impressive sentimental moment three-quarter way through. It had been a long while since I’ve had a lump in my throat while reading a thriller.
This confessed, it must be said that Return to the Moon will work best on an readership of space nuts, technical enthusiasts and science-fiction fans. The same audience that loved the film OCTOBER SKY (itself a dramatization of Hickam’s teenhood autobiography Rocket Boys) will respond most favorably to the novel’s none-too-subtle pro-space propaganda.
But keeping aside the thematic goals of the novel, Return to the Moon delivers the goods in terms of entertainment. Readers lucky enough to get a copy of this book will turn the pages faster and faster as the action heats up. Homer J. Hickam vaults within the ranks of the best thriller writers with his first novel, and his next is eagerly awaited.