Book Review

  • The Writer’s Guide to Creating a Science-Fiction Universe, George Ochoa & Jeffrey Osier

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Writer’s Digest, 1993, 314 pages, C$26.99 hc, ISBN 0-89879-536-2

    The very existence of certain books can tell you more than you wished to know about the world. Go to your nearest mega-bookstore and look around at the book categories. Who could have thought that there could be so many new-age freaks, needlepoint enthusiasts or (bookshelves!) amateur gardeners?

    You may think you know all about interest groups, but really; had imagined that there could be a whole series of books for wannabee SF writers? I’m not kidding; Writer’s Digest Books has a series of books aimed specifically at the beginning science-fiction writer. Books on how to create alien societies or create typically “Science-fictive” effects. In hardcover, no less.

    The Writer’s Guide to Creating a Science-fiction Universe has a self-explanatory title. The authors aim to provide any new and struggling writers with an array of facts, thoughts and technique with which to create a believable backdrop for any serious science-fiction story.

    In truth, this is pretty much the only thing a prospective writer has to know in order to write good SF. Whereas good writing techniques can be adopted from almost any other type of fiction writing, the essence of SF is in its creation of imaginary, yet plausible worlds that can withstand the scrutiny of even the most demanding readers. The authors are careful to ground prospective writers in the SF ethos of imaginary realism and the result is a book that’s not only useful, but well-intentioned:  They not only give out specific information, but also encourage the writer to develop a true sense of what is meaningful in the genre.

    It is a measure of how useful this guide is that you can not only read it cover to cover, but also use it as a reference work. The first part of the book is more or less a snappy overview of essential scientific knowledge required to write adequate SF, and one can easily refer to selected excerpts to ensure that they haven’t screwed up. Even though the book dates from 1993, it has aged well so far, mostly due to its reliance on general overviews rather than advanced research (see Charles Sheffield’s Borderlands of Science for a book that fails on this level.)

    And even for those not really interested in writing SF, this Guide can fulfill another purpose: The writing is clear and direct, lively but detailed, so that it can serve as a general science vulgarization book, with occasional asides to recommended SF (in a scientific context) as well as an introduction to the whole idea of SF-as-fictional-study-of-change. There is, easily, a freshmen-level college course in general science to be distilled from this book.

    Interestingly enough, George’s Ochoa bibliography is a marvel of scholarly eclectism, with dozens of books on a wide range of subject, from movies to history, public library answer books to sound recordings. One gets the feeling that be brought the same vulgarization abilities and professionalism to The Writer’s Guide to Creating a Science-Fiction Universe. The result is worth it.

  • Journey into Darkness, John Douglas & Mark Olshaker

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1997, 382 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-00394-1

    Most law-abiding citizen are, at one degree or another, fascinated by criminal behavior. Temptation from the dark side? Vicarious living through the illegal actions of others? Reassurance that being a criminal is always a bad idea? Whatever the reason, the publishing industry has responded in kind: a whole new non-fiction category (“True Crime”) has been created to satisfy a lucrative need.

    Of all types of criminal activities, serial killing must be one of the most incomprehensible to the ordinary mind. One can rationalize theft, fraud, assault or even accidental homicide, but repeated cold-blooded murders are out of anyone’s conceptual framework. And yet, some people make it their job to get into the mind of serial killers. John Douglas is probably the best-known of them, having long been director of the FBI’s profiling unit, which specializes in establishing psychological portraits of typical serial killers. Journey into Darkness is an account of his work, his methods and various cases in which Douglas has some expertise.

    This isn’t Douglas and Olshaker’s first book together, (They also previously wrote Mindhunter) and this has some effect on the book’s ultimate impact. While Journey into Darkness remains a good read, it seems to skirt on a few important issues and suffers from a structure that doesn’t flow as naturally as it should. One get the feeling that this is more of a sequel to a previous book in which all the introductory elements have been explained. Journey into Darkness must assume that most of its readers are already familiar with the basis of profiling, serial killer definition and the high-profile cases in the specialty.

    Even then, however, the book remains worthwhile. For a newcomer to the profiling work, it’s fascinating to see how, from a few clues, specialized FBI agents can deduce or narrow down some characteristics of the killer’s environment, behavior and socioeconomic situation. Douglas explains that most serial murderers are intelligent young white males with few social contacts. They have low self-esteem, often live at home with a relative, have a history of abuse, pyromania and cruelty to animals. They know how to manipulate people and often return to crime scenes.

    Douglas establishes these base elements early on, then use them to show how real profiles can use clues from crime scenes to form a profile. No traces of struggle? The victim must have known the killer. White victims? White killer. Mutilations? History of sexual violence.

    Most of the book is composed of case studies of serial murder cases as examined by Douglas and Olshaker. The writing style is brisk and efficient, allowing for a glimpse in the mind of both criminals and policemen. Of particular interest is the analysis of the O.J. Simpson case. Douglas’ conclusion? Guilty, guilty, guilty…

    Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the book has a few structural problems. One case study is dragged on over several chapters, and however sympathetic the victim was, the book so far had dealt with individual cases in a matter of pages, not chapters. Another source of problems is inherent in the subject matter itself; however fascinating the subject matter is, and despite the good work in presenting the subject, this repetition of true human evil gets repulsive with time even though the interest level remains high.

    We should thankful for people like John Douglas, willing to explore the criminal mind to take away as many of them possible off the street. Journey into Darkness is a good exposition of the work practiced by his equivalents, and the results they get. Even though Mindhunter is probably the best introduction to the subject, don’t hesitate to pick up this one if the subjects fascinates you. And chances are it will.

    [February 2005: Indeed, Mindhunter is almost a prerequisite to Journey into Darkness. Not only does the prequel offer considerable background on John Douglas and the way the FBI profiling program was established, but it also describes how those “rules” of profiling were developped over time. Read it first if you can.]

  • Starfire, Charles Sheffield

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1999, 401 pages, C$20.95 tpb, ISBN 0-553-37894-5

    Is it possible for a sequel to be… better… than the original?

    Depends on what you mean by sequel. It’s certainly more reasonable to assume that books planned from the onset to be a sequel to a first volume (say, as part of the series) has chances to be more ambitious than the first volume than a book cooked a few years later as a sequel to an initially stand-alone novel. Compare cinema with literature on this point, and after you’ve compared HIGHLANDER 2 with, say, SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, I’ll rest my case. (Though XENOCIDE could be compared with SUPERMAN III and set off a whole new debate.)

    I was not a big fan of Charles Sheffield’s Aftermath. Partly because it felt more like a disaster novel than science-fiction, partly because it was filled with unsympathetic characters that spent their time discussing various sexual dysfunctions, partly because, frankly, it just wasn’t very interesting. Aftermath, however, was obviously the first volume in a series; the ending, with its last-minute curveball, seemed explicitly designed to whet readers’ expectations.

    I happened, a year later, to grab Starfire off my local library’s shelves. No sense in spending money to read a sequel to a book I didn’t really like.

    Surprisingly, even though I can’t really say that Starfire is all that good, it’s certainly more interesting and more enjoyable than its prequel.

    For one thing, it certainly feels closer to science-fiction than the previous volume. At the end of Aftermath, scientists discovered that they had twenty-five years to prepare a shield to protect them from a serious particle storm headed for Earth. In Starfire, the twenty-five years are up and the final elements of the shield race to completion before the storm hits. But, ah-ha, things suddenly look much worse than previously; the particle storm arrives earlier than expected, packs more punch, and faces a shield that’s dogged by budgetary constraints and sabotage. Seems like, as usual in hard-SF, wacky religious groups just keep wanting the end of Earth.

    As if that wasn’t enough, most of the essential robots of the shield project are controlled by a maniacal dwarf (is there any other kind of dwarf, I ask?), who sends a traitorous woman (is there…?) to seduce a straight-laced engineer (is there…?) Even better; to solve a series of murders on a space station, a shadowy operative contacts a genius ex-serial murderer. (Now, you know that all serial murderers are geniuses.)

    A lot of stuff, mostly already seen elsewhere, but it keeps things moving at a decent pace. The constant sexual obsession of the first volume is considerably toned down and even though some characters approach cliché, it does seem as if they’re a rather more pleasant bunch than in the previous book.

    The details are a mixed bunch. As could be expected from a scientist/hard-SF writer like Sheffield, the science is adequate even though the “one single smart scientist figures it all out” cliché is once again taken for a walk. The political details, however, sound naive and far too convenient, a flaw shared by many similar novels. Political unlikeliness isn’t the only type of doubtful developments in Starfire, however; the whole ending (along with the dinosaur stuff) struck me as essentially preposterous.

    But, even though Starfire isn’t too good, it lends itself to a quick reading, and represents a step up from its predecessor. Unfortunately, it still represents another sub-par novel from Sheffield, who’s shown himself capable of both the best and the worst, often in successive books. Certainly, seeing him turn out two or three novels a year doesn’t do much to inspire confidence; is he spreading himself too thin?

    In any case, those readers who slogged through Aftermath deserve something to lessen the bad taste of it; Starfire might fit the bill. And if you haven’t read the first volume, well, it’s not essential for enjoying this one.

  • Destroying Angel, Richard Paul Russo

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1992, 230 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-14273-7

    Each revolutionary artistic current has its host of routine imitators, not necessarily incompetent poseurs, but averagely talented artists who are either fascinated by a new style without being able to faithfully render it, or otherwise tempted by easy monetary gain on the coattails of more innovative material.

    Cyberpunk crashed into science-fiction in the eighties and eventually faded out in the nineties as the world finally caught up to the fiction. William Gibson et al’s vision of tech-smart street people, decaying cities, dominating corporations and “dirty tech” was an all-too-common concern in the Internet-dominated nineties, and if only for this reason, cyberpunk faded out as a genre, though it radically re-energized SF in the process. (Indeed, some of the most successful SF works of the decade managed to incorporate cyberpunk’s native energy, manic invention and fascination with information technology as elements -not keystones- in a larger future tapestry. Interested scholars can look at the career of Bruce Sterling as a perfect illustration of this metamorphosis.)

    In this context, Richard Paul Russo’s Destroying Angel stands as an example of a strictly average cyberpunk novel coming almost at the genre’s death march. It is not bad -or inferior- per se, but it doesn’t really exhibit any superior qualities.

    Certainly, the plot is immediately familiar. In a downtrodden and rodent-ridden San Francisco, an ex-cop with a bad past manages to earn a living as a smuggler. But a serial murderer once thought dead reappears in the City and starts killing again, bringing back the ex-cop straight back to where he had quit the police force.

    In a few words, it’s your standard serial killer plot, along with the flawed hero, noir atmosphere times ten stirred in with the usual cyberpunk gadgets. Any more ordinary and you’d get a book put together with excerpts of previously published stories.

    But I’m being too harsh, because once you’re into the story, Destroying Angel is enjoyable in a strictly-entertainment fashion. The writing is pretty good, Russo creates an acceptable hard-boiled atmosphere, scenes move with a certain efficiency, and it’s hard not to sympathize with the tortured protagonist. Several nice touches, such as the opera-signing ghetto lady, enliven an otherwise routine narrative.

    Only a somewhat useless subplot about a young girl named Sookie drags down the book from its straight-ahead narrative. (Sookie eventually becomes vital to the plot, but the rest of her story smacks of padding in order to obtain a novel-length manuscript.)

    As with any genre, Science-Fiction’s got its blockbusters, its work of art, its true stinkers and total failures. Then there’s the overwhelming majority of the total SF production; wholly average novels that are neither really good or really bad. That’s where Destroying Angel goes; in the vast masses of the averages. To its credit, it doesn’t try to be anything more pretentious than it is; the writing is clean and obviously tries to be entertaining. It’s an acceptable thriller.

    It’s worth a look if ever you come across it at a used book sale and if you don’t have anything more pressing to read. Otherwise, it’s one of those books you can safely skip without missing anything essential to the evolution of the genre. Hopefully, the book brought money to Russo and allowed him to buy a few nice things.

    And sometimes, artistic innovation be damned, that’s all you can ask for: entertainment for the reader and money for the author.

  • Fatal Cure, Robin Cook

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Berkley, 1993, 449 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-425-14563-8

    As somewhat of a genre reader, I rarely get to read books that make it to bestseller lists. Aside from Tom Clancy, most of the current best-selling authors aren’t favorites of mine. Robin Cook is one of these best-selling authors; Though I was aware that he wrote medical thrillers, the two book from him that I had read before in translation (Fever and Brain) didn’t make enough of an impression on me to lead on to further readings. (Unlike, say, Robert B. Parker—but I digress)

    The literary circles I frequent often resent “bestsellers” as an inferior form of writing, as if being popular required bad writing, simple plot and cardboard characters. Right. Say what you want about the general dumbing-down of the American public (myth!) but truly bad novels go on the slushpile, not the top-ten lists which at worst might be filled with formulaic plotting and familiar characters, but not incompetence.

    After reading Fatal Cure, I’m ready to revise this opinion.

    If you’re somewhat familiar with medical thrillers, you already know the plot: Young couple is lured to a hospital in a city far way from home. But! Patients start dying mysteriously, the hospital’s administrators don’t want to talk about it and, of course, our protagonists are quickly threatened as soon as they investigate further.

    Oh, I’m sure that most readers who paid good money to buy this book and put it on the charts really liked what they read. Maybe they’re just less demanding. Maybe they really like medical thrillers. Mostly they don’t read 150+ books a year like I do.

    Because everything in Fatal Cure reads like a re-run of these 150+ books. With time, avid readers start building up standard templates of familiar stories, and less tolerance for those authors which can’t or won’t surprise them with fresh twist.

    For instance: One of the thrills of crime fiction is to keep guessing the identity of the murderer. Ironically, if the reader figures out the mystery before it’s revealed, it definitely lessens the book’s impact, and takes away from the fun of reading the book.

    Yes, I did figure out the identity of the bad guy in Fatal Cure. Pretty much from the first scene on; it’s that transparent.

    The rest of the book isn’t much better. Every tired plot thread is used shamelessly, from the sick daughter to the sexual harassment subplot to the local sheriff in cahoots with the chief conspirators. So-called “clues” are so obvious that from their very first mention, you can guess how they’ll play later on in the book. So, the young couple buys a house whose owner mysteriously disappeared, but notice a strange smell in the basement. Gee, I wonder what that smell could possibly be…? Not so annoying if they would immediately discover the body, but rather more annoying when no less that 104 pages (69 to 173) pass between smell and body.

    It gets worse; not only is the plot clichéd in every conceivable way, but it is also wrapped in an unsubtle authorial message about how bad HMOs truly are and why Americans shouldn’t support such initiatives. (Hey, in Fatal Cure HMOs breed killer administrators. And that too can be guessed early on.)

    And yet… and yet… Even though most copies of Fatal Cure could spontaneously combust with nary a tear from me (provided the rest of the libraries stay intact), it should be said that once you make it through the first half of the book, it doesn’t get better but it can be read fairly easily, especially if you’re adept at diagonal reading; most of what is expected to happen, happens, and if you enjoy that type of thing, I can see Fatal Cure as average beach reading.

    On the other hand, there’s never a single element to convince me to read another Robin Cook book ever again. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll feel the pain very much.

  • A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 1999, 405 pages, C$35.50 hc, ISBN 0-671-57827-8

    Many nasty things can be said about series of science-fiction books set in the same shared universe. They’re exercise in marketing over art; they repudiate the spirit of unbounded imagination that is at the core of SF; they allow authors to be lazy; they require less mental effort from their readers; they often repeat the same themes over and over…

    Which is why it’s so rewarding to find a series of novels that’s genuinely good. Nearly all of Lois McMaster Bujold’s fiction output so far (minus a couple of short stories and one fantasy novel, The Spirit Ring) has been linked to the “Vorkosigan Universe”, named from the family around which most adventures of the series seem to take place.

    It’s not easy to isolate the secret of Bujold’s success with critics and readers (She has brought home an unprecedented 4 Best Novel Hugos for the series so far) because it appears so transparent; great characters, memorable plotlines, superb dialogue all moved along with crystal-clear writing. But the simplicity of Bujold’s work is deceptive, because it hides in plain view an astonishing mastery of her art.

    The depths upon which the Vorkosigan series are constructed becomes more apparent when considering A Civil Campaign and its two immediate predecessors, Memory and Komarr. Memory was, in many respect, a big important book, both for Bujold and her protagonist Miles Vorkosigan, as he saw himself forced to abandon covert military service and learn to cope with his family obligations in a more direct fashion than previously. At the same time, Bujold was cutting away the important military/action roots of her series. Few authors have the guts to try something as definitive.

    Komarr is often seen as something of a “simple adventure” in the Vorkosigan Universe, a simple matter of Miles investigating a crime in his new job as Imperial Auditor. But A Civil Campaign highlights the importance of the novel in introducing Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who quickly becomes the object of Miles’ affection.

    In war as in love, there are no certitudes, and if Miles Vorkosigan’s first adventures were military in nature, A Civil Campaign is a love saga, blending seamlessly the conventions of regency romance with the Barrayaran aristocracy, a compatible match if ever there was one. (Along with the usual everything-goes-wrong tendency of the Vorkosigan adventures.)

    Everyone who’s read as much as one Bujold novel already know how funny she can be. A Civil Campaign allows her to run wild with comedic scenes. Readers with some attachment to the characters will find themselves swept along, slapping their forehead in embarrassment, grinning ferociously at the witty developments and even shouting out loud whoops of satisfaction at what are known in the trade as “the cool scenes” (of which there are, as usual, many) Few novels, few authors are able to pull in readers as efficiently as Bujold, and for that alone, she deserves special attention.

    In short, it’s really hard to be anything but enthusiastic about the latest Bujold novel, especially when it’s one of her better ones such as A Civil Campaign. On the other hand, like most of Bujold’s novels (Barrayar comes to mind) it’s not a novel that depends as much on its science-fiction elements as other works. Some readers will call it “slight SF”, and in a sense they are right. Even though Bujold’s output is excellent fiction, it’s definitely not strong SF, which explains some of the mixed sentiments about Bujold’s regular Hugo nominations.

    And yet, under the surface, look closer and you’ll find serious SF material nearly everywhere in A Civil Campaign. From the biotechnology of the “butter bugs” (and impact thereof on Barrayaran ecology) to the biotechnology of Lord Dono’s solution (and impact thereof on Barrayaran aristocracy) to the biotechnology of Lord Vormuir’s semi-cloned daughters (and impact thereof on Barrayaran society)… there is no doubt that A Civil Campaign is definitely SF.

    In the meantime, put these esoteric considerations out of your mind and get the latest Bujold. If you haven’t yet started the series, well, it’s not too late to begin…

  • Nocturne for a Dangerous Man, Marc Matz

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1999, 470 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-57537-7

    As I accumulate my SF reading and develop more sophisticated tastes in my entertainment choices, I have inevitably progressed past certain things. Star Trek adventures now simply bore me, given that they exhibit none of the intellectual inventiveness, mental challenges and new characters that, to me, have come to represent the best that science-fiction has to offer. The same can be said about scores of run-of-the-mill action/adventure novels, where the thriller mechanics aren’t really enhanced by the science-fiction setting. Especially when it’s “average” SF and/or the thriller plot is more boring than thrilling.

    Don’t read in the above read what I didn’t say: I can always appreciate a good thriller or an unassuming action/adventure SF novel when they have something special, but it takes more than just labeling a tired chase scenario with lasers and robots to make it interesting.

    In this perspective, Nocturne for a Dangerous Man is a half-success. On one hand it’s a complex thriller with decent SF elements. On the other, it’s an overlong bore with nothing really new to say and a paternalistic tone in which to say it.

    It’s typical of the book’s murky impression that the plot can be stated in several fashions. At first glance, it would appear to be a straightforward story where an ultra-competent mercenary protagonist is hired to rescue a damsel in distress. On closer inspection, it’s far more complex than that: The protagonist has to chase down several leads, complete sub-objectives in order to further his mission and contact dozens of past acquaintances to get more information. But look closer, and you’ll find that the kinks of the narrative threads untie themselves to form a single, continuous simple story: That of an ultra-competent mercenary protagonist hired to rescue a damsel in distress.

    In other words, this is a book that ends exactly where you’d think at first, which is to say pretty much like the (great) cover illustration, in which a rugged-looking man hangs on to a helicopter rope ladder with one hand and a beautiful woman in the other while in the background, a cruise ship explodes. For readers, the journey is the goal, not the ending.

    All fine and well; like most Hollywood movie, it’s not uncommon to enjoy a routine plot executed supremely well. But Nocturne for a Dangerous Man isn’t so successful.

    Many difficulties stem from the protagonist’s narration. Just like in most of Robert Heinlein’s best novels, Nocturne for a Dangerous Man is narrated by an astonishingly competent renaissance man, a protagonist trained in the military arts, fluent in dozens of languages, superb cook, expert lover and most probably multiple-PhD-holder for all we know. Needless to say, such characters quickly approach self-parody, a trap that Matz doesn’t entirely avoid here. Just like Robert Heinlein’s worst novels, however, the narration quickly becomes paternalistic, almost as if anyone not knowing a dozen languages, half a dozen fighting techniques, culinary and amorous arts can’t possibly be adequate enough to read the book. This snobbishness tends to grate and grate greatly.

    Adding to the problem is a structure that drags on, and on, and on… The best hard-boiled novels (which Nocturne for a Dangerous Man is obviously trying to imitate) were those which didn’t multiply endless empty complications. (Have you ever read about a glib private eye?) But Matz, for whatever reasons, seems to delight in demonstrating his intelligence to us, which comes out as a net waste of time.

    Too bad, because with some drastic editing, Nocturne for a Dangerous Man would have been a fast-paced, entertaining read. Matz shows a good grasp of SF world-building and the details -plentiful as they are- remain interesting. Despite everything, I’ll take a look at his next novel.

  • Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined, Drew Carey

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Hyperion, 1997, 237 pages, C$30.95 hc, ISBN 0-7868-6351-X

    It’s easy to be a fan of “The Drew Carey Show”: As a sitcom, it offers a self-depreciating hero with which it’s easy to sympathize, an interesting cast of wacky characters, often clever humor and fairly good writing. Pay closer attention and you’ll find that “The Drew Carey Show” is a rarity in the sitcom world in that it frequently takes chances in telling stories in an off-beat way. They don’t always succeed, but it’s usually good fun to see a sitcom takes chances and depart somewhat from the usual format.

    “The Drew Carey Show” made a star out of its lead man, Drew Carey, and it was only a matter of time until spinoffs came out. Given that Dilbert already occupies most of the market for nerdish office humor, Carey decided to bring the same spirit of innovation to his money-grubbing techniques that he does with the TV show, and the result is of interest to anyone looking for a good laugh or two.

    As Carey explains in his introduction to Dirty Jokes and Beer, he originally wanted to publish a few short stories he had written. But his fans wanted a book about the TV show and his publishers wanted another one of those “comic guy makes funny observations about everyday life” book. To make everyone happy, Dirty Jokes and Beer contains all three of these things.

    Which means there’s something here for everyone.

    With an extra helping of explicit language.

    Even though I gather that Drew-Carey-the-stand-up-comedian uses liberal amounts of foul language, fans of Drew-Carey-the-sitcom-star might not know otherwise. This book will be an eye-opener. To his credit, Carey doesn’t use gratuitously explicit language and makes it clear from the onset that this isn’t a family-oriented book. As he states in the introduction, “I only left [the nasty words] in because I didn’t think that the things I’d written would be as funny without them.” [P.xv] This is refreshingly in-your-face comedy, as honest as it is politically incorrect. Onward.

    The first part of the book (“Dirty Jokes”) is the “funny observations about everyday life” section. Here, Carey gets to vent about big-screen TVs, how to pick up chicks, presidents, health fads and a heck of a lot of beer. Non-politically-correct observations, of course: Avoid reading if easily offended (but then again, why would have you bought a book called Dirty Jokes and Beer?) Funny stuff. Fans of Carey-the-standup-comedian will probably like this section.

    The second part (“Beer”) is for the other type of Carey fans, given that it directly concerns his life and/or TV show. What’s Mimi like (and other Frequently Asked Questions), reviews of the early criticism, in-house script notes (a real treasure, if you know about the sitcom business), Drew’s unhappy childhood (not a fun moment) and “Hard Copy” appearances, not to mention the dynamics of tabloid popularity. Not always funny, but invariably interesting. Pictures of Drew’s life are included.

    The real surprise comes with “Stories of the Unrefined”, the third and last part of the book. Here, Carey present five short stories to the world, and worries about the effect they’ll have on his reputation. He shouldn’t: The stories are decently written, and pack up decent entertainment in their short length. They’re funny, but in a darker, more adult way than the rest of the jokes in the book. In any case, they’re worth reading.

    The end result, for both readers and Carey, is good entertainment. As with most books in the “comedy” section, this one can be read in a short time, and re-read frequently. Carey fans (both kinds) will find something to like here, and non-fans might even learn to like the guy.

  • Eagle Against the Stars, Steve White

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Baen, 2000, 288 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-57846-4

    The rabid patriotism of Americans will never cease to amaze, especially when considered in the context of Science-Fiction stories. You would think that a genre so concerned with change and other global -nay, universal- issues would realize that simple patriotism is a self-limiting expression that ultimately belittle all achievements from outside one’s country. But a quick glance at such rah-rah-rah works like INDEPENDENCE DAY… well, point is made.

    Among SF publishers, Baen has always been regarded at the stronghold of a certain type of ultra-patriotic, libertarian thinking that simply exists nowhere else in the world. Eagle Against the Stars, from simply the title itself, would appear to be a work that plays strongly in this vein. Even the cover blurb might turn off some people with statements such as

    “America was enjoying victory … that’s why the aliens chose it to use as puppet in dominating the planet. We were already set up to do it; now we would do it for them. […] But the Lokaron were going to lesson from their victims, a lesson they weren’t going to like one bit”

    By this point, Baen probably lost a few sales from people repelled by this rhetoric. Fortunately (or not, for those who bought the book for this reason), Eagle Against the Stars isn’t as much about Americans-against-aliens as you’d think. True to SF form, the aliens aren’t as eeevil as you might think, and the rebel Americans aren’t as virtuous as the protagonist thinks they are.

    If books were evaluated on solely the basis of overturned assumptions, Eagle Against the Stars would rate highly. Unfortunately, details like sustained plotting, good characters and unobtrusive didactism also come into play, and Eagle Against the Stars fares less well in these areas. Too bad, because the novel otherwise demonstrates a good setup, an adequate grasp of SF elements -including overturning some of the most unlikely assumptions of lesser SF- and a writing style that shows promise despite a certain lack of interest. It’s not that it’s bad, but that it’s padded and slow, slow, slow…

    Surprisingly, what interest there is in the story comes from the not-so-hidden political agenda of the author and his pointed barb against (all together now:) environmentalists, socialists and communists. Arrr, those damn liberals! Always meddling with the good old libertarians! Never mind that it’s hard to believe that all independent spirit could be sucked out of the United States in a single generation… that was probably caused by the alien mind rays. (Liberals and aliens? Egawd!)

    Fans of political SF might enjoy this novel, but other readers will be disappointed, for despite White’s depth of historical sources and writing abilities, he doesn’t deliver much more than a standard adventure-with-twists that we’ve seen so many times before. James Clavell turned out Shogun when he tackled cultural clash between civilizations of different technological levels, but White isn’t Clavell nor -from the book- is he interested in becoming one.

    But then again, this is a Baen book, which for all their good fun isn’t exactly known as a reservoir of thoughtful SF. Though they are known as publishers of good action/adventure, and Eagle Against the Stars isn’t too good at that either.

    A quick final word on the cover illustration: Not only is it rather tacky to cover a large part of the illustration with blue foil, but the alien’s elongated chin is simply too funny for words. What is it with prominent chins that instills amusement? Will we ever know? Does Jay Leno have an opinion?

  • Anno Dracula, Kim Newman

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1992, 469 pages, C$6.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-71591-7

    An interesting trend in turn-of-the-millennium genre fiction is the fusion of different literary tools and assumptions to produce a result that isn’t quite one thing or another. Suddenly, dragons are over New York, being battled by alien-technology stealth bombers and causing a vampire to fall in love with a policewoman. Some readers love fusion, some can’t stand it.

    One particularly popular type of fusion literature is steampunk, in which -roughly- contemporary SF elements are transplanted in Victorian England. Steam-driven spaceships are equipped with computers driven by pulley and lever, Jack the Ripper meets Sherlock Holmes, Queen Victoria makes a cameo appearance and there are enough in-jokes to satisfy anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the time.

    Anno Dracula (perhaps the precursor of the fusion trend, dating back from 1992) goes beyond what eventually became the clichés of steampunk. Here, Kim Newman assumes that everything that happened in Bram Stoker’s Dracula was true, with one important difference; Vlad Tepes escaped the final showdown and using his aristocratic credentials, eventually married Queen Victoria. The England of Anno Dracula is now populated with a new nobility of vampires, with their assorted entourage dominating the country. But then, someone starts killing vampire prostitutes in Whitechapel…

    In almost any way you choose to look at it, Anno Dracula is an exceptional book. The alternate history drawn by Newman is somewhat plausible (which is to say, as plausible as a vampire-drived story can be), fascinating and rather frightening. The details are well-positioned to give maximum depth to the story and wink at the knowledgeable reader. Jack the Ripper co-exists with Doctor Jeckyl, Mycroft Holmes, Queen Victoria, Bram Stoker and Van Helsing…

    But it takes more than a neat steampunk universe to make a good book (witness Colin Greenland’s Harm’s Way) and fortunately, Newman also scores high on the more usual fictional standards. Anno Dracula is driven by unusually interesting characters, from a shadowy British special agent to a Vampire eldress to a genial newspaper reporter to an ambitious newly-vampirized doctor. Newman, despite setting his tale in Victoria England, wisely resists fluffing up his writing style, and Anno Dracula remains compulsively readable all the way through. The memorable conclusion is lavishly built-up and quite satisfying, finding victory where one wouldn’t expect.

    Two sequels have been published to date (The Bloody Red Baron and Judgement of Tears) and if it is doubtful that they will be as enjoyable -most of the fun of Anno Dracula is in discovering the alternate history-, they certainly deserve a read based only on the first volume.

    It’s worth noting that the enjoyment one will get from Anno Dracula is proportional to one’s existing knowledge of literary genre, Victorian England and vampire novels. Anno Dracula is akin to a graduate-level read in that it can be enjoyed by anyone, but contains so many references to other sources that readers with extra cultural baggage will get so much more out of it. A cursory knowledge of Stoker’s Dracula alone -if only from the movie version-, helps tremendously.

    Fusing horror elements with SF world-building and a mystery structure, Kim Newman has achieved more than the simple addition of elements and produced a novel far above the rest of what one would usually find on the “horror” bookshelf. Anno Dracula simply has too much ambition beyond the simple scare to avoid being labelled a darn good book. Fascinating experiment, great entertainment or best-of-breed genre novel, it’s hard to overstate how Anno Dracula is so successful on so many levels. One of the best vampire books to date. Strongly recommended, for a wide array of readers.

  • Bios, Robert Charles Wilson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1999, 208 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-86857-X

    Those poor, poor SF authors.

    Earning a living -in any discipline- takes a lot of hard work. In the SF field, it takes more than that: dedication, creativity and a sense of how to please a crowd.

    And the SF crowd is one of the worst there is. It’s not enough to give them an interesting concept wrapped in a good story. No, they ask for memorable characters, clear writing, snappy dialogue and good value for their money.

    As a result, current SF authors have to uphold the professionalism developed in the fields ever since the pulp era. SF, like it or not, has become a small professional industry, and as with any pop culture product, readers can be expected to demand more for their entertainment dollars.

    In most ways, Robert Charles Wilson’s Bios is a fine piece of Science-Fiction. The premise itself is intriguing: In a future where interstellar space travel is hideously expensive, humans have found one planet with a full biological ecology: Isis. The only problem; Isis’s natural ecosystem is “spectacularly toxic” to Earth life. “The entire planet is a permanent Level Four hot zone” promises the cover blurb.

    Fun stuff, especially given Wilson’s initial premise. Bios‘s protagonist, Zoe Fisher, is sent on one of those all-too-expensive trips to Isis, where she is to undergo testing as a human built to be resistant to the hostile biosphere. Meanwhile, scientists stationed on and above Isis begin to see increasing levels of viral outbreaks inside “safe” areas. Something is happening, and it doesn’t promise anything good.

    All throughout, Wilson builds his imagined future with an admirable economy. In a short time, he establishes the future dystopia that is Bios‘s universe, what with its new aristocracy, its pitiless corporations/political parties and overall aura of nastiness. This is the first time that one of Robert Charles Wilson’s novels explicitly takes place in an appreciably distant future, (he’s previously meddled a lot with alternate universes or futuristic element in contemporary settings) and he’s up to the difficult task of world-building with an assured professionalism.

    His writing is also clear and to the point. Bios can be read compulsively, with its short length and dynamic storytelling. There is a memorable outbreak scene halfway through the book, and the final pages also pack a lot of interesting material. Few novel from Wilson are obscurely written up to the point of being uninteresting (Gypsies being the only notable exception) and Bios is even more engaging than its predecessors.

    But, as his previous novel Darwinia suffered from a rather spectacular structural failure, Bios‘s considerable strengths must be tempered with significant warnings. The premise outlined above might lead readers to imagine a certain plot. Unfortunately, that is pretty much exactly what you get, especially if you’re familiar with the sense of doomed gloominess present in some of Wilson’s work.

    To this predictability, let’s also be crassly commercial and point out that Bios‘s snappiness and readability is matched by its slim physical size: at barely more than 200 pages, Bios is almost half the length of today’s average SF novel. (But, at $32.95 Can, still fully the price of today’s SF novel) This is no breakneck densely-textured novel like Ian MacLeod or Greg Egan’s usual output: Once you start looking at the story with the assumption that this is a padded novella, yes, extrataneous parts seem to rise out of the novel. Unfortunately, there is as of now no market for SF novellas. Was Bios padded from a story too long to be novella and too short to be a satisfying novel? That’s a question to ask Robert Charles Wilson at the next SF convention.

    [August 2000:  I did, and he graciously answered that Bios, from the start, was planned as a novel, “though it ended a bit short.” (He also rightly pointed out that it would have been a perfect length twenty, thirty years ago)]

    In the meantime, Bios remains a worthwhile read, but not a worthwhile buy. Consider a paperback purchase if you’re a confirmed fan (keeping in mind that Wilson tries new things here, and succeeds), or else head for your local library.

  • American Hero, Larry Beinhart

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ballantine, 1993, 397 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-345-36663-8

    At the time, it almost seemed too good to be true. A few months after the fall of the Soviet empire, a border skirmish between two middle-eastern countries quickly escalates in an armed war in which new alliances are formed, new technology is used and old dirty tricks surface anew under different guises. The Gulf crisis of late 1990/early 1991 wasn’t the first war to be televised, but it is -so far- the most entertaining, ending with a big happy ending. Footnote: Total war-related deaths for the Allied side were lower than handgun-related deaths on American soil during the same period.

    Ask any North American who lived through the events, and they’ll tell you that the war was almost fun; that the picture painted by the media began with extreme danger and ended in total victory. America booted out the old ghosts of Vietnam and assumed its role as unique global superpower.

    As expected, guilt came in ringing a few moments later. Gulf War revisionism reviewed the war and declared it bad. It was a ploy to re-establish George Bush’s manhood. It was a media-manipulated skirmish transformed into a global engagement that wasn’t. The poor Iraquis didn’t deserve to lose. Kuwait didn’t deserved to be freed. And so on and so forth.

    Larry Beinhart’s novel American Hero is an integral part of the rich-boy soul-searching done by American after the Gulf War. It pushes the most somber conclusions of the revisionists (and their associated conspiracy theorist) to their logical extreme: The Gulf War was manufactured by George Bush -along with the Hollywood movie industry- to ensure his re-election.

    And the word “manufactured” isn’t used here in a cynical fashion: The most interesting parts of Beinhart’s book are those in which a crazy memo is given to a top-notch Hollywood director, who uses a film archive to literally design “the perfect war”, which will be as victorious as it will be an emotionally satisfying experience.

    Unfortunately, to get to these parts, you’ll have to wade through the increasingly uninteresting tale of Joe Broz, a security agent who gets caught up in the whole mess. Not only does this subplot actually is supposed to be the core of the novel, but it is far less dense -not to mention unoriginal- that the actual making of the war. Notice that when American Hero was adapted for the big screen -as the celebrated WAG THE DOG-, they wisely concentrated the whole action around the war-makers. (They also cleverly neutered the “breathtakingly nasty” [says Kirkus] satiric edge of the novel by inventing a fictional war rather than naming names and citing historical facts.) By the time Broz is hunted down by government agents who will kill him to keep the secret, it’s no use; we’ve see all of this before in countless conspiracy thrillers.

    The other flaw of the book is to depart from a comic premise and treat it as a rather dry conspiracy theory. Granted, the 120-odd footnotes are fun reading and thought-provoking, but look closer and you’ll be able to poke holes in Beinhart’s argumentation that this is All True. (Not the least of which might have been “If Bush really wanted to win the election, why didn’t he wait until 1992 to start the war and ride the victory in presidential elections??”) The last section, explicitly titled “Conspiracy”, smacks of desperation. Someone phone up Beinhart and tell him that heavy-handed satire is self-defeating. (If you really want a conspiracy, ask yourself why a smart, but unpopular, mystery author would suddenly decide to jump on the conspiracist bandwagon… hmmm…) But that’s just the anti-conspiracy-theorist speaking. Feel free to ignore.

    In any case, American Hero is worth a look, if only for the hilarious acid portrait of Bush, the White House and Hollywood.

    And who knows? Like most conspiracies, the Gulf War almost makes more sense that way.

  • Terminal Cafe, Ian McDonald

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1994, 277 pages, US$12.95 tpb, ISBN 0-553-37416-8

    It takes more than great ideas to write great SF; you have to know how to string them together. Countless pro writers have tried to instil this notion in the heads of even more numerous aspiring authors, but it doesn’t always stick. The shocking thing is that some professional authors themselves do actually forget about it. Results vary, ranging from excellent if nearly unreadable hard-SF to mishmashes of amateurish slush pile bricks.

    Terminal Cafe‘s problems are slightly different. No one will be able to say that Ian McDonald isn’t a phenomenally talented writer. No one will ever accuse him of writing bad prose. Better yet; he’s got great ideas, stuff that most frequent SF readers will gobble up with glee.

    No, McDonald’s problems lie in a different direction. In a certain sense, one could say he writes too well. Or that he writes with ambitions that exceed what should be put in a novel. To put it simply; Terminal Cafe doesn’t cohere and approaches unreadability because McDonald can’t string up his great ideas with an interesting plot that’s written in such a way that’s accessible to most readers.

    On the cover blurb, it reads like a classic-in-the-making: “revolutionary technology has given humans the ability to resurrect the dead. But the even-increasing population of the rise dead is segregated. They have created a wild culture untouched by restrictions of the law. Dead cannot stray in the realm of the living, nor the living into the teeming necrovilles after nightfall.” Now, one artist wants to do exactly that—cross in Necroville after nightfall. Great premise. Horror crossed with SF, a few mind-boggling sights, a thriller structure and -boom- instant SF bestseller. Insert great ideas, stir as necessary. And don’t forget to explain exactly how the dead are so different from the living.

    First mistake: We never learn what/why/how the dead are -including the differences- until nearly the end of the book. And no, it’s not a shocking surprise that twists things around. As a result, a large part of the book isn’t very compelling, because or first reaction is to ask why everyone can’t get along rather than understand the dynamics at play.

    What makes Terminal Cafe so damnably difficult to read is that McDonald aims for the literary crowd and never sustains the interest. the quasi-experimental writing allows for pages of exasperating soul-searching by the characters, but not a lot of plot development. Many of the dynamics between the central characters are never made too clear.

    And yet… once in a while, a fragment of clearly-written, utterly fascinating passage is to be found. The description of a new multinational justice system driven by rented computer time. Original speculations on nanotechnology. Space battles. Future arts. Political shenanigans. These gems of clear diamond in the murk both enhance the book’s overall impression, and darken it—because if McDonald could write these passages, then why the heck could he have made the whole book more interesting?

    It might have been the British origins of the book. It might have been a busy few days where your reviewer didn’t have the patience to try out a complex piece of writing. It might be drugs, extraterrestrials or phases of the moon. But the result is the same; Terminal Cafe is a very mixed bag of fascinating vignettes drowned in oodles of boring passages.

    Proceed at your risks and perils. And if ever you’re writing a SF novel of your own, please please remember that great ideas aren’t all that’s required for a great novel; you have to be able to string them together.

  • Rogue Star, Michael Flynn

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 667 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-54299-1

    With 1997’s Firestar, Michael Flynn officially Arrived in SF. Formerly known as an author of a few rather good short stories and co-author of the fannish homage Fallen Angels (With Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), Flynn flew under the radar of most SF fans until he published his monstrous 800+ pages tome. Firestar was the opening volume of an ambitious near-future saga in which Flynn looked as if he’d be showing all other authors how near-future Hard-SF is done. With its huge cast of characters, deep character development and often exasperating attention to details, Firestar gathered a lot of interest and got some critical attention.

    At the time, your reviewer begged to differ. Firestar‘s very ambitiousness dragged down what might otherwise have been a fine hard-SF tale. The huge cast of characters seemed too diffuse for its own good. Flynn’s character development seemed to specialize in making life hard for everyone. There was no happy ending. Not a lot happened, and whatever happened wasn’t worth 800+ pages. Many Messages were passed. Add to that the decidedly libertarian convictions of Flynn’s future (in which governments were evil and only corporations could save the world, yada-yada-yada) and you had an overpadded, somewhat unpleasant book.

    Why read Rogue Star, then? For the sheer masochist pleasure of it, maybe. But a strange thing happened on the way to the ending: While still overly long, Rogue Star started to be engrossing, interesting and even -yep- enjoyable.

    Rogue Star is where the investment made in the first volume starts to pay off. All these useless, unpleasant characters of the first volume start interacting in a conflicting fashion, and for some reason, this seems rather more interesting than in the first volume. Marissa’s financial empire is in jeopardy; a mission to an asteroid finds more than it bargained for; a blue-collar construction worker confronts sex and violence on an unfinished space station. Fascinating stuff, and more accessibly-written too. Not a whole lot of plot for 600+ pages, though. Someone at Tor better grab some scissors for the next volume.

    Still, the result is worth the long read. The space-rigger subplot itself rivals Allen Steele’s similar Orbital Decay in sheer fascination. (Plus, it takes the rather reasonable position that being stoned in a high-risk environment is not a very smart thing to do…) The political and financial shenanigans do seem less naive than Firestar‘s simplistic libertarian positions. The series moves in a more outlandish science-fiction, after the quasi techno-thriller atmosphere of the first volume.

    Plus, Flynn sends a neat little curveball in mid-book to all the readers who by now had been softly settling in a very rational hard-SF environment. Suddenly, things get far more interesting. But that’ll have to wait until the next volume, right?

    In fact, Rogue Star is a bit worrisome, because it shows that Flynn isn’t nearly finished with the series, which is looking more and more like a future history than a simple trilogy. How many more volumes to go? And how will both the “surprise” and the “expected” (come on; all that foreshadowing about planet-killing asteroids for nothing?) will play? As we might think they will ,or differently? (This is not a glib remark: If we end up with a 2000+ pages series in which the climax is what one can expect after reading Rogue Star, then all the good will established by the book will disappear in a puff of angry smoke. It’s hard to say more without spoiling the book.)

    Without being a must-read, Rogue Star is decent hard-SF. Worth a look, especially for those who wondered why they read the first volume of the series.

  • Wise Guy, Nicholas Pillegi

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1985, 308 pages, C$5.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-63392-9

    Hopefully, most readers of these reviews aren’t career criminals. Not that it’s a hard thing to do: Despite the distorted picture presented by popular media, lives of crime aren’t at the reach of every common layman: They demand, like most specialized professions, a certain set of skills, mindset and training. Needless to say, this type of training isn’t commonly offered to the average suburban white middle-class male statistically most likely to be reading these lines.

    But, living as he was in Italian New York in the 1950s, Henry Hill was uncommonly well-placed to ascend the ladder of crime. (“and slide down the slippery path of eternal damnation!” adds the preacher) Hired as a common job-runner, Hill quickly shows a flair for the quick buck. As Pillegi explains,

    For Henry and his wiseguys friends, the world was golden. They lived in an environment awash in crime, and those who did not partake were simply viewed as prey. Anyone waiting his turn on the pay line was beneath contempt. Those who did were fools. [P.36]

    To escape from the drudgery of the common American man, Hill saw an easy solution: go deeper in the underworld. And indeed, Hill would become one of the top men in the New York mafia. Upon his arrest in 1980, FBI agents would be stunned at the extent of his knowledge. Unlike other top criminals who only specialized in a few selected areas, Hill -despite a position roughly in the middle of the criminal hierarchy- has involved in everything: Drugs, gambling, theft, murders… Hill knew where the bodies were buried, often literally.

    Don’t feel surprised if you’ve heard this story before: Wise Guy is the basis of the award-winning 1990 Martin Scorsese film GOODFELLAS, considered by many critics to be among the best films of the nineties. Reading the source material, it’s not hard to find the elements that, properly handled, would form the basis for a great film: An interesting protagonist not that far removed from the typical viewer, an epic crime story spanning decades, a wealth of fascinating details and plenty of narrative hooks on which to build great scenes.

    But, as good as GOODFELLAS was, Wise Guy is even better: it deepens the anecdotes, explains some of the film’s seemingly most fanciful liberties (such as the high-class life of top mafiosos in prison) and is somewhat clearer on the path from runner to gangster. Even though Scorsese was no slouch at creating a well-rounded portrait of criminal motivations and the resulting life in constant potential violence, Hill truly completes the picture and the result is very convincing.

    Obviously, half -if not more- the credit for the book must go to journalist/interviewer Nicholas Pillegi, who manages to tighten up Hill’s words in a taut, compulsively readable narrative. That he was able to do all that under difficult interviewing conditions (Hill is currently, and will forever remain, under the protection of the Witness Protection Program) is nothing short of admirable. His work is for our benefit; this is the closest that most of us will come to a personal interview with a monster.

    Interestingly (or unfortunately), the overall impression given by Wise Guy is one of nostalgic charm for the gangster era. Mafia members come to form a relatively sympathetic group of criminals with honor. Far from being despicable serial killers or contemptible petty thieves, Hill’s testimony paints a portrait of rather decent guys despite the pesky murders and police bribery.

    Fascinating how the view from the other side is often more compelling that ours. But I’m still not giving all away for a life of crime. The hours are just murder.