Book Review

  • Poor Richard’s Web Site, Peter Kent

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Top Floor, 2000, 422 pages, C$47.95 tpb, ISBN 0-9661032-0-3

    You’re a small businessman. You own your own little-to-medium company, but lately you’ve become concerned that this Internet thingy might be hurting your sales. Or, at the very least, that you’re missing out on some great marketing opportunity. Whatever the reason, you want to get a piece of the e-action. But building a web site is complicated stuff, right? Expensive too, if you’re to believe the stories in the newspapers.

    Don’t.

    As Peter Kent points out, the dirty little secret of the Internet is that “it’s a giant jobs program for computer geeks.” A bit unfair as a statement, but not quite as ludicrous as you’d imagine. Kent’s point is that most of what you really need to know about a web site can be learned quickly, and practiced cheaply. So here’s a fifty-Canadian-bucks book to teach you how to be cheap. Poor Richard’s Web Site is a giant ad for Peter Kent’s business.

    All kidding aside, this book condenses in easy-to-read format a whole bunch of things most small business owners would be grateful to know about the Internet. Kent doesn’t do technical stuff (as he rightfully points out, there are plenty of other books that do that, and it’s not rocket science in any fashion.) but rather focuses on overarching business and design issues, plus spends a full third of the book on marketing.

    In its first two-third, Poor Richard’s Web Site strikes an admirable balance between down-to-earth business advice, and technically correct information. People baffled by the techno-jargon of other more in-depth work should feel at ease here, while more technically-oriented persons won’t be able to nit-pick the advice to death and even maybe learn a few new tricks or two.

    All throughout, Kent’s advice is sensible, often irreverent (if wholeheartedly supporting Microsoft can be considered slightly edgy) and often brought with a humorous slant.

    So far so good, but the book is contaminated with the stink of shameless self-promotion. As the book advances, it becomes obvious that Peter Kent is trying to sell you something: A contract with his own web hosting company. One or two mentions would have been fine, but when the URL of his own business is brought up every chapter or so, enough is enough.

    Things devolve in the last section, about marketing your web site. Though Kent at least has the decency to discourage spamming -noting that it may result in your web site being wiped out the face of the Earth-, his recommended “soft-sell” practices tend to run on the annoying side, especially when practiced on established communities that don’t really enjoy this type of thing. (eg; Usenet, where similar tactics are usually scoffed at.) At least Chapter 18 mentions real-world PR, which is where most of web promotion dollars should be going anyway.

    But I’m being once again too hard on the book. Naturally, it will appeal more to those with a business-and-marketing oriented mind. Naturally, techies are better off reading something more specialized. On the other hand, Poor Richard’s Web Site does manage to fulfill its goal of providing a one-stop business web primer.

    Just consider the opening five (!) full pages of blurbs as an advertisement of what you’ll learn inside…

  • The Hacker Crackdown, Bruce Sterling

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1992, 316 pages, C$7.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-553-56370-X

    (Available online at http://www.lysator.liu.se/etexts/hacker/)

    Bruce Sterling has acquired, in the science-fiction community, an enviable reputation as one of the smartest, most visionary representative of the genre. Indeed, in the turbulent nineties, Sterling has shown himself capable of adapting to the new wave of technology that almost made Science-Fiction obsolete. A string of excellent books (Heavy Weather, Globalhead, Holy Fire, Distraction, A Good Old-fashioned Future) have cemented his reputation as one of the current masters of the genre.

    Few SF observers would have been as bold as to claim such an honor for Sterling at the end of the eighties. Sure, Schismatrix was a boffo space-opera, and Islands on the Net showed promise, but apart from a few other short stories in Crystal Express, the rest of Sterling’s fiction output was disappointing, to say the least. Who remembers Involution Ocean? Or The Artificial Kid? If anything, Sterling was showing more promise as a competent critic (Cheap Truth) and anthologist (Mirrorshades) than a fiction author.

    In the early nineties, however, something happened. In 1990, a string of events rocked the computer underground. A friend of Sterling, Steve Jackson, saw federal agents confiscate a good part of his small gaming company’s assets under the pretext that he was writing a manual for computer pirates. Sterling didn’t simply get mad; he seeked the truth behind the event. The Hacker Crackdown is a journalistic account of the 1990 skirmishes between the telephone companies, the hackers, the police and the civil libertarians.

    The book is divided in four parts. In the first, Sterling begins by explaining the roots of cyberspace, going back as far as the first telephone networks. In one of the best passages of the book, he explains how the telephone system went from a simple cable strung between Alexander Graham Bell’s phone and Watson’s receiver to the current unimaginably complex packet-switching network. Then he traces the effects of a simple bug which shut-down AT&T’s telephone network in January 1990.

    He then takes us deeper underground, describing the subculture of the computer hackers that existed in 1990. He shows how paranoia, caused by the AT&T shutdown, percolated in a “need for action” that led police officers to raid private citizen’s house and to grab their computers—and in many cases, much more than their computers.

    In the book’s third quarter, he goes from one side to the other and ends up talking about the police forces and how they’re trying to update their mandate in the information age. He discusses how most computer security outfits were severely under-funded in the early nineties. Sterling takes us at a computer-security conference, and does some hacking of his own.

    Finally, he ends up explaining the most enduring legacy of the 1990 events; the electronic rights interest group that have been formed. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is described, along with a variety of speculations on the future of “law and disorder on the electronic frontier”.

    How important were the 1990 events? Well, as Sterling puts it, any policeman can go to a group of scruffy-looking hoodlums hanging in front of a store and ask them to leave, or else. Few groups of hoodlums would have the presence of mind to go phone up a lawyer to protest police repression of their constitutional right of free assembly. That’s what happened in 1990; for ill-defined reasons, government kicked over the electronic anthill, and that precipitated the formation of electronic rights interest groups, whose influence continues to grow in today’s information age.

    And you couldn’t find a better writer for the job than Bruce Sterling. His writing is clear, incisive and often funny. Even though he is clearly outraged at the police abuse, he gives fair consideration to everyone’s viewpoint, and the result is a superb book that illuminates computer security like few other books before. Strongly recommended. It is still, and will remain relevant. Parallels with current cases involving entertainment cartels versus internet startups (Napster, MP3.com, 2600.com…) under the guise of “piracy” when really it’s all about “consumer control” are chilling, to say the best. Except that this time, civil-rights groups aren’t facing an opponent bound by the constitution… and they can’t compete with their dollar-fuelled lobbyists.

    But don’t take my word for it; go check out the electronic version at http://www.lysator.liu.se/etexts/hacker/

  • The Gemini Man, Richard Steinberg

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 1998, 374 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-553-58016-7

    I picked up this book by mistake.

    I had been reading movie-rumor sites, and a particular project had caught my interest. Harrison Ford (or Mel Gibson, or Sean Connery) was supposed to be attached to star in THE GEMINI MAN, a thriller about a government operative being tracked down by… a younger clone of himself. Very interesting, especially given that a digital recreation of the lead actor (built from footage taken from movies released twenty years ago) would be used to re-create the younger version of the character.

    So I found myself at a used-book sale with a dirt-cheap copy of Richard Steinberg’s THE GEMINI MAN in my hands. A quick glance at the back cover blurb seemed to match my recollection of the film project: “He was trained to be our deadliest weapon. Now he’s our worst nightmare.” Sounded about right.

    Certainly, the first chapter of The Gemini Man is one of the best thriller opening I’ve read in a long, long time. Deep in Siberia, an American officer is sent to a concentration camp in order to bring back another American operative. The Russians put up some resistance, muttering something about freeing the devil and how, even under maximal security, the prisoner has already killed half a dozen guards. The terrified Russians add that his last escape attempt resulted in the death of a civilian family. The writing is brisk, clear and terrifying as we meet special operative Brian Newman, as if Hannibal Lecter had ended up as an US secret agent. A lot of small ominous details add up to promise a gripping novel.

    The rest of the book never matches this promise. In short order, our female protagonist is introduced; a psychologist tasked with interviewing Newman to decide if he’s fit to re-integrate civilian life. That is, if he can stop killing small birds and stray cats. Hmmm… what do you think?

    It gradually becomes apparent that this isn’t the story for which Ford, Gibson or Connery would have agreed to star. It takes a bit longer to realize that this is a completely ludicrous novel.

    It’s obvious from the start, however, that super-agent Brian Newman, he of murderous dispositions and terrifying abilities, is positioned as an anti-hero of Lecteresque appeal. He seems consciously engineered by author Steinberg as the perfect dangerous man, charming yet ruthlessly amoral, a genius-level sociopath with no remorse. Needless to say, we’ve seen this before, from Patricia Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley to Harris’ Lector, passing by the real-life Ted Bundy. As a reader, I tend to be annoyed by this quasi-glorification of criminal behavior. It seems all the most manipulative (“Oooh, a sexily dangerous man! My primal urges are taking over!”) when considering the statistically documented dimness of most criminals.

    It gets worse, because as the novel unfolds, Steinberg conjures up some neurological/psychological claptrap to “prove” that Brian Newsman isn’t simply a nut, a wacko or a government-trained mad dog, but rather a newly-evolved species of Humankind, Homo Sapiens Saevus or Homo Crudelis. Brain of a new man. Brian Newman. Ooh, subtle stuff.

    I’m used to seeing thrillers come up with whoopers, but that pretty much took the cake. Once the other characters start agreeing gravely and coming out of the woodwork as further examples of this new species, it’s only a small step to suppose that Steinberg belongs to the NRA and that he thinks that the Nazi concept of eugenics was a pretty good idea. Or maybe not, but at the very least he needs to work some more on suspending his readers’ disbelief. (In any case, he’s not learning very quickly; paging through his second novel in bookstores, it quickly became obvious that this was a novel where the protagonist discovers that -egawd!- the American government secretly knows about aliens! How so very original!)

    Of course, once super-badass-anti-hero is established as a new species of man, it doesn’t take a genius to see where the novel is going. It goes there without too many surprises. Yawn.

    Too bad, because The Gemini Man had the kernel, and the opening chapter, of a great thriller. Start of a series? Blah.

  • Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and other observations, Al Franken

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Delacorte, 1996, 351 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-22330-X

    It must be *so* easy to be an American political humorist. As a Canadian used to multiple political parties, a tradition of compromise and moderate politics across the board (with occasional curious results, like Conservatives selecting our first female prime minister and Liberals balancing the federal budget!), the American political landscape appears curiously simple, a matter of conservatives (“Republicans”), liberals (“Democrats”) and a gaggle of very small parties (“Weirdoes”).

    On the other hand, this clear American right-versus-left dichotomy has allowed for a strong tradition of partisan political humor. It’s in this context that Al Franken steps in.

    Al Who? You probably don’t recognize the name, but you may remember the character. Franken was a writer for Saturday Night Live, and incarnated -among others- the happy self-help guru Stuart Smiley, latter writing and starring in the so-so film STUART SAVES HIS FAMILY. It’s not really a surprise to find that the acerbic humor displayed in Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot… and Other Observations is far removed from his goofy Smiley character.

    Because, you see, Al Franken really does think that Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. And he spends a suitable portion of the book proving it, with show excerpts, counter-arguments and an illustrated chart of Limbaugh’s weight. Sweet. Small wonder that there’s another book out there titled Al Franken Is a Buck-Toothed Moron, by Republican humorist J. P. Mauro.

    Is it funny stuff? Absolutely. Remember that Al Franken was writing for Saturday Night Live well before it got boring. He unleashes the standard array of humor-writing tactics on Limbaugh and other assorted Conservatives, going from hyperbole to plain lies, strung along Franken’s testimonies of political events (which might of might not be true, but who am I to tell?) Suffice to say that unless you’re particularly sensitive about a particular person or issue, there’s bound to be worthwhile material in here. (And if you’re offended, well tough because this book has something in it to offend nearly everyone.) Don’t skim over the index.

    But don’t make the mistake of assuming that if the book is funny, then it’s inconsequential. Like all smart satirists, Franken means every word he writes. And, as the French-Canadian humor magazine “Croc” used to trumpet, it’s not because we laugh that it’s funny. Franken’s dissection of Limbaugh’s most ridiculous claims (Chapter 22: “The Regan Years: Rush Limbaugh is a big fat liar”) are worth a read, if only as an exceptional primer on how statistics can be twisted, resampled and plain hammered in order to support the arguments you’re making.

    It doesn’t stop there: The chapters about Environmental Regulation, Tax, Health Care and Legal Reform are written in carefully modulated anger, barely covered by dripping sarcasm. It’s obvious that Franken didn’t conjure up these jokes out of spite and thin air; an extensive underlying research carefully supports each argument. It’s smart, and it smarts.

    All in all, Rush Limbaugh is a Fat Idiot and Other Observations is a mordant, offensive, funny book about American politics. Sure, it occasionally isn’t very subtle. But it’s always clever, and that counts for something.

    For Canadians, the carnival-like atmosphere of American political target-shooting is an added bonus.

  • The Uplift Storm Trilogy, David Brin

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam Spectra, 1995-1998, ??? pages, C$??.?? hc, ISBN Various

    Brightness Reef: 1995, 659 pages
    Infinity’s Shore: 1996, 644 pages
    Heaven’s Reach: 1998, 557 pages

    It’s easy to see why David Brin’s Uplift series has been met with such enthusiasm by science-fiction readers.

    For one thing, it springs from a remarkably original premise. What if all sentient life in the universe (all hundreds, if not thousands of races) had to be deliberately engineered, “uplifted” from pre-sentient species? What if such sentient races had to serve their master race as clients to pay off the debt of sentience? What if this chain of uplift resulted in large clans and families of associated races? What if, in the middle of all this, humanity arrived on the scene with claims of self-evolved sentience and two client races -chimps and dolphins- of its own? The beauty of the Uplift series is in the framework suggested by these questions and their answers. The assumptions raised by Brin’s premise both pay homage to the traditional space opera clichés while bringing something new to them. In short, there’s been nothing else quite like it before, and that has a value of its own in SF.

    The second selling strength of the Uplift series is Brin’s own writing style. He writes briskly, mixes decent science with great characters and rewards the reader by injecting a lot of fun in the proceedings. Brin’s own philosophy is enthusiastically optimistic. The Uplift series, like most of Brin’s stories, reflects this. His novels are fun, but certainly not mindless fun.

    Many readers certainly like the result: All three first Uplift novels are still in print. The second book of the series, Startide Rising, won the 1984 Hugo and Nebula awards. The third volume, The Uplift War, “merely” brought home a Hugo.

    To call these first three books a trilogy would be exact only in the most technical sense. The first novel, Sundiver, is more of a perfunctory prologue than a full part of the series. The Uplift War is considered by most to be merely a side-show to the events of the second volume. When you get down to it, when people talked about the Uplift universe, most were in fact referring to the events in that one book, Startide Rising.

    But what grandiose events they were! In Startide Rising, the action took place on and around Kithrup, a forsaken toxic planet avoided by most Galactic Races. That is, until a human spaceship (The Streaker) crashlanded there after broadcasting the news of a stunning discovery. Before long, every galactic clans is fighting over the rights to take possession of the “wolfling” humans, and -most importantly-, the artifacts they discovered. Artifacts with the potential to unleash a religious war of multi-galactic proportions. In Startide Rising, we got to see the human members of Streaker struggle to get off-planet, avoiding the massive enemy fleets battling each other for the prize. But even though the novel ended on a triumphant note, many loose ends still dangled from Brin’s narrative, as well as tremendous potential for adventure. The Streaker was obviously still a long way from home.

    And there matters remained for eleven years of “real time”, the delay between 1984’s Startide Rising and 1995’s Brightness Reef, the first volume of a “new Uplift Trilogy” slated to tie the loose ends raised in Startide Rising.

    The publication of Brightness Reef was, at the time, hailed as a major event by publishing house Bantam Spectra (who was simultaneously pushing sequels to BLADE RUNNER and Hyperion) but resulted in a general feeling of disappointment by the general readership.

    It’s not hard to see why. Brightness Reef begins on Jijo, one of the places farthest removed from the galactic mainstream affected by the events in Startide Rising. Jijo is, officially, a forbidden planet. Declared off-limits thousands of years ago by galactic authorities, it became a civilization-free zone where potentially-sentient species can evolve in form more suitable for uplift.

    Unofficially, Jijo has a few extra features. A sudden astronomical event has made it so that no automated probe from the galactic authorities can survey the system, effectively leaving it unattended. As a result, six races have, at different times, illegally settled down on the planet to build colonies. As Brightness Reef begins, the five races still living together (including humans) have built a multi-racial community based on mutual exchanges.

    But! Suddenly, at least three ships crash down on Jijo: A capsule carrying an amnesiac human, a ship containing a mysterious race that might or might not want to exterminate Jijoan society and yet another spaceship somewhere in the ocean…

    Interesting setup, but it takes a heck of a long time for Brin to make anything with it. Almost five hundred pages, actually. Which practically means that most of the first volume is wasted in setup: All five alien races are introduced at once, with various degrees of success (Asx is fascinating, but Alvin is decidedly less so). There are no glossary, no dramatis personae to help out readers in Brightness Reef. (This presumably intentional flaw is corrected in the two latter volumes.) Things move at a snail’s place. Every characters seems to wait for something to happen.

    This something happens at the end of Brightness Reef, as Jijoan society is attacked by its newest visitors, and the beginning of volume two, as the Streaker crew finally makes an apparition. Volume One can be discarded, because Infinity’s Shore neatly resumes the previous six hundred pages in its first forty.

    Fortunately, Infinity’s Shore is more like the brisk Brin we’re used to. Things finally start moving, and before the ending is through, we’re once more where the Uplift series belongs: in space.

    The third volume, Heaven’s Reach, is the Big One: Not only does it deliver everything we’ve been promised for the trilogy, but it also ties up the loose ends of Startide Rising in a very satisfying fashion. While the first two volumes are a bit skimpy on the gee-whizzness factor, Heaven’s Reach delivers in spades, carrying us through new places, new life-forms and, heck, new levels of understanding of the Uplift universe. Heaven’s Reach is the high-powered space opera that fans of the subgenre have been dreaming of, filled with exotic pan-galactic issues, fantastic space battles, superb nyah-nyah-nyah scenes and outrageous triumphs despite formidable odds.

    It’s just a shame that we
    have to be so patient and invest so much time in the first two volumes in order to get to this late embarrassment of riches. Even though one can appreciate what Brin was trying to do, structurally, with the series, it in no way excuses the bloated first volume and frustrating account of Streaker‘s path from Kithrup to Jijo. (Readers are justified in howling when they’ll find out that oodles of big-scale adventures are quickly flashbacked after practically a thousand pages of inconsequential Jijoan matters.)

    But a great ending redeems almost anything, and that’s what happens with this new Uplift trilogy. Sure, the first tome’s a bore, but then again the third one’s a blast.

    Almost unexpectedly, this trilogy delivers the goods and then some. Fans of Brin’s Uplift series, and of space opera in general, owe it to themselves to read at least the last two books of the trio.

  • Dave Barry in Cyberspace, Dave Barry

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Crown, 1996, 214 pages, C$15.00 tpb, ISBN 0-517-59575-3

    Okay reader, let’s step in the time machine!

    Sit down in the chair, grab the controls, reset the dial to a primitive, dark and dangerous time. Be bold and go back to 1995. It’s wasn’t an easy time in that savage land known as America. The O.J. Simpson trial was on everyone’s minds. Bad dance music ruled the airwaves. TIME magazine boosted public interest in the Internet tenfold by pointing out that it contained plenty of porn. And, on August 24, a beast known by the name “Windows 95” was unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

    Dave Barry was there, and a fat publishing contract allowed him to chronicle this turbulent period in Dave Barry in Cyberspace. With his sagacious talent for vulgarization, he gives us a brief history of computing, a primer on the inner workings of computer, a buyer’s guide, a quick trip to Comdex -the biggest computer trade show on Earth-, embarks upon the Internet -as primitive as it was way back then- and makes insightful predictions about the future of computing and how it will affect everyone’s lives in the long run.

    Oh, who am I kidding? Dave Barry in Cyberspace is a book-long collection of humorist Dave Barry’s usual insanity, cleverly focused on computers to target the geek book-buying public. The result hasn’t aged very well, but still contains enough laughs to entertain.

    Take, for instance, Barry’s history of computing. It goes from the stone age (who didn’t have numbers, which seriously screwed up their taxes) to the Greek (Pythagora discovered that tipping equals 15%), Stonehenge (which, seen from above, clearly forms an “Enter Password” dialog box), steam-powered computers (using fourteen-ton diskettes), early WW2 codebreaking computers (nothing funny here), primitive arcade game (“it was only a matter of time before the American public demanded -and got- Pac Man”), MS-DOS versus Mac (“serious computer geeks ignored Apple because they wanted a challenge”) and the then-current, wildly popular Win95. (“Microsoft’s getting orders from primitive tribes that don’t even have electricity.”) “How would our ancient ancestors react if we were to show them a modern computer?” asks Barry. “Probably they would beat it into submission with rocks. They were a lot smarter than we realize.”

    And that’s just the first chapter —not including the introduction.

    The wit and comic aptitude that propelled Barry in several hundred newspapers with his syndicated humor column is readily obvious here. Even if some Stylistic Quirks[TM] tend to repeat themselves, the overall effect is pretty funny.

    But never forget that behind the silly jokes and elaborate punchlines lie several hard kernels of truth. The frustration of computer usage, the suspicion of Middle America at seeing their lives invaded by techno-speak, the sheer uselessness of most computing activities, the appeal of disembodied communication through safely anonymous channels —all of those are here, and chronicled in a fashion that will be of interest to far more than 21st century anthropologists.

    Even better; Barry treats the subject with a kind of satiric reverence that allows his book to be funny both to the computerphobic and the super-guru. Like most great comics, Barry’s biggest asset is not only to know what he’s speaking of, but to look at it from a carefully-cultivated idiotic point of view that overlays a solid knowledge of what he’s satirizing.

    Already, five long years after the release of the book, it has begun to lose its immediacy and to gain in historical value. Nostalgia is beginning to fill such terms as “Windows 3.1”. Dave Barry in Cyberspace is in serious danger of becoming a time capsule for latter times. And a darn funny one, at that.

  • The Galactic Center Series, Gregory Benford

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Various, 1978-1995, ???? pages, C$??.?? mmpb, ISBN Various

    In the Ocean of Night: Quantum, 1978, 295 pages
    Across the Sea of Suns: Bantam, 1984, 352 pages
    Great Sky River    : Bantam, 1987, 340 pages
    Tides of Light    : Bantam, 1989, 362 pages
    Furious Gulf    : Bantam, 1994, 341 pages
    Sailing Bright Eternity    : Bantam, 1995, 445 pages

    Faced with the prospect of a six-book SF series, any sane reader can reasonably ask whether the results will be worth the required time and money. After all, it’s not as if one frequently hear complaints about books that are too short or stories that are too exciting.

    More serious doubts are raised while considering that the Galactic Center series was written between 1978 and 1995, a period during which SF changed considerably and readers’ expectation adjusted accordingly. Even worse, Gregory Benford never enjoyed a reputation as a very accessible author, with his graduate-level literary style presenting postgraduate physics. Would the series suffer from disillusions of literary grandeur, outdated SF assumptions, difficult science or terminal boredom? To put it succinctly, it the Galactic Center series worth it?

    This reviewer, donning his “Consumer Report” costume, doesn’t think so, but doesn’t expect readers to be satisfied with such an curt answer. Let’s examine the series and find out what makes it tick incorrectly.

    In the Ocean of Night is a fix-up novel of stories published during the seventies. It opens with one of the most commonplace scenarios in turn-of-century SF; astronauts deflecting an asteroid headed for Earth. Things get less conventional after the asteroid ultimately reveals to be of artificial origin. In the Ocean of Night quickly becomes a prime example of what everyone will recognize as “seventies SF”, filled with ecological hysteria, marriage-à-trois, undigested literary devices and half-hearted attempts to combine mysticism with hard science. As a basic read, it has lost considerable interest and almost all of its freshness. There are good bits here and there, mostly in the protagonist’s communication with the unknown, but otherwise it’s not a novel that will set your mind of fire. Oh, and there’s a sasquatch in there. Not that he ever reappears later in the series.

    Across the Sea of Sun is a direct sequel to In the Ocean of Night, starring the same protagonist -Nigel Wamsley- in events happening shortly after the first novel. Even though some threads are comfortably forgotten (G’Bye, possessed Alexandria), there isn’t much of a transition between the first and second volumes. Across the Sea of Sun is simultaneously more entertaining and more annoying than its predecessor, an unfortunate mixture of unwieldy literary devices used too freely, and a few late-minute twists that really kick the story in high gear. It’s supposed to be a rather good hard-SFish tale of space exploration, but there is a lot of fat in these 352 pages and readers will have to be patient in order to get to the entertaining epilogue. The shape of the series’ theme is gradually revealed. Again, Benford shows signs of staying stuck in the seventies when his protagonist gets enmeshed in yet another marriage-à-trois, though this one ends up featuring a transsexual instead of a possessed automaton. Hey, whatever gets you off, Nigel.

    The third volume, Great Sky River, is a major, major let down. It happens sometime, someplace with people who speak a barely understandable dialect of English. These people are nomads, forced to flee and fight against marauding robots in a world dominated by mechs. We’ve all seen MAD MAX (or TERMINATOR 2, or…) and the initial setup is familiar, if intensely boring. The storyline follows the usual post-apocalyptic template, with the expected inconsistent enemies and hoards of hidden techno-goodies. This should have been a zippy tome, but it gets bogged down in useless trivia once again. Furthermore, only attentive (or imaginative) readers will be able to connect any part of this novel with the previous two volumes of the series.

    At least Tides of Light takes Great Sky River‘s protagonist, Killeen, off his hellhole of a planet, only to fall on yet another hellhole of a planet also dominated by mechs. The showcase scene of the book is a rather intriguing descent through a planet’s core, smothered with fascinating but lengthy details and -we guess- backed up by pages of intricate calculations. Alas, the rest of the novel drags on and on without the benefit of an interesting gimmick. There’s an interesting twist at the end, unfortunately diminished by its predictability. There are passages from an alien point of view; these can safely be skimmed. The novel ends as it began; aboard a spaceship heading somewhere, giving the impression that this book really wasn’t worth much.

    With Furious Gulf, the series *finally* moves in some kind of gear, though some will argue that it’s in reverse. Killeen and crew finally arrive somewhere important, but the readers shouldn’t get overconfident, because what follows is more than a hundred pages of various tripping through alternate universes. It makes even less sense than you can imagine. All this traipsizing around only serves to annoy and infuriate the few remaining readers, who by that time (and some fifty-odd dollars poorer) would be justified in demanding a few answers. Fortunately, the plotlines of the first two books finally intersect with the rest of the series a few scant pages before the end of Furious Gulf, with a reunion that won’t truly surprise most readers.

    If you’ve come this far, you might as well read the last volume. Fortunately, Sailing Bright Eternity provides some good hard answers early on, which takes off the unbearable tediousness of some three hundred more pages of seemingly aimless wanderings through time and space in alternate dimensions. While there are some arresting images in the process, there is also a whole lot of tediousness. Benford goes everywhere, but ends up nowhere, and after so much investments, one has cause to wonder if that type of stuff isn’t too late and far too inconsequential. There is a conclusion of sort, though nothing that will truly knock your socks off. If ever you want to read only the essentials, simply turn to the concluding Timeline, which succinctly resumes in 4 pages all the events of the series. It’s pretty much everything you need to know.

    After this grand odyssey through more than two thousand pages, and the entirety of space, time and other universes, the final result is less than underwhelming. Benford seems to be writing in loops, most of them bringing us back to the very same point than twenty, fifty, three hundred pages previously. The effect is frustrating.

    And yet, there is a lot of good stuff in the series. At first, it smoothly departs from “normality” in an interesting future (though the second/third book break destroys this comfort). At last, it presents a vast battle with new interesting opponents and imaginative skirmishes. But in the middle… the series has som
    e serious structural problems. From totally unjustifiable breaks in action to lengthy over-padded segments to the maddening loops mentioned earlier, the Galactic Center series bring new meaning to the word “frustration”. The problems aren’t limited to the structure, as Benford’s writing also varies considerably in terms of clarity, going from intentionally opaque tripe to fast-moving thriller prose in a blink.

    All of which could be forgivable, even quirky in a snappy three-hundred-pages book. But stretched out over six volumes… that’s overstaying its welcome. Just face it; for this amount of money you could buy six other books at random, and they’d end up, on average, being a far better buy than the Galactic Center series.

  • Designing Web Usability, Jacob Nielsen

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    New Riders, 1999, 432 pages, C$67.95 tpb, ISBN 1-562-05810-X

    As someone who does web stuff for a living, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find a book on the subject that will teach me new things. While there’s a huge demand for introductory material (HTML for Dummies, Introduction to Web Design, this sort of stuff), the market is far narrower for professional-level books and reference material.

    Part of this scarcity can be explained by the twin factors of media and maturity. Obviously, the best place to find information about the web is on the web, not in bookstores. Only the web can cope with the lighting-fast pace of change that is the norm in Internet Time. Pro designers are advised to have a list of bookmarks, not a shelf of books. Furthermore, Web Design as a discipline is still in its infancy. Even the best professional shops are still, at some level, not completely sure of what they’re doing. (as a look through their own corporate web sites will quickly reveal) There are no “rules” anywhere, only guidelines. The formal literature is quasi non-existent.

    In this context, Jacob Nielsen’s work (at http://www.useit.com/) is a breath of fresh air. He’s been in the usability business for more than ten years, and is constantly one of the most reasonable voices in the business. For Nielsen, Web Design is subvedient to one, and only one factor: What users want. You are not designing a brochure, you are not designing your CEO’s pet site; you are designing for your users. Only they matter. Only what they want, and how easily they find it, matters.

    Elementary, you’ll say. And yet, in this crazy business where more tech is seen as a natural advancement, it’s curiously down-to-Earth advice. Designing Web Usability is a worthwhile book-length elaboration on this thesis.

    For once, this is not a book for beginners or pointy-haired managers; Nielsen speaks the lingo and won’t make allowances for anyone who can’t follow. The baggage of knowledge assumed by the author is broad, but not too onerous; even budding webmasters will be able to make use of the book.

    Ironically, there are maybe ten lines of HTML code, max, in the whole book: While intensely technical, this is a book that deals with more advanced concepts than simple coding, and who will probably age better because of it.

    This being said, there are at least two weak points in Designing Web Usability. The first one isn’t Nielsen’s fault, given that it’s the occasionally-annoying page design, with its weird color and perplexing layouts. The other is a lack of a clear structure; while Nielsen’s intention seems to be to go from simple web page design to more overarching issues, this isn’t re-enforced in the writing. This lack of structure is also cause for some repetition late in the book.

    Still, these two flaws are minor, and don’t really distract from the Nielsen’s main argument, which is minutely detailed with solid arguments and research. It’s one thing to present common-sense concepts, but it’s another to back them up with facts. This blend of entertaining writing, common-sense opinions (“Frames: Just say no”) and hard facts (Frames break information unity, aren’t indexed by search engines and are often inaccessible by the disabled) makes it easy to imagine a good future for Designing Web Usability as an essential read if not a classic in the field.

    The book, in short, deserves to be read by anyone who’s seriously doing web design. Nielsen’s advice is sound and easy to apply. This is both a book you’ll read cover to cover, and you’ll refer to at appropriate times. Don’t be put off by the steep cover price; this is worth every penny you’ll spend on it.

    In his introduction Nielsen promises that this is the first book of a series. Let him bring on the second one. And, for the sake of all web user’s sanity, let’s hope that his books find a wide readership: We could all use faster, simpler, smarter web sites.

    (Pro web designers in love with frames, fancy graphical designs, big contracts with gullible clients and/or their own cleverness should steer clear of this book… they’ll feel naked after reading it.)

  • The Bear Went Up The Mountain, William Kotzwinkle

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Morton, 1997, 320 pages, C$19.95 tpb, ISBN 0-8050-5438-3

    How’s this for a cute premise:

    An English literature teacher isolates himself to write a novel. After he finishes the manuscript, it’s destroyed by a freak fire. Undaunted, the teacher writes another -much trashier- manuscript and leaves it under a tree for safekeeping. (Don’t ask why) Then, in another freak occurrence, a bear discovers the manuscript, reads it and finds out that there are a lot of sex scenes and that the fishing scenes are technically accurate (“This book has everything!” wonders the bear). Shortly after, the bear -now self-named Hal Jam- goes to New York and submits the manuscript to a major editor. Inevitably, perhaps, Hal becomes a literary success, goes on a book-promotion tour, thwarts a vice-presidential assassination attempt and generally becomes a superstar. Meanwhile, the poor English professor quietly goes bonkers.

    A tall tale? A comic fantasy? Obviously, The Bear Went up the Mountain is an outright satire of the publishing industry, where the notion of a pure-and-true bear becoming a publishing superstar isn’t as much of a stretch as you’d expect. After all, few celebrities are so disconnected from the object of their fame than writers. No one seriously expect to have *proof* to connect Person to Book. Writers are almost expected to be eccentric. They don’t even have to be good conversationalists.

    Plus, while the New York Publishing scene isn’t quite as insane as the Hollywood cinema crowd, it’s awfully close. In Kotwinkle’s novel, it’s difficult to be overly amused by the excesses of Hal Jam’s publishers / agents / so-called-friends because we expect them to happen, much like THIS IS SPINAL TAP isn’t so funny after fifteen more years of increasingly weird rock’n’roll acts. (Still, your reviewer chuckled when one character cockily declared something to the effect that “teachers are the most important part of the publishing scene, for without them there would be no readers.”)

    The process leading to Hal Jam’s growing reputation is entertaining, as is the overall tone of the book. Seeing Hal Jam’s simple bearish though-process being confused for shyness, cleverness or ruggedness (Hemingway comes up frequently) isn’t exactly original -media idiocy is a big and obvious target-, but it sure is a lot of fun.

    Unfortunately, it becomes obvious that Kotzwinkle’s initial concept can’t sustain a full-length novel. Hal’s amusing adventures are intercut with far less interesting scenes featuring the original novel’s author and while there is some funny stuff in there, it just can’t compete with the main plotline. Other vignettes, like Hal’s discovery of a musical gangsta group, also seemed tacked-on the main story without any discernible payoff. The narrative would have been far more adequately written as a novella, or even a short story, than a full novel.

    To this padding problem, we can also add a badly-handled conclusion, which doesn’t quite match the tone and fun of the rest of the novel. Granted, some issues had to be settled, but unfortunately, the resolution chosen by Kotzwinkle robs the book of much impact. (The epilogue is amusing, though, and ties in nicely with one of Hal Jam’s book-long obsessions.)

    Still, it’s all in good fun. The Bear Went up the Mountain isn’t a demanding read (it’s clearly written and set in large type) and as such -combined with the book’s other problems- should best be considered as an item to check out at the library, not really a potential purchase. That is, unless you’re a bear who wants to make it big in the publishing industry…

    (Finally, a special mention should be made of Peter de Sève’s fantastic cover illustration, which perfectly captures the whimsical looniness of a grown Bear in busy New York.)

  • Wormwood, D.J. Levien

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Miramax/Hyperion, 1999, 247 pages, C$31.00 hc, ISBN 0-7868-6506-7

    Hollywood has burned as many writers as it has attracted. Simply put, there is just too much money and too much fame in Hollywood for it to care about merit, intelligence or talent. The Dream Factory consumes more fantasies than it produces, and all too often, these crushed aspirations are those of the powerless writers. Fortunately, what doesn’t kill a writer only makes him a better one, so it’s not an uncommon sight to spot a “Hollywood revenge” novel in libraries. Witness Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty…

    The fact that the publishing world is a coast away, in Hollywood-jealous New York, must be of some help.

    D.J. Levien is/was, by some measures, a Hollywood insider. He is the co-author of the film ROUNDERS (starring Ben Affleck) and has obviously spent some time in Tinseltown before sitting down to write Wormwood. The result, an uneven but suitably readable Hollywood revenge story, is ironically published by a Hyperion imprint bearing the name of a major Hollywood studio.

    Wormwood tracks the career path of Nathan Pitch, a young man who comes to Hollywood with big dreams but no particular talent. In short order, he’s reduced to working as a mail-boy in a talent agency oddly similar to the world-renowned CAA (Creative Artist Agency). A short while after, he’s even lower down the scale, working for an marketing outfit that could have been named NRG but wasn’t. As if to illustrate the fickle nature of Hollywood (or is it bad plotting-by-coincidence?), a chance encounter sends him off upward again. It won’t last.

    It’s quite obvious from the start that Wormwood will try to be funny but that it won’t succeed because it tries too hard to be a morality tale. The grander-than-life nature of the Hollywood elite and the psychologically desperate people serving it are naturally comedic drivers. But, aha, given that this is a Hollywood Revenge novel, it cannot be allowed for the flawed hero to succeed. The whole moral point of the story simply won’t allow it.

    Granted, there are a few choice moments, such as when Nathan uses whatever clout he’s got to start a bidding frenzy over a highly literary book. It ends up with a very rich author and a studio that realizes that it just bought a property that can’t be adapted to the screen. (Wormwood makes it clear that Hollywood People who pay aren’t the people who read; a strongly-worded reading report becomes holy writ as no one will bother to read the source material.) Other good vignettes take place when Nathan fires off anonymous memos or joke-scripts and sits back as the intra-office Gestapo vows to find their authors. But these are only small moments of mirth against the inevitable downfall of Nathan Lane. Rule number one of morality tales; you can only deserve redemption by walking away from corruption.

    There is one big insight in Wormwood, and it is in how it describes Hollywood as some kind of gigantic feeding frenzy, where everyone wants to be in the inner circle, but where the number of applicants is so huge that those in the inside can practically do anything, install any hoop, indulge in whatever quirk they wish. Furthermore, there is no real inner circle: the competition is so ferocious, the supply of applicants sufficiently large that anyone bucking the system can be immediately replaced by someone who will abide.

    Heady stuff from a novel, but to its credit, Wormwood manages to give out just the right air of desperation that fittingly describes what one would credibly imagine the real Hollywood to be. Does it correspond to reality? Who really cares?

    Unfortunately, the rest of the novel isn’t as enlightening. The gradual self-destruction of Nathan Pitch is obviously inevitable in the context of this morality tale, but no less maddening to watch. Few surprises are in store once we realize the nature of the text. Other, better books of the genre exist, but Wormwood will do the trick if ever there isn’t anything more enticing at the local library.

  • Supercarrier, George C. Wilson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Macmillan, 1986, 273 pages, C$10.00 hc, ISBN 0-02-630120-2

    From almost any point of view, few things on Earth are as awesome as a modern airplanes carrier ship. Easily classifying as some of the largest objects every built by humankind, carriers are supposed to be ships, cities, airport, repair shop, warmachines and political instruments. Most of them include everything needed to host 3,000+ men: Chaplains, a newspaper, a TV station, huge cafeterias… In short, aircraft carriers are an ideal subject for non-fiction books.

    Given the already-established market for military books (fiction or non-fiction), the idea of a documentary account of life on an airplanes carrier fits right in the publishing field. That is, as long as a sufficiently knowledgeable person can be persuaded to put in the research time.

    On paper -and that’s all that counts, after all-, George C. Wilson appears to be an ideal man for this project. The cover blurb describes him as the chief defense correspondent for The Washington Post and the author of at least two other military-themed non-fiction books. He obviously has the skills, and at the very least, one can say he had the motivation to do some serious research on his subject: For seven months, Wilson accompanied the crew of the USS John F. Kennedy on a typical deployment, leaving behind civilian life, a job, family and wife.

    As it turned out, the September 1983-May 1984 deployment of the Kennedy turned out to anything but typical. Originally intended to sail for the peaceful Indian Sea, it was re-ordered toward Lebanon shortly after beginning its tour. There, in the aftermath of the US Marines compound terrorist bombing of 1983, planes from the Kennedy would enter combat over the skies of Lebanon. Five planes were lost during that tour: three crashed in the sea, one had a mid-air collision, and one was downed by enemy fire. Three pilots dies. A group of sailors asked to be let off the carrier.

    But that’s the big picture. Wilson spends as much time describing the minute human mechanisms that make it so that the thousands of men aboard the Kennedy can effectively work together. At the top, of course, there’s the captain, purposefully maintaining the image of aloofness and professionalism fit for someone cumulating the equivalent positions of captain, mayor and father confessor. There’s the hands-on executive officer (XO), constantly worrying about how to implement the captain’s policies. There are the heads of specialized departments: Propulsion, weaponry, maintenance, aviation. But there’s also the chaplains, master chiefs, psychologists and other personnel that ensure that thousands of men can spend seven months together without cracking up.

    Chapter after chapter, Wilson takes up through normal carrier operations: Russian airplanes interceptions (“Bear Hunts”), shore leave (in Rio de Janeiro, no less), VIP visits… Wilson also climbs in the cockpit for descriptions of naval aviation: Combat Air Patrols, Antisubmarine warfare, bombing, refuelling…

    The closest equivalent to Super Carrier is Stephen Coonts’ The Intruders, which was a novel about a naval pilot on a carrier tour of duty shortly after the Vietnam war. Like The Intruders, Super Carrier also falters during its second half. But unlike the Coonts novel, which suddenly creaked under the sudden imposition of a ludicrous late-minute plot, Super Carrier suffers from excessive military theorizing by Wilson, as he uses the subject as a springboard to explore various controversies in American military doctrine. While this must have been of some pointed interest at the book’s release, it’s also the part of Wilson’s account that has aged the most in the fifteen years since original publication.

    This caveat aside, Super Carrier remains a good read on a fascination subject. Wilson was incredibly lucky to be on such an eventful deployment, and he was talented enough to be able to describe in clear terms what happened for laymen. The result should be worth tracking down for anyone interested in the intricacies of naval military operations.

  • Dinosaur Summer, Greg Bear

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Books, 1998, 325 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-446-52098-5

    There are probably no other working SF authors as frustrating as Greg Bear.

    One part of his bibliography includes such masterpieces as Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God or Moving Mars; Hugo-winning, hugely acclaimed novels of hard-SF with good characters and exciting prose.

    The other part of Bear includes simple-but-boring novels like Strength of Stones and a slew of rather unmemorable novels written and published between 1975 and 1985. Even some highly ambitious latter works (Queen of Angels, Slant, Anvil of Stars) have significant flaws that have alienated many readers.

    So, every new Bear novel is cause for suspense: Will it be a “Good Bear” novel or a “Boring Bear” novel? With Dinosaur Summer, bets seemed even more uncertain than usual: Even though the concept of writing a sequel to Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic The Lost World seemed iffy to modern SF readers, the original was so darn fun that one would have to work hard not to keep this same charming sense of excitement.

    Unfortunately, Greg Bear fumbles it.

    For one thing, he makes the mistake of making this an explicit “Young Adult” book by featuring a teenage protagonist. Letting aside my belief that the “Young Adult” market segment is a useless but lucrative market created by publishers for parents and libraries who should know better than to spoon-fed Holy Reading to teenager, I’ll simply note that most of my favorite novels, as a teen, simply delivered a good rousing story. The age of the protagonist had nothing to do with it.

    But let’s leave some room for doubt. After all, Dinosaur Summer has marketed as a regular SF book, without any particular trappings of the “Young Adult” demographic segment.

    It still doesn’t excuse a criminal waste of the reader’s time. Whereas The Lost World expedited its characters in harm’s way in almost no time, Dinosaur Summer ambles on like its namesakes and finally gets its first true thrilling “action” scene barely past the book’s midpoint. Worse, the writing style is almost complacently long-winded, with the predictable result that the reader’s attention is bound to wander off long before anything of interest happens. Dinosaur Summer is conceived as kind of an alternate history, with oodles of in-jokes you’ll probably miss if you blink. Okay, so Harry Harrihausen is a major character. That’s a good homage, and a pretty fun thing for him, but I don’t really get anything out of it. Samewise for everything else.

    It would seem to be an elementary requirement to include some adventure in an adventure book. Dinosaur Summer has some, mostly of the expected form of run-away-from-dinosaurs, but it comes too late, and repeats itself too often to be considered effective. Bear has done a good job in extrapolating a complete Plateau ecology, but doesn’t do much of interest with it. There’s some truly weird stuff about prophetic dreams and such, but by that time, the actual reading of the book had begun to take on nightmarish qualities. (“When will it end?”, etc…)

    Special mention should be made, however, of the rather good interior illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi, who does a lot to save the book from total collapse.

    Still, it’s hard to see who would be interested in Dinosaur Summer. From the weak premise to the botched executions, this novel doesn’t sustain any interest. The dry, uninvolving style tries too hard to wring out some charm from its surrounding and obviously doesn’t succeed at the task.

    There is no doubt that Greg Bear can do much, much better than this. In the meantime, Dinosaur Summer will have to be classified as one of his weakest novels. Readers looking for a dash of adventure are advised to track down a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original The Lost World.

  • Stardance, Spider and Jeanne Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1977, 278 pages, C$2.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-440-18367-7

    Spider Robinson. There’s no one else like him in science-fiction.

    Whereas SF has traditionally been logical, mechanistic, goal-driven, conservative and scrupulously clean, Spider Robinson comes from a background that’s far away from the scientific education shared by many of hard-SF’s core membership. He has described in interviews how he had his big break in SF as his regular job was to guard a sewer plant at night. He’s stayed on both coasts of Canada, first Nova Scotia then British Columbia. He’s had some association with communes, is an outspoken drug advocate and looks exactly like one would stereotypically imagine a hippie.

    His novels reflect his background, being almost pathologically filled with motifs of universal love, friendship and happiness. His characters -usually narrators; his novel are almost always told from the first person point of view- are charmingly imperfect, yet paradoxally far more tolerant and self-describingly morally superior to your usual human. Most of his stories include one or several rants about how (pick one) intolerance, sexual monogamy, fear of communicating, racism, sexism, narrow-mindedness or other “so-typical” human traits are generally messing up the world.

    Stardance isn’t really any exception. An expanded version of Hugo and Nebula-winning novella of the same name, Stardance is narrated by Charlie, an ex-dancer made audiovisual technician by an untimely accident. He meets Shara, a dancer too big for one-gee work who finally decides to invent zero-gee dance. Suddenly, aliens appear and Shara’s super-dance convinces them not to destroy the Earth. End of original novella and the first third of the novel.

    I’m being needlessly flippant; Robinson’s greatest strength is how he can write about almost anything and make interesting through the narration. An easy prose style with carefully-chosen details and heaps of humour make up for many structural weaknesses. Even though the magically-dancing-the-aliens-away bit isn’t truly credible in itself, the novel does a good job at suspending our disbelief at this point.

    The rest of the novel follows Charlie as he sets up a zero-gee dancing school and gets whisked away to Jupiter for another race-saving dance session. (STARDANCE II: ELECTRIC BUGALOO!) It’s a hugely readable tale, reasonably well-paced and populated with interesting characters. His zero-gee assumptions are curious, but then again Robinson isn’t a Hard-SF writer.

    Even then, however, the book remains slightly annoying. It took me some time to figure out what it was, but when I did, it struck me that this flaw of Robinson’s work could be applied to his whole work.

    If you accept the theory that Spider Robinson is SF’s hippie representative, it makes sense to assume that his work will promote the ideals of this culture. Check: His whole Callahan series, for instance, creates a family-slash-support-group through a bar where everyone knows everyone’s name. Time Killer spend way too many pages promoting an idealistic view of a 1973 commune.

    However, this message of peace-love-happiness carries a none-too-explicit counter message: If you can’t love everyone else, if you can’t realize that serial monogamy is selfish and bad, if you can’t tolerate everyone then you’re scum, you’re despicable, you’re not invited to Spider Robinson’s parties and frankly, you’re not even worthy of calling yourself human. Bang. Like that. In other words, there’s a current of intolerance-for-the-intolerant that runs in all of Robinson’s fiction. It’s made worse by the holier-than-thou stand he himself takes on the subject. Liberals may grind their teeth at conservative novels, but at least conservatives don’t make any attempt to pretend they love everyone!

    Stardance goes through the same motions by clearly highlighting that zero-gee isn’t for everyone, and that only superior adaptable humans deserve to be in zero-gee. (His last-minute amendments are bunk.) Everyone else goes back in the gene pool. How tolerant…

    (In some future review, I’ll take on another Spider Robinson annoyance of mine; how individualism isn’t worth a damn for him.)

  • Chariots for Apollo, Charles R. Pellegrino & Joshua Stoff

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1985 (1998 reprint), 320 pages, C$19.50 tpb, ISBN 0-380-80261-9

    Looking back over a span of thirty years, humankind’s effort to land a few of its own on the Moon seems nothing short of incredible. To think that “these people” in “that time” could do such miracles with “their technology” borders on the miraculous. Whereas today’s space program is moribund, dogged by budget cuts, drastically reduced ambitions and a surplus of overcautiousness, the effort to go to the moon shines on as a pinnacle of human ingenuity and doggedness.

    A good way to re-live this whole era is to grab a copy of Charles Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff’s Chariots for Apollo. This book, originally published in 1985 (“immediately going out of print with the Challenger explosion” [P.xiv] reminisce the authors) has recently been re-edited in trade paperback format by Avon books, and readers will find that the book has lost none of its interest. Indeed, given that fifteen more years have passed since the oft-overlooked first edition, most will appreciate this “new” book that has the advantage of hindsight and a “what-happened-to-them” afterword. Part time-capsule (several of the people interviewed for the book have died since 1985) and part historical work, Chariots of Apollo does an exceptional job at representing the low and high dramas of the Apollo era.

    Most histories of the space program will spend time in explaining the basics, or will focus on a historical heroic-figure approach. Pellegrino and Stoff are writing for a different audience: One that pretty much already knows, in general terms, what happened during that time. Furthermore, the authors admit in the prologue in focusing their attention on the overlooked heroes of the space program: The engineers and low-level technicians who actually designed and built the machines that carried Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon. Chariots for Apollo is a homage to the thousands of ordinary people doing an ordinary job in order to fulfill an extraordinary goal; put humankind on the moon.

    More specifically, it focuses on the people who designed, built and tested the Lunar Expedition Module (LEM), the tiny, brittle, crucial piece of machinery that covered the last few miles between Earth and the Moon. It has become an iconic piece of machinery, with its spider-like shape that is immediately recognizable even today. Chariots for Apollo, as the title indicates, spends a lot of time behind the scenes at Grumman, describing the laborious process which lead to the construction of the LEMs.

    There are anecdotes aplenty. From the ultra-meticulous security/safety procedures (despite which a twenty-four-foot extension cord was lost in the LEM clean room…) (despite which a squirrel found its way in the clean room and had to be shot-gunned) (despite which LEMs were physically turned upside-down to allow loose part to fall out) to oodles of near-dangerous incidents that were solved in the nick of time. (Only on Apollo 11: the glycenol lubricant crystallized in orange slush, soldering repairs had to be made on LM fuel lines days before the launch, the LEM nearly blew up from unanticipated fuel pressure seconds after landing, Armstrong accidentally broke the ignition arming switch…) The book is filled with details that even moderate space buffs like your reviewer have never seen anywhere else.

    The result is a beautifully written book, filled with fascinating details and honest human-interest stories (like the various mementoes put on the ship by construction personnel) that warmly illustrate the magnitude of humanity’s achievement in going on the moon. Maybe a bit short, and not comprehensive enough. (it is rather too focused on the LEM given the richness of related content and the misleading cover) A bit melodramatic too, but that makes for vivid reading. Like most of Charles Pellegrino’s books, this one is worth grabbing on sight.

    Solid reading about the moon program which will leave you with plenty of questions to learn more, and one overriding concern: When are we going back there?

  • The Cassini Division, Ken MacLeod

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Orbit, 1998, 240 pages, C$18.95 tpb, ISBN 1-85723-730-7

    It’s so difficult to write a good, original SF novel that writers who do manage it consistently deserve to be treasured. Why spend your time trying to figure out new and original futures when you can just file off the serial numbers of the STAR TREK universe and set a novel in this context? Why bother researching new emerging technologies when you can just randomly use buzzwords like nanotech, hyperspace and transhumanity?

    Ken MacLeod is a young hot British author who’s quickly acquiring a reputation of being at the front of the SF idea-generator pack. With now four novels to his name, he’s only now beginning to make major impact on the American scene. His third book, The Cassini Division was the first to cross the Atlantic and be published by a major American SF publisher. Why the delay? Having read MacLeod’s first, The Star Fraction, I’d argue that it’s all about politics.

    Most American SF readers -myself included- are simply not used to see complex political issues in science-fiction. When political issues are raised, they’re usually of a progressive/regressive nature: Should progress be unimpeded or not? Only a few writers -Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling, L. Neil Smith, etc…- have gone beyond the simple regressive/progressive polarity that seems to dominate current American politics.

    MacLeod’s novels are different. They take place in a common future where the predominant system is Communist/Socialist, make references to bad historical periods of American/UN empires, feature capitalism as almost a social disease, etc… Annoying stuff for the average American reader, which explains why MacLeod’s first novels never made it to our shores. Truth be told, The Cassini Division is his first novel to “overcome” MacLeod’s political preoccupations and deliver a good story.

    His first novel, The Star Fraction, -available in America in a few select libraries- puts its complex politics above the plotting (which roughly concerned the making of a revolution in a chaotic feel-bad future) and suffered considerably from it. As an SF novel, it was pretty much an average effort, good enough to be a keeper but not going much further beyond that unless your politics happened to match with MacLeod’s own Socialist convictions.

    The Cassini Division is better. It takes place farther in the future (diminishing the “oh, come on!” factor) is driven by a richer plot (briefly; humans against posthumans) and is strictly more enjoyable to read than its predecessors. There’s some satiric capitalist-bashing in here too, but the goofball treatment doesn’t grate at in The Star Fraction.

    More importantly, The Cassini Division feels like fresh SF. The buzzwords are handled competently, the gadgets are new, plausible and interesting, the atmosphere of a new and interesting future is well-handled and the first-person narration is compulsively readable. It’s one of the few SF books of 1998 that deserve an eventual thorough re-read. Not many new novels on the market can claim to score points in all these categories. On the other hand, the zap conclusion will annoy more than a few readers.

    Naturally, the above caveat about politics may very well not apply to readers who are older, wiser, or simply closer to MacLeod’s political opinions. As for the remainder, well, a little argumentation is almost invariably good for the brain. And frankly, this might be the highest -as well as the most truthful- compliment one can say about The Cassini Division: Not only is it fun, but it’s also pretty good for the brain.