Book Review

  • Teranesia, Greg Egan

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Gollancz, 1999, 249 pages, C$21.95 tpb, ISBN 0-575-06855-8

    Greg Egan is back, and this time he’s offering something different.

    Egan has made his enviable reputation in the Science-Fiction field (“One of the genre’s great ideas men” —The Times) by delivering stories and novels with an unusually high concept density. It also helps that he’s a hard-SF writer of the old school: All of his stories are built around one cool idea and the question “What if…?”

    On the other hand, most critics have been prompt to mention that Egan isn’t a good stylist, doesn’t build compelling characters or writes lamentable dialogue. (To be fair, there’s some truth to this: Egan often comes up in English-French translation discussions, as a case example of the trade-offs needed to remain faithful to the source material; most translators just itch to “improve” his prose style.)

    Egan’s previous 1998 novel, Diaspora, was a dense, fiercely original, quasi-unreadable work of impressive vision and frustrating writing. Any SF writer could justifiably take a break after such an effort. Most readers, however, won’t expect the complete shift taken with Teranesia.

    It starts with a lengthy prologue in which we’re introduced to Prabir Suresh, a nine-year-old boy living with his sister and his parent scientists alone on Teranesia, an isolated Indonesian island. Stuff happens and Prabir is forced to seek refuge in Canada along with his sister. Years later, Prabir finds himself drawn once again to Teranesia, lured by reports of unexplainable mutations.

    The first surprise of Teranesia is its pacing. Unlike the often-frenetic movement that characterized the first few pages of his first novels, like the breathtaking “digitalization” scene that opens Permutation City or the mesmerizing after-death-confession of Distress, Teranesia leisurely establishes Prabir’s character before doing anything else. It’s unusual for Egan, and not really practical in hooking the reader’s attention.

    The leisurely pace is maintained though most of the book, but the book’s appeal picks up once the narrative moves to Toronto, just in time for vicious (and overdone, yet hysterically funny) attacks on new-age / feminist / post-modernist / anti-science rhetoric. If you pay attention, you’ll notice by this point that the prose is more pondered, the characters more fleshed out than in Egan’s previous work. There aren’t as many idea, though, even if Egan fans will recognize most of the landscape. In representing a non-Anglocentric near-future scenario, Egan evokes memories of recent works by Bruce Sterling.

    The late explosion of concepts, when it comes, is a lot of fun though there’s a feeling that they arrive a little too late for full satisfaction. The unfinished ending (“AND WHAT HAPPENS *NEXT*??”) is also disappointing, -yet a cut above Egan’s usual reformat-the-universe conclusions- and adds to the feeling that for a writer who ventured in post-human territory as often as Egan, he’s taking a curiously reactionary position…

    The result is kind of a new Egan, one that seemingly set out to write an easygoing novel to address most of his perceived weaknesses: the prose, the characters, the ending… While Teranesia doesn’t fully live up to Egan’s previous body of work, it’s a novel that shows promise for the author’s next books. It’s probably not coincidental that Teranesia is also the author’s most accessible novel. It’s always interesting to see an author grow…

  • Cosm, Gregory Benford

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon EOS, 1998, 374 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-79052-1

    Even though “Science” is fully half of science-fiction, its representation in most SF stories is simply appalling. One cannot count the number of cheap stories in which The Answers seem to be held by one clever fellow who can also whip up a universe-saving device in five minutes and still get the girl. (Watch INDEPENDENCE DAY again. Discuss your disgust.)

    Real-world science truly doesn’t work that way. Answers are found after messy, meticulous trial-and-error procedures that don’t result in flashes of insight as much as in slow theoretical elaboration. And that’s still in the lab, because outside the lab lies even more drudgery; endless paperwork to apply for research grants, constant academic or corporate social infighting, political pressures… The appalling state of today’s science is matched only by our disgusting lack of knowledge about it.

    All of this must have crossed Gregory Benford’s mind as he sat down to write Cosm, his latest science-fiction novel. Benford is a professor of physics at the University of California, so he presumably knows what near-future hard science-fiction is all about.

    At first glance, there’s not much excitement in Cosm‘s premise: Almost by accident, an ordinary scientist creates a shiny meter-wide sphere in a particle accelerator experiment that goes wrong. She keeps the sphere and starts studying it. No big pyrotechnic displays, no mind-blowing SF concepts.

    And, for most of the book, that’s where things stay. The sphere proves to be an interesting phenomenon, but not one that has the inherent potential to arouse the jaded reader’s interest.

    Most of the novel’s impact comes from other strengths, such as its insider’s glimpse into contemporary science. The political battles, dirty academic tricks and real-world concerns of most working scientists are faithfully described.

    Second is the attention that Benford brings to his protagonist. Alicia Butterworth is, simply put, one of the most impressively realized characters in recent SF. She’s not a beauty queen (far from it), she’s not a terribly charming person (her dismal dating record proves it), she’s not supernaturally smart (part of her appeal is that she’s an average scientist) and she realistically suffers from the twin handicaps of being both black and female in a white male environment. Her struggles and triumphs are made more real by being solidly anchored in the real world.

    The result is, without question, Benford’s best book. The prose is lively and compulsively readable, the pacing holds up, the supporting characters are well-defined, the book is peppered with great throwaway lines and as a result, the book nearly reads itself in less time than you’d think. Good scenes, believable dialogue, a few physics jokes and a lot of nifty personal insight: Cosm raises the bar for the rest of Hard-SF. Through exceptional writing, the appeal of the book goes well beyond SF territory, though fans of the genre will not feel any dumbing-down of the material.

    There are still a few rough spots whenever it’s time to place all the events in a greater context, like some knee-jerk media-bashing, and simplistic fundamentalist overreaction. (Though this leads to a typical kidnapping scenario that, for once, plays as if a smart kidnapee was involved.) General-interest readers might quibble that the science stuff is overwhelming (sheesh; a few graphs and everyone screams bloody murder!) and that the pacing is dull. Nothing that we’re not led to expect, really.

    But with Cosm, Gregory Benford turns out the novel we’ve been waiting to read from him: A purely hard-SF tale that’s at the same time written with zest and a whole lot of skill. Recommended reading.

  • Spyworld, Mike Frost and Michel Gratton

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Seal/Bantam, 1995, 275 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-7704-2707-3

    If you’re like me, you tend to assume that the vast majority of modern spying is handled by the Americans. Dozens, hundreds of spy movies and semi-fiction technothrillers, most of them produced in the United States, have conditioned us to accept the FBI, CIA and NSA as undisputed masters of electronic spying. Compared to them, the very though of, say, Canadians trying out their luck at espionage is somehow completely ridiculous.

    And yet, even masters need their apprentices. Mike Frost was one of them, an employee of Canada’s NSA-equivalent, the Communication Security Establishment (CSE). From the early seventies to 1990, Frost was at the forefront of Canada’s electronic spying initiative. As he makes it clear, it was all sponsored, equipped and suggested by the Americans… though the apprentice would eventually surprise the master.

    Electronic spying isn’t exciting in a cinematographic fashion. Instead of seducing enemy agents, photographing secret documents and shooting oneself out of trouble, it basically means intercepting, decoding and analyzing radio communications. All of which can be safely conducted from a more-or-less safe location, like an embassy.

    But even if physical danger isn’t a factor, the international spying game has its own sets of rules, where embarrassment can be the ultimate failure. It’s simply not done to pack up electronic equipment and set it up in the embassy. Things have to be done stealthily as so not to awaken doubts, even among the embassy personnel itself.

    Frost, along with collaborator Michel Gratton, clearly traces the evolution of Canadian electronic spying efforts, from amateurishness in Moscow (lack of preparation leading to funny anecdotes concerning the shipping of the electronic equipment, including sending a high-powered drill to pierce a safe, cutting up a five-foot dish antennae in shippable pieces and taking chances with an underpowered elevator.) to stealing profitable trade secrets from the Chinese.

    This is heavy-duty modern spying, and each step of the way is meticulously detailed. Embassy selection, equipment installation, personnel training and data transmission are all crucial steps, described in here. And it all feels real, without too much sensationalism or outlandish claims.

    Well, almost without too many outlandish claims. Like most general-interest books about the spying business, Spyworld raises issues of domestic privacy and government powers in communication interception. Should the CSE have the power to intercept domestic communications? Should it be overseen by a committee of elected officials? Unfortunately, these questions are nothing new; the book is more effective in demonstrating the powers of contemporary spying capacities than in explicitly decrying its possible excesses.

    In any case, the end result is a non-fiction account that’s interesting, not too technically obscure, with some great anecdotes and which lifts a small corner of the veil over some very real spying practices. Not a bad read, if only for a few moments of national pride.

  • Day of Wrath, Larry Bond

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner Books, 1998, 481 pages, C$30.00 hc, ISBN 0-446-51677-5

    Almost every avid reader has a “buy-on-sight” list of especially meritorious authors whose books are of such invariable good quality that they warrant the 35$ gamble of a brand-new hardcover. Mine is composed of people like Tom Clancy, Greg Egan, Bruce Sterling, John Varley, Neal Stephenson… all of which can be depended upon for conceptually solid, physically thick pieces of entertainment.

    Larry Bond holds the distinction of having been taken off my “buy-on-sight” author list after his 1996 book The Enemy Within. His first three books -four if you include his WW3 super-thriller collaboration with Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising– were grand spectacles of future war, hugely complex tales of nations run amok and superb set-pieces played upon technical, political and military battlefields. Red Phoenix, Vortex and Cauldron were deeply impressive techno-thrillers, brimming with unexpected rewards at more than 500 pages each. Cauldron was bought-on-sight.

    So was The Enemy Within. But upon reading this limp thriller devoid of the sweeping scope of his earlier books, I was not tempted by the sequel, Day of Wrath. Two years later, Day of Wrath is available at dirt-cheap prices in used bookstores, and that’s where Larry Bond and I meet again.

    After reading his latest effort, Larry Bond stays off my A-list.

    The problem is the same than with The Enemy Within: Is that it? Bond had proven his ability to send thousands of men in mega-battles, moving pieces off gigantic chessboards, meticulously describing capacities and weaknesses of high-tech hardware and in seamlessly integrating multiple protagonists.

    Nothing of that sort in his “thriller” phase. Both The Enemy Within and Day of Wrath concentrate on a couple of protagonists: Colonel Peter Thorn and Agents Helen Gray. And despite the focus, these two characters combined can’t equal the interest of any of the bit-players in Bond’s previous novels.

    Day of Wrath is bland. Predictable. Implausible. Déjà-vu. Limp. Nothing special. Once again, a gna-ha-ha grandmaster of evil hates the Americans for some trivial childhood trauma and badly wants to attack the United States. Once again, his diabolic plans are foiled by Thorn and Grey. Nothing we haven’t seen before, even in the details.

    To be fair, Day of Wrath isn’t all that badly written in the confines of the thriller genre. The novel is obviously padded -did we have to frolic across most of Europe?- but I guess that intentionally done in an effort to satisfy beach readers. At least there is a heightening of tension by the end of the book -cruise missiles aimed at Washington are good at that-, though you’ll have to wade through a lot of Commando-type silliness (Two humans! Against a compound filled with world-class terrorists!) in order to get to this point.

    But even an okay thriller doesn’t begin to match the level of Bond’s earlier super-thrillers. Reading the cover blurbs for the paperback edition of Day of Wrath -and assorted comments from Amazon.com customers-, I’m amazed at how some readers seem to think that Bond has “matured out of the technothriller” genre, as if he did better stuff now than before.

    Let me set those fools straight: Bond has declined. He isn’t as much fun to read as he was before. It’s not only the stories themselves, but also the details, the plotting, the characters that are worse than before. It’s not as if we could blame a lack of time; he’s still publishing at two-years intervals. It’s not as if we could blame publishing pressures: Stephen Coonts and James H. Cobb are still publishing decent future-war novels.

    It’s almost as if we have to blame Larry Bond. (“Your name is Bond, *Larry* Bond”.) Well so be it; he stays off my buy-on-sight list.

  • Renegades of the Empire, Michael Drummond

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Crown Publishers, 1999, 297 pages, C$38.00 hc, ISBN 0-609-60416-3

    Microsoft has grown, in little more than twenty years, from a small unknown company working in a promising but modest field to a symbol of American Business. Through a lot of luck, at least one good decision, questionable market practices and some high-powered brainpower, Microsoft has not only made a lot of money, but had a significant impact on the evolution of contemporary computing. Computer experts curse Microsoft, but that’s irrelevant, because the general public *knows* Microsoft.

    As such, it’s almost a given that several books a year are published about Microsoft. Despite ironclad nondisclosure clauses inserted in almost all Microsoft contracts, one can get a pretty good picture of the company’s internal practices through the mass of information published about it.

    In this context, Renegades of the Empire is both an interesting read and a disappointment. It stated purpose, at least on its jacket blurb, is to provide an insider’s view of how three lone coders defied the rules of the company, developed a new ground-breaking technology and got it accepted by high management. Fine and well, except that this story, the “DirectX” episode, ends barely a hundred pages in the book. Then it’s on to the “Chromeffects” follow-up, some coverage of Microsoft in court, and such.

    The true value of the book is in describing the way projects grow or wither inside Microsoft. A company made of largely genius-level employees cannot work in the same fashion as the rest of American businesses, and so we get an insider’s view of a company where going on vacation might mean finding your best colleagues gone by the time you come back. A company where big-boss BillG might argue with underlings just to see if they can hold under the pressure. A company where throwing books and walking around in Viking regalia might prove your point.

    Renegades of the Empire is filled with anecdotes, from wild staff parties (to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars) to renegade demos to outside developers (“I know what you think of Microsoft” says the presenter, as an on-screen graphic behind him shows the Windows 3.1 logo being shot-gunned.) to how one of the book’s protagonist fired off a raucous memo that did exactly what he wanted —get him fired.

    But ultimately, the book loses a lot of steam at it goes along. The rebellious streak of the three heroes worked well on DirectX, but even as of this writing, Chromeffects seems moribund at best. Not exactly an happy ending here. This lack of resolution looms over the last half of the book, and might account for the diminishing interest of the book.

    Fortunately, Drummond is an able vulgarizer; not only does the technical part make sense to a layperson, but they also make sense to technical people, which is essential to the text’s credibility.

    In a domain almost exclusively ruled by instant dispatches on the Internet, a book allows the luxury of lengthy exploration and analysis, as well as a more coherent version of events that is muted when reporting immediate events. Renegades of the Empire contextualizes various events (like the Department of Justice investigation, unfortunately still ongoing as this review is written) in a coherent whole. On the other hand, this synthesis is less than successful given the unfinished state of what’s described in the account. Was Renegades of the Empire published too soon? Maybe.

    And how does Microsoft fare in all this, a so-called insider’s account from a third-party publisher? Quite well, actually. The Darwinian business practices at Microsoft are described as kind of a symbol of American innovation. There’s a telling quote where Bill Gates complain that Americans can’t stand help but be suspicious of absolute business success. Microsoft does makes mistakes -after all, that’s why the book title contains the word “renegades”-, but is able to learn from its mistakes.

    And that, industry veterans will tell you, is Microsoft’s most valuable asset.

  • Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Owl Books, 1996, 208 pages, C$19.50 tpb, ISBN 0-8050-6297-1

    Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler’s pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden.

    The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my throat, Tyler says, “We really won’t die.”

    And so begins Chuck Palahniuk’s exceptional first novel Fight Club. If the above lines don’t already send you rushing off to the bookstore, keep reading.

    Most readers, including myself, first heard about Fight Club from David Fincher’s 1999 film, which starred Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. I was lucky enough to see the film at an advance screening, and cherish the memory of a darkly funny, nihilistic yet curiously uplifting piece of cinema. I awarded it the top spot on my “Best of 1999” list, and naturally began to hunt down the novel on which the film was based.

    Consciously or not, -after all, this is a story partly about anti-consumerism- Owl Book didn’t re-release Fight Club in sync with the film. I had to wait three months until I finally saw it in local bookstores. I hesitated a few seconds, started to read a few lines to pass the time and soon found myself beginning the second chapter without missing a beat. You can’t ignore a book that pulls you in like that. So, faithful to Tyler Durden’s subversive spirit, I paid by credit card… while also buying a book about Jerry Springer. I can already imagine the face of the government analyst sifting through bookstore credit records: “Oh no, an anarchist who’s also stupid enough to like Springer!”

    Reading Fight Club is nearly as memorable as seeing the film, and takes about as much time: At 207 pages, this isn’t a big novel, and yet it feels as substantial as a full 500-pager for the sheer density of good material. Palahniuk writes with panache, but also with concision and the ratio of quotes-to-pages is truly astonishing.

    Must most of all, Fight Club is an *angry* book. Far angrier than the sweetened-up version shown on screen. Critical reception for Fincher’s FIGHT CLUB was polarized, with younger critics praising it and older critics hating the “violence” of the film. Well, these older critics obviously shouldn’t even touch the book, because it’s ten times worse. While the film has a body count of exactly one, the book makes no distinction between civilian and enemy, praises guns and exercises no restraint. From page two onward (“shag carpet of people”), Fight Club is one of the meanest books I’ve read.

    I was in the mood to destroy… everything beautiful I couldn’t have. Burn the Amazon rain forest. Open the dump valves on supertankers. Put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda. Don’t think of this as extinction. This of this as downsizing. For years, humans had screwed up this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I wanted to burn the Louvre. This is my world, my world, and those ancient people are dead. [P.122-124]

    It gets worse. So much worse, actually, that even though there’s immense cathartic satisfaction in reading Fight Club, it’s not as comfortable an experience as what I now think of as the “sweet Hollywood version.” The endings are also considerably different: the book packs in an extra punch or two.

    Edgy? Certainly, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Worthwhile? Absolutely, especially if you’re a twenty/thirtysomething male. See the film then read the book? Yes, in this order.

    (One final note: Screenwriter Jim Uhls’ work in adapting Fight Club for the silver screen is absolutely phenomenal, carrying memorable quotes and scenes, adding more material in the same vein and toning it down just enough to make it palatable to audiences. Would have been well-worth an Oscar nomination.)

  • Visions, Michio Kaku

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Anchor, 1997, 403 pages, C$19.95 tpb, ISBN 0-385-48499-2

    Science-as-solution has taken a beating over the last century. While pundits of the Victorian era could confidently claim that “Science will solve everything!”, they were too close to the soot and grime of Industrial-era London to know better. We have the benefit of hindsight, and names like Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Challenger and Thalidomide to remind us of what happens when mistakes happen.

    In this context, it’s a bit adventurous to write a book with a subtitle like “how science will revolutionize the 21st century”. Even though Americans haven’t lost their lust for new technology (as exemplified by the five years it took for the Internet to enter mainstream status), surely we’ve seen the end of the “scientific revolutions”, haven’t we? It’s not as if there are sizeable dragons to be explained away yet, right? Aren’t we reaching the end of science?

    Ironically, this “end of science” argument closes Charles Sheffield’s book Borderlands of Science, a similarly-themed overview of the limits of today’s science. Kaku begins with this questions, answering it with a compelling argument: While it is true that we are reaching the limits of the Age of Understanding -a Theory of Everything is even in sight-, we are only beginning the Age of Mastery, where we’ll apply our pure knowledge in increasingly practical ways.

    This Age of Mastery, according to Kaku, will spring from three different sources: the Quantum revolution, computer revolution and biomolecular revolution.

    Readers already familiar with the field of scientific vulgarization probably already recognize Michio Kaku’s name from his previous book, the superb Hyperspace, which managed to teach superstring theory in an entertaining fashion. Vision doesn’t equal the sheer fun of the previous book, but stand alone as a successful attempt to survey today’s science and to predict where it will lead us in 2050 and beyond. Obviously, no single person can make such a judgement. Sheffield’s Borderlands of Science was a half-failure because he didn’t have the necessary knowledge to make accurate projections beyond the realm of physics. Kaku sidesteps the difficulty by donning a reporter’s hat and interviewing specialists outside his own sphere of competence. The result is a book that does feel like an overlong TV documentary at times, but that also covers most of the important subjects.

    And so we go from ubiquitous PCs to global communications to artificial intelligence to beyond silicon to DNA decoding to genetic therapy to molecular medicine to longevity to genetic engineering to interstellar colonization. All subjects are examined in three different time frames: From here to 2020, from 2020 to 2050 and beyond 2050. Each major theme is followed by a counterpoint chapter which questions the pro-scientific assumptions of the previous chapters. If Visions somehow isn’t complete, well, it sure does feel complete.

    As with any overview, there are rough patches. Ironically, the single major strength of Hyperspace, a sense-of-wonder at new theories, simply isn’t present in Visions, which for the most part presents material that’s quite familiar to anyone following technology news: Nanotechnology and immortality and semi-sentient computers have been discussed to death in Science-Fiction and socio-technological forums; while their inclusion is essential to Visions, they’re not new or especially mind-bending.

    But it doesn’t really matter: Visions packages a really thorough mini-guide to science in a few hundred pages, and does so with a good sense of organization, plenty of sources, a good index and a very accessible writing style. Best read by individuals not currently aware of the cutting-edge fields of research, but also enjoyable by anyone else. Good stuff.

    Still, I wonder how well it’ll read ten, twenty-five years from now… at the current pace of research, it almost looks as if we might be well beyond his most optimistic projections by then!

  • Term Limits, Vince Flynn

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1997, 612 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-02318-7

    Most techno-thrillers are written from a moderately right-wing perspective. You know the type: Government is strong, government is good, politicians might be corrupt from time to time, but the honorable military shall set them straight. Plain “thrillers” (without the fancy techno-gadgets and usually from a non-military perspective) are more left-wing, with huge governmental conspiracies, paid CIA assassins, routine invasions of piracy and corrupt officials everywhere the protagonists can see.

    One could write a pretty respectable Political Science / English Literature thesis on the political tendencies of modern thriller fiction. And one book almost certain to be included in any comparative study, despite its flaws, would be Vince Flynn’s Term Limits.

    The novel explicitly differentiate itself from other thrillers by opening up with this quote:

    …Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government… it is their Right, it is their Duty, to thrown off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

    A line from some random anarchist author? Hardly. That’s an excerpt of The Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson.

    For a while, Term Limits has the strength of Jefferson’s convictions. In the first few pages, Flynn paints the portrait of a corrupt American government ready to strongarm -even blackmail- lesser congressmen into voting for a controversial budget. Bad-boy National Security Advisor is introduced. Good-boy junior congressman is introduced. Three senior politicians are assassinated.

    This is where the novel gets interesting, because in Flynn’s universe, these three politicians deserved to die. Flynn’s protagonist expresses satisfaction at seeing them taken out of the picture. Polls indicate that most Americans couldn’t care less about the death of three Washington fat cats. The so-called “terrorists”’ demands are pretty darn reasonable: A balanced national budget and, later on, term limits for federal politicians.

    So far so good. Even though the whiff of personal libertarian politics is pretty strong, there’s a lot to be said for vigorous argumentation of contrarian viewpoints. So the bad guys aren’t bad guys and the good guys aren’t good guys. Strike one for original ambiguity.

    Unfortunately, this moment soon passes, and more assassinations are committed, though this time the targets are far less deserving than the three original victims. As modus operantis doesn’t exactly match, it becomes obvious that there are copycat terrorists. But who are they? And what’s their purpose?

    That’s where Term Limits loses a lot of interest, becoming yet another routine race-against-time-and-terrorists like we’ve seen so many times before. Everyone get what they deserve. The End.

    The initial political specificity of Term Limits never disappears, but the impression is that it’s been sidestepped in favor of some rather more conventional thriller dynamics. The interesting issues of the beginning are ignored until they progressively disappear in the background.

    At least the writing is clear -if a bit clunky in character exposition-, the protagonists suitably sympathetic and the pacing remains brisk, so that even apolitical readers will enjoy the book as solid entertainment. But those who expected an absorbing new take on american politics are bound to be disappointed after the first hundred pages, because Flynn can’t be bothered to explore the questions that he himself raises.

    Perhaps he’s waiting for a Political Science / English Literature major to do it…

  • The Medicine of ER or, How we Almost Die, Harlan Gibbs, M.D. and Alan Duncan Ross

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Basic Books, 1996, 232 pages, C$25.50 hc, ISBN 0-465-04473-5

    One crucial test of the effectiveness of this new breed of media-derivate “The Science of Popular TV Show” books is to evaluate its impact on a non-viewer of said show. If Lawrence Krauss can teach science to non-fans with “The Physics of Star Trek”, then he must be doing something right. As a complete non-viewer of “ER”, that allowed me to judge the medical vulgarization of The Medicine of ER on its own value.

    The book does get in a bit thickly into the show’s lingo and characters at times (for instance, it re-evaluates at least three episodes from a real-world perspective, giving good, bad and mixed marks to the show’s writing staff.) but seldom becomes confusing. At least the authors of the book know when to give leeway to dramatic needs, as they often note that real-world practices would remove a lot of tension from the show.

    Overall, though, they give good grades to E.R.’s medical accuracy. Viewers tuning in each week can be assured that most of what they see can happen in the real world. Exceptions are made for dramatic needs (allowing relatives in treatment rooms, over-incidence of thoracotomies) or from the show’s original genesis in the seventies (when producer Michael Crichton wrote the pilot episode). As the writers wryly note at the end of chapter Nine (a thorough debunking of the shocker episode “Love’s Labour Lost”), bad medicine might not be good for your professional credibility, but it can get you an Emmy.

    But, obviously, the book isn’t an episode guide, and its true value resides in the “Medicine for dummies” (or “medicine for couch potatoes”) details. Successive chapters look at the organisation of an hospital, heart diseases, trauma, illness, drugs…

    Even though the book is written by one bona-fide M.D. and an ex-medical center administrator, the book is unusually readable, even laugh-aloud funny at times. Chapters title reflect the overall unpretentious sense of fun: “Lightning can strike twice”, “Things not normally found in your body” (including the requisite risqué anecdotes), etc… The writing is brisk, and -we hope- technically exact. The briskness extends to the relative shortness of the book (barely 230 pages in large type), so hunt for this in used bookstores rather than pay full price.

    For a Canadian already used to the idea of a government-subsidized health care system, the strangest chapter of the book is “Fast as McDonald at Tiffany Prices”, an examination of hospital costs complete with several itemized costs breakdown of typical E.R. interventions. Had a traffic accident? That’ll be 6,500$, buddy. The chapter veers dangerously close to blatant editorial, but remains one of the strongest piece of the book.

    Well, almost as strong as the epilogue, which reminds readers that during one prime-time hour of television, there are on average 10,000 admissions to real Emergency Rooms across the country.

    In any case, The Medicine of E.R. accomplishes both of its goals with a certain amount of distinction: It examines the TV show and uncompromisingly find the flaws in its depiction of medicine, and uses the show as a springboard to give out a good overview of the current Emergency Medicine system as practised in the mid-nineties in the United States. Good show.

  • Elvis Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia, Alanna Nash

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper, 1995, 947 pages, C$9.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-109336-X

    As someone born in 1975, it can be daunting, at times, to figure out the enduring popularity of Elvis Presley, who died in 1978. While other figures of his era have since long passed away from common memory, his legacy only seems to grow with each passing year. Endless droves of imitators, burgeoning cults and a mind-bending array of memorabilia only contributes further to his mystique.

    It’s a fair bet to say that the image of Elvis has since long been stripped away from the man who was Elvis. Seeing his image pop up as sort of an all-American symbol of decency can only make one wonder; who was the real Elvis Presley?

    Indeed, a whole cottage industry has popped up around this question, in the form of various biographies written about the man. If Elvis isn’t the most written-about historical figure of the twentieth century, it’s not clear who is. (Okay; Hitler. Don’t argue a rhetorical question.) Most of the books about him, however, have been written with a differing degree of accuracy by people who were not necessarily closely associated with “The King”, or had direct financial interest in maintaining his continuing untarnished image. Elvis Presley: Confessions from the Memphis Mafia is different, being a 600-page collection of testimonies made by members of the “Memphis Mafia”, a group of personal assistants that travelled with Presley for most of his career. These ex-confidantes are now more akin to disgruntled veterans, and he book is their chance to set the record straight on what has previously been said about Elvis.

    Indeed, the biggest asset of the book is its sense of authenticity. More than 95% of the book are direct quotations from three members of the “Memphis Mafia”, with occasional bridging comments by Nash and a special “guest appearance” by the wife of one of the co-authors. Nash’s sense of editing is superb, and the book truly is like sitting down with three Elvis experts and hearing them talk about their favourite subject. They provide a complete insider’s view of the true Elvis Presley, a socially maladjusted, pill-popping adult teenager whose personal integrity couldn’t begin to cope with the demands of fame inflicted on him by his musical talent.

    As such, Elvis becomes a tragic figure in this book, someone who suffered from the untimely death of his mother, a bad manager (“Colonel” Tom Parker, who was actually an illegal immigrant terrified that someone would discover his secret and deliberately restrained Elvis’ career in consequence), an emotional dependency on chemicals, bad advice, deep-seated contradictions and a bunchload of psychological problems. His death is made predictable, even inescapable. Presley becomes a sacrifice to the price of popularity. (But not, interestingly enough, a heroic sacrifice; the Elvis Presley of this book is not someone you would pity or sympathise with)

    Great stories in this book include Elvis’ presidential visit, his fascination with guns (and shooting thereof), his weird sexual fetish, his often illogical generosity, his financial problems, his military service in Germany, his reaction to his movies, etc…

    Unfortunately, one get the sense that this is not an entry-level biography, as it spends a significant part of its time denouncing mistakes made by other books, tabloids and documentaries in trying to describe the true Elvis. The insider-speak of the three “mafiosos” gets obscure at time, though Nash makes a very good job of vulgarizing the most obscure elements for a wider audience. An impressively complete index completes the book and makes it eminently suitable for reference.

    In a sense, Elvis Presley does achieve its goal in that I do not feel as if I have to read another biography about this rather loathsome singer ever again. As a bonus, I’ll be ready for next time someone ever tries to make of Elvis a saint that he so obviously wasn’t.

  • Titanic and the Making of James Cameron, Paula Parisi

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Newmarket Press, 1998, 234 pages, US$14.95 tpb, ISBN 1-55704-365-5

    As something of a cinephile and general movie buff, I can testify firsthand that few films of the nineties have known a fate as interesting as TITANIC. It was, first and foremost, a film by James Cameron, who had already proven his superb filmmaking abilities with such great movies like THE TERMINATOR, THE ABYSS, and TRUE LIES. It was also a film that reportedly underwent a troubled production, mostly through massive budget overruns caused by Cameron’s almost-maniacal perfectionism. Before it came out, everyone was already condemning it as one of history’s biggest bombs.

    I reserved judgement until opening weekend, but from my own overwhelmingly positive reaction to the film, I knew that TITANIC would be an unqualified. History proceeded to confirm this feeling: TITANIC became the highest-grossing film of all times and swept through the Oscars like a runaway superliner. Now Titanic and the Making of James Cameron is a book-length description of the making of TITANIC, from initial concept to Oscar night.

    This isn’t the first time someone writes a book about Cameron. Christopher Heard’s 1997 biography Dreaming Aloud actually makes a pretty nice prologue to Paula Parisi’s making-of-Titanic account, describing Cameron from his Kapuskasing boyhood to the verge of TITANIC’s filming. This book takes off from there.

    But it’s a much, much better book than Heard’s poorly-researched compendium of past Cinefex articles. Parisi has obviously spent a lot of time with the principal actors of the TITANIC story, and the book is filled by original interview quotes and interesting snippets not heard anywhere else. The style is brisk, without nonsense, and pretty much of the level you’d expect to read in Premiere magazine. I spotted a few errors (John Woo doesn’t spell his name Wu and www.aint-it-cool.com obviously lacks the -news!) but these could be attributed to poor proofreading rather than an underlying lack of research.

    Titanic ironically gives a better idea of the personal qualities of James Cameron than the other so-called biography. The manic filmmaker behind TITANIC is exposed as a ruthless perfectionist, driving others like he himself works; relentlessly. The book is riddled with statements about how people will finish a Cameron film hating the director, only to come back two, three years later when offered a position on a new film. Personal interviews color the narrative, and the reader can’t help but be impressed by the selfless devotion of James Cameron for his art.

    Parisi’s book has a substantial advantage over most of the “Making-of” books out there; that of being written in hindsight. Rather than only highlight the money-making aspect of the account (would anyone write a full general-interest account of a mildly successful picture like, say, LOST IN SPACE?), this allows Parisi to research her subject in-depth, and to cover areas not normally discussed in official making-of accounts (like the music, or the editing, given that those usually take place even as the making-of book goes to press). Titanic is, in this regard, geared far more toward the film-geek library than your stereotypical female teenage TITANIC fan. Parisi is scathing when she needs to be, and the behind-the-scene details are fascinating, as we see, for instance, Leonardo DeCaprio whining about how his character isn’t complex or dark enough to be interesting.

    Of course, Titanic won’t matter much to those who hated the film, loathe Cameron or otherwise don’t care too much about the subject. But for fans of the film, or Cameron aficionados like myself, Titanic is a much better piece of film journalism than you might expect from the mass of cheap commercial derivates spawned by the film. As a highly-detailed look at the making of a blockbuster film and the mildly-mad filmmaker genius behind it, this is a book worth reading.

  • Chesapeake, James Michener

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Fawcett, 1978, 1083 pages, C$3.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-449-24163-7

    Is it possible for a saga to be under-whelming?

    After all, the adjective seems to be an antithesis of its subject. A saga is almost, by definition, intended to be impressive; spanning dozens of years, involving scores of characters and moving through often-historical events, a saga should thrill, engross and sustain a deep and unshakeable awe from its audience. To deliver anything less is to cheat the reader out of time and, often, money. And yet, Chesapeake…

    It’s not as if James Michener doesn’t know how to write a saga. Without flashiness, he regularly outpaces Stephen King in page-counts, churning out thousand-pages bricks one after the other. His usual formula consists in taking a locale (Texas, Alaska, Mexico… or the Chesapeake Bay, obviously) and tracing back its history through a series of vignettes taking place at quasi-epochal stages. Mother, sons and grandchildren all figure preeminently, aging through the novel as a vast tapestry of events is slowly built through vignette-chapters.

    Chesapeake is, without a shadow of an argument, a saga. It starts out in 1583, as an Indian is exiled from his tribe and forced to settle down near the Chesapeake Bay, becoming the leader of another tribe. Then we move on to 1608, as Englishmen John Steed also settles down the Chesapeake and start building his trading empire. Events accumulate, and major “characters” arrive at the Chesapeake; the Turlocks, Paxmores, Carters and Caveneys successively join the narrative.

    As this is a saga extending over hundred of years, it’s a distinguishing feature of Chesapeake that families, not individuals, are the defining characters of the novel. Steeds are the righteous aristocracy; Turlocks the low-life, cunning pirates; Paxmores the peace-loving religious artisans (as if the family name wasn’t enough of a giveaway); Carters the token blacks; Caveneys the Irish lawmen. Nature or nurture? Michener melts families into monolithic entities. As the chapters keep killing off characters, we only need to glance at the family name to have an indication of the moral fabric of the individual. (In general, that is: Michener takes some pleasure in perverting a few individuals, but they usually go back to their family’s ways, as is the case with Paul Steed or Teach Turlock.)

    The biggest problem of Chesapeake isn’t there, however. It’s the impression that save for the meaty middle section (with the afore-mentioned Paul Steed and “Captain Teach” Turlock), all of Chesapeake‘s individual chapters are vignettes that no not necessarily set up bigger and more interesting conflicts later down the novel. In fact, the last chapters are more like snapshots of life across the Chesapeake rather than true climactic unfolding of events. You would expect hundred of years’ worth of bottled-up family feuds, but instead you get a fifty-page short story on hunting dogs. Whaaat?

    Michener’s main failing contributes to highlight the other annoyances that sour Chesapeake‘s impression: Michener’s lengthy apologetic exposé of slavery and discrimination against blacks. (Though one must favourable mention his unflinching description of slave trading) The futility of the “Voyage” passages once they stop bringing new characters to the Chesapeake Bay. The absolutely massive padding of the whole story. The multiple lacks of latter payoffs from the earlier setups…

    Let’s not deny that from a reading-on-the-bus standpoint, Chesapeake delivers the goods in clear, readable prose. It’s as the novel draws at a close and that no threads are tied up that the overall futility of the novel becomes clear. Saga it technically is, but masterpiece it truly isn’t.

  • Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, Charles Pellegrino

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1994 (1995 reprint), 386 pages, C$16.00 tpb, ISBN 0-380-72633-5

    A few years ago, I remember seeing a TV special that purported to explain the mysteries of the Bible through scientific investigation. Problem was, this show was obvious produced by fundamentalist authorities. The explanations were so ludicrously far-fetched that my basic feeling was that it was far simpler to blame the miracles on tall stories than to actually try to give them a rational, scientific explanation.

    Now here comes Charles Pellegrino, with a book that’s ostensibly about “solving the Bible’s ancient mysteries through archaeological discovery.” Normally, I wouldn’t have even picked up the book, but then you’ve got to realize that Charles Pellegrino is no ordinary writer: His three Science-Fiction novels (Marching to Valhalla, The Killing Star and Dust) were deeply impressive work from a writer who obviously brimmed with innovative concepts, and could present them in an intriguing fashion.

    Pellegrino is obviously someone with far-ranging interests. His professional credits cover a wide range of accomplishments, from anti-matter rocket designs to paleontological thought experiments that led to Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. On top of accomplished scientific and literary careers, he’s also an archaeologist, and Return to Sodom and Gomorrah is nothing less but a book-length essay about middle-eastern archaeology.

    The Bible elements remains, but Pellegrino (as a confirmed agnostic) works in a radically different fashion from that TV Special of my youth; he uses the Bible as a way of demonstrating what he’s seen in the field, not the other way around. And most often, the archaeological record is even more fantastic than the Bible itself.

    Take Sodom, for instance. Archaeologists have discovered a city that roughly corresponded to the biblical city of Sodom. But that city presented them with a puzzle: It seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry, and left untouched for several years afterward, even though other fertile places nearby had been re-colonized very quickly. Even more mysterious; the remains of the city appeared to have burned quite thoroughly, this despite the fact that there were no flammable materials in the city, dried mud being the construction material of choice. Charred animal bones everywhere, even though it takes a formidable amount of energy to char bones.

    Pellegrino and his friends in the field came up with a rather spectacular explanation: Underneath most of the middle east, as we know, lies multiple deposits of flammable hydrocarbons. What if, spurred by continental plaque movement, one large deposit made its way to the surface, like a natural tar pit? What if it first came out as natural gas -the lightest part of a petrol deposit-, and encountered an open cooking flame?

    Instant firestorm, fuelled by natural geological pressure and instantly lethal. Completely destroying habitable land. Typical Hollywood blockbuster premise, right there. Only a theory, of course, but doesn’t it sound good?

    Return to Sodom and Gomorrah is filled with discoveries of the sort. From evidence of a mitochondrial Eve to the common volcanic origins of both Palestinians and Israelis, passing by an explanation of the Dead Sea Scroll controversy and a huge amount of lucidly told ancient history, Pellegrino truly delivers the goods with this book. And he leaves plenty to the imagination too, as be regularly tosses off tantalizing hints of personal exploits (randomly mixing fire-fights, nuclear accidents and personal vendettas) with mind-blowing bigger issues. (Are we destined to create our evolutionary successors? Are we repeating the environmental mistakes that previously destroyed other civilizations?) Pellegrino is fluent not only in past history or prehistoric lingo, but also in the jargon of astrophysics and the vernacular of SF, and the result is simply unique.

    This is a book that will stimulate your thought processes, push you to buy everything else that Pellegrino wrote, and reconsider the Bible with a keener eye. Trying to make it justice is almost impossible; like most great scientific vulgarizations, you have to read it to truly feel it. Great reading for persons actively looking for their next big idea rush.

  • The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Collins, 1954, 1153 pages, C$95.00 hc, ISBN 0-261-10230-3

    It seems strange for a voracious reader such as myself not to have read The Lords of the Rings, one of literary history’s most influential work, in or outside the science-fiction/fantasy genre. Hey, everyone has their blind spots; at least I took the time to correct this one, plunging in Tolkien’s 1000+ pages saga in the waning hours of December 31, 1999.

    It took nearly three weeks, but I finally finished The Lord of the Rings. The earth didn’t tremble, the world was not magically transformed to a better place, I was not struck down by a bolt of pure epiphany. Of course, given the amount of hype that preceded the book, I shouldn’t have been overly surprised by a certain letdown. No book can survive this amount of build-up.

    But even then, I found The Lord of the Rings a laborious read. The very qualities of the work that made its reputation -the breathtaking world-building, the literary writing, the inclusion of songs and made-up languages, the epic nature of the narration- are the very things that drove me to frustration. Things that could have been told in two pages suddenly took a whole chapter; a rather simple trip from point A to point B became lengthy proceedings punctuated by crises that often didn’t amount to much lasting excitement or dramatic point. I found it strange that Tolkien spent so much time away from Frodo when he is undoubtedly the center of interest in the story.

    I skipped the songs, skimmed the most boring passages, read only a few dozen pages per day and generally was bored stiff by most of the book. And yet, I find myself with a generally positive opinion of the book. Certainly, fear of peer pressure certainly accounts for part of this sentiment (being stoned to death by rabid Tolkien fans is a fate that I wish upon no one, lest of all myself) but not all of it. I might have been decidedly unimpressed by the lack of zippiness of The Lord of the Rings, but there’s no disputing that this is a very good, very impressive work.

    Nowhere more impressive, of course, in the sheer depth of the world created by Tolkien, which was subsequently mined for endless hidden ripoffs which at least usually improved on the turgidness of the original. Still, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and few authors have been as flattered as Tolkien in seeing a whole publishing genre spring up from their not-so-humble creation.

    In the end, however, mere mortals like me can scarcely complain about a work that’s too literary, too complex or too richly-detailed. It’s a measure of how darn good The Lord of the Rings is that even if I didn’t especially like it, I have no choice but to recommend it.

    BRIEFLY: The Hobbit, Tolkien’s prologue to The Lord of the Rings, is undoubtedly written for children, but adults will find here a rougher yet perhaps more interesting story than the full-fledged sequel. The story remains focused on a single hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and thus doesn’t have the dyptic structure of the trilogy. The considerably amount of dry British humor also helps.

    BRIEFLY: Bored of the Rings, the Harvard Lampoon’s parody of Tolkien’s trilogy, is far shorter (160 loosely typeset pages) and much more strictly enjoyable than its source material. Well, that’s if your brand of humor include snickering at gags like “Boggies are an unattractive but annoying people whose numbers have decreased rather precipitously since the bottom fell out of the fairy-tale market.” [P.XV] Still, the book essentially parodies the first book of the trilogy, plus the conclusion—which either speaks about the non-essential nature of the rest of the Lord of the Rings, or the authors’ laziness. A hoot for fans.

  • The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Little Brown, 1972-1978, ???? pages, C$??.?? mmpb, ISBN Various

    The Winds of War: Little Brown 1972, 885 pages
    War and Remembrance: Little Brown, 1978, 1042 pages

    As historians look back on the twentieth century, one single event will loom large over the period: World War Two. Born from the sum of world history up to that point and influencing latter human affairs forever, WW2 has, in a few years, reshaped geography, history, science and countless lives.

    Actually, it’s misnomer to call WW2 “one single event” given that it was a conflict made of several elements not always linked together. As it took place over six years, it also contains far too much material to be simply resumed.

    So you can imagine the built-in difficulties for Herman Wouk as he attempts to dramatize WW2 in The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The sheer size of the result (nearly 2400 pages all told) is an indication of the magnitude of the task.

    Succinctly put, these two books follow the various adventures of the Henry family and their acquaintances, from 1939 to Pearl Harbour (The Winds of War) and them from Pearl Harbour to Hiroshima. (War and Remembrance) Initially, there’s Victor “Pug” Henry (waiting for a command assignment, but shuffled in a diplomatic role), his wife Rhoda (who might or might not be entirely faithful to her husband) and the three Henry children: Warren (promising naval aviator), Byron (devil-may-care wanderer) and Madeline (soon enough responsible for a radio show).

    Love affairs, friendship, casual acquaintances and such soon expand this narrow cadre, with the result that we truly get a diverse sampling of the war from various point of view. One character always manages to be at the right place at the right time for most of the war’s events. Though the plot mechanics often threaten to overwhelm the narrative drive, Wouk must be commended for his solution to the size problem of WW2.

    Unfortunately, there’s no solution to the size problems of the two books themselves. While a certain amount of padding is probably inevitable in 2,400 pages, Wouk more than overdoes it in this duology, inserting whole scenes of no narrative nor documentary impact and chapters than can be skipped without ill-effect. The Jastrows’ story, in particular, is more than obvious (and manipulative) in its ultimate denouement, and attempts to drag it out only annoy rather than inform.

    On the other hand, maybe because of these fluffy passages, Wouk does manage to bring back dramatic tension to World War II. For contemporary readers, it’s a story of the past, a fixed sequences of events that lead to our reality. It’s all-too-easy to forget that the issue of the war was unknowable at the time. The Winds of War excels at showing the possible early outcomes of the war’s beginning; Germany invading England, the Allied powers suing for peace after Poland, etc… This sense of absolute incertitude is the strongest virtue of the first volume.

    Wouk should also be praised for the passages presented as translated excerpts of (the fictional) General Armin von Roon’s military analyses of WW2 as interpreted from a German point of view. These passages are clearly written, and present an alternate perspective of the events, often more complete and enlightening that what the story’s protagonists see.

    There are a few interesting storyteller’s tricks sprinkled throughout the second volume, such as the remarkable roster call of American airmen sacrificed during the battle of Midway, or a straight admission that a fictional character never existed, but was inspired by hundred of others who did exist. Most of these asides work.

    Herman Wouk’s duology makes you not only understand the events of the Second World War, but also instill a certain emotion into them, whether it’s incertitude, suspense, devastation or loss. Both books deserve to be read, if only for fulfilling the second’s book title: War and Remembrance.