Book Review

  • The First Immortal, James L. Halperin

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Del Rey, 1998, 342 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-345-42092-6

    Sometimes, it’s difficult to say what’s advancing faster; science or science-fiction. One of the best examples of this might be the recent interest in immortality. To live forever! To end death! To cast off the chains of predetermined lifespans! Sound interesting, but the wonderful thing is how we’re not only talking about it, but we’re doing so in a perfectly rational way. The underlying question doesn’t seems to be “is it possible?” as much as “when will it happen?”

    James L. Halperin’s second novel The First Immortal has a large canvas (two centuries) and an even larger goal: to be the definitive novel about the coming obsolescence of death. In many ways, it succeeds.

    Faithful readers might remember James Halperin’s first novel, The Truth Machine. An ill-written, but fascinating novel about the development and consequences of a perfect truth machine, it was a splendid example of pure Science Fiction written outside the genre of SF. (Both novel share the same universe, though The First Immortal goes further in the future.)

    The First Immortal is a bit like The Truth Machine on Prozac.

    On one hand, it loses the fantastically unlikely characters of the first volume and tones down most of the embarrassing tendencies of the first volume. The afterword is shorter. It’s better written too, although no one will praise the writing other to say than it’s readable. Halperin exerts more control over the plotting, and the result is a better novel.

    On the other hand, immortality is not exactly a new subject and considerably less so when compared to a perfect truth machine. A lot of the quirks that made The Truth Machine so infuriating at times also gave it its personality: Since these are ironed out, The First Immortal is less memorable than its predecessor. The ludicrous yet exciting main conflict of the first book has here been replaced by a series of believable, but uninvolving mini-crisis. No wonder that the half of the book is so excruciatingly long and the last hundred seems to be all sugar & sweet… (Idle thought: the book probably wouldn’t work half as well with crackerjax writing and characters… or wouldn’t be as accessible—same thing.)

    But considered on its own terms, The First Immortal isn’t bad as it may first seems. Halperin is an enthusiastic optimist (perhaps too much; the resolution of some problems is more formulaic than convincing), and the story shows it, with all its mock-newspaper heading chronicling humankind’s progress over the next hundred years or so. The result is uplifting. The ultimate prize being to live forever, who would dare not being pleased with Halperin’s extrapolations?

    From a scientific standpoint, the novel holds together very well. Halperin is obviously someone who’s as meticulous in his research and he is brilliant in integrating it. There are few discernible flaws in his argumentation (though some will quibble about deadline, psychology and sociology) but -ignoring the fact that the protagonists all seem to be world-leaders in their chosen genres- the scientific breakthroughs all seem plausible, even inevitable. Most extrapolative writers concentrate on a single technology at the expense of all others, but here Halperin makes a credible effort at creating an all-encompassing future.

    The First Immortal isn’t such a good choice for the die-hard SF fans, who are already quite familiar with cryogenics, A.I.s, nanotechnologies, virtual reality, digital personality copies, cloning and the rest. (In the introduction, Halperin caution the reader to be open-minded, a singularly useless caveat in the case of SF readers.) An intriguing use of the book, however, could be to painlessly introduce non-fans to a whole array of genre devices. Paperback stocking stuffers?

    If anything, it might popularize a more hopeful, more optimistic vision of the future. And that would be quite a coup in itself.

    Watch this space for “The First Immortal; a retrospective”, to be uploaded in… oh… January 2098.

  • Dust, Charles Pellegrino

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1998, 387 pages, C$19.95 hc, ISBN 0-380-97308-1

    There is a fascination about contemplating the unthinkable. Survivalists, civil safety officials, prophets and science-fiction writers all depend in large part on this fascination. Somehow, imagining that everything we hold dear -including our lives- could be snatched away at any time makes us appreciate what we have even more.

    Yet, destroying the world is easy, at least for the fertile imaginations of the latter twentieth century. From the oh-so-very-sixties retro nuclear apocalypse, we’ve moved on to plagues (King’s The Stand), celestial objects impact (Niven and Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer), Black Holes (Bear’s The Forge of God), Alien Invasions (Again, The Forge of God) and the like. J.G.Ballard has even written four books dealing with end-of-the-world scenarios. At this point, it would seem unlikely to find a new and exciting way to end the world, but that’s exactly what Charles Pellegrino does with Dust.

    This time, the novel start with a deadly whimper as hundreds are eaten alive by swarming clouds of mites. But, as Pellegrino makes it very clear, this is only a symptom of a deeper problem; the disappearance of insects.

    Sounds like a doubleplusgood thing to you? Not quite. Pellegrino neatly dissects Gaia’s ecosystem with his clear and incisive imagination. Even early on, the novel makes no secret of the fact that this is The End. As in; no more human race. We’re going the way of the dinosaur. Ecological collapse isn’t quite as frightening as the resulting social, politic and economic descent in anarchy.

    But why are the insects disappearing? That’s one surprise best left between Dust‘s covers. As he had done with the concept of relativistic bombs in his previous solo novel Flying to Valhalla, Pellegrino pulls straight existential horror out of simple facts and reasonable extrapolations. “A novel even scarier than Jaws” blurbs Arthur C. Clarke. This is no inflated hype.

    Dust is so stuffed with surprising factoids, ideas and concepts that the twenty-five pages scientific afterword is more than welcome. Pellegrino loves to have ideas and play with them; we should be grateful that he also loves to share them.

    As a novel, most will agree that Dust isn’t quite up for the Pulitzer. Characters are annoyingly similar to one another and rarely given the chance to distinguish themselves, the action is sometime jerkily shown (when it isn’t simply told rather than shown), the dialogue -while seemingly authentic for scientists- is a bit stiff, the plotting has imperfections, etc… But given the density of Dust‘s narrative -it packs the end of the world in less than 400 pages- and the excellence of everything else, it really doesn’t matter. Readers of hard-SF, techno-thrillers and other high-fact-density fiction will find here exactly what they wish for: a good, scary, unflinching and eminently plausible end-of-the-world novel.

    As luck has it, Avon book is offering this full-size hardcover novel at a bargain price (16$ US, 20$ Can.) Rush to your bookstore and order it if they don’t have it; it’s worth every penny. It’s frightening, thrilling, thought-provoking, ironic, brilliant and stunningly entertaining.

    Dust offers a shocking contrast with the usual Hollywood-produced disaster story. Everything is convincingly explained, well-developed and brought to its logical conclusion. There is no last-minute reprieve, but if Dust is implacable, it is not entirely without optimism. Somehow, this is a happier, more satisfying ending than “Boom went the asteroid and they all lived happily ever after.”

    (Keep your eyes open for the lovely mention of Fahrenheit 451.)

  • You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, Julia Phillips

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Signet, 1991, 628 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-451-17072-5

    Sex! Power! Drugs! Money! More money! More power! More sex!

    Nope, I’m not talking about Washington. The New Babylon, as most suspect, is Hollywood. Tinseltown is what happens when you funnel millions (assuming that every American spends 25$ a year to see movies on screen or video, that’s six billion dollars, folks.) and you place it in the hands of people without talent, brains or restraint. I’ve never had too much of a high opinion of Hollywood (that’s what happens when you identify more closely with the writers and CGI animators than anyone else) and it sank even more with You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.

    Lunch is the autobiography of Julia Philips, a movie producer. Her filmography is semi-impressive: In the seventies, she produced The Sting, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Other than that, not much. No wonder that most moviegoers haven’t really heard of her.

    But outside a simple filmography, Phillips spent most of her time in Hollywood (and most of this book’s hefty 600+ pages) doing drugs. Lunch is a confessional where she describes her ascent, descent and recovery. It’s less glorious or fascinating than it sounds.

    Lunch, in a few words, teaches important lessons: When reading an autobiography by someone you don’t know, it is essential that:

    A> The narrator is likeable. Not the case here, since Phillips is most definitely someone I wouldn’t like to meet (and this is reciprocal; “Scorsese, Dreyfuss, Milius, Spielberg, Schraeder, etc. A rogues’ gallery of nerds. There is not a single guy here I would have dated in high school or college.” [P.131] I happen to be a nerd; G’bye, Julia!). Her constant, and unrepenting, abuse of drugs, alcohol and sex doesn’t help. You’ll excuse me if I don’t find attractive folks accepting Oscars while on a coke high. What also grates is that while she says she stopped doing coke, by the end of the book she’s still heavily in the so-called “softer” drugs… Redemption? Really?

    B> If you can’t be likeable, be interesting. Here too, Philips fails: Lunch is six hundred pages of minutia, of boring and unlikeable anecdotes, of flings with people we couldn’t care less about. Some will say that this only adds texture to the narrative; I say that this would have been a crackerjax 200-pages autobiography. As such, most of the time we’re wading in irrelevancies. I didn’t skim, but I really wanted to.

    C> The narrative should attach itself to known markers. Here, Philips is most interesting when she talks about the making of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Steven Spielberg, Arthur C. Clarke or known actors. Since we’ve already established that we’re not interested in her life (see A> and B>), she might as well talk about others. Sadly, this doesn’t really happen as often as we wish it would. (In the middle of a chainsaw autobiography, however, it’s fun to see who remains unscathered. Speilberg comes out okay.)

    but finally…

    D> Be coherent. And Phillips isn’t. As said before, the book is overlong. But it’s also full of digressions that aren’t related to the tale, of sermonizing little philosophical speeches and of self-congratulatory monologues. Problem is, most of them don’t make as much sense as she thinks it does (I did mention she was still doing soft drugs, hmmm?) and the remainder is just embarrassingly juvenile. It also doesn’t help that Phillips consider herself as exceptionally intelligent. I was reminded of a line in John Brunner’s The Sheep Looks up: “If [she’s] so intelligent, then why isn’t she so smart?”

    The result is a bloated failure. Fortunately, a complete index will help out the impatient reader anxious to get to all the good parts. Read the sections about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, about Spielberg, Beatty, Clarke, Gere, Rice, Truffault and (Don) Simpson, but don’t give Phillips the karmic satisfaction of dumping all her anxious neuroses on you.

  • The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of, Thomas M. Disch

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Free Press, 1998, 256 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-684-82405-1

    Don’t bother reading The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of if you don’t really know your Science-Fiction. I mean it.

    Good, serious, knowledgeable critical studies of Science-Fiction aren’t exactly common. (recently, only David Hartwell’s revised edition of Age of Wonders and the John Clute collection of reviews Look at the Evidence come to mind) So it wasn’t a surprise if Dreams‘s reputation preceded its arrival in my reading stack. For a book as opinionated as Dreams, it’s a wonder the whole work wasn’t spoiled well beforehand.

    Thomas M. Disch isn’t exactly a superstar of SF nowadays, but he has published a variety of deeply impressive stories since the sixties, as well as several “classic” novels like Camp Concentration and 334. He has also published widely out of the SF genre, including a volume of poetry criticism. Part unfamiliar figure, part seasoned veteran, Disch is uniquely positioned to comment on the genre with a view that’s both sympathetic and iconoclastic.

    Books like Dreams are written to slaughter sacred cows. And SF has more than a herd of those. Disch spends pages explaining why Heinlein was racist and sexist, then turns around and mows down Ursula K. LeGuin. As if that wasn’t enough, he moves on to easier targets like new-age wackoes, UFO true believers and scientologists only to drive the point home by stating than for better of for worse, these weirdoes were created and are sustained by SF. Many will blush.

    Other highlights include an intriguing treatise on why Edgar Allan Poe is the true father of SF, not Mary Shelley, Wells or Verne. While the argumentation isn’t flawless, it’s interesting. Also worth reading is the effect of SF on the cold war, the argument that dreams entail responsibility and Disch’s views on televised SF, Star Trek in particular.

    And yet, despite these juicy bits, The Dreams our Stuff is Made of seems curiously tame, almost as if Disch pulls his punches. Call me a bloody ungrateful bastard, but I wanted more. I wanted Disch to spend more time on the Fringe/SF connection, the disappearing place of SF in a society more and more influenced by SF, the effect of contemporary fantasy on SF and the effect of SF on politics. But then again, I also wanted him to name the writers whose output was affected by drugs instead of getting away with such hints as “read between the lines of those senior writers who once seemed so wonderful and who now, so noticeably, are not. The reason, when it isn’t booze, is probably pot.” [P. 114]

    The other major flaw of Dreams is more serious. While Disch tries to paint a picture of a whole genre, his examples of written SF are from before 1985, at the shocking exceptions of Greg Egan’s Quarantine, Whitley Streiber’s alien contact “non-fiction” and The Forstein/Gingrinch “collaboration” 1945. He does talk at length, however about INDEPENDENCE DAY while mentioning THE FIFTH ELEMENT, CONTACT and THE LOST WORLD… Is Disch trying to say that written SF isn’t as relevant to the genre? Even though he’s essentially saying this, it might lead some readers to suspect that there’s almost fifteen years of SF that Disch is deliberately ignoring.

    Finally, the book doesn’t really prove its own proposition (“How SF conquered the world”), instead presenting a series of thoughts about the genre. It might be more appropriate to call this an essay collection.

    Oh; Page 10: Wasn’t Del Rey books named after Judy-Lynn Del Rey?

    Perhaps the most shocking thing about Dreams is the way I wasn’t shocked by Disch’s argumentation. As mentioned, this is a bit of a disappointment. But it might also be a measure of Disch’s ambiguous success, with a book of criticism that’s recapitulative but not definitive, rough but not heretical, less impressive than expected but still commendable.

  • Forever Peace, Joe Haldeman

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1997, 351 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-00566-7

    Most experienced SF readers faced with the occasion to read Joe Haldeman’s Forever Peace will inevitably draw parallels and comparisons with the author’s biggest success to date, the 1975 Hugo-and-Nebula winning Vietnam allegory The Forever War. Not only are the titles similar, but both stories star soldiers as protagonists and touch upon the theme of war.

    But most differences end there. If The Forever War‘s protagonist Mandella was a true infantryman in the classical sense, Forever Peace‘s Julian Class is a soldierboy operator. Plunged in a full-VR suit, he controls sophisticated “robots” (soldierboys) hundreds of kilometers away. War by proxy, except that like Vietnam, Americans are still faced with a steadily worsening guerilla campaign. Not even the home front is safe, as Class will discover.

    Class isn’t a full-time soldier, though: once his nine days of continuous duty are done, he disconnects from the machine and resumes his job as physics teacher at an American university. What is at first a subplot -Class’ relationship with a older woman and her stunning discoveries- soon becomes central to the plot, and the main thrust of Forever Peace begins.

    It’s not a bad novel. Among other things, Forever Peace has been selected as a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year and has also won the 1998 Hugo Award for best novel. For the most part, Haldeman succeeds in producing a very good true Science-Fiction novel. Mixing good characterization with plausible science and readable style, Forever Peace is a better choice than many of the other nominees.

    But, even despite the risk of sounding needlessly bitter, it might be time to reconsider Forever Peace. For all its qualities, it often has the feeling of a good first novel by a promising author, not the work of a seasoned pro.

    Take the worldbuilding, for instance. Nanotech is there and some reasonably valid consequences are explained (like the essential remodeling of the economic system), but on the other hand these consequences still seem a bit irrelevant. The world of Forever Peace looks a lot like ours even though it seems like if a true leisure society has emerged.

    Haldeman being a Vietnam veteran himself, it’s a bit surprising to find out that the motivation for the war (and opponents, and tactics, and goals, and…) are so shallow. (“under-examined” might be a better expression.) Of course, Haldeman’s attitude toward war, politics and government is as bitter as could be expected from him. It still doesn’t create a good impression.

    (No, but really; nanotech is there… why fight a war?)

    Then the second half of the book is plagued with exactly the same problem that almost destroyed Spider Robinson’s Lady Slings the Booze: Strange characters are assembled and shakily establish a doomsday scenario on a foundation of half-deductions, incredible speculation and doubtful assumptions. Then they make up a plan to save the world and the second half of the book is just an implementation of the plan. Booo-

    Fortunately, Haldeman maintains a certain level of tension throughout and doesn’t attempt to play it for half-laughs-half-tears like Robinson. Expert commandoes are sent, a few unexpected things happen but the hero still save the day/world/universe on schedule. At least, it’s entertaining.

    Yet, Forever Peace is a worthwhile read. Far from being as good as the classic The Forever War, it nevertheless remains a pretty good SF book in its own right. And somewhere near the end, maybe you’ll glimpse the true nature of its relation with The Forever War. The first volume’s resolution is precipitated by an event alien and frightening to the protagonist. The solution this time around is exactly the same and remains alien to the protagonist. But this time, we’re supposed to feel grateful. We have become the alien. There is nothing to fear this time.

    Nice trick, Mr. Haldeman.

  • Ribofunk, Paul Di Filippo

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon EOS, 1998, 241 pages, C$3.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-73076-6

    It’s no surprise if Ribofunk rhymes with cyberpunk. In his own way, Paul di Filippo created his own genre, a mixture of deeply ironic low-down technological anti-glitz combined with a distinctive narrative style that is, as pointed out in the opening-page blurbs, to biotechnology what cyberpunk was to the consumer electronic market segment.

    Ribofunk is a series of thirteen short stories -published 1989-1995- unified by a common future history. Sometimes late next century (or maybe the one after that), biotechnology has progressed to the point where bio-modifications of the body are as commonplace as -say- tattoos, sentient human/animal beings are commonplace and North America is ruled by Canadians. Among other things. It’s not an enviable future: despite the wonderful aspect of many technologies, it’s also a world constantly threatened by genetic terrorists, runaway splices and experiments gone awfully wrong. It far less “clean” that even the dirtiest cyberpunk.

    But what a trip it is! Ribofunk is a frenzied, ultra-dense ticket to a richly-detailed future too good to miss. di Filippo packs more ideas in a twenty-page story that some writers manage to put into full-length novels. Given some of the latest headlines, most of it even appears quite reasonable. It’s been said that biotech will the twenty-first century’s biggest science. Ribofunk shows that the same might be true for twenty-first century’s science-fiction. When mixed up with the traditional SF elements like robotic servants, nanotechnology, space travel, moving walkways (take that, Heinlein!), amusement parks and such… it’s an experience that will leave you wanting more. DI Filippo’s satiric tone also helps.

    Even better; up to a certain point, Ribofunk impresses more with is style that with its ideas. Di Filippo writes like Heinlein on an overdose of Gibson; densely-packed futurespeak evoking a fully-realized future that feels immensely real. One story is told by a narrator whose brain was damaged in such a way that he unpredictably breaks into rap rhyming in times of stress; it’s a hoot. Another is a series of dispatches from a soldier increasingly affected by biological warfare. Three stories are in a deliciously noir-ish tough-guy PI tone of voice. Another one tells of a genetically-modified Peter Rabbit going against farmer McGregor… Virtually every page of this collection can be examined for textbook examples on how SF should be written. Di Filippo has done truly stupendous things with the English language.

    Given this onslaughts of stylistic merit and overflowing ideas, it seems almost ungrateful to speak of shortcomings, and yet… Ribofunk‘s stories exhibits a curious tendency to falter at the end, or ending abruptly without any kind of after-denouement. Some stories also appear quite simplistic in retrospect, although most readers will probably be so caught up in the prose that they’ll miss it the first time around. Characterization is adequate, although most will agree that di Filippo’s world is the principal character. The last story also appears out of place with the remainder of the future history, for reasons that will remain a spoiler.

    Still, Ribofunk takes its place along with Egan’s Axiomatic as an SF tour-de-force, an array of future wonders and completely absorbing storytelling. One of the best collections in recent memory, and an exceptional value for anyone given its positioning as the last 3.99$ Avon/EOS special offer. It’s the kind of book that creates fans. Don’t miss it: As the jacket blurb says, “The future isn’t electronic, nuclear or cyber… it’s organic.”

  • Expendable, James Alan Gardner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avonova, 1997, 337 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-79439-X

    Being a faintly patriotic Canadian reader (born and working in Ottawa, no less!) I usually feel almost duty-bound to report favourably on the Canadian SF that I read. While Expendable isn’t bad, it does have enough deficiencies to make one wonder.

    National borders aside, James Alan Gardner is a hot new author. In two years, he has published two novels (Expendables and 1998’s Commitment Hour) and a few stories, winning the 1998 Aurora Award for “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream”. He seems to be poised to become as big a success as that “other” Canadian author, Robert J. Sawyer.

    But like in Sawyer’s novels, the good mixes in the eek! in Expendables, with uneven results.

    Festina Ramos would be a babelicious chick if it wasn’t for the ugly wine-red birthmark covering half her face. Not living in a particularly forgiving society, she’s drafted into the exploration corps as an “expendable” contact specialist because… hey… she’s ugly.

    No kidding. First pages. Is this an excuse, a bit of window-dressing, a portent of deeper reasons? No! Though we wish otherwise, ugly makes you a perfect candidate for high-risk job: “In a society where people expect to ease confortably out of this world at a ripe old age, the thought of anyone being killed is deeply disturbing unless… the person who dies is different. […] If the victim was not so popular, not so well-liked and above all, ugly… well, bad things happen, but we all have to carry on.” [Page Three] Right, mate. Explains today’s army, right?

    Take a big pill of Disbelief Suspension, and call me back in the morning. Forget about the implication of such a society, or the various alternate methods by which this could be implemented. This is the make-or-break premise. Take it or leave the book.

    Those who choose to remain with the book shouldn’t regret their decision. The tale of Festina’s exploits is told reasonably well. The narration is suitably sarcastic -it helps covering up the logical flaws- and the portrayal of a goof tough female heroine is always welcome. Despite many dead moments and a few suspicious scenes (as well as improbable gadgets we sense included just-for-cool), Expendable is a well-crafted SF adventure. Unlike other writers who like to present a clear-cut, rigidly straight vision of the future, Gardner puts a lot of texture, details and off-hand trivia in his prose. The result that even given the ludicrousness of the situation, it has a kind of weird legitimacy as long as one doesn’t think about it too much.

    Other aspects of the book, like the over-the-top fiendish plan, are unfortunately head-scratchers when objectively considered outside the self-assigned scope of the novel. Much like a villain who acts in an evil manner for no other reasons that, heck, he’s a bad guy!

    As with most other “planet mysteries”, the initial troubling setup works better than the actual revelation of the mystery. Unlikely coincidences abound, like the presence of a gallery of Festina’s friends later in the story.

    Sometimes interesting, sometimes discouraging, Expendables is likely to please some and discourage others. It shows, mostly, the promise of James Alan Gardner as an author… especially if he can restrain his initial situations and tighten up his plotting. In the meantime, let’s see what else he’ll write next.

  • Rude Astronauts, Allen Steele

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Ace, 1995, 263 pages, C$6.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-00184-X

    As a self-proclaimed Hard-Science-Fiction fan, it seemed a bit strange that I came to discover Allen Steele only recently, several novels after his debut in the SF field. But I’m finally catching up, and read A King of Infinite Space last spring. While that novel suffered from a cheapening conclusion, the remainder of the narrative was so good as to encourage me to read other material by Steele.

    Which brings us to Rude Astronauts, Steele’s first collection of short stories. Ten stories, five short science non-fiction articles. Not even a dollop of fantasy in sight.

    A collection always offer a good portrait of an author’s common themes and approaches. If nothing else, Rude Astronauts convinced me that Steele was an author worth reading. Steele obviously knows his science stuff: The technical details are impeccable, the science is integral to the stories and the attitude is quintessential hard-SF. Furthermore, Steele writes with a style that’s both journalistic-clear and with a potent stylistic kick. The Diamondback Jack’s story trilogy, in particular, represents Steele at his best.

    The fun thing is that Steele writes hard-SF but, contrarily to other practicers of the art, knows the real world. His stories are not about the scientists who think about stuff, but about the mechanics, the technicians, the grunts who take the scientists’s plans and make them into tangible reality. This working-class perspective is unique and refreshing.

    Rude Astronauts is divided in three parts. The first, Near Space, is easily the best: Pure hard-SF, with a perspective far removed from the usual squeaky-clean portrayal of space exploration. Here, stories about beer in space, retired astronauts, work-caused deaths in space and Martian music. There’s the Diamondback Jack’s story trilogy, a series of tall tales heard (where else?) in Diamondback Jack’s, a rough bar catering to the Cape Canaveral blue-collar crowd. They make interesting companions to Spider Robinson’s fudgy-goody Callahan’s sequence.

    The second part is Alternate Space, two stories about an alternate history where the Americans and Nazis first competed for space exploration and humans landed on Mars in 1974. Both stories are told in an appropriate pseudo-historical-journalistic style. “Goddard’s people” will probably make more sense with people already familiar with wartime american scientists, but “John Harper Wilson” is a good tale of… well, why spoil it?

    The third part is not quite as hard-SF. It’s called “Contemporary Space” and presents, quite appropriately, contemporary tales. One, “Hapwood’s Hoax” is a clever examination of the uneasy relationship between SF and the lunatic UFO fringe. Some will see it as a retelling of Scientology; I just consider it a pretty good yarn. “Winter Scenes of the Cold War” is a run-of-the-mill techno-thriller about spies and advanced technology. “Trembling Earth” is a thriller in the vein of Jurassic Park, but nastier, and with a lovely kicker that catches you by surprise.

    Interestingly, “Live from the Mars Hotel”, “Hapgood’s Hoax”, “Winter Scenes of the Cold War” and “Trembling Earth” all share a common storytelling structure, which is of either a series of interview of people connected to events, or the “official” version of events (usually during a testimony) intercut with what “really” happened. Coupled with the Diamondback Jack’s trilogy and the pseudo-journalistic approach to the Alternate Space stories, it makes a slightly repetitive effect when read back-to-back like this.

    But even then, Rude Astronauts is a good collection. Easily readable, well-written, in the mould of the best classical hard-SF but with a modern varnish of its own, it’s the kind of short fiction that I’ll read again with pleasure.

  • The Probability Broach, L. Neil Smith

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1980 (1996 rewrite), 305 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-53875-7

    Reviewing The Probability Broach is going to be impossible to do without talking politics. (Some readers may wish to leave at this point)

    The reason is simple: L. Neil Smith has been a Libertarian for (says the blurb) more than thirty years and this novel espouses his chosen political views perfectly. The Probability Broach is one of the purest, hardest political propaganda SF I’ve read in a long while.

    Which does not mean that the novel sucks. I know, I know: You would expect novels-with-a-message to be stuffy, boring and insufferably didactical. While The Probability Broach does have its slow moments, it usually charges ahead with the readability usually associated with Heinlein. Edward Bear is a policeman in an alternate America where economic decline is so evident that private corporations are slowly being annexed by the government, cities are in full-scale decay, corruption is omnipresent and air-conditioning equipment is illegal. Your basic dystopian scenario.

    Through a freak series of circumstances following his investigation of a strange murder, Bear finds himself transported in another dimension where everyone wears weaponry, but also where the standard of living is immeasurably higher than even our own Earth. What’s more, this is a completely libertarian America: There isn’t much of a central authority but everyone seems to get along quite well.

    A fertile ground for political propaganda? Of course. Smith spends most of The Probability Broach explaining how (well) his anarcho-capitalist system works. All his characters are unusually well-articulated, and like the best Heinleinian characters, they speak as if any other opinion is obviously, laughably wrong.

    From the above, I wouldn’t expect a good novel and yet, I was fascinated by Smith’s utopia. Despite thinking that Libertarianism is really inappropriate, I felt that Smith’s world was an interesting place.

    Up to a certain point, then, The Probability Broach is convincing. But even if it would not have been, the truckloads of ideas brought forward by the novel are enough to make this a must-read for anyone even remotely concerned with innovation. (The Libertarian Congress session, in particular, is a hoot.) In a sense, I’m grateful that Smith vulgarized the ideals of the Libertarian movements to make them accessible to a wider readership. Mixing gritty murder mystery with a classic science-fiction approach to exhibit political ideas is a great idea. The characters are fun, again in a Heinleinian everyone-is-ultra-competent way. Female characters are well-handled, even though they too suffer -benefit?- from the Heinleinian beautiful-and-smart-and-tough stereotype. Despite the original publication date (1983), the novel doesn’t feel dated, though some seventies-era gadgets (talking chimps and dolphins, environmental concerns) add a charming eeriness to the whole.

    I had fun going through The Probability Broach. Few novels read recently even approach it in term of pure readability. There might not be much of a plot, but the whole book is pure delight anyway. Of course, people with low tolerance for sermonning might disagree, but they’re probably not the kind of people who enjoyed Heinlein’s novels either.

    Even if you do not consider yourself a political theorist, a libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist, I’d recommend The Probability Broach. I found in it most of what initially attracted me to SF: Strange, new ideas worth evaluating, crystal-clear prose, strong readability and a happy ending. Preachy, sure, but that’s part of the fun.

    (For the record, I consider myself a complete centrist in political terms. This, of course, is easier to achieve in Canada than in the USA. Even though I tend to consider politics as a spectator sport, I respect the idea of democracy too much not to vote, but am too cynical to vote for any of the major parties. While writing the above review, it dawned on me that I had voted Libertarian during the last federal election!)

  • The Scariest Place on Earth: Eye to Eye with Hurricanes, David E. Fisher

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Random House, 1994, 250 pages, C$32.00 hc, ISBN 0-679-42775-9

    In August 1998, CNN’s web site conducted an online poll about which natural disaster would be the worst to face personally. Upon viewing the results (topped by “Volcanic Eruption”), a co-worker commented that the danger of hurricanes is always severely underestimated.

    Which can be understood: From an uninformed point of view, hurricanes are just big storms. What’s a few more centimetres of rain and faster winds? Our buildings can tolerate big storms; what’s the deal with hurricanes? If anything, wouldn’t it be fun to go through a hurricanes, having a good party indoor while it’s raining outside?

    The difference is that hurricanes are not just “big storms.” 200 kph winds can drive a two by four plank straight into a tree trunk. The waves whipped up by hurricanes are called “storm surges”: They can rise over five meters and sweep coastal areas, destroying everything in their passages up to several kilometres inland.

    David E. Fisher explains all of this and much more in The Scariest Place on Earth. It’s not only a witty, readable account of the mechanism of a hurricane (a far more complex process than what could be expected) but also a collection of historical anecdotes about the terrifying power of hurricanes.

    Part of what gives The Scariest Place on Earth its power is the first-hand testimony of Fisher, who lived through Andrew, the 1992 hurricane that devastated a part of South Florida. Fisher lives in Miami; Andrew passed in his neighbourhood. Chapter by chapter, he describes the initial signals, the growing alarm, the hasty preparations, the unwavering disbelief, the terrifying power of the storm itself, and then the devastation afterward. It’s incredible storytelling.

    But Fisher is a scientist by formation, and The Scariest Place on Earth has for mission to be the ultimate layman book on hurricanes. For the most part, it succeeds. After a historical overview of our growing understanding of this natural phenomena, he spends a lot of time explaining how and why hurricanes form. It’s time well spent; despite the many interacting factors, you will understand hurricanes after this book. Fisher writes clearly, concisely and not without humour. The chapter explaining the origins of hurricanes (“Out of Nowhere”) is nothing short of a textbook example on how to write scientific non-fiction.

    Fisher also discusses the effort that have been made to control hurricanes, and the grim prospects of more powerful hurricanes caused by global warming. In the end, he does manages to convince the reader that truly, there is no scarier place on Earth than in the path of an oncoming hurricane.

    It almost seems ungrateful to criticise such a good account, but despite an excellent bibliography and complete notes on sources, The Scariest Place on Earth lacks an index. It’s a serious flaw, especially if you plan to use this book as a reference work.

    Despite this significant shortcoming, The Scariest Place on Earth is an effective, poignant popular science book. It’s fascinating, easy reading and has a place on the bookshelf of any serious nonfiction reader. As for me, I no longer confuse hurricanes with “big storms.”

  • Flying to Valhalla, Charles Pellegrino

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avonova, 1993, 337 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-71881-2

    Charles Pellegrino has lived an interesting life. The full-page author blurb informs us that he’s been involved with astronomy, palaeontology, archaeology, the Titanic, the Valkyrie antimatter rocket, the concept of cloning dinosaurs from mosquitoes stuck in amber, composite materials, high-speed global maglevs and a few nuclear devices. Yikes.

    With Flying to Valhalla, he now turns his formidable imagination to hard Science-Fiction, complete with a forty-page scientific addendum.

    (It’s at this point that the liberal-arts crowd roll their eyes and quietly go away. I’ll be talking to those who will stay.)

    Yessir, Flying to Valhalla is pure, undiluted, ultra-hard Science Fiction. No substitutes, no wishy-washy fuzzy concept straight out of media SF, no fancy prose. No fancy characters, and no gripping plot either, but we’ll get to that.

    In the same vein than Robert L. Forward and John Cramer, Pellegrino is a working scientist with bursting ideas who finds in SF an ideal medium of expression. So who cares if his characters are cardboard and the plot’s free of any suspense? Pellegrino is constructing the basis of tomorrow’s SF: lesser authors will mine this book for years to come.

    What’s in Flying to Valhalla? A lot of stuff.

    The Chronology begins with “First Contact: 33,552,442 B.C.” and ends with “Effective end of Earth: A.D. 2076”. The book continues with Pellegrino, Powel and Asimov’s Three Laws of Alien Behaviour:

    1. Their survival will be more important that our survival,
    2. Wimps don’t become top dog and
    3. They will assume that the first two laws apply to us.

    No Star Trek goody-humanist doctrine, here. You already want to read the novel? Good, because this stuff is still all in the introduction.

    Before the novel’s over, you’ll read about antimatter rockets, space disasters, alien civilizations, theories of cosmogony, near-c insanity (or lucidity), relativistic bombs, galactic predators, electronic civilizations, sun-driven antimatter factories, lunar colonization and so much more!

    It’s redundant to say that Flying to Valhalla is a novel of ideas. It’s also redundant to say that hard-SF fans will devour it with glee while everyone else will look on in incomprehension. So let’s do the only decent thing and point out that if you’re looking for good hard-SF, Flying to Valhalla, and Pellegrino, are good buys.

    (The most fascinating thing about Flying to Valhalla is the concept of relativistic bombs. Accelerate relatively small objects to near-lightspeed velocities and let them smash in something -say, a planet- you want destroyed. There is almost no warning due to the near-c speed, and the impact is such that destruction is total. There is no real theoretical obstacle to this: just do the math. Now imagine that other civilisations in the galaxy that have the power required to send these relativistic bombs.

    This is where hard-SF shines: It anticipates a problem that has very real foundations years -possibly *centuries*- before everyone else. Flying to Valhalla also instill a deliciously real sense of paranoia: What if our TV signals are, at this very moment, reaching a civilization that doesn’t want any competitor…?

    Sweet dreams.)

  • Antarctica, Kim Stanley Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bantam, 1998, 511 pages, C$34.95 hc, ISBN 0-553-10063-7

    Kim Stanley Robinson has done it again.

    If you loved the Mars trilogy, you will like Antarctica. If you thought Robinson paid too much attention to detail in his trilogy, you will feel the same way with Antarctica. If you liked the political theory in all Mars books, there more of it in Antarctica. If you like his newly-matured stylistic techniques exhibited in the martian trilogy, rest assured that he’s doing much of the same thing here. In short, Antarctica is one of the most obvious follow-up possible to the Mars trilogy. Fans as well as non-fans will find what they expect here.

    Antarctica is a cold, vast, lonely place. One of this planet’s last frontiers (it was only explored at the beginning of this century), it remains, even today, quite mysterious. Far from being a vast plain of eternal ice, Antarctica proves itself a varied, fascinating continent.

    In his latest novel, Kim Stanley Robinson tells us about the Antarctica. It’s a book best compared to lengthy travelogues written by explorers: Not much of a plot, but a wealth of details.

    In 1995, Robinson went to Antarctica courtesy of the National Science Foundation, as part of the U.S. Antarctic Program’s Artists and Writer’s Programs. It obviously shows. Whatever tax dollars were spent in order for Mr. Robinson to spend some time down under, they were well-invested. The resulting book is a solid testimony of the beauty of the continent.

    Even though it’s marketed under the mainstream Bantam logo (not the Bantam Spectra SF imprint), Antarctica is straight science-fiction. Not only because it takes place sometime in the early twenty-first century but mostly because it espouses and deals with the themes dearest to SF: the nature of scientific change, the effect of technology on humans and the environment. It’s as if Robinson applies the talent he has sharpened in SF to a problem that’s almost contemporary. The result is awe-inspiring.

    Antarctica contains some technological gadgets, some sociological innovations but many digressions about the history of Antarctica and the human presence on this decidedly difficult continent. Robinson effectively creates and sustain a mystique about Antarctica through historical digressions and carefully selected vignettes. We’re not there, but we get the sights without the frostbite.

    Characters are well-handled. Although the usual “visitor” character is kept suitably under-developed (a must if he is to be the reader’s fictional surrogate), the two other main protagonist are well-sketched, and elicit our sympathy. The assortment of secondary characters is also developed with great care. There are no outright villains, Antarctica being formidable enough as opponent.

    The fiction content of the novel is less impressive. The story doesn’t revv up until half the book has passed, and then mostly resolves itself in barely more than 150 pages, leaving characters around for almost another hundred pages. This is where fans and non-fans of Robinson will diverge opinions: Fans simply don’t care because they like what they’re reading anyway while non fans won’t care because, effectively, they don’t care. Caveat lector, or so to speak.

    Antarctica is a good follow-up to the Mars trilogy. Of exceptionally worthy docu-fictive value, it will please those who like this kind of stuff. Robinson really makes Antarctica come alive in his novel. Well-written if thin plot-wise, it’s nevertheless one dense, satisfying read. Try not to miss it.

  • The Moon and the Sun, Vonda N. McIntyre

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1997, 421 pages, C$31.00 hc, ISBN 0-671-56765-9

    I’m mad, and I’m going to tell you about it.

    A few months ago, members of Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) decided that The Moon and the Sun was the best Science-Fiction or Fantasy novel published during the preceding year, beating out such contestants as A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin), Ancient Shores (Jack McDevitt), Bellwether, (Connie Willis), City on Fire, (Walter Jon Williams), King’s Dragon, (Kate Elliott) and Memory (Lois McMaster Bujold).

    Leaving alone the issue that these were most definitely not the worthiest books published in the oh-so-confusing Nebula period of eligibility (which here seems to go at least from April 1997 to September 1998), was The Moon and the Sun the best of the seven books? Of course not. Let me tell you why.

    The Moon and the Sun is the story of a young woman in King Louis XIV’s court in 1693. Her brother has captured a sea monster, and various royal things happen around her. Eventually, she figures out that the sea monster is intelligent. Of course, she’ll try to free it.

    I have seldom had as less motivation to read a book. It takes almost half the book to get out of the historical details and get on with the “fantasy” element. Despite a certain elegance of the prose, this novel is a colossal bore. If this hadn’t been a Nebula-Winner, I would have likely abandoned it well before the end. McIntyre mentions in her after-word that this has also been written as a movie screenplay: I would have rather read that than the book.

    The overemphasis on explicit feminism is annoying. The problem isn’t with the idea of feminism, but the treatment. McIntyre should have remembered to show, not tell. Far better to keep the heroine trying to acquire freedom and go against obstacles rather than make a few speeches about it. It’s ridiculous to see concerns of the nineteen-nineties clash with the historical atmosphere in this way.

    Then we come to the difficult question of the genre. The Moon and the Sun is a novel billed as an alternate history that won an award by and association originally founded by Science-Fiction writers. Problem is, it’s neither SF nor alternate history.

    There is nothing “alternate” about the history presented here: What are the repercussions of the sea monsters? The divergences with our history? Unseen, untouched, unimagined. This is historical fantasy.

    Then there’s the astonishingly positive advance blurbs on the back cover of the book, by author friends of McIntyre who should know better. “The finest alternate history ever” (Le Guin), “One of the best novels I’ve read” (Preuss), “engrossing story” (Gabaldon)… ack, ptui! Even granted that I don’t even like these authors, what were they smoking?

    In a sense, you could say that it’s fortunate that The Moon and the Sun won the Nebula: Otherwise I would not have read, or finished, the book and would not have anything to complain about. It still doesn’t erase the boredom and the pain.

    The Nebulas have a substantial history of choosing The Wrong Book as a winner; boring, stuffy fantasy novels that are neither remarkable or especially meritorious. Years later, who still remembers the unspectacular Where the Late Birds Sang (Kate Wilhem) or the incredibly boring The Falling Woman (Pat Murphy) or the rotten The Einstein Intersection (Samuel Delany)? I confidently predict that The Moon and the Sun is headed straight for this memory abyss. The infuriating thing is that the novel will bore generations of Nebula completists. Forever and ever.

  • The Callahan Chronicles, Spider Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Various, 1977-1997, ???? pages, C$??.?? mmpb, ISBN Various

    Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon: Ace, 1977
    Time-Travellers Strictly Cash: Ace, 1981
    Callahan’s Secret: Berkley, 1986
    Callahan’s Lady: Ace, 1991
    Lady Slings the Booze: Ace, 1992
    The Callahan Touch: Ace, 1993
    Callahan’s Legacy: Tor, 1997
    Off the Wall at Callahan’s: Tor, 1994

    Somewhere along highway 25 in Suffolk County, Long Island (Spider Robinson tells us) once existed an inauspicious bar called Callahan’s Place. That bar wasn’t your average neighbourhood drunk-hole, however. Robinson chronicled the weird, strange and marvellous incidents that happened there: Time-Travellers, Aliens, People with special talents… or just plain unfortunate folks in need of cheering up.

    As a non-drinker, non-bargoer, non-whatever, I’m far from being the ideal target audience for Robinson’s own brand of uber-hedonistic philosophy that permeates his work in general and the Callahan chronicles in particular. Despite his well-meaning tone of desolation, I like being a product of the conservative eighties, with all its petty monetary concerns, monogamous sexual relationships and cautious attitude toward alcohol.

    And yet, there is a definite charm about the Callahan sequence that is very, very hard to resist. Although it’s a definite possibility that reading these books will infuriate you, you will still come away from it with a sense of goofy satisfaction.

    Not least among Robinson’s many talents is the effortless prose and the engaging characters. Simply put, it’s a pleasure to read these books. When this pleasure fades -see below-, we can see the holes in the stories.

    The sequence is composed, quite neatly, of three epochs:

    The first one comprise the stories contained in the three earliest books. It’s the Callahan’s Place era. This period is characterized by a collection of several short stories setting up of the divergent rules that eventually coalesce to make up the universe in which the Callahan sequence takes place. In many respects, this is the best Callahan’s period: It’s fresh, exciting, invigorating and not too silly. (Fortunately, it is now contained in an omnibus volume from Tor called The Callahan Chronicles.)

    The second era takes at about the same chronological time, but at another place: Lady Sally’s House, the best… er… house of pleasure in New York. The two “Lady” books are far more prurient than the opening trilogy and written as novels, not an assembly of stories. The result is more coherent but less impressive. For some reason, Robinson decides to save the world from nuclear terrorists late in Lady Slings the Booze, and that particular plot clashes badly with the remainder of the sequence. Generally speaking, Callahan’s works best when dealing with small-scale weirdness and personal problems: It’s when it tries to be too ambitious that the problems arise.

    Finally, the narrator of the first trilogy decides to go in business for himself, and the two more recent books of the series chronicle his time at Mary’s Place. In a way, these two are a return to the familiar environment of the first three books. While written as novels, they’re far less linear than the Lady Sally books. Unfortunately, silliness happens (like the cluricaune and the oh-so-sensual-group-telepathy/orgy-to-save-the-world) and the effect is more ridiculous than uplifting. A curious tendency to showboating and unarguable sermonning by Robinson also diminishes the effect of the later books.

    (Off the wall at Callahan’s is a compendium of quotes, puns and jokes from the first five books. It’s recycling, but great recycling.)

    Still, readers will be hard-pressed to find this sequence other than enjoyable and refreshing. Reading another Callahan book feels exactly like coming back to a place where everyone knows your name. And that’s probably exactly what Robinson intended.

    Cheers!

  • Tesseracts^6, Ed. Robert J. Sawyer & Carolyn Clink

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tesseracts, 1997, 297 pages, C$8.95 mmpb, ISBN 1-895836-32-8

    Next step in my Aurora-nominee reading program this year: The sixth Tesseracts anthology of Canadian Speculative Fiction. A tradition has been established that each successive Tesseracts volume has a different set of co-editors. This year, the husband-and-wife team of Robert J. Sawyer and Carolyn Clink are serving their tour of duty at the forefront of what has become Canada’s most celebrated SF anthology series.

    They say that an anthology is well-served by great stories in the opening and closing slots. In this regard, Tesseracts^6 succeeds admirably well. The opening fiction is by Eric Choi, a promising hard-SF author. “Divisions” tackles a very-hard-SF story upon an alternate history where Quebec secedes in 1981. The result is very satisfying. At the other end of the book, Robert Charles Wilson delivers the kind of fiction that has made his reputation with Protocols of Consumption, a character-based tale with adequate scientific content and a surprising amount of paranoia.

    For the most part, you get what you expect from Tesseracts^6: The top authors keep their level of quality. I have yet to read a boring story from Andrew Weiner, as he proves with “Bootlegger”. James Alan Gardner is also a reliable author, and his “Love-in-Idleness” is one of the best stories of the volume. “What Goes Around” (Derryl Murphy) doesn’t quite lives up to its premise but remains a fun read. Yves Meynard enhances his reputation as a fantasy author with the curiously pleasing “Souvenirs”.

    But there’s also some good material from newer names (at least to me): Catherine McLeod’s “Skulling Medusa” is an excellent hard-boiled action featuring a futuristic Private Eye. Douglas Smith’s “Spirit Dance” does interesting things with a love triangle, were-animals and the CSIS. (!) Additionally, Tesseracts^6 might make you realize that some of the latest novels seen in libraries are in fact from Canadian authors, like Scott Mackay (Outpost) and Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring).

    Four of the stories are from French-Canadian authors, although it seems like two of them (Yves Meynard’s “Souvenirs” and Jean-Louis Trudel’s “Where Angels Fall”) were written directly in English. Annoyingly, like the previous Tesseracts anthologies, there is no mention of where the two translated stories (Sylvie Bérard’s “The Wall” and Élisabeth Vonarburg’s “The Sleeper in the Crystal”) originally appeared.

    Due to poet Carolyn Clink’s co-editorship, this Tesseracts volume contains a fair amount of poetry. As a reader, I have seldom been attracted to this genre, and have to report that I have not been convinced by what I have seen here. Readers with different background can feel free to disagree.

    On another register, I am happy to report that the interior typesetting is greatly improved over the past few Tesseract publications: The font is crisper (though still not heavy enough) and the margins are adequate. It’s a shame that the page header doesn’t indicate each story, though. The curiously unfamiliar paperback format (halfway between mass-market and trade paperbacks) takes a while to get used to. Unfortunately, the cover illustration is one of the worst I have seen in recent memory. It’s probable that the awful colour balance and the amateurish collage of elements will keep this book away from a few prospective readers. An unfortunate change from the beautiful cover of the previous volume.

    Tesseracts^6 proves, if it was still left to be proven, that Canadian SF is strong enough not only to be fill a volume of good stories, but to do so at a yearly rate of publication and with different sets of editors. It also provides good reading… so what more is there to say? Bring on the next volume!