Book Review

  • Trader, Charles de Lint

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1997, 464 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-55157-5

    Many cinephile will remember a spate of body-switching “comedies” around 1988: BIG, LIKE FATHER LIKE SON, VICE VERSA, 18 AGAIN… Along with 1977’s FREAKY FRIDAY, these movies used body-switching as an excuse for character-driven comedies of, mostly, mutual redemption. (The latest film of note in this sub-genre, 1997’s FACE/OFF, used slightly-more-plausible face switching as an excuse for a rather good guns’n’mayhem movie.)

    Charles de Lint’s Trader is markedly different. Not only is it decidedly not a comedy, but it actually treats the improbable subject of body-switching with a certain realism that always seems to be sorely lacking is the afore-mentioned movies.

    For one thing, this isn’t a kid’s story: Trader is mature, comfortably adult fantasy. The hero of the tale is Max Trader, a renowned, introvert maker of guitars. When he suddenly wakes up in the body of an unemployed, despicable loser named Johnny Devlin, he has to face the fact that he has not only inherited Devlin’s problems, but that Devlin (now Trader) doesn’t want anything to do with him. After a fight with Devlin’s old girlfriend, being kicked out of Devlin’s apartment and being unable to return to his old home, Trader finds himself on the streets. What follows is his journey toward redemption.

    In a lesser story, Trader could have been faultless; a quiet, introspective man not given to meanness. But part of what gives Trader its power is the realization that Trader himself isn’t as perfect as we could think. We realise that even as average and mild-mannered as Trader is (or we are, for that matter), he still has things to learn to enjoy life at its fullest.

    Trader doesn’t only tell a story; without bashing the reader over the head with it, it also contains a surprising amount of not-so-conventional philosophy. Trader is about life, what you make of it, and the friendships that let you go through it.

    de Lint’s prose is typically engaging, effortlessly drawing the reader into the story. Characters are very well handled. While this critic isn’t a de Lint reader, the comments read elsewhere about him returning to old friends in Newport seem dead-on accurate.

    The novel does have its flaws: part of the last third venture more in some sort of fantasy dreamland where almost anything can happen; a departure from the relatively realistic remainder of the novel. In retrospect, one character’s aggression also seems unwarranted.

    With good characters, easy prose, a lot of heart and an undeniable maturity, Trader shows why de Lint is at the top of his field. A strong contender for this year’s Auroras, and a worthwhile read, it is hard to ask much more of this book.

  • King of the Killing Zone: The Story of the M-1, America’s Super Tank, Orr Kelly

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Berkley, 1989, 288 pages, C$5.75 mmpb, ISBN 0-425-12304-9

    With a title like that, you can bet it’s not a book about fluffy rabbits.

    No, King of the Killing Zone is definitely a book for the intellectually macho guys among us, the ones who also devour Hustler magazine for the military hardware articles, who buy Tom Clancy novels in hardcover, who don’t quite think that an obsession about military hardware is somehow unhealthy.

    (Am I describing myself? Ahem…)

    King of the Killing Zone is definitely a dream come true for military buffs among us.

    (Which reminds me of the old saying: The difference between a fan and a buff is that the buff in interested in stuff where dying is involved. Witness Military buffs, WWII buffs, history buffs, etc… Are there Spice Girls buffs? There you go.)

    There is a special magic in the creation of an expensive machine. The process leading up to the design, debugging and manufacture of your car is sufficiently fascinating in itself. Now imagine the whole story behind the introduction of a completely new tank in the U.S. Army. That’s the subject of King of the Killing Zone.

    During your reading, you will not only learn about the M-1, but also about tanks in general, major figures in the U.S. Army since WWII, the military equipment acquisition process, intelligence work, tanks warfare strategy and hundreds of small details that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with tanks at first glance.

    This could have been a long, dry read. The drudgery of military administration can be terribly annoying if you’re outside the system. Fortunately, author Orr Kelly has mastered the none-too-obvious trick of writing a densely packed, yet easily readable prose. He obviously knows his subject, and the notes on sources are very complete. A useful index completes an already-great non-fiction account. As a result, King of the Killing Zone moves briskly, yet satisfies the reader.

    Among the highlights of this book are the incredible tale of Chobham armour, the competition between GM and Chrysler to decide who would build the tank, the tactics revolution brought by the M-1’s speed, quiet and manoeuvrability, the man who made “all the right decisions for the wrong reasons”, the debugging of the tank’s most obscure flaws…

    Behind the whole book, though, stands the question: Is the M-1 Abrahms a good tank? To that, Orr answers with a cautious optimism. The publication date (1989) of the book is ironic, coming two years before one of the most significant military event of the late twentieth century. The Gulf War proved to sceptics that the M-1 could deliver what had been promised. Despite heavy use of fuel and problems due to the infiltration of sand in machinery, the M-1 swept the battlefield and erased most doubts concerning the tank’s worth in combat. It would be interesting to see a post-1991 revision of King of the Killing Zone.

    It is only too rare to find a book that lucidly and knowledgeably explains the steps by which new weapons systems are developed, tested and put into service. In an age where the easy 30-second clip on the evening news can weigh more heavily than a thoughtful report, King of the Killing Zone demystifies the process and takes the time to explain. A must-read for techno-thriller fans, and military hardware buffs.

  • Céline Dion: Behind the Fairytale, Ian Halperin

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Boca Publications, 1997, 191 pages, C$9.95 mmpb, ISBN 0-9659583-0-2

    Nowadays, it seems like every two-bit celebrity has a biography on bookstores’ shelves. Even being a celebrity isn’t a requirement any more; just being a megastar’s ex-girlfriend can now net you a fat publishing contract. But as ever, there are two very different kinds of biographies. Authorized, and not-so-authorized ones.

    Authorized biographies are written by the celebrity, or most likely by a writer with bills to pay and the celebrity’s cooperation. However “honest” they claim to be, it’s no surprise that these authorized biographies end up painting a rather positive portrait of the star.

    On the other hand, unauthorized biographies are usually perceived as being written by malicious, talentless money-grubbing hack without any ethics, scruples or restraints. Many fans, pundits and managers are quick to characterize unauthorized biographies as unmitigated lies on paper, and readers of these putrid pages as only slightly below unicellular slime.

    They fail to mention that these biographies are much more interesting.

    Céline Dion is, like me, a French-Canadian. It would be a common error to assume that given this shocking similarity, I would be a die-hard Dion fan.

    Not quite. From a musical standpoint, Dion mostly sings ballads, which are definitely not my favourite kind of music. Furthermore, most importantly, I’ve never been too impressed by… ahem, let’s stay polite… the cognitive abilities of Miss Dion. As female signers so, I have much more respect for Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow or Lisa Loeb (who compose, write and sing, not to mention can hold their end of a conversation) that for the pretty voice that is Céline Dion. Dion is a pleasantly packaged set of vocal chords. Nothing more.

    [Unrelated anecdote: There was a TITANIC special on French-Canadian TV at the end of 1997, where Dion and ditzy talk-show host Julie Snyder were interviewing an expert on the Titanic disaster. It was a lot like watching the protagonists of DUMB & DUMBER interviewing Einstein.]

    The fascination of my fellow French-Canadians for “le clan Dion” is nothing short of mystifying for me. Why glorify a not-especially-pretty woman whose only talent is to sing? The gushing acceptance of her marriage to slimy manager René Angelil (almost thirty years his senior) still manages to creep me out. Is this how we want the world to perceive French-Canadians?

    Now that I’ve come clean both on the subject of Céline Dion and unauthorized biographies, let me be honest enough to say that if you like going through trash, you will love Behind the Fairytale. It’s a collection of gossip, just-this-side-of-libelous assertion and veiled half-truths mixed with saucy innuendoes. I could have lived a few more years without knowing about Dion’s suicide attempts, anorexia, unhappy marriage, nervous breakdowns and raging nymphomania.

    One the other hand, it’s a breath of fresh air compared to the holier-than-church portrait of Dion that is spoon-fed to and by the media. I believe that there is more truth in this book, warts and all, than the official story. Halperin doesn’t quite establish himself as a credible journalist (he did co-author a book on the “assassination” of Kurt Cobain), but does not shies away from revealing his disgruntled sources, his personal favorable opinion of Dion (in the foreword) and that, in his opinion, the true villain of Dion’s life is manager/husband Angelil.

    It is very unlikely that any fan of Dion will agree with Behind the Fairytale (just read the vitriolic comments on Amazon’s web site if you’re not convinced), so this biography will probably please most those readers not -yet- converted by the massive Sony/Angelil publicity machine. This is worth a look at the library (I couldn’t manage to buy such a book), if only to be able to see Behind the Fairytale.

    Just remember: Trash can be fun, but at the end it’s still trash.

  • Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock’n’Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Peter Biskind

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Simon & Schuster, 1998, 506 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-684-80996-6

    In the classic Brave New World, Aldous Huxley took a certain pleasure is describing the inane entertainment (“feelies”) perpetrated by Hollywood in his imagined future. It was obviously intended to be a parody of the lousy movies of the thirties, with its simplistic plot, stereotyped characters, obvious racism and happy expected ending.

    Fast forward half a century: We’re still being fed pap by Hollywood. From a storytelling standpoint, cinema is the mentally retarded cousin of prose fiction. Most of the time, it does simplistic things, only to be applauded when it does something decent. The average novel on any shelf -including romance- is a better story than the average movie.

    And yet, for a brief time in the seventies, it seemed as if Hollywood was re-inventing itself. Young film-makers like Hopper, Coppola, Friedkin, Bogdanovich, Scorsese were making challenging movies like EASY RIDER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, RAGING BULL… But then came JAWS and STAR WARS, and the blockbuster mentality that now prevails.

    At least, that’s the history that Easy Riders, Raging Bulls tries to tell. A fairly fat book, this non-fiction account remains unusually readable while also being formidably well-researched. (There is an excellent 23-pages index, as well as 35 pages of notes, most of them referring to personal interviews between Biskind and the people concerned.)

    There is a lot of dirt in this book. The Seventies are described by Biskind as an era of unbridled hedonism, where everyone slept with almost everyone else, drugs were supplied by the bowls and rock’n’roll defined a generation. Biskind spares no punches in describing the descent through hell of most of the film-makers of this era, their troubled love lives and their constant flirting with auto-destruction. This should be a source book for anyone trying to portray South California as the modern Babylon.

    Most of the book is in the details. It’s a shock to read about the behaviour of some now-quite-conservative personalities. This accumulation of anecdotes helps to sustain our interest in a book that could otherwise be stuffy. This is one great book for party anecdotes: “Did you know that Coppola once said to…”

    Beyond the dirt and the shocking stories, though, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls fares less well at convincing the reader that there was indeed a “New Hollywood” in the seventies. A look at the most popular movies of the time probably reveals a bunch of movies that were neither superior, nor particularly innovative. We remember THE GODFATHER and THE EXORCIST… but the rest? If drugs, sex and rock’n’roll were necessary for better movies, was the price worth it? Or was the “New Hollywood” of the seventies only an new extension of the general climate of revolution that swept through the sixties?

    It is ironic, though, to find out that the main perpetrators of the blockbuster mentality (Spielberg, Lucas, Don Simpson) were encouraged -even nurtured- by the “New Hollywood”. Biskind’s chapters about the success of JAWS and STAR WARS take on a bittersweet quality that’s well developped.

    On the other hand, Biskind’s conscious silence about some latter work is surprising and self-defeating: Why not mention that of all these film-makers, only Spielberg and Lucas have managed to take control of film-making means (Lucas with ILM, Spielberg with Dreamworks)? Why conveniently forget Spielberg’s brilliant and artistic SCHINDLER’S LIST? Why not mention Coppola’s THE GODFATHER III? Or the good movies of the eighties and nineties? Or the bad movies of the seventies?

    You could say that Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a book to read for all the wrong reasons: For the dirt and the scandals; for an unbiased history of STAR WARS; for the self-destructive paths of a few brilliant film-makers… An interesting book in its own right, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls nevertheless fails to convince that the “Sex, Drugs and rock’n’roll generation saved Hollywood.”

    Imagine that.

  • How Like a God, Brenda W. Clough

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1997, 287 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-86263-6

    While “superpowers” are usually the province of comic book superheroes, Science Fiction also touches on the subject from time to time, usually from a much more “realistic” perspective. Compare Robert Silverberg’s Dying Inside to any issue of the X-Men for a good shock.

    Brenda W. Clough seemed to be aware of this as she wrote How Like a God. It’s the story of an ordinary husband, father and computer programmer named Rob Lewis who suddenly acquires the power to read and shape minds. Clough’s protagonist makes several explicit references to the numerous comic books he had read at a younger age, while undergoing a descent through the lowest levels of society.

    Unfortunately, How Like a God combines attempts a science-fiction sensibility with comic-book plotting to create a book that’s pleasantly readable, but also disappointing in its unevenness.

    For instance, there is almost no scepticism about the powers of Rob Lewis. Even he seems to arrive fairly easily to the conclusion he’s a super human. People around him also seem to believe him quite easily.

    The psychology of the characters seems suspect. When Rob’s wife starts sprouting presidential ambitions, when Rob callously leaves his family, when Edwin Barbarossa starts helping a strange-looking hobo, when Rob almost assaults a young girl… they all seem like forced choices.

    Which brings us to the numerous coincidences that make up most of How like a God‘s plot. The two worst are the meeting of Barbarossa and Lewis, and the fire that destroys Lewis’ workplace. No explanation is provided. These two things simply happen. While worse fault have been seen elsewhere, there are ways of bringing coincidences in a story in an acceptable manner. (This reviewer’s favourite example is in Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears, where twenty pages are devoted to explaining how a beam of solid American wood comes in contact with the screw of a nuclear-powered submarine in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Amazingly, it works.)

    The Atlantic City passage is also incredibly weak. Couldn’t Lewis just try his hand at poker instead of blackjack?

    Then there’s the last third of the book, which abandons all pretence of scientific verisimilitude, and goes full-throttle in magical fantasy-land where Gilgamesh (yes, that Gilgamesh) is a full-featured character. The novel drags on for another fifty pages after what should have been the final confrontation and has the gall to end on the steps of what should have been the book’s most powerful scene!

    Is there anything else to say? Well, the title alone is a source of countless nanoseconds of fun: Apart from the obvious parodies (How? Like a God!, How Like a Dog, How so Very Very Much Like a God, How to Like a God, Show Like a God, How Licks a God?, etc…), you can spend some time trying to find ways of saying “How Like a God” in normal, everyday conversations.

    The cover illustration by Rick Berry is oddly attractive, suggesting both personal power, pain and transcendence. (That ugly mug in the upper right corner has to go, though!) [September 1998: The ugly mug is gone from the paperback edition, although the resulting illustration loses some power.]

    Nevertheless, How Like a God isn’t nearly as bad as the above might presuppose. The writing is brisk, and the story flows along at an acceptable pace once you accept the succession of coincidences. Not one of SF’s shining releases for 1997, but reasonable entertainment as long as you don’t spend too much money on it.

  • Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    St. Martin’s, 1981-1988, ??? pages, C$??.?? mmpb, ISBN Various

    Red Dragon: 1981, 348 pages
    The SIlence of the Lambs: 1988, 352 pages

    They took away the student’s notebook when he entered the prison.

    “You can’t be serious!” he protested “he can’t be that dangerous!”

    “Amical Lecteur is a sick man” replied the orderly responsible for the student’s well-being. “He is the most dangerous reader you will ever meet. Always remember that.”

    They went down the stairs toward the maximum-security wing of the prison.

    “A few months ago, one of our nurses forgot a copy of The Bridges of Madison County near him. He read it in less than an hour, called it a pretty ordinary story about bad photography and cardboard characters. His pulse never went above seventy.”

    “Gee.”

    “We took away your notebook because you had written something in it. Lecteur will go frantic in the presence of reading material. We have restrained him, but you never know.”

    They approached the last cell of the corridor. A chair had been placed in the middle of the corridor, facing the bars of the cell.

    The orderly checked one last time and retreated, leaving the student with Lecteur. The student could only see the outline of the prisoner in his darkened cell.

    “Doctor Lecteur? I’m here-”

    “I know.” He advanced, and even despite the darkness of his cell, the student could see the heavy blindfold that had been placed upon Lecteur’s eyes. “-they might have tried to make me blind, but not stupid.”

    The student gulped. “I’m here to ask you about-”

    “The two serial-killer thrillers by Thomas Harris. Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. Am I correct?”

    “Yes- Yes, sir.”

    “Did you know that since 1977, Harris has only published three novels? All of them have been adapted to successful movies. The Silence of the Lambs even won a Best Picture Academy Award-”

    “Yes. Were you aware of the movies when you read the book?”

    “Aware yes. I even saw parts of that movie, but never all of it.”

    “Did it help?”

    “Curiously, seeing only disconnected parts of the movie probably set the tone, characterisation and overall atmosphere of the book while leaving most of the plot surprises intact. Then again, given the publicity surrounding The Silence of the Lambs, you don’t even have to have seen the movie.”

    “What about MANHUNTER, the adaptation of Red Dragon?”

    “I knew it existed. That is all.”

    The student paused, thinking about his next questions.

    “What did you think of the books?”

    “Why is it important to you?”

    “Why is that important to you?”

    “You never learned never to answer a question by a question?”

    “Who told you that?”

    Silence.

    “They’re both fairly good crime thrillers” finally says Lecteur. “You’ve got to realize, though, that both novels have basically the same premise.”

    “Oh?”

    “In both, you’ve got a protagonist asking the advice of this really sadistic psychopath, Hannibal Lecter, to catch a serial killer. In both cases, he’s able to do it and make life miserable for the policeperson sent to interrogate him.”

    “Much like our discussion, then.”

    “Do you have to point out the obvious?”

    “Sorry.”

    [Pause] “In both case, the result is an tense novel. The similarity of the plots even help, since Harris does it better the second time around.”

    “How?”

    “First off, Clarice Starling from The Silence of the lambs is a stronger, more interesting character than Will Graham from Red Dragon. The same also holds true for the serial killers, although both are portrayed as wimps. I guess this is to show off Harris’ centrepiece, which is Hannibal Lecter.”

    “He’s chilling?”

    “Utterly. Brains combined with complete evilness. A very memorable villain. The damning thing is that he’s also endlessly charming. Just as you think he’s a pretty likable fellow, well…”

    “Are the books very violent?”

    “Somewhat. They stay in the norm for crime thrillers. It’s the impact of that violence that remains with the readers, though.”

    “So, which is the better book?”

    “Silence of the Lambs, without a doubt. Even though it’s a remake of the previous volume, readers having read Red Dragon first should read the sequel. The reverse isn’t necessarily true, though, as Silence of the Lambs greatly improves on the predecessor. Think of it as a computer game remade five years after the original, with better graphics and gameplay.”

    “You recommend The Silence of the Lambs?”

    “Yes.”

    “Thank you sir. I think-”

    “Don’t leave me like this! Give me-”

    “I really must go.”

    “Give me a book! A baseball program! A cereal box! Anything to read!”

    The orderly rushed to the cell, electric prod in hand. As Lecteur became even more frantic, the orderly silenced him with flashes of blue-white electricity. Lecteur retreated in his cell.

    “Sorry about that, sir.” said the orderly. “He gets violent from time to time.”

    “At least he doesn’t kill people.”

    “Sometime, we almost think it would be better that way.”

  • Triad: Three Complete Science-Fiction Novels, A.E. van Vogt

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Simon & Schuster/SFBC Edition, 1951, 527 pages, C$??.?? hc, ISBN Unavailable

    Tonight, ladies, gentlemen and extraterrestrials from Cylonak, we are going to delve deep into the archives of Science Fiction to dredge back a forgotten masterpiece, or three for that matter. At a time where men were men and women were irrelevant… at a time where it was plausible to postulate non-Aristolean logic without howling with laughter… at a time where you could have spacemen waving vibrators around without having your book banned… at a time where SF fans perceived themselves as being persecuted and hunted down like rabid dogs… lived an author named A.E. van Vogt.

    A curious fellow, this Arthur Elton van Vogt. Born in Canada in 1912, emigrated in the United States in 1944, he had by that time established himself as one of Science-Fiction’s giants. He specialized in grandiose tales of space-opera, of supermen, of monsters and empires. He never made too much sense, but he wrote with such intensity that few were left unimpressed. Today, we will see three of his finest novels, brought together in one handy package unimaginatively called Triad.

    van Vogt’s first novel was Slan, a classical wish-fulfilment fantasy starring a superhuman boy, a princess, an evil empire and a book-long chase. It was enormously popular among SF audience, who identified with the persecuted protagonist. Slans being superior humans, the novel was the basis of a fannish rallying cry: Fans are Slans!

    As for the novel itself, we can already see in Slan the distinguishing characteristics of the latter van Vogt: Endlessly surprising twists and counter-twists of plot, often brought up without rhyme, reason or latter accountability. It is never too clear whether van Vogt has a fantastically complicated outline, or is making it up as he goes along. Modern readers will find Slan interesting in a certain naïve way, as if the sheer chutzpah of van Vogt can carry the novel through. But modern readers will most likely see in Slan the blueprint for more than fifty years of wish-fulfilment novels.

    With The voyage of the Space Beagle, modern readers will experience virulent déjà-vu reactions. Not only does the Space Beagle function eerily like the “Star Trek” paradigm, but a sequence from the novel contains the genesis of the movie ALIEN. (van Vogt sued, and settled out of court for $50,000, says the Encyclopedia of Science-Fiction)

    The Voyage of the Space Beagle is a collection of mostly enjoyable short tales describing the adventures of a space ship on a deep exploration tour. Surprisingly, the human squabbling and political infighting are more interesting than some of the aliens. The hero is likable, the plot twists are numerous and the aliens are imaginatively created. It reads like STAR TREK on acid. Creaky, musty fun.

    The World of Null-A has an interesting MacGuffin: There are other modes of thought than Aristolean, Newtonian and Euclidean logic. Nothing interesting is done with this premise, but the ever-exciting plot has a twist every five pages and quickly buries its incoherencies under a cloud of plots, counterplots and counter-counterplots. Again, you never quite know if van Vogt has an incredible outline, or he’s just making it as he goes along. No matter; even despite all its numerous faults and its increasingly hilarious creakiness, The World of Null-A manages to entertain.

    If Triad teaches us something, it’s that SF has certainly grown up. No author could now afford to publish novels as ill-conceived as van Vogt’s. On the other hand, it’s unclear if today’s fiction has the same sense of fun that’s present in van Vogt. It’s also a matter of debate as to which kind of fiction will read better among non-literary readers a half-century from now.

    In the meantime, Triad contains the essential van Vogt. A worthwhile buy if you can find it in used bookstores, along with a copy of his other major novel, The Weapon Shops of Isher.

  • Formula One, Bob Judd

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Avon, 1989, 374 pages, C$4.95$ mmpb, ISBN 0-380-71014-5

    Novels being works of imagination, it’s surprising to find out that some readers devour them to learn things. Why not grab a non-fiction book instead? Authors are free to imagine whatever they want in any given context: why should any reader trust the author?

    This is in many ways a false argument. Compare sitting down for a few hours with a quantum mechanic textbook, or a Greg Egan hard-SF novel. The choice is pretty easy to make. Fiction involves the reader. Sure, it’s less rigorous, but the basic elements still come through, especially when dealing with non-tangible subjects: someone who wants to know about the camaraderie and competition between fighter pilots will more easily grasp it reading a Stephen Coonts novel than a non-fiction account.

    As for trust, it has a lot to do with an undefinable authenticity in the text itself, added to the author’s credentials. While Arthur Hailey has never been an airport or hotel manager, his novels Airport and Hotel (among other “educative” thrillers) have mesmerized whole beachfuls of readers. Hailey has acquired a reputation for research; Coonts is a former aircraft pilot. Both are known for getting their facts right.

    Which brings us to Bob Judd, who brings us in turn in the fast-paced world of Formula One racing for his debut thriller Formula One. With fast cars, loose women, big money and high stakes, the world of Grand Prix racing seems a natural background for any thriller. Formula One takes full advantage of its setting.

    Ace Formula One driver Forrest Evers has problems. After three disastrous races, he has abandoned racing. Now, in the opening pages of the novel, he watches as the second driver of his team kills himself in a stupid 200mph accident. Soon afterward, Evers is back behind the wheel with only one idea: Find out who killed his friend and who’s trying to kill him again.

    Many thrillers boast intriguing promises but fail on delivery. Not so here. Judd writes like a racer going for the pole position. Evers’ first-person narration is immediately gripping and carries the novel through like few thrillers read recently.

    Even better, we readers get a first-class ticket to the world of F1 racing. The jargon, the mechanics, the shady dealings, the political nature of the game are all explained in painless terms. Best of all, Formula One stays with its subject most of the time. It’s not a coincidence if the novel falters around the three-quarter mark, where the protagonist stops being a driver and behaves more like an amateur secret agent. Soon afterward, Evers and the novel are back where they belong—behind the wheel. The climax is memorably written.

    What’s more, you will enjoy learning about F1 racing here. The details are well-mixed with the action, and seldom feel like exposition lumps. Judd acquires his credibility not by past novels or by an author blurb, but by being very, very good at what he does. It’s a challenge to pull off a first-person narration by someone who’s obviously in a technical field, but Judd achieves it magnificently.

    There’s plenty to like in Formula One: The writing is delicious, the protagonist is likable, the gallery of supporting characters is sharply drawn, the technical details are right and the plot moves. You’re unlikely to read a better thriller soon.

    [July 1998: Just discovered that Formula One is the first of four (so far) Forrest Evers thrillers. I’m unsure to read further, lest inferior sequels taint my memories of the original.]

  • Kilo Class, Patrick Robinson

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Harper Collins, 1998, 442 pages, C$35.50 hc, ISBN 0-06-019129-5

    In the Science-Fiction community, there is a certain prejudice about the so called “Hard-SF” segment of the genre, which is the epitome of scientific exactitude in SF. This concern has led critics to charge that the genre consistently privileged scientific content (ie; the “Science” in “SF”) over such niceties as characters, plotting or writing style. (“Fiction” in “SF”)

    Amusingly, this debate also takes place outside the genre of SF. In the category of thrillers, for instance, you’ve got the same division. On one side, these fairly generic writers content to churn out pulpish book after another about spies, war and conspiracies. On the other, these authors who take great pain into researching the hardware, the politics, the procedures. Ludlum, Follett and Le Carre versus Clancy, Coonts and Coyle.

    Patrick Robinson made a certain splash in the thriller audience last year with the release of Nimitz Class, a novel that begins with the nuclear vaporization of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

    In my previous review of Nimitz Class, (“starts promisingly enough… a few characters are efficiently set up… then the novel goes awry… goes on an unexpected direction… then on another tangent… very anticlimactic… unconvincing romantic thread… odd bits of exposition in dialogue… barely worth a library loan. In paperback.”) I was disappointed by the lack of plotting skill, the laughable romance and the useless detours. The faults were made worse by what is unarguably a fairly strong first third.

    Kilo Class is more even, but overall a weaker entry than its predecessor. The plot is of a laughable simplicity: China has bought ten submarines from Russia. The United States doesn’t want China to receive these subs, so they do everything they can to destroy them.

    Gimmicky; given that two subs are already in safe haven at the beginning of the novel and that this is pretty much everything the good ole’ USA will tolerate, you can bet that the novel won’t stop until most of the submarines are destroyed.

    Most of Kilo Class, then, is like watching one (or several) car (or sub) accident happening. These dastardly americans hatch their plot, then send their best elements to execute them. Most of the time, they succeed. Since Robinson is a “hard-thriller” writer, he lays on the details pretty thick. We’re not only told that SEALs have blown up a submarine, but we also get fully fifty pages of preparations plus a twenty-page investigation by the bad guys. The result is almost interminable.

    Unlike Nimitz Class, Kilo Class becomes more focused as the story evolves, and while most readers will find themselves asking why they’re reading the first half of the book, the last hundred pages are a lot more fun. But it’s an uphill battle until then.

    Robinson’s weak characterisation (don’t plan on making any friends in this book) and suspicious plotting (what was it with the Kerguelen Islands?) make things difficult for anyone else but a dedicated techno-thriller buff. Fortunately, bits and pieces of interest spice up the going, like a tremendously exciting description of three submarines’ demise.

    Of a most serious nature is the ludicrousness of the main premise. The United States risking war, attacking enemy ships under no clear and present threat? I don’t think so, and the afterword didn’t convince me.

    Summing up: Mixed reactions toward Kilo Class. It’s definitely not worth the $35.50C. for the hardcover. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s worth a library loan. Nimitz Class fans might want to read it to find out what happened to Bill Baldridge (it’s a loose sequel to Nimitz Class), but beyond that… Summer 1998 has too many good new books by established techno-thriller authors (Bond, Brown, Coonts… even Clancy!) to waste on Kilo Class, a decidedly average entry in the genre.

  • Takedown, Tsutomu Shimomura with John Markoff

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Hyperion, 1996, 509 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-7868-8913-6

    As today’s world is becoming increasingly dependant on electronic networks for communications, business and entertainment, the potential for abusing these systems is also expanding. On one side, clever young anarchists with time to lose and the “Information should be free!” slogan. One on the other, computer security specialist and corporations with information to protect.

    It’s not only a technical issue. Without effort, it also touches ethical, philosophical and personal issues. In an age where the Internet is now offering more free information than was available to every human that ever lived before, property issues are become more important than ever.

    Unfortunately, Takedown only briefly touches on these important questions. This might not necessarily be a criticism of the work, given that the book is about one particular instance of computer crime.

    On Christmas Day 1995, somebody broke into Tsutomu Shimomura’s system, copied files and went away. Unfortunately for the cracker, Shimomura happened to be an expert in computer security. Takedown details Shimomura’s hunt for the culprit, a hunt that eventually took him to a Raleigh suburb for the apprehension of the suspect.

    There have been a few books on the subject of computer security, and Takedown is an average entry. It’s an enjoyable book: simply written, not too technically obscure, satisfyingly resolved. Despite the cover blurbs, it’s not as good as a detective novel, but it holds its own. The process of detection, identification and localisation of the computer cracker is gradually revealed, and the chase even becomes exciting when Shimomura has to go on the terrain to investigate. (You can tell that this isn’t a movie by the fact that the cracker and Shimomura don’t meet until after the cracker’s apprehension.)

    But somehow, Takedown isn’t as fascinating as it should have been. Worse, a better similar book exists. The Cuckoo’s Egg, by Clifford Stoll, told the tale of an eclectic astronomer who managed to catch teen crackers by luring them in a network of false information. Not only are the stakes higher in The Cuckoo’s Egg (military info versus cellular phone software), but Stoll is -I’m sorry to say- a far more interesting individual. Both books work in a considerable amount of detail of the two men’s personal lives, but whereas Stoll is a genuine eccentric, Shimomura comes out of it as a brilliant hacker desperately trying to pass himself as “normal”. His interests in skiing, hiking and other pursuits besides computers seem tacked-on to humanise the characters, not as essential parts of the narrative. His romantic interest also seems -with apologies to these two- pretty weak.

    In the end, we’re left with an interesting tale of modern detection, spiced up by a deliciously portentous “physical” dimension when the narrative moves to Raleigh. Critics voiced on the Internet have complained that the Intruder’s side of the story has been given short thrift, but that’s an insignificant assertion given the source of the story. Far more damaging is the rather obnoxious narrator and the sometimes-ridiculous attempts at humanizing the character. Whatever your opinions about cracking, Takedown is unlikely to convince anyone. Readers, let them be laymen, hackers or crackers, will get out of the book what they bring into it.

  • L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Mysterious Press, 1990, 496 pages, C$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-89296-293-3

    Faithful readers of these chronicles will remember that I had finally seen L.A. CONFIDENTIAL shortly after it was re-released in February. Given my reaction (“…as enjoyable as a good book… triumph of storytelling… masterful script… excellent performances… L.A. CONFIDENTIAL gives me back my faith in cinema.”), it was only a matter of time until I broke down and read the book.

    So, when I had the chance to buy a (very bruised, very tattered, very cheap) first hardcover edition, I didn’t hesitate and plunked down the change.

    No regrets.

    Opinions about book-to-movie adaptations are usually uniform: People prefer the book, are disappointed by the movie and hate the unnecessary changes the scriptwriters thought necessary. In the worst cases, the entire message of a book can be completely perverted by the adaptation, not to mention the novel’s storyline.

    So, it’s a surprise to notice that in the case of L.A. Confidential, they not only made significant changes, but that they work.

    Both versions of the story are about crime and corruption in Los Angeles during the fifties. Three cops must unravel a complex cover-up and learn to deal with each other: Bud White, a thug who likes to impose his justice on wife-beaters. Ed Exley, a straight-arrow policemen with dark ambitions. Jack Vincennes, Hollywood junkie and no stranger to the occasional bribe.

    The novel L.A. Confidential is huge and takes place over an eight-year period. The movie has an unspecified duration of about six months. Two of the three main characters are considerably less honourable in the book. The “dead father” subplot has been added to the movie, while entire chunks of the book are missing from the film. A significant character loosely based on Walt Disney is completely gone. The orders of certain event has been switched around, as well as who did them.

    Given this, it would be natural to believe that the movie has no resemblance to the book any more. That’s not far from the truth: Save from the opening sequences and the final scene, the film adaptation takes considerable liberty with the material.

    But what remains is the noir atmosphere, the attitude itself of corrupt cops, flawed protagonists, seedy crime and burgeoning California that permeates the book. James Ellroy’s sparse but incredibly dense style is the same one used in the movie. Despite the complexity of the tale, only a few rough spots exist.

    As a crime novel, L.A. Confidential deserves the term “epic”. It mixes together cops, criminals, Hollywood, politics and real-estate development. At least three separate crimes are intricately mixed up together. It features a breadth of characters that’s hard to match elsewhere. Ellroy has attempted big, and mostly succeeded.

    However, it might be a good idea to see the film first. Not only does it clears up the opening of the book considerably (and gives you the impetus to go forward), but it’s sufficiently different to keep you surprised throughout.

    In fact, I think I will take the heretical position of saying that I like the movie storyline more than the book: It’s more focused, offers more thematic closure and is probably more enjoyable as a movie than the novel is as a book. As William Goldman said in his March 1998 “Premiere” article, the final eight minutes are unnecessary, but it’s still a great movie. The screenwriters fully deserve their Best Adaptation Academy Award: They have produced a very complex yet gripping work of art from another work of art.

    Whether you’ve seen L.A. CONFIDENTIAL or not, James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential is still strongly recommended for crime fiction fans. Don’t miss it!

  • Year’s Best SF 3, Ed. David G. Hartwell

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 448 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105901-3

    Who do you trust?

    When you get down to it, that’s the only worthwhile question when you buy a “best-of” anthology. Normally, people don’t have the same tastes and chances are that once in a while, a gem to another will be garbage to you. In SF, there are now two annual “best of” anthologies. Gardner Dozois edits one, David Hartwell edits the other.

    I’ll state right up-front that from what I’ve seen, I tend to trust Hartwell rather than Dozois. Not only have I met Hartwell and heard a few suspicious things from Dozois about media SF, but the content of the anthologies themselves are very different.

    One thing that struck me of Dozois’s anthology is how… well… most of the anthology wasn’t true *Science*-Fiction. Fantasy yes, magical realism yes, social-fiction yes, but hard-SF was practically absent. Not so with Hartwell, who selects stories that are mostly, obviously, from the genre of true science-fiction. (Unlike Dozois, Hartwell has proven his knowledge of other fields by editing anthologies of Horror, Fantasy, etc… Maybe that’s why he doesn’t feel the need to put everything he likes in one big “SF” anthology.)

    Year’s Best SF 3 contains more than twenty stories in almost 450 pages. Fortunately, most of them are short and Hartwell avoids selecting interminable novellas (another pet peeve of mine; never mind). Most of them are readable, most of them are firmly based upon new ideas and most of them are enjoyable.

    Among those:

    • In “The Nostalginauts”, S.N.Dyer shows us a future high-school graduation where almost everyone there is present twice, at twenty-five years intervals. This is my favourite story of the volume: Densely written, credibly extrapolated, with a fun punch at the end. I look forward to see more of Dyer’s stuff.
    • Tom Cool continues to produce entertaining material (after his excellent debut novel Infectress) with the paranoid “Universal Emulators”, where matters of identities and counter-identities are much more complex -or simple- than we might think.
    • If Tom Cool takes on identities, Nancy Kress does new stuff with moods in “Faithful to Thee, in my Fashion”. Would you believe future seasonal mood fashions? Good sociological extrapolations, fascinating premise and Kress makes it work. Nicely subtle “unhappy” ending too.
    • Geoffrey Landis’s “Turnover” seems to me to exemplify the capacity of SF to provide creative freedom to unorthodox science. Best of all, Landis uses a silly tone to postulate silly theories. The result is a lot of fun.
    • Gregory Benford morphs himself briefly in Ray Bradbury to write “The Voice”, an updated version of Fahrenheit 451‘s basic premise. Meanwhile, Bradbury is in the anthology too, with a decidedly un-hard-SF tale named “Mr. Pale”. Complete fantasy, but enjoyable.
    • Greg Egan is up to his usually provocative self with “Yeyuka”, a tale of bio-technology and technological imperialism.

    On the other hand, I wasn’t able to finish the stories of William Gibson, Kim Newman and R. Garcia y Robertson.

    Still, given that the remainders of the stories are pretty impressive, Year’s Best SF 3 gets my recommendation for anyone wishing to get an idea of where the genre is going at the moment. Good for neophytes, good for jaded fans, good for everyone, Year’s Best SF 3 is a solid choice. Best of all, it’s even a bit cheaper than the usual paperback!

  • The Book of Knights, Yves Meynard

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 222 pages, C$29.95 hc, ISBN 0-312-86482-6

    I will freely confess that I do not read much fantasy at the moment. I used to be a fan a few years ago, but dropped out sometime since then.

    I’m not sure of my reasons. Maybe it’s the implicit rejection of technology and the unrealistic glorification of the European medieval era. Maybe it’s the casual acceptance of destiny as a way of life and the triviality of merit, or free-will. Maybe it’s the constant use of the monarchic system, with its rigid classes of royalty and commoners. Maybe it’s that my cartesian mind can’t deal with different causalities.

    Whatever the reason(s), I now usually end up bored stiff by fantasy. Even given that I’m a fairly fast reader, I won’t touch fantasy novels and much less fat fantasy trilogies.

    But (conflict-of-interest disclosure time) since I’ve met Yves Meynard a few times and since I like to do my part for Canadian SF&F&H, I decided to try The Book of Knights. Given its relatively thin 222 pages, at least I was assured of a fairly quick read.

    The novel begins as a young boy named Adelrune discovers a tattered volume in his parent’s attic. This volume is, of course, The Book of Knights. In a small town where official doctrine is rigidly followed, the book represents evasion for Adelrune and soon, he’s running away to become a knight.

    He eventually enters the service of a mage that will teach him, barring a hefty price. Then it’s off in the vast land, for Adelrune must prove his worth. Adventures ensue.

    From the plot synopsis, it might appear as if Meynard didn’t take any chances, combining a familiar premise with a surefire way to maintain interest. I found myself constantly reaching for my copy of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

    But it must be said that however classical The Book of Knights‘s premise is, Meynard does a pretty good job with it. Furthermore, the details themselves are original: We seldom feel as if we’re reading recycled Tolkien outtakes. Sagacious readers will experience a delicious thrill from time to time, as things suddenly go quite unlike how they could be expected to go.

    Better yet, The Book of Knights manages to be satisfying and morally ambiguous in a genre where whiter-than-white victories are usually the norm. Adelrune’s quest might tangentially resemble other quests, but the resolution of it is certainly different. The quest itself was probably not the point of the book.

    The Book of Knights is also unusually readable, something that may surprise readers of Meynard’s other stories. Despite a few longish passages (after the Inn passage, after the Ship passage), this novel can be read in almost a single sitting. Dialogues are written in a literate pseudo-medieval way (“I am very much older than I appear. All those whom I grew up with are dead; the country I dwelled in has been parcelled out into five duchies and patched back up several times.”) that somehow seems neither ridiculous, over-polished or intrusive.

    While my basic opinion of fantasy remains unchanged, even I have to admit that The Book of Knights is a pretty good book. Although the hardcover might still be a bit overpriced at this moment (borrow it at the library), the paperback should be a worthwhile investment for a large segment of the SF&F readership. A strong contender for next year’s Aurora awards, The Book of Knights also heralds the arrival of a major new talent on the Fantasy scene. I can’t wait to see what Meynard writes next.

  • The Intruders, Stephen Coonts

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Pocket, 1994, 375 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-87061-0

    Readers already familiar with military fiction already know that most of it takes place during wars. Whether historical or imagined, war seems a natural place for highlighting the efforts, sacrifices and emotions of average (?) military characters.

    Stephen Coonts’s first novel was Flight of the Intruder, a Vietnam-era story of naval aviators trying to do their job as well as they could under the hesitant American political system. It was turned into a movie, albeit not a very successful one.

    Afterward, Coonts branched out in fiction that was closer to thriller territory than military action… Terrorists taking over an aircraft carrier (Final Flight), a witch-hunt for soviet spies in a top-secret aircraft project (The Minotaur), drug dealers taking over Washington (Under Siege, not the Seagal movie) and hijinks in post-USSR Russia. (The Red Horseman)

    All these novels starred Jake Grafton, a professional naval officer. In Flight of the Intruder, he’s a pilot. In Final Flight, he’s an air wing commander. The Intruders fills in some of the gap between the two novels. What’s unusual about it is that it’s straight military fiction without a war.

    It’s 1973. The Vietnam war is over, at least for the Americans. Jake Grafton has narrowly evaded a court martial for his acts at the end of Flight of the Intruder and is now enjoying his leave in the United States. Things don’t go too well: Drinking in a bar after a stormy meeting with the parents of his wife-to-be, he gets mad and defenestrates a guy who’s ragging against the military.

    For his troubles, Jake gets an affectation on an aircraft carrier, teaching carrier aviation to Marines. What follows is almost two hundred pages of miscellaneous anecdotes and a seventy-page adventure tacked at the end.

    This is not meant to be disparaging: The Intruders is quite enjoyable overall, with its detailed description of life aboard an aircraft carrier cruise. Simply put, carrier aviation is not for sissies: There’s probably no more difficult task for a pilot than to land on the ridiculously short deck of a carrier, at night, during rotten weather where the landing deck can suddenly jump up and down by several feet. Even departing from a carrier, as Coonts shows us, can be hair-raising.

    Much like the movie MEMPHIS BELLE, Coonts compresses dozens of exciting incidents, big and small, in one trip. Most of them happen to protagonist Jake Grafton, (Someone is the book says: “Stuff keeps happening to you, man!”) who decides early on that this will be his last cruise. Of course he will stay (see the later novels), but why?

    Coonts’s characters have always been fairly interesting, and he surpasses himself in The Intruders. Not only are Grafton’s friends more polished than ever before, but Grafton himself acquires an extra depth during the novel: his evolution to the mindset of a professional Navy aviator is very credible. Meanwhile, we get an insight in the psychology of naval pilots, probably one of the toughest job on Earth.

    The novel suffers somewhat from the inclusion of a pirate adventure (really!) at the end, another case of “Uh-oh! Got to have a plot!” anxiety.

    Exciting, fascinating, gripping and not without an extra layer of significance, The Intruders manages to overcome the potentially off-putting barrier of “historical non-warfare” military fiction to produce a novel that’s commendable to anyone interested in the genre. You will learn stuff, and you will enjoy it.

  • Death by Deficit, Richard Rohmer

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Stoddard, 1995, 234 pages, C$26.95 hc, ISBN 0-7737-2902-X

    It’s been said that Canada is a country shaped by paranoia. Given the antagonistic relation between the two original founding nation (France and England), the frightening bully-like power of its southern neighbour (The United States), the rebellious streak of its French province (Quebec) and the increasingly multicultural nature of its population, (see Toronto) it’s no wonder that the nation is always going from one overblown crisis to another, second-guessing itself and feeling terribly insecure about its future.

    In the process, Canadians have shaped the best country of the world.

    But insecurity sells, and Richard Rohmer has built a career upon this. Author of more than a dozen novels and half-a-dozen nonfiction books, Rohmer has specialized in intricate, high-stakes political/military thrillers featuring Canada as the protagonist. Ill-written and badly constructed, Rohmer’s novels often feel like solutions in search of problems; clever concepts ineptly inserted in rotten novels.

    Nevertheless… it sells. Provided you’ve got some time to lose and borrow the book from the library, Rohmer’s novels might even be not entirely unenjoyable. Death by Deficit goes straight in this category.

    A few years ago, in the middle of the latest recession, the Canadian economic and political scene went berserk on the concept that Canada was irresponsibly running a budget deficit of nearly forty billion dollars a year. After several years of profligate spending by parties in power, an effort was made to reduce the deficit to manageable levels.

    Today, the zero-deficit budget isn’t yet here, but it’s surprisingly close, especially given “common wisdom” of not even ten years ago. Through massive cuts everywhere (and quite a bit of screaming), the Canadian government is finally getting a hold of fiscal maturity. (Alas, the debt will remain for quite some time…)

    In 1994-1995, though, things weren’t so rosy and it seemed possible to imagine a future where Canada would simply go bankrupt. Quite a few people dwelled on the consequences, including Richard Rohmer.

    Death by Deficit is nothing but an intellectual exercise in which the goal is to un-bankrupt Canada. As a fictional work, it is simply laughable: Characters are ill-defined (and all women are beautiful), dialogue is hilarious, narrative flow is broken by the inclusion of a (real-life!) news program transcription, etc…

    But as a thought-exercise, it’s a pretty fascinating read. Rohmer exposes the problems and shakes the sceptre of the consequences, then proceeds to find three different solutions to the problem. Although none of them are terribly convincing, they offer some food for thought.

    The technical details of the inner workings of the government and national fiscal policy are credibly exposed: Chances are that you’ll learn a few things. Given its alarmist nature, Death by Deficit is frightening and memorable; The old scare tactics still work well.

    “Hard economy-fiction” might not be the best-selling category out there, but Death by Deficit shows that fiction, even incompetent fiction, can help a great deal to expose and sensitize readers to issues that might only be of interest to accountants and newspaper columnists. Don’t read Death by Deficit for gripping accounts of super-special economic agents or even decent storytelling, but take a look to appreciate what Canada might have narrowly avoided, and what may still be in store for us if we’re not careful.