Book Review

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump, Harry Turtledove

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Baen, 1993, 367 pages, C$7.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-72196-8

Harry Turtledove has made quite a name for himself in one particular sub-genre of SF: Alternate history. What if racist time-travellers had brought AK-47 to the Rebels? (The Guns of the South) What if alien invaders had interfered with WWII? (The “Balance” series) What if…?

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump might be considered alternate history, if one is of sufficiently open mind: What if magic replaced technology as the engine of our civilization?

Consider: David Fisher is an EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency) bureaucrat in a world where people travel by magic carpet, where alarm clock contain imported timekeeping demons and where spell-checkers are much less concerned with grammar than with sorcery… Yep, it’s a magical wacky wonderland. California still has traffic jams, pollution, illegal immigrants, environmental hazards and all the other trappings of a modern civilization, but if the end result is the same, the means are considerably different.

When Fisher is called in to investigate mysterious reports of a leaking toxic spell dump, he’s blissfully unaware that his seemingly-innocuous probes could be the start of the Third Sorcerous War…

It’s humorous in intent (as if the title wasn’t a giveaway!) and light-hearted in execution. Turtledove casts even the slightest pun, and leaves no small gags un-summoned. Fisher is a sympathetic narrator, and the style is readable, even if most readers will want to pay a bit more attention to the throwaway jokes.

The plot wanders around a bit, giving us a tour of Fisher’s world, but then goes back more or less on track. Even then, the conclusion is disappointing. The last few pages are almost an anticlimax; the girlfriend-character is poorly treated in the last third of the novel. Stephen Hickman’s cover is very pretty in a pseudo-classic way, but the relation between the cover art and the content of the novel is less than evident.

It’s not a great book, but it’s entertaining reading, and doesn’t really assume that the reader has a substandard IQ. Furthermore, it’s a blast for everyone who’s already wondered what would happen if all religious beliefs were real, and how to build a computer-era civilization when magic is so readily available. (Microimps, anyone?)

Of course, anyone who’s allergic to puns will want to steer clear, as well as those who can’t tolerate “light” books. The others will read this book with a smile on their face and an amusement spell on their minds.

Gun, With Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Harcourt Brace, 1994, 262 pages, C$28.00 hc, ISBN 0-15-136458-3

From the cover blurb: “Jonathan Lethem’s first novel is a science-fiction mystery. It’s funny. It’s not so funny.”

For once, an entirely truthful blurb. Gun, With Occasional Music is a novel in the hard-boiled mode: A lone private investigator, slowly piecing together clues of an intricate mystery, told from a suitably-tough first-person narration. Conrad Metcalf is Gun‘s narrator: a good guy, but with the traditional gamut of problems associated with the type: low-down, celibate, drug-user (with the blessing of the government), loser…

Which brings us to the science-fiction facet of the work: Gun takes place somewhere next century, in a wild world: Genetically-enhanced animals wander around like humans, (in fact, one of the book’s main characters is a young gun-toting gangster apprentice… a kangaroo) babies are force-grown, drug use is encouraged by the government, written-word newspapers are outlawed and guns play a musical theme.

Which brings us, in turn, to the “funny” part: Gun‘s future is much more satirical than realistic. (Fundamental biology dictates that the vocal equipment of, say, a sheep is woefully inadequate for speech.) But it doesn’t matter: This is closer to fable than hard-SF. Not nearly enough justification is brought forth, but that’s a flaw of Lethem in general. Even though, the atmosphere of the wacky world Conrad Metcalf lives in is deliciously textured. The reader, especially if familiar with the hard-boiled genre, will delight in the overall mood of the novel.

Which finally brings us to the darker side of Gun. The first three-quarters are -almost- jolly good fun: Metcalf’s narration is typical, the events described all fit in joyously with the sub-genre. Yet, a small lingering bad taste emerges. Metcalf’s world is funny, yes, but with unpleasant edges. Inquisitors? Karma points? Outlawed text in newspapers? Then Things Happen (to say any more would be an unforgivable spoiler) and Gun doesn’t seem so light-hearted any more. And what had been a light piece of escapist entertainment becomes something much more pernicious.

Surprisingly, this makes for a better book than an otherwise “all-happy” ending would have brought. The final few pages approach perfection… but personal tastes will differ considerably here.

High accolades for a first novel. Lethem’s style, as mentioned before, is delicious. The narration is funny and direct, yet tragic and parenthetical. Lethem’s protagonist feels like a real person, and the other supporting characters are also very well-drawn.

The cover of the Harcourt-Brace hardcover edition is also delightful: A deliberately-damaged cover “noir” illustration, and some great quotes on the back.

Some of the details are too vague, over-the-top or simply thrown away too rapidly to be fully appreciated. The ending will probably stain the book’s previous impact on some readers. Lethem goes for effect more than believability: There is no believable path from our present to his future. But readers who don’t figure that it’s not that kind of novel by the first few pages probably won’t enjoy the remainder of the book anyway.

Obviously, this book will appeal far more to fans of the sub-genre, but other readers should get excellent value for their money. Lethem’s first novel is unusually strong, and portents a promising future for this author. In any case, it’s definitely worth the paperback price.

(Briefly: Lethem’s second novel, Amnesia Moon, is far less compelling than Gun. Confusing, disjointed, metaphysical, it lacks the strong sustained plotting of the first novel. Disappointing, even for someone who’s enjoyed Lethem’s other works.)

SSN, Tom Clancy

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Berkley, 1996, 336 pages, C$21.00 tpb, ISBN 0-425-15911-6

Tom Clancy wants your money. It’s as simple as that.

The sad thing is, he used to be my favourite author. But that was in the good old days where the only Tom Clancy books were his novels, not tons of derivative franchise items.

The problem started when Clancy became a publishing category. Now, we’re getting companions, nonfiction books, “Op-Center” franchise novels not written by Clancy and this, surely the lowest of the low, a companion to a video game.

SSN (The game) is a simulation of submarine warfare currently available in stores for PC compatibles (CD-ROM) I have not played it. Clancy was allegedly heavily involved in this game, (There’s a logo for “Clancy Interactive Entertainment” on the game box) so it was more or less predictable that anytime soon, something written “by Clancy” would appear in stores. This is it.

SSN wants to be the exciting description of a submarine’s actions in (says the jacket copy) World War III. Instead, it ends up being a shoot’em up.

This reviewer will freely admit at having somewhat of a fondness for highly-detailed military fiction. Even if the most elementary literary characteristics are sadly deficient, one can get some enjoyment out of even the most inept shoot’em up. But there are limits, and those have been breached with SSN.

Almost everyone who has played a few RPGs has said, at one moment or another, “Wow, this game would make a good story!” Most of the time, they’re wrong. Personal involvement in a story makes it appear much better that it actually is. (Witness movies versus books, for one thing)

Folks, SSN is worse than the Doom books, and that’s no mean feat. Almost everything stinks, from the top to the bottom. At the top, there’s an implausible war between the US and China (why China? Because no one else has a decent navy to fight against!). It tries to be sophisticated, but ends up being myopic: Seems to the reader that only the USS Cheyenne fights the war. (Another weakness of gaming novelizations: “The world’s last, best hope!”)

Then, while the book is filled with potentially exciting situations, the reader’s pulse never goes up. It’s succession after succession of boring one-sided fights (the Cheyenne being no match for inferior Chinese technology) and briefings. (There are occasional POV switches in the middle of a chapter, but always to show a hapless Chinese commander about to commit a fatal mistake.

The prose is dull, dull, dull… There is absolutely no character development. In fact, there might be no characters at all! Great literature bores me, but I was nearly grinding my teeth at some of the horrendous passages in there. (Don’t tell anyone, but this review is almost better written that the book, and that’s saying something!)

SSN, in my judgment, is a manuscript that would belong on the slush pile. It’s not even worth your time, so it far from being worth any of your money. Clancy, come back when you’ve go something better to offer.

And please stop the merchandising. You’re just embarrassing yourself.

The Walls of the Sky the Walls of the Eye, Jonathan Lethem

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Harcourt Brace, 1996, 293 pages, C$32.00 hc, ISBN 0-15-100180-4

On the values of single-author collections: One could do worse to discover a new author that to peer into an anthology of his works. Not only are the stories shorter, but they also represent a good cross-selection of the author’s interests, strengths and weaknesses.

Jonathan Lethem is a relatively new author in the SF&F business. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music received good reviews, and winning at least two prizes (Locus, best first novel and Crawford, best fantasy novel). Furthermore, Lethem is now in nomination for a Hugo (best short story).

Having not read any of Lethem’s work before, I was intrigued. When I had the opportunity to pick up Walls…, I seized it. (Actually: Winning the book at a local science-fiction convention.)

The physical appearance of the book is horrible: Ugly cover art, carefully studied “wacky” fonts on the dust jacket, and “[These] pages are not acid-free” as jacket copy. No plot summaries anywhere. A creepy photo of the author. Weird stuff.

But truthful. What’s inside the book is even weirder. Consider:

  • A prison built, literally, of “hardened criminals”
  • A man alternating between his life… and his hell.
  • Basketball teams made of players playing other player’s talents.
  • An alien who follows you around… forever.

…and three other stories, one of them (Hugo-nominated) with a title that I’ll reproduce here, chastely, as “Five F*cks”. (The story itself is much more conventional, if barely coherent.)

Lethem loves the low life. Young criminals, pathetic losers, people stuck in aimless directions are the majority in these seven stories. No shining cyber-knights or larger-than-life superheroes populate this author’s realms. Gratuitous, unromantisized violence also finds its way into many tales, in sync with the uncompromising tone of the prose.

Lethem’s science might not exactly be wrong, but hard-SF it ain’t. We’re closer to Harlan Ellison than to Larry Niven. The book works better as urban fantasy than anything else. Lethem dreams up fascinating situations, but seldom explain them.

This intentional failure to explain also ties into a failure to resolve: Many stories are vignettes, without conflict or clear resolution. We often leave the protagonists in a situation as bad (or worse) than at the beginning of the narration.

(It should also be noted that the first-person narrator is a favourite of Lethem, counting for four of the seven stories.)

Nevertheless, it’s an entertaining collection. Some stories are average, but beg to be read again in a little while.

It’s not worth the hardcover price. It might not be worth the paperback price. But it’s probably worth the time to be read: Grab it from the local library, borrow it from a friend, but do cuddle up with Lethem’s words.

(If you only have time for one story, choose “Vanilla Dunk.”)

And keep reading single-author collections.

[January 1998: The Walls of the Sky, the Walls of the Eye won the 1996 World Fantasy Award for Best Story Collection.]

The Lost World, Michael Crichton

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Knopf, 1995, 393 pages, C$32.95 hc, ISBN 0-679-41946-2

As I write this, mud is everywhere around the house. The sun is shining, but that’s an unusual occurrence: It’s been raining intermittently for the last two weeks, and more rain is predicted for the next few days.

Nevertheless, summer is coming, or so they say.

And one of the greatest things about summer is… no, not girls in miniskirts… although that’s no trifle either… summer movies! Where we unplug our brains and open our eyes and ears wide. I don’t go to movies for plot any more: The name of the fun is Special Effects.

Discounting 1992’s TERMINATOR II: JUDGEMENT DAY, the first big-budget plot-less summer SFX extravaganza probably was 1993’s JURASSIC PARK. Adapted by Steven Spielberg from a popular novel by Michael Crichton, it was a smash hit. Even before the summer was over, there were talks about a sequel.

Here it is: The Lost World. Not content with recycling the title of Arthur Conan Doyle’s superior dino-novel, Crichton also recycles most of Jurassic Park.

Scientists-as-heroes? Check. Two smart kids in peril? Check. Ian Malcom attacked by dinoes? Check. Finale with computer systems? Check. Evil corporations? Check. Bad guys eaten by dinoes? Check. Paleontologist explaining every detail of dino behaviour? Check.

The plot? A few years after the events in Jurassic Park, there are rumours that new animal species are appearing in Costa Rica. Reckless paleontologist Richard Levine mounts an expedition, reluctantly backed by Ian Malcom. Eventually, everyone’s running around on InGen’s other island.

It’s astonishing how Crichton manages to produces most of the same novel than Jurassic Park. Even if sequels are more or less expected to trod the same grounds as the first volume, The Lost World takes this to an astonishing degree.

But it’s an imperfect copy. Reading The Lost World is sometimes a frustrating experience, perhaps because of JURASSIC PARK. The movie showed us dinosaurs, oohing and aahing us instead of telling us a complex story. Here, it’s just dull. Many pages pass before anything happen, and when it does, it’s déjà-vu.

It’s one of the worst Crichton novels. But still, it’s good stuff for fans: The style is typically featureless, direct and descriptive. Crichton also puts in the narrative all sorts of more-or-less popular scientific theories. (The delivery is sometimes ridiculous, as when a character babbles on while boosted on morphine) The technology used is mouth-watering and the action (when it finally starts) is fast-paced.

This novel is for fans of the first volume only. It’s neither exceptional or especially interesting but should satisfy a casual interest.

I just hope the movie (out in a few days) differs sensibly from the novel, much as the original movie was a leaner, faster version of the written work. From what I’ve heard (T-Rex stomping on a bus, etc…), I have hopes. It might even be better than the novel…

[January 1998: THE LOST WORLD was indeed “better” than the novel -thanks to the inclusion of an exciting third act- but was still a rotten movie with plenty of supposedly smart characters doing incredibly stupid things. My feelings about the movie are best described elsewhere, see my Movie Reviews]

Beowulf’s Children, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Tor, 1995, 382 pages, C$32.00 hc, ISBN 0-312-85522-2

Sequels. Everyone think they suck, yet people are still buying (and writing) them in quantities. The Legacy of Heorot was a great stand-alone book that didn’t really need a follow-up. But we got one anyway, thanks to the tryptatic trio of Niven, Pournelle and Barnes. (What’s tryptatic? Don’t ask me.)

In TLoH, a bunch of colonists had to unite to defend themselves against a mean bunch of alien critters. It was a novel of ecological balance, of fast-paced action and of clear prose.

But story-wise, it’s now twenty years later. The colonists have given birth to many children, and the first serious troubles are beginning to brew between the two generations. Most of the Seconds want to establish a permanent colony on the mainland, and deride the cautious aspect of the Firsts. After all, it’s well known that most of them were brain-damaged to an extent or another by the hibernation process necessary to cross the ten light-years to Tau Ceti…

And so it goes. The Grendel menace is there, but kept under control. We get to discover new deadly aspects of Avalon’s ecology. Strife between the two generations; new characters, and the death of some old friends…

There could have been powerful stuff here, and the novel does succeed more than it fails. But it’s still a disappointment. On several level.

At the technical level, I had the impression that the style could have used at least another revision. It’s not anything precise (although there are a fair amount of typos), but some dialogue was barely coherent, and a few parts are too quickly glossed over.

It’s also a book that’s too long for the action it contains. It’s a good hundred pages bigger than the first tome, yet less happens. There could have been a good tightening of the action.

Then there are plot threads that are ominously raised, yet abandoned in thin air. Whether this sets up later sequels, or is just lack of attention from the author’s part remains to be seen.

Finally, we run into the “commonly known alien” problem: The Grendels in TLoH were formidable, and ruthless. Those in Beowulf’s Children are more complex, but arguable more boring, because less ferocious. And the ending… well, I found it goofy.

Overall, this is a less focused work that its predecessor. We get a fascinating tour of a brand-new ecology, an easily-guessable murder mystery, and some conflict that goes nowhere. But not a mean, lean narrative like the first volume. There’s also quite a lot of sex, (not all of it meaningful) but that has become somewhat of a staple in the works of those authors.

This being said, Beowulf’s Children is a good sequel. Not in the same vein, but I could buy that the first book’s finale could give rise to the situation described in this novel.

Fans of the first one should at least borrow this from the library. Others… definitely should read the first one beforehand.

Anyone wants to bet that the third book involves more colonist from Earth?

Idoru, William Gibson

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Putnam, 1996, 292 pages, C$33.95 hc, ISBN 0-399-14130-8

TONIGHT, on “Litterarly Incompetent!”:

Is William Gibson still living off Neuromancer‘s Reputation?

Ever since the release of his latest novel Idoru, fans are asking the same question: Is this good stuff for you, or good stove fuel? Is Gibson back, or still living in Wired magazine? Is there life after Neuromancer?

Tonight, we will attempt to answer these questions. And the answers may not please you. Please welcome the Literary Incompetent himself, Christian S.!

Fancy introduction, but does the job.

For various reasons, I’ve been less than enthusiastic about William Gibson in recent times. Neuromancer was a classic, but far less can be said about Gibson’s later works. I’ve been variously bored and confused by everything else. Cyberpunk’s nice, but it’s also mostly irrelevant: Low-life people living in dirty cities doing insignificant things. Is this what I want in my SF?

And I’d rather not talk about The Difference Engine.

In Idoru, we meet two very different persons: A man named Laney, whose particular talent is an uncanny ability to spot relevant information in a sea of virtual data. Then, a fourteen-year-old girl named Chia, member of Seattle’s Lo/Rez Fan Club. Both are going to Japan, to search for the same thing.

You see, Rez (one “half” of the band Lo/Rez) has declared that he will soon marry. Except that his bride-to-be is an Idoru, a virtual person with a programmed personality and no corporeal existence. Both Laney and Chia, from their own perspectives, are investigating why Rez would do such an idiotic thing.

Idoru is in many ways a step up from Gibson’s previous work. It seemed shorter, read faster and felt better than Virtual Light, (less filling, too) although Virtual Light wasn’t such a bad novel.

But Idoru is far from being a great work. It’s a good story, well-written, with sometimes confusing action. As a first novel, it would be fine, even promising. But as a sixth novel by a “master of the genre”…

Fortunately, it’s written with the same hip style than the previous novels: Not always clear, but usually with a certain potency. Gibson has an eye for details and unusual gadgets are strewn around the story.

The problem with Idoru is that I’m running out of things to say. Much like the novel itself, I’m trying to cover that up by fancy style and rhetoric. And failing miserably.

So yeah, basically, it’s decent and well-written, but that’s about it. There are no sparks, no flashes, no fireworks from this. It’s the kind of novel that gets two stars out of four: Not really bad, but nothing exceptional either.

Definitely wait for the paperback, borrow it from the library but don’t use the waiting list, etc…

Slow River, Nicola Griffith

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Del Rey, 1995, 343 pages, C$25.00 hc, ISBN 0-345-39165-9

I approached this book with the worst intentions. Faithful readers of these reviews may remember that a while ago, I panned Nicola Griffith first novel, Ammonite: Story was linear, science was goofy, agenda was anti-tech lesbian and everything worked better as a soporific than a SF novel. I had made a resolution not to touch Ms. Griffith’s work if that was possible.

Sadly, the 1996 Nebula Award results came in, and Slow River won the Best Novel category, beating out The Diamond Age and Starplex. Since I’m a Nebula completist, there was no choice but to read the g’dang thing. With stupefaction, I now have to admit that Slow River is a good book.

Story-wise, we’re miles beyond the ultrapredictible linear lesbian fairy tale that was Ammonite. As Slow River begins, a young girl finds herself wounded, moneyless, without ID in an unknown city. The girl is Lore Van de Oest, the youngest daughter of one of the world’s richest family. She just escaped from her kidnappers and she can’t return to her family for complex reasons. She is quickly taken under the protective embrace of Spanner.

Actually, Slow River begins a few years later, as Lore tries to build an identity separate from the domineering influence of Spanner… No, Slow River begins when Lore is five, and… Confused? Don’t be. The book is made up of three threads: Lore-Present (1st person POV), Lore-Near-Past (3rd person; her time with Spanner) and Lore-Past (3rd person, separate chapters; her life before/during the kidnapping) All three threads intersect nicely, even though sometime, I couldn’t wait to go back to the Lore-Present story. The plot is decent. Even though Lore isn’t (to me) a particularly engaging heroine, her struggles for love, identity and independence are gripping.

Surprisingly, this is a novel with a lot of science in it: since most of the story revolves around water purification, it’s no surprise that we get a lot of tech-talk about “bioengineered bacteria” and the like. I can’t vouch to the accuracy of everything, but at least it sounds right.

There should be a word or two here about the explicitly lesbian content of the novel: Lore is gay, and her behaviour (ie: falling for the most available girl(s) ) is about the same as we would expect from an active heterosexual young male. Whether this is ridiculous, or just indicative of the different society Lore lives in, is left to the reader’s prejudices.

Notice, however, the careful wording of the jacket copy, which uses no gender terms relating to Spanner. (Who is, naturally, female) Even though a quick search/replace job could be done to replace Lore by John with scant impact on the novel, I’ll argue that Slow River would be a weaker novel without a lesbian protagonist. (And certainly wouldn’t have won the Nebula novel) Those who think that Slow River is a militant gay novel are… wrong. Despite the fact that the only hetero couple is presented as dysfunctional, that most males are evil or weak… The fact that [Spoiler] is [Spoiler] should convince even the most paranoiac bible-thumper that this isn’t a Pink Lambda recruitment pamphlet.

Well, that’s a lot of wordage to say that despite my worst intentions, I can’t help but recognize this a decent novel. There are still a few problems here and there (The motivation and identity of the kidnappers is a bit far-out, but fits in the twisted logic of the book.) but nothing as blatant as her previous novel. The emphasis on another theme (water) makes the feminist/lesbian subtext much more tolerable.

I kinda liked it, and most readers with a sufficiently open mind should, too. While not being superior to Starplex, it’s better than Ammonite, and redeems the author to my eyes.

The Iron Dream, Norman Spinrad

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Timescape, 1972 (1982 reprint), 256 pages, US$3.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-671-44212-0

Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream has attracted its share of controversy in the twenty-five years since its original publication. And for good reasons: You see, The Iron Dream‘s nothing more that a repackaging of “Lord of the Swastika: Adolph Hitler’s best Science-Fiction Novel!”

Interested, yet?

Spinrad takes one premise and runs with it: What if Hitler, instead of staying in Germany and taking control of the Nazis, had emigrated to America and become an pulp-SF author? What kind of novel could have been written by Hitler?

So we get Lord of the Swastika: A 240-page epic in which perfect-hero Feric Jaggar goes from a humble exile to becoming Master of the World. The plot is straight power fantasy stuff: The introduction of a good-but-powerless hero, his acquisition of a mighty weapon, his rapid ascension to the throne, etc… This is pulpish stuff at its most extreme, consciously pastiched by Spinrad: The intent is to ridiculize the Nazi mystique, and he goes at it with big guns. The prose is suitably bombastic:

“The victory of Lumb had buoyed the spirits of the Helder race, while the realization that it was only a matter of time before the Dominators would once more unleash their ghastly minions against sacred human soil moved them to incredible feats of fanatic self-sacrifice and unprecedented energy.” (Page 168)

I started smirking on page one, and chuckling on page two.

The novel’s afterword is a delight in itself: written in tedious academic jargon, it makes most of the points I wished to enumerate in this review: The obvious phallic symbolism, the ridiculously repetitive imagery, the absence/irrelevance of female characters, the Dom/Jew analogy, the classic heroic fantasy structure, etc… At the same time, the afterword presents a nice little piece of irony in its picture of the alternate world in which Lord of the Swastika was written. Even without WW2, history isn’t necessarily better…

This book can, and should be read on many levels: As a ridiculous send-up of power fantasy, as a warning of the appeal of totalitarism, as an alternate history, as self-conscious macho trip and -my favourite- as an insidious satire of Science-Fiction itself.

Because frankly, I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Feric Jaggar. He might be a mysoginistic, racist, totalitarian bastard, but nothing stands in his way. Realistic heroes might have flaws, but flawless heroes are far more fun. And there lies the lesson of The Iron Dream, as banal as it is: Power fantasies are amusing, as long as they remain fantasies. It’s when they ooze into the Real World that people start to be hurt.

It’s frightening to see how easily I, as a reader, was seduced by the omnipotence of heroes like Feric Jaggar. There’s a solid lesson there about the appeal of SF, and how even bad fiction can start re-writing your brain without your permission. Other pulp-era SF stories may have been more benign in intention, but an awful lot of them relied on the same levers than Spinrad’s straight-faced satire.

As a powerful but one-note gotcha!, The Iron Dream doesn’t get my highest commendation… but it’s certainly a classic SF novel for none-too-obvious reasons.

Triumph, Ben Bova

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Tor, 1993, 253 pages, C$5.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-52063-7

Are alternate-history tales true science-fiction?

Even though I admit this isn’t a sexier subject as “Fantasy and SF” or even “Verne vs Wells” or “Is media SF hopeless?”, it’s still a subject that hasn’t been solved to anyone’s satisfaction. Ben Bova’s Triumph is unlikely to shed any new light on the matter.

While SF often asks ‘What if?’ by projecting its conclusion in the future, alternate histories ask the same question, but by focusing on the other direction: The past. What if the South had won the Civil War? What if the Atom Bomb would have been developed by the Nazis first? What if Leonardo da Vinci had been named King of France? Alternate history tries to examine the possible pasts/presents that would have resulted by changes in our history.

And this is, revealing the punch early, where Bova’s Triumph falters. What if Churchill plotted to assassinate Stalin? What if -sorry for the spoiler- he succeeded?

Bova tantalizes, but delivers only partly. Since the novel restricts itself to the April 1945 time-frame, we never get a sense of Big Changes. In many ways, Bova’s novel is not alternate enough.

But it is remarkably historic. A lot of research has been poured in this work, and it shows. I especially liked the characterisation of Churchill, as unrealistic as it was. It seems that everyone in Bova’s novel is far more prophetic than they should reasonably be, an artefact of a 1993 novel about 1945 people. A lot of cameos from a lot of subsequently famous persons makes this an interesting, if increasingly unlikely read.

It’s moderately entertaining, especially for the WWII buff. Despite the ho-hum battle scenes the book moves quickly, an impression confirmed by the relatively low number of pages.

Like most Bova novels, this isn’t anything ground-breaking, nor especially spectacular. However, Bova delivers the merchandise in a professional, almost routine way. Worth the library loan if you’re interested in this kind of stuff.

Society of the Mind, Eric L. Harry

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Harper Collins, 1996, 504 pages, C$35.00 hc, ISBN 0-06-017694-6

Rarely has an author made such an impressive debut on the techno-thriller field than Eric L. Harry with Arc Light. That first novel started with World War III… and then went on to bigger things. It was a better Clancy than most Clancy. And now, Harry goes on to write a better Crichton than Crichton.

Everyone knows the kind of story Crichton writes: Jurassic Park, RUNAWAY, Sphere, The Andromeda Strain. The kind of novel where the first half’s a walkthrough and the other half’s a non-stop race against time, death and technology run amok.

When Society of the Mind begins, a brilliant psychologist (Laura Aldridge) is brought to the private high-tech island of a multi-billionaire. Her goal, we finally get to discover, is to psychoanalyse a computer’s mind. But as the first two-third of the novel is spent “ooh-ing and “aaah-ing over bleeding-edge computers, AIs, robots and the handsome billionaire, it’s no bet to bet what’s going to happen: Before long, Laura and her billionaire will be trading kisses with each others and bullets with robots and computers gone crazy. That’s what eventually happens… but not quite in the stereotypical manner.

Harry has a real talent. Arc Light was a good story enhanced by good scenes and adequate characters. Similarly, Society of the Mind is the traditional cautious techno-thriller, but done with considerably more forethought than Crichton.

[This is where I tell the reader that Eric L. Harry has his own Web site at http://www.eharry.com/ and that on this site, you can find such fascinating information as:

  • Harry never had any intention to begin writing. Arc Light was begun because (I am not making this up!) he needed to have something to print with his new printer.
  • The first draft of Society of the Mind, a 500+ pages thriller, was written in six weeks, as an aside during the redaction of his next techno-thriller. Wow.]

It’s borderline science-fiction/techno-thriller. In E-Mail, Harry confirmed that he thought about marketing the novel as straight SF, but didn’t. Good call: Society of the Mind has the SF gadgets, but the TT “attitude” that gadgets can -and do- kill people whether we want it or not. I found the approximate date of the story (around 2000) to be ridiculously optimistic, but one never quite know…

Arc Light remains a better book, I think, but Society of the Mind doesn’t disappoint. Most of the ideas presented here are familiar to anyone versed in the latest Wired/socio-technical literature, but they’re presented quite entertainingly. However, Harry still have problems with closing down his books (The first half is usually more fun. Here, I thought most of the robotic wars could have been compressed in half the pages) and providing a satisfying finale. Even though the last few lines of this novel are a kicker.

Society of the Mind is now out in paperback and it’s a worthwhile buy. You’ll get decent entertainment value for your money, as well as more than a few thought-provoking issues. Encourage your friends to take a look at it; I know I will.

To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Robert A. Heinlein

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Ace/Putnam, 1987, 416 pages, C$20.00 hc, ISBN 0-399-13267-8

(Or: To sail beyond the boundaries of adequate editing…)

Even in a field as smart as Science-Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein stands tall intellectually. His influence is enormous enough that we should probably dedicate the whole field of SF to him and move on to other matters. He’s the man who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land yet he’s also the man who gave us Starship Troopers. Beyond my personal liking for the man’s work, he has attracted a tremendously fanatical following—even now.

Yet all fans, and most critics, consider that Heinlein’s career suffered immensely during his later years. Following a severe period of bad health in the beginning of the Seventies, Heinlein’s latter novel, they say, are overindulging, under-edited, sex-obsessed and more concerned (in the words of Alexei Panshin) about “opinions as facts”. Heinlein’s opinions.

To Sail Beyond the Sunset was Heinlein’s last published novel before his death in 1987. How does it measure up to his other works?

Not very well. TSBtS is the autobiography of Maureen Johnson, the mother of Heinlein’s favourite literary alter-ego, Lazarus Long. Her history is also the history of Heinlein’s famous “Future History” cycle. This novel chronicles her life, from her birth in 1882 onward.

The first thing one must accept about this book is that it’s all about sex. From Maureen’s Electra complex to her first boyfriend to complex “family” affairs to her rescue of her father (and subsequent elopement, we presume), this is where Heinlein Says to his readers “Listen up; I have a fascination with It and I thing everyone who’s prude is seriously pucked-up.”

Mix in some philosophy on the Downfall of American Society (Such uncultured barbarians we all are nowadays!), Good Wars, Bad Presidents… The only good persons here are Maureen, her father and her son Lazarus Long. Everyone else is an idiot, a puppet or inconsequential. The Encyclopedia of SF‘s is right when is says that “in praising one family over everything else, Heinlein has cheapened everything else.” The final nail in the coffin is that, for a novel that’s entirely cantered around sex, the sex scenes are lousy. Can’t have everything, I guess…

Still, despite these considerable flaws, TSBtS manages to entertain considerably. Always readable, Heinlein’s style is distinctive and pleasant. Never mind that the no-nonsense, street-smart monologue of Maureen could have been generated from the same place that Richard Ames’ narration (In The Cat Who Walks Through Walls) came from…. it’s still loads of fun. Then there’s Maureen/Heinlein’s obsession with cats- (Okay, so I lied: TSBtS isn’t all about sex. There’s a cat in there too. But you get my meaning.)

Yet, the prose may be light, but the meaning is sombre, even bitter. Heinlein is more concerned about preaching than amusement. Maureen makes explicit speeches about such subject as religion, government and other things… which brings us to the touchy subject of editing.

A competent editor could have looped off a good hundred pages. I’m still not sure if this would have been an improvement, or at least not a dramatic improvement like a good editing of I Will Fear No Evil.

Even then, this is Heinlein’s Last Novel. Treasure it, burn it or tolerate it… There will be no more things like this.

The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Harper Prism, 1995, 520 pages, C$8.50 mmpb, ISBN 0-06-105648-0

Ah, new bookstores… For the average bibliophile, few things are as pleasant in life than discovering a new bookstore. In the Ottawa area, we’ve been lucky lately (despite the closing of the House of Speculative Fiction): Both a downtown mega-bookstore (Chapters) and a new SF bookstore (Basilisk Dreams Books) have opened in the last six months or so.

But this isn’t a review of a bookstore… To make a long and potentially boring story short, let’s just say that my first trip to resulted in the purchase of a long-awaited book: The Time Ships. Curiously enough, this particular edition isn’t supposed to be published in Canada… Indeed, the jacket copy lists only one (American) price. Bad move from Harper Prism, or restrictive rights agreements?

Still, you can’t keep an SF reader away from a good book. My reasons to be curious about The Time Ships were diverse: It was a 1996 Hugo Nominee. It wasn’t available at the library. It wasn’t available at any other bookstore. AND, it’s the first “approved” sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.

Now, understand that I’m no particular fan of Wells. His prose style was fine for the turn of the century, but today… it’s a bit full of cobwebs. But even then, one cannot help to admire the legacy left by a few novels and shorter stories. Wells tackled on themes as invisibility, time-travel and alien invasions a full century before INDEPENDENCE DAY… with considerably more intelligence. But that’s another essay.

The Time Ships picks up where Wells’ story ended: The Time Traveller resolves to go back to the Eloi/Morlock world. Of course, things aren’t that simple, and five hundred pages of various adventures follow. We get far-future extrapolation, an alternate history, a robinsonade and another far-future big-canvas scenario. To say more would be a spoiler.

The book is told “a la Wells”, which is to say, using a pseudo-Victorian style. I wasn’t too enthused about that, but I was surprised at how readable the whole book was. This, incidentally, also makes The Time Ships surprisingly accessible to any reader unfamiliar with science-fiction: The complicated concepts of alternate worlds, time-travel, etc… are explained to them as they are explained to our time-travelling (Victorian) hero. We sometimes get the false impression that this is a book Wells could have written himself.

But Baxter did write the book, and should be deservedly proud of it: He tackles on big subjects here and succeeds more than he fails. I felt the book was more interesting when he veered off Wells’ ideas than when he followed the first book’s story, but that’s a highly subjective opinion.

The Hugo nomination for this book was warranted. Whether it should have won is another matter entirely, which I won’t discuss here… But this is still a superior read: Grab it, read it. Baxter is now on my “to catch up on!” list.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

DTP, 1975, 805 pages, C$21.95 tpb, ISBN 0-440-53981-1

I read Gravity’s Rainbow, once.

It sounds like a shameful admission, and that’s not far from the truth. Even years after the horrendous experience, I still remember the darn book’s page count (760) since I glanced at it every four pages or so. I never read something I understood less (except, maybe, for my calculus manuals… but I digress). There are a few other anecdotes relating to this book. (Like how I managed to read it at a traditional canadian maple-syrup party and (the day after) right in the middle of a family emergency.) But that’s another story for another time.

Suffice to say that I approached The Illuminatus! Trilogy with a similar state of mind: Was this going to be another postmodern 800-pages muddle? Would I be able to enjoy anything?

The answers were… surprising. I don’t usually like literary experiments, and still shudder at the memory of Gravity’s Rainbow. But The Illuminatus Trilogy is different.

For one thing, there is actually a story in here. It’s over-convoluted, way too long and stuffy like you wouldn’t believe, but it’s still a story. Never mind that most of the book doesn’t “happen” in chronological order, there’s a more-or-less defined beginning and end here. (The middle is all over the place).

That story, to put it simply, is the exposition of all the conspiracies that control society. From the Kennedy assassinations to the pyramid on the american $1 bill (which, speaking as a Canadian, still freaks me out) everything can be traced to one controlling group: The Illuminatus! Of course, the “truth” (if there is such a thing) is far less simple. If the Mafia part, over, under or a creation of the Illuminatus? Or is it the other way around? At one point in the novel, there are about three thousand groups that may or may not be in conflict and simultaneously part of the same organisation. If that’s confusing, don’t worry: It’s part of the enjoyment one gets from the trilogy.

To paraphrase one of the cover blurbs; you won’t know what’s happening, but you’ll have too much fun to notice. For fun is what’s included in The Illuminatus! Trilogy that’s missing from the other literary “stuff”. Whether you’re looking for gratuitous sex scenes (there are many, but -unfortunately!- less of them as the book advances), “cameos” by celebrities (Adolph Hitler, H.P. Lovecraft and Buckminster Fuller, to name a few), dramatic ironies (heh-heh-heh) or plain jokes (My favourite: “He worked with Smith-1, Smith-2 and Smith-3, three identical siamese triplets. Their father was a mathematician, so he indexed rather than named them.”)

Never mind that everything is outright incoherent fantasy. Forget that the book would have been immensely clearer with blank lines between sections. Pass over the 70-some pages of appendices. Drive the insane pseudo-erudite details out of your mind… This is fun stuff, for mature reader. “Mature” here being ability to digest twenty-odd plots occurring simultaneously at different points in time…

Unavoidable flaws are evident: There is a very “early seventies” feel to the trilogy, not surprising given the copyright date. Also, I felt that the ending is a bit drawn-out… but a re-reading might correct this impression.

Nevertheless, high conditional marks for The Illuminatus! Trilogy. If only for the explanation of why the Pentagon is built that way… Just don’t forget: They might be controlling you, right now!

Virtual Destruction, Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason

ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

Ace, 1996, 327 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-441-00308-7

There are times where I really wish for honesty in advertising. Or at least in cover blurbs. Even though Virtual Destruction isn’t as bad as some horrendously misleading cover copy I’ve seen, it still angers me to see bad labelling like this-

but perhaps the only problem is in my own mind. You see, no one will contest the affirmation that Virtual Destruction is Science-Fiction. To wit:

At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientists (ie: computer nerds) are putting the last touches on a revolutionary technology: Virtual Reality. But as the date of an important demonstration approaches, the project leader is found in the VR room, dead. Is it a murder, or not? And who did it?

Much like the likeable Walter Jon Williams thriller Days of Atonement, Virtual Destruction uses a near-future locale as background to a “murder mystery”. But whereas Days of Atonement had a resolution that hinged specifically on science-fiction, Virtual Destruction mostly uses VR as a prop… the real guts of the novel are elsewhere.

There are other problems too. While Days of Atonement was a solid thriller that stood on its own from beginning to end, I got the impression that Virtual Destruction was nothing more than the start of the “Craig Kreident, High-Tech FBI Agent” series. While Kreident is an enormously pleasant protagonist, he’s not as well developed as his Days of Atonement counterpart. This is probably intentional, since series hero can’t have all the stuffing knocked out of them in volume one, hmm?

I will be forthright in saying that I do not enjoy reading about retarded (or even “dim”) characters, of which there are two in Virtual Destruction and whose plight is milked for maximum pathos. But that’s just me.

In the end, Virtual Destruction might be better suited to another category: “Best Sellers”. Like it or not, I interpret Virtual Destruction as an attempt from Anderson and Beason to write accessible, wide-span yarns like Crichton, Cussler and the like.

It’s a successful attempt, mostly. As said before, the character of Agent Kreident is sufficiently sympathetic to engage the reader. The prose style is fast and readable. The SF trappings are meticulously described, and there’s an impression of authenticity from the novel.

The resolution, for reasons that will remain a spoiler, is a letdown on several fronts. Some plot threads are dropped without adequate resolution. I liked the fact that one potential flaw was turned into a virtue by one plot resolution. On the other hand, a certain scene intended to be powerful came up as flat because… get this… virtual means not real!

The biggest flaw of this novel is that it’s surprisingly fluffy. Light, escapist, bestselling entertainment. That’s not a bad thing per se… if you’ve got the right expectations.

Still, it’s better than the usual Crichton.

[Jan’98: There is indeed going to be a “Craig Kreident” series of Techno-Thrillers. I intend to read’em as soon as they come out at my local library.]