Reviews

  • Walking Tall (2004)

    Walking Tall (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, March 2004) Let us be forthwith and say right away that this film’s numerous flaws have few things to do with lead actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He does a rather good job at portraying the wood-packing hero of the story even as the script crumbles around him and the direction can’t keep up to the task. It’s also difficult to say anything bad about the cinematography when Washington State does such a good job at providing gorgeous backdrops. But the script, ow, the script… On the surface, revenge thrillers are a simple thing to write: Beat the snot out of your hero, then have him beat the snot out of the original snot-beaters. But here the script goes everywhere and anywhere, muddling the storyline, lessening the tension, using inappropriate bursts of laughter, transforming characters into plot points and doing nothing with the elements it plays with. Allow me to point out the ridiculous courtroom scene in which The Rock gets acquitted by taking off his shirt; the way a serious drug problem is solved through a funny montage; a no-nudity stripping scene which unexplainably grinds to a halt; a pacifist father who finds inner peace by shooting someone else; a French Connection-inspired car search that serves no purpose; the bare sketch of a romance; a silly mano-a-mano ultimate fight. The list goes on, scarcely helped by overeager “save-this-movie” editing that brings this film under the 80-minutes mark. Ultimately, even if the last half-hour contains a few adequate action sequences, Walking Tall is a mess of a movie whose unblinking apology of vigilantism and police brutality almost acts as a metaphor for American foreign policy. That is, of course, if you believe that “Walking Tall” can be used in the same breath as “metaphor”.

  • Proxies, Laura J. Mixon

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Tor, 1998, 468 pages, C$8.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-812-52387-3

    Years ago, in his influential essay Comme un roman, French writer Daniel Pennac outlined a series of unalienable “reader’s rights”, one of them being “the right not to finish a book”. I firmly believe in this particular freedom, even though I don’t usually take advantage of it. In my experience, there are times where a book can actually improve as it goes along. Though quite rare, I have too fond a memory of Walter Jon Williams’ Aristoi (difficult first fifty pages; wonderful rest of book) to quit SF books halfway through. I nearly gave up on Laura J. Mixon’s Proxies but decided to read a few more chapters, and if the end result isn’t up to Aristoi, I think it was good enough to make the first half worthwhile.

    The initial difficulty with Proxies isn’t that it’s incomprehensible as much as it’s just not very interesting. Sometime before the end of the 21st century, humanity perfects a technology which allows operators to control other humanoid bodies across distances. Those proxies are perfect for work in dangerous environment: Space explorations, dangerous manual labour, military operations, etc. But the technology isn’t cheap nor easy to use, and so it hasn’t proved to be the end of menial labour. As you can expect, the gulf between rich and poor has widened even further. And as if that wasn’t enough, Earth’s environmental situation has degraded to the point where normal temperatures are equivalent to today’s worst heat waves.

    But things are about to heat up even further as politics start messing with science and top-secret experiments. Before long, complex power struggles emerge, and they all seem to revolve around Carli D’Auber, a recent unemployed super-scientist who just happens to be the daughter of an influential politician.

    There’s a lot to shrug about in the first half of Proxies, as this new world is chaotically introduced and the complex power politics of the various plots in motion are hesitantly explained. Mixon’s imagined future is a mixture of the new and the old, with familiar elements competing against more exciting ones. There’s a post-cyberpunk feel to it all that’s neither fresh nor inventive and as the pages are turned, it seems as if Proxies isn’t going anywhere.

    But it start coming into focus half-way through. Suddenly, the issues are clearer, part of the background is explained, the characters truly come into their own (though some, like, “Dane Elisa Cae”, still end up feeling over-developed for their narrative importance) and the reading takes on a smoother quality.

    The third fourth of Proxies is the kind of stuff we SF readers are looking for. Neat sequences, crisp writing, a dash of humour and some increasingly sympathetic characters. Our poor heroine is insulted, dismissed, battered, blackmailed and kidnapped. It may not be all that great for her, but it’s surely a lot more fun for us readers. Then there is the pleasant patina of “real-world” political sophistication peeking through; for all other flaws, Proxies ends up with an impressive amount of complexity that feels as if, yes, this is a work of true anticipatory science-fiction more than a cardboard future created for a story. Heaven knows that there are worse (and sillier) SF novels out there. If the first half could have been shortened and cleaned up a little bit, maybe Proxies could have been a novel worth commending without reservations. As it is, though, there’s a lot to slog through in order to get to the good parts.

    Then there’s the ending; Though not a bad ending by most sense of the term, Mixon so diffuses the climactic elements of her conclusion (by discarding plot threads hastily, by placing the Big Decisions in off-stage minds, by having characters abandon their goals) that the pay-off of the book is similarly diluted. The first half of the book feels overlong and indulgent and so does the conclusion. Some more judicious editing could have improved the impact of the whole thing, along with a hyped-up pacing where all the elements of the conclusion are properly done justice.

    As it currently stands, there’s a lot to like about Proxies, but it’s a shame that the readers have to work so hard to get to them. I’m curious enough to go read Mixon’s other novels, but anyone who wants to tackle Proxies may want to keep in mind another item on Pennac’s bill of “readers’ right”: “The right to skim”.

  • Something’s Gotta Give (2003)

    Something’s Gotta Give (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, March 2004) After so many years of increasingly unlikely Hollywood romances between decrepit men and nubile starlets, it was about time that someone did a movie about it. Enters writer/director Nancy Meyers, along with pitch-perfect leads Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. For the first hour or so, Something’s Gotta Give is a whole lot of fun: Diane Keaton is frumpy-sexy, Jack Nicholson does his best-ever impression of Jack Nicholson and there’s plenty of amusing material. But then the beach house setting is discarded (breaking unity of setting), everything becomes a lot more complicated and the last act drags on for so long that viewers are likely to shout “Something’s gotta give, already!” It’s said that audiences will forgive anything as long as you give them a happy ending, but the one in Something’s Gotta Give is so unlikely that it feels like a cheat. There is little doubt that the script is about a third too long; some judicious cutting (and a better use of secondary characters played by Jon Favreau and Frances McDormand, both of whom disappear when they’re most needed) would have made this a snappier, more believable film. As it currently stands, it’s self-indulgent and often dull. But at least it’s got something to say about those creepy May-October Hollywood relationships.

  • Séraphin: un homme et son péché [Séraphin: Heart Of Stone] (2002)

    Séraphin: un homme et son péché [Séraphin: Heart Of Stone] (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On DVD, March 2004) I don’t usually respond very well to manipulative tearjerkers or works glorifying Quebec’s rural history, which makes Séraphin all the more surprising. Yes, it’s shameless in how it sets up a tragic love triangle between manly hero, selfless heroine and sadistic villain. But just as you think that it’s never going to work… it does. Quasi-parody scenes turn out well and the film is involving even as it’s playing all of the obvious cards. The lead trio (Roy Dupuis, Karine Vanasse and Pierre Lebeau) does excellent work, but it’s the cinematography of the film that steals the show; the historical re-creation of the era is top-notch, with plenty of telling details and beautiful shots. Charles Binamé’s direction is constantly interesting and even the most ridiculous moments (ah, tastefully-placed sunlight…) are effective. I’m not sure how foreign audiences will respond to a romance set in 1890 rural Québec, but even I am surprised at how well it played to me.

  • La Peau Blanche [White Skin aka Cannibal] (2004)

    La Peau Blanche [White Skin aka Cannibal] (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In theaters, March 2004) I’m not a very objective critic when it comes to this film adaptation: I’ve owned the original book ever since it came out, the writer is a good friend of mine, I worked on the movie’s preview web site (some of my copy even made it on the final web site) and I was even present at the cast and crew premiere. So adjust accordingly when I say that it’s a pretty good film. Fans of quiet horror/suspense films like The Others and The Sixth Sense are best-prepared to appreciate the way this teen romance gradually evolves into something far more sinister. The acting is excellent (with mad props to leads Marc Paquet, Frédéric Pierre and Marianne Farley), in no small part due to the very natural dialogue and crisp direction. There’s also plenty of good things to say about the film’s cinematography and polish, especially given how the crew had to work with a pitiful budget (under a million Canadian dollars) and tight shooting conditions. Hooray for digital cinema! First-time feature director Daniel Roby has a bright future in front of him: I just hope that the right people see this film and I can’t wait to see his next effort. Some viewers may not like the way the film keeps switching genres, or how the third act is a full-bore descent in darkness. Tough for them; as for me, I’m just pleased to have been associated, even so tangentially, with such a slick film.

  • Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster: Why the official story of 9/11 is a monumental lie, David Icke

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Bridge of Love, 2002, 514 pages, C$41.95 tpb, ISBN 0-9538810-2-4

    What a long and strange trauma it’s been.

    The events of 9/11 were a shock to all, myself included. Some of this shock even made its way to these reviews and there’s no use apologizing or recanting this: It’s a reflection of what was happening at the time. (see my comments on Nelson DeMille’s The Lion’s Game for an illustration of my immediate reactions to the events)

    But now, more than two years later, things have changed. The “day that changed everything” is sinking back in history, and we now have the advantage of that tiny hindsight in reconsidering our reaction to the event. Reviewing a book like Alice in Wonderland, which purports to tell the “real story” of 9/11 in the tradition of the best conspiracy theories, would have been impossible in, say, October 2001. When French journalist Thierry Meyssan published L’Effroyable imposture in March 2002, accusing the Bush government of the worst possible conspiracies in creating 9/11 (including the “no plane crashed in the Pentagon” theory), few were ready to do anything but dismiss the book as knee-jerk anti-Americanism. I should know; I was among those who called the book despicable.

    But, as I said, things have changed. Two years later, tempers have cooled and logic is once again prevailing. And so it is possible for me to be at a used book sale, see a book like David Icke’s Alice in Wonderland, peek inside, see something about “world government” and “mind control”, shrug, smile at “those conspiracy nuts” and buy it.

    The book’s first two chapters are indeed a masterpiece of crackpot writing. Here, shapeshifting reptilian bloodlines are controlling the world through the Illuminati, and nothing (nothing, from presidential elections to the death of Princess Diana) is anything but further evidence of a plot by “them” to control “us”. It’s easy to laugh and dismiss such rantings, mostly due to the feverish way Icke (like his partners in conspiracy theories) manages to bring everything together as a coherent whole. This is conspiracies-as-religion: the belief that, yes, everything can be tracked to wilful intentions and nothing is left to the vagaries of pure change and competing interests. There isn’t much in these first few chapters that’s not already known to conspiracy buffs, 9/11 or not.

    But the book changes gears when Icke starts looking at the 1991 Oklahoma City bombing and then delves into the events of 9/11. In 400+ densely-detailed pages, Ickes raises dozens of questions and inconsistencies with the “official” version of the events. Contrarily to the “Illuminati” material of the opening (which is sourced back to Icke’s previous books), this stuff depends mostly on articles and testimonials published in the mainstream press. There are tons of real-world references and dozens of Really Good Questions. While a lot of Icke’s point can be explained by incompetence, slips of the tongue (saying “Monday” rather than “Tuesday”) and just plain confusion in the heat of the events, there are enough discrepancies to arouse interest.

    In some ways, it’s just too easy to disbelieve the assertions of Alice in Wonderland. Icke has an unfortunate tendency to pepper his narrative with gratuitous references to “The Illuminati” and that makes as much sense as blaming Santa’s Elves for everything. It doesn’t help that his sources are inconsistently convincing: He makes a lot out of a rather suspicious book called The Trance Formation of America, in which George Bush Sr. (among many others) Is revealed to be a sodomite pederast who takes delight in describing his favourite perversions to an aroused Dick Cheney, who ultimately comes to join Elder Bush is his lascivious satanic activities. (!!!) Who can be blamed for dismissing such a narrative, tentative as it may be?

    The last two chapters don’t help: Here, the shape-shifting lizards bloodlines make their way back in the narrative, assorted with a dastardly plot to take over the world as we know it. Parallel dimensions are discussed, along with a “solution” that isn’t much more than holding hands and believing in the power of each other. The last section of the book is poignantly titled “I love you, George Bush”, and features such gems as “I love you George Bush, father and son; I love you Cheney and Powell and Kissinger and Carlucci and the Illuminati High Council and the reptilian hierarchy in the inter-space plane.” [P.486] Woo!

    There’s no need to point out that Icke’s all-encompassing Illuminati plot is ludicrous, or that he seems uncommonly adept to twists facts to fit his grand conspiracy and ignore those who don’t fit. Never mind that his interpretation of rigid top-down hierarchies fly in the fact of demonstrated incompetence. One wonders if such things as the Lewinski affair, the Enron scandal or the spectacular failure of the XFL can also be explained away by Illuminati links. No doubt he’ll find a way to make them fit in his next book.

    But I found my own reaction to Alice in Wonderland to be revealing, regardless of alleged plots by shape-shifting reptilians. Strip the first and last few chapters of Alice in Wonderland, replace instances of “Illuminati” by “the abstract concept known as the cold invisible hand of western capitalism”, ignore the Bushes as child-abusers and the book simply reads as an extreme version of what many have been saying since the inauguration of the Bush II administration. The section where Icke details the biographies of the two Bush presidents and their cadre of advisers is packed with very familiar information and connections. The links between the Bushes and the bin Laden families, for instance, have been well documented in the mainstream press, and so have many of the relationships between the Bush advisers and their looong association with various Republicans administrations. Alice in Wonderland is insidious as it takes well-know facts and weaves them back into its own conspiracy theory. Bits and pieces of the book can’t be completely dismissed, and the line between truth and conspiracy is a lot harder to draw than it was even years ago. While I’m not terribly convinced that the “official story of 9/11 is a monumental lie”, let’s just say that I’d appreciate a thorough debunking of Icke’s assertions.

    The reason for this is obvious: Over the past few years, the entanglement of business/government relationships in the Bush II administration, coupled with “Boy George”’s uncanny talent for acting as a divider (not an uniter), coupled with the cold wind of post-9/11 law-enforcement, coupled with the rise of corporate power over individual freedoms (see DMCA, Eldred vs Ashcroft, etc.), coupled with such things as the Guantanamo concentration camp… have all taken their toll. Anyone who still had a smidgen of respect for presidential honesty got bitch-slapped by the cold realization that the White House lied in order to manipulate America towards the invasion of Iraq. Who, a
    fter those crazy four years, can still regard conspiracy theories as completely unlikely? We’ve seen one unfold before our very own eyes, in daily headlines. As Teresa Nielsen-Hayden has said time and time again on her blog, “I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.”

    And so I find myself, as someone who’d rather not believe in conspiracy theories, slightly shaken by the mass of assertions made in Alice in Wonderland. The most troubling thing, I believe, is the common-sense remark that even at this moment (and here I mean “March 2004”, two-and-a-half years after 9/11), we still haven’t seen an entirely transparent congressional investigation in the events of 9/11. And what investigations have taken place so far have been marred with censorship, closed-door sessions and allegations of partisanship. It won’t take much to bring me back in the mainstream camp; just answer the questions already. [January 2005: I’ll let you know as soon as I finish The 9/11 Commission Report.]

    And that takes me back to another surprisingly positive appeal of Icke’s work (and conspiracy theories in general): the doubts regarding the official version of events, the impulse to ask ever-more probing questions. “Question authority” could be the uniting slogan of all conspiracy theorists, and after seeing the meek way in which the Bush II administration was treated by the press and most of the American public, it’s hard to avoid thinking that we could all use an extra dose of scepticism. What if this book, as ludicrous as it may sometimes be, forces you and me to ask better questions? What’s the harm in that? What if more people read Alice in Wonderland?

    It’s somewhat of a marvel that I’ve come so far as to take nutty conspiracy theories semi-seriously in barely thirty months. Certainly I’d like to be able to say “claptrap” and throw back the book in disgust. But as, say, newer facts start to emerge from disgruntled ex-members of the Bush administration about the inside view of the lead-up toward the invasion of Iraq (ie; that it had been planned early in the administration and that 9/11 proved to be a convenient way to justify it), the true story of what happened seems to be validating those who, at the time, had been branded as anti-patriotic conspiracy theorists for doubting the official motives. As for Icke’s depiction of 9/11 as a vast conspiracy to take over basic rights and freedom, well, can you reasonably affirm that Americans are freer now than they were in August 2001?

    Uh-huh. Sometimes, it doesn’t take a conspiracy to enslave us. Maybe that’s a lesson we can now see, thirty months after 9/11.

  • The Hire (2003)

    The Hire (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, March 2004) This collection of BMW short films is obviously a promotional item through and through, but when it’s wrapped in such delicious filmmaking, why complain? Collecting eight short films from eight top-notch directors, The Hire stars Clive Owen as a driver with a fondness for BMW vehicles and dangerous situations. While the cars remain a constant, the mood of each piece varies considerably, going from drama to comedy to romance to fantasy. Good stuff, and with the calibre of the directors involved (John Woo, Joe Carnahan and Tony Scott are only the first three names on the credits), each short film is a pretty spiffy work in itself. Then there are the extras: documentaries that are longer than the short films, audio commentaries, technical specs and plenty of pretty pictures. I don’t think that this is available in stores, but DVD addicts and fans of action film making will certainly want to head over to bmwfilms.com and order their copy. It’s well worth the ten bucks or so.

  • Calendar Girls (2003)

    Calendar Girls (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, March 2004) One wouldn’t think that seeing a bunch of British retirees taking off their clothes would automatically translate in a good time at the movies. But that assumption is twice flawed: First, that’s ignoring the fact that lead actress Helen Mirren is still a fox at age 58; second, that the film is developed not like a porn movie but as a light comedy in the “Brits-take-it-all-off” The Full Monty vein. Whew! It’s not a complete success, however: Adapted from a true story, the script suffers from gratuitous drama and other forms of padding. The third act runs far too long for little payoff and it’s difficult to buy into the supposed rift between the two lead characters. It’s hard to be critical about such a piece of fluff comedy, or even to spend too much time reflecting on it, so Calendar Girls simply gets a mild recommendation and not much else.

  • Commitment Hour, James Alan Gardner

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    EOS, 1998, 343 pages, C$7.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-380-79827-1

    First, a truly horrible confession, then the review.

    My truly horrible confession is that I don’t care all that much about Science Fiction that sets out to explore the limits of gender identity. It’s a theme that just doesn’t interest me. Now, this wouldn’t mean much to most, but in a field which has hailed works like The Left Hand of Darkness and pioneered feminism before it was hip, well, it’s a bit like claiming to be a heretic. Broadly speaking, I have a really hard time getting excited about anything that makes in on the Tiptree Award ballot. (“An annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” says www.tiptree.org)

    Which makes my reaction to Commitment Hour even more surprising.

    Shortly stated, Commitment Hour is the story of a small village in a distant future in which the young ones switch, year after year, from one gender to another. After their twentieth year, they get to choose what gender they’ll remain for the rest of their lives.

    Normally, I would simply shrug at the premise and grit my teeth at having to read hundreds of pages on the subject. But the wonder of Commitment Hour is how it quickly and efficiently draws its reader in the lives of protagonist Fullin and the rest of his/her village. Before long, their calm routine is disrupted by the arrival of an outside observer and his neuter companion, an especially troubling event given the village’s widespread hatred of neuters.

    As the story unfolds, so do the layers of meaning and purpose behind the village’s unusual society. While the story may start in a cheerfully retrograde pastoral fantasy setting (another one of my pet peeves), Gardner slows strips away the false simplicity of Fullin’s life until we’re left with brushed steel and active nanotechnology. Good stuff.

    All the while, Gardner’s voice does wonder at keeping the preaching to a minimum. A few lines are surprisingly funny (“As a forty-year-old woman, (she) actually had a remarkable body… then it struck me that I was ogling (…) my mother. I shuddered with a sudden case of the icks.” [P.151]) and the overall light tone of the novel is a welcome change from the dreary self-importance in which most Tiptree-Award nominees usually smother themselves. The accumulated goodwill created by the novel is strong enough that its impact isn’t soured when the story hakes an abrupt turn toward dramatic intensity during the course of its conclusion. Then again the conclusion is suitably uplifting, a minor miracle given the twenty or so ghastly pages leading to it. A lot of it has to do with the novel’s plot-driven thrust: Here, the genre-switching is an important part of the story, but certainly not the end of it; it’s only a part of a larger mystery and a good excuse for exploring other issues. Could this be why this book interested me despite elements I wouldn’t normally go for?

    Technically, there isn’t much that’s wrong with Commitment Hour. The writing is efficient, the numerous character are well-sketched and the story steadily advances, page after page. The protagonist has a few unpleasant choices to make, and every chapter seems to be bringing extra complications. The only aspect where I felt a discontinuity between the author’s intentions and the actual execution were in presenting the protagonist’s different thought processes as s/he switched from male to female personalities.

    But no matter. Commitment Hour is still an unexpected good read. In fact, it’s even more surprising given how little I had cared for Expendable, Gardner’s first novel. His second effort seems more compelling, more interesting and, yes, more successful. You can reliably bet that I’ll be taking another look at this author’s works from now on.

    Even my reluctance to appreciate works lauded for the Tiptree award can be explained after all; while doing research for this review, I cam across the “long list” of works considered for the 1998 Tiptree, and saw that Commitment Hour had been dismissed as too conventional and mainstream. Go figure. Show’s em how much they know.

  • Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (2004)

    Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, March 2004) While the first film in the “Cody Banks teenage spy” series had its moment, it suffered from too slavish an adherence to the Bond formula, resulting in a film that lost a lot of interest as it went along. While the sequel isn’t all that much better, it’s somewhat truer to itself and avoids repeating the typical Bond arc. Frankie Munez is back, and charming as ever as the lead character. Angie Harmon is sorely missed as Banks’ “handler”, but Anthony Anderson does his usual buffoon shtick to good effect. While the film occasionally panders to the kiddie audience with stupid plot tricks, some grossness and silly wish-fulfilment, there is still enough here to entertain adult audiences. The violence gets tiresome, though (especially the fist-fights, which seem out of place in a film for younger teens), and this exasperation is carried over in the third act, which is slightly too long for its own good. Otherwise, there are a few good gags, a few good action scenes and a few clever gadgets. It’s not a must-see, but neither is it a must-avoid.

  • Spencerville, Nelson DeMille

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 1994, 639 pages, C$10.99 mmpb, ISBN 0-446-60245-0

    Ten, maybe fifteen years after the fact, it’s obvious that the end of the Cold War has been a disaster for thriller authors. No longer could they rely on their favourite Soviet villains as convenient plot devices to rile up their audience. Columbian drug lords, Russian mafioso and right-wing militia groups kinda did the trick until everyone re-discovered Islamic fundamentalism, but for a while the American thriller has in serious trouble.

    And so it’s not difficult for bestselling thriller writer Nelson DeMille to create a convincing character in Keith Landry, a freshly-retired master spy at loose ends after being taken off the global chessboard as part of the “peace dividend”. Looking for something to do, he travels from Washington to his old hometown of Spencerville (after an absence of twenty-five years) and starts puttering around his parent’s farm while they live the easy life in Florida. But they say you can never go home again, and in Landry’s case that’s truer than usual: For he’s sharing the small town with an old flame and her husband, a man who uses his job as the sheriff to do terrible, terrible things.

    The most interesting thing about Spencerville is how much of a romance it is. Yes, it’s coming from an author who specializes in suspense novels. Yes, it’s a cheerfully macho story of good versus evil. Sure, it’s got pages and pages of detail about spycraft, guns and torture. But at its heart, it’s the story of a romantic relationship and all the obstacles in the way of this union. While the book’s protagonist is Keith Landry, you could make the argument that the true hero is Annie Prentis. Add the despicable (boo, hiss) Cliff Baxter to the mix and you’ve got a classic love triangle.

    A love triangle that deals in automatic weapons, dirty tricks and dripping violence, mind you: It doesn’t take fifty pages for major characters to start pointing guns toward each other: Even before Keith’s arrival, Cliff is depicted as a wife abuser who may be running out of time. Add to that the rampant police corruption and Spencerville starts looking more and more like a lawless town in a western epic, waiting for a no-name man to take down the rot.

    There are many pleasures in Spencerville and not the least of them is seeing a covert operative apply his skill to a town in mid-western America. As Landry finds out, the basics of overthrowing a corrupt police work aren’t terribly different from operating in Eastern Europe. In return, reading about small-town policemen trying to impress a man used to the KGB’s methods is rather amusing.

    But the comedy soon turns to drama as the emotional stakes are driven even higher. Romance blooms, and so does the antagonist’s madness. By the time the book is midway through, well, there isn’t much doubt in how the book will end.

    Which makes the book’s latter half even more disappointing. At more than 600 pages, Spencerville is far too long for what it has to say. The last hundred pages are especially tedious, as the resolution is obvious and extra obstacles are placed in the way just for the sake of further obstacles. The contrast with DeMille’s fast prose and his tepid pacing becomes increasingly uncomfortable and the book’s impact suffers because of it. But then again, this is neither the first nor the last work from this author to suffer from drawn-out endings. (See his latter Plum Island, etc.)

    Overall, though, Spencerville is an unusual and slick thriller, with just enough off-beat elements to make it stand out in its field. Overlong but never less than interesting, it’s a really good choice for DeMille fans and general thriller readers, with some cross-over potential for romance readers. If nothing else, it’s a way of showing that there’s no need to time-travel to 1980s Moscow to find good suspense, even as the genre’s favourite playgrounds have been closed.

  • The Physics of Immortality, Frank J. Tipler

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Doubleday, 1994, 528 pages, C$25.00 tpb, ISBN 0-385-46798-2

    The dust jacket copy suggests it all: An attempt to bring religion under the aegis of science. The physical proof for God. Equations proving that we’re going to be resurrected sooner or later. Whew!

    It has now been ten years since the publication of The Physics of Immortality and the book has had time to percolate through the noosphere. Science Fiction has (somewhat) embraced a few of the book’s arguments: Frederik Pohl wrote a trilogy about Tipler’s “Omega Point”, and the same rough outline of divinity can be found in works such as Robert Charles Wilson’s Darwinia and the Clarke/Baxter collaboration The Light of Other Days. I suppose it’s appropriate for SF to take back a little bit from a work which itself owes a lot to Science Fiction.

    Tipler’s “Omega Point” theory, as I understand it in a nutshell, is that as life inevitably spreads through the universe (don’t worry: even his postulates are grandiose), it will come to achieve a complete mastery of space/time, develop ultimate computing capabilities and generally achieve god-like powers. In addition to that, life (being all-good) will do everything in its power to recreate past life through fantastically detailed simulations and, yes, will end up recreating you at the moment of your death, and then keep simulating you in a perpetual state of bliss forever and ever, amen.

    Yes, it sounds silly. But Tipler certainly doesn’t think so, and he spends a lot of the book’s 528 pages proving to his satisfaction that mathematics and physics and computer science and general relativity are on his side. In one way, this is a book-length rationalization where physics are used to prove wishful thinking. Or at least that’s the impression I got. But I’m no scientist, and the 150-pages “Appendix for Scientists” (where the book’s equations are carefully contained, though this is no way implies that the rest of the book is unusually accessible.) looks exactly like the kind of stuff that should intimidate me into silence. As Tipler points out in his foreword to the Appendix, “the science (here) is extremely interdisciplinary. To comprehend it all without reference to a research library would require Ph.D.s in at least three disparate fields: (1) global general relativity, (2) theoretical particle physics, and (3) computer complexity theory” [P.395] Oookay.

    But that doesn’t mean that I can’t comment the book from the perspective of a science-fiction reader, right? In the absence of rigorous peer-reviewed eschatology papers in Nature, it may be the most appropriate way to tackle it. (Certainly, some of the book’s premises are already untenable; ten years later, the “Big Crunch” is thought unlikely to happen) There is no shame in browsing parts of this book for lack of interest; not everyone is dying to know how Tipler’s “Omega Point” theory fits with other major religions, much like few will care about the topology of a contracting universe.

    The least you can say is that Tipler thinks big. Universe-wide concepts reaching to the end of time are bandied about with ease, through -ironically enough-, SF readers are liable to feel restless through them, as they’re either taken straight from SF or have since been re-appropriated. As a fun theoretical supposition to play with, the “Omega Point” theory is a nifty thing: With it, you can effortlessly tie THE MATRIX with God, time-travel and faster-than-light voyages.

    It’s even more interesting as a philosophical point, though: By arguing that God doesn’t yet exist, but will be created by the perfection of humankind, Tipler is essentially shifting religion from the past (and the creation of the universe) to the future, leaving aside the still-troubling questions of where the universe came from. And yet the practical “moral guidance” implied by a resurrection by the hands of a future God is identical to traditional theology: work hard at perfecting the world so that your descendants can keep making progress toward the Omega Point, and do so nicely, because this future God may not want to resurrect its undeserving ancestors. Cute, and entirely consistent with the pro-knowledge, good-triumphs-over-evil ethos of traditional Science Fiction.

    If only for that, here’s a lot to like from The Physics of Immortality, even though it’s kind of cruel to ask readers to slog through hundreds of pages to get to that point. There’s no denying that Tipler’s book is almost the ultimate in self-rationalization. Even though I’m looking at it from a singularly uninformed perfective, it doesn’t strike me as serious science nor serious theology. But the central point is worth mulling about. And, who knows, it may even act as a source for other good SF stories…

  • The Cabinet of Curiosities, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Warner, 2002, 466 pages, C$36.95 hc, ISBN 0-446-53022-0

    At first glance, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s The Cabinet of Curiosities seems to be breaking new ground for the authors: The dust jacket promises a mystery in which a contemporary serial killer uses the deadly signature of a long-dead historical murderer. But don’t be mislead; in most ways, this is yet another rather good Preston/Child thriller, with their typical flaws and strengths.

    Even though there’s a great deal of emphasis on historical New York, this isn’t even remotely similar to Caleb Carr’s historical mysteries: For one thing, the action is set strictly in the present. For another, The Cabinet of Curiosity is a clear descendant of the authors’ previous thrillers. The protagonists are characters from previous novels: Archaeologist Nora Kelly and journalist Bill Smithback, fresh from Thunderhead and still dating after her move to New York. Then there’s Special Agent Pendergast, in a follow-up performance after Relic and Reliquary. And there is no doubt that The Cabinet of Curiosities is his novel: Even before the novel gets underway, Pendergast is introduced with an appropriate amount of panache: while the two other novels gave a hint of his personality, this is the first one to truly explore the dimensions of his character, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes with quasi-supernatural mental tricks up his sleeve and a fabulous lifestyle that, yes, is somewhat explained in the course of the novel. While Nora and Bill are not uninteresting (Smithback’s mistakes are constantly infuriating), they pale in comparison to Pendergast.

    But this is a genre novel with the firm intention to thrill, and so it’s no surprise if Pendergast himself pales in comparison to the plot and atmosphere. Like with Relic and its sequel, the action initially revolves around the New York Museum of Natural History, a fantastic neo-gothic establishment dropped straight in the middle of New York City. Something evil still lurks within the labyrinth of the Museum, if not in New York City itself.

    Almost all Preston-Child novels so far have included elements of archaeology, and this one is no exception. Like with Reliquary, New York City is revealed as a treasure-trove of secrets hidden under ordinary apartment, on dusty archive files or in abandoned mansions. The historical mystery aspect of The Cabinet of Curiosity is one of the book’s chief delights and an engine for some powerful scenes, including one in which a basement apartment in Chinatown ends up being an ideal starting point for an archaeological dig. Indeed, fans of edutainment will probably learn a lot about how those charming “cabinet of curiosities” of the nineteenth century eventually became the starting point for our modern museums.

    Just be sure to set aside enough time to read this novel; like the author’s other works, but perhaps even more so than their previous books, The Cabinet of Curiosities is a ferociously slick page-turner. It’s hard to slow down, let alone stop reading. Characterization is part of the book’s appeal and so is the carnival of fascinating details, but the clarity of the prose itself is impeccable. Coupled with good pacing, it goes straight to the core of the story and doesn’t let go. Its unfortunate that the drawn-out climax leads to a conclusion that smack too much of deus ex machina, and that some early coincidences are never convincingly explained. Not that it’ll slow down anyone.

    It’s become a staple of Preston-Child novels (in the tradition of most techno-thrillers) to punish any intellectual ambition and cork genies back into their bottles. So it’s no surprise to see the triumphant ending of The Cabinet of Curiosities sport some variant of the usual “there are things that humankind should know” crap. (Yes, a lot like Riptide and The Ice Limit; too much knowledge is seen as an evil thing) This, coupled with what seems to be a growing tendency to recycle their cast of characters, certainly makes me worry about their long-term plans. If they’re not willing to gamble their entire universe at the end of the novel, why care? Wouldn’t it be a lot more interesting for the genie to escape from the bottle? Oh well; I guess that’s why they invented real Science Fiction: To go where timid thriller writers fear to go…

    But if Preston-Child’s next efforts are as interesting as The Cabinet of Curiosities, there isn’t much to worry about; their narrative abilities are getting better even as their prose is leaner and cleaner. Save from some late-book problems, there’s not a lot to dislike here: Perfect entertainment!

  • Author Unknown, Don Foster

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    Henry Holt, 2000, 318 pages, C$38.95 hc, ISBN 0-8050-6357-9

    Literary sleuth! It sounds like a concept for an unlikely comic-book superhero, but Don Foster was, for a while, the world’s closest equivalent to such a thing: Someone who could sit down at a computer, read volumes and volumes of prose, develop a feel for the mind of the author and then apply this feel to evaluate the authenticity of a suspicious piece of writing. Whether the object is scholarly or criminal, curious or political, Author Unknown is a fascinating exploration in literary analysis and a book that should make any author nervous.

    Don Foster became a literary sleuth by accident. A graduate student in English Studies, he became fascinated by the possibility that an obscure pseudonymous poem may have been written by none other William Shakespeare himself. The results of his investigation led to media notoriety, then on to the analysis of “Anonymous”’s Primary Colors and, later, criminal investigations. Author Unknown is part biography, part explanation regarding the amusing art and science of textual analysis.

    The most intriguing chapter is doubtlessly the prologue, a breathless tour through his office in which he promises much… to be told later in the book. True crime fans may take note, however, that no criminal investigations are detailed in Author Unknown: For reasons of confidentiality, Foster wasn’t able to share the content of his files in this area. An understandable decision, but also a disappointing one given the wealth of material he alludes to.

    More satisfying is his “unmasking” of William Shakespeare, the cornerstone case of his career. It’s a fascinating chapter not because of Shakespeare’s ID, but because it takes us through the treacherous halls of academia. It’s also deeply amusing in how it (twice) demonstrates Foster using his textual-analysis skills to pierce the identity of “anonymous” peer-reviewers. Alas, don’t believe everything you read, especially not the conclusion: Some quick Googling for (“Don Foster” Shakespeare “John Ford”) will give you the not-so-triumphant epilogue to this tale.

    On the other hand, the second chapter is pure dynamite: It concerns Foster’s search for the identity of “Anonymous”, the pseudonymous author behind the political satire Primary Colors that so fascinated official Washington D.C. in early 1996. Foster details, in vivid prose, how he came to be hired for the job and how he managed to identify journalist Joe Klein as the true author. It’s by far the best tale of the book in part because there’s a clear conclusion. After months of nearly pathological denials, Klein was confronted with further evidence and confessed. Such definite resolutions aren’t common elsewhere in Author Unknown.

    For instance, Chapter Three proceeds backwards, taking the identity of the Unabomber and working backwards to “prove” that he could have been connected to Ted Kaczynski well before his brother turned him in. Chapter Four is a classic exercise in frustration: The Monicagate “talking points memo” are analyzed without a straight conclusion and it doesn’t help that the subject really just isn’t exciting.

    The last two chapters are a mixed bag. Chapter Five is an exercise through a small community of writers in an effort to prove that a pseudonym was not that of Kurt Vonnegut. Chapter Six is an exploration of the true author of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”, a subject about which I couldn’t be any less interested. The conclusion states Foster’s intention to retire from this crazy stuff, which obviously brings the book to an end.

    Obviously, this Author Unknown is a mixed bag. The Primary Colors chapter is excellent material, especially if you’re familiar with the original novel. The Shakespeare chapter is interesting, but ultimately less than convincing. Pynchon fans won’t be the only ones to enjoy Chapter Five, but it’ll take die-hard political junkies to care about the “Talking Points” memo. As for the rest, your mileage will vary.

    On the other hand, it’s impossible for even amateur writers to read Author Unknown without becoming acutely self-conscious about just any type of writing. Foster’s insistence on unconscious “signatures” is convincing, and it’s fertile material for paranoid thinking, especially for those engaging in pseudonymous writing. Authors: Don’t read this book before bedtime! The Literary Sleuth is after you!

  • Deepsix, Jack McDevitt

    ByChristian Sauvé Book Review

    EOS, 2001, 432 pages, C$37.95 hc, ISBN 0-06-105124-1

    [Disclaimer: I received a copy of Deepsix straight from EOS after winning one of their online contests. This review wasn’t solicited, but I always feel better specifying which books I didn’t buy.]

    Every author has its own set of pet obsessions, and after half a dozen Jack McDevitt novels, it’s fair to say that he’s got a major fascination for history and archaeology. Invented future histories and archaeologies, mind you; his protagonists are constantly digging through ruins, uncovering past secrets and saving precious relics. That they do so in the far future, about ancient events (to them) that haven’t yet happened (to us) is part of the attraction.

    Perhaps his best novel to date is The Engines of God, which starts with a bang as a team of archaeologists races against time to save alien artifacts from certain destruction from an imminent Richter-10 earthquake. If you want an idea of Deepsix‘s plot, take the tension of that opener and spread it over 400 pages.

    The links to The Engines of God run a little deeper than that, actually: Deepsix takes place in the same universe, and also stars plucky pilot Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins. This time, the planet being threatened with total destruction is Maleiva III. At the start of the novel, mere days remain until it’s slated to be absorbed by a gas giant in a cosmic game of pool. But things are never simple in a McDevitt novel: Suddenly, after decades of neglect, a last-minute expedition discovers remnants of an advanced civilization. Interesting, but there are further complications: There aren’t enough ships nor qualified personnel to explore the planetary surface.

    None? Not so fast: Hutch is nearby, along with a capable planetary lander. So she’s ordered to go take a look. Of course, stuff happens, tragedy strikes and before you know it, they’re stuck on the surface of the planet with no way to get back to safety. Ay-yay-yay, what next?

    Well, what’s next is the bulk of the novel, a grand-scale rescue attempt involving treks over vast distances, fancy orbital mechanics, abandoned equipment from a disastrous mission decades earlier, tantalizing alien mysteries and a nick-of-time conclusion. McDevitt is too much of a professional to simply write a smash’em-up brawl, and so his heroes have to rely on their cleverness and toughness far more than their strength or aggressiveness. Running against them: corporate greed, human faults and simple incompetence. Whew!

    As a straight-up action/adventure SF, Deepsix is maybe a touch too long, but it certainly fits the bill. The thrills are there and the delicious balance between hope and doom is effectively maintained. Characterization is initially shaky, but all characters come to emerge effectively —even the ones that may not be overly likable at first. Then there’s the writing; like most other aspects of the book, it takes a while to engage, but eventually develops its own nice little cruising speed. There’s no need to be fancy when writing a book of this nature, and so Deepsix flows unimpeded.

    The problems arise when trying to consider Deepsix as anything more than a Science Fiction adventure. While there are enough interesting details, here and there, to set this story in a believable future, there isn’t much that’s startlingly new or original. The Engines of God could rely on a staggering concept, but Deepsix is merely an adventure. I suppose that most readers will be satisfied, but as far as the state of the art goes, this isn’t it.

    But I don’t think it’s a serious problem for McDevitt. He’s written other fine adventures before (See Moonfall for his version of a catastrophe movie) and other more ambitious novels as well. This one happens to fall in the first category and not the second. I’ll be there for his next books, but hoping that they’ll be more similar to his other novels than the merely adequate Deepsix.