Subject: Heavy Weather and Crashcourse (REPOST)

From: [email-masked] (Alan Wexelblat)
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 21:11:40 GMT

Something Old, Something New.  Two authors and one bookstore reviewed.

		      Heavy Weather
		      by Bruce Sterling

		      Crashcourse
		      by Wilhelmina Baird
		Reviews Copyright (c) 1995 Alan Wexelblat

It's a measure of how hellishly busy my life has become that a Bruce
Sterling book could sit on my shelf for this many months before I would set
aside time to read it.  Of course, I did want to finish "Stories from the
Nerve Bible" first, but that's another review.  Anyway, I took it on a plane
flight to Denver with me and immediately devoured it.

I had heard Sterling read the opening chapter at ArmadilloCon and early
scanned the description of Alex's painful and bizarre treatments at a
21st-century south-of-the-border _clinica_.  There's something about hearing
Sterling's voice as you read that really powers along a twisted scene from a
book like this.  Unfortunately, much of the book doesn't live up to the
opening promise.  It's not a bad book by any means, but it's disappointing
to me and I'll try to share why.  Unfortunately I can't do it without
talking about the ending; if you want to avoid it entirely skip down to the
Baird review below.

First off, the novel's structure is fairly close to Sterling's previous solo
novel "Islands in the Net."  Once again, much of the story is told through
the eyes of a woman, in this case Alex's sister, Jane/Juanita.  Jane
snatches Alex from the clinica and takes him along with her band of post-
apocalypic crazies, the Storm Troupe.  These Troupers, led by Dr Jerry
Mulcahey, are tornado-chasers.  In Sterling's future, global warming has
kicked up the heat cycle of the atmosphere, and Texas' famous Tornado Alley
is spawning dozens of killer twisters that are shredding the state and
Oklahoma as well.

[As I write this, Boston is in the grip of 22 degree temperatures and 45 mph
winds -- during the first week of April!  Never let it be said Sterling
doesn't do his science homework.  Yesterday's sudden lightning storm was a
vivid reminder of what I had read.]

Mulcahey, however, has predicted something even heavier in the air -- a
tornado of magnitude F6.  Something of roughly the proportional magnitude
maintains the red spot on Jupiter; an F6 might well be a permanent feature
of the Earth's atmosphere and might do untold damage.  Sterling's post-
slacker Troupers know they can't do a damn thing about how screwed up the
weather is, but they're determined to at least document it.

Unlike the rest of the Troupe, Alex doesn't believe in Jerry's mathematical
mania, but he is drawn to the peace and serenity of the Troupe as a place to
live out his last days.  Then there's the mystery of Jerry's older brother,
who is clearly some kind of major spook, and who is starting to take a
perhaps-unhealthy interest in the Troupe's activities.

[Warning: *Major* Spoilers follow!]

With all this setup, with this interesting premise, and these well-drawn
characters I expected Sterling to do a lot.  But the book doesn't deliver,
really.  We get to see a lot of how the Troupers live and interact and the
effect that they have on Juanita and Alex (and vice versa).  We get to see
the F6 arrive and what happens.  And then it's all over and everyone goes
home.

Literally home in some cases.  Jane becomes a mother, marries Jerry who goes
to teach at UT Austin, and they move into a place that, if I'm not mistaken,
is exactly the Sterling household in Austin.  It's boring.  Alex ends up in
a conventional relationship with someone he's met on the net (how 90s!) in a
support group.

I wanted more.  I wanted blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth.  I
wanted, in Sterling's own phrase, prose that "dances on the tabletops."  And
it's not here.  Sterling no longer seems willing to push the envelope; he
has grown up and his life and writing are now grounded in a reality that
won't go away.  This doesn't make him a bad writer -- in many ways his prose
and plotting are more under control and readable now than ever.  But it does
mean I have to adjust what I expect from a Sterling book.

[*end* of spoilers]


Having finished the Sterling book too soon, I needed new material for the
second leg of my trip, this one to CA.  I stopped in the Tattered Cover,
Denver's fine bookstore.  I have to say that I'm very impressed with this
place.  Their policy of charging full cover for everything stopped me from
buying a lot, but I was really impressed by their selection.

>From an SF/Fantasy reader's point of view, they really have their act
together: the selection is huge, they separate out all the spinoff series
from the real books and they make a real effort to keep stock of relevant
earlier works.  Nothing is more frustrating than to pick up an interesting
new book and see "Sequel to XXX" on it when XXX is nowhere to be found on
the shelves.  They also keep relevant back works in good supply, such as
all of Brust's Dragaeran novels and all of Bujold's Vorkosigan books.

The Tattered Cover stocks many different authors, not just the "names."
They mark new arrivals on the shelves and have little tags for Hugo, Nebula
and World Fantasy award nominees as well as posted lists of Novel category
winners for the past 20 years.  I quickly scanned their Horror section and
though I'm not enough of a horror fan to judge it seemed like they had it
similarly well-organized.

I'll be back in Denver in early May and plan to stop in again; if you live
near there or are passing through you should plan to do the same.  Now if we
can just talk them into something like a 10%-off-cover policy...

Anyway, I was browsing their shelves when I came across a new book by
Wilhelmina Baird.  The author's name was vaguely familiar, so I picked it up
and immediately saw that it was some kind of sequel to an earlier work.  To
my delight the earlier book, "Crashcourse," was right there.  In addition,
"Crashcourse" has blurbs by both William Gibson and Pat Cadigan.  So I
bought it.

Buying a book based on who blurbs it is probably a fool's proposition, but
given how much I trust Cadigan I figured it was worth a $5 gamble.  And it
certainly paid off.

Baird's prose does indeed "kick butt."  Her future is not per se cyberpunk,
but it has that edge of street struggle, petty-criminal heros, high-tech
techno-wizardry, and bad-ass combat action you expect from the genre.  One
difference, which I liked, was that the computer tech doesn't centrally
feature in the characters' lives.  It's there, but it's part of the
background, out of sight until you think about it.  I feel this is very much
the way we're headed now and I like stories which can incorporate high tech
without necessarily being *about* high tech.

"Crashcourse" is about two things, really.  The first is the surface story
of three street survivors who are caught up in the promise of glamor offered
by the chance to 'act' in a movie.  Except that this movie is a sick blend
of COPS-style real-life action and RUNNING MAN-style gladatorial spectacle
writ large.  If you're an actor you don't know the script and you are more
likely than not to end up really and truly dead for the entertainment of the
eventual audience which gets off on vicariously living the 'real lives' of
the street people.

The second thing, and what for me sets this author apart, is that the book
is also about a love quandrangle.  The trio of Cass, Moke and Dosh are
obvious; Baird sets up a standard trio situation where each of them is in
love with someone who doesn't requite the feeling.  The fourth, though, is a
real surprise and since that character is key to the plot I'm just going to
let you figure it out for yourself.

The story is written from Cass' point of view and she's a good solid female
lead.  Baird doesn't slight her male characters, though; they have depth and
complexity as well.  Some of the secondaries are pretty stereotypical,
unfortunately, but since they're not on-stage too much it didn't bother me
too much.

The story moves along quickly, not least because the movie company wants
action aplenty in its flicks.  Baird has some first-novel stutters and
spends too much time explaining her world, but that's understandable.  This
books doesn't dance on the tabletops, but it sure sweeps aside the cups and
plates.  I'm looking forward to the next one.

%A Sterling, Bruce 
%T Heavy Weather
%I Spectra/Bantam
%C New York
%D 1994
%G ISBN 0-553-09393-2
%O $21.95 (US)

%A Baird, Wilhelmina 
%T Crashcourse
%I Ace SF paperback
%C New York
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-441-12163-2
%O $4.99 (US)