From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 21 11:22:41 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.kth.se!nac.no!telepost.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!news.sprintlink.net!noc.netcom.net!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Subject: Heavy Weather and Crashcourse (REPOST) To: sf-reviews@presto.ig.com Message-ID: <9504051703.AA00573-repost@media.mit.edu> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@netcom6.netcom.com X-Now-Playing: Nothing Organization: The Internet X-Dj-In-The-House: Wex Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 21:11:40 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 168 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) From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 14:24:42 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: lilith@dorsai.org (Lilith) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Crashcourse - Wilhelmina Baird Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 09 Apr 1998 14:02:38 -0400 Organization: The Dorsai Embassy Lines: 36 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1852 Crashcourse by Wilhelmina Baird Review Copyright 1998 althea Crashcourse is cyberpunk written specifically for fans of William Gibson. It goes without saying that it's not nearly as good as Gibson, but as far as the genre goes, it's not bad, either. We start out with an odd trio: Cass, a cat burglar, Dosh, a tranvestite prostitute, and Moke, a struggling sculptor. Cass is in love with Dosh, Dosh is in love with Moke, and Cass thinks Moke only loves his art. The three are Umps. (I think it's supposed to be an abbreviation of "unemployed.") However, they're striving to get enough money together to get off-planet and seek a better life. However, Dosh seems to be really losing it... strung out on drugs, and in danger from his clients. The three are about ready to do something desperate, when Dosh comes up with a half-witted idea: The three of them should sign a contract to be actors in a movie. This is half-witted because, in this future, unimportant people in movies tend to get killed off during filming - for real. This is about where the book's problems begin. The plot requires the characters to be DUMB. Sorry, but not even for my dearest friend would I sign such a suicidal contract. But, for Dosh and his naive dreams of stardom, his friends do. Then, for quite a while, they bumble around going "duh," refusing to get a clue even about some of the most obvious things. The action is entertaining, but having to yell, "Come on, you can't be THAT clueless!" at the characters is a bit distracting. -althea %T Crashcourse %A Wilhelmina Baird %I Ace %D 1993 %P 277 p.