From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 01:44:11 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.intercon.com!udel!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: zgilbert@titan.ucs.umass.edu (Zvi Gilbert) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review of Steven Gould's JUMPER [Minor Spoilers] Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <199402212342.SAA20194@titan.ucs.umass.edu> Date: 22 Feb 94 23:12:32 GMT Lines: 86 Steven Gould's _Jumper_ is a good book for a teen or pre-teen who is all full of adolescence. The premise is a standard wish fulfilment (what if you really could teleport!), it's written in first person so there is maximum identification with the lead, Davy (male, seventeen, white, middle-class, shy, bookish... sound familiar?), and Gould attempts to make the whole thing take place in a world that's recognizably close to our own. At the end, after a series of difficult experiences, Davy gets the girl, gets revenge, and is setting out on his future. I don't mean to be perjorative about calling it a teen book; I genuinely would have enjoyed the book when I was younger, and I did now... mostly. That said, I think the book has some serious problems, and the amount of positive press that it has garnered (judging from the back cover and inside reviews from IASFM, New York Times Book Review, Orson Scott Card, F&SF, etc.) seems way out of proportion to what the book actually is. Accordingly, here's my perspective on the flaws of _Jumper_. MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD ^L The major structural flaw of the novel involves the remarkably unlikely event on which the entire second half of the novel turns, which starts Davy's crusade against terrorism. Not only does accepting it require a suspension of belief that I feel is beyond what we should be expected to contemplate, especially in a novel that strives for as realistic a texture as this one, it is also in the wrong place, structurally, and doesn't have near the emotional impact that it should. I won't say more for fear of spoiling the plot device, but it's too much to swallow. Second, early on in the novel, Davy robs a bank in order to get money. With his abilities, it's easy, but everyone accepts his endless supply of cash, and doesn't question very hard why a teenager should have so much money and nothing to do. The fact that no-one-- not even his relatives or girlfriend-- pursues Davy when he fobs everyone off with lame excuses is hard to accept. Third, the reactions of the US government when faced with someone who can teleport are ridiculous. They fight and fight to capture him, and then, quite suddenly, give up. I don't believe in the benevolence of the US government towards someone who is so obviously a threat to world stability; note a similar situation in Ken Grimwood's _Replay_ for a much more believable view of what governments might do when faced with paranormals. This novel is quite obviously a nineties novel: every major character is in therapy or a twelve-step program, and the solution to the major emotional crisis of the entire book (Davy's relationship to his abusive, alcoholic father) involves more therapy and more twelve-step programs... I'm as much a proponent of the positive benefits of therapy as anyone, but its so pervasive that it's annoying. Are there other ways of dealing with difficult emotional situations that don't involve such expensive and middle-class machinations? Finally, I don't think the novel is really science fiction. The pseudo-science justifications for Davy's ability to teleport are pretty lame and don't have the ring of good technobabble that, say, Larry Niven has. What the novel is, is a better written and more realistic version of the Chris Claremont X-Men comic book: teenager coming to terms with paranormal abilities. Though the term is not used in _Jumpers_, Davy is a superhero, and everything that he does in the novel entirely fits with that stereotype: his crusade against terrorism (caused by the death of a relative), his paranormal science-fantasy powers; hell, he even calls his retreat the Fortress of Solitude. I wonder why all these reviewers liked this novel as much as they did. I suspect that it, like Allen Steele's books which also were praised excessively, harkens back to the 50s sf that many are nostalgic about, where everything messy or difficult has a neat solution (for Heinlein, it tended to be hard work on a farm or the millitary; for Gould it's therapy); where a young man with exceptional powers-- mental and paranormal-- triumphs over a difficult situation. Looked at from this perspective, _Jumpers_ resembles Heinlein's _Citizen of the Galaxy_, albeit with less invention, more romance, and a more realistic frame. The teen in me liked it (I also liked my X-Men back then), but it's a first novel, and the structural and conceptual problems detract from easy enjoyment of the wish-fulfillment. --Zvi zgilbert@titan.ucs.umass.edu %A Steven Gould %T Jumper %D Copyright 1992; first mass market edition October 1993 %I A Tor Book, published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., NY %G ISBN: 0-812-52237-0 %O paperback, $4.99 ($5.99 Canada) %P 345 pp. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Apr 3 16:48:23 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!nntp.coast.net!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: schulman+@pitt.edu (Christina Schulman, A.S.B.R.) Subject: _Wildside_ by Steven Gould Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Christina Schulman Lines: 61 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Reply-To: schulman+@pitt.edu Organization: St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 22:04:09 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 68 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:920 rec.arts.sf.written:141752 _Wildside_ by Steven Gould Review copyright 1996 Christina Schulman Charlie Newell has his own private earth, untouched by humans. On the other side of the hidden door in his dead uncle's Texas ranch, the bison still roam, as do mastodon and sabretooth tigers and bears (oh my). With the help of four newly-graduated high school friends, Charlie plans to use the gate to become very, very rich, and he traps and sells twenty passenger pigeons at extortionate prices to fund his scheme. The sudden appearance of extinct birds doesn't go unnoticed, however, and while Charlie and his friends are hauling and hammering and flying and skydiving and camping on the other side of the gate, the Feds are tracking them down. The relationships among the main characters resemble a soap opera at times, but I suppose that's inevitable when you cram five teenagers and their hormones into close quarters, and _Wildside_ is mercifully free of the armchair psychoanalysis that irritated me in Gould's first novel, _Jumper_. Gould also refrains from environmentalist chest-beating, to my happy surprise. The characters are constantly jumping into and out of small airplanes, and there's a tremendous amount of detail about flying, from the preflight checklist to putting the plane away and cleaning off the bugs. My eyes glazed over whenever I hit another passage of pilot jargon, but much of the detail is important to the story, and it does add a degree of plausibility. For most of the the book, _Wildside_ is an absorbing adventure story, with a minimum of attention paid to the science fiction aspects. Events move rapidly enough that my suspension of disbelief only had time for the occasional twinge at the idea of a handful of 18-year-olds turning into steely-eyed Frontier Commandos. The "how" and "why" of the alternate earth don't come to the fore until the kids are embroiled in a battle to keep the gate out of the hands of the Evil Government Boogeymen. The "why" is wildly implausible, but the story is so much fun that I don't care. I enjoyed _Wildside_ immensely. If you're looking for something fun but not particularly deep, I recommend it highly. And if you haven't read _Jumper_, I recommend that too. Want power in another universe? Use an extension cord. Want water? Run a hose. Okay, so I had to send Rick into town to buy enough heavy duty extension cord and industrial water hose to reach, but it worked. I had my doubts. First time I drove the tractor into the tunnel, to see if it would fit, I'd expected it to stop working halfway down the tunnel. After all, if it's a different universe, who says it has to have the same laws? I think I've read too much science fiction. %A Steven Gould %T Wildside %I Tor %C New York %D April 1996 %G ISBN 0-312-85473-0 %P 316 pp. %O hardback, US $22.95, Canada $33.95 Christina Schulman http://www.pitt.edu/~schulman schulman+@pitt.edu "Ah, publication! The magical process by which amateur writers are transmogrified into amateurish writers." -- SubG -- --Alan Wexelblat O- MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group finger(1) for PGP Key Voice: 617-253-9833, Pager: 617-945-1842 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "When you can't say 'fuck,' you can't say 'fuck the government'" - Lenny Bruce From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Feb 19 15:10:53 2001 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!surfnet.nl!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: grahams@u.washington.edu (Stephen Graham) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Blind Waves by Steven Gould Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Date: 17 Feb 2001 14:35:57 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Lines: 51 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: 982438558 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu 8798 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2827 Blind Waves, Steven Gould Review Copyright 2001 Stephen Graham Steven Gould turns to a more conventional plot with his fourth novel, Blind Waves. In the mid-21st century, the Antarctic ice has melted due to volcanic eruptions, raising the level of the oceans 30 meters. In this semi-inundated world, Patricia Beenan, wealthy daughter of a congresswoman, runs an undersea salvage and exploration firm out of the floating city of New Galveston. In the midst of a routine salvage operation for Amoco, Beenan finds the recent hulk of the Blind Lotus, complete with chained corpses in the hold and evidence that the US Immigration and Naturalization Service may have sunk it. While fleeing from an INS patrol ship, Beenan broadcasts her video record of the hulk and its contents. This brings Commander Thomas Becket of the INS Criminal Investigation Division onto the scene. Amidst a flurry of quotes from Shakespeare, a cat and mouse game ensues between the criminals and Beenan and Becket. Gould continues to write tautly, vividly conveying the characters and scenes to the reader with a firm command of the language. Blind Waves also shows his command of the genre idioms without descending into cliche, as far too many SF authors do. However, the novel lacks the sheer degree of inventiveness displayed in his earlier work, particularly Jumper and Wildside. The book is also flawed by the romance between Beenan and Becket. While Gould states in his afterword that he intended to create a pairing similar to that of Dorothy Sayer's Lord and Lady Wimsey, the pace of the romance feels rushed and detracts from the strength of the plot. Had Gould shown the developing attraction engendered by close cooperation and a common threat to their lives, I would have been more satisfied. The relationship's growth might have formed an underpinning to a continuing series of novels in this setting. Gould remains one of the more interesting authors working in speculative fiction. Blind Waves is a well-written and plotted novel. I would enjoy a series that stems from this work. Whether or not that happens, I will continue to look forward to Gould's next novel. %T Blind Waves %A Steven Gould %C New York %D 2001 %I Tor Books %O paperback, $6.99 %G ISBN 0-81257-1096 %P 352pp graham@jetcity.com