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Friday, February 24, 2006Neuromancer
By William Gibson. Copyright 2005 (reprint), Avon Publishing.
Neuromancer represents a whole host of things for me, and I'll start off with the negative. This is nothing negative about the book, mind you, but rather about myself. I read Neuromancer. I read it enthusiastically, devoured every word , and fell in love not so much with the story, which was good, but with William Gibson's razor-sharp acumen with the written word, with his style, and above all, with his ability to articulately describe sensations and scenes in ways no one had ever thought of, and yet made absolute and perfect sense and conveyed exactly certain feelings and visions that could not, it would seem, ever have been described any other way. At least not effectively. And yet, despite my unbridled passion for the book, when I started talking about it to someone a few months ago during one of those late-night sessions where conversation devolves into fuzzy reminiscence about setting motherboard jumpers and using VAX terminals, I discovered that all I had were vague impressions. Besides the names of a couple characters and a thing about spacefarin' Rastafarians, I remembered absolutely nothing about the book. This came as something of a shock to me, because normally I have a pretty acutely tuned memory. At some point, however, a huge chunk of it simply slid out the side of my head one night while I was asleep, leaving behind nothing but vague impressions regarding style, Rastas, and the opening sentence, "The sky was the color of a television tuned to dead space," which for some reason struck me as the single most effective description of a dirty, silver, overcast sky ever written. But everything else was gone, and upon further examination of the holes in my mind, I realized as little as I remembered about one of my favorite books, I remembered absolutely nothing about the sequel, Count Zero, and only a single bit from Mona Lisa Overdrive, something about a guy living in some rustbelt warehouse building huge Survival Research Laboratories style robots. With Gibson's later books -- Virtual Light forward -- my memory was a little better, but still incredibly spotty, and I began to reflect on how much there was in my life that I'd read or watched but failed to remember, or simply let slip through the cracks in my mind to become lot somewhere amid the winding crevasses of twisted synaptic gaps. I came to realize that there was a whole body or work -- consisting largely of Gibson, but also including Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, and Robert Anton Wilson, among others -- whose works were of great importance and value to me, whose books became huge influences on me both as a person and as a writer, and whose stories I could not remember in the slightest. There is a psychological research paper there, I suppose, but not one I'm qualified to write. I read each of these authors at what I reckon to be an extremely impressionable period in a person's life -- that first year of college, first year away from home, first year living on my own, and first year exposed to a vast wellspring of new concepts and ideas that I'd never heard of nor indeed even had the capacity to know they existed. No matter who you are and where you're from, no matter how savvy you think yourself, there is always a next step, another plane in which everything you thought you knew is stripped away and you see a sprawling new horizon unfold itself before you. This is the progression offered to us through life, the eternal process of building oneself up only to find yourself at the very beginning. If it doesn't happen, then it's only because we've stopped moving forward, lost our passion for personal growth and evolution and learning. At that moment, for a person like me, life ceases and mundane existence takes over. There is no point to that. Not for me, anyway, and I would never disparage a person who seeks the comfort and stability of attaining a certain position, physically and mentally, and decided they are happy there. But for me, contentment is in always taking the next step out into the darkness, even if it means I go through prolonged periods of self-destruction and rebirth. Anyway, my point is that at times like this, one discovers a wealth of new ideas and resources, and I think that because of the state of flux one is in, with one identity being burned away while a new one is formed and grafted onto the remnants of the previous self that have remained, the things you experience become less a collection of detailed memories and recollections, and more a sort of gestalt movement. A collection of revelations and changes that meld into a single life-altering mass that continues to exert itself, but whose individual parts become blended and half-remembered at best. It becomes the overall experience, more than the individual bits; the sum rather than the parts, that forms the basis of our opinion and memory of these things. So laboring under this revelation, which may be a bit sad and pathetic as far as revelations go, I decided at the beginning of this year to spend the bulk of it not reading new material, but going back and revisiting these books that consistently appear on my "best books I ever read" list, and about which I remember practically nothing beyond a sort of overarching sensation. Neuromancer, for example, became less a book for me and more a symbol of a particular time and moment. When I would think of the book, I wouldn't think of the book itself. I would think, instead, of the moments that surrounded the time I read it. I would -- and still do -- think of beat-up 286 machines ripped open with their circuitry guts and ribbonlike connectors spraying out across a ratty carpet and tile floor like the innards of a man just sliced in two by a samurai sword. I think of the smell of ozone and fiddling with 300 baud modems used to access the EFF's ftp archive of old issues of Phrack magazine. I think in green or amber letters on a blank black background. I think of long nights spent up with friends struggling to make the various components of a computer work in unison without triggering address conflicts. I think of sending e-mail over Fidonet, of packets that would go out at the end of a week rather than instantly. And I think of listening to Front 242, watching Akira, and jacking myself up mercilessly on caffeine and God knows what else, not sleeping for days on end, building pipe bombs and other weapons not because we wanted to harm anyone, but simply because we wanted to know how to make them and prove to ourselves that we could do it. Somewhere lost in all that dangling, ripped-out circuitry and over-stimulated, jittery insanity was Neuromancer. I don't know if it's a forgotten book at this point, but I don't think it is, at least not as long as people like me who came of age in that deafening sonic boom of computing in the late eighties, early nineties are still around to write articles and constantly conjure the specter of Neuromancer. I don't now if "the kids these days" have read it, but even if people maybe don't know the story, they certainly still know the name. It is, I suppose, one of those legendary, benchmark titles, like Akira was to anime, or Enter the Dragon was to the kungfu film. They were the pioneers, the door openers, the trend-starters. You can debate the merits of the individual works, but their influence on other works is not a question of opinion. Those are easily established and proven facts. Think whatever you will about Akira, but it's the movie that opened the floodgate for anime in the United States beyond the occasional dubbed TV shows of the 1970s. It's impact on the landscape of U.S. popular culture is undeniable, and damn near every modern anime fanclub, every blog about Japanese pop culture, every Japanese film or series on American shelves not prefaced by "An Akira Kurosawa Film," can trace its birth back to the moment Akira was released to American theaters. Likewise, Neuromancer occupies a throne alongside its anime contemporary as the birthplace of what would become known as the cyberpunk movement. Of course, that doesn't mean it was "the first." Debates about "the first" are sometimes fun but always futile, because definitions of what does or does not fall into a certain genre are so fluid based on a person's personal interpretations. Cyberpunk literature could have started with Gibson; it could have started with J.G. Ballard or Phillip K. Dick. Or hell, it could have been pioneered by pulp writers whose names have been lost or were never known. But Neuromancer represents the moment the nascent movement -- or style, if you prefer not to be so grandiose -- gelled. It's the moment that cyberpunk broke the surface and entered the public consciousness. It's the book that gave us the term cyberspace, that channeled the rebel energy and insanity of the birth of the personal computer into a story that was both sweeping and epic yet intimate and confined. It was equal parts science fiction novel, action adventure, and 1970s yakuza movie. Famously written by an author who had never touched a computer and banged the whole thing out on a manual typewriter, it never the less predicted and itself became a self-fulfilling prophecy of the near future. Melodramatic space opera and pulp adventure were thrilling, but here was a book so firmly rooted in a layman's impression of technology and the direction of the future that we could all earnestly believe that the future had a pretty decent chance of turning out this way. Of course, in hindsight people have commented on how time and technology have passed Neuromancer behind, dated it somewhat and made it appear quaint in some respects. I was excited in rereading the novel not just to reacquaint myself with the story, but also to assess whether or not these claims were made based on the studied reality o the situation, or whether they simply had the ring of smart-sounding talking points issued by people who had gotten it all wrong. We'll come to that in good time, but I'll summarize here by saying that, despite some missteps here and there (mostly on technical aspects that have very little bearing on the overall vision of the future), Neuromancer has weathered the past twenty-plus years remarkably -- perhaps frighteningly -- well. Since one of my goals was to remind myself exactly what the book's plot was, it wouldn't do for me to gloss over it entirely here, even though I do my best not to engage in overly verbose plot synopsis. If nothing else, it will serve as a basic set of Cliff Notes in case I forget everything all over again in my advanced age. Case is a young console cowboy, a hotshot computer cracker who has found himself down on his luck on the streets of Chiba prefecture, Japan, after crossing some gangsters during a job who, as a form of retribution, fried the parts of Case's brain that made him exceptionally adept as a cowboy. Neuromancer is set in a world where computer interface, at least on an advanced level, takes place in a virtual reality construct -- a tired and overused idea now, often applied gratuitously to situations where it makes no sense (think virtual Michael Douglas virtually flipping through virtual office file cabinets before virtual Demi Moore virtually attacks him), but a fairly new and intriguing idea at the time. Stripped of his ability to navigate this cybernetic ether, Case has taken to drugs and peddling bits of black market tech, managing to eek out an existence in a Japanese pod-hotel with his sometimes-girlfriend. All things seem to be directing him down the path of self-destruction, and he's not much interested in altering the course. The course is altered for him, however, when cybernetically-enhanced female assassin Molly approaches him with a job offer from mysterious businessman Armitage, who says that, among the form of payments Case will receive, will be the seemingly-impossible repair of his nervous system to once again allow him to "jack in" to the matrix and reclaim the impressive level of proficiency he once possessed. Seeing no better opportunity, but keen to have his head repaired, Case decides to take the job, even though he isn't sure what the job actually is. Things get weird pretty quickly. Their first step is to steal a construct -- the downloaded skillset of the same man who trained Case to be a console cowboy, now dead but with parts of his relevant memory stored in a ROM module. With the construct to assist him, Case eventually begins to unwind the enigma surrounding the job, learning along the way that Molly doesn't know any more than he does, and indeed that Armitage himself isn't the man in charge and seems largely in the dark as to the actual point of the series of tasks they must complete. Case learns that an artificial intelligence system is actually calling the shots and pulling the strings. AIs are strictly governed by an organization called the Turing Police, but this particular AI -- called Wintermute and ostensibly owned by a crackpot multi-billoinaire industrialist family named the Tessier-Ashpools -- has decided that it no longer wants to operate within the oppressive confines of the Turing regulations, and so is seeking to interface with a second Tessier-Ashpool AI, about which everyone knows almost nothing. Even Wintermute doesn't know exactly what will happen when the two separate AIs join together, and it needs Case, Molly, and a mutant con man named Riviera to help it pull off the scheme. Oh, and a couple Rastafarians who live in a clunky old space station dubbed Zion. Gibson's plot is serviceable, leaving a number of questions obliquely answered at best, or not answered at all, but the plot is really just a rack upon which Gibson can hang his wild (at the time) vision of the near-future and flex his astounding (especially for a first-time novelist) skill with prose. It's not a triumph of style over substance -- there is plenty of substance here that makes Neuromancer a classic example of speculative fiction, not just sci-fi -- but rather, an example of style and substance being equally important, two halves that are seamlessly brought together to create what was, and remains, an entirely fresh way of telling a story. The Wintermute (tech, or plot) and Neuromancer (personality, or style) AIs coming together, if you will. Gibson's gift for description remains unparalleled. Every smell, every sight, comes through crystal clear, describe din a way you never would have thought of, but once you hear it makes perfect sense. His ability to paint a picture of a world choked in a tangled mess of technologies is astounding. Old, archaic machines and chaotic systems intermingle with sleek, organized modern systems in a world where information technology has been integrated into nearly every aspect of life. At points, it's eerie just how much of Neuromancer is still applicable to the modern situation. Part of this would be because, aside from simply being a top notch science fiction novel, Neuromancer became a template for the future, adopted by the Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley geeks and visionaries who would use its vision of the future as a blueprint for the future they were building. As such, Neuromancer doesn't exactly predict the future as much as it does shape it. Technical specs may be inaccurate, but RAM configurations and monitor types seem far less important against the greater backdrop, which remains highly relevant and, despite what some may say, not the least bit "left behind" by the advance of the real world. If some of the revolutionary ideas in Neuromancer seem commonplace, it's only because people looked at Neuromancer as a way to do these things. We haven't passed Neuromancer by; we've simply become it, more and more, with each passing day, because it is our guide. The entire idea of the net wasn't new; ARPANet had been around for years when Neuromancer was published. But the idea of a global computer network in which not dozens, but millions of people met, wasted time, and conducted business was fresh. And that these people were not just computer hackers, technicians, and businessmen, but normal everyday people doing normal, everyday things, is an idea that has helped shaped the online world from a series of remotely connected terminals at universities and government computing centers to the World Wide Web we know today. Much of the terminology -- jacking in, matrix, cyberspace -- used in Neuromancer was adopted by the real-world. It seems at first somewhat fantastical that an author who had never touched a computer could so accurately establish the philosophical blueprint under which so many people would operate. But first of all, Gibson may not have ever used a computer, but he was by no means writing in a void. The 70s and 80s created a monumental body of essays and books on computers and the role of technology -- not just technical manuals, but philosophical musings, diatribes, treatises, manifestos, and so on, in which both tech-savvy programmers, wide-eyed visionaries, and curious laymen exchanged ideas and opinions. What Gibson was able to do, one assumes, is explore these many realms of thought and forge them into a cohesive, at least within the terms of a work of fiction, vision of the future. Second, and perhaps more importantly, Gibson's lack of hardwired computer knowledge is exactly why he was able to write so much of what he did. Someone who knows a lot about computers is going to be hamstrung, whether they realize it or not, by their knowledge, and more specifically, by their knowledge of what is and is not possible given the current limitations and realities of technology. In short, if given what you know, something can't be done, then there's a good chance you're not gong to write it. What this doesn't take into account is that advances in technology often yield startling results, and things that were once thought to be impossible become commonplace. A good science fiction writer, in my opinion, knows just enough to make him dangerous. He has the gist of things, more or less, but is unfettered by an intricate and detailed knowledge that would make him second-guess some of the wilder concepts that can make for a good story. Free from detailed computer experience, William Gibson is able to make up a whole host of crazy ideas. And once again, many of them became reality, even though they seemed far-fetched at the time. Now if we could just replace those Russians on board the ISS with a couple Rastafarians playing King Tubby CDs. At the heart of Neuromancer is not just speculation on the eventual state of human-versus-technology affairs. The root theme is far more organic and basic: in short, it's a book about freedom. Freedom finds several representations in the book, and many initial examples of freedom are soon subjugated and revealed to be nothing more than tethers in disguise. Case would seem to be living a free, devil-may-care existence when we meet him, self-destructive but free never the less. We quickly learn this is not the case. His strings are pulled by buyers, sellers, pretty much anyone that wants to use him. The businessman Armitage would also seem to be free, dreaming up some nefarious scheme that showcases a complete disregard for authority. But he, too, is simply a puppet. Even Wintermute, the AI behind it all, is a prisoner motivated primarily by a desire to be free. It doesn't know what the consequences or responsibilities of that freedom will be, and it doesn't matter. Freedom is worth enduring ambiguity and hardship. Above the AI is the Tessier-Ashpool industrial clan, and once again when we see them we see a group of people who, despite their wealth and despite their power, and no more free than the AI (and though it's tangential and coincidental, I always like that "ai" was the Chinese word for love) they keep chained like an insane relative in a castle tower. They are victims of their own web, cocooned and so far gone that they have lost touch with reality. If anyone in the story is remotely free, it's the denizens of Zion, the orbiting Rastafarians who smoke pot, listen to dub, and don't get overly concerned about anything around them. But Neuromancer isn't a cautionary tale of how "we are all slaves to our technology." Technology I window dressing, but it is never the reason any of the people in the story lack freedom. In each person, it is something organic, something biological, something within themselves, that keeps them locked up. And in the end, even if you want to force a "technology enslaves us" theme onto the book, which I think would be wrong, you're still faced with the fact that there really isn't such thing as "technology," not as a sentient and separate entity. Technology is just an extension of humanity, and if it has enslaved us, it's only because we made it that way. Technology can represent the physical presence of a prison, but we're the ones who lock ourselves in. In the end, what freedom means for Wintermute/Neuromancer isn't clear, but a crystalline resolution or explanation isn't the point. It's the fight for, not the attainment of, freedom that is the key to this story. Revisiting Neuromancer was invigorating. It reminds me why I love to read, and perhaps more importantly, why I love to write. It's still as exciting, thought-provoking, and engrossing as it did when it was first published, and it goes a long way to stoke creative fires that may have burned down to forgotten embers. I'm pleased to finally meld remembrance of the details with my earlier impressionistic emotional reaction to the content. Books this strong are rare, and often things that seemed important when I was nineteen don't survive the test of time. For example, I considered Robert Anton Wilson's Historic Illuminatus Trilogy to be ground-breaking when I read it in college. Philosophically it still is, but upon rereading the first volume, I was struck by how clumsy and unengaging the writing style was. It often ceases being a novel in order to work its way through pages and pages of historical exposition. These bits of history and reflections on secret societies are undeniably interesting, but the way in which their presented just doesn't grab me, not like I thought it did fifteen or so years ago. Neuromancer, however, holds up to the test of time quite remarkably. Not only are the themes and ideas still relevant, but the style in which it is written remains vibrant and ensnaring. I'm sorely tempted to put Gibson up on that pedestal as one of the greatest, most poetic smiths of English language prose, right alongside Chandler, Faulkner, and Twain. Neuromancer is a pretty phenomenal book, though it's not may favorite Gibson (I seem to be in the minority in preferring his work from Dark Light on through the recent Pattern Recognition over his earlier works). And in the end, I'd have to say that guys like Neal Stephenson took the flag from Gibson and ran with it remarkably well. But there is, never the less, something seminal about Neuromancer, and something beautiful in watching all the disparate pieces of concept and style come together. Here's looking forward to Count Zero, because I remember even less about that book. Labels: Scifi posted by Keith at 2:37 PM | 4 Comments Tuesday, December 13, 2005Cryptonomicon
By Neal Stephenson. Copyright 2002 (reprint), Avon Publishing.
And this is why it's taken so long for me to dare attempt writing at any length about the book. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books. Although it clocks in at the thousand-page mark, the day I finished it, I immediately turned around and began rereading it, and I expect that will be come an annual event for me. Stephenson's story is so enthralling, the ideas it presents so interesting and challenging and worthy of contemplation, that there's really no way for me to stop reading the book. Even when I'm not physically going over the words on the page, there's some aspect of the book, some notion or idea or theory, some character or slice of action, that pops into my head on an almost daily basis. When something has gotten into my head on such a profound and affecting level, I tend to shy away from attempting to write about it, because nothing I could write in review would do justice to the subject matter. In such cases, I tend to go round and round with even less point and structure than usual, getting lost in my own thoughts, and failing to mention something I'd wanted to bring up before I got lost in the maelstrom of my own thought process. It's perhaps something that could be rectified if, you know, I instituted some sort of a policy against posting on-the-fly first drafts and then actually took the time to review and revise my own work. But that takes time and effort that I reserve for actual paying gigs, and while I don't want to shortchange Teleport City readers -- y'all are why I get professional writing jobs, after all -- the numerous typos and sentences that seem to loose track of themselves halfway through are definite testaments to the off-the-cuff gonzo style of writing that shows up on the site. At the same time, I occasionally stumble across something I like so much that I feel the need to throw it up for consideration on Teleport City regardless of the fact that I'm going to fail at conveying everything I want about the work. My belief that TC readers will enjoy the source work, or that it might be otherwise ignored by people I think would enjoy it immensely, takes precedence over my considerable lack of skill at executing a proper write-up. And there. I've just managed to turn my lack of professionalism and skill into a tear-jerking tale of altruism and the desire to "spread the truth." Maybe I'm better at this than I give myself credit for. Cryptonomicon is ostensibly two stories that weave in and out of one another. The first, and the one that kicks off the book, begins with the American withdrawal from Shanghai (itself a ripe topic for a month dedicated to espionage -- remind to get around to reviewing Secret War in Shanghai soon). U.S. Marine Bobby Shaftoe is in the middle of evacuating a bunch of high tech equipment he doesn't fully understand, though he grasps that it must play some role in espionage and intercepting Axis radio messages and bring him, eventually, to The Philippines during MacArthur's battle to reclaim the island from the Japanese. Also in this particular time is Lawrence Waterhouse, a mathematical and musical prodigy who seems at times almost unable to function in other aspects of life. His knack for numbers gets him into school, though, where he becomes acquainted with mathematicians (also students at this time) Alan Turing and Rudy Von Haklheber. When war breaks out, however, Turning returns to England while Rudy is called back to Germany. Lawrence joins the Navy, where he's written off as a near-retarded imbecile until his ability with math and codes is discovered, which gets him assigned to a top secret mission revolving around breaking Axis codes and then properly using the information in a way that won't tip the Germans off to the fact that their codes have been broken. Eventually, Waterhouse will come to assume that Rudy is on the other side of the war doing the exact same thing with American codes and information. The third big player in the World War II story is Japanese soldier Goto Dengo, an acquaintance of Shaftoe's when they were both stationed in Shanghai before the escalation of American-Japanese hostilities. Goto's odyssey propels him from Shanghai t a doomed ship, and finally to the jungles of the Philippine Islands and the ongoing battle between entrenched Japanese forces and Douglas MacArthur. Mixed with this story, which is full of World War II intrigue, codebreaking, and espionage, is the story of Randy Waterhouse, a computer programmer and hacker in the present day, grandson of Lawrence Waterhouse. This Waterhouse is involved with his friend, Avi, in a business scheme that sees them using the Philippines as a jumping off point to creating a high-tech, high-speed data haven. Seeking out a company that can lay deep sea fiber optic cable, Randy meets Vietnam vet Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe, who along with his daughter Amy, runs just such a service -- with a little treasure hunting thrown in for good measure. The Philippines is, so they say, still bristling with hidden caches of Japanese war plunder, some of it deep in the jungles, some of it sitting on the ocean floor. The project, however, attracts the ire of a host of big time players, including bored millionaires, underworld lowlifes, and an aging Japanese businessman named Goto Dengo. And then there's Enoch Root, who drifts between both stories with regularity, sort of like the Monolith in 2001, there to help nudge people in the right direction from time to time. So summarize the plot is an exercise in hopelessness. For the first five-hundred pages, you may not even know exactly what's going on, why things are happening, or how the two timelines are even connected. Taking five-hundred pages before your book even begins to hint at what the plot will turn out to be is risky, but Neal Stephenson has no problem pulling it off. For starters, the entire scenario is intriguing enough to keep you reading just so you can see what the hell is going on. The book shifts effortlessly from action-packed thriller (Bobby Shaftoe and Goto Dengo) to scientific mystery (Lawrence Waterhouse and Rudy Haklheber), then ties both tendencies together in the modern storyline (Randy Waterhouse and Doug and Amy Shaftoe). Through the eyes of Lawrence, Stephenson has a tendency to indulge in minutely complicated descriptions of certain mathematical and crytpological esoterica, but it's generally quite interesting and always anchored by the more adventurous forays of Bobby Shaftoe. But it's the characters who really keep the story afloat until the plot begins to clarify during the second five-hundred pages. Each one is expertly written and imminently likeable. It's easy to keep reading, because you want to see what happens to these people. Stephenson makes the reader emotionally invested in each of the primary players, and then uses the strength of these characters to build tension. When something good happens, you cheer. When something horrible happens, it's a downer. In the company of these people, Stephenson could have gone on weaving this story with no intention of ever resolving or concluding it, and I would have kept on reading for endless thousands of pages more. The most interesting puzzle the book presents for readers to think about -- and there is a tome's worth of material that could spark worthwhile consideration and discussion -- revolves around what to do with information once you have it. The mantra during the early days of the digital revolution was that "information is power," but what Cryptonomicon explores as one of its central themes is what to do once you have that power. The focal point of this exploration is the cracking of the German Enigma code device. The Germans were so confident of the Enigma that they relied on it heavily for coded communications during the war. The Allies had cracked it, but they were faced with a conundrum: how could they act on what they'd learned from decoded German communications, but not go so far that it would tip their hand and alert the Germans to the fact that their messages were being decoded. When did you act, and when did you refrain, knowing that you were trading the lives of soldiers and civilians in order to maintain the flow of information that could help you prevent the loss of soldiers and civilians? This is the task with which Lawrence Waterhouse finds himself faced, and the effort to create plausible illusions that explain how Allied Forces may have obtained information without revealing the breaking of the Enigma Machine is what sends Bobby Shaftoe on a globe-trotting series of espionage and military operations that make absolutely no sense to him and seem to have no point -- because he doesn't have the information Lawrence has, and he doesn't know why these military non-sequeters are being staged. There is, of course, plenty more than that in Stephenson's book, but that's a particularly interesting subject to me. Along the way, of course, there's the Turing Machine, Lawrence Waterhouse working to invent the first electronic computer in the basement of a Naval Intelligence installation in Australia, and the siege of the Philippines that provides the biggest link (besides familial relations) to the present-day storyline involving Randy, Doug, and Amy. Even at a thousand or so pages, Cryptonomicon is bursting at the seams with brilliant ideas and puzzles. It is, in short, a very easy book in which to find yourself lost, and once you're inside, there's little chance you're going to want to find your way back out any time soon. It's just too well-written, too smart, and too much fun. Although Stephenson's past work means this book is automatically placed in the "Science Fiction" section of the local bookstore, it's not exactly among its peers there. There's nothing outside the realm of reality here, and the book these characters inhabit is very believably our own, past and present. I don't know whether that's a turn-off to people who only read sci-fi novels -- I assume them to be a more open-minded population of readers, but sometimes I am mistaken. Cryptonomicon is probably more solidly a techno-thriller, or an espionage potboiler. Or a dramatization of the world of computing and information technology during World War II. Or any dozen of other genres. I guess putting it in Sci-Fi is as good a place as any, since his other books are there, but I personally consider it very much an espionage book -- a much smarter, more technical, and richer espionage book than, say, your average Nick Carter paperback, but a thriller never the less. And forget any review that says it's a must-read for hackers and computer geeks -- although these things certainly play key roles in the book, an intimate knowledge of them is hardly a prerequisite for enjoying this book. Stephenson himself seems healthy in his lack of concern over genre and classification. At a thousand pages, it has room to encompass multitudes. I only mention here so you'll know where to look if you go to buy it. I'm thinking I'm going to wrap this review up right now so I can go back and start reading the book yet again. Stephenson continues the threads started in this book -- those of the advance of commerce, information, and technology and how they define and change society -- in a massive three-volume set known as "The Baroque Cycle," which involves the 17th Century ancestors of characters from Cryptonomicon. I've finished the first book and am about halfway through the second, and while enjoyable, they don't match the pure, sublime joy I get from Cryptonomicon. But I'm not reviewing those right now -- I'm just mentioning them so you know you don't have to write and tell me about them. Labels: Scifi posted by Keith at 5:41 PM | 3 Comments Monday, November 28, 2005Assignment: Moon Girl By Edward S. Aarons. Copyright 1967, Fawcett Publishing.It's been a long, long time since I dug into another Sam Durell adventure from Edward S. Aarons, which mkes no sense at all, seeing as the first two I read (Assignment: Nuclear Nude and Assignment: Ankara) were spectacular. Well, high time to rectify that. Aarons' "Sam Durell" novels, about the adventures of operative Sam Durell, a.k.a. The Cajun, often get compared to and lumped in with the legion of James Bond imitators that came in the wake of Ian Fleming's success. I myself have no doubt done this, but that was because I wa sad and ignorant and shameful. After learning a little more about Aarons and the history of the Sam Durell books, it becomes evident that, despite the fact that Bond and Durell share a remarkable number of traits, it's unlikely that Fleming's books were much of -- if any -- influence on Aarons when he was writing his first Sam Durell novel, which came out in 1955, less than a year after the initial publication of Fleming's Casino Royale. Both Bond and Durell are expert gamblers. Both work for special "problem solving" departments in their respective organizations (MI6 for Bond, the CIA for Durell). Both have tough bosses behind big desks (something that would become a staple of just about all spy novels, good and bad). In terms of physical appearance, both men are described similarly. Durell is a little earthier, a little more rogh and tumble, while Bond is a little more refined and playboyish. It would seem that the one had to come from the other, but keep in mind that Aarons' first Durell novel (Assignment to Danger) came out well before Casino Royale and James Bond made any sort of impact. Fleming's stories weren't instant successes. It took a while for the Bond train to build steam, and while it's possible that Aarons read Casino Royale, it's just as likely that it was simply a case of two different men looking at the world and coming to a similar litarary conclusion. It's not nearly as rare or unlikely as it might sound, especially since both men were likely influenced by the same crop of noir writers from earlier decades. Aarons was definitely the more experienced writer of the two. Born in Philadelphia, 1916, he attended Columbia University, where he received a degree in history before serving as a chief pett officer int he Coast Guard during WWII (Fleming himself served in WWII in a similar homeland capacity for Naval Intelligence). Aarons also began a steady career as a writer for pulp magazines, including contributions to The Avenger and Angel Detective, collections of stories about a Saint-style character that were also adapted for comic format by Timely (later known as Marvel) Comics. Aarons worked frequently as a mystery writer throughout the 1940s, until publishing Assignment to Danger in 1955, which established the character of Sam Durell and the writer Edward Aarons as major forces in pulp action novels. By contrast, Casino Royale was the first novel for Ian Fleming. But the dice often roll in an unpredictable fashion, and while Fleming went on (deservedly so) to become one of the most popular espionage/action novel writers of all time, Aarons' stories -- which are generally just as or even more accomplished than Fleming's -- remained in the pulp/potboiler ghetto. It wasn't a bad place to be, all things considered, and Aarons managed to write some fifty titles featuring Sam Durell, but as with Donald Hamilton and Matt Helm, it's a shame that Aarons never acquired a following outside the pulp/genre cult following, because his books definitely deserve to be just as highly lauded and celebrated as Fleming's (while Donald Hamilton, at least in the 60s and 70s, deserves to stand above both of them, in my opinion). But it hasn't worked out that way. While Fleming enjoys continued mass popularity and recognition and gets his books reprinted in new editions from Vintage Books with dazzling, sexy covers, Edward S. Aarons remains all but forgotten save by a core of dedicated readers who keep holding out hope that some day he'll get the recognition he deserves. Assignment Moon Girl is a solid example of just how good the Sam Durell novels can be. When a beautiful Russian cosmonaut pops up in Iran, half out of her mind and babbling about having just returned from the moon, Durell is called in to join the race to find her. The Russians want her because she's half Russian, and her father is a significant player in the Russian bid for a moon landing. The Chinese want her because she is half Chinese and can potentially give them valuable information for their own space program. Certain rebel elements in Iran want her so she can be used as a bargaining chip. And Durell things the whole moon trip thing is a lie, but he still wants to find her first so she can be questioned then returned to the USSR. The assignment leads him from the streets of pre-revolution Tehran into the deserts of Iran and, so it would seem, even to the moon at one point. Aarons' novels are heavy on action and intrigue and very light on gratuitous sex and sleaze -- which again makes them more in line with the works of Fleming and Hamilton and less so with series like the Nick Carter books. Though the book does use the phrase "proud breasts" as soon as the first page, and although there is some nudity both male and female and when the cosmonaut, Tanya, and later Durell himself find themselves prisoners in a tiger pit, there is no sex in the book, although in classic Bond formula, the hint of a little fun to come s squeezed into the last page as Durell decides to show a lovely former Chinese agent the glories of the free world. The Chinese woman is a disgruntled servant of one Madame Hung, who is a recurring character in the books and Durell's sour-faced arch nemesis (we last saw her in Assignment Nuclear Nude -- which I believe takes place directly after this story even though I read it first). Why are all evil Chinese women called Madame so-and-so? In fact, most of the time, regardless of the race of the person, if they insist on being referred to as Madame Something, you can bet they're probably up to something nefarious. Aarons' description of Hung is truly harrowing -- faded beauty twisted by age and wickedness -- and although she's slight of build and not physically imposing, Hung's manipulation of situations to her advantage and her cruelty when she has the upper hand make her a formidable nemesis. Aarons was also one of the most racially progressive of the espionage writers of the era, at least in the books I've read. His cast of foreign characters is always sprinkled with a few rotten eggs, but for the most part, they're an assembly of decent and sometimes even heroic supporting characters. The Iranian officer Hanookh is a solid hero, noble and dedicated if a bit naïve, and the Chinese agent, despite being named Lotus and acting demurely for most of the book, is never pictured as anything less than dependable and competent. We also get a decent glimpse at pre-fundamentalist Ira, when it was on its way to being a jewel in the Middle East. My how the times have changed. Moon Girl isn't a book for exploring Middle eastern politics -- too much has changed since its original publication, but it does remind one that the civilizations of the Middle East were, at one time, the apex of civilization in the world. While Europe wallowed in filth and ignorance, it was the kingdoms of the Middle East who protected and preserved the classic works, sciences, and histories of the Greeks and Romans, which would quite possible have been forever lost if entrusted to Europe during the Dark Ages. But Islam is still a young religion, comparatively speaking, and such religions have a tendency to follow historical patterns. So just as Christianity endured an era in which ignorance and violent fanaticism dominated its landscape, so now Islam has entered its version of the Dark Ages, whence the vestiges of its former glories and enlightened nature are lost amid the flow of bloodthirsty and greedy manipulators who strive to keep the people ignorant, suspicious, and oppressed. There's no doubt that Islam will emerge from this era, the same as Christianity did, but the question remains: will it be a centuries-long process, as it was in the Dark Ages, or will the spread of modern technology and society accelerate Islam's entry into their eventual Renaissance? Let's hope it the latter. At best, that's hinted at in this book, as characters from time to time mention the astoundingly glorious past of Persian Iran. The better espionage novels are always informed by such reflections on history and modern society. But such tapestries are always the backdrop for action, and Durell really goes through the ringer on this one. He's frequently beaten, bashed on the head, and drugged. In fact, he may get smashed in the back of the head in this book almost as often as Philip Marlowe drinks scotch in Farewell, My Lovely. Like any espionage thriller, there's a fair amount of luck and coincidence helping Durell along, but Aarons creates a solid, realistic framework for his story and thus makes the coincidences easy to accept. Assignment Moon Girl is both straight-forward and smart. There are some twists and turns, but no real shockers. Aarons spins a streamlined action-adventure yarn that remains relatively clever while still being easy to digest. I don't sail through a Sam Durell novel at the same speed as a Nick Carter novel, but that's because there's more to savor. I'm not acquainted enough yet with Aarons' overall body of work (though a towering stack of his books on my shelves will help rectify that quickly) to declare Assignment Moon Girl to be Aarons at his best. But it's a damn good book. Bloody, action-packed, and swiftly-paced. posted by Keith at 1:25 PM | 6 Comments Friday, November 11, 2005Moonraker
By Ian Fleming. Copyright 2002 (reprint), Penguin Publishing.
By Moonraker, the third of Fleming's books detailing the adventures of commander James Bond, he'd really hit his stride. His prose his sharp, his characters well-drawn, and the pace is breathtaking. Fleming continues to explore his main character while, at the same, time forging to of the literary series' most memorable supporting characters: larger-than-life Hugo Drax and the sharp, capable police woman Gala Brand. This is also the book that gives fans of the movies something they never got from any of the cinematic incarnations of Bond: a look into his daily routine. Based solely on the films, you'd think Bond was forever on flashy, dangerous assignments, a man with no home and no break from his routine of espionage and globe-trotting adventure. Moonraker, however, opens with Bond dealing with the mundane daily tasks of his job. We find out that he's really only on book-worthy assignments a few times a year, and the bulk of his time is occupied with reading through dossiers and doing paperwork. Ha! I knew it! Of course, it takes a very clever movie to deal with this reality of the spying game and still make it interesting. Watching your lead character fill out forms and file paperwork isn't normally thrilling cinema, even if that's the reality behind much of what goes on. It's much more fun to watch Sean Connery get a fat man sucked through the window of an airplane, and so far only the Ipcress File starring Michael Caine and produced by Bond producer Harry Saltzman has managed to make the mind-numbing tedium of spying as a day job seem interesting to watch. Saltzman originally made that movie, or so I hear, to give audiences a more down-to-earth version of secret service work than he was dishing out in his Bond films, where he was constantly calling for giant things to explode or that elephants stampede through downtown Bangkok, or whatever crazy idea he'd dreamt up at the time to cause his co-producer, Albert Broccoli, headaches. Although The Ipcress File is adapted from the Harry Palmer stories by Len Deighton, I can't help but wonder if Fleming's exploration of Bond's non-adventure daily routine in Moonraker might have had some influence as well. We also get a chance to see Bond's home, which I'm sure wasn't a big deal at the time, but again, coming from a background in which I was (and still am) more familiar with the movies than the books, it's novel to glimpse Bond just sitting around at home -- or to even hear that he has a home. Now if we can just get a passage where he has to go grocery shopping or cook himself up some beans, he'll be just as homey as Harry Palmer. Naturally, these quaint moments of "just another day at the offices of MI6" don't last long. Bond is soon called in to M's office for, he soon discovers, a purely personal matter (or so it seems until the very end of the book): M is a member of an exclusive gentleman's club, back when those were clubs for gentlemen to sit around, smoke, drink, and play cards I a dignified and classy fashion, rather than what they are today, which is a place where loud-mouthed yuppies and arrogant investment bankers go to buy overpriced champagne and look at silicone boobs. I have no problem with nudity, but I can always do without loud-mouthed yuppies and arrogant investment bankers (non-arrogant investment bankers, I assume, will mostly help me plan for the future, which isn't bad). Also boasting membership at the club, called Blades, is one Sir Hugo Drax, a recent British media darling who is spearheading the Moonraker program that will give England its first long-range missile defense system. Little is known about Drax. He was wounded in the war and suffered amnesia, but eventually managed to rejoin society and make millions by investing in rare metals. Despite his position of respect, however, he is also loud-mouthed and arrogant -- so hey I guess those guys have always been in gentlemen's clubs. And he cheats at cards. This is what's causing M some problems. Why would such a wealthy and respected businessman, the hero of England, do something as silly as cheat at cards? M asks Bond, the secret service's best gambler remember, to help him put an end to Drax's cheating without actually making it known that Drax is a cheat. They want to avoid besmirching England's valiant protector, after all, since the Moonraker program is of paramount importance to everyone. Another of Moonraker's wonderful traits is that M plays a much larger role in the action than simply being "the man behind the desk." In this, he's also "the man behind the bridge table" and "the man behind the dinner table" and I think he sits behind a few other surfaces as well. Much is made out of the fact that the Fleming books present a more believable and human Bond. In one sense, this is misleading. I don't find the character of James Bond himself to be too terribly different than the Bond we're familiarized with through the portrayals by Sean Connery and George Lazenby (and to some degree Timothy Dalton, though he was too stiff for my taste). Granted there's very little of the Roger Moore Bond in the books (save perhaps for some of Moore's work in the film version of Live and let Die -- and don't mistake me. Moore is the Bond with whom I grew up, and though I prefer Connery, I love many of the Moore films and really found his performances to be entertaining, campy though they were), but for the most part, Connery catches the hard-edge and wit and while Lazenby and Dalton both captured some of the underlying pathos and loneliness. Where the books succeed at creating a more human Bond is in their effectiveness at creating a more human world for him to inhabit. Rather than a jet-setting superman with no home and nary a dull moment, the books give us a Bond who sits around at home and does paperwork at the office. And it gives us supporting characters that actually play roles beyond those prescribed by their jobs. M does more than sit behind a desk and dole out assignments, and these are the touches, the attention to supporting detail, that make the books "more human" in my opinion. Three books in, and readers will be aware of the fact that Fleming enjoys spending several pages expounding on weird bits of esoterica. Some of it may be things with which he's been familiar with for years; others may be recently learned things that he found so intriguing that he decided to throw them into the book. In Casino Royale, he goes on for pages about everything from the finer points of baccarat to a detailed analysis of Bond's roulette system. In Live and Let Die he indulges in lengthy descriptions of voodoo's history and rituals. For Moonraker he's back to rambling on about gambling, and Moonraker may represent the first and possibly only instance in literature that can boast a truly gripping bridge-playing scene. Now like many people, I know bridge primarily as the game my grandmother and her friends used to play when they got tired of playing bunko (don't know if Bond has ever engaged in a showdown with a crafty enemy agent over a thrilling game of bunko). It's not really, in my mind, fodder for an interesting couple of chapters. But Fleming -- and this is a testament to how far along his writing had come by Moonraker -- not only makes it interesting, but also makes it one of the tensest showdowns in the whole book -- even better than Bond's baccarat duel against Le Chiffre from Casino Royale, just as Fleming's exploration of the minutiae of the game is presented in a more engaging fashion than his ruminations on gambling from the first book, which often came across as a little long-winded and textbookish. Casino Royale makes you want to go out and play a high-stakes game of baccarat or roulette, but that's not so impressive, because those games have always seemed cool. That Moonraker can make me forget my grandmother and her friends and think to myself, "Yeah, I should learn to play a little bridge," is really something else. Too bad Fleming wasn't as charitable with shuffleboard in Live and Let Die. Predictably, though still exciting, Bond bests Drax at the table and send the message that the outlandish character best retire from the practice of scamming his fellow Blades members. But this hardly ends his involvement with Drax. When a murder-suicide results in the death of the head of security for the Moonraker project, Bond is called in to replace him, and along with undercover policewoman Gala Brand, Bond must unravel a conspiracy to sabotage the Moonraker program, which is staffed largely by German rocket scientists with funny moustaches. Or so the case first appears. That the entire story is set in England is another unique aspect of the book -- Fleming points out that, like the American CIA, Bond's organization is not sanctioned to operate on their home soil. That he is given special permission to operate in England is a sign of the Moonraker program's importance. Knowing what we do with hindsight, of course, the twist that reveals more about Drax isn't much a surprise, but that doesn't hinder the book in any way. Ian Fleming has crafted a nearly flawless adventure here. Drax is cartoonish but not so over-the-top that he becomes difficult to swallow. Bond is in top form. Sure, he gets tricked, and he gets tied to a chair, and a cliff falls on him, but that's just par for the course. Bond has been tied to a chair in every book so far. I think he might have been tied to a chair on four or five separate occasions in Live and Let Die alone. But his character is really coming along well in this book. And Gala Brand is one of the best female characters in any of the books. She defers to Bond eventually, needless to say, but she's also written very smart, brave, and competent. She's the one that discovers the true purpose of the Moonraker project and the true nature of Drax's character. And when Bond figures that he's going to have to blow himself up to save England, Gala's the one who comes up with the better plan. And perhaps most delicious of all, she represents the one who gets away. Bond gets a kiss from her, but that's it, much to his disappointment on a final page that, without being at all obvious about it, does a lot to highlight the cord of loneliness and melancholy that runs beneath Bond's bravado and playboy visage and keeps him firmly attached to the classic noir literature protagonists who were Fleming's inspiration. But my favorite part of the whole book -- and in case it's not clear, I absolutely loved this book -- comes during the final meeting between Bond and M, in which Bond reflects on the bizarre series of circumstances that lead to his becoming involved with stopping Drax and saving London. Fleming handles this bit wonderfully. Of course, tremendously fortuitous coincidences and strokes of luck are the stock and trade of Bond, and we simply role with them because what they lead to is usually so much fun. But in a few paragraphs of thought, and without ever stating it outright, Fleming leads Bond and the reader to think that maybe M was interested in more than convincing Drax to stop cheating at cards, that perhaps he already harbored suspicions that Drax was up to something, and that it was Drax, not unknown saboteurs, who posed the real threat to England. And, as I said, Fleming communicates this all with wonderful subtlety, and without ever stating it outright. It's one more example of the attention he's giving to supporting characters, but it's also a testament to how clever and sharp his writing has become by Moonraker. Labels: Author: Ian Fleming, Espionage, Scifi, Series: James Bond posted by Keith at 12:54 PM | 7 Comments Tuesday, November 01, 2005Operation Moon Rocket
1968, Universal Publishing.
It's been a while since we last saw what sort of trouble our favorite sleazy spy, Nick Carter could get himself into, so I figured it was high time we caught up with the man. Since I have an impending trip to Florida come this winter, I went with one of Nick's Florida-based adventures, Operation Moon Rocket, in which Agent N3, Killmaster for AXE, must foil a dastardly plot to derail America's Apollo space program through the judicious use of blackmail and sabotage. All clues point to agents of Communist China as the villains behind the string of harrowing accidents that have plagued the program, but Carter soon learns that there's something much more sinister going on than the mere meddling of Red China. I'm a sucker for anything involving spying and the space program, and then also a sucker for anything involving spying and guys running around 1960s Florida. It delighted me when Matt Helm spent some time in one of my old home states, and I figured on being doubly delighted by Carter engaging in shenanigans involving Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, and various tacky Florida locations. For the most part, the book does not disappoint. It's yet another fast-paced story that can be finished in a single sitting -- or trips in to work on the B train for me. There's also a remarkable level of restraint shown through much of the book. Though our first glimpse of Carter finds him reclining on the beach with a tan Florida cutie, he doesn't actually get laid until halfway through the book, which must be some sort of a record for a series of espionage novels where, most of the time, the lead character can't seem to go half a dozen pages without finding himself in between some willing young woman's thighs. And it's always been a source of amusement for Nick Carter fans to see how long it takes before we find him in such a situation. Some books even open that way on page one. Operation Moon Rocket is, however, decidedly unsleazy, at least as compared to some of the other Carter adventures. There are only two sex "scenes," and although the author (yet another nameless, faceless contributor to the ongoing series) lingers on some "as graphic as you could get at the time" passages, the fact that he only indulges twice is remarkable. Remember, once again, this is a series of adventures in which a female agent in one book is captured and tortured with an electric-dildo-orgasmo machine by a lascivious Communist Chinese mad scientist. But what really sets Operation Moon Rocket apart from some of the lesser entries in the series is that it's a well-written and snappy book. Nick Carter adventures don't exist so the anonymous authors can indulge in flowing prose and feats of literary genius. They exist to provide readers with maximum thrills and action in an easy-to-digest format, with very little fat to get in the way of a lean, A-to-B thriller. And while Operation Moon Rocket doesn't boast poetic tough-guy prose on the level of a Chandler or Hammett, it's still solidly written, even when it sticks close to the formula authors were required to follow to crank these things in a timely fashion. Not everything is nice and breezy, though. The finale falters in a major way, made all the more disappointing by the fact that the rest of the story is so enjoyable. Nick gets caught and tied up about ninety thousand times in this story, but his final captures end sup with him alone, tied up in a control room while the villain taunts him from a remote location and trots out the hoary old, "I haven't killed you yet because I want you to witness the fruition of my evil genius plan!" And of course, not only has he tied Nick Carter up and left him alone, but he then leaves him in a room that happens to have a radio linked directly to some NASA security guys who can help Nick stop the fateful countdown that, if completed, will send an Apollo rocket spiraling out control and straight into the heart of Miami. I don't mind the application of the old "countdown" routine, but the "only you can appreciate the genius of my scheme" cop-out for having Nick be alive and in a position to save the day was almost too much to swallow, especially again, since the author, whoever he may have been (I hope some day one of these guys will emerge and reveal himself to me after stumbling upon one of these reviews), proved himself a very capable writer throughout the rest of the book. I'm sure he could have come up with something much more plausible and much less irritating than the "monologuing villain leaves the hero alone" routine. Luckily, the rest of the book is enjoyable enough to make that bitter pill go down. The supporting cast of characters is decently developed. The background of the main villain (his eventual uncovering as the main villain isn't exactly a surprise) is especially believable and even, dare I say, almost complex. Well, OK, maybe not complex, but as far as espionage potboilers go, it's a pretty well developed background. And Dr. Joy Sun, despite the introduction of an embarrassing naughty photo of her, is one of the closest things to an innocent and decent woman that the series has ever introduced. But honestly, the most important aspect of any of these books is the adventure, and Operation Moon Rocket has plenty to go around, including a zero-G knife fight in space suits, exploding rockets, remote controlled helicopters, violent poker games, cigar chomping, and lots of sneaking around and punching guys in the face. Carter gets captured a lot, as is par for the course, but he doesn't really behave as stupidly or carelessly as he has in many past books. Everything moves at a brisk clip, and the action rarely lets up. Operation Moon Rocket is a delight, all the way around, even with the idiotic "now I shall leave you alone to contemplate my evil genius" finale. Labels: Espionage, Scifi, Series: Nick Carter posted by Keith at 1:06 PM | 0 Comments |
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