Tiny Monkey Reviews - Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer

Triggers (Penguin, 2012)

by Robert J. Sawyer

Description (from the publisher)

A new mind-bending novel from Canada’s leading futurist

On the eve of a secret military operation, an assassin’s bullet strikes U.S. President Seth Jerrison. He is rushed to hospital, where surgeons struggle to save his life. At the same hospital, Canadian researcher Dr. Ranjip Singh is experimenting with a device that can erase traumatic memories. Then a terrorist bomb detonates. In the operating room, the president suffers cardiac arrest. He has a near-death experience—but the memories that flash through Jerrison’s mind are not his memories.

It quickly becomes clear that the electromagnetic pulse generated by the bomb amplified and scrambled Dr. Singh’s equipment, allowing a random group of people to access one another’s minds. And now one of those people has access to the president’s memories—including classified information regarding an upcoming military mission, which, if revealed, could cost countless lives. But the task of determining who has switched memories with whom is a daunting one, particularly when some of the people involved have reasons to lie ...

What the Tiny Monkey thinks 

I have to put some cards on the table up front: not only do I know Rob Sawyer, not only do I like Rob Sawyer, not only do I bring up the fact that I know and like Rob Sawyer at every opportunity; on top of that, one of the characters in Triggers, Eric Redekop, shares my last name. No mere coincidence this, as Rob confirmed via Facebook that he thought my last name was "cool." This FB message has thereby been printed out and framed, verifiable proof that someone likes the damnable moniker. And this also means that, likely for the first time ever, a Mennonite headlines a sci-fi novel, with the possible exception of Robert A. Heinlein's The Froeses of Mars.

So take this review with salt and imitation buttered popcorn, if you must; Triggers is a lot of fun. Sawyer has never been the greatest of prose stylists, but his enthusiasm for his topics, his hearty dollops of research, and his genuine upbeat attitude (an increasing rarity in science fiction) make the best of his work a pleasure to read (particularly his short stories: I cannot recommend Iterations or Identity Theft highly enough). Triggers, like most of Sawyer's work, sets its narrative around an immensely intriguing hook, and his plot machinations concerning selective telepathic powers keep the pages flying by. It isn't the deepest of reads, and part of me wishes he went further with his ultimate finale, when the plot ventures into Theodore Sturgeon territory (I won't be divulging this ending here, however; unlike a certain reviewer in the Globe and Mail, I try not to give away the ending whether or not I liked the book). I am unsure whether Triggers qualifies as Sawyer's most fanciful work, as the science behind his scenario sounds fairly wonky to the layperson in me, but that hardly counts as a disqualification. Triggers is fast and fun, with just enough inherent plausibility to the shenanigans to keep me glued to my seat.

TINY MONKEY REALLY LIKES

Favourite monkey #2

• wherein the shelf monkey continues to peruse his vast library for those works of fiction that have tickled his funny bone, goosed his cochlea, frightened his liver, or in some way achieved some sort of response from some area of his anatomy.
• i.e. the monkey's favourite books this far in his short life. 
• and what excites the monkey today? A good old-fashioned mind-job.

Today's intriguing instalment: 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
by Philip K. Dick

"The whole experience of empathy is a swindle."

 
Plot synopsis (from the Official Philip K. Dick website):

By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.

Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.

When did the shelf monkey first read this? I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (hereinafter DADES?) when I was twelve, the year that the book was commonly known under its cinematic adaptation title Blade Runner. Being a huge Harrison Ford fan at the time — still am, although I wish he would take some chances, hook up with Tarantino or Soderbergh, c'mon, man, try something — but being unable to watch the R-rated film due to a mixture of my age and my parents' just crazy unwillingness to sneak me in to the theatre, I had to make do with the book.

What were the first impressions? DADES? hit me like a tonne of proverbial bricks. My sci-fi knowledge up to that point was confined to the adventures of Tom Swift and John Christopher's Tripod trilogy. Being introduced so young to the thematic complexities of P.K. Dick probably warped me.

How many times has the shelf monkey read this? Estimation? Somewheres in the teens. Possibly even twenty.

Has it withstood the perils of time and maturity? In the name of Mercer, yes.

New thoughts:  Is it at all strange to claim a work that raises immense levels of despair and existential angst in the reader as a favourite? It feels wrong somehow. 'Favourites' should induce joy and wonderment, not dread, fear, and self-loathing. Nevertheless, there you have it. Id est, quid id est.

DADES? is one of those novels that reveals more and more every time you read it, exposing new pleasures and forgotten plot points. The movie version keeps pushing the novel to the side in my head, and while it is a superb film, it really isn't the novel. Aside from a few themes and character names, it's barely recognizable from its literary origins.

Like the movie, DADES? concerns identity, and the increasing loss of it in society. In this instance, a society wherein most of the able-bodied people have fled the planet after World War Terminus, and the citizens who remain are slowly succumbing to the radioactive dust which coats the planet. It is a world where entropy rules, one where every person and thing is turning to the wondrously awful concept of "kipple:"

"Kipple is useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match, or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you leave any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more."

While the world yields itself to its kipplization, its citizenry makes do with a variety of mood-altering conveniences. There's the Penfield mood organ — a clear comment on the increasing use of medicines to alleviate states of emotional being — a device wherein the user may dial an appropriate mood to get through the day. Rick Deckard gets through the day by dialing for "a creative and fresh attitude towards his job," and he is horrified when he discovers his wife Iran has dialed herself a six-hour self-accusatory depression. As she explains, explaining one of the novel's leading themes:

"I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness [in the surrounding apartments] intellectually, I couldn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting — don't you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness: then called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who's smart has emigrated, don't you think?"

As Deckard works to hunt down and kill the androids that have infiltrated Earth, he undergoes an existential crisis as he begins to empathize with them. In this future, empathy is in short supply, which is a main reason for the rise of Mercerism, a religion that uses a virtual reality linkup with the user to increase their empathy through a metaphorical trek up an endless mountain alongside a very old man. As you trek, stones are hurled from unseen enemies, often leaving the Mercerite bruised and cut, allowing them to become more in tune with the feelings of other. The lack of empathy is a major reason why humanity is seemingly on its last legs, with officials claiming that "Mercerism reduced crime by making citizens more concerned about the plight of their neighbors." This is also why it is considered the height of one's existence to own at least one true animal (most animals being extinct, and people making do with electronic facsimiles). I have in my literary life had few emotional responses as strong as my pity toward Deckard as he uses his bounty money to purchase a real goat; the joy he has, the utter belief that this will make him a better person, is as pathetic and heart-rending a moment as any I've read.

The empathy shortage is also a reason why androids fit in so well. Deckard's investigation leads him to a bizarre subworld of his city where is seems androids have taken over the neighbourhoods, with their own police force. As his quest continues he becomes increasingly depressed, unable to determine the real difference between man and machine.

DADES? is not perfect; there are some plot points that still don't make sense to me, especially Deckard's sudden realization that the Russian policeman he is sitting with is an android. Deckard also obsesses over how hard these new androids will be to track and kill, yet they appear remarkably easy prey.

For me, such moments do not matter. DADES? gets to me like few novels ever have; perhaps it is a flaw in my mindset, an error in my programming, but sometimes I just need to feel bad. Like Iran, sometimes I need to remind myself of the misery of the world, to force myself to accept feelings I don't enjoy. Some may achieve this by reading Kafka, or the plays of Chekov. For me, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the cure for my happiness.

Verdict: still a favourite monkey

Monkey Droppings -Robopocalypse vs. Major Karnage! Winner take all!

Today, the monkey pits two two sci-fi actioneers against each other.

One is a heavily-hyped apocalyptic epic with a huge promotional push and expectations up the ying-yang.

The other is an unassuming, almost unheard-of sleeper from an unknown Canadian author.

Guess which one works, and which one doesn't?

Robopocalypse (Doubleday, 2011)
by Daniel H. Wilson

"You humans are biological machines designed to create ever more intelligent tools. You have reached the pinnacle of your species. All your ancestors' lives, the rise and fall of your nations, every pink and squirming baby—they have all led you here, to this moment, where you have fulfilled the destiny of humankind and created your successor. You have expired. You have accomplished what you were designed to do."

This is the big one, the tentpole action epic of the summer reading season! A high concept thrill ride, already speculated to soon be adapted to film by Steven Spielberg! With blurbs by heavy-hitters such as Clive Cussler! Lincoln Child! Robert Crais! The author Daniel Wilson has a Ph.D. in robotics! He's a genius! How could this be anything less than a genre masterpiece?

Quite easily, as it turns out.

It's all in the execution. Depending on whose hands wield the power, a tale of robots battling mankind can be either spectacular, exciting, and thought-provoking (think The Terminator), or dreary, repetitive, and uninspiring (Transformers). Robopocalypse lands far on the lesser end of the spectrum; it has some good ideas, but it has a paucity of style, little originality, and not much in the way of imagination.

Granted, it starts out nicely, as an oral history of humanity's battle with the robots (tremendously reminiscent of the format of Max Brooks' World War Z, a novel about the zombie uprising that is nowhere near perfect, but aces out Robopocalypse on every level). Humanity is just starting to recover from its years-long struggle, a struggle which began at the advent of artificial intelligence. The intelligence Archos viewed mankind as a danger, both to itself and to all other forms of life on Earth, and began the conquest of the planet through control of all mechanized resources it could summon.

There is a hint of real originality at one point, when true artificial intelligence is created in other robots, who then in turn decide to rebel against their robot overlord, but such flourishes are lost in pages of deadening prose and disposable, interchangeable characters. Three days after completion, I am hard-pressed to remember anything of the plot save a few scenes of robotic warfare that would, in a movie version, likely raise the coolness factor, but in the book merely get an eyebrow raise. I got far more entertainment in twenty-two minutes from the robot rebellion in the episode "Mother's Day" from Futurama, where I was treated to humour, style, and the image of Hermes Conrad screaming "Help! My stapler is collating me alive!" while being chased by an electric stapler. Not to mention the immortal phrase, "Conquer Earth, you bastards!"

So Robopocalypse isn't great, or even good, but what's even more damaging is that it is a dull, dull book. Direct comparisons are made in the publicity to Michael Crichton and Robert A. Heinlein, but Wilson has none of the satiric or stylistic flair of the latter, and very little of the former's ability to synthesize believable scientific research into a propulsive plot. Crichton was no maestro, but at his best (The Andromeda Strain, Sphere) he was able to throw out vast quantities of scientific exposition that never bogged down the storyline but instead actually enhanced it. Crichton didn't write great art, but he wrote great pulp (until he became bogged down in his own portentousness). Wilson's research isn't half as well presented, and never remotely believable, which lends the book an air of fantasy rather than the true-to-life science it appears to aim for.

Robopocalypse is a real let-down, not even a mildly diverting beach read. I was promised Crichton and Heinlein, Spielberg and James Cameron; I was given Michael Bay instead. Not a fair exchange.

Not even close.


VERDICT: MONKEY IS DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED



Major Karnage (Chizine, 2010)
by Gord Zajac

"Welcome to the Dabney Correctional Executive Class Hospitality Centre. We hope your stay with us is a pleasant one. Please enjoy these pastoral images and soothing mood music while you await trial and sentencing. And remember—at Dabney Correctional, we believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And it shows."

Now, see, if you're going to be derivative, this is how you do it.

Major John Karneski ('Major Karnage' to his friends/enemies) is unhappily enjoying forced retirement. After many glorious campaigns, he and his soldiers have been forcibly confined to a Veteran's Home for observation and re-education. In a world without war, a world completely run by the Dabney Corporation and its mascot cat, warriors are unnecessary, but people as violent as Karnage cannot be expected to meld back into society willingly. So for the better part of two decades Karnage has been held against his will, his violent tendencies held in check by a Sanity Patch on the back of his head which will explode if stress levels reach critical mass. At the start of Major Karnage, the patch is set at Lemon Breeze, with colour-coded levels that run the gamut from Snow White to Tricycle Red, with stops at Daffodil, Citrus Blast, Peachy Keen, Tangy Orange, Sharp Cheddar, Coral Essence, and many others. At Tricycle Red: boom!

But Karnage knows that the world is not safe. His man Cookie has been receiving alien transmissions in his skull, and it looks as if Unidentified Flying Objects of Death! are already on their way to lay waste to humankind. Only Karnage can hope to halt the invasion, but he'll have to fight his way past the guards, and then have to cope with a world that has moved on without him. To save the world, Karnage will have to deal with Dabneycops armed with Goober Guns, bizarre religious cults, alien sandworms, squidbugs, and a diligent cop named Sydney who can incapacitate a man with one flick of her baby toe:

"[Karnage had] never seen anyone move like this before. It was like a martial arts version of shiatsu. Sydney knew all the right pressure points to cause extreme pain in the body. It was brilliant. It was like ballet, except it didn't suck."

Quite obviously, Gord Zajac is first and foremost concerned with having a good time. This is not hard science fiction, and unlike Robopocalypse it doesn't have any pretensions to be. No, this is glorious b-movie-worth sci-fi ridiculousness, a non-stop chase through a landscape limited only by Zajac's imagination. Heavily indebted to pretty much every movie and novel you can think of, Zajac begs, borrows, and steals to great effect, steamrolling over plotholes and inconsistencies with glee.

Let's face it, you are either in the mood for such entertainment, or you're not. Me? Sign me up for more. Zajac is not a great stylist, but he moves his plot along with a sense of fun that is impossible to fake. There's more than a bit of the joy of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series and the early satire of Heinlein to be found here, by way of Douglas Adams. It's an anything goes, balls to the wall approach that can be wearying, but manages to hit all the right notes. It's nonsense, but it's good nonsense. ChiZine has always put out a quality product, but this may be their first release that is just out and out genre merriment.

If Zajac sees fit to continue the adventures of Karnage, I, for one, will be eagerly awaiting the next installment. Robopocalypse may get the endorsements and the mega-budget film, but Major Karnage is the winner.


VERDICT: MONKEY LEAVES WELL-SATED

Monkey droppings - sci-fi epics, haunted wilderness, and unnerving neighbours

The monkey reviews three books today, to clear his shelf.

The monkey ranks them from least favourite to most.

The monkey likes ranking. And ranks.

Refer to the monkey as Commodore Monkey from now on.

Hellhole (Tor, 2011)
by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Pretty much all you need to know about Hellhole can be summed up in its cliffhanging final sentence: “With this war, we will make his planet a true hellhole.”

Translation: this ain’t a subtle work. I cannot say from personal knowledge how Brian Herbert’s continuation of father Frank’s Dune series ranks as compared to the originals, but from what I’ve read in Hellhole I’d say, “Not good.”

That’s too damning, however. Judged on its own performance, Hellhole is a fun space opera; hardly artful or incisive, but would likely make a good mini-series. Yet comparisons with Frank Herbert’s seminal masterpiece are inevitable, particularly when both books concern planetary politics, alien races, strange religious beliefs, and mad dictators intent on galaxy domination. Dune was almost biblical in its construction, an expansive, encompassing, engrossing piece of world-building that meticulously crafted theological underpinnings to guide its fantastic universe. Hellhole is a blunt instrument, a sledgehammer retelling of the settlement of America, except this time, the settlers make peace with the indigenous peoples rather than slaughtering them wholesale. Dune was fresh; Hellhole is recycled.

But it is fun, in an obvious way. I hadn’t read a sci-fi space epic since Neal Stephenson’s grandiose Anathem, and while this may seem like heresy (it does to me), I found more sheer entertainment in Hellhole’s pages than in Anathem’s ponderousness.

Taking place ten years after a failed rebellion, disgraced leader General Tiber Adolphus has been exiled to the Deep Zone planet of planet Hallholme (read: Hellhole) rather than receiving a death sentence.

• NOTE: As an aside, can we all agree how lucky for the publisher that the original name of the planet wasn’t Peaspoot, Sheetcrack, or Matherfluck? Dodged a real bullet there.

On Hellhole, Adolphus bides his time, building up settlements and paying out planetary tributes to the power-hungry Diadem Michella Duchenet. But he’s also sowing seeds among the fifty-three other planets in the Deep Zone, altering transport routes and forming alliances. When explorers discover the original inhabitants of Hellhole (long thought dead from an asteroid strike), Aldolphus realizes that there might be a new way to rid his planet of the Diadem’s chokehold.

This is fairly standard sci-fi world-building, filled with broad expositional characters, speechifying, and ridiculous names. I suspect half the fun of writing such operas is the creation of unusual character appellations; a quick referral to the handy glossary reveals Ishop Heer, Encix, Kerris Urvancik, Rendo Theris, and Tel Clovis, among many others. Every character is clear and obvious; bad guys are hissable, good guys are noble. The alien race of Xayans are laughably spiritual and ludicrously naïve.

But again, it’s just fun. I won’t carry Hellhole in my soul as I do Dune, Brian Herbert and his co-writer Kevin J. Anderson are hardly maestros, but I never resented the time I took to read it. Call it a b-movie of a book, one of those films on TBS that you get sucked in to watching despite their obvious flaws. I loves me some Stanley Kubrick and Duncan Jones and Ridley Scott, but sometimes a Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay can be just the thing to wile away an afternoon. Or David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, come to think of it.

VERDICT: MONKEY ENJOYS DESPITE HIMSELF (BAD MONKEY!)

The Silent Land (Doubleday, 2010)
by Graham Joyce

I had never heard of Graham Joyce, but I vaguely recall once perusing his novel Indigo, with an accompanying front-cover rave from Stephen King (a recommendation I can never again trust, thanks to his grossly over-enthusiastic blurbs on the covers of Bentley Little novels—man oh man, The Walking was just terrible). The Silent Land, however, comes with a rapturous blurb by geek god Jonathan Lethem, a writer whose shoes I am not worthy to lick. So in I dive, not knowing what to expect, keeping myself purposely vague on the plot details.

A short while later (the plot just zooms by), I emerge, unscarred but shaken and genuinely spooked. The Silent Land is hardly a genre-buster, but this atmospheric and ghostly little chiller is just the thing for a quiet night alone, with the wind howling outside for added oppression.

Zoe and Jake awaken early one morning during a ski vacation to get on the mountain before the tourists carve up the slopes. Trapped in an avalanche—a mightily effective piece of claustrophobic writing here, as Zoe struggles to right herself under hundreds of pounds of snow—the pair find their way back to the village to discover everyone gone. They wait for people to return, expecting that the town was evacuated as a precaution, but as the days stretch by it becomes apparent that something has gone drastically wrong.

Joyce is not exactly traversing new material here; Zoe and Jake’s predicament is the stuff of the Twilight Zone, two people trapped somehow outside of reality. There are echoes of King’s The Mist and The Langoliers in its construction, as well as the video game Silent Hill, although monumentally less gory. The Silent Land never crosses the road into outright horror, but Joyce can create a hauntingly evocative sense of despair and loneliness like few others.

Joyce is a craftsman, and while the structure may not be unique, the author layers on more than enough style to make the story his own. The Silent Land was recently nominated for the Shirley Jackson award, and it’s easy to understand why; Joyce shares with Jackson her marked economy of words and marvellous dexterity with mood. The Silent Land does not re-invent the wheel; the ultimate ending can be seen a mile away, being a staple of many similar entertainments, and this obviousness contributes to the slightly less-than-enthralling finale. It is a letdown to have the cards revealed, the magicians showing the trick, and having figured it out so easily.

Nevertheless, The Silent Land is a superior spook machine. Joyce has a canny grasp of characters and dialogue which raises the storyline from the merely weird to one that is greatly, enjoyably creepy. Read this one with the lights low, and a cat curled on your lap for company. As Zoe and Jake’s predicament unravels, you may find you’ll need the companionship as you check over your shoulder at every noise.

VERDICT: MONKEY REALLY LIKES

Sarah Court (ChiZine, 2010)
by Craig Davidson

You really are such magnificently grim bastards. Trashing utopias is how you party.

If Hellhole is entertainment for a lazy afternoon, and The Silent Land is a late evening’s ghost story, then Sarah Court is the book for two a.m., when your brain is tired and decides to play tricks on you. And if Jonathan Lethem’s praise of The Silent Land intrigued me, Sarah Court’s triumvirate of Peter Straub, Chuck Palahniuk, and Clive Barker grabbed me by the throat and demanded some attention, dammit!

Sarah Court, a series of five interweaving stories all set around a neighbourhood near Niagara Falls, is one strange little beastie. Craig Davidson has previously written a book of short stories and a novel, both set in and around the sport of boxing. Yet while boxing does make an appearance here, these tales are far different than I expected; gritty, moving, and often unpredictably eerie and horrific.

Translation: I loved Sarah Court, but I’d never want to live there.

Davidson’s stories are outwardly simple, only revealing layers of complexity when the other stories begin to overlap. There’s a father whose job it is to fish corpses from the river, and a son vainly trying to regain his glory as a stuntman. A doctor disgraced for uncertain reasons. A former boxer who now works as a high-end enforcer of the infamous American Express Black Card. A boy who thinks he’s Dracula. An unwilling powerlifter. A strange woman with a revolving door for foster children.

And through every tale, there are hints of unnamable corruption, usually in the guise of animals or elements of the corporeal body, reminding me of nothing so much as filmmaker David Lynch and his genius at creating unclassifiable dread. Red spider mites teem in a deer’s eyes, “so many as to give the impression it’s weeping blood.” A can of paint has “the hue of diseased organ meat.” Squirrels abound in Sarah Court, somehow playful yet harbingers of some interior evil a la the sinister owls in Lynch’s Twin Peaks. “The owls are not what they seem.” And in several tales there is the presence of a perplexing transparent box holding “a squirming mass the size of a medicine ball.”

While Davidson wreaks some sinister havoc on his characters, there is a grounding in reality that keeps Sarah Court from becoming weird for weird’s sake. There is an outlying supernatural element, but Davidson’s horror is far more the horror of character, of people causing unconscious destruction through their own ill-conceived desires. No resident of Sarah Court gets off unscathed; there are emotional cripplings, physical disfigurements, and mental implosions. There is also good, a desire to rise above the fray, making the climax of each story almost overpowering in each person’s sad realizations of their weaknesses.

Sarah Court is a startling, often brilliant collection, further proof that publisher ChiZine is the go-to publisher for unsurpassable genre literature (even more proof: just began Gemma Files’ A Book of Tongues, and wow wow wow). Mr. Davidson’s neighbourhood has never seen a beautiful day in its life, and I do not want to be a neighbour. However, I will walk its streets from time to time, whistling in the dark to keep the demons at bay. And watching for squirrels.

VERDICT: MONKEY FREAKIN’ LOVES

Monkey droppings - And Another Thing... by Eion Colfer: "Get your towel, Arthur. We have to leave."

The monkey uses his mind to fold space in upon itself, and travels the space-time continuum in search of a new entry in a classic series long thought dead. Will it be a new awakening of classic pleasures, as enjoyable as Joe Gores recently revival of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade in Spade and Archer? Or will it fester like the innumerable entries in the 'sequel to Pride & Prejudice or anything by Jane Austen' sweepstakes?

Let's find out.

And Another Thing...
by Eoin Colfer

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying "And another thing…" twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument.
- Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

I'll just start this little review with an aside: How could I possibly hate a novel that has the following conversation:

A huge anthropoid was seated uncomfortably in the interview room's office chair, its grotesque, scaled torso squirming in the confines of the small seat. tentacles dripped from its chin like fleeing slugs and hard black eyes glittered from the depths of its pulpy face.

Hillman Hunter shuffled the pages of the creature's résumé.

'So, Mr Cthulhu, is it?'

'Hmmm,' said the creature.

'Good,' said Hillman. 'A bit of the ineffable, I like that in a deity.' He winked conspiratorially. 'Still, it wouldn't be much of an in-depth interview if we couldn't get a few facts out of you, eh, Mr Cthulhu?'

Cthulhu shrugged and dreamed of days of wanton genocide.

How could I ever dislike a novel with the temerity to subject the Great Old One Cthulhu to a job interview to ascertain his possible suitability as a deity for a new colony of Earthlings? Hillman had high hopes for a more ethereal interview process, "engaging in philosophical conversations on the nature of happiness, or being wowed by awesome displays of godly power. Instead he had been forced to grind his way through a sludge of padded résumés in which demi-gods tried to make themselves sound a lot more significant than they actually were." As it turns out, Cthulhu is not at all what Hillman has in mind, being only a 'demi-god' and therefore not technically an immortal being. "It's more or less the same thing," Cthulhu protests. "I do all the same things: apparitions, impregnating, you name it. I have cards for the lounges in Asgard and Olympus. Gold cards." But as Hillman insists, "the advertisement did specify grade-A god."

Part of the genius of Douglas Adams was his ability (likely learned from the British masters of comedy Monty Python) to always make even the most fantastic of circumstances appear mundane through a morass of well-meaning bureaucracy. In Adams' worlds, the most awe-inspiring sunset could only be fully appreciated if the correct paperwork had been filed beforehand in triplicate.

Ever since Adams passed away in 2001—and in another aside, what does it say about me that the celebrity deaths that have affected me the most are invariably comedy related? Adams, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., John Candy, John Ritter, Phil Hartman (I will never get over Phil Hartman)—ever since, there has been a dearth of his uniquely weird brand of comedic literature. Yes, Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin are cut from the same cloth, but Adams was an originator. His seminal work The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (hereafter referred to as HG2G) is a masterwork of offbeat plotting and witty writing, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is, to my mind, even better.

But even Adams admitted that his later sequels to HG2G were lacking. The first two were of the same calibre, more or less, but the last two (particularly Mostly Harmless) showed us an artist running a little dry. They had their moments, but they can't be considered as worthy of 'classic' status.

So a new sequel to HG2G should be dismissed out of hand as a bad idea. But there is still the idea that one should not tamper with another's work. Let's be honest, no one wants to see the glory of Adams' legacy reduced to something on the scale of the still-ongoing literary tawdriness of V.C. Andrews, whose fairly ridiculous writings have continued for over two decades since her death.

So now, on the thirtieth anniversary of HG2G's initial publication, a new sequel has been released. Unfortunately, it was not written by Rankin, who I still feel was the best man for the job. But Irish writer Eion Colfer (who mainly writes fiction of the child/young adult variety) has pretty much pulled it off, creating a novel that honours Adams' sensibilities, yet doesn't come across as forced. Make no mistake, Colfer's sequel And Another Thing... is not up to Adams' best, but considering how wrong it could have gone, it is a fine accomplishment, and certainly better than Adams' last two sequels.

And Another Thing... takes up the plot immediately at the end point of Mostly Harmless, wherein Arthur Dent, Trillian, their daughter Random Dent, and Ford Prefect are about to be destroyed along with the Earth, or a plural reality version thereof. I'll stop here to note that a knowledge of the previous five books is essential to comprehension of And Another Thing...; I have read a few blogosphere comments complaining about this, but allow me to make the bold statement that no novel of Adams' HG2G trilogy-plus-two makes any sort of sense without full knowledge of the previous entries. If you're not up to that task, best walk away now.

After the quartet (spoiler alert!) survive the attack, they find themselves once again hooking up with Zaphod Beeblebrox (highly improbably, but if you know the series, imminently foreseeable), ex-president of the Galaxy and all-round froody guy, as well as with returning bit player (from Life, the Universe, and Everything) Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Together, in a plot that manages to weave in the mythical god Thor, a bizarre cult "who firmly believed in divination through the medium of semi-congealed cheese," and feral physical therapists, the group must defeat the Vogons from wiping out the last vestiges of humanity (currently living on a planet designed after the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man).

Quite obviously, Colfer has taken Adams' penchant for throwing everything into the mix to see what sticks to heart. The pages of And Another Thing... are teeming with the absurd asides that were the hallmark of HG2G's style, such as a quick explanation of the belief system of Folfangan slugs, "who judge a number's worth based on the artistic integrity of its shape. Folfangan supermarket receipts are beauteous ribbons, but their economy collapses at least once a week." Admittedly, such tangents can get tiresome, and Colfer arguably uses a few too many funny words and silly noises, but Adams was hardly above a bad pun or two himself.

Not a lot of Colfer's plot makes any sort of linear sense, but the series has always had a great deal of fun playing with notions of time and space anyway. And it's rather wonderful to be with old friends again, especially the terminally unlucky Arthur, pining for his lost love Fenchurch; as Random succinctly puts it, "I'm sure you'll bring doom down on us all presently. It's your destiny to be a cosmic Jonah." I also enjoyed Colfer's attempts to better humanize Trillian, a character Adams never fully explored and who came across initially as flighty and later as just plain unlikeable. Ford gets slighted, but there's more than enough Zaphod to make up for it. I would have liked a return of Marvin the paranoid android (surely there must have been a way), but as his ultimate exit in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish was Adams as his most touching, I can live with it (If you must spoil it for yourself, visit the Marvin Wikipedia page). If there's a real fault with Colfer's attempt, it's in his trying to cram too much in; there's too many nods to past novels, too many inside references, too many bloody characters doing too much at once.

But the HG2G series has always had a shaggy dog aspect to it, an unkempt attitude; the novels sometimes behaved like ADD sufferers on a Red Bull binge. Colfer does his best, but And Another Thing... occasionally substitutes speed of delivery for wit, and quite often is plain too goofy even for a Douglas Adams piece.

But I'm okay with that. Colfer has crafted a strong companion piece to Adams' HG2G series that continues the mythos with the same anarchic glee and intelligence. If he must continue it further (and there is always more story out there), I look forward to the ride.

VERDICT: MONKEY THINKS IT'S ALL RATHER FROODY

Quickie Book Reviews

I thought I’d do a few quick reviews, instead of my trademark long, rambling, and ultimately pointless ones.

Brown Girl in the Ring
by Nalo Hopkinson

This Canadian sci-f/fantasy novel (one of the 2007 Canada Reads selections) is a sterling example of peerless imagination. Hopkinson interweaves futuristic elements such as high-tech human organ transplants and the devolution of society with Caribbean mysticism and magic realism, resulting in a highly original product. Reminiscent of the work of late sci-fi master Octavia Butler (herself a fan of the novel), Brown Girl in the Ring is unique, personal, and provocative; everything good sci-fi/fantasy should be.

Rating: A-

Big Man Coming Down the Road
by Brad Smith

Smith’s past works such as All Hat have marked him as a talented practitioner of ‘country noir’, a genre pretty much dominated by Joe R. Lansdale. Certainly, his first few novels marked him as an Elmore Leonard-esque crime writer with a humourous bent. Yet Big Man jettisons the crime elements of past efforts, and concentrates on character. All well and good, and Smith’s characters are strong and memorable. But Big Man’s plot is too slight, too meaningless. The characters are good, but their tribulations are merely mildly entertaining. Without a stronger narrative drive, Smith seems to lose focus, and the by-the-numbers plot does his ear for dialogue a true disservice.

Rating: C+