RIM | The Tranquillity Alternative
Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance | Pastwatch

RIM

A psychic detective explores virtual reality and karmic consciousness

• RIM
• by Alexander Besher
• Harper Prism
• $5.99/ $7.99 in Canada
• Paperback, March 1996

n Alexander Besher's RIM, virtual reality is a state of mind, and cyberspace is about to become the next level of enlightenment for human consciousness. In this future, psychic scans have replaced metal detectors, 'trode heads need guide dogs to help them navigate reality, and the vanishing city of Neo-Tokyo becomes the first casualty in the Kereitsu Wars.

In this world, readers find Professor Frank Gobi, a theoretical psychic consultant whose research into the transmigration of souls has made him a consciousness expert. But when the mega-corporations that own cyberspace go to war, it's his background as a psychic private eye that proves to be more useful.

When Satori Corporation, the major provider of on-line entertainment, is attacked with a computer virus just before unveiling a mysterious new virtual reality technology, Gobi is called to track down the corporation's missing CEO. Gobi is reluctant to return to his former profession, but among the thousands of cybersurfers trapped in an on-line game when the system crashed is Gobi's 10-year-old son, Trevor. With the help of a group of neo-Tibetan monks and a beautiful woman, Gobi reluctantly accepts the challenge of defeating the virus and uncovering the secret of the new vachuru.

RIM is one of a number of recent books in which much of the action takes place inside a virtual world. Like these books, RIM shares the challenge of making virtual action result in real-world consequences. Many authors rely on literary sleight of hand, dubious science and contorted plot points to physically trap characters in cyberspace. Besher uses all of these tropes but adds his own spin -- a combination of ancient Buddhism and new age mysticism involving concepts of disembodied consciousness.

These new diversionary tactics might be tolerable and even interesting if they were explored on a deeper-than-surface level. But like the enlightenment software in the book, concepts like karma and chi are merely engaged when needed to advance or explain the plot. Another saving grace might have been the humor alluded to in the cover blurbs, but the Douglas Adams comparisons only extend to Gobi's similarity to a certain holistic detective, not to any actual funny stuff. There are a few intriguing individual scenes, but not much unusual action (virtual reality or otherwise) and no real reason to care about any of the generic characters.

What Besher does do well is come up with lots of nifty ideas, and his familiarity with Japanese culture (he grew up in Japan) gives him a better-than-average take on the Neo-Nippon oeuvre. However, this is all well-trodden ground to readers familiar with the cyberpunk genre.

I think a new canon should be added to the cyberpunk bible: mind/body duality isn't the solution to the problem -- it is the problem. -- LRC

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The Tranquillity Alternative

The American space program that never was...

• The Tranquillity Alternative
• by Allen Steele
• Ace Science Fiction
• $21.95/$30.95 Canada
• Hardcover, March 1996

llen Steele, who's built a reputation as a leading young writer of hard science fiction, tells a gripping tale of how things might have turned out if the U.S. space program had started at the end of World War II. The Tranquillity Alternative continues the author's exploration of an alternate timeline featured in several short stories from his collection Rude Astronauts.

Goaded by Soviet competition, America lofts a huge orbiting space station and establishes a base on the moon. In the mid-1970s, Neil Armstrong leads a joint Soviet-American expedition to Mars. But now in 1995, the once-triumphant U.S. space program is on the skids thanks to bipartisan financial neglect by congress.

As NASA struggles to maintain a fleet of aging shuttles and a dilapidated, undermanned space station, a German corporation buys out the abandoned U.S. moonbase. Before turning over the base, NASA sends a group of astronauts on one last lunar voyage to dismantle a dangerous Cold War relic: a cache of nuclear missiles code-named Teal Falcon.

It's supposed to be a milk-run, but sinister forces have made other plans for the missiles, and one of the crew has been replaced by an impostor. The mission's co-pilot, meanwhile, is nursing a serious grudge -- an unwillingly revealed lesbian, she faces dismissal by homophobic bureaucrats. In charge of the ill-starred expedition is Gene Parnell, a one-time space hero who now feels like the spaceships he commands, a creaking antique headed for a museum display.

Steele effectively ratchets up the tension as he charts a course for a typical Tom Clancy-style showdown. But then he suddenly alters the trajectory for a climax that challenges the conventions of the techno-thriller genre, and by extension some sacred cows of American culture and politics. The middle-aged, slightly paunchy protagonist of The Tranquillity Alternative demonstrates that heroic action can take unaccustomed forms.

Steele intersperses the narrative with fictional newspaper articles, interviews, speeches, government documents and pop culture vignettes illustrating the rise and fall of the U.S. space program. They parallel America's transformation from a smugly complacent superpower to a dispirited nation of addled consumers lacking the purpose and direction once provided by the high frontier.

As a former investigative reporter, Steele shows a journalist's love of exposition and detail. This leads to too much technical chatter along the lines of, "GPC on Mode Five, green light," and his prose can be a bit wooden. But he advances the plot with expert precision and captures much of the same you-are-there realism and excitement that made moviegoers flock to Apollo 13.

I've read a few of Steele's short stories and wasn't too impressed, but The Tranquillity Alternative is a smart, suspenseful thriller that has put me on the lookout for his other novels. -- Curt

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Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance

Atomic and chemical weapons plunge the war against alien invaders into a new phase....

• Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance
• by Harry Turtledove
• Del Rey
• $23.00/$32.00 Canada
• Hardcover, Feb. 1996

This is the third of three reviews covering Harry Turtledove's alternate history Worldwar series. In the first two volumes, World War II was interrupted by reptilian offworld invaders known as the Race. At first the Race's superior technology seemed nearly invincible, and it looked like even the combined forces of Earth would be overcome. But by the end of the second book, the Soviet Union had built a bomb from plutonium stolen from the Race. In a desperate attempt to save Moscow, they detonated the bomb, stopping the Race's advance in the Soviet Union...

s Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance opens, the Race isn't yet sure if the Soviets have another atomic bomb. But among the ramifications of the attack are an attempt led by Straha, third in command of the Race's fleet, to depose Fleetlord Atvar. When the vote fails, Straha defects to the United States and tries to persuade the Race's soldiers to give up the fight, broadcasting his rhetoric by radio.

Meanwhile, Teerts, a Race pilot held prisoner by the Japanese, escapes during an attack. Back with his own people, he reveals the details of the Japanese nuclear program, headquartered in Tokyo. In response, the Race drops its own nuclear bomb on the Japanese capital. While this cripples the Japanese effort, both the Americans and Germans are almost at the point where they can produce enough plutonium on their own to make a steady supply of atomic weapons.

The Race decides it needs to take the British out of the war, and so they invade England. In response, Churchill issues a demand that they leave or face a new weapon. The Race thinks Churchill is bluffing, only to be surprised by something they're completely unprepared for -- mustard gas. Not only do they lack the weapon themselves, they have no gas masks. And once the British start using chemical weapons, the Germans decide to deploy an even more deadly nerve gas. Until now, the Race has faced only inferior weaponry of types similar to its own. Now the war has entered a new stage.

While the war seemed rather static in the second book, major events fill Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance from the first scene. Turtledove still follows all of his major characters, depicting the war from many perspectives. But now the personal struggles are more often entwined with higher concerns, giving this volume more depth as well as more suspense.

Turtledove also returns to some humorous social commentary, something prevalent in the first book but strangely absent from the second. One sequence details the horrors experienced by one of the Race's psychologists who, as an experiment, is trying to raise a human baby. At another point, the Race's reaction to the concept of science fiction concisely illustrates the Race's views regarding the human ability to innovate.

Throughout the novel, the frustration of the Race's soldiers builds as the humans find new ways to fight them -- actually beating them in many cases. Turtledove is especially effective in portraying the reasons why the Race is reluctant to use nuclear weapons on a large scale and simply exterminate the humans. Overall, this is by far the strongest of the three novels in the series to date, and a victorious defense, which once seemed impossible, now seems inevitable.

I wonder now whether the whole series could have been greatly strengthened by cutting much of the second volume. -- Clint

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Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

To save the past, a group of researchers contemplate destroying the future

• Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
• by Orson Scott Card
• Tor Books
• $23.95/$29.95 Canada
• Hardcover, Feb. 1996

astwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus is a book that blends science fiction with speculative biography. Imagine a machine that allows people to view the past. With the Tempoview, the people of the distant future are able to do just that, as part of the Pastwatch research project.

One Pastwatch researcher, a young woman named Tagiri, departs from conventional research because she follows subjects backward rather than forward in time. This unusual approach earns her unlimited access to the Tempoview. Using her carte blanche, she soon views the unsettling saga of her ancestors, who were brutally treated and sold as slaves. These disturbing scenes are intercut with a speculative biography of Christopher Columbus that begins in his boyhood, focusing on his motivations to explore the sea and find a new route to the Orient.

The project consumes many years of Tagiri's life, until one day she and Hassan, a fellow colleague, make the startling discovery that the people of the past can see the Pastwatch researchers while the Tempoview is in operation. Now Hassan and Tagiri must wonder if there is a way to travel back into the past, changing both history and the future forever.

Hassan and Tagiri's daughter, Diko, continue the research, determining that a crucial branch point lies in Christopher Columbus's discovery of a new land. Diko joins forces with two other researchers, Hunahpu and Kemal, to puzzle out just how they can travel back into time to change the future.

Descriptions of the future, must, by necessity, be speculative in that no one knows what the future will bring. Normally, the past is a known quantity; however, in Pastwatch, Orson Scott Card takes the known details of Christopher Columbus's life and weaves a marvelous speculative tale of the past. It's a risky approach and one that does not always work, but Card pulls it off with aplomb. In the process, he creates a fascinating story of three future scientists who are determined to eradicate the cruelty of slavery, even if it means erasing their own world.

The use of Christopher Columbus in the novel is a master stroke; at first glance, he seems a highly unlikely figure to appear in a science fiction novel, but Card manages to make it seem a perfectly natural idea.

And when Diko arrives in the past and confronts Columbus on his approval of slavery, the resulting exchange is the highlight of the book -- one on which the premise of the whole book hangs. Diko's actions, along with the sacrificial act of Kemal and Hunahpu's own manipulations in the past, create an excellent plotline, one that shows off Card's talents as a storyteller. Those who like to bury themselves in a good story will find Pastwatch an excellent choice.

I normally do not like biographies, but I really enjoyed Card's speculative biography of Christopher Columbus and learned many new things about Columbus in the process. -- Steve

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