roundup

Sunday Herald, The, Jul 11, 1999

Frameshift, by Robert J. Sawyer (Voyager, #5.99): The worst possible thing for a self-styled morality tale to be is preachy - the message is invariably lost in the reader's rush of indignation: we're not morons, you know. Thankfully, Sawyer's new piece of science- fiction - almost social- science fiction, actually - escapes this fate. And despite its techno-paranoid packaging, neither does it slip easily into the specky-geek market, eager to formulate new conspiracy theories on a par with the assertion that aliens kidnapped Elvis.

The ideas explored here are done with exceptional clarity. Sawyer has a prophetic eye on the issues that will doubtless dominate future debates - bio-ethics, moral philosophy, and the implications of technological change. Get beyond the cove and enjoy a cracking narrative with big ideas.

Dream Story, Beatrice and Her Son, by Arthur Schnitzler (Penguin, both #5.99): Schnitzler is notorious as one of the century's great scourges of the sexual morality of the bourgeoisie. He's also, at the moment, incredibly hot. Not only was the modernised version of his play La Ronde, The Blue Room, but Dream Story, a tale where a married couple are both traumatized and then spiral into a hell of confession and revelation, is the inspiration for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick's posthumous movie. What Freud was to psychology, Schnitzler was to literature - a pitiless explorer of human mendacity when it comes to the sexual urge. Beatrice and Her Son is a more poised, more classical examination of the subject area - dangerous liasons in German spas - but Schnitzler's acute eye is utterly reliable. Koolaids: The Art of War by Rabih Alameddine (Abacus, #6.99): A book that refuses despair by the sheer exuberance and inventiveness of its style. The topics may seem gloomy - the impact of the Aids epidemic and the Lebanese civil war on a circle of family and friends - but the marvellous, experimental assault of the text makes it a joyous read. Through newspaper clippings, short bits of drama, recorded conversations, cod philosophy, it tells the story of a group of unravelled individuals in unravelling times. They live their lives by junk media, while dodging Beirut bullets and looking for the next medication shot.