The Incrementalists by Steven Brust and Skyler White

Published by Tor Books on September 24, 2013

The "ancient secret society trying to control us all" plot has been done to death, but The Incrementalists takes an unusual (although only partially successful) approach. The novel departs from the norm in two ways: it doesn't feature the mindless chase scenes that too often characterize secret society novels, and the secret society (or most of it) isn't malevolent or power-hungry like the typical ancient secret societies that tries to control us. While the novel's set-up is therefore promising, The Incrementalists too often reads like a romance novel. It isn't a trashy romance novel, but neither is it a compelling love story.

Phil is a member of the Incrementalists, an ancient organization that is modern enough to use email (@incrementalists.org). The Incrementalists strive to make the world a little better. Their tool is meddlework -- meddling with someone's mind to change his or her actions. Not only has the organization been around forever, so have its members ... in a sense. Incrementalists live beyond their deaths when their memories are absorbed by new recruits.

Phil recruits Ren to join the Incrementalists without telling her that she'll be absorbing Celeste, his long-time lover. Ren, on the other hand, doesn't tell Phil that she has her own agenda for learning the business of meddlework. But Celeste has an agenda too, leading to a plot that is filled with conflicting agendas. Another plot wrinkle: Celeste's last memory before her suicide (which should be stored in the Garden where the Incrementalists keep their collective memories) has gone missing.

Meddling is a subtle process, more an act of manipulation than control, and that's another departure from novels with similar themes. Whether meddling, however well-intentioned, is morally right or wrong is a strong theme that creates the opportunity for conflict among the characters, but that theme is underutilized. The plot focuses not on what the Incrementalists do (mostly they fret and quarrel without doing anything) but on an internal conflict within the group. That's both good and bad. It's good to personalize a story. It's bad (or at least disappointing) to set up a large moral dilemma without using it effectively. The story's background details are often more interesting than the story itself.

To a large extent The Incrementalists tells a love story, and like most fictional love stories, it runs a predictable course. It's different from most love stories in that the lovers are masters at manipulation, leaving the reader to wonder whether the love is real or induced by meddling. Unfortunately, that theme too is underutilized. Intrigue is added to the story by Phil's love of both Ren and Celeste (conveniently for him, they sometimes occupy the same body), but that love triangle is more interesting in concept than in execution.

In the end, while The Incrementalists is well-paced, written in capable prose, and often entertaining, it doesn't live up to its potential. The main story is too abstract while the love story is unexciting.  Because the novel is better in concept than in execution, I cannot recommend it with enthusiasm.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Harlan Ellison's 7 Against Chaos by Harlan Ellison and Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski

I don't usually review graphic novels, but I'm making an exception for two that were written by writers whose storytelling ability I particularly admire.

7 Against Chaos by Harlan Ellison

Published by DC Comics on July 16, 2013

Earth has been plagued by a series of disasters: people have spontaneously combusted or transformed into snakes, a harbor changed into a desert, a mountain of ice appeared from nowhere. To save the Earth from crisis, high level computers have directed a robed man to assemble a team from various colonies around the solar system. A slave who is a female version of Edward Scissorhands, a faceless cat burglar, a woman who can shoot fire from her fingers, a fellow who has been reengineered as an insect, a robot, and a technological whiz with telepathic tendencies join the robed man to "fight for the fabric of reality itself."

Harlan Ellison -- the best writer of short stories in the history of science fiction -- has given us a time travel story combined with a "humanize the robot" story combined with a some superheroism stories combined with a couple of love stories combined with a quest/adventure story combined with an alien invasion story, all wrapped around a good versus evil story, with evil personified by someone or something named Erisssa. And, of course, it's all ultimately an homage to Seven Samurai. You can't fault Ellison for lacking ambition.

Although the story is entertaining -- and the particular way in which Ellison combines the alien invasion with time travel is innovative -- I can't say that 7 Against Chaos resonated with me in the same way that Ellison's best work has done over the years. In fact, the authorial voice doesn't sound like Ellison to me, which makes sense, since Paul Chadwick not only did the artwork but wrote much of the dialog. Chadwick's art serves its purpose but it didn't stun me.

Maybe I'm a little disappointed because, like most of Ellison's eighty zillion fans, I expect to be blown away by every glob of spit that comes out of his mouth, and 7 Against Chaos just didn't grab me. Had this been developed as a twelve-issue miniseries, I'd probably be more excited about it. An awful lot happens in a limited number of pages, and that means an awful lot is sacrificed. The characters are strong but character development is too often rudimentary. The story comes across as the outline for an epic blockbuster but doesn't deliver a blockbuster punch, largely because it's too condensed to achieve epic status. None of this means I dislike the end result -- it's fun and clever and it displays flashes of the power Ellison so readily wields -- but I see a lot of potential here that wasn't maximized. I'd recommend it anyway (albeit with reservations) because ... well ... it's Ellison.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski

Published by DC Comics on July 16, 2013

I'm reviewing this because I'm a fan of Alan Moore's brilliant Watchmen series (the serialized graphic novel, not the movie) and of J. Michael Straczynski.  Straczynski shows his versatility in Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan. This volume collects three stories. The first focuses on Nite Owl and his relationship with Rorshach. With Straczynski at the writing helm, you know there's a good chance that irreverent humor will balance the story's dramatic content. But Straczinski also excels at gritty, atmospheric noir, and there's plenty of that here. There's even a certain amount of sleaze, but it's poetic sleaze. Straczinski quotes Alan Ginsberg and he may well have relied on Ginsberg as inspiration for the raw earthiness of the story. When Straczinski is given license to do his best writing, you're going to get sex and hypocrites moralizing about sex. You'll see all sides of human nature, the pure and the damaged, and it will be delivered with unvarnished honesty.

The tongue-in-cheek tone that characterizes Nite Owl's story gives way to achingly serious writing when the story shifts to Dr. Manhattan. The blue guy, in all his quantum possibility, is a deeper character, given to philosophical introspection. Straczinski plays with time streams and potential realities to develop a heartfelt story about the difference (if there is one) between what is and what might have been, a story about the power of choice, including the choices we are powerless to make. This is really an impressive piece of writing, some of Straczinski's finest work.

Another shift in tone occurs in the third story, focusing on Moloch the Mystic (and, to a lesser extent, Ozymandius). This time the story is twisted, introducing elements of horror as Straczinsky explains Moloch's past. There isn't as much depth here, but it's just a two issue add-on that I regarded as a little treat, neither adding nor detracting from the two main features.

Straczinski stays true to Alan Moore's wonderful characters. Rorschach is as messed up as ever. Straczinski gives us some additional insight into the cause of his inner turmoil, but he doesn't alter the character in any fundamental way, and he's faithful to Rorschach's peculiar speech patterns. Dr. Manhattan is his brooding, enigmatic self. This is a dazzling display of storytelling. It isn't Alan Moore, but it isn't meant to be.

RECOMMENDED

The Bones of Paris by Laurie R. King

Published by Bantam on September 10, 2013

The Bones of Paris is set in the Paris of 1929. The setting will appeal to readers who are drawn to the literary and art scene of that place and time, but the novel's focus is on a less elevated form of entertainment: the Grand-Guignol, a puppet theater of terror. Any novel set in Paris is likely to feature romance and there is some of that here, but much of it is mundane, built upon unimaginative lines like "she threw her arms around his neck." The heart of the story is a murder mystery which, although not as dull as the romance, is far from riveting.

Philippa Crosby was living in Paris when she suddenly stopped writing letters to her family. Her mother and uncle hire Harris Stuyvesant, an American private investigator living in Europe, to find her. Stuyvesant is a friend of Ernest Hemingway and hangs out with Cole Porter. Philippa has been sketched by Picasso and photographed by Man Ray (not always fully clothed). Yes, the novel is full of 1929 name dropping.

Stuyvesant learns from police inspector Emile Doucet that other young women have gone missing in Paris. Like Philippa, they had connections to "the art world." The search takes Stuyvesant to the Grand-Guignol and to a character who calls himself a "fan of death." By the novel's midpoint, three suspects have been dangled for the reader's consideration. The whodunit begins as an intriguing mystery that often becomes lost in a blizzard of words and unlikely coincidences before culminating in an unsurprising reveal that is followed by an equally unsurprising climax.

Developing alongside the mystery of Philippa's disappearance is a relationship drama. Stuyvesant reconnects with Sarah Grey, an old flame who has a coincidental link to the Grand-Guignol by virtue of her employer, Le Comte Charmentier, and an equally coincidental link to the missing persons investigation by virtue of her romance with Doucet. That, it seemed to me, was one coincidence too many. Harris and Sarah's brother, Bennett Grey, both blame themselves for an injury that left Sarah without a hand, but that subplot is too muddled to add value to the story.

Scattered through the novel are snippets of Parisian history with an emphasis on death and cemeteries and the bones of the dead. There are also snippets that take the reader into the villain's mind. Less interesting are a number of passages describing Stuyvesant's comings and goings that contribute nothing to the story while occasionally slowing the pace to a crawl. On other occasions the narrative bogs down in pace-deadening detail that does little to advance the story. The reader slogs through lists of missing persons' hair color and nationality as Stuyvesant looks for a pattern he can't find, followed by more pages describing the patterns followed by serial killers throughout history. Reading all of that struck me as being an irritating waste of my time.

The Bones of Paris seems ready to shift into a higher gear when, in the last quarter, Bennett makes an appearance in Paris. Bennett has a superpower ... well, not really, but he has a gift that isn't credibly explained. In addition to his superpower, Bennett exhibits flashes of Sherlock Holmes (perhaps it is not a coincidence that Laurie King has written Holmes novels). In any event, Bennett had the potential to enliven the story, but his deductive ability and his superpower, despite being well-hyped, are seriously underutilized. In the end, despite its enjoyable atmosphere and some moments of strong writing, The Bones of Paris does too little to overcome its weaknesses.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Traveling Sprinkler by Nicholson Baker

Published by Blue Rider Press on September 17, 2013

Some writers have a knack for making readers feel good, not because they're describing a good world, but because they describe a rotten world in a good-natured way. Nicholson Baker reminds us that the world isn't all bad (even if the news is), that it's filled with well-intentioned (if sometimes misguided) people, and that much of what we fret about is silly, although much (like drones dropping bombs on children) provides good reason to wear a misery hat.

At 55, Paul Chowder (last seen in The Anthologist) is a bit late for a mid-life crisis but he's having one anyway. Chowder is struggling to shape a new identity. He'd like to write protest songs. He'd like to have big lips because he thinks women find them attractive. He'd like to get back together with Roz. He'd like to help people. He'd like to stop eating the peanut butter crackers that are giving him a potbelly.

Chowder figures that after publishing three collections and an anthology, he is finished as a poet. In his youth, Chowder gave up the bassoon for poetry; now he is learning to play a cheap guitar. His friend Tim tells him that taking up the guitar is "a middle-aged thing to do," that he'll be like the people at faculty parties who "sneak off and play Clapton Unplugged and Blind Lemon Jefferson." The wry humor in that observation, and in Chowder's response ("Exactly"), sets the tone for Traveling Sprinkler.

Just as the pleasure of music derives from "the singularity of every utterance," the unique nature of every individual's thought patterns is well illustrated in Traveling Sprinkler. Chowder invites the reader into his cluttered mind, chatting amiably about his scattered opinions and memories. Readers who are looking for some semblance of a plot might be put off but I found it engaging, largely because Chowder's thoughts are so amusing. He talks about self-improvement, cigars, movies, his theory of metaphorical interference, corncob pipes, poetry, Quaker meetings, his car, experts, classical music, pop music, dance music, Debussy, Monsanto, Amazon (which is "using its stock price to take over all of retailing and bankrupt the world"), tradition versus progress, and (of course) traveling sprinklers. He often opines derisively about the CIA and frequently criticizes Obama as a warmonger. Readers who cannot abide left-leaning opinions should steer clear of Traveling Sprinkler.

Although I've never been thrilled with narratives in which the author addresses the reader directly, Baker makes it work. Still, a good novel benefits from characters interacting in meaningful ways with other characters, an element that is largely missing from the novel's first half. Chowder interacts with only a few characters during the course of the story (most notably, in the second half, ex-girlfriend Roz) which produces little in the way of secondary character development. My only other complaints about this thought-based novel are that the ending is too obvious and that Chowder's lectures about the construction of music are a long-winded component of an otherwise breezy story.

Baker's writing is consistently witty and often strikingly imaginative. His pain-shaped humor reminded me of Woody Allen. I admired Baker's use of a collapsed barn floor as a metaphor for the wreckage of life. I appreciated the "misery hat" as a recurring theme; you knit it for yourself "and all of a sudden you're wearing it." Baker's comparison of a Fountain of Waynes song to a scrambling quarterback waiting to launch a pass is a little slice of genius, as is the parallel he draws between a Beatles song and a Tennyson poem.

When I reached the end of Traveling Sprinkler and asked myself "What was the book about?" I groped for an answer. In part, it's about the similarities between popular culture and highbrow culture. It's about a love of words and a love of music. It's about how men cope with the fears that accompany aging. It's about the struggle to live a decent and fulfilling life. All of those themes are interwoven but they add up to something larger, something difficult to define. I suppose they add up to life.

RECOMMENDED

Malavita by Tonino Benacquista

First published in France in 2004; published in translation by Penguin Books on June 25, 2013

If, like most viewers, you were wondering "what comes next?" after the screen turned black at the end of the last Sopranos episode, you can imagine Malavita as the Sopranos sequel. Unfortunate events forced the Blake family to leave Newark, and then to leave Paris, and then to leave the Cote d'Azur before making their way to a village in Normandy. Along the way they were joined by an Australian Cattle Dog named Malavita. The cause of their journey is not revealed until chapter two, but the reader knows that it has something to do with Fred, "in the days when he was still called Giovanni." Having come into possession of a typewriter, Fred is posing as a writer, a cover story that disturbs both his wife Maggie (who regards her husband as barely literate) and, after Fred decides he should write his memoir, his exasperated FBI handler. The writing exposes Fred's checkered past to the reader while dredging up a sense of vulnerability that Fred has rarely experienced.

The Blakes are a family of sociopaths. Young Warren's ambition is to become a Godfather while his aptly named sister Belle guards her untouchable beauty with violent vigor. Maggie might burn down your house as retribution for a perceived insult, but her French neighbors revere her as a volunteer for charitable causes. Fred is widely regarded as a worldly pack leader, a community protector. Near the story's midpoint, Tonino Benacquista treats the reader to a departure, a series of short stories connected by a school newspaper. The circuitous route traveled by the newspaper turns out to be integral to the plot, but the stories are enjoyable standing alone.

Benacquista keeps the tone light, making it possible for the tolerant reader to like the Blakes, just as viewers liked Tony Soprano while cringing at his behavior. Fred is who he is, and Benacquista helps the reader understand why. Benacquista's approach to storytelling makes it possible to step back from the criminal nature of the Blake family and to look beneath the surface to find traits and circumstances with which the reader can identify. Crime families, after all, have the same domestic issues as other families. In fact, we understand Fred better than Fred -- a man baffled by honest people who "trust in a world that had to be obeyed" -- understands us. And even if we can't identify with Belle's narcissism or Warren's lust for power or Fred's indifference to his family (although he cares about his dog, so how bad can he be?), those characteristics (exaggerated for comedic effect but recognizable in people we know) can make us laugh.

Malavita exposes the hypocrisy of people who make a point of holding themselves out as morally superior to (or holier than) the wayward Blakes. Which is worse, the novel implicitly asks: the Mafia kingpin or the factory owners who poison the village water supply? French pomposity, Italian appetites, and American arrogance all add humor to Benacquista's story. By the novel's end, Fred is redeemed in a small but meaningful way. Malavita doesn't have the depth of character that The Sopranos developed, but it tells a funny, fast-moving story without wasting words. That made it worthwhile for me.

RECOMMENDED