Sidewall by David Graham

Published by Pan in 1983

Sidewall is a surprisingly good science fiction thriller that's more thriller than science fiction. This 1982 novel is set in 1993. Most of David Graham's predictions about life in the '90's turned out to be pretty far off the mark (although he did manage to predict the Gulf War). You have to make a mental adjustment to set the novel a bit farther into the future, but after that's accomplished, the story seems quite plausible -- and in any event, it's terrifically exciting.

The British are building a sidewall -- a marine hovercraft -- that seats two thousand passengers and makes the trip from England to New York in about eight hours. Although it's being developed in secret (in cooperation with the British military), the chief executives of the world's airlines have found out about it and are determined to put a stop to it, lest they lose their transatlantic fares to competition from this new form of transportation. In addition, someone has leaked plans for the vessel to the Soviet Union (substitute Russia, since Graham failed to predict the Soviet Union's demise) which is building its own militarized version of the craft.

The main characters in Sidewall are engaging, particularly the unfortunately named Don Savage, chief of security for the company developing the sidewall, who struggles with a mysterious illness and a hellish marriage as he tries to save the company from Russian spies and airline CEO's. Action scenes are vividly written and once it begins, the action is relentless -- all the way through to the last page -- as imaginative attacks are launched against the sidewall.

David Graham's most popular novel was Down to a Sunless Sea. In addition to Sidewall, he wrote three others, two under the name Wilbur Wright. It's a shame he didn't write more, and it's a shame Sidewall is out of print. Seek out a used copy if you enjoy fast moving thrillers.

RECOMMENDED

All Judgment Fled by James White

First published in 1969

All Judgment Fled (the title is taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) is an entertaining first contact novel. An object following an unnatural path is detected in the vicinity of Mars. Two American ships, each with a crew of three, are sent to investigate. They find an alien ship. It doesn't respond to signals, doesn't seem to be doing anything; its purpose is a mystery. Behaving rather foolishly, some crew members enter the ship and, having damaged their space suits in an encounter with violent but seemingly unintelligent aliens, find themselves stranded inside the ship. Oops!

The story is a study in the psychology of first contact. Three different alien species inhabit the ship. The humans must decide which species are intelligent, which are friendly, and why they're here. The six crew members (four astronauts, two in training) are selected more for their ability to survive the trip than for their expertise. The story's primary focus is on McCullough, whose medical background makes him the unofficial expert in the psychology of both humans and aliens. He is occasionally frightened to a state of witlessness -- an understandable and realistic reaction that adds credibility to the story. The task of survival on an alien ship is complicated by the divided reactions of all the people on Earth who are listening to the radio transmissions and who criticize the crew for being unnecessarily violent or insufficiently aggressive, for engaging in too much or too little exploration of the ship, and generally for mucking things up.

A shortcoming of the novel is that the crew members jump to conclusions that seem questionable, if not unlikely, given the scant evidence to support them. Nonetheless, their conclusions advance the plot, which moves along briskly. This isn't by any means a great novel -- at times it even seems a bit silly -- but it's well written and the plot ultimately works: the conflict between the crew and the bureaucrats back on Earth is just as interesting as the conflict between the humans and aliens on the ship.

RECOMMENDED

False Allegations by Andrew Vachss

First published in 1996

False Allegations isn't the best of the Burke novels but it might be the most interesting. Taking on the serious problem of false allegations of sexual assault, Vachss provides a mountain of evidence to establish that accusations of sexual assault are too often false, that false accusations are incredibly destructive even if the truth is eventually revealed, and that false accusations are very difficult to overcome since the accusation itself (if believed) is all the proof the law requires. Of course, every false accusation harms the real victims of sexual assault by fueling the skepticism they encounter when they report the crimes.

A woman with a "recovered memory" of being a sexual assault victim is represented by a lawyer named Kite. Kite hires Burke to determine whether the accused, Brother Jacob, actually assaulted the woman when she was a child. Kite makes his living exposing false allegations of abuse, and is intent on developing a rigorous investigative technique that will become the gold standard of abuse investigations. To have credibility, however, he must conclude that at least one allegation is true, and he wants Burke to assure that the victim he wants to represent in a suit against Brother Jacob is telling the truth. The novel tracks Burke's thorough investigation. Of course, I won't reveal the ending, but I can say that it's both clever and unexpected.

Having said that, I viewed the ending as something of a cop-out (for reasons I can't discuss without spoiling it for those who haven't read the novel). Moreover, Vachss is ultimately an advocate for abused children, not for falsely accused abusers, and the novel can be justly criticized for its unsupported assertion that "recovered memories" are often worthy of belief.  Still, I appreciated Vachss' relatively evenhanded assessment of the nature and causes of false sexual assault allegations, and (as always) I enjoyed his spare, razor-sharp writing style. I also enjoyed Burke's interaction with the usual friends and colorful cronies who populate the Burke novels. This novel lacks the dramatic tension of the best Burke novels, but it's worth reading, if only for its educational value.

RECOMMENDED

The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry

First published in 1973

Paul Christopher, a character in The Miernik Dossier who appears in most of Charles McCarry's subsequent espionage novels, writes in a report: "There is an artistry to what we are doing: spies are like novelists--except that spies use living people and real places to make their works of art." McCarry knows something about the similarities of spies and novelists, having been a CIA operative himself before commencing his career as a writer of spy novels. The Miernik Dossier is his first, and it is excellent.

The story is told in a series of documents: reports, transcripts of recorded conversations, cables, diary entries, and the like. A drawback of this format is the difficulty of developing a character's personality through documents. McCarry solved that problem by having Christopher (an American agent) write very thorough, engaging reports, complete with verbatim accounts of dialog, descriptions of clothing and scenery and body odors, discussions of his observations, fears, and thought processes, and other material that helps set the scene and flesh out the characters. (Amusingly, a document prepared by one of Christopher's handlers complains that Christopher's reports lack organization and are filled with extraneous information.) Perhaps real spies don't write entertaining reports that work well as chapters in a novel, but maybe McCarry did just that when he worked for the CIA. In any event, Christopher's reports (and to a lesser extent, his British counterpart's and Miernik's diary) provide the flavor that makes the novel work as well as it does.

And it does work well. The story is filled with intrigue as the American and British agents accompany a member of the Sudanese royal family and a Polish diplomat on a road trip from Geneva to Sudan. The two spies are operating under diplomatic cover; each knows that the other is an operative but neither can admit it. They suspect that the Pole is also a spy and that he may have something to do with a Soviet-run terrorist group that has recently formed in Sudan, but they're never quite sure what role the colorful, irascible Pole is playing: is he a spy, and if so, what is his mission in Sudan? Add to the mix the Pole's sister and the British spy's girlfriend, both of whom join the trip, and the story becomes almost comical as everyone suspects everyone else of being something other than what he or she seems. Of course, when things are not as they seem, there is a potential for mistaken actions, and in this novel, that risk leads to a powerful ending. Some fast-paced action scenes in the desert add additional excitement to a story that is never in danger of becoming dull.

The Miernik Dossier teaches a lesson that applies not just to intelligence agencies but to all law enforcement agencies: once an intelligence analyst (or, for that matter, a police detective) begins to theorize that someone is a spy (or a criminal), they are likely to look for evidence to support that theory and risk losing their objectivity. For its excellent illustration of that principle as well as its riveting story and sympathetic characters, I recommend this novel.

RECOMMENDED

Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1950

Farmer in the Sky revolves around the colonization of Ganymede, which is being terraformed to accommodate human life. Most of the first colonists are homestead farmers who are offered land in exchange for their efforts to make the land productive. Young Bill Lerner is the key player in Heinlein's story; through his eyes the reader learns about his father's decision to take a new wife and to become a colonist. The colony struggles with hardship and Bill often wonders whether he'll be able to continue his farming life or whether he'll have to return to Earth.

I enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles when I was a teenager, and again upon rereading them in adulthood. Heinlein's juveniles offer an education in science that is too basic to be horribly outdated, always written in language us non-scientists can comprehend: in Farmer in the Sky, the reader learns lessons of physics, agronomy, ecology, even "population bionomics" (although Heinlein's take on the inevitability of population growth outpacing food supplies might not be well grounded in modern experience, at least as applied to human populations). At least equally interesting, I think, are the Heinlein values that shine through in his novels, and this one is no exception: his distrust of government and bureaucratic institutions; his fierce belief in individualism, coupled with a corresponding belief in the need for individuals to work cooperatively as friends and neighbors and families.

The plot of Farmer in the Sky unfolds a bit more slowly than the stories in some of Heinlein's other juveniles. Frequently mentioned is Bill Lerner's joy in being an Eagle Scout and his love of scouting in general. A shorter version of the book was originally serialized in Boy's Life magazine--perhaps Heinlein included the scouting references to enhance his chance of selling the story, but since they continue to appear (often) in the novel, I suspect Heinlein simply placed great value in scouting. The scouting references don't contribute much to the story (unless you're a real scouting fanatic), but they don't detract from it either.

In short, Farmer in the Sky is fun, educational, but a bit less exciting than some of the other Heinlein juveniles. For the Heinlein completist it's an essential read, but readers seeking the furious action of Starship Troopers might be disappointed.

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