books Fei) NOVELS TACKLE VIETNAM BATTLEFIELDS NEAR & FAR Of rice and men DIP, WASHINGTON. A dusty accretion of time-faded buildings, a dried-up speck of a town with a dessicated past and no future. Just another example of human misadven- ture in a harsh landscape of wind-worn basalt and aimless tumbleweed. The kind of place that can’t even hold the odd, errant Winnebago, let alone a dream. Except for Maggie. Maggie dreams. Of publishing a book, maybe two. Who knows? Thirty-five, single, she lives in her dead grandmother's clapboard house and wearily serves up coffee and grilled cholesterol in the local cafe, Except for the dream, Mag- gie’s life is as flat and featureless as Dip’s main road — until the day Tucker Harris skids into town. Tucker Harris. Both feet in the ‘80s, a mind jammed in the lock- and-load ‘60s. A man with a war- rior’s grin and a sexual appetite that turns women into battlefields. A man who went away to the crematorium of a country’s pride and came back with his own per- sonal demon. To many places, but now to Dip. And Maggie. And Maggie's bed. For Maggie it's a long, sweat- drenched night pushing back the frontiers of fantasy-soaked sex. Just Maggie, Harris, two Siamese fighting fish — and Harris’ inner mentor whose personal taste in pornography runs to Soldier of Fortune and unlimited body _counts, The next morning Harris is gone, leaving nothing but a plume of disspirited dust and a few enigmatic lines of (rench erotica scrawled on the dimpled surface of paper towelling. And the tat- teved remains of forbidden boundaries and two dead fish. Enter Eddie Mertz and Scott Michaels, hip, glib and wise-crack- ing, in search of Maggie's erstwhile boyfriend, jedediah Dowd, an ex-Vietnam vet. Mertz, Michaels and Maggie set out for Dowd’s isolated ranch together but let's face %: anyone. How single. “people Sinate beeyga gat like a a pie Vancouy Ry Fohg | Stone, This may be a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't be as direct as I am. But I think it’s time someone confronts the real pressure single people now face. There are a jot of unattached people today and whether they’re single, separated or divorced, they're really all ‘‘single”. And they almost all face the same problem — men and women alike. Whether they go to dances, bars, nightclubs or dating services — the feeling for singles is the same. They have to create an “‘instant’’ image as if they’re a piece of meat on a platter that can be accepted or rejected. Here in Vancouver It doesn’t have to be like that. There is a way single people can meet and mingle com/ortably with other elite and unattached men and women right here in Vancouver. And there’s no pressure, only the pleasure of Director,, any three, can make a mistake. Too bad the Columbia River badlands aren’t as forgiving. Jim Nisbet’s Death Puppet (Black Lizard/Raincoast; 231 pp.; $23.95 in hardcover) doesn’t go anywhere you expect; it has more twists and turns than a Pacific rat- tler and it’s just as unpredictable. The author of Lethal Injection and MIKE STEELE book review The Damned Don’t Die, Nisbet has a deft and nimble way of put- ting a plot through its paces. Death Puppet is no simple- minded, detective-thriller: this is deadly cops-and-killers stuff, packed with action, fear and con- trolled substances. Vietnam seems to be haunting publishing lists as much as it oc- cupies the motion pictuze and television film industries. One of the latest additions to the ‘Nam roster is The Fire Dream, Franklin Leib’s massive novel of rice and men. Did | say ‘massive’? At 607 pages this is one heck of a big book: the publishers themselves have rashly subtitled this “The Epic Novel of Vietnam” in a misguided attempt to convey something of the scope of Leib’s work (lut, tut: ‘epic’ may only be Lhe Nu : sourmet, good company, superb gourmet parties and spectacular evenits. Since 1981, The Single Gourmet has grown to more than 12,000 members in 16 cities in North America. Our numbers are increasing daily. And we know why! When you're a member, you meet a steady stream of other single people without any pressure. We present 4 to 6 “events” every month — from perfectly planned gourmet meals and dinner dances, ski-outings and wine-tasting adventures, to murder-mystery weekends and limousine races. We take care of all the details. And what’s really important is that you're personally welcomed at any event you choose to attend in a manner that puts you immediately at ease. You belong! The heart of The Single Gourmet really is pleasure without pressure. used to describe a poem, publishing persons). The Fire Dream follows ihe lives of four young men from the time of their decisions to enlist in various branches of the American military through training and combat in Vietnam. Fighting sequences are done weli: The Fire Dream doesn’t pull any punches in describing mind- numbing terror, sudden death or the fear-driven reflexes that lead to actions later deemed heroic — when in reality survival was the primary and perhaps only factor in taking those actions. Another area where Leib suc- ceeds is in making the reader care about the protagonists. These aren't superheroes, they’re men: scared, doubting, haunted and immersed in circumstances with a momentum that cares nothing for the frailty of human bone, tissue and psyches. Leib makes these four characters important to us so he rates an un- conditional ‘thumbs up’ on this score. But on other levels the author's creation is a troubled vehicle indeed. Leib’s dialogue is a major flaw: it does not sound anything like the form of English we associate with speech. If readers were to try speaking the lines that Leib at- - {ributes to various characters they would sound stilted and wooden. So formal and contrived is this dia- logue that it interrupts the flow of the story and in a novel with as much dialogue as this one, that’s annoying in the extreme. Leib should have known better. After all, this isn’t his first effort. But an equal portion of blame should be borne by his editor or editors who failed to correct this obvious fault (not to mention a seeming indifference to the objec- tive ‘whon?’ and the subjective ‘who’). The Fire Dream is entertaining and ambitious, but not extraor- dinary. Perhaps it’s time for you to adopt a new approach to your social life. If so, consider the time you have spent reading this advertisement. It is probably more than any other ad you will read today. Think about its message and follow it up with a phone calf or mail the coupon. For your Free INFORMATION PACKAGE phone today: 683-3660 or write: THE SINGLE GOURMET Suite 1400-1500 W. Georgia St. Van., B.C. V6G 2Z6 Name: Phone #: Address: