The Satan Bug

[nuranar]

Apparently I have an audience that enjoys the so-called reviews I thought I was inflicting on my friends list.  This does flatter me, I admit. *g*  Sometimes I get really lazy and don't want to do them; writing IS an effort, particularly when I want to do a good job.  But I really need to get this one taken care of before the details and my impressions fade.  The plot in this one isn't so impossible to discuss as it was for Fear Is the Key (see my so-subtle review here), so I can elaborate a bit.

Alistair MacLean's The Satan Bug

This books is centered about the possibility of biological warfare, or as they put it in 1962, "germ warfare".  It's the only one of MacLean's stories I've yet read that is set wholly in England itself. The extremely high-security facility for developing germ warfare has been broken into - or broken out of - and two dangerous diseases have been taken.  One is the Satan Bug of the title.  Who has them, and what will they use them for?  (Trust me, you won't guess.)

The action of the story develops with surprising slowness, at least initially.  First-person narrator Pierre Cavell assists with the investigation, which is structured like a typical mystery with crime scene investigation, following up clues, and questioning witnesses and suspects.  Of course it picks up, and when a crisis is reached, things develop rapidly.

Cavell himself is somewhat shady; trust me, MacLean's layers of deception are not absent.  He is in a subtle way one of MacLean's more unusual characters; for starters, he has two physical handicaps - a crippled leg that had been crushed by a tank, and a nearly-blind eye from a shell explosion, both earned in the war.  He is also married; his wife Mary is another of MacLean's minor but wholly admirable females.  I love how MacLean balances the extraordinary with the ordinary; if his protagonist is unusual in one aspect, he is terribly ordinary in another.  This balance of the fantastic with extreme realism is part of why MacLean's stories are so compelling.

I'm very good at suspending disbelief to enjoy a story; I'm also very rarely emotionally caught up in a story.  (Unless it's anger at stupid characters or writing, which is scarcely what the author intended.)  But the descriptions of the power of these germs actually scared me.  I remember being so very glad that I am separated by 45 years and thousands of miles from the hypothetical scene of action - that's how intensely it affected me.  And yet... the Satan Bug in question is the granddaddy of all plagues.  Forget about the Black Death.  Imagine the worst case scenario for any epidemic - I mean it, literally the worst possible case - and you'll have what the Satan Bug would do.  As simple as that.

With the skill I've come to expect, MacLean doesn't dwell on the horror, even in the first-person narration.  He makes the situation horrifyingly clear, and moves on.  The tone is overall very grim, but it's not the personal, back-of-the-mind grief of Fear Is the Key.  And the humor is still there.  I figure I've talked about it in enough reviews; here's a paragraph from near to the end.

Cavell is trying to cross a deserted London railyard without being detected.  It is in complete blackout.

The reference book compilers who assert that Clapham Junction has more sets of parallel tracks than any place in Britain wouldn't go around making silly statements like that if they'd try this lot on a pitch black October night with the sleety rain falling about their ears.  There wasn't a single piece of ironware in the whole interminable width of those tracks that I didn't find that night, usually with my ankles and shins.  Railway lines, wires, signalling gear, switch gear, hydrants, platforms where there shouldn't have been platforms--I found them all.  To add to my discomfort the burnt cork that had been so heavily rubbed into my face and hands was beginning to run, and burnt cork tastes exactly as you would expect it to taste: and when it gets in your eyes it hurts.  The only hazard I didn't have to contend with was live rails--the power had been switched off.

As you can see, if MacLean's writing has any fault it's his tendency to very long sentences.  It's something I can easily forgive, since it's simply an old-fashioned style (see Dickens!) and  I'm prone to it myself.

So overall, another winner for Mr. MacLean.  *applause*

Comments

[jordannamorgan]

I remember taping a 1960s movie (TV movie?) based on that book years ago, when I was big on Richard Basehart. But I don't think I ever actually watched it. There's a dim possibility it's lying around somewhere in my graveyard of boxed-up tapes, but I may well have gotten rid of it.

Makes me recall my review of "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price. You may remember, the plague aspect of that ostensible zombie movie is what made it unusually creepy to me.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, MacLean's books were very poorly adapted by the film-making community. I read the Wiki entry for "Ice Station Zebra"; it's scarcely recognizable. The exceptions are The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, and MacLean actually wrote the latter first as a screenplay. What I'm trying to say is that it's likely no great loss. :p But if you ever come across it, you can put it in a someday-send-to-Ginger pile and I'll view it as a curiosity, as you say. ;)

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that. Eww. *shiver*

[sakka.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, now I know what that one is all about. I think this was the only one that my used bookstore had, but for some reason, I thought it would be about a demoniacally possessed Herbie car. (Sorry!!!)

But it sounds like another good Maclean book. He likes the name Mary doesn't he? :P I'll try to find it again and add it to my list!

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Ha! No, I didn't think of a Herbie, but I thought about it being either (a) a computer virus or (b) some metaphorical, philosophical infection.

He sure does! Both Mary and John. Although I'd be *extremely* surprised if the major in Where Eagles Dare was actually christened John Smith. In his profession, names really don't mean anything; why spend effort in making up a believable name when the enemy's not going to believe it anyway? :D

I don't think it shows lack of imagination on his part, though. As you know, protagonists in this type of story can rapidly develop Mary-Sueish tendencies. Whether consciously or not, I think MacLean's use of ultra-commonplace names avoids part of that stigma. Those names also show the reader that the characters are unusual because of who they are and what they can do; they don't need catchy, unusual, or perfect names. What do you think?

Another one I briefly reviewed several months ago is The Golden Rendezvous. I *really* liked that one. *hint hint*

[ladyneferankh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review! I'm really going to have to order one of these soon...

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, you must! I'd love to get someone else hooked on these. :D

[ladyneferankh.livejournal.com]

Hehe, well it looks as though you are well on your way to succeeding, by the way , out of curiousity--what would you say are the "best" spy novels ever written--well among the ones that you've read. I ask because I'm currently attempting* to write a novel that's partly a spy thriller myself.

*Pray note that the authoress uses the word "attempting" which is not necessarily identical to "succeeding"...

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Good for you! That sounds fascinating. *g*

I've delayed answering because I really don't have an answer for you. Spy stories, although acknowledged as a subgenre, seem to me to cross and blend into other subgenres very easily. For example, MacLean's books. Some of his protagonists are [eventually revealed as] intelligence agents. Some are a bit more equivocal, or less easily defined. Some are definitely not agents, not even unofficially hired. And yet except for that quibble, there is nothing else to distinguish the subgenres in his writing.

But I don't think you're asking about abstruse, technical definitions. ;) "Best" is completely subjective, too, but I can tell you about what I've read.

I've read Riddle of the Sands, which is supposed to be one of the first espionage novels. It's not terribly exciting cloak-and-dagger stuff, but it kept my interest and is worth re-reading.

E. Philips Oppenheim is quite diverting. I've 4-6 of his books and they're quite decent and not terribly wordy (a failing of this period). They happen to be detective stories and not spy stories, but I'd imagine the rest to be good.

I do highly recommend John Buchan. His [i]The Thirty-Nine Steps[/i] is an excellent thriller, and it has three or four books following it; Richard Hannay is the protagonist there.

Agatha Christie wrote several spy/thriller type stories. Tommy and Tuppence were mixed up in all of it; the first three, The Secret Adversary, Partners in Crime, and N or M? are the best. Destination Unknown/So Many Steps to Death is another.

Eric Ambler is definitely a spy-story author. I own Journey Into Fear and it's pretty good; I'm not sure if I've read others, though.

Of course there's Ian Fleming and James Bond. I've only read one, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is supposed to be one of the best. It was at the time about the rawest thing I'd read, both for violence and especially for sex. *shrug*

I read several John Le Carré books; they're the bleakest spy stories I've ever read. Probably more realistic for that, but still. *sigh* Incidentally, the tagline of my blog (Reader, writer, seamstress, saint) is modelled on the title of one of his books, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Just because the cadence is so great.

After that, the only ones that qualify are Tom Clancy. The Hunt for Red October is really good, but I'm 'eh' on most of the others. Oh, and I've read one Jack Higgins book, but didn't really like it and I doubt I'll read more.

By the bye, I highly recommend the "I Spy" TV series. (See my tags for more info.) It's a great fun series, but quite a few episodes take a very serious look at what it means to be in the spy business. And the plots often concern very ordinary, routine spy jobs; it's certainly not a "save-the-world-every-week" series.

Perhaps the Wikipedia entry would be useful?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_fiction Good luck with your story, and I hope I've helped!

[suededsilk.livejournal.com]

I was very bad and read the Wikipedia entry. Anyone who's interested, don't look, because the secret is spilled in the first full paragraph. :) (No, I wouldn't have guessed!)

I've never read anything by MacLean, but I liked the segment you posted.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Argh, those make me mad! I wish they'd put spoiler warnings in. :s I just checked, though, and there's still a bit more to it than is indicated in that summary. And one statement in there isn't entirely true. :D

If you can't tell, I highly recommend him. I've rambled a couple of times about him in general; you might be interested in following the tags. Basically, I think that at his best he really is BEST - in everything from plot to characterization to wordcraft.

Back to Wikipedia: As you've found out to your cost (I'm so sorry!), stay away from the individual book entries, but do check out the article for MacLean himself. I think it gives an excellent explanation of who he was and how he wrote. The section on his writing style is extremely illuminating, and it will help you understand some things I mention in my reviews. :)