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| TOR Hardcover Edition, 1988 |
The 1988 novel Day
Seven is one of the better non Brad Smith novels published by TOR. It seamlessly joins science fiction,
suspense, and mystery into an entertaining yarn. The year is 1994, and the United States and
Soviet Union are in a race to Mars. The
goal is to reach Mars and find the source of a radio signal broadcasting from
its surface. The storyline is large, and
it could have taken countless directions, but Mr Bickham chose to play small
ball with it. Instead of creating high
level political and diplomatic hijinks he keeps the action close to the field,
which allows the story to generate a much more personal and believable tension.
The majority of the action is in Houston, Texas,
with several scenes set in space, and even a few in Dallas. The protagonist is a successful psychologist
who discovers the U. S. mission has been sabotaged, and the story plays out as
a clock race, first attempting to convince NASA something is wrong and then doing
the hard work of solving the case himself. It is as much a mystery as anything, but the
plot is very much dependent on the technological aspect of the space mission.
Day
Seven is a template for plotting. It is plotted and structured precisely as Mr
Bickham teaches in his writing book Scene
and Structure. The action builds
perfectly from one scene to the next; every action has a reaction, and the
pacing of the story builds slowly and steadily.
It doesn’t scream out of the blocks with nowhere to go but back to the bookshelf. It pulls the reader along from one scene to
the next, the protagonist’s situation getting worse with each page until it
seems everything is lost, which is exactly how a suspense novel should be.
The characters’ motivations are perfectly
revealed. There is never a doubt why a
character does one thing rather than another, and it is not just the main
players whose motivations are explored.
An example is a character stealing computer code from NASA. His role is not large (although it is
essential to the climax), but his motivations are explained well, and fit
Donald Cressey’s fraud triangle perfectly: pressure, opportunity, and
rationalization:
“‘You
don’t understand! I had no choice! Nothing I’ve copied is of any
significance! My wife—my financial
situation—you don’t understand the pressure I’ve been under—please!’”Day Seven is exactly what a suspense novel should be—exciting, tense, and interesting enough to keep the reader turning the pages.
I have to keep up with your blog. I love it.
ReplyDeleteJack was not only a fine writer in many genres he was one of the most decent people I've ever had the pleasure to know. He fought cancer for a long time
but it didm't deter him from writing his best books in the final years of his life. He was also a revered and beloved teacher of fiction writing. Thanks for this post.
Thanks for the kind words about the blog Ed. I've been trying to more consistently post again (once a week or so).
ReplyDeleteJack Bickham's work, especially his Brad Smith novels, have an ethical sentiment missing in much of fiction, and unfortunately society. Smith lives in a crooked world, but his morality, self described in the books as old fashioned, is the driving force of actions as a character. I've always thought the ethical plays in the novels likely matched Jack Bickham's own ethical viewpoints, which says a bunch about the kind of person he was.