Tsunami - A Novel
Gordon Gumpertz’ Tsunami is a techno-thriller that does not miss most aspects of that genre: an impending act-of-God disaster, its effects unknown, but a fear that they might be under-estimated; an extremely masculine military hero, who is every much a leader and a fighter; a brilliant female scientist who eventually falls for the extremely masculine hero figure; and, a variety of greedy villains whose wealth is threatened by the impending act-of-God.
 Tsunami, A Novel
The greediest of the villains are not American, and they want to make money selling Ripper guns, as well as in real estate. The scientist is a Hawaiian Princeton-educated seismologist who has predicted impending doom when her colleagues at her California laboratory will not. That lab is partly financed by the developer, who is backed by the greedy gun-dealing villains, and its chief executive is their puppet. And Coast Guard officer David Steel is the extremely, but sufficiently sensitive, masculine hero.
Tsunami has good points. First, it gives you enough of the science to help you follow the story. One flaw of techno-thrillers is that they get too much into the science and technology for a non-scientific or non-military reader. Or they get too much into the politics of the science. Those who are more deeply into the science and technology find that boring. This novel struck the right balance.
Tsunami’s lead scientist, Leilani Sanches, is also an interesting character for her Hawaiian ancestry and complexity. Outside of intellect and fight, she also questions her ability to be in a relationship outside of work, and that is carried through until the end. She believes she loves the hero, then she doesn’t, then she does again. This made Tsunami a stronger story in my book.
The weak points of this novel are the heroes and the villains. The heroes, especially David Steel, are not sufficiently developed to be interesting. Among his friends at work, Jiro is the most interesting because he is the most human. He is injured on duty and makes unintended mistakes. The others, including Admiral Carson, are as underdeveloped as Steel.
The same problem exists with the greediest of the villains, Harley Wamp, the developer, is shown as too abrasive and his greed is too obvious, and he is shown to be a weak man at the end. George Hacker, shipping magnate and gun merchant, is an even greedier, and more obviously abrasive, villain than Wamp. George is more like Tony Soprano; he makes the rules as he goes, and reminds everyone who is boss. And like Tony, he shows up at the job site from time to time. But George, unlike Tony, reports to a higher authority who doesn’t want to get his nails dirty.
But aside from the weak characters, Tsunami provided enough science, action, academic politics and environmental concern to satisfy me. However, I don’t believe that I am the typical reader of techno-thrillers, because I look for that balance. This is a more segmented market, where scientists add more science, soldiers add action or pols add politics. Tsunami does not have enough to satisfy anyone of those segments. But I could be wrong, and I hope I am. This story deserves an audience.
Stuart Nachbar operates http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology. He was involved with education politics and economic development for two decades as an urban planner, government affairs manager and a software executive. His first novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles, about sex education and school politics in 1980 New Jersey, was published this past fall.
|
