[.ca] Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller (ISBN 0802143156)

Chronique amazon.fr:
Parmi les romans cultes de la Série Noire, il en existe un, quasi ovni qui se détache du lot par divers aspects assez fascinants. Ce roman s'intitule Le Grossium, a été écrit par Stanley Crawford en 1966 et traduit et préfacé - hommage rare - trois ans après par Duhamel. En refermant Zodiac, deuxième roman paru en 1988 aux USA (sans grand succès) et traduit en septembre 2002 en France, c'est à celui-ci que l'on pense. Même rythme échevelé, même capacité de prémonition, même humour non affiché... Zodiac est un polar, un roman noir au héros hard boiled de la plus pure tradition. Il narre les démêlés de Sangamon Taylor, éco-warrior professionnel et chimiste de talent qui s'agite dans la baie de Boston. Sangamon Taylor bouche les canalisations, sabote, manipule les médias. Il est macho, cynique, sûr de lui, tombeur de femmes, sportif, intelligent, cultivé, revenu de tout... Il "sauve la planète", réussit tout, a toujours raison... et est, forcément, inattaquable. C'est un James Bond en jeans crasseux, inhalateur de protoxyde d'azote et d'une élégance morale à géométrie variable. Sangamon Taylor est donc, forcément, exaspérant, alors, forcément, les ennuis vont lui tomber dessus comme les nuages radioactifs ukrainiens sur les champignons alsaciens : il va donc se mesurer, forcément, à la mafia, forcément, à l'État, forcément, aux trusts pollueurs, et, forcément, à une secte d'adeptes de heavy metal... On en passe... "L'Opération homard" qu'il a montée va donc, forcément, lui retomber dessus. Mais, forcément, Sangamon Taylor s'en tirera. L'éditeur, sur la quatrième de couverture, parle d'un humour à la Carl Hiaassen, romancier (de grand talent) écologiste de Floride à l'oeuvre burlesque. C'est commettre une double faute. Premièrement : l'humour présent dans Zodiac n'a aucun rapport avec celui, souvent gesticulant et buster-keatonien de Hiaassen. Chez Stephenson, il n'y a aucun aucun gag, c'est en creux que le roman est hilarant. "Vrai connard" (dixit Stephenson dans la préface), Sangamon Taylor est une charge impitoyable contre le militantisme deep ecology. Il en fait une figure bouffie, une baudruche en proie à la frénésie de sauver le monde et, ce faisant, Stephenson crée un nouveau personnage littéraire, plutôt fascinant dans son ambivalence, ses paradoxes, ses contradictions, son côté usurpateur. Deuxièmement, on ne peut même pas comparer Hiaassen à Stephenson... sous prétexte de thème écologique commun. Quand Hiaassen, aussi drôle soit-il, arrivera à atteindre un tel souffle, un tel rythme, à accumuler avec autant de sérieux autant de précisions scientifiques (saluons le traducteur qui a dû se former à la chimie), à bâtir sur des faits exacts autant de situations menées avec un tel brio, il sera un des plus grands auteurs américains vivants, ce qu'est indubitablement Stephenson, l'auteur du titanesque Cryptonomicon et de l'hallucinant Samouraï virtuel à l'imagination hors du commun. Il faut lire Zodiac tant pour "entrer" avec légèreté en Stephenson, avant de s'attaquer à la suite incontournable de son oeuvre, passablement plus ardue, que pour réaliser une chose : si en 1988 ce roman avait connu un succès plus important, il aurait peut-être pu secouer le polar en quête de voies, de thèmes, de personnages et d'auteurs aptes à lui pointer gentiment ses travers les plus caricaturaux. James Ellroy, autre maniaque de la précision et de l'effet de réel, se serait peut-être alors mis lui aussi à traiter d'écologie. Ou au moins à apprendre ce qu'est l'humour et l'autodérision. --Francis Mizio

From Amazon.com:
Believe it or not, some readers find Zodiac even more fun than Neal Stephenson's defining 1990s cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash. Zodiac is set in Boston, and hero Sangamon Taylor (S. T.) ironically describes his hilarious exploits in the first person. S. T. is a modern superhero, a self-proclaimed Toxic Spiderman. With stealth, spunk, and the backing of GEE (a non-profit environmental group) as his weapons, S. T. chases down the bad guys with James Bond-like Zen. Cruising Boston Harbor with lab tests and scuba gear, S. T. rides in with the ecosystem cavalry on his 40-horsepower Zodiac raft. His job of tracking down poisonous runoff and embarrassing the powerful corporations who caused them becomes more sticky than usual; run-ins with a gang of satanic rock fans, a deranged geneticist, and a mysterious PCB contamination that may or may not be man-made--plus a falling-out with his competent ("I adore stress") girlfriend--all complicate his mission. Stephenson/S. T.'s irreverent, facetious, esprit-filled voice make this near-future tale a joy to read.

Yes, "Eco-Thriller":
"Zodiac" is Neal Stephenson's second book, written between the unimpressive "The Big U" and the cyberpunk classic "Snow Crash." It was mildly successful and according to Stephenson, "on first coming out in 1988 it quickly developed a cult following among water-pollution-control engineers and was enjoyed, though rarely bought, by many radical environmentalists." Unlike Stephenson's more recent works, it involves only one linear plot line, and is also of a more reasonable size. This may make it his most accessible work, though it isn't his most entertaining. The story is told in the first person, from the perspective of Sangamon "S.T." Taylor, a Boston chemist employed by the Group of Environmental Extremists (GEE), International - an organization probably inspired by Greenpeace. S.T. works as a professional headache for industrial polluters flaunting the law and endangering their communities. His job is to terrorize the companies into acting in what is really their own best interest (i.e., not destroying the earth for short-term savings). Of course, it should go without saying that S.T. does not actually use terrorism to terrorize these polluters. Rather, he works with a potent mix of trespassing, his classic tactic of plugging up the pipes dumping toxic waste into the water supply, and his ultimate weapon: Bad Publicity. "Zodiac" starts of with some fun actions of this sort, but the story does not really begin until S.T. unexpectedly finds incredibly large amounts of incredibly toxic PCBs in Boston Harbor. Just as soon as he starts his investigation, however, the poisons disappear - which, if it had happened spontaneously, would be a mind-boggling 'violation' of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since there's no known way for PCBs to be removed from the water by hand, the only explanation is that S.T. has committed the screw-up of a lifetime. No sooner has S.T. resigned himself to this fate than the PCBs reappear, in even greater quantities. That's when large numbers of people start trying to kill him. To say nothing of the Satanists. Framed as an ecoterrorist, S.T. is forced to flee Boston and join forces with the real environmental extremists in order to unravel the mystery of the PCBs, redeem himself, and, quite possibly, save the world. So "Zodiac" really is an "Eco-Thriller," and I enjoyed it as much as (if not more than) the more famous "Snow Crash." At the very least, "Zodiac" has aged better. While some parts of "Snow Crash" read like the the wildest fantasies of the .com boom, "Zodiac" could easily be set anytime in the next (or past) twenty years. Many of the book's apparent flaws come from comparison to Stephenson's later work: "Zodiac" lacks both the intricate, awe-inspiring complexity of "Cryptonomicon" and "The Baroque Cycle" as well as much of the indescribable brand of humor that made "Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" so memorable. Another gripe could be characters - except for a few main characters, they remain vague outlines for the most part. We know they're present, but don't really get a clear picture of them. At any rate, if you're a Stephenson fan, "Zodiac" is well worth a read. Even compared to his later works, it shouldn't disappoint. On the other hand, if you're new to Stephenson, "Zodiac" is as good a place to start as any. Although it's not the experience that "Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" are, it's also more accessible and not nearly as imposing as "Cryptonomicon" and "The Baroque Cycle." I recommend it.

Eaten by the Bugs:
Zodiac is described on the cover blurb as an 'eco-thriller', and for a change the blurb is close to being accurate. The book's main character is an ecological-crime detective, busily hunting down evidence of corporations illegally dumping hazardous waste and using publicity stunts and clogging up discharge pipes with cement as his main weapons against these companies. The book takes on a decided thriller aspect with the introduction of gene-tailored bacteria, designed to 'eat' contaminates, but there is a variety that generates them instead. How these bacteria are tracked down and controlled provides the main thrust for this book. The plot is the main driver here, characterization outside of the protagonist is definitely skimpy, and in places the ecological warnings (though presented with apparent good scientific backing) become a little too strident, in places reminding me of Philip Wylie's The End of the Dream. Unlike some of his later books, his message is delivered almost directly, with little in the way of satire, irony, or his by-now patented brand of humor. The plot moves rapidly and logically, with enough potential hazard in the situation to easily quality as a 'thriller'. This makes for a quick read, but without his special zing that would make this book stand out. Definitely an early effort, not in the class of his Snow Crash or The Diamond Age, still quite readable, but probably a must only for Stephenson hard-core fans. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

techno-gumshoe:
This is actually my favorite Stephenson book. As a writer, his curse is usually that he lets the plot go spiraling wildly out of control. Stephenson's books usually don't so much end as grind to a halt. Zodiac is a pleasant exception. Its taut plotting and brevity is clearly modeled on the great detective novels of Dashiell Hammet et al, and doesn't stray into self-importance, and it still has all the wit that makes his books so much fun. Great reading!

excellent thriller:
In some ways, this book is wholly unlike the rest of Stephenson's work. It is not a cyberpunk novel, unlike the seminal "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age". But, in may respects, it is exactly like the rest of his work: well-written and superbly detailed. "Zodiac" is an eco-thriller set in Boston. Through the eyes of ST, an environmentalist who is more than a little bit of a jerk, a mystery unravels as ST tracks down who is responsible for a particular pollution of Boston Harbor. I have to admit that I was a bit concerned about reading an eco-thriller, since some in the genre are quite heavy-handed with their pro-environmental message. I shouldn't have been worried: Stephenson is a deft writer, and the novel never feels overbearing or preachy. If you have already read some of Stephenson's other work, you need to be aware that this is not a cyberpunk novel. It is good in its own right, but there isn't a hacker to be found. Hackers may appreciate ST's anti-establishment attitudes, though.

Adventures of a granola James Bond:
ZODIAC chronicles the adventures of the ecological crusader Sangamon Taylor as he uses his chemical knowledge to topple the seemingly invincible corporations that pollute our environment. Nonviolently but effectively embarrassing these companies into submission, he's naturally made some enemies in high places. S.T.'s latest intended conquest, in an effort to cover up some egregious mistakes, has released something dangerous and untested into Boston's waters. They know S.T. is close to uncovering their secret, and they don't intend to get caught out. I liked the main character, who was highly motivated in his work but not sentimental about it. He's not a bleeding heart, but someone who is concerned about the big picture. There is no preaching here, only science. While there is a lot of technical information, the conversational, humorous tone keeps it from turning into dull lectures. S.T. would have made a good teacher. Assuming the science is sound, I actually learned a lot in my reading. The book is fascinating and funny mystery up until the last third or so, when it jumps the contaminated shark, so to speak. A close ally becomes a betrayer without explanation (and later returns as a friend, no questions asked.) A man who has shown no previous signs of erratic behavior goes mad, not without reason, but it seems too sudden. I thought I had somehow missed a large section while reading. The story never quite recovers from this radical shift. Still, it is a very enjoyable and educational book for the most part, and one which should appeal to technothriller fans as well as science fiction readers.