Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were a reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

So our buddy Quaid has gotten his #$# to Mars. The next question is “now what”? What did Hauser leave behind and will it save Quaid? I’m not sure how much of that will show up in our next chapter but we should see his new “home”.

Chapter 16: Venusville

There are some interesting bits in this chapter. One is that Quaid overhears a couple of people talking and learns that a lot of the propaganda from the Mars Relocation Project are big fat lies. Then he sees the first “artifact” from his dream, the Pyramid Mine, which he’s told was closed because of alien artifacts found there, another thing from his dream. Getting to the hotel under a third identity, Brubaker, he is given something “he” left behind, which features a naked picture of a girl named Melina, the woman from his dream, sending him to a…place of ill repute? Hey, I try to keep it clean when I can.

We also get to meet Cohaagen, who appears to a bit off his rocker. He’s your typical villain trying to hold on to his power and take on Quato, the rebel leader they don’t have a picture for on his wanted posters. This is also the first we hear about a plan, but it’s supposed to be a plan to stop Quaid, not Quato, or at least that’s the impression I get. Yes, this will matter later.

If I had any fault with the book it’s this unnecessary exposition added to the reasoning for all of the mutations in the underbelly of Venusville. The weak dome thing is in the movie and works as an explanation, but then Anthony starts going on about the Ozone layer and how the scientists and governments finally took the supposed hole seriously once Cancer rates rose. And how they fixed it and the rates started dropping. So how did they “fix” it? Giant bandage? Liquid ozone? It’s this tacked in environmental message that was a big deal at the time before global warming became the threat du jour. It doesn’t help the story and if the intent was to further explain the Venusville mutations it falls a little short and took me out of the story for a brief time instead.

That aside they got Quaid to The Last Resort than I was expecting. With his cabbie, Benny, waiting for him, Quaid’s gone in. What will he find…besides prostitutes and booze, of course?

Next Time: Melina

Related articles

• Chapter By Chapter: Total Recall adaptation Ch. 14
• Chapter By Chapter: Total Recall adaptation Ch.15