Just This Once

Two women and two men are forced to explore the depths of their souls when fame, fortune, and temptation enter their lives

If the books of Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins seem formulaic, this debut novel of sin and success in Las Vegas outdoes them all. And that, in a way, is the point. Subtitled "A novel written by a computer programmed to think like the world's bestselling author," this potboiler is as superficial as its models. In Vegas for a quickie divorce, Harvard M.B.A. Carol Davis effortlessly lands a weighty job as assistant to Nick Salerio, owner of the DollHouse casino. Carol's romantic interest is Taylor Stevens, a slick character who once cheated the DollHouse but has since come to work for Salerio in return for unbroken kneecaps. Meanwhile, Carol's roommate, cabaret performer Lisa Steel, has achieved stardom, yet her career seems imperiled by her amazing appetite for cocaine and other drugs. French never explains how much of this tale required a human touch and how much issued forth from his hard drive. In fact, there's no indication that anything out of the ordinary was involved in constructing the predictably debauched, mediocre plot. All novelty rests in the conceit of computer authorship, not in the story itself.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A stunning Vassar graduate, a stunning School of Hard Knocks graduate, a handsome Stanford graduate, and a stunning gay man climb to the heights of Las Vegas and sink to the depths of Hollywood--coupling, snorting coke, and spouting clich‚s along the way. Does it sound astonishingly like superbestselling dead authoress Jacqueline Susann? It's supposed to. The deal here is that author French is not the author, he's just the midwife, having allegedly programmed his computer to write about our times just the way Susann would if she had not, after paving the way for the Collins sisters, prematurely slipped away to the big heart-shaped bathtub in the sky. And goodness knows French has done a fabulous job, almost perfectly capturing glamorous Jackie's turgid but E-Z reading prose style and ultrareliable mix of sex, glitz, dope 'n' despair in the story of Las Vegas roommates Lisa, Carol, Leon, and Carol's boyfriend Taylor and their glamorous but empty lives as showgirl-turned-superstar, divorc‚e-turned-casino manager, gay- turned-straight, and gambler-turned-corporate manipulator in the city that never turns off the lights. One wonders, though, if French's tale spinning PC will do as well on the talkshows as Jackie did. The computer weenies have been trying to tell us for years, garbage in--garbage out. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

French invested eight years and $50,000 in a scheme to use artificial intelligence to fulfill his authentic, if dubious, desire to generate a trashy novel a la Jacqueline Susann. Shallow, beautiful-people characters are flatly conceived and randomly accessed in a formulaic plot involving the temptations of pill-popping, star-studded Las Vegas and Hollywood. Innocent Carol of Connecticut and Vassar flies to Las Vegas for a quickie divorce and seeks work at a gambling casino named, naturally, The Doll House, where her talents are miraculously recognized and she is befriended by myriad modern types. It's downhill from there in a sexy, boring morality tale. Of possible interest to computer buffs for its use of Expert Systems and the virtual promise of more worthy possibilities; others should read Susann.
- Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.