In the Hollywood of the future there's no need for actors since any star can be digitally recreated and inserted into any movie. Yet young Alis wants to dance on the silver screen. Tom tries to dissuade her, but he fears she will pursue her dream--and likely fall victim to Hollywood's seamy underside, which is all to eager to swallow up naive actresses. Then Tom begins to find Alis in the old musicals he remakes, and he has to ask himself just where the line stands between reality and the movies.


From Publishers Weekly
Willis (Doomsday Book), a fan of old movies, uses them cleverly and thoughtfully in Remake, her fourth solo novel. Roughly 20 years into the future, computer graphics have ended live production in Hollywood. Tom, the narrator, reluctantly pillages old films for remakes starring dead actors or alters them to suit the politico-social correctness of the moment. When he meets Alis, who has come to Hollywood burning to dance in movies no longer being made, he falls hard. As in Willis's Lincoln's Dreams, while boy is obsessed with girl, she is obsessed with her purpose. Boy loses girl, then sees her, impossibly, dancing in old musicals which couldn't have been altered. After several red herrings he finds both her and an explanation, but, given her higher passion, finders aren't necessarily keepers. Willis's writing, as usual, is transparently clean and deft. She has fun playing with old film references and with the levels of illusion in a Hollywood more irreal than ever, and is discerning both about the way movies inform our imaginations, giving us roles to play, and about desire, purpose and possibility. One flaw is a scene of requited love that neither the form nor tone of this bittersweet romance can support. But if the characters are mostly stock and the sentimentality easy, this is still popular fiction at a high level, entertaining, thoughtful and often touching. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The 21st century's film industry is as big as ever, but there are no live actors to speak of and no new movies, only remakes controlled by F/X wizards who rely on technological sleight-of-hand to simulate creativity. Against this backdrop of soulless glitz and surface glamour, Willis (The Doomsday Book, LJ 5/15/92) tells the story of Alis, a dancer who wants to be in the movies (as herself, not a "remake"), and Tom, an F/X technician who tries to make her dream come true although doing so will make his dream impossible. Willis has established a reputation as one of sf's most lucid writers, and her latest effort demonstrates a rare capacity for evoking both humor and regret. Most libraries should acquire this title.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
On her way to winning several Hugo and Nebula awards, Willis has exercised her uniquely witty imagination on subjects as diverse as time travel and Abraham Lincoln. Now Hollywood becomes fair game for her in a whimsical preview of a twenty-first-century Tinseltown obsessed with remakes. Exploiting his complete access to state-of-the-art video technology, Tom is a jaded film student moonlighting as a touch-up artist for a brownnosing junior studio exec. Between digitally deleting liquor bottles from Casablanca and then Notorious in order to appease a teetotaling producer, Tom meets Alis, a naive movie star wanna-be whose only dream is to dance in silver screen musicals. Alas for Alis, as Tom repeatedly emphasizes, musicals have been dead for decades and live performers displaced by digital ones. Yet, incredibly enough, and to Tom's inebriated befuddlement, Alis' face and physique begin materializing onscreen with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in licensed musical classics. Willis drolly combines current Hollywood stereotypes of couch-hopping, pill-popping studio patrons with a wry prediction of film technology's future. Ingenious fun from one of sf's preeminent wags. Carl Hays


Review
"Another brilliant work by an author deserving of the praise and awards heaped upon her."

-- Des Moines Sunday Register

ANNOTATION

Remake depicts a film industry that no longer creates original movies, but uses computer technology to remake old stories from existing footage. It's a Hollywood of simulated sex, drugs, and special effects, where anything is possible--except for Alis's dream of dancing in the movies.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It's the Hollywood of the future, where moviemaking's been computerized and live-action films are a thing of the past. It's a Hollywood in which Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe are starring together in a remake of A Star Is Born, and if you don't like the ending, you can change it with the stroke of a key. A Hollywood of warmbodies and sim-sex, of drugs and special effects, where anything is possible. Except what Alis wants to do, which is dance in the movies. Tom offers to make her dream a reality: he'll digitize her face onto any actress's she likes - Ann Miller, Ruby Keeler, even Ginger Rogers. What Tom doesn't understand is that Alis doesn't want to look like she's dancing. She wants the real thing. And as Tom finds himself seduced by Alis's impossible dream, he begins to learn that even in a world of technological miracles, there are still some things that just can't be faked.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Willis (Doomsday Book), a fan of old movies, uses them cleverly and thoughtfully in Remake, her fourth solo novel. Roughly 20 years into the future, computer graphics have ended live production in Hollywood. Tom, the narrator, reluctantly pillages old films for remakes starring dead actors or alters them to suit the politico-social correctness of the moment. When he meets Alis, who has come to Hollywood burning to dance in movies no longer being made, he falls hard. As in Willis's Lincoln's Dreams, while boy is obsessed with girl, she is obsessed with her purpose. Boy loses girl, then sees her, impossibly, dancing in old musicals which couldn't have been altered. After several red herrings he finds both her and an explanation, but, given her higher passion, finders aren't necessarily keepers. Willis's writing, as usual, is transparently clean and deft. She has fun playing with old film references and with the levels of illusion in a Hollywood more irreal than ever, and is discerning both about the way movies inform our imaginations, giving us roles to play, and about desire, purpose and possibility. One flaw is a scene of requited love that neither the form nor tone of this bittersweet romance can support. But if the characters are mostly stock and the sentimentality easy, this is still popular fiction at a high level, entertaining, thoughtful and often touching. (Feb.)

Library Journal

The 21st century's film industry is as big as ever, but there are no live actors to speak of and no new movies, only remakes controlled by F/X wizards who rely on technological sleight-of-hand to simulate creativity. Against this backdrop of soulless glitz and surface glamour, Willis (The Doomsday Book, LJ 5/15/92) tells the story of Alis, a dancer who wants to be in the movies (as herself, not a "remake"), and Tom, an F/X technician who tries to make her dream come true although doing so will make his dream impossible. Willis has established a reputation as one of sf's most lucid writers, and her latest effort demonstrates a rare capacity for evoking both humor and regret. Most libraries should acquire this title.

BookList - Carl Hays