Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
OtherRealms Issue 12 Part 01
Electronic OtherRealms #12
February, 1987
Part 1
Table of Contents
Part 1
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach
Burning Chrome
Fred Bals
Voice of the Visitor
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
The Silent Tower
Danny Low
Little, Big
Alan Wexelblat
Agents of Insight
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
The Quest of the Riddle Master
Liralen Li
Echoes of Chaos
Danny Low
Children of Flux and Anchor
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Review Feedback
Books Received
Part 2
Pico Reviews
Part 3
No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach
Letters to OtherRealms
Editor's Notebook
The New Look
OtherRealms is back from the break with a new look. If you're not
interested in the changes, skip along, but since OtherRealms is as much
a place for me to experiment with technologies as it is a place to
review Science Fiction, I want to talk about some of the things going
on with the layout and look of the zine.
First, and foremost, I'm now the proud parent of a bouncing baby Apple
Laserwriter Plus, and the newly released Ready Set Go! 3.0 desktop
publishing software. By switching from a dot-matrix printer to a
laserwriter, I can put more material in the same page space and make it
look significantly better. Ready Set Go! 3.0 gives me a lot more
flexibility than I could get with MacPublisher II, my old software, as
well as giving me better access to the power of the new printer.
For those that care about such things, I'm now using the Palatino
typeface in a 9/10 point size for the text. Headers are done in Zapf
Chancery. I occasionally use something else, but I'm trying for a
clean and simple style that complements and shows off the words rather
than upstages them. These new faces are smaller than I was using
before (the old layout was based on a 12/15 point size) but because of
the increased resolution of the printer, significantly easier to read.
Another change is that OtherRealms is going to start using a lot more
artwork. You see the first results of this decision in this issue
[special thanks to Brad Foster and Barb Jernigan for acting as guinea
pigs, and Alexis Gilliland for lots of early support and advice] and I
hope that it makes OtherRealms a prettier zine to look at. If you do
genre art, now is a great time to submit it to me, since my inventory
is small, and I'm actively seeking new sources of material.
I'm currently experimenting with using cover art as a supplement to the
reviews, and if that works, you should be seeing it in a few issues.
You do it monthly?
Another change, this one down the road, is that I don't plan on
publishing OtherRealms monthly forever. One problem with a monthly
schedule is that all you have time to do is publish the zine. It means
I don't have time for any of my other writing projects, or OtherRealms
misses a deadline.
Because of this, I've decided that, sometime this summer, probably
after the July issue, OtherRealms will convert to a quarterly. I'm
waiting because I need to let the changes I'm making this issue settle
and take a close look as what publishing 70 pages a quarter instead of
30 pages a month really means. Note that with the change to the
Laserwriter, that is about the same material as before, it just is
delivered a little less often. Even though the amount of material
doesn't change, their is a significant reduction in administrative
overhead that should free up a fair amount of time.
The New Names in the Block
I've added some names to the masthead beginning this issue, and with
them comes the final change in the format. Starting with this issue,
I've appointed two of the people who have been writing for OtherRealms
to the post of Contributing Editor, and each one will now be doing a
quarterly column instead of the individual reviews they'be done in the
past.
Jim Brunet has been with OtherRealms since issue #1, and Dan'l
Danehy-Oakes has been a major contributors in the last few months.
Why? Partly because I feel that they deserve some recognition for their
continuing support of OtherRealms, partly because they have shown a
professionalism in their writing , so that I want to let them write in
a column format and give them more flexibility in how they write their
reviews, and partly because I'm getting so much material from them that
it is hard for me to get it published while it is timely -- this way
they have to decide what to do with their word quota, rather than me.
This should also make it easier for other, less frequent contributors
to get their material published with less delay.
The third addition is my "new" associate editor, who has actually been
keeping me honest and sane since the first issue. Laurie has been
doing a lot of the background work, proofreading, critiquing, and
helping out on the administrative end. Her first column, No
Prisoners!, debuts with this issue, and she's finally in the masthead
where she belongs.
I think the new column format will both improve the overall quality of
OtherRealms and make it easier for others to get their material
published as well. If it works,I expect I'll be appointing new
Contributing Editors as I find other people who write well and want to
contribute to OtherRealms consistently.
Warning!
System Failure!
Just a quick warning to people who submitted material to me in
December. Just before Christmas, my Mac took a nosedive and completely
destroyed my hard disk. I do regular backups, but not regularly enough
-- the failure caught me after I'd gotten a some material downloaded
from the network and before I got it onto a backup. I know I lost some
material, but I don't remember what, so if you submitted something to
me, check and see if it went into the byte bucket so I can get a fresh
copy.
Technology is wonderful, but Murphy is always looking for a way to make
your life interesting... Just when you least expect it.
Until next month!
Burning Chrome
William Gibson
Arbor House, $15.95
[*****]
Reviewed by
Fred Bals
bals%nutmeg@decwrl.dec.com
Copyright 1987 by Fred Bals
From now on, things are going to be different.
- Bruce Sterling, in the preface to Burning Chrome.
The luckiest of those riding the crest of history's wave are sometimes
privileged to see the transition from old perceptions to new visions.
Perhaps "lucky," is an inappropriate term. The shock of the new is
always unsettling, often frightening. Riots broke out in the audience
at the premiere of Stravinsky's, "Rites of Spring." Bob Dylan was booed
off the stage when he played electric guitar for the first time in
public. And it's easy to forget, as warm, glowing Muzak versions of
"She Loves You" emanate from elevators and supermarkets, that the
Beatles were as often reviled as hailed in the early days of the
group's career.
Closer to home, the "New Wave" movement that arose nearly two decades
ago heralded a new view of SF, opening the field to both authors and
fans who were not overly interested in stories concerned with hardware
and celestial mechanics. The "New Wave" caused an impact that -- while
considerably lessened -- is still being felt to this day. All to the
good. Science fiction at its best should always be a genre for risk -
takers. It comes with the turf.
Yet over the past decade, the bulk of SF writing has become
increasingly sluggish and bloated as the genre slowly edges out of its
ghetto into mainstream popularity. Established authors have fallen
prey to market demand and answer the fan's outcry for familiarity by
recycling plots and characters in never - ending series and sequels.
Even many of the new kids on the block have seemingly come to realize
that the best synonym for "marketable" is often "familiarity."
It's been a long, boring winter for SF -- one that has lasted much too
long. But the ice is starting to break. The ice - breaker's name is
William Gibson. Burning Chrome collects all of Gibson's published
short fiction under one cover. The book consists of ten short stories,
three written in collaboration with other "cyber - punks," John
Shirley, Bruce Sterling, and Michael Swanwick. They are all excellent,
and like Gibson's two novels, "Neuromancer" and "Count Zero," they are
all opening rounds in the battle to reclaim SF as the genre of the new
and unexpected. "From now on things are going to be different."
Of special interest in Burning Chrome is Gibson's second published
short story, "The Gernsback Continuum." In this, Gibson deliberately
takes aim at some hoary SF conventions and reworks them with
devastating effect. It is a cry of triumph from Gibson to all who
would listen, "This is the way things were. It's not like that
anymore."
The three works that operate in the future - history of the Sprawl
series, "Johnny Mnemonic," "New Rose Hotel," and the title story,
"Burning Chrome," evoke a clear, beautifully wrought picture of the
future. It is not the future of space empires or of the
postapocalypse. But it is a future cunningly extrapolated from today,
a future that seems real enough to smell, to touch, to hear. It is a
future that you can fully expect to live in. Gibson's characters live
on the edge in this future. They inhabit the underside of society, the
alleys, backways, and dark corners of their world, where high - tech is
seen as only another means for survival. But rather than doom -
saying, Gibson's characters take a wild, fierce joy in beating the
odds. They've seen the face of the Apocalypse... and are mightily
bored with it.
Burning Chrome transcends any attempt to judge with stars, pluses, or
awards. What it can be seen as is a trail into completely new
territory by someone who is the literary descendant of those characters
who lived on the edge of the American Territories; the ones avoided by
their neighbors when they started wondering what was on the other side
of the mountain.
The ones -- who finally becoming so deadly bored with the familiar --
struck out to see what they could find.
Voice of the Visitor
Larry Slonaker
Avon Books, 1986 $3.50
[***]
Reviewed by
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
djo@ptsfd
Copyright 1987 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
The cover of Voice of the Visitor is of a type that always puts me off
immediately. It shows a woman's head, in an uncertain but intense grimace,
her hair tendrilling off into a swirling cloud and her neck appearing to
grow out of the bottom surface of some type of box. There is a little
slogan saying that this is "a novel of unending terror." Bad start.
The inner blurb is a quotation from the book, a scene of graphic
violence: the protagonists husband, recently injured, takes a can
opener and rips the stitches out of his scalp, becoming extremely
bloody in the process.
To my surprise and delight, that proved to be the only scene of real
graphic violence in the entire book. Rather than resembling King,
Voice of the Visitor bears a more-than-passing resemblance to the works
of the late Shirley Jackson. This is not an egregious comparison; with
all its ambiguities and innuendoes, this tale of a pregnant woman
receiving dictation from an evil revenant could easily have been
plotted by Ms. Jackson.
But have no fear, Larry Slonaker is not receiving dictation from Shirley
Jackson -- or if he is, he does it poorly. Jackson was a past master of
style in the English language. She would never have written this:
About halfway to the cabin, the good trail petered out, denigrating
into a rock-strewn, partly overgrown path. [P 188]
There are only a few of these, ahem, infelicities in Voice of the
Visitor, but each of them set my teeth on edge.
One other flaw: ambiguity can be too ambiguous. The protagonist's
pregnancy is apparently important to the story, but I was never able to
figure out exactly why. Evil is neither victorious nor defeated at the
story's end -- though the ending is a definite and satisfying ending
(no, I won't explain that).
Recommended with reservations; if you don't like horror stories because
of the gross outs, this is for you. On the other hand, if you're
bothered by the kind of story that slowly draws icy-cold cobwebs across
the back of your neck...
Stay away.
The Silent Tower
Barbara Hambly
Del Rey $3.95 369pp
[****]
Reviewed by
Danny Low
hplabs!hpcc!dlow
Copyright 1987 by Danny Low
This book has many points of similarity to Hambly's Darwath trilogy.
Based on the story situation at the end, the series is probably
restricted to just two books unless Hambly pads out the second book
tremendously. Someone has opened a Gate through the Void connecting
our universe to another, magical, universe. Abominations from other
universes are slipping into the magical universe causing havoc.
However, the abominations are only a side effect of having an opened
Gate. The mystery of the book is who opened the Gate and why.
Clearly, the motive bodes ill for the magical universe. Joanna is a
computer programmer from our universe who is caught up in the
intrigue. Antryg is a wizard who is the prime suspect. Naturally, the
two fall in love. These two, along with the swordsman Caris, are the
main characters in the story. Caris is convinced that Antryg is the
villain. The government is convinced that Caris' grandfather is the
villain. Caris needs Antryg to prove his grandfather's innocence.
Antryg professes to be innocent. Joanna is torn between her love of
Antryg and the evidence that Antryg may well be the villain.
Hambly has improved greatly as a writer since the Darwath trilogy. The
characterization is very much better. Even the minor characters have
distinctive personalities. The mystery is handled well. Joanna, it
turns out, is not just an innocent bystander. She was deliberately
brought into the situation by the villain although it is not yet clear
what her role is in his intrigue. The story development is done well.
Little, Big
John Crowley
copyright 1981, Bantam book, 627 pages
[****+]
Reviewed by
Alan Wexelblat
texsun!milano!wex
Copyright 1987 by Alan Wexelblat
It's 102 Texas summer degrees outside; my poor window AC is struggling
to bring the room temperature down to 85. And I'm shivering with
cold. Why? Because I'm reading a winter scene in John Crowley's
masterpiece Little, Big.
The cover blurb is actually quite good: "Somewhere beyond the City, at
the edge of a wild wood, sits a house on the border between Here and
There, a place where Somehow reality and fantasy can intertwine and
mortals can believe in fairies. Sometime in our age, a young man comes
here to be wed, and enters a family whose Tale reaches backward and
forward a hundred years, from the sunlit summers of a gentler time, to
the last, dark days of this century -- and beyond to a new spring."
The book is a fantasy novel, telling the Tale of a group of people and
how their destinies come to pass and how the world changes them and is
changed by them. I think this is one of the finest books ever
written. People who have given up on fantasy as hackneyed and
repetitive should read this, if only to rediscover what fantasy is all
about.
The novel is written in an unusual style which may take some getting
used to. Crowley writes long sentences. Up to 75 words, by my count.
In addition, his writing style is very rich and dense. At the
beginning I couldn't read more than six pages at a time. At the end, I
stayed up until 1 AM to finish the last 100 pages.
The plot begins with the induction of Smoky Barnable into a strange
family. He marries Daily Alice, a woman with a Destiny. Smoky thus
becomes part of a Tale and Little, Big tells this Tale in bits and
pieces following characters forward in time, flashing back to tell the
stories of Daily Alice's family. The title of the book is significant
at several levels. It refers to the fact that Smoky is smaller than
Daily Alice. It refers to a theory about the fairies. And, it refers
to actions and their consequences. Each of these themes is neatly run
through the appropriate parts of the plot. The plot is divided into
six books, each of which has four or five chapters. The story runs
fairly continuously throughout; I'm glad Bantam published it as a
single volume.
Little, Big won a World Fantasy Award; its preface is loaded with
complimentary comments from big names. Crowley is a master of
description and character development. There's not a single
two-dimensional character. I was not exaggerating when I described it
as a masterpiece; I recommend it strongly to all of you. So, why four
stars plus, and not five?
Well, some people may not like the way the book shifts viewpoints.
There are many threads being woven together here. Some people may not
like Crowley's ornate writing style. Some people may not like the fact
that there are no "good guys" or "bad guys." There are just people who
sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things.
I didn't mind any of that; what bothered me was the ending. Crowley is
a master; he tells you 100 pages in advance that the end is coming and
keeps you in suspense the whole way. And yet the ending is a
let-down. Most of the threads get tied up neatly but some are let slip
and the ending comes out, well, wrong. Still, Little, Big is well
worth its cover price.
Agents of Insight
Steven Klaper
TOR Books 1986 $2.95
[**+]
Reviewed by
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
djo@ptsfd
Copyright 1987 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
I was standing in the parking lot at Chef Chu's when I saw the Big Guy
coming. He had a book in his hand. He gave it to me. "Read this," he
said. "I need a review."
So I looked over the evidence. Steven Klaper, eh? Never heard of him.
Must be a new punk in town.
The style was Chandleresque, if you know what I mean. Short sentences
and fragments everywhere. Like this:
My problem. Yeah. I put on the insulsuit, brushed the curtains aside,
and scanned the window. Nothing but a thin paste of soot and bugs... (P 13)
The plot was Chandleresque, too. Hard-boiled. Guys in trench coats
running around trying to solve their partners' murders, people getting
beat up left and right. There were enough levels of conspiracy and
betrayal to make a Republican faint in sheer disbelief.
Now, I got nothing against Chandleresque except maybe the name. Ought
to be Hammettesque. But I couldn't help wondering whether it would
work in a sci-fi book.
My concerns immediately proved to be well-founded. The plot was
borderline cyberpunq: some telepathic spy/'tecs go searching for the
Mysterious Device that kills t-paths...or makes them kill themselves.
The way is blocked by disinformation, renegade t-paths, and common stupidity.
The best characters didn't come on stage until the book was more than
half done. The protagonists were just ho-hummers I couldn't bring
myself to care about. But take Vox, now; there was a fun guy.
So I plowed on and finished the damn thing. Untidy. I mean a lot of
loose ends stay loose. And not in the way that leaves space for a
sequel; things just got dropped. Like I said, untidy.
But what the hell. I had fun reading it. There were two characters I
actually liked, even if they did come in late. The plot was twisty
enough that I didn't feel like I knew everything before it happened.
Give it two and a half.
The Quest of the Riddle Master
The Riddle Master of Hed (2.25)
The Heir of Sea and Fire ($2.25)
Harpist in the Wind ($2.25)
Patricia McKillip
Del Rey Fantasy
Reviewed by
Liralen Li
li@vlsi.cs.washington.edu
Copyright 1987 by Liralen Li
At first glance at the back cover blurbs and introduction, this trilogy
seems to follow a particularly common trend of Tolkien look-alikes. It
seems to have a protagonist with a hidden heritage, some sort of
talisman that will bring out that heritage of power, a journey all over
the protagonist's lands (making a map of the area absolutely
necessary), a love interest, a final meeting of Good and Evil, and the
protagonist wins the war single-handed due to that special hidden
heritage. It has been done, redone and seemingly overdone. And while
Tolkien, LeGuin, and Donaldson have done wonderful things with this
formula, most of the authors in this area have done terribly. Almost
badly enough for me to have missed this marvelous trilogy by Patricia
McKillip.
When I first sat down to read these books it was from a sense of duty,
because I had loved her The Forgotten Beasts of Eld so very much; and I
thought that it would be a good thing to see what else she had
written. When first faced with that formula staring at me from the
back of the books, I groaned a little inside. But I wanted something
to read for the time before bed, so I started reading. And I didn't
finish reading until dawn broke the next day.
McKillip creates a fantasy land, full of magic, lore, legend, and
challenge, rooted deep in history and emotion. The language is rich,
and as smoothly and tightly woven as a Persian rug. Her characters
live and breath, love, hope, despair, and share not only thoughts and
words, but experiences with the reader. They are not the one
dimensional good or bad characters of many of the stories by the
formula, they are people growing, trying to find not only what would
help and hold what they love the most, but also trying to find that
which would define themselves.
The two main characters are Morgan, the Prince of Hed, and Raederle,
the Princess of An. The first and third books are devoted to Morgan,
and the second is devoted to Raederle. The books are in chronological
order, and are a single story told first from Morgan's point of view,
then Raederle's, and, then again from Morgan's. In the beginning of
their stories both of the protagonists are defined by their lands,
their parents, their history, and their teaching. McKillip then shakes
the very foundations of what they have known to be the truth of their
pasts and lets them go to find their abilities and work through their
fears to the future. The balance of the books between introspection
and action is amazing. She manages to convey most of the characters
thoughts through their actions, instead if the old "he thought," "she
thought," or "somebody could sense that he thought." Morgan and
Raederle go through, not only a search for the powers to hold their
world together, but also through learning and accepting the
responsibility for those powers.
The first book follows Morgan, a born prince of the earth, whose main
heritage was of growing things, who farmed from his home that his
sister cleaned and the chickens and dogs ran through. He is different
from the usual, stolid Princes of Hed in that he has a curiosity and a
sense of wonder for that which is outside his island realm and because
he was born with three silver stars on his face. His curiosity was
such that he was sent to study at the College of Riddle-Mastery by an
understanding father. The first book follows him as he discovers the
meaning behind those stars, driven by the tenets of his education and
heritage as well as love and fate. The action conflict is that of him
against the mysterious shape-changers that threaten him as well as
everything that he has ever loved. The emotional conflict is that
between knowledge that he should take up the powers needed to protect
what he loves and the knowledge that those powers may alienate him from
all that he would save.
The second book is about Raederle, the Princess of An, introduced in
the first book as nothing other than the "Second most beautiful woman"
and the woman that Morgan loves. Promised to Morgan by a vow made by
her father that she would marry whoever won a specific riddling battle,
she has known for a long time that she really does love the solid,
stubborn Prince of Hed. She also knows that he would not claim her as
some prize from a fight. So, when he does not come her, she starts out
to find him. In her wanderings she finds that she is as important as
Morgan, the Starbearer, in the confrontation between the shape-changers
and the powers of their earth. She also finds that the heritage of An,
land of war, ghosts and the knowledge of hidden things had hidden her
powers not only to those who would look to destroy them but also from
herself. Her struggles are as much to accept what she finds herself to
be as against a mysterious and powerful foe. The second book lacks the
letdown of most transition books in a trilogy because one is introduced
to a new protagonist and a new problem
The final book is the finale. Where Raederle and Morgan go out and
attune their powers, go through all sorts of difficulties and trials to
find not only the extent of their powers, but also break many of the
internal barriers from their childhoods. Much of the third book is
purely physical, as the two battle their way across the land to where
the main seat of power and the final confrontation will be, and the
final confrontation is as spectacular as any I have read. However,
even in the end McKillip chooses to define the battle in the terms of
self-control, self-knowledge, and the necessity of love in making power
effective.
The books are action packed. They move well, and the unique and
beautiful elements of the culture are introduced as they are needed.
The tone of the books is somewhere between the scene by scene
descriptive style of Tolkien and the dreamlike style of LeGuin's
EarthSea trilogy. The lore and magic are broadly based on the four
elements and their interaction with life, as well as the concept of
inner knowledge before use of external knowledge can be effective. A
personal favorite was her use of riddles as the structure behind all
knowledge. Each riddle has the question, within or as a natural
adjunct to a story; the answer, sometimes natural, sometimes horrible,
yet often phrased from the question; and a stricture or moral without
which the riddle would have no meaning. The riddles helped to tie the
story to itself, weaving throughout the telling, sometimes appearing as
a tale, sometimes as a question, occasionally as a bittersweet reminder
of the fallibility of legend, and gave a leavening of wisdom to the
stuff of fantasy. There are many lessons to be learned in the books;
however they are introduced so naturally and integrally, there is no
feeling of being lectured to.
I enjoyed the trilogy immensely. McKillip has a sense for language
that makes the story flow into the rich and strange, laying out her
story and lands for the reader to see and enjoy. I highly recommend
this to those that enjoy a fantasy of many layers, where the characters
are fully fleshed out and endowed with fears as well as the courage to
overcome those fears.
Echoes of Chaos
Robert E. Vardeman
Berkley Books 1986 183pp $2.95
[***]
Reviewed by
Danny Low
hpccc!dlow
Copyright 1987 by Danny Low
The plot of this book can be summarized as "Indiana Jones and the
Doomsday Machine Part 1." The story is built up from standard SF plot
elements. Experienced SF readers will quickly guess what the story is
about from the back cover blurb.
However, the quality of the writing is well above that usually
associated with such a cliche ridden plot. The transformation of
Michael Ralston from mild manner xeno-archeologist to super competent
adventurer is believable as the reader is forewarned by casually
dropped hints of Ralston's past before he became a professor of
xeno-archeology.
The pacing is a little erratic. The story starts off slow, accelerates
to a high speed and has a foreshortened end. However, the story does
end at a natural breakpoint in the story.
There is much about the story that is appealing. Ralston is the
perfect hero for a SF fan. Ralston is very intelligent, highly
principled, an outsider because of this and yet has friends in the
right places. The mystery of the doomsday device is well handled. It
is clearly established that such a device must exist but nothing else.
The reader is left tantalized. In summary, unless the reader has a
definite aversion to this type of story, this book should be worthwhile
reading. My only real objection to the book is that it is rather short
for a novel. It really is a rather long novella.
Soul Rider Book Five:
Children of Flux & Anchor
Jack Chalker
TOR Books, 1986 $3.50
[**+]
Reviewed by
Dan'l Danehy - Oakes
djo@ptsfd
Copyright 1987 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
How do you review the fifth book of a series when you haven't read the
first four? Quick, let's see, is there a summary? Hmm... "To New and
Old Readers of the Soul Rider Saga." Well, he says it's the last one,
and that's a relief. "Familiarity with [the first four books] is
assumed, although the book will, I hope, stand on its own."
Well, there's a tactic. Does the book stand on its own? Do you really
need to have read the others? Does it make you want to go out and get
and read the others? These are the questions I tried to keep in mind
while reading SR5.
Tried, but not entirely successfully. There were places where I just
got picked up by the story and carried along. A point in its favor
right there. On the other hand, there are places where I wanted to
make a book - shaped dent in the wall. In particular, Chalker shares
with Piers Anthony (and L. Frank Baum, for that matter) an inability
to disguise the "expository lump." The first two and a half
forpetessake pages are one monstrous expository lump. There are longer
ones, but this is particularly hard to swallow because of position;
when I start a book, I want something to happen right away.
You can read and understand this book without having read the others.
I'm living proof. Several of the expository lumps seem to exist for
the sole purpose of making it possible; they must be terribly boring
for those who have read the others.
But despite this, some important information is missing. It took me
better than 100 pages to figure out what a "stringer" was (basically a
combination caravan leader and communications technician), and I never
did find out why Cass was so important, which would probably have made
her appearance (sort of) late in the book much more exciting.
What's it about? Fifty years after the Big War with the Aliens, the
people of World (clever name, huh?) have discovered a New Weapon of War
that threatens to let one country impose its lifestyle on others.
Potential allegories abound, although Chalker has the grace (or the
lack of understanding) not to use them in a heavyhanded manner. A
stringer and several wizards try to settle the war between the Sexist
Male Culture and the All - Female Pseudo - Lesbian Culture in a manner
that will protect the rest of World.
A few pointless and not particularly erotic sex scenes establish the
sexual mores of the main characters; the subject of sex is then kept on
the political level. Mind control is used by all three sides. It's
hard to decide who the good guys are, except that Chalker tells us.
The first and last chapters seem to have nothing to do with the rest of
the book; they exist only to close the series off semi - permanently.
Does all this make me want to read the first four? No.
One more quote from the opening note: "If anyone gets through Chapter
15 and claims not to be very surprised, I guess I should hang it up."
That made it particularly hard for him to surprise me; I was thinking,
"What can he do here that will be a surprise?" Damn if the sonofabitch
didn't take me for a ride anyway, and make it make plot sense too.
That seemed to me to be a major achievement. Jack Chalker is one hell
of a story teller; it's a pity he doesn't write better.
Review Feedback
Every so often, your fearless editor blows it.
My review of Ancient of Days was too harsh. The book has its flaws,
but it isn't as bad as I held it out to be -- I went into the book with
a set of expectations that weren't there, which isn't the books
fault. It really deserves a rating of [***-] and a recommendation.
More serious, my review of The Summer Tree is offbase completely due to
terminal Celtic Fantasy burnout. I've commissioned a rebuttal review
because there is so much bad Celtic Fantasy being published I'm no
longer really able to enjoy the good stuff when I see it, and from the
feedback I got on that review, I definitely missed it. Pretend I
didn't say anything, and I apologize to Kay for lumping him in with the
rest.
Books Received
Books Received lists books sent to OtherRealms for review.
OtherRealms tries to list books around the time they are shipped to
bookstores, so these books are (or soon will be) in distribution.
Avon Horror
Asimov, Issac; Waugh, Charles G.; Greenburg, M. H. The Twelve
Frights of Christmas, December, 1986, 263 pages, $3.50.
Avon SF
Anthony, Piers. Bio of a Space Tyrant #5: Statesman, December, 1986,
310 pages, $3.50.
Harrison, Harry. Bill, The Galactic Hero, 1965, 185 pages, $3.50. A
classic farce back in print.
Whitmore, Charles. Winter's Daughter, 1984, 220 pages, $3.50. A
first novel.
Tor Fantasy
Cooke, Catherine. Veil of Shadow, 286 pages, january, 1987, $2.95.
Harris, Deborah Turner. The Burning Stone, 307 pages, January, 1987,
$7.95 trade paperback.
Orr, A. In The Ice King's Palace, 170 pages, January, 1987, $15.95
hard cover. Book 2 in the World in Amber series.
Perry, Steve. Conan the Fearless, 275 pages, 1984, $2.95.
Resnick, Mike. Stalking the Unicorn: A Fable of Tonight, 314 pages,
January, 1987, $3.50
Tor Horror
Farris, John. Catacombs, 522 pages, 1981, $3.95. First Tor
printing.
Masterson, Graham. Night Warriors, 405 pages, 1987, $3.95.
Tepper, Sheri S. The Bones, 315 pages, January 1987, $3.95.
Tor Science Fiction
Bear, Greg. Beyond Heaven's River, 192 pages, 1980, $2.95. First
Tor printing.
Bova, Ben. Voyagers II: The Alien Within, 344 pages, 1986, $3.50.
Paperback of a hard SF story reviewed in #7 [***+])
Laumer, Keith. Galactic Odyssey, 252 pages, 1967, $2.95.
Modesitt. L. E. Jr. Dawn for a Distant Earth, 340 pages, January,
1987, $3.50.
Schmidt, Stanley. Tweedlioop, 233 pages, January, 1987, $8.95 trade
paperback.
OtherRealms is Copyright 1987
by Chuq Von Rospach
All rights reserved
One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights
are hereby assigned to the contributors.
Reproduction rights: OtherRealms may be reproduced only for non-commercial
uses. Re-use, reproduction or reprinting of an individual article in any
way on any media, is forbidden without permission.
