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OtherRealms Issue 22 Part 03
Electronic OtherRealms #22
Fall, 1988
Part 3
Copyright 1988
by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved
OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written permission from Chuq
Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced
only in its entirety and only if all copyrights, author credits and
this notice, including the return addresses remain intact.
No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way
without the express permission of the author.
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint
Copyright 1988 by Charles de Lint
Installment #5: In which we explore some futures
Antibodies
David J. Skal
[****]
Congdon & Weed, March 1988; 169pp; $15.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-86553-199-4
Zero
Eric Van Lustbader
[****]
Random House, 1988; 425pp; $19.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-394-56576-2
A Splendid Chaos
John Shirley
[***]
Franklin Watts, 1988; 359pp; $17.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-531-15065-8
A Song Called Youth -- Book Two:
Eclipse Penumbra
John Shirley
[****+]
Questar, May 1988; 322pp; $3.95
Paperback; ISBN 0-445-20508-3
Stinger
Robert R. McCammon
[****]
Pocket Books, April 1988; 538pp; $4.95
Paperback; ISBN 0-671-62412-1
Death in the Spirit House
Craig Strete
[***]
Foundation, August 1988; 192pp; $14.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-385-17826-3
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars
Thomas M. Disch
[***]
Doubleday, 1988; 72pp; $11.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-385-24162-3
Chronosequence
Hilbert Schenck
[****]
TOR, June 1988; 314pp; $17.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-312-93079-8
Unicorn Mountain
Michael Bishop
[*****]
Arbor House, June 1988; 367pp; $17.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-87795-953-6
Mona Lisa Overdrive
William Gibson
[*****]
Bantam/Spectra, November 1988; 260pp; $18.95
Hardcover; ISBN 0-553-05250-0
Mostly SF this time around -- for no particular reason except that's
what I seem to be reading more of these past months. No spaceships,
though. Except for when we talk about sentient household appliances and
in the McCammon review, and it's a horror book.
Go figure it.
Antibodies
"Born meat, you'll die meat."
Unless you strike out against your fleshy prison.
The "antibodies" of David J. Skal's second novel are aiming towards
what they perceive as the next evolutionary step for mankind: the
exchange of their bodily parts -- their "meat" -- for prosthetics until
they are merely entities inhabiting machines. The heart of their
worship is the Cybernetic Temple, an underground church that has
videotapes, loaded with subliminal messages, as its sacrament.
Considering just how pervasive cults already are in Western society,
Skal's speculations have the uncomfortable ring of truth about them.
This is not a safe book. Skal experiments with prose styles,
particularly in those sections from the cult deprogrammer Julian Nagy's
point of view. It has only one likable character who is rarely on
stage. In fact, with its subject matter and characters, the book is
perverse and unpleasant.
But it is an important work and it should be read. Skal has developed a
believable near future society, his speculations are impeccable, and
even with his ouroboros ending, maintains a gripping and powerful
storyline throughout. You won't necessarily enjoy the experience, but
it will make you think. And you won't forget it.
Zero
In certain esoteric Buddhist sects involving swordsmanship, this is the
last of nine magical words that are invoked as a form of Taoist
meditation after the daily practice session. It means "where the Way
has no power," the Way being the Tao of the swordsman.
In Eric Van Lustbader's latest novel, Zero is also the name of what
many consider to be an almost supernatural being who sees to the
protection of the Taki yakuza clan, yakuza being a kind of Japanese
gangster. In part, the novel leads the reader on a search for the
identity of Zero; but it also relates to the striving that various of
the protagonists make to attain or escape from the attitude of Zero.
The action shifts principally between Hawaii and Japan as Michael Doss
sets out to discover how and why his father died. The trail soon leads
him to a complex plot amongst warring yakuza that has its roots in
post-war Japan and the Cold War between the East and West.
Van Lustbader has made a career out of his Far Eastern novels, staking
out the territories of China, Vietnam and especially Japan in a series
of engrossing thrillers that are more than just an entertaining blend
of spy novel and Eastern mysticism. The author approaches his subject
matter with great love and respect, and it's those aspects that the
reader comes away with when the final page is turned.
Yes, but it's not SF or fantasy, is it, so why am I talking about it here?
Well, I've got two reasons. Those of you with long memories will
probably recall that Van Lustbader began his literary career with the
four-book "Sunset Warrior" series, SF novels heavily dependent on
Eastern philosophies. So there's the peripheral interest. But it's also
a damn fine book, as most of his novels have been, full of "alien"
cultures (alien, at least, to most Westerners) and some fine world-
building (by which I mean his fictional secret societies) -- although
the latter is seamlessly grafted into the histories of our world,
rather than set in the far reaches of space.
A Splendid Chaos
A Song Called Youth -- Book Two:
Eclipse Penumbra
Here, after an absence of a couple of years from the shelves of our
bookstores, are two new novels by John Shirley -- the writer who, from
time to time, has been taking on Ellison's mantle as shit- disturber of
the SF field.
Don't get me wrong -- I mean that as a compliment. Sometimes things
need to be stirred up. But none of that should have any bearing on the
books in hand, except that when Shirley speaks of the quality that the
field needs, one can't help but judge his own books by the same high
standards he wishes to impose on others.
How does he match up? One near miss and one definite hit.
A Splendid Chaos hearkens back to that old "travelogue" style of SF
novel where the protagonist, or protagonists, wander across the planet
(or solar system) and come across wonder after wonder -- and it's that,
more than the actual plot, which is the hook to keep the reader turning
the page. Sort of as in, what can possibly come next?
In Shirley's novel, a native New Yorker -- a would-be filmmaker/punk
named Zero -- gets taken away to an odd planet by mysterious aliens and
finds himself embroiled in a.) a war between various other alien races
brought to this world and some crazed humans who are being turned into
"Twists" -- twisted versions of humanity -- and b.) on a quest across
this new planet of wonders in which he, and his band of cohorts, run
across pretty well the entire gamut of weird beings and situations.
Shirley is highly inventive -- if a little brutal at times -- with his
aliens and bizarre situations, but what lifts this book above being
merely another retread of Golden Age (whenever that was) space opera is
that his characters have real social and political concerns and it's
these, as much as their bravery, etc., that allows them to come out
ahead in the end.
So you get some Good Thinks, and a fairly entertaining storyline, but
it ain't exactly high art -- not as Shirley has yearned for in his
essays. And it's not going to make you sit back and questions the
wrongs of the world. For that reason -- by Shirley's own criteria --
it's a miss.
And the hit? That's volume two of his "A Song Called Youth" -- Eclipse
Penumbra.
It's been three years since the first volume, Eclipse (Bluejay, 1985;
recently reprinted by Questar) -- and that's a long wait for a series
that's this good. Each book stands on its own, but taken together (at
least, so far, when the first two books are taken together) they make a
whole that's very much greater than its parts.
Shirley postulates a time in the near future -- 2021 -- when, after a
war in Europe, a brutal security force, the Second Alliance, has been
hired to keep the peace. Unfortunately, the SA is being run by born-
again fascists and racists whose primary goal is to make Earth as WASP
as it can be. Coupled to the story of how the New Resistance is
battling the SA on all fronts, from war-torn Europe to the subliminal
propaganda of the media on the world-linking Grid, is a secondary
storyline of the struggles of Earth's first space colony to get out
from under the thumb of more of these same SA goons.
Mixed into the brew is some fine characterization -- the personal
stories of many of the characters have as much importance as the
overall plot; a lot of well-thought-out, and frightening, speculation
(because the world really is very close to just this kind of a
situation); sections of hard-hitting prose set right beside lyrical
sections that literally sing; and it's got a killer of a plot.
You might say, well yeah, but we've already seen Hitler in all his
guises -- so how's this any different?
What makes it different is that this situation is drawn from how the
world is today and serves as a timely warning. Shirley is using SF as a
platform to deal with important issues and he's to be commended for
both utilizing the material, and doing so in a manner that's never preachy.
He works the soft sciences -- primarily sociology and psychology -- to
show us how the worst horrors mankind has brought on itself can all too
easily return, and adds to them those that are particular to our age --
environmental concerns, global politics and the nuclear issue.
The plot's got a really sharp bite, and yes there's a great deal of
carefully-worked war campaigning, but this isn't simply more There Will
Be War bullshit. It's a tough, hard look at the future, with a bright
warning label slapped on the side that reads, "The future's here now."
Check out today's TV Evangelists; see what your government's up to
right now (governments make war, not people); see what uses our
fabulous new technologies are being put to.
I'm no Luddite, but it all scares the shit out of me. Read A Song
Called Youth and tell me what it does to you.
Stinger
Robert R. McCammon's Stinger is what Stephen King's The Tommyknockers
could have been. That's not to cut down King, but The Tommyknockers
wasn't his strongest outing -- probably as much because Misery was just
so damn good and how was he supposed to follow it up?
The reason I compare the two at all is that both books are by major
writers (who are each considered to be solely horror writers), both
dealt with alien first contacts, both were set in small towns, both
writers are particularly strong in their characterization....
But that's where the comparisons end. King basically gave us a "sci fi"
book -- lovingly based on all the B-movies he watched while growing up,
and the book retained a lot of their goofiness. Stinger is firmly based
in the current SF tradition -- lots of reasoned-out speculation.
Basically we have two sets of aliens in Stinger. An escapee from an
intergalactic prison who takes up lodgings in the body of a seven-year-old
girl when her stolen spacecraft crashes on earth, and the bounty hunting
Stinger who bears some resemblance to a scorpion and is capable of
duplicating any form it wants to. The small Texas town of Inferno, where
both aliens land, is cut off from the rest of the world by a force
field for the space of approximately twenty-four hours, and away we go.
McCammon has never been in better form. The strengths of his latest
novel stem not from his plot (which is a real crackler), nor his
ability to create tension (which stays at a high voltage level
throughout), but from his ability to create real people and involve his
readers in their lives. We don't just see their reactions to the
aliens; we live through their day-to-day trials as well.
For Stinger, McCammon has created another large cast and it's to his
credit that we never lose sight of who's who. There are shades of grey
throughout so that a coward gains bravery, old enemies are forced into
uneasy alliances, a drunkard redeems himself....
This is good stuff -- something that will appeal to mainstream and genre
readers alike. Once again, if you think you don't like horror, don't be
put off by the packaging. This is adventurous SF, set in our contemporary
world, and it's got something for everybody without ever once having to
take itself down to the level of the lowest common denominator.
Death in the Spirit House
Craig Strete's Death in the Spirit House gives us two Native Americans.
One is Red Hawk; a hunter, a killer, an amoral despoiler. The other is
John Skydancer; raised by white men since he was seven years old, and
more white now than Native.
They come together in the Spirit House -- a sacred mountain. Red Hawk
is there to hunt down his nemesis, an enormous black cougar that
embodies the spirit of the mountain; Skydancer to push through a bill
of goods on the Native people that live in the shadow of the mountain.
With the signature of the tribal elders on a legal document, the
company Skydancer works for will no longer be held responsible for the
radiation poisoning that, unknown to the tribe, is slowly killing them.
As a bonus, he gets the boss' daughter and a good position in the
company if he's successful.
Things don't quite work out the way either man hopes.
Strete's novel is a simple story, almost a folktale in its sparseness,
that gains complexities through its characterization, the seriousness
of its underlying themes, and the sense of language utilized to tell
the story. Unfortunately, while Strete's language is wonderful most of
the time, there are enough moments where its sparseness is too spare,
where its simplicity undermines the flow of the storyline.
It's not often, but there is weak prose, and sudden shifts of
perspective that don't work, to hurt the mood of the better sections.
Death in the Spirit House is a brave attempt, but it doesn't quite
match up to the power of his other more recent works such as "The Game
of Cat and Eagle" (In the Field of Fire, TOR, 1987) or To Make Death
Love Us (under the name Sovereign Falconer).
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars
Thomas M. Disch writes weird stories -- no question about it. The
ghosts of dead businessmen, sentient hair, a very strange episode of
Miami Vice, haunted pillows and, of course, his toaster stories.
The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars has the same household appliances
as the first story, The Brave Little Toaster (F&SF, August 1980), only
this time, rather than going on a quest from the cottage where they
were abandoned in search of their master, they're saving the world from
an invasion of Martian appliances.
I wanted to like this book, but unfortunately, I have to say that it
didn't really work for me. It has a lot of the charm of the first, but
it's not really that different. The delight of sentient appliances was
already covered in the first story; this one merely has them on a space
opera adventure that could have been about pets, people, whatever --
although there are some nice touches, like Albert Einstein's hearing
aid and the origin of the Martian appliances that could only fit into
the story as it's told.
If you've read the first, you'll probably like this one, but not as
much. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do give it a
try -- because I can see how this could be most charming if one hadn't
met the characters before.
Chronosequence
Hilbert Schenck's Chronosequence begins innocently enough. At a book
auction in London, England, Eve Pennington acquires a nineteenth
century handwritten bound manuscript describing some odd events in
Nantucket, New England, where she spent some of her happiest times
holidaying with her family. That innocent purchase soon plunges her
into an escalating series of events that has its roots not only in her
own past, but goes back two hundred years, to the mysterious hauntings
of a creature called the Yoho in Nantucket and a curious orrery
discovered in the Scottish highlands that has an extra celestial body
in orbit around our planet.
Soon government agencies are chasing Eve and her allies -- a pair of
antiquarian book sellers that are as charming a pair of rogues as one
could hope to find -- especially the seventy-two-year-old Ed Berry.
Schenck has a lovely prose style -- it has a hint of times past in it,
but remains completely contemporary. His characters, too, are both
modern and timeless, and if the book veers into Romanticism at times,
is that really such a bad thing in these days of rush and bustle?
My only complaint with the book -- and this is not leveled at Schenck,
but is inherent in the kind of story that Chronosequence is - - is that
once we understand just what the mysterious force behind all the
strange goings-on is, when we're no longer wondering and speculating,
but actually know, one's left with a vague sense of disappointment.
It's not that Schenck cheated, or did a poor job, either in how he
slowly revealed the mystery, or in what it proved to be -- both were
done admirably. It's just that the solution to the mystery is never as
wonderful as it was when it was still elusive.
But don't let my mumblings put you off -- I'm never satisfied when this
kind of mystery is revealed. Do read this book. Schenck's prose is
delightful, his characters warm and quirky, and the story has both wit
and charm. I know I'll be tracking down some of his earlier works when
I have some free reading time.
Unicorn Mountain
Straight away, the cover and title of Michael Bishop's new novel
Unicorn Mountain is liable to put some readers off. If you've had it up
to here with cute quest fantasies (of which the unicorn has become the
symbol as much as spaceships have for SF), you'll undoubtedly want to
pass this by. I know I would have except for one thing: the Bishop name.
There's no way, I thought as I held the book in my hand, that the
author of The Secret Ascension or Who Made Stevie Crye? is going to
approach this subject in a saccharine manner.
And he doesn't.
Unicorn Mountain isn't so much about unicorns as it is about some very
real contemporary issues. Such as AIDS and the reactions of both the
victims and those around the victim. Or the complex,changing face of
Native Americans.
Briefly put, Libby Quarrels and her ranch hand Sam Coldpony are trying
to make a go of their Colorado ranch that Libby has won in a settlement
from her ex. Enter her ex's cousin Bo Gavin, dying of AIDS. Now Libby
has the ranch and Bo to worry about; Sam is coming to grips with his
own heritage and the uncomfortable realization that he was wrong to
desert his daughter, now sixteen and becoming a novice shaman, when he
left his wife; and Bo is dying.
Bishop's novel also has unicorns. They remain otherworldly creatures, a
kind of metaphor for the wonder that lies at the heart of the world,
the wonder that all the characters are trying to connect with in their
own way. Unfortunately, the unicorns are dying of a disease that is
very similar to AIDS.
Unicorn Mountain is a complex and absorbing novel. Like the best
fiction, it operates on many different levels, all of which resonate to
and strengthen each other. Bishop's prose has never been in better
form. His characters are real people and immediately recognizable --
not because they are stereotypes, but because Bishop brings them to
life with such skill that we can't help but recognize and believe in
them. And what's especially good about his work here is that while he's
unabashedly embracing one of the most outworn images of fantasy, he has
imbued it with an appeal that is at once timeless and fresh.
This book won't appeal to lovers of cute quests -- but they've got enough
books of their own anyway. It was long past time that someone sat down
and wrote a mature, contemporary fantasy novel for the rest of us.
And Bishop's done just that.
Mona Lisa Overdrive
In Mona Lisa Overdrive, William Gibson returns to the future world of
his earlier novels with a vengeance.
All the elements that made Count Zero and the multiple-award winning
Neuromancer the forerunners of a new movement in science fiction are
present once more: the high-tech, street-wise prose and characters, the
hard science thrust that's so seamlessly melded to serious humanistic
concerns, and convincing extrapolations of how our contemporary culture
will change as it moves into the future.
The viewpoint characters are almost all women this time -- a
fascinating collage, chosen from a cross-selection of Gibson's future
world. There's the media star Angela, recovering from drug abuse, who
hears the voices of voodoo gods in her head; Kumiko, the Yakuza
crimelord's daughter; Mona, a hooker whose own addictions draw her into
a web from which she discovers escape to be impossible; and Sally
Shear, an assassin who proves, more than the others, to have her roots
in the earlier books.
The one male viewpoint is that of Slick Henry, a down-at-his- heels
ex-con who is dealing with his previous incarceration through the
building of huge robotic representations of figures important to his
past. It's in the deserted factory that he shares with two other
squatters that the various threads of the narrative are drawn together
in a satisfying conclusion.
It's then that cyberspace -- a concept that Gibson has chosen as a
physical depiction of computer data -- is finally explained in terms
that encompasses both the ancient voodoo symbols that Gibson first
utilized, and what we know now of Artificial Intelligences. The reader
new to the series will find Gibson's speculations provocative and
fascinating, while old time readers will be delighted as many of the
puzzles that Gibson has dealt with in the earlier books fall neatly
into a coherent whole.
Through the vigor of his writing and world-view, Gibson injected a
much-needed breath of fresh air into the moribund state in which
contemporary SF had found itself at the beginning of the eighties.
With Mona Lisa Overdrive, he brings this phase of his career to a close
and, like the best practitioners of any craft, moves on to fresh challenges.
His next book is The Difference Engine, a collaboration with Bruce
Sterling set in Victorian times that features a steam-driven Babbage
computer -- which is about as far from cyberspace and the future world
of Neuromancer as an author can get. But if Gibson brings the same
originality of vision and clarity of writing that has marked his
earlier work to this collaboration, it's likely he'll be at the
forefront of yet another new movement in SF.
And justifiably so.
----
End of Part 3
