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OtherRealms Issue 26 Part 03
Electronic OtherRealms #26
Winter, 1990
Part # of 8
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original
form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Copyright 1990 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
More of the same
Yes, it's sequel time...We have sequels out the yingyang, this time.
Mundane fantasy
The Man From Mundania (Avon, 0-380-75289-1, $4.50) is a new Xanth book
by Piers Anthony. Does anybody really need to know anything more than that?
Magic kid makes good read
I was going to say much the same about Orson Scott Card's Prentice
Alvin, (Tor, 0-812-50212-4, $4.95) but it deserves more than that. So
I'll say this: It's the new Alvin Maker book, and it's even better than
Red Prophet. Alvin grows pretty much up. The Un-Maker is still after
him. Card turns in the usual workmanlike prose. The story isn't over.
Ancient china makes fun setting
Fans of Bridge of Birds will be pleased to note that Number Ten Ox and
his flawed Master Li are back. The sequel, The Story of the Stone
(Bantam/ Spectra, 0-553-28278-6, $4.50) suffers the usual doldrums of
sequels, if not as badly as some. Hughart, like most series writers,
seems content to go on with what he's proved he can do instead of
challenging himself to rise above his past successes. A pity, but in the
meanwhile the story of how Master Li set out to save a village from the
ghost of a sadistic Prince is not a bad story at all. Several good
giggles and at least one bellylaugh.
Demipunk makes world change
Walter Jon Williams' Solip:System (Axolotl Press) is a literary orphan,
a story that fell into the cracks between two novels. Williams' fierce
Hardwired, which I raved about here some time ago, was followed by the
dull Voice of the Whirlwind, set in a world that we were assured was the
same a bit further on. Solip:System is about how the world got from
Hardwired to Voice, and manages to alternate between dullness and
fierceness. A minor character from Hardwired trashes the satellite-based
corporations that rule Earth.
Runecarved sword makes endless epic
Yep, Elric's back. Fans of the "Two Moorcocks" theory have always
wondered what to do with Elric, who falls somewhere in the gap between
Moorcock's "literary" work and his "tossed-off" S&S novels.
The Fortress of the Pearl (Ace, 0-441-19123-1, $16.95) provides a final
answer to that question. In it, Elric has pretty much the same adventure
he's had over and over again -- he gets pushed into solving some mystical
mystery, gets interested, gets involved with a woman, kills someone who
probably doesn't deserve it, and goes away hating himself just a tiny
bit more. Moorcock never actually bores, but I went away from this one
wondering why I'd bothered. What to do with Elric? Kill him now.
Soldier makes freedman
In Gene Wolfe's Soldier of Arete (Tor), the mysteriously afflicted Latro
(from Soldier of the Mist) finds his way to the Games and is manumitted
by his owner. I thought it was brilliant, but I have a high tolerance
for fine writing, deep significance, and all that lit'ry sort of thing.
If you found Mist unreadable, you needn't bother with Arete. On the
other upper extremity, if you liked Mist, you'll love Arete. (And you
might find some clues to understanding all the Ancient Greek references
in Jeremy Crampton's excellent fanzine, The Book of Gold).
Son of Tolkien makes history
I haven't reviewed any of the History of Middle-Earth volumes in this
column before, though I read them faithfully. JRR Tolkien's son,
Christopher, has been editing his working notes and drafts into a
massive series that demonstrates the evolution of the ideas that became
The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and several other works, mostly
never completed. This series is not "good reads," but a fascinating
glimpse into the creative process in one of the most powerful creative
minds of this century.
The newest volume, The Treason of Isengard (Houghton Mifflin Co.,
0-395-51562-9, $19.95), is the second of three projected volumes that
jointly describe the evolution of The Lord of the Rings from its
earliest conception as a lighthearted children's book, "the new Hobbit."
Treason deals with the period in which most of the ideas that make up
tLotR took their final form: for example, at the end of the previous
volume, Aragorn -- whom we all know as Strider, rightful King of Gondor --
was still a Hobbit called "Trotter," with wooden feet. By the end of
Treason, he's very much the Man we all know and love.
Treason is probably the most accessible volume to the average reader,
and it's fun to watch the pieces slowly, finally fall into place. This
entire series is a must-read for anyone who wants to write fantasy
novels.
Pseudonym makes mess
In one sense, Stephen King's The Dark Half (Viking) isn't a sequel, but
in another, it's a sequel to The Dead Zone, Cujo, and almost everything
he's written, especially as his "Richard Bachman" pseudonym.
It's rather disappointing, largely because it's a serious case of
self-cannibalization, a sort of reverse version of Misery: A writer
named Thad Beaumont has been writing a series of "trash" books for money
(as opposed to his "serious" work) and has chosen to end it. Someone who
objects to this does some nasty, violent things to force Beaumont to
begin writing them again.
The primary difference from Misery is the use of the supernatural. The
"someone" doing the nasty, violent things is not Beaumont's #1 fan, but
George Stark, the pseudonym under which Beaumont had written the "trash"
novels, come to life. Stark isn't pleased about being "dead." Frankly, I
can't blame him.
And with that, we're finally out of the land of sequels.
Even the man who is pure at heart
Peter David's novel, Knight Life, amused me and helped me keep my sanity
while I was recovering from surgery a few years ago. His newest, Howling
Mad (Ace, 0-441-34663-4 $3.50), is a far funnier book.
The basic concept is that a wolf is bitten by a werewolf. From then on,
he is doomed, every month, for the three nights of the full moon, to
become... a human. Horror of horrors... He winds up in the Flushing Zoo,
in New York, and then in a no-pets-allowed apartment, in love (or maybe
lust) with a woman who names him Josh. Unfortunately, the werewolf that
"made" him has plans to destroy him... abetted by a vampire from Fresno...
As I said, Howling Mad is a very, very funny book. There is one
significant flaw it has in common with its predecessor: the ending.
While the threads of the plot are wrapped up, good triumphs over evil,
and the just are rewarded, something about the endings of both books
seems... off, or perhaps unsatisfying. David supplies a possible answer
himself: the narrator of Howling Mad is, like Peter David, a writer of
comic books. This unnamed narrator worries, at one point, whether this
has ruined his ability to do "real" writing.
Well, I don't think it has; but David has developed some habits from
writing in a medium where the characters are always expected to have
another adventure the following month. The ending of a comic book story,
even a long and complex one, keeps a note of anticipation alive for the
next issue. There is almost never a feeling of absolute closure, as at
the end of a really satisfying novel. If David is planning a series,
then this is not a serious detriment. However, I hope he doesn't. I'd
rather see him stretch and grow.
Can turn to a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
I've raved more than twice about Carroll and Graf's series of paperback
reprints. I'm pleased to observe that they now have some serious
competition, Coller's Nucleus books, edited by James Frenkel.
One of their first offerings is Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think
(Collier/Nucleus, 0-02-038350-9, $4.95). It's sort-of a werewolf novel,
though not exactly.
A young reporter, Will Barbee, comes to interview his old mentor;
instead, he finds himself witnessing the man's death. A series of other
mysterious deaths follows, intermingled with strange dreams. Our hero
becomes convinced that he is causing the deaths while in a changed,
nocturnal form given him by a mysterious woman, April Bell. As time runs
out, he must face his own nature, and learn the identity of a dark
messiah -- the Child of Night.
Chilling and involving.
Reality, reality, who's got the reality?
Nucleus has also reprinted one of Philip K. Dick's earliest books, Eye
in the Sky (Collier/Nucleus, 0-02-031590-2, $4.50). This one is of vital
importance to Dick fans, as it's the novel in which the classic
"phildickian" mode of yanking reality out from under the characters,
never to be fully replaced, first reached its full bloom. In this
particular novel, the excuse for the goings-on is an implausible event
at a cyclotron; the outcome is some excellent speculation on the natures
of God, man, and the relationship between them.
For that matter...
Carroll & Graf are indeed still with us, and still reprinting the best
SF of the vague period vaguely described as the "New Wave." Noteworthy
among recent reprintings is Barry Malzberg's Beyond Apollo (Carroll &
Graf, 0-88184-551-5, price), which details the mental disintegration of
the only survivor of the first Venus expedition. Or maybe his mental
reintegration; it's not a novel where the questions are all given
definite and satisfying answers -- but the questions it asks are
important and worth your while.
You mean it's not a sequel?
That's right, Isaac Asimov's new novel, Nemesis, (Doubleday/Foundation),
is not a sequel to anything he's ever written before. That alone may be
cause for much rejoicing.
Nemesis is Asimov's entry into the SF game of creating an
astronomically-interesting solar system. He posits a plausible scenario
for a red dwarf star (Nemesis, naturally) even closer to Earth than
Alpha Centauri, and then does one-better by working out an equally
plausible setting for a habitable planet orbiting it.
Unfortunately, the story is not up to the conception. Asimov's
characters spend most of their time lecturing each other. This has
always been a major element of the Asimovian plot, but in recent years
the lectures have burgeoned to the point where characters are no longer
characters, but shells containing ideas.
The plot, where it exists, is one of paranoid maneuverings. The
discoverers of Nemesis keep it secret, in violation of every tenet of
law and sanity, to colonize it for themselves -- even though they know
that a red dwarf will almost certainly have no habitable planets. Then,
to top it all off, Asimov violates every canon of plot sense with the
introduction of a sentient colony of bacteria...
It is too much. The gorge becomes buoyant. Asimov can still write; even
Fantastic Voyage II was tight and tense, and ended with a satisfying
climax. Nemesis, I'm afraid, is not. Give it a miss.
Dead letter office
I sat there for an hour, not opening Grumbles From the Grave (Del Rey,
0-345-36246-2, $19.95). Not wanting to open it -- because I knew that it
was the last, that after this there would never, ever be another all-new
book by Robert A. Heinlein for me to read for the last time.
Finally, I opened it. Read it. Laughed a bit, cried a bit -- not at the
contents, but at the feeling of saying goodbye that one last time --
weighed the gradually shrinking part in my right hand against the
gradually growing part in my right hand.
I can't review this. Not really review it, which involves some degree of
objectivity. My own subjective feelings about RAH, and the sad
circumstances surrounding the publication of this book, defeat any
attempt I might make.
Bluntly, then, Grumbles consists of letters Heinlein wrote on a number
of subjects, mostly to John Campbell and his agent (Lurton Blassingame),
and if you want to hear his voice one last time -- this is it.
Oh yeah?
But then, there's The Puppet Masters (Del Rey, 0-345-33014-5, $4.95).
One thing mentioned in Grumbles was the imminent re-publication of a
number of RAH's books in "unexpurgated" editions. In the cases of Red
Planet and Podkayne of Mars, the changes are physically small but make a
big difference to the author's intent; and this should be applauded by
all who favor artistic integrity, whether or not they approve of Heinlein.
But The Puppet Masters is not a matter of piddling changes; the new
edition has restored 20,000 words to the book. And mostly good words,
too; they greatly develop the characters of Mary, Sam, and the Old Man,
and the horror of the titans is greatly increased.
There are also some snipes at the Soviet Union, which I can't for the
life of me figure out why they were deleted in 1951.
Overall, the plotting becomes tighter, not looser, with the added
wordage. If you like Heinlein at all, go forth, buy, and peruse; this is
the Master at the top of his form.
If you meet God on the road, kill him
Victor Koman's first novel, The Jehovah Contract (Avon, 0-380-70557-5,
$3.50), has this in common with William Gibson and all his clones: it's
set in a grim-n-gritty future and written in Hammettesque prose. Where
it differs is in being a whole lot more fun. Gibson takes himself too
seriously (and his clones don't have the talent) to be funny or
rollicking.
Koman's concept is simple. An assassin-for-hire accepts the ultimate
contract: Kill God. There's some very poor scholarship in here, or
perhaps humor masquerading as scholarship; and some of the
Goddess-oriented stuff that's taken the place of pseudocelticity on my
Top Ten Things I Don't Want To See In Another Book This Decade Because
I'm Bloody Well Sick Of Them. Still, it is fun, and well-written fun;
the hero (and, even more, the heroine) are plausible; and it wrestles
with the questions it raises honestly. Give it a try, unless you're a
fundamentalist Christian. Hmmmm... Make that especially if you're a
fundamentalist Christian.
Nonfiction corner
Got a couple of media books for you today.
The first is something each and every one of you will want to run out
and buy the minute you hear about it... not because I recommend it, but
because you just will. I know you. You sit there on your loathsome
spotty behinds, reciting old John Cleese routines, and you don't give a
tinker's damn for the book reviewer, do you, you excrement? So go out
and buy yourself a copy of the two-volume work, Monty Python's Flying
Circus: All the Words (Pantheon, 0-679-72647&8-0, $12.95 apiece) and
you, too, can memorize the Dead Parrot Sketch.
The other is called Harlan Ellison's Watching (Underwood-Miller,
0-88733-067-3, $29.95). It's a collection of Ellison's various comments
and columns on motion pictures over the years, from the sixties to his
current column in F&SF. It's entertaining even when you haven't seen the
movies he's discussing; it's fascinating when you have, because he
really is watching, he sees things you never noticed and sends you back
to the movies better able to love the good, hate the trash, and enjoy
your popcorn.
Closet classic
Here's one more work of non-fiction, but I'd like you all to approach it
for a moment as a work of science fiction. You may learn something.
Remember Richard Nixon? He used to be President of the United States; of
late, it seems he's a urinal for every science fiction writer with a
political agenda to pursue. So I decided to enter an alternate world and
read RN (Warner, 0-446-93259-0 & 0-446-93260-4, $2.95), Nixon's own
memoirs. It is indeed an alternate world, for most people; because it's
one in which Nixon isn't judged and found guilty without a trial or
hearing. To read a book like this will require that most of us suspend
our ready-made beliefs and accept, if only for the time it takes to read
it, the possibility that Nixon was, in fact, an honest and honorable man.
It's worth noting that Nixon doesn't deny that he did some things that
might be strictly illegal. He claims, though, that -- from the
perspective he had at the time -- what he did was what seemed best for
the country primarily, and himself only secondarily.
So, yes, I think this can be viewed as an alternate-world story; at
least, to the extent that consensus-reality has declared Nixon a crook
and a criminal, this is an alternative. And it's one worth
investigating; your mind may yet be broadened.
Go to.
Old Friends
Reviews by Alan Wexelblat
Copyright 1990 by Alan Wexelblat
OK--I admit it: I get lazy sometimes. It's just easier to pick up the
latest book by a well-known author, especially when she's one of your
favorites, than to hunt up more new blood. So this time we'll look at
offerings from people you've heard me talk about before.
Borders of Infinity [***+]
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen, 1989, 0-671-69841-9
This is a 'neat' book--one where periodically you nod your head and think
"that's neat." The book is a collection of three novellas, each telling
a separate adventure of Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan character.
Miles, as readers of his past adventures know, is afflicted with a
condition that makes his bones brittle. His adventures are largely
mental ones; he can't solve problems by hitting them until they go away.
Bujold works this to advantage, making the stories mysteries for the
reader. We try to outguess Miles, to figure out the solutions as he
does. His solutions are clever and enjoyable to watch: they are 'neat.'
In addition, his solutions mirror his physical situation: people skills
are more important than raw firepower.
Bujold clearly knows how to use the novella length to good advantage;
the stories are not cramped nor stretched. We also get to see Miles at
three different stages of his career and see how his talents develop as
he matures. Borders of Infinity is well-written and a good introduction
to this enjoyable character for those who've never met him before.
Regular ANALOG readers should skip this one, though. All three stories
have been published there and the connecting material is just a frame on
which the novellas hang.
Frontera [****]
Lewis Shiner
Baen, 1984, 0-671-55899-4
Shiner's new one isn't out yet, so I hunted up a copy of Frontera. It's
a solid first novel, integrating themes from standard hard SF and cyberpunk.
The story is set in the near future, after the collapse of the major
governments of Earth. The pieces are being picked up by various
corporations in the US, Japan and even in Russia. One such corporation,
Pulsystems, has taken over the remains of NASA. Using these resources,
Pulsystems sends a mission to the supposedly desolate Frontera colony on
Mars. When Earth abandoned its space program, those colony inhabitants
who refused to evacuate were left to fend for themselves. They were
expected to be dead, but now there are hints that some survived.
The Pulsystems crew consists of Kane, a corporate mercenary programmed
in ways he doesn't understand, Takahashi, representative of the powerful
Japanese arm of the mission, Lena, a doctor, and Reese, a guilt-ridden
ex-astronaut who left Frontera in the evacuation. Each has come on the
mission for different reasons and with different goals.
Shiner tells their stories mainly by extensive flashbacks, along the way
filling in the reader on the undercurrents of the story. Unfortunately,
this gives the first half of the book a disjointed feel. Once the
characters are established on Mars the action picks up, winding toward a
potentially devastating climax. I found it harder to put down the book
as it went on.
The writing lacks the polish and flair of Deserted Cities, but it's a
level above most first novels and worth the effort of tracking down a
copy.
House of Shards [***+]
Walter John Williams
Tor, 1988, 0-812-55783-2
House of Shards is the second book in the Drake Maijstral trilogy,
sequel to The Crown Jewels. This book doesn't require you to have read
the first volume, but it makes more sense if you have.
This time Maijstral is up against Geoff Fu George--a higher-ranked, but
possibly slipping, Allowed Burglar. They are in a race to steal the
Eltdown Shard, a spectacular piece of jewelry. Robbing the other guests
at Silverside Station along the way is only expected.
Williams again assembles a huge cast to participate in his farce.
Unfortunately, he doesn't handle them as well as last time; I needed the
first quarter of the book to sort things out. There is also a plethora
of subplots as the two thieves steal everything in sight, including
stealing from each other, and the minor characters get into their own
interactions.
The humor suffers from the confusion brought on by the mass of
characters and subplots. Shards is not nearly as funny as its
predecessor. It's enjoyable and entertaining, but writing humor is hard
and it's not Williams' forte. I don't recommend this book as an
introduction to his work, but if you liked Crown Jewels this one is
worth getting.
The Paladin [***+]
C. J. Cherryh
Baen, 1988, 0-671-65417-9
I didn't think it was possible for Cherryh to write a slow-moving book.
Her works usually carry such a high level of tension that even when the
characters are not physically moving, the reader is carried along.
The Paladin, though, is a different sort of book. It is an intense,
in-depth study of two characters: a gifted peasant girl bent on avenging
her slaughtered village, and an aging swordmaster in exile from a
corrupt court. In this book Cherryh destroys every cliche we have about
these two almost-stereotypes. We are also made to wonder who 'the
paladin' really is.
The plot starts out extremely simple: in a pseudo-medieval-Japanese
world, Taizu escapes the massacre of her village and travels to find
Shoka, the swordmaster. She convinces him to train her so she can get
revenge on the evil lord who ordered the massacre. No matter what you
think might happen next, Cherryh will surprise you as she shows you a
war from a front-line soldier's point of view.
However, it takes over half the book to get there. Before then, we have
lived with, slept with, eaten with, and trained with these characters
for three years. It is, in places, repetitive and boring despite
Cherryh's considerable wordsmithing talents. Long after the characters
and their motivations were well established in my mind, Cherryh
continued to emphasize their smallest actions and interactions at the
expense of moving the plot forward. If you are not a Cherryh fan, or
don't like character studies, skip this one.
Crystal Express [****+]
Bruce Sterling
Arkham House, 1989, 0-87054-158-7
It has been said that the cyberpunk writers excel at the short-story
length. That's certainly true here. Crystal Express reprints twelve of
Sterling's stories: five shaper/mech, three SF, and four fantasy. They
range from the very strange "Twenty Evocations," to the ridiculous "The
Beautiful and the Sublime." Also included are some haunting stories like
"Flowers of Edo," which is the best techno-fantasy I've seen in a long
time.
In each, the writing is tight and intense, with none of the fallings-off
that have marred Sterling's novels. The variety of topics and story
types means that there's something in the book for everyone.
Fortunately, none of the stories depend on any others, so it's possible
to read them in any order, enjoying the variety, skipping the ones you
don't like.
I have two minor gripes with the book: one, there are no author's
introductions. I enjoy hearing what authors have to say about their work
in retrospect. I understand Sterling's feelings that the stories should
speak for themselves, but nonetheless I would have liked to see
something more. And two, the art is awful. I've met the artist, Rick
Lieder, and I wish him no ill, but the cover would have stopped my
buying the book if I weren't a Sterling fan. Don't let it stop you--this
collection is as good an introduction to the author as you're going to
find anywhere.
A Fire in the Sun [***]
George Alec Effinger
Doubleday, 1989,0-385-26324-4
Another sequel, this one to When Gravity Fails. If you haven't read it,
A Fire in the Sun will make little sense. If you liked the first book,
prepare for a minor disappointment.
The book is not bad, but it suffers from middle-of-trilogy-ism. That's
the disease that afflicts three-book stories where the first book is
setup and the last is conclusion. In between, the characters have to be
maneuvered into the right positions and the right minor characters and
plot complications have to be introduced. That's what's going on here.
Unfortunately, this sort of setup requires the characters to be stupider
than they ought to. I was able to figure out most of the mysteries long
before the protagonist.
A Fire in the Sun also suffers from a case of laugh-tracking. Effinger
feels obliged to point out each joke and tell you how to react.
With that in mind, and the faith that Effinger can pull off a stunning
climax when he wants, I'll be waiting patiently for the third book.
Patterns [*****-]
Pat Cadigan
Ursus, 1989, 0-942681-07X
This collection is as hard to write about as it is to put down. Fourteen
of Cadigan's best, including one new piece, totally defy categorization.
There are enough aliens and strange creatures to qualify as SF, enough
magic and strangeness to qualify as fantasy, and more than enough
spine-stiffening scares to qualify as horror. Certainly no one will
dispute Cadigan's right to be included in the cyberpunk camp when she wants.
It's cliche to say that the stories are about "people," though that's
certainly true. Bruce Sterling, in the introduction, says they're about
the patterns of contemporary reality, and that's also true. I think
Cadigan is about the edges--the places where reality starts to fray and
all kinds of unpleasant things get in. You know: the noises that make
you jump, the articles you skip over in the newspaper, the reasons you
have deadbolt locks on your doors. Not bedtime reading, except for the
truly masochistic.
Even if you've read everything Cadigan's ever written before, the book
is worth buying for the one new story alone. "The Power and the Passion"
is Hugo/Nebula material, folks. Cadigan read the story at WorldCon and
again at ArmadilloCon. Both times the awed expressions on the listeners'
faces were mute testimony to how good she is.
And for the incurably curious, like me, Cadigan has included author's
notes before each story. If you love uppity wimmin with attitudes, it
doesn't get any better than this.
Tuf Voyaging [***+]
George R. R. Martin
Baen, 1986, 0-671-65624-4
I've enjoyed Martin's work in television and with the Wildcards series.
I also had the pleasure of taking a scriptwriting workshop from him, so
when I chanced on Tuf Voyaging in the bookstore, I bought it to see what
he was like in a solo effort.
If we're to believe the back-cover quotes, this is a funny book. What I
found instead was a distinctly sad commentary on Earth's ecology, human
population growth, and political short-sightedness and expediency.
The story revolves around the adventures of Haviland Tuf: how he comes
to possess a still-functional seed-ship of the ancient Earth Ecological
Corps and what he does with it. The EEC had mastered biological
sciences: gene-splicing, cloning and plant growth, creating seed-ships
capable of using these sciences to make or destroy a planet.
Tuf, a small-time interstellar trader, is faced with decisions on how to
use this power. He begins as an uninvolved merchant, selling the ship's
services to whoever will pay. However, circumstance and his personal
ethics force him into situations in which he uses the ship's powers to
make over whole eco- and social systems.
Martin writes well, but the action is a thin veneer over his social
commentary. Taken on its own merits, this is a pretty good book, but I
didn't find it funny.
------ End ------
