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OtherRealms Issue 27 Part 09
Electronic OtherRealms #27
Spring, 1990
Part 9 of 11
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.
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
Dragondoom
Dennis L. McKiernan
Bantam, February 1990, 485pp, $4.50, 0-553-28337
What's the stuff of High Fantasy? Elves and Dwarves and Men and Evil
Dragons and Quests and Good People Forced Into Bad Situations. To many
people, it's Fantasy with a Tolkienesque slant (not that Tolkien
invented High Fantasy, but Tolkien is likely the first one many have
read, which is more or less the same thing). It's also, in many cases,
highly predictable, formula stuff -- good entertainment but
interchangeable with its brothers and sisters.
Enter Dennis McKiernan and Dragondoom, a new, independent story set in
the same universe as his Iron Tower trilogy. While Iron Tower is a
classic example of the interchangeable formula (Which is not to be
considered the same as 'bad' -- the worst word I would use for Iron
Tower is unmemorable), McKiernan has stretched his wings and flown off
on his own with Dragondoom. The story is independent of Iron Tower, so
people who haven't read it won't be left out with unknown information;
in fact, the Mithgar of Dragondoom is different enough from his other
works that it might as well be a new universe. New and much more alive.
Dragondoom is somewhat difficult to review, because while it follows the
formulas defined by Epic High Fantasy, it refuses to be bound by them.
Epic works require Hero and Villain, for instance. Dragondoom has
characters that become heroes for a while, then screw up royally and get
their tails whomped. Sometimes they die, which is another change: Heroes
aren't allowed to fail. No matter how difficult the task, they win out
in the end. In Dragondoom, they succeed in their task, but do they win?
No, they don't, nor do they live happily ever after.
McKiernan has built a lot of complexity into the book. He doesn't follow
the safe paths, and while it doesn't always work, it keeps the reader
off-guard and involved in the work. It's not safe to assume what's going
to happen next -- because you're likely to be wrong. There are problems
with the book: McKiernan's style sometimes falls into the purple froth
and his characters are sometimes unnecessarily melodramatic, but it's
the best work he's done to date and it's a lot more intelligent and
thought-provoking than the average formula piece. It's also troubling
and ambiguous, without clear winners or losers and, just like real life
(and unlike much Fantasy) it shows that bad things happen to good people
(and vice versa) and, sometimes, things just fall apart. But it's well
worth the time needed to work your way through to the end of the
journey. [***+]
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille
Steven Brust
Ace, January 1990, $3.50, 0-441-11816-X
We now turn to the latest Spider Robinson book in the Callahan's Bar
series. Except, unfortunately, that it isn't a bar, it's a restaurant,
it isn't Callahan, it's Cowboy Feng and it isn't Spider, it's Steven Brust.
Now, I really like both authors, and I really like Callahan's Bar, but
the whole premise (a restaurant travels through time and space to save
the universe from the big blue meanies) is a bit too absurd to play
straight and doesn't quite work. It also hurts that Steven Brust is,
when you come down to it, a really great writer of Steven Brust books
but a pretty so-so writer of Spider Robinson books. This could have been
a better book if Steven had written like Steven or done typically
Brustian things with it. It could have been a better book if Steven had
sent the draft to Spider and collaborated. It probably could not have
been more than an okay book, but as it stands, it's simply disappointing
-- it's not good Brust, it's not good Robinson, but it's a mish-mash of
concepts and styles sitting somewhere in the middle.
And part of me wonders if Steve writes hungry, or if he's just read a
little too much Hemingway. [***-]
Second Contact
Mike Resnick
Tor, March, 1990, $17.95, 0-312-85021-0
Mike Resnick has turned out two complex, emotionally intense, draining
books in Ivory and Paradise. There's only so long you can keep topping
yourself without killing yourself in the process, so in Second Contact,
he doesn't even try, choosing instead to let his hair down and write
something a lot lighter and less challenging.
Second Contact is a SF/mystery mix, with Max Becker, a military lawyer,
given the charge of defending a starship captain who walked out of his
cabin one day and shot two crewmen in cold blood. His defense? They were
space aliens spying on his ship.
What's funny, though, is how when Becker looks into it witnesses
disappear, people start to die and then start shooting at him as well.
That sort of activity has a tendency to make you wonder what's going on,
so Becker goes underground and starts digging.
What he finds is a fun romp through the world of the
almost-unbelievable, but Resnick has firm control of the situation. He
knows exactly how to keep a reader wondering what in the heck is going
on while still planting all the clues needed to come up with an answer
that the reader will not feel cheated over.
It's all a lot of fun, well-written and intriguing by one of my favorite
authors. [****]
Dying of the Light
George R.R. Martin
Baen, February, 1990, $3.50, 0-671-69861-3
I normally don't talk about reprints, and because my reading time tends
to be limited I rarely re-read old favorites (that many old favorites
aren't quite so favored after re-reading has something to do with it,
too). So when Baen re-issued Dying of the Light, I jumped at the chance
to re-acquaint myself with it and spend some time with a personal
favorite.
This is Martin's first book, a very powerful story of love and honor
amid conflicting societies. This is one of those books where you really
can't point at a character and say "good guy" or "bad guy" because
everything is in shades of gray. Even the really nasty people are really
nasty because they honestly believe they're doing the right thing.
There's one flaw that really doesn't show up until re-reading, and it's
the only thing that bothered me about the book. There's a question that
one of the characters should be asking but doesn't, for no really good
reason -- except that it puts the author in a bind and really screws up
the story. Martin seems to recognize this, because occasionally he has
the character agonize over it a bit without ever really convincing
anyone that he's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
I'll give Martin a bit of author-authority, though, because the rest of
the story is detailed, complex and alive enough to make you not really
mind having a character blatantly manipulated for the sake of the plot.
The plot, for once, is worth it. [****]
Howling Mad
Peter David
Ace, November, 1989, $3.50, 0-441-34663-4
When a dog bites a man, that's not news. But when a man bites a dog....
How about when a werewolf bites a wolf? Peter David writes an extremely
funny (and sometimes hilariously anti-mankind) book about the story of a
wolf that's been bitten by a werewolf and becomes a man during the full
moon and has to learn how to be human and while coming to grips with his
new reailty. To try to explain it further wouldn't do it justice, and
would likely simple devolve into incomprehensibility, but suffice it to
say this is a very amusing piece of escapist entertainment with enough
philosophical commentary on the human condition to keep you on your
toes. If you're looking for a few hours of chuckling to yourself, it's
hard to beat. [***+]
Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three
Don Sakers, ed.
Baen, March, 1990, $3.95, 0-671-69864-8
And now for something completely different. An anthology about a ghost
in a space station, based on a filksong by fan-singer Leslie Fish. Don
Sakers has put together an anthology that deserves the "really weird
idea of the year" award. It's strange, and it almost works. It's got
some good stories (especially "Confessional Booths" by Susan Shwartz and
an even-stranger-than-usual "In the Can" by master-weird-writer Esther
Friesner) while having very little in the way of clinkers. It doesn't,
however, have anything that stands out significantly and the concept
wears rather thin after a while. It's a good romp, and it's probably
better suited to reading a story here and a story there for a break
rather than straight through, but while the authors meet the challenge
of the concept, the concept is a bit on the shallow side. [**+]
Last Call
Alan Wexelblat
Copyright 1990 by Alan Wexelblat
If you've read Chuq's editorial, you already know this is my last
appearance as a regular columnist in these pages. It's been a lot of
fun -- the fan mail always outweighed the hate mail. I might do it
differently, but given the chance I'd do it all over again.
Last time we looked at new efforts by old favorites, and that's as good
a way to finish off as any other. If by now you haven't followed my
recommendations to Cadigan, Crowley, Powers, Shiner, or Sterling, I'm
probably not going to convince you to check out this issue's fave, K.W.
Jeter, even though you should. So here's what topped my reading list
this time around.
Brothers in Arms [****-]
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen, 1989, 0-671-69799-4
I enjoyed reading Miles Vorkosigan's adventures at novella length, so I
picked up this Vorkosigan novel. Like Borders of Infinity, it is a
'neat' book. It tells a convoluted story concerning Vorkosigan's two
identities and the stresses they impose on his personal and professional
lives.
It starts out simply enough: the Dendarii fleet puts in at Earth for
some rest and relaxation. Almost immediately, the payroll goes missing,
which means that the Barrayaran embassy is compromised in some way by
enemies unknown. The fleet is in hock up to its ears and several
someones are trying to kill both Admiral Naismith and Miles. Which is
unfortunate, as one or both of these personalities is falling in love
with Elli Quinn who clearly loves the admiral but can't deal with the
Miles identity. Superman and Lois never had it this bad.
Bujold handles all these complications and more with seeming ease. As
with much of her work, she manages to keep the climax of the book from
depending totally on the plentiful action. Instead, it is the dynamics
of the characters' emotional tensions that keeps the reader on the edge
of her seat. Love, loyalty, and identity crises are resolved in logical
fashion.
Unfortunately for new readers, Bujold appears to be writing the Miles
stories in timeline order: Brothers in Arms depends on, and refers to,
events in Borders and previous stories. This is not the book with which
to start learning about this character, but it should definitely be read
in its proper place, after you've enjoyed the others.
The Barsoom Project [***-]
Larry Niven & Steve Barnes
Ace, 1989, 0-441-16712-8
I've never written about a Niven book before -- goodness knows the man
gets enough publicity without my chiming in. Nevertheless, I couldn't
pass up the opportunity to review this sequel to Dream Park.
The story revolves around two major characters: Alex Griffin, head of
Dream Park security, and 'Eviane.' Eviane is the Gaming name of a woman
who was set up to kill a Dream Park actor eight years ago and who has
now returned seeking to mend the damage that the incident did to her
psyche. The story proceeds along two threads -- in the outer story, Alex
tries to figure out why Eviane is there and what the current plot is
against Dream Park. In the inner, Eviane and her compatriots participate
in the Fimbulwinter Game, a Dream Park adventure.
Along the way, the authors pile on lots of 'in' jokes for and about
science fiction authors and stories. They are also pretty merciless in
shredding the typical, grossly overweight, SF fan. The Dream Park Game
is designed as a "fat ripper special," an adventure that supposedly not
only causes people to shed some pounds, but helps them become aware of
and modify their eating behaviors.
Unfortunately, neither the inner nor outer story is all that satisfying.
Alex's attempts to solve the mystery involve unfolding a lot of events
that occurred years in Dream Park's past and in which the reader has no
stake and for which one feels no sympathy. The "mystery" is solved by
the characters in a workmanlike fashion with no chance for the reader to
figure it out, since important clues are withheld.
The Fimbulwinter game has some high points. Niven and Barnes work in the
Inuit mythology, a rich area that is still unexplored by most fantasy
authors. But two hundred pages of someone else's D&D adventure gets a
bit dull. Both the inner and outer stories are also hurt by Niven and
Barnes' inability to deal with the number of characters. Only one or two
attain any personality beyond stereotype. Even at the end of the book I
was confusing two who had similar names.
I know many people will buy this because they loved Dream Park; I wish I
hadn't.
Falcon [***]
Emma Bull
Ace, 1989, 0-441-22569-1
Bull's second solo novel is a foray into far-future science fiction, a
far cry from the contemporary fantasy of War for the Oaks.
Unfortunately, she's even less successful here than in that first novel,
but not for lack of interesting ideas.
The story is mostly about Niki Falcon, the last of the living star
pilots. Niki, to become a gestalt pilot, has been genetically modified
to live in symbiosis with his ship. Together the two can "Cheat" space
and time to go from place to place. Unfortunately, part of Niki's
transformation included an addiction to a time-sense-altering drug
needed for the Cheat. This drug, and the other modifications to his
system, are slowly destroying him. Before he dies, though, he has the
chance to save a world from destruction by smuggling someone past a
planetary blockade.
Bull puts in a number of interesting secondary characters. As with War,
her characters are easier to hate than to like, including Niki. The
writing is competent throughout, though the twist at the end should be
obvious to anyone with more than a passing familiarity with
nanotechnology.
The major problem is with the book's structure: the novel starts off
with a hundred-twenty-page lump about Niki on his home world before he
becomes a pilot. It involves a lot of ultimately-disposable characters
and a lot of aimless running about. Its main point seems to be to
provide people and incidental facts which can pop up again at the end of
the book. None of it makes any difference, since neither the facts or
the people are that important to what goes on. I can't tell if this
section was tacked on as an afterthought to lengthen a short novel or is
the vestigial remains of something more significant. Either way it
almost ruins a fairly good book.
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille [****]
Steven Brust
Ace, 1990, 0-441-11816-X
If you're looking for another Taltos-style book from Brust, you're not
going to get one here. Feng's is wilder, more mysterious and,
ultimately, less complex than most of what Brust has done before. Cowboy
Feng's is indeed a bar and grille, but it's nothing like the
now-familiar Callahan's Saloon, to which some people have compared it.
First off, it appears to have the unusual property that it travels
forward through time whenever an atomic bomb goes off nearby. Those who
happen to be lucky enough to be inside when it hits are carried along.
Feng's meager staff of four seems to know what's going on, but they
aren't telling. This leaves the four part-time Irish musicians who've
been carried along by accident to puzzle things out for themselves. They
do, piece by piece, with the reader going along for the ride. Much of
the book works because Brust is able to sustain just enough mystery to
keep the reader interested but not frustrated, so I won't spoil things
by saying more about the plot, except to promise you that there is a
Feng.
There are several things going on in this book that are worth commenting
on. On one level, Brust seems to be saying, 'Look at these neat
characters!' but the mystery and action keeps drawing us away from them.
On another this is a simple but classically powerful story about love in
the face of an impossible situation. And on another it's a strong
commentary about AIDS and the stupidity of some peoples' reactions to
it.
My only real complaint with the book is that Brust paints the major
characters with such a fine brush that some of the minor ones are
slighted and when they pass from the story it affects us less than it
should.
The Stress of Her Regard [****]
Tim Powers
Ace, 1989, 0-441-79055-0
Byron, Shelly, Keats and vampires. What the Sphinx was really asking.
Why you should never put your wedding ring on the finger of a statue and
should be careful whom you invite into your home. What more do you need
to know about a Powers novel?
The Stress of Her Regard is the story of Michael Crawford, a doctor
ahead of his time because he takes "women's medicine" seriously. At a
drunken bachelor party he places the wedding ring intended for his bride
on the hand of a statue in a garden. The morning after his wedding night
he wakes to find his wife brutally murdered. He embarks on a journey
that leads him into and out of the arms of vampires and into the lives
of the aforementioned poetic greats, who draw their beyond-human
inspiration from intimate contact with the race of vampires.
Powers is at his usual good form. The historical research is impeccable,
the action is exciting, the prose is good, and the magic has the
trademark gritty realism that I've remarked on in earlier reviews of his
books. Powers even manages to do new things with the standard vampire
legends, even to the point of blending in the classical Sphinx in a way
that makes sense.
So what's the problem? Well, it's old hat by now. Powers has done all
this before. Stress is stylistically identical to Anubis Gates and On
Stranger Tides. Even the science-fictional Dinner at Deviant's Palace
shared many of the same elements. I like each book for itself, but I
don't see Powers growing as an author through these books. I'd like to
see him try something totally new and, from what I hear, I shouldn't
have to wait too long.
Infernal Devices [****+]
K. W. Jeter
Signet, 1987, 0-451-14934-3
This is without a doubt one of the strangest books I've read in years.
It's subtitled "A Mad Victorian Fantasy," which is an understatement.
The cover picture shows, among other things, a man with a piranha face --
which is an indication of how weird things get inside.
The protagonist, George Dower, is a proper Victorian gentleman. He has
inherited his now-deceased father's clockworks business. Unfortunately,
the senior Dower possessed amazing abilities in creating mechanical
automata of all kinds. George, despite having access to his father's
workshop, does not have the skill to do more than replace worn-out parts
on most of the odd things people bring in for repair. Nevertheless, he
manages to survive.
One day a mysterious Brown Leather Man brings George a device that is
completely outside the realm of his experience. In payment he leaves
George with a gold sovereign which, having a fish-faced man on one side,
was clearly never minted by her Majesty's coiners. This token serves as
George's ticket into a shadowy London underground and involves him in
plots his father set in motion decades ago, including an apparently-mad
effort to destroy the world for the purpose of attracting the attention
of extra-terrestrials.
The writing is extremely well-crafted. George narrates most of his own
story and the author remains true to the Victorian style, including the
elliptical descriptions and colloquialisms. Jeter is, of course,
parodying that style, as well as most of the traits we associate with
the Victorian period: their attitudes towards women, their romance with
the mystical, and their adoration of inexplicable scientific complexity.
The parody perfectly fits the structure of the book.
Jeter also handles his characters masterfully. He keeps the cast small
and develops even the minor players into believable persons. He also
mixes in just enough science to keep the pseudo-science working. The
result is an enjoyable, if thoroughly bizarre, fantasy.
Dr. Adder [*****-]
K. W. Jeter
Signet, 1984, 0-451-15197-6
Dr. Adder, Jeter's first novel, is completely different from Infernal
Devices. This is hard SF with teeth and a gut-twisting ethos.
Dr. Adder is the virtual lord of future L. A. He is a street doctor who
probes the mind of his patients to discover their innermost desires and
then modifies their bodies to enable them to achieve what they most
deeply want. Many of these modifications involve amputations, but the
whores and thrill seekers who come to Adder have no complaints. His
antagonist is Mox, an influential television preacher on a jihad to end
Adder's reign and life, all as part of a grand plan for salvation of the
faithful in L. A.
Caught between them is Allen Limmit, a newcomer to L. A. who happens to
possess the last working flashglove. The flashglove is an
artificially-intelligent limb, programmed to kill and to protect the
person to whom it is grafted. Adder wants the glove; Mox wants to catch
Adder with it. The collision of these two forces brings an entire city
to its knees.
Jeter's writing in Dr. Adder is blindingly hard-edged. The pace is
full-throttle throughout, and Jeter pushes through dozens of ideas any
one of which would be enough for a story in itself. He also deals with
things that would make most authors balk; the fantastic sexual
perversions are only a sidelight compared to some of the social
perversions described. At another layer, the book is allegorical
commentary on science fiction itself. Jeter shreds the hackneyed ideas
of post-holocaust sf, epic-quest fantasy, and several similar old
formulas. One of the minor characters, an aging radio personality, is
named KCID -- an obvious reference to Philip Dick. The Dr. Adder
character also seems to be based on some of the wilder Dick stories that
have circulated.
If this all seems familiar to you, if you're sitting there saying: "yes,
but the cyberpunks have already done the sf-self-critique; they have
already dealt with themes like the invasion of machine into the body,
the pervasive brainwashing influences of television, and the uses
technology finds in the street," then check out when Dr. Adder was
written. It was first created, according to the afterward by Dick, in
1972. But for almost a decade no publisher in the US, England, or France
would take it. Science fiction had ossified and only major pushy authors
like Ellison and Spinrad could get through. The book was finally bought
and first printed in 1979, in part due to Dick's efforts.
It is a fair question to ask whether Dr. Adder is indeed cyberpunk.
Jeter was reportedly quite upset when Signet put "The Cyberpunk
Sensation" on his 1985 novel, The Glass Hammer. That book, the thematic
sequel to Dr. Adder, is also worth the effort of tracking down a copy.
It is my opinion that Dr. Adderis not cyberpunk. I think this because
even though Jeter's L.A. makes the Sprawl look pleasant, it is less
rooted in today's reality. Jeter's future is only tenuously connected to
the postmodern present.
In the end, though, labels matter far less than what is inside. Even
eighteen years later, Dr. Adder's contents say more than ninety percent
of published science fiction. You make up your own mind.
------ End ------
