Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
OtherRealms Issue 29 Part 07
Electronic OtherRealms #29
Winter, 1991
Part 7 of 10
Copyright 1991 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.
From Beyond the Edge (Part 2 of 2)
Queen of Angels
Greg Bear
Warner, 0-446-51400-4, 1990.
Reviewed by Paul S. R. Chisholm.
Emanuel Goldsmith, one of the "untherapied" (who needed no help
meeting official standards of mental health) and one of the greatest
poets of the year 2047, appears to have committed a horrific multiple
murder. But this the story of the three people who try to understand
what he's done. Mary Choy, a genetically "transformed" cop, tries to
bring him to justice. A friend of Goldsmith's, Richard Fettle, tries
to come to terms with the murder, and with his own inability to write.
Martin Burke, whose therapy techniques have remade the world,
searches for answers in ``the Country of the Mind.'' At the same time,
a nearly-sentient robot probe called AXIS is just entering the Proxima
Centari system . . . and other dangerous territory.
This is a nearly incomprehensible book of a nearly incomprehensible
society. It's not just the funny punctuation; Bear really has drawn a
radically different world. If he's been somewhat timid in his
applications of nanotechnology (except for a certain hairbrush handle)
and artificial intelligence, it's because he couldn't push the reader
much farther. The theme, not the plot, ultimately draws the various
threads together. A tough read, but probably worth it in the end.
Rimrunners
C.J. Cherryh
Questar $4.95 US 280 pp 0-445-20979-8
Reviewed by David M. Shea
Bet Yeager was Earth Company, one of Mazian's people, until the war
stranded her in Alliance space. Now she is starving on Thule Station,
trying to get back on a ship, any ship. The one she gets is Loki, a
"spook", half-merchanter, quasi-military, operating under doubtful
Alliance authority. All Bet Yeager wants is a safe place to hide and
an honest job to do; but there is something very wrong aboard Loki,
and she may be the only one who can fix it.
This book presupposes that you have read Downbelow Station for the
macro-politics of the situation. Rimrunners operates on a smaller
scale, with a single viewpoint character, and a basic theme of the
micro-politics of survival, very like Merchanter's Luck. That this is
one of the smaller pieces out of which the author is assembling the
sweeping history of Union/Alliance space, does not detract from its
validity or its readability. One of the top-rated authors in SF shows
again how she got to the top. [****]
The Rowan
Anne McCaffrey
Ace, 0-99-13570-7; 335pp, $19.95
Reviewed by Richard Weilgosh
Until The Rowan, The last McCaffrey novels that I enjoyed were Crystal
Singer and Killishandra. It was worth the long wait.
A three year old child is the only survivor of a mud slide that
destroyed her family's colony. The Rowan, as she is called, is found
to possess considerable telepathic and kinetic abilities so she is
raised to become a 'Prime Talent' for the Federal Telepath & Teleport
network. The job of the FT&T is the development of telepaths or 'Prime
Talents' who are then responsible for the movement of commerce,
communications, and personnel between the Earth and the star colonies
on which these 'Primes' serve. The first half of the book deals with
The Rowan's training and her maturing as a person along with the
relationships she'll need in her job. It also deals with the training
of her staff and the setting up of her own Tower on Callisto. The rest
of the story concerns The Rowan's involvement in a war and the attack
on the planet Deneb by a race of strange beetle-like creatures. This
is where she meets her love and future husband, Jeff Raven and they
with the other 'Prime Talents' hope to defeat the aliens. The outcome
is predictable but satisfying and most fitting.
This is a relaxing. highly entertaining and imaginative novel and a
most welcome break from the glut of blood and gore books so prevalent
these days. As all of McCaffery's heroines are, The Rowan is the
strong central figure who is extremely competent, sympathetic and
determined in what she wants and does. McCaffrey also presents us with
a new set of delightful and likable secondary characters especially
the teacher, Siglen. It's a pleasure to read such a smoothly written
novel.
I believe that The Rowan is partly based on a short story from her
earlier collection Get off the Unicorn. This is one of her best novels
to date. McCaffrey is the author of the famous 'Dragonrider' books.
Sparrowhawk
Thomas A. Easton
Ace, October 1990, $3.95
Reviewed By Michael A. Stackpole
Sparrowhawk is an excellent example of the things most writers who
aspire to produce science fiction should bear in mind. They can be
enumerated as follows:
1) Some worlds, while they function for short stories, cannot bear the
scrutiny or prolonged contact with the mind of an intelligent reader
that a novel engenders.
2) Writing humor is very difficult.
3) Copy-editors DO have value.
4) Research is the foundation upon which good fiction in built.
In this novel Easton presents us with world in which animals are
genetically altered by gengineers to all but replace machines.
Roachsters, for example, are computer controlled genimals -- vehicles
grown from lobster stock and outfitted with cockpits, bumpers and
license plates for use on grassy highways. Sparrows have been grown up
to serve as jet-assisted passenger planes (and all giant birds are
referred to, in the text, as planes) and policemen fly gengineered
Hawks in pursuit of criminals.
While this world works fine in a short story setting, like Easton's
"When Life Hands You A Lemming..." (Analog, May 1989), it breaks down
quickly when a reader is given time to question the internal
contradictions the author uses to hold the world together. No reason
is given for exactly WHY the shift from normal machines to genimals is
made -- though the author notes the genimal revolution is paralleling
that of the internal combustion engine (though that analogy is
unsupportable in my opinion). If it is a question of ecology, it
strikes me that with the level of technology he suggests for his
gengineers, they could easily have created a creature that converted
carbon monoxide into oil -- perhaps even creating it in cans in a
process similar to that used by his hanky-bushes to produce tissues.
As is shown in the book, there are serious down sides to using
genimals to replace machines. A berserk Mack truck is brought down by
.357 Magnum bullets, which is to be expected. Living creatures DIE
from little things like that. While an A-10 Thunderbolt tank-killer
plane can survive and fly with over 40% of it being shot away, a
living creature could not do the same. Furthermore, a car will run at
60 mph for as long as it has fuel, while a living creature will tire.
Easton notes that no slave race has been created through gengineering
because humane groups would not permit such a thing happening. Later
in the book, however, we are presented with a "genetic sculpture" that
is living and "part cat!" This whole idea calls for a reexamination of
how "humane groups" would look at gigantic lobsters and Tortises
roaming the country at the bidding of their masters, and I do not feel
such animals rights groups would find these creatures something they
would let exist without protest.
The rest of the book is filled with similar contradictions in logic. A
genetic engineer, Emily, laments the fact that she takes the family's
only transport into work, so her househusband has to walk to the local
market to get food. One wonders why a computer "autopilot" could not
allow the Tortise to return home. At another point she explains that
sizing a creature is easy. At the same time her husband laments the
need to muck out the garage because their Tortise does not produce
enough manure to support a "litterbug." Well, if sizing is easy,
clearly there would be a market for "dustbuster" forms of the
manure-eating creatures.
Easton's "Lemming" story is clearly satire. It has been suggested that
this book, too, is satire but I remain unconvinced of that. The book
seems from the outset to adopt a very serious tone. True, the
house-husband goes through PMS-type tirades and mopes around the house
like a stereotypical wife of the 1950s, but I took that as an inept
attempt to show the downside of gender equality. If this is meant to
be humor, I missed the jokes entirely -- perhaps a genetically
engineered bookworm that could produce a laugh track could have been
bound into the spine.
The copy editing of the book, over which Easton has no real control,
allowed gems like the following to get into print: "The bicycle, when
the streets were smooth, as they were by spells, and the litterbugs
had been doing their duty, as they generally had, came as close, he
was sure, as he would get today. [to feeling the same freedom he felt
in soaring on a Hawk]" (p. 36). It also let this one slip through "His
loyalty was so obviously just that, no more, unreal, a lie for
whatever in-built reasons, that, for a moment of irrationality, she
wanted to strangle the little bastard." (p. 80). And, lastly, this:
"He even told himself that if he ever chose to marry, another cop, one
much like Connie, Connie herself, would be ideal, for she would
understand the life, and the risks." (p. 104).
There are other examples of weird prose and points where non-sequiters
roll through the text. (At one point Emily demands to know what
happened to pictures on a desk when she is in a room we have been
told, time and again, that only the house's owner -- not her -- has ever
been in.) Editors generally catch those things and ask for fixes.
Somehow, though, some of them slipped through in this book. Perhaps
they can be fixed in subsequent editions.
Research is always important with science fiction novels because they
often concern themselves with extrapolation of known fact or current
theories. Mr. Easton has indeed made himself knowledgeable on the
science of genetic engineering and I, at least, was not able to catch
him in any glaring errors there. His grasp of current technology in
other areas, however, is lacking and makes his future a mix of 90s
biotechnology and 50s electronics.
For example, in Neoform, employees must sign in and out when they
enter or leave the building. We are told they used to use a
magnetic-card system, but people, to avoid the bottleneck at the front
desk, gave their cards to others to check them out at lunch. For that
reason the company went to a system where employees use a light-pen to
sign in and out. A computer compares their signature to one it has
stored in memory to determine if the person is legitimate or not. Of
course, as any of us can attest when trying to sign a scad of
traveller's cheques, signatures vary. Moreover, signatures can be
forged with practice. On the whole a retinal-pattern identification
system would be more exact and less time consuming.
The genimals, we learn, are going berserk and attempting to kill Emily
because of special chips being implanted in their motherboard. This
has resulted in a jet-liner Sparrow landing on a highway and
slaughtering hundreds of folks, including most of its passengers and
all of its crew in hopes of killing Emily on a return trip from the
airport. When the chip is identified by the police and a second is
found on the board of a bulldog/Mack truck, our cop hero, Bernie,
notes "Same part number.... It's a PROM, all right. And the serial
numbers are even sequential."
I am unsure which is worse: knowing the terrorists have enough of
these chips to go into mass production, or trying to plumb the depths
of stupidity that would prompt them to put serial numbers on the
chips. I suspect, after having read the book to the end, the
terrorists have done this to provide the police with some vague chance
of stopping them. They have taken pity on the cops because the science
of detection in this world is such that even Doctor Watson could have
solved the mystery on his own.
This book as been called a "twisty police-procedural mystery." This
book is to police-procedurals what "Gilligan's Island" is to "Robinson
Crusoe." The forensics team, at the site of a murder, does not go
through the trash and bag evidence -- that is left to Bernie, who goes
back well AFTER the whole place has been cleaned up, but the trash has
not, somehow, been emptied. The detective, Bernie, has a picture of a
single bloodstained footprint on the carpet and laments the fact that
it is the only clue to the murderer. This in light of the fact that
even today the police can detect (through the use of chemicals and
ultraviolet light) traces of blood after repeated washings of carpets
and clothes. Hair and fiber samples, which a criminal can only avoid
leaving behind if he wears an environment suit, are likewise revealing
to cops today but remain unmentioned here.
Police behavior is vasty different in the future. After shooting the
Mack truck and killing it, Bernie leaves the scene to his fellow cops,
gets a drink with Emily, then takes her to a motel room and boffs her.
Instead of getting called on the carpet for that by his boss, he's
allowed to keep the Mack's collar ornament (a chrome 18-wheeler) as a
memento. Bernie promptly washes it off and gives it to Emily to give
to her 4 year old son, right before she and Bernie have another bout
of sex! Even more strange, Bernie does not pursue a fleeing
mass-murder suspect, but instead says, "Don't bother [chasing
him]...we'll get him later anyway."
In a review it was suggested that one cares about the characters. I
feel this is true, because they are clearly incapable of caring for
themselves. All of the genimal assassins have been created to kill
Emily so someone can take credit for a genimal she created, though the
patent is already being processed in and is obtained in her name
during the course of the book. The Sparrow/jet that lands on the
highway is there specifically to get her, when it would have been so
much more simple to just bring down the Sparrow she'd flown home from
Washington by having it collide with the terrorist controlled Sparrow-
assassin.
The murder/rape that points out the wonders of forensic science in
2044, metastasizes into a series of same by the end of the book. All
of them are committed, says Bernie, because "All fanatics are nuts,
and too many of them are nuts about blood." Once again, a little
research, this time into the psychology of serial killers, would have
made the book so much more believable.
The characters have more than one dimension, but only in the way that
a sheet of paper can be said to have depth. At their best they are
stereotypes and at their worst, which is most of them, they are
reduced to racial/political/religious stereotypes. As Easton notes in
describing the home of a character of Indian descent (though US born
of parents from South Africa), "The [odor of] curry, like sin, was
something that followed the children of Mother India wherever they
might wander, unto the seventh generation." Easton is blessed, in my
opinion, that Indians have more of a sense of humor than, say, Moslem
fundamentalists.
Writing, and especially writing novels, requires skill. While not as
important as the training a surgeon gets to perform brain surgery, a
writer has to develop in order to create pleasant, readable work.
Novelist-dabblers, fortunately, can retire after one unsatisfactory
effort and no one will be the worse for it -- as would not be the case
of a patient in the care of a surgery- dabbler.
Luckily, because the human psyche has a great penchant for hysterical
amnesia, this book is forgettable. This is one you can pass by unless
you're looking for a book that you can toss down and say, "I can do
better than this" tp start your literary career. You'd not be setting
your sights very high, however you'd have no place to go but up.
Surfing Samurai Robots
Mel Gilden
Lynx Books, 1-55802-001-2, 1988, $3.95, 246pp.
Reviewed by Mary Anne Espenshade
As SF this probably only rates **, with one off-beat alien and a near-
future California where robots are available as servants, tour guides
and even to do your surfing for you. As a pulp mystery parody it gets
[****]. Zoot's planet, T'toom, gets radio transmissions from Earth
(they panicked at the original War of the Worlds broadcast too). He
decides to visit the place because he wants to be just like Philip
Marlowe, but he ends up in Malibu, among the surfers, eating yoyogurt
and watching tv until a motorcycle gang challenges them to win the
Surf-O-Rama. Zoot must become a private eye for real to learn who
destroyed all the surfbots and why Heavenly Daise, genetic research
scientist and daughter of the owner of Surfing Samauri Robots, has
disappeared. This is a FUN book. [***]
Till the End of Time
Allen Appel
Doubleday, $19.95, 405 pp.
Reviewed by Gregory Benford
To reach back and change the past -- surely one of the most enduring and
endearing impulses of the modern mind. Science fiction has attacked
this great thought-experiment with myriad purposes and results. Here
Allen Appel follows on his successful novels Twice Upon a Time and
Time After Time, which deal with historian Alex Balfour's lurches from
era to era in pursuit of moral meaning and simple survival. It's an
engaging read, zesty and vivid, a lively page-turner.
Yet not without moral purpose, as far too many popular novels are -- and
seemingly these days, must be. Appel is after larger game than the
reader's attention span.
His hero swings back and forth between our complex era and the
seemingly simple moral landscape of World War II. Alex moves through
time without scientific prop or artifice, as in the earlier books. The
contrast between our cynical and expedient time and the clear demands
of the greatest of all wars is striking.
Today we fear nuclear war somewhat, but find our greatest enigmas in
environmental and other issues. Appel's hero can concentrate on making
the opening of the nuclear age less bloody, elevating matters to a
lofty plane. This is the opinion of Einstein, when confronted with the
time traveller. That his suggestion would be turned into a weapon used
against civilians horrifies the aging physicist. He urges Alex to make
Roosevelt set down guidelines for use of the bomb, well before 1945.
Should Alex try to change history? "And yet, didn't he have to make
the attempt, even though the outcome was doubtful? That part of
Einstein's philosophy had to be correct; a moral man must attempt
moral change."
Even though Alex gets an interview with FDR, the wily politician
derails his course into a fact-finding mission to the South Pacific.
This allows us into the real world of the Big War, with some splendid
action writing. We get the full tour, with well-considered
meetings -- JFK as uncertain skipper of PT-109, 'Wild Bill" Donovan as
manipulator supreme. FDR stays in touch with messages relayed through
notables, particularly a wanton Betty Grable, who supplies some
welcome steam.
Appel neatly contrasts the certainties of that time with our own
mitigated present. His lady love, mired in the journalism of 1990,
pursues a parallel plot involving Japanese germ warfare. Her
Washington, contrasting vividly with FDR's, is convincing: "Molly
examined the heavy, greasy food and understood why most of
Washington's government workers seemed to harbor an air of gloom and
defeat."
But the miasma of our age is strangely neutral, as though the issues
of that distant war were mere movie material: "The Germans have been
able to accept the enormity of their crimes, to dwell on them at a
national level, but the Japanese will admit very little. And the
Holocaust, as terrible as it was, is over. Germ warfare continues, or
at least the development side does." Indeed, Iraq's use of mustard
gas reminds us that there is still no true international moral
consensus.
This novel seems at first to be a simple action gambol, but it raises
issues seldom treated in our press. The Japanese did carry out
terrible experiments on captives. They did allow to die or outright
kill half their prisoners of war, while the Germans lost a few
percent. Yet the power of the Nazi imagery is such that we ascribe the
blackest role to the Germans, and forget the Japanese. We wring our
hands over our use of the atom bomb, though in fact our fire bombings
of Dresden and Tokyo killed more. Further, the Japanese understood
this long ago. They had an atomic bomb project. "They would in fact
hide the possibility that they had ever even attempted such a thing,
just as they hid the fact that Hirohito was an active participant in
Japan's war plans."
True enough, and the novel capitalizes on this, framing its conclusion
at Hiroshima, where the author places the Japanese A-bomb project.
This serves some dramatic purpose (though in fact the work was in
Tokyo), which however fails to render the climax as powerful as the
earlier material. The central problem of time-travel narratives is
whether a better outcome results. Appel finesses this card by finally
making his hero unable to affect crucial events, by pure authorial
fiat.
We lose, then, the telling crunch. Alex wanders off to care for an
infant saved from Hiroshima's blast. This reader wonders what it's all
been about.
Should the US have foresworn the bomb, despite the deaths? Or was
that clear demonstration of their power a crucial object lesson? What
would Einstein have said, if he had seen how it has all turned out (so
far). These are interesting questions, but alas, the novel, for all
its fun, averts them to its loss.
(reprinted by permission of the author from the Washington Post.
Copyright 1990 by Gregory Benford).
The Vang: The Battlemaster
Christopher Rowley
Ballantine $4.95 313 pg.
Reviewed by Danny Low
Rowley has unquestionably matured into a very good writer. This book
is very good. The basic story is the same as The Vang: The Military
Form. However the details are significantly different. Again, a
hibernating Vang is found. A Battlemaster as the title states. However
this time humanity knows from the previous Vang revival that the Vang
exists and what they can do. The ITAA has definite procedures for
handling a new Vang revival. The problem comes from the location of
the revival, Wexel. Imagine Lebanon ruled by the Mafia and you get
some idea of what it is like on Wexel.
The ruling ITAA is not popular and the native lords are very
uncooperative. In addition, all the fighting and killing that normally
happens on Wexel disguises the activity of the Battlemaster. The
Battlemaster is also much more intelligent than the Military Form. As
a result, it does not blindly try to conquer the planet but evaluates
the situation and makes plans accordingly.
Everyone in the book acts sensibly or as sensibly as they can. Some of
the characters are rather stupid. It is normal for them to act
stupidly. The intelligent characters act intelligently. They do not
accomplish as much as they should because the obstacles they face are
tremendous. There are no artificial hindrances typical of poor
writing.
This book has it all, good story, good characterization and lots of
action. [***]
The Vor Game
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen $4.50 345 pg.
Reviewed by Danny Low
While this is the latest Miles Vokosigan book, it is one of the
earliest in story chronology. Miles has graduated from the Military
Academy and gets his first assignment in the most remote and
inhospitable base in the entire Barrayaran military. This portion of
the book is actually a novelette that is grafted onto the front of the
novel. The results of this little side adventure are important later
in the novel so it is not totally out of place in the book.
The real story starts when Miles gets orders to spy out the growing
military buildup in some neighboring systems. He runs into his old
command, the Dendarii Mercenaries, who have undergone a small coup de
main by Miles' old nemesis, Admiral Oser. This is only the beginning
of Miles' problems. His cover is blown from day one. The Barrayaran
Emperor decides to play pauper prince without the pauper and Miles
finds him about to be sold into indentured servitude. Of course all
this happens just after Miles thoroughly ticks off his field commander
and is under orders to return immediately to Barrayar.
The basic structure of the story is that of a mystery. The mystery
being why the sudden military buildup in the neighboring system. The
rescue of the Emperor is basically a red herring although it provides
some amusing events. The solution to the mystery is not very hard but
is also not obvious. The astute reader should be able to figure it out
about the same time as Miles if not before. While some background
briefings are found in the book, most people find will the book
slightly baffling if they have not read the previously published Miles
Vorkosigan books. Specifically, The Warrior's Apprentice should be
read before this book. In summary, an excellent addition to the Miles
Vorkosigan saga. [***]
Vows and Honour
Mercedes Lackey
The Oathbound
DAW, 0-88677-285-0, 1988, $3.50, 302pp.
The Oathbreakers
DAW, 0-88677-319-9, 1989, $3.95, 318pp.
Reviewed by Mary Anne Espenshade
Two collections of the adventures of the swordswoman Tarma and the
sorceress Kethry. I originally read some of these stories in the
fantasy fiction magazine Fantasy Book, others appear in the Marion
Zimmer Bradley-edited anthology series Sword and Sorceress. The
Oathbound is almost entirely a collection of previously printed
stories, reset as a novel. The Oathbreaker is much more one story.
It also includes a feature of Lackey's books that I especially like -
an appendix of song lyrics. Tarma and Kethry are followed by a
minstral who wants to benefit from their fame by writing songs of
their adventures, but they never have adventures in quite the heroic
way he wants, so his songs "improve" on the events (and endlessly
annoy the two they supposedly describe). [****]
West Of January
Dave Duncan
Del Rey 1989 $3.95 US, 343 pp 345-35836-8
Reviewed by David M. Shea
Knobil didn't set out to save the world from the slowly advancing sun;
it just happened. He was born among the herdfolk, but fled after the
death of his "father". Then he came among the seafolk. Then he was
captured and enslaved in "heaven". Then ... Well, you get the
picture. It's a "journey of wonders" novel; it also involves a highly
improbable number of sexual encounters.
Nothing kills a story faster for me than an obnoxious social
structure. This book features several such, each seemingly more
offensive and sexist than the last. The author quickly forfeited
whatever good will I began with, and in the absence of some redeeming
virtue, never got it back. I just didn't like this. [*]
------ End ------
