OtherRealms A Fanzine for the Non-Fan "Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life" Issue #7 August, 1986 Table of Contents Part 1 Stalking the Wild Secondhand Book Carl Hommel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners Steven Bellovin Women in Fantastic Armies Courtenay Footman Voyagers II: The Alien Within Chuq Von Rospach Blood Music and Eon Jim Brunet Part 2 Pico Reviews Part 3 Editorial: The Past Through Tomorrow Chuq Von Rospach Letters OtherRealms Notes Chuq Von Rospach Stalking the Wild Secondhand Book Carl Hommel With paperback cover prices soaring above the $5.00 mark, and trade paperbacks more expensive than the hardcovers of even 10 years ago, the secondhand bookstore is a good place to shop. Why buy the latest Baen Books cheap ink and ratty paper knockoff for $3.00 when you can find the original for under $1.00? Since leaving college 4 years ago, I have tripled my SF collection to over 6,000 books. Less than 100 were bought for the cover price. Patience is everything in secondhand browsing. It also demands a phenomenal memory for titles, or a list that you carry with you. There are three kinds of secondhand shops: those who know the worth of SF and make you pay for it; those who know SF is different from everything else on their shelves; and those who are being robbed blind by the likes of me. The first kind are the sort you find at SF Cons in the huckster room with old first editions in mylar bags and high price tags. Specialty stores like The Other Change of Hobbit in Berkeley or the Victor Hugo Book Store in Boston are aware of the demand for the older, pre-1960 paperbacks. While these stores are the most expensive, they are more likely to have a specific title. I just had to have the 1970 Ace edition of _Servants of the Wankh_ - the third book in the _Tschai: Planet of Adventure_ series by Jack Vance to complete my set. Although the cover price was $.50, and I would have paid from $.25 to $.50 cents at most store, I was not willing to wait years until I found it. So, I coughed up the $5.00. The second kind of bookstore has realized that SF is a hot item. Most genres, like westerns, mysteries, and especially romance novels, circulate in and out of the store. The same book may be sold back to the store several times before it finally wears out. Not SF! We are collectors and hold on to a title until death do us part. Stores will get an entire collection and see it vanish within a week, never to return. To combat this, most stores in the Boston area have a policy that credit for non-SF books you sell the store cannot be carried over to SF titles. With spring cleaning comes yard sales and library sales. They generally have books published recently, with cover prices ranging from $1.95 to $4.25 and selling them from $.05 to $.50 apiece. Buy anything you find interesting for yourself and then buy anything else with the highest cover price you can. The third kind of bookstore goes solely by cover price and the higher the price on the books you trade in, the more credit you get to buy SF. How can you tell a good shop? Here are some questions to ask yourself. You will have to decide how the answers fit into your buying patterns: 1. Did you find it easily? If so, chances are good that other SF lovers will, too. 2. Do they have thirty copies of _Star Wars_? 3. Are the books in alphabetical order? 4. Are they all on display, or are some of them in boxes or behind others on the shelves? 5. Are old records, magazines, and other oddities also sold? 6. Do they discount for bulk purchases? (I once bought 40 'Doc Savage' books for $12.50 by pointing out that they had been sitting there for 3 months.) 7. Do the store owners read SF themselves? ----- E-mail address: carlton@masscomp.UUCP Copyright 1986 by Carlton B. Hommel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners Robert A. Heinlein Reviewed by Steven Bellovin [slight spoilers] Heinlein is about to drop off my "buy on sight" list. _Cat_ is, in my opinion, his fourth turkey in a row, following _The Number of the Beast_, _Friday_, and _JOB: A Comedy of Justice_. They're all pervaded by an atmosphere of paranoia -- the characters are struggling against an unknown force to, ultimately, no particular purpose. The books thus have no global plot rather, they turn on local escapades, theme and style. The two latter points are certainly enough to justify a book if well-executed; unfortunately, they are not in this case. In fact, the style tends to interfere with the theme. The problem is that Heinlein's style has become too predictable, and too wearyingly familiar. His characters all love sex, but they seem to spend most of the time giggling and leering over it, explaining at great length why it's so good and why their partner(s) have the right attitudes. Killings, escapes, etc., are all handled oh-so-competently -- there's no chance of (to cite an earlier Heinlein work) a Professor Bernardo de la Paz dying. It's not that his themes are trivial, either. As its subtitle indicates, _Cat_ turns on manners -- or, more precisely, what constitutes civilized behavior under difficult circumstances. But the constant adventure and sexual encounters distract too much. Contrast this with earlier Heinlein works: how many battles are described, rather than merely alluded to, in _Starship Troopers_? Remarkably few, given the theme of the book. And generally, each one had a point to make about Rico's development. Not only that, Heinlein committed a mortal sin -- spending a lot of time lecturing his audience -- and got away with it. And in _Time Enough for Love_, he tied together a set of mood pieces and managed to produce a work that was utterly fascinating -- despite the fact that many of the individual components were not really science fiction internally. There are good points to _Cat_. The plots are locally interesting, at least until they become too predictable. We get a new look at some old characters and old scenarios (Heinlein, like Asimov, is starting to indulge in literary grand unification theories); their behavior is different, but so is the narrator's viewpoint. Ultimately, it fails to satisfy. ----- E-mail: smb@ulysses.UUCP Copyright 1986 by Steven Bellovin Women in Fantastic Armies Courtenay Footman Many recent fantasies, such as Diane Duane's _Tales of the Five_, most of Barbara Hambly's books, and the _The Sharpest Edge_ by Stirling and Meier, have non-technological armies with women on a more or less equal footing with men. These books are all good, but this assumption is unrealistic and detracts from the work. There are unarguable differences between men and women. Beyond the obvious, the average man is taller than the average woman, has greater upper body strength and a faster sprinting speed. In a technological society none of this makes much difference. With hand-to-hand weapons, though, it means that given equal training a man will best a woman. If a story has humans, if the primary weapons are hand to hand weapons, if military training is not universal, if the society is compelled to maximize its military efficiency, and if the story is rational, the military use of women ought to be an exceptional event. The requirement that the story be rational is necessary because if the story is parody, satire or farce there is no requirement that the author be required to make sense. I am not saying that one should not write a book where women are routinely used in combat; just violate one of my assumptions. The first one can easily be altered, although it usually isn't. I have no objections to female soldiers if technology or sorcery makes physical strength unimportant in combat. True universal training is rare because it so expensive; generally, only a technological society can afford it. Hodgell's _Dark of the Moon_ is an example of when universal training does make sense. The fourth assumption can only be violated if the society does not have to face strong external threats, or the society will not be long for the world. Phyllis Ann Karr's novels _Frostflower_ and _Thorn, Windborne_ violate that assumption; in her society, the only combat is ritualized raiding in which only combatants get hurt, there is minimal damage to property and no distance weapons are allowed. There are no external enemies. For religious reasons, all warriors are women. I am also not saying that there can be no women soldiers - one of the best medieval combat leaders was a woman. It was not uncommon to leave the command of medieval castles to the wife of the lord when he was away, but commanding is not the same as fighting. A story about an exceptional woman can be exceptionally good, e.g. Robin McKinley's _Hero and the Crown_ and _The Blue Sword_, and Tamora Pierce's Alanna stories. Women will not necessarily be in an inferior position in a non-technological society, they just will not be the first line combat troops. Andre Norton's _Estcarp_ is a matriarchy because only women can use magic. Even there the combat troops are male. ----- E-mail address: cpf@lnsvax.tn.cornell.edu Copyright 1986 by Courtenay Footman Voyagers II: The Alien Within Ben Bova [***+] Tor Books, 1986, 344 pages, $15.95 Hardback Reviewed by Chuq Von Rospach _Voyagers II: The Alien Within_ is the latest from Ben Bova, a journeyman SF writer and editor. _Voyagers II_ is a near future political intrigue with a strong leaning towards hard SF. Keith Stoner has been asleep for 18 years in cryogenic suspension. He froze himself in deep space in an alien space craft to force the Earth to rescue it. When medical advances allow his revival, the acquired technology has reshaped society by making nuclear war impossible and bringing many new ideas into the world. The rapid changes have also brought the world to the brink of ruin, and Stoner awakes to growing unease and escalating violence in Africa. The company that revives Stoner is interested in using him and his knowledge. Stoner has changed, though. The alien has merged with him and the book is about the coming of age of these combined as they discover and flex their powers. The political aspects of this book are superb. There is a plot line involving the political intrigue within the large multi-national corporation attempting to control the alien knowledge and Stoner. Everyone is spying on each other, sleeping with each other and hating each other. There is also the global scale, as the worlds social and political structure falls apart. The realities of a world where things are changing too fast are very realistically portrayed. The book is not without its flaws. Bova, in general, is a little rough with expository dialog. You can tell when he switches gears and pulls out the blackboard to explain something. Many authors get away with a lot worse, though, and this is a minor nit. A bigger problem was Stoner himself. Halfway through the book, the Stoner develops a Messiah Complex. He walks from France to Africa and singlehandedly stops a war. The action evolves well, but it was hard to swallow; almost pulpish, it reminded me more of Doc Savage than serious SF. Despite this I really enjoyed this book. It is a good read. The problems are minor. If you like Analog-style fiction, this one is definitely for you. ----- Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach BLOOD MUSIC, Arbor House, 1985 SFBC edition, 215 pages EON Bluejay Books, 1985 $16.95, 436 pages Greg Bear reviewed by Jim Brunet Buy both of these books and read them. I have a lot to say about both books and much of it, especially about _Blood Music_, may seem to dwell on the negative. How can I be negative and recommend the books at the same time? Perhaps it's because an exciting near-miss can be so more exasperating than the shot that falls wide of the mark. Both are are very good books, far above the average. _Blood Music_ is on the Hugo Ballot and I think that _Eon_ should be. Greg Bear is one of the better, most consistent SF writers around today and both works are to his credit. _Blood Music_ is the expansion of a novelette of the same name that won a Hugo award last year The story line is fascinating, revolving around the development of microscopic intelligence as the inadvertent outgrowth of research on biochips -- viruses incorporating computer elements programmed to achieve tailored, biological functions, e.g., cleansing plaque from arterial walls. One unauthorized experiment leads to viruses that, instead of following designated programs form intelligent viral colonies that multiply inside the human body, mutating rapidly and re-designing themselves until they evolve the capability to literally remake their human hosts. The viruses are, of course, highly contagious. The novelette was chilling, terrifying even, arousing a sense of horror far transcending the trivial tales of Stephen King-derived beasties. The novel is less successful despite the added detail. The novelette focused on the character of Vergil Ulam, a bio-technical genius who has problems with authority and a predilection for performing unauthorized experiments. Vergil is a well-sculpted tragic character in the highest sense of the word. He is a nerd without being a cliche; he has obstinate faith in his own abilities versus those short-sighted, mediocre managers and directors who obstruct his genius; he is socially and politically clumsy, yet not without insight into his faults; finally, he has a sense of recognition of what he has done and how he has overreached himself. He would be perfectly at home on a Greek stage, waiting for the just retribution of the gods. Near the end of the novelette and about a third of the way through the novel, Vergil meets a more mundane, if artful, demise than any Greek god would have devised. In the novelette, this is the penultimate climax; in the novel, it marks the air slowly hissing out of the balloon, the tension dissipating, a long slow spiral of declining drama. The second two-thirds of the book concern the lives of Dr. Michael Bernard, another bioscientist, who has caught the plague from Vergil, and Suzy McKenzie, a mildly retarded girl living with her family in Brooklyn Heights. Suzy is an anomaly, one of a bare handful of people in North America who do not catch the plague. The struggles of Dr. Bernard to understand the plague and the intelligent invaders and transformers of his body, and of Suzy, who copes with the literal dissolution of her family and an empty New York City, do not have the same sharp focus and interest as the torment of Vergil Ulam. Indeed, the originator of the plague is the central figure of a triptych, where the other two panels are pale shadows, offering little additional illumination of the central theme. As a result the second two-thirds of the novel do not maintain the high interest and tension of the initial third. Finally, the novel ends not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but drifts away softly as if it were a boojum that wasn't even there. There is the suggestion of new hope, new beginnings, mankind transformed and uplifted. However, suggestion it remains. Instead, the metaphysical images are murky, the final realizations wait vainly in the wings for their cues, and the general sensation is not unlike waking up from a dream that doesn't quite make sense. It's a pity, because the book has more going for it than 90% of the random selections off the shelves. Bear's style is accessible without being glib or shallow, the technical ideas are interesting but worked in for the sake of the story, not themselves, and both characters and images are very well rendered. If _Blood Music_ is a triptych, _Eon_ is a large canvas with a truly cosmic scope. Central to _Eon_ is the mystery of the Stone, an asteroid that arrives into Earth orbit from interstellar space. The Stone is hollow, its inside carved into seven chambers. The Stone's external measurements are roughly 300 kilometers long by 100 kilometers thick at its widest point; inside it ultimately measures millions of kilometers long. The story begins in the year 2000; in the Stone is found a copy of Mark Twain with a copyright date of 2110. Mystery after mystery is piled on and they're all engrossing. If the mysteries are piled high, so are the plot elements. Spies, total nuclear war, space assaults, multi-dimensional mathematics, alternate universes, alien cultures, intra-Soviet intrigues, the legacy of Ralph Nader, sex... So many events and ideas are woven into the tapestry of the story that the East-West nuclear war is almost a footnote. _Eon_ is a terrific novel, making its few flaws stand out in sharp relief. It has a slow beginning. Part of this is due to the large number of characters located in many different locales that must necessarily be introduced and established, making for a "...was happening in Washington; meanwhile, back at the Russian airfield..." sort of feeling. Unlike _Footfall_, another novel that uses the large-cast-of-characters-and-locales beginning, _Eon_'s characters are believable and fully fleshed. I have a couple of minor nits with the body of the book. One scene detailing informal negotiations between Americans and Soviets, knowing that they are on the brink of nuclear war, is flat and unrealistic. And then there is the matter of sex. I think that the insertion of sex into science fiction when it began in the Sixties was a good thing; sex is a part of the world and characters that science fiction embraces. To leave sexuality out results in as distorted a world or character view as that of works which have sexual scenes for the sake of titillating the audience. Greg Bear seems to be of a similar view; his characters have sexual feeling and upon occasion even have sex. However, the rendering of the feelings and encounters is so flat, so devoid of energy, so unconvincing, I wish that either they had been left out or that Bear had spent a couple of weeks practicing writing sex scenes. Sex and humor are two of the most difficult topics to write well, and Bear is too talented a writer to stumble over this barrier. One of the prime motivating forces for the actions of a major group of characters is an alien race called the Jarts. The Jarts remain off-stage for the entire novel, their threat remaining abstract and unfelt by the reader, and serving as a force-ex-machina to press certain plot levers at the author's convenience. This type of plot device is encountered in a lot of SF writing; _Eon_ is so fine a work that it sticks out like tennis shoes with a tuxedo. Then there is the ending itself, or should I say endings, for there are separate endings for each major group of characters. There is a letdown feeling, an oh-is-that-all-that-happened sense. Like _Blood Music_, the ending is anticlimactic and low key. Perhaps this is a matter of taste, but I did not experience the ending as either the resolution of an adventure or as an Epiphany of any sort. Nonetheless, _Eon_ is a very fine book. In my judgment, it belonged on this year's Hugo ballot and, given the relatively weak field this year, might have won. If you want a good hard SF book, I strongly recommend _Eon_. ----- E-mail: jimb@ism780b.UUCP Copyright 1986 by Jim Brunet This issue is Copyright 1986, by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights reserved One time rights only have been acquired from the signed or credited contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. 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