OtherRealms A Reviewzine for the Non-Fan Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life Issue #11 December, 1986 Part 3 Words of Wizdom Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach The best Fantasy of the year should be hitting the bookstores as you read this. Pat Murphy's THE FALLING WOMAN (Tor hardcover, November, 1986, $14.95) is the best thing I've read in a year of very strong offerings. Elizabeth Butler is an archaeologist working on a Mayan dig in Mexico. She also sees ghosts, the shadows of the dead that live in the ruins she is investigating. This is primarily a psychological Fantasy, but is enriched with a strong sense of Mayan background, history, and folklore. Elizabeth's long estranged daughter, Diane, joins the dig after her fathers death trying to find herself. She can, like her mother, see shadows but doesn't understand the ability. The story revolves around the two of them trying to come to grips with themselves, with each other, and with a train of events that a long dead Mayan priestess weaves around them in an attempt to bring back the slumbering God's of her time. The real selling points of the book are the characterizations and mood that Murphy evokes. She builds an emotional tension just short of that found in the horror genre, drags you in and gets you involved. The people, even the minor characters, are fully fleshed individuals, not the stereotypes or caricatures found all too often in books these days. She makes you care, puts you on the edge of your seat, and doesn't let you go until the end of the story. If there is any justice, this is next years World Fantasy Award winner, and the people who vote Nebula's need to take a close look at this work. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you like substance in your reading, authors like Wolfe or LeGuin or Wilhelm, this is the book for you. [*****] * * * THE LEGACY OF LEHR (Walker and Company, 235 pages, $15.95) is the new book by Katherine Kurtz. It is the first in a new series of books being packaged by Byron Preiss called Millennium, where each book will deal with a major them of Science Fiction. LEHR is primarily a locked room murder mystery set on a space ship. A luxury space liner is diverted to a backwater planet to pick up an emergency cargo -- four bright blue, telepathic, noisy lions destined for the Emperor. Shortly, people start dying, their throats ripped out, a small amount of bright blue fur gripped in their dying grasp. The lions have been under full guard the whole time, but it is obvious that somehow they're getting out of their cage, walking through the ship, killing people, and getting back in -- past cameras, guards and locked doors -- all without being seen. Or is something else going on? Kurtz takes the story seriously enough to make it work, but with enough camp to keep it from getting overbearing. She throws in strange aliens (including one set whose main religious devil is a bright green, telepathic, noisy lion), vampires, religious fanatics, native rituals and all sorts of other strange concepts without making you feel like she's playing games with the reader. When it all comes down to it, this book is well written and an enjoyable read. Preiss seems to have a winner with this new series, and I'm looking forward to future books. [****] * * * Last month's Books Received had a number of titles from a small press called Space and Time. The small press is an area that tends to get overlooked by most readers, and if THE SPY WHO DRANK BLOOD by publisher Gordon Linzner (Space and Time, 1984, 127 pages, $5.95 trade paperback from 138 West 70th Street (4B) New York, 10023-4432) is any indication of the quality of the field, much to the readers disadvantage. Frankly, my initial thought was to say something like "this book is good enough to be published by a major house" but that implies that the small press publishes lesser quality books, which isn't true. There ARE areas where the small press is little more than a vanity press, but in many occasions the books are works that slip through the less flexible publishing standards of the major houses. SPY is a good example. Like all Space and Time works, it is cross-genre, combining Science Fiction, Mystery, and Horror into a single work. Immediately, this gives a major house heartburn -- how do you market something that doesn't fit into the genre cleanly? The small press doesn't have to worry about that, fortunately. Linzner writes a story about Blood, a secret agent who happens to be a vampire. In between assignments, he is literally kept on ice, being kept frozen cryogenically until he is needed to keep his drinking habits under control. Unlike human beings, cryogenic freezing doesn't kill him, it just makes him thirsty and allows him to survive daylight (to Linzner's credit, the only modification to the vampire folklore he allowed himself). His keeper's daughter is abducted in the Everglades by a band of insane radical terrorists. The first agent who goes in doesn't come back out, so he turns to Blood. Blood travels down there, finds the girl and the group, and then watches as the group gets decimated by something even worse... Be aware that Blood is pretty ruthless, and that Linzner is not afraid to write him that way. Forgiving or merciful he's not. It isn't particularly graphic, gory, or gruesome, but it can be intense. I liked it, a lot. I think most people would, if they could find it. Small press books don't get into many bookstores, so you'll have to search for them, or order directly from the publisher. I think it's worth it. The small press field is a relatively new area for me, but after Space and Time I hope to be reading and reviewing more in the future from the alternative publishing houses. [****] * * * If you're looking for Horror, a lot of people are starting to publish it. If you're looking for GOOD Horror, though, look at Graham Masterson. Where Steven King writes very personal, real life Horror books, Masterson write the more traditional "things are going to pop out and chew on your hand for a while" kind. It is very different from King's works, but as good in his own way. His latest, DEATH TRANCE (Tor Horror, September, 1986, 409 pages, $3.95) is a good example. He mixes the mystique of the Hindu death trance (where adepts can actually walk among the dead and talk to them -- something very few priests can accomplish and survive) with modern societal horrors in such a way that it all flows together and crawls up your spine. The president of an independent cottonseed oil refinery company has a plant burned. His family is brutally massacred. It is obvious that the rival Cottonseed Oil association (who just lost a major contract to him) is involved somehow, but why stoop to inhumane torture and murder? While recovering from the shock of his loss, he is told of the death trance, and decides he has to say good-bye to his family before he can start his life again. So, off to Java he goes in search of an adept, taking along a few people (some good, some uninvited and not so good). The horror of everyday life -- the torture, the slimy business dealings, corruption, and inhumanity -- counterpoints the death trance and the fantastical horrors found beyond, and makes it acceptable. Everything falls together, and everything ties together in the end. The book isn't explicit or graphic. It doesn't need to be, as Masterson is a superb writer that generates pictures in your mind better than anything that could be put on a page. Pictures, mind you, that will take time to go away -- the mark of a good Horror writer. I find horror a wonderful change of pace from an overdose of Fantasy. No Unicorns, no dwarves, no cute little elves and their pointy little ears. The basis between the two genres are very similar, but horror twists things into the realm of darkness instead of light. If you haven't tried to read horror, you should. This book is as good as place to start as any I've seen in a while (anything by King is, too). Be sure you have a nightlight, though. You might need it. [****] * * * Imagine, for a second, that a living fossil is discovered. A real, live, breathing member of the long extinct species Homo Habilis. Our forefather. What do you think would happen? You were right. He'd get married and have a kid and be a successful artist. That's the premise of ANCIENT OF DAYS, from author Michael Bishop. Bishop starts with 100 pages of the best Hard SF I've read since BLOOD MUSIC, but my overworked sense of disbelief threw me out of the book when he got overly cute and started playing games. I could accept Homo Habilis. I could even accept how he got into rural Georgia. I could even accept him being adopted by a lonely (but beautiful) woman artist who wants to protect him from the world. But, with the Klan and the Government and the Black Radicals and everyone with a Cause breathing down her neck, the two go out and get secretly married. Okay, I can believe that, sort of. Nobody finds out about it. (my disbelief is creaking). WE find out about it when the Immigration people come to arrest him as an illegal alien so that the anthropologists can get their hands on him. Uh, the government didn't know they were married? Right. Even less plausible, once the marriage is shown to be legal, everyone goes off and leaves them alone? Can you REALLY believe that all the anthropologists in the world are going to be nice and wonderful and not try to take midnight urine samples and make themselves into royal pests? Well.... Even if you could buy an entire arm of academia acting like rational human beings over the Rosetta Stone of ancient humanity, Bishop takes your disbelief one step further, as Adam (the obvious name) learns to drive and sits around in the evening reading C.S. Lewis, PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, the Koran, and other similar kiddie books. That pop you heard was my disbelief snapping. One of the physiological traits of Homo Habilis is the lack of pre-frontal lobes. Bishop has just postulated a pre-humanoid species with an I.Q. and cognitive powers greater than most of humanity, but without enough brain power to handle it. Now, maybe you can get past the absurdity of a glorified chimpanzee reading the collected works of human philosophy, but I couldn't. Bishop should have played Adam straight. He didn't, which successfully ruined whatever Bishop was trying to say with this book. The story is too convenient, and he strays too far from the realm of possibility for a hard SF work. Too bad, I wanted the book to work for me. Not recommended [*] * * * Signet is the latest publisher to develop a shared world anthology similar to the very popular THIEVES' WORLD series. If you like these kinds of books, you'll really like BORDERTOWN created and edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (Signet, 251 page, $2.95). It is set in Bordertown, an enclave of humanity and elves in the netherlands between our world and Fairie, where both technology and magic work. Sort of. It is a lot closer to Ace's LIAVEK series than it is THIEVES' WORLD. This shouldn't be surprising, because the lead story (and the best in the book) is DANCELAND by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, creators of LIAVEK. It is completely separate from LIAVEK, though, but like that series avoids the dreary depression endemic to THIEVES' WORLD. Three of the four stories are winners, and the worst (MOCKERY by Ellen Kushner and Bellamy Bach) still rates a solid so-so on the interest meter, so the book as a whole is pretty solid. If you like the concept of punk elves, you'll love BORDERTOWN. The cover, by British artist Phil Hale, is, if not the best cover of the year, certainly the most distinctive. I hope other publishers take a close look at it, at the covers they're doing. It IS amazing how much more attractive a book that stands out on the racks can be. I hope this one sells well. [****] * * * THE POSTMAN by David Brin was a 1986 Hugo nominee for Best Novel. Bantam has just released it in paperback (321 pages, $3.95) so everyone who hasn't read it yet can find out what they're missing. It's a very good work, and a big change from the kind of novels Brin has written in the past. It isn't SF as much as it is folklore, as Brin spins the tale of a post-holocaust survivor who steals the jacket from a long dead postal worker and finds himself spinning the stories of a rebuilt United States. THE POSTMAN stands with Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, and the other larger than life figures that tell the stories of our country. Through rain or sleet or fallout, the mail will go through, and with it, hope. [*****] * * * Michael Perrin, the boy turned man in the worlds of the Sidhe, has returned in the sequel to Greg Bear's wonderful INFINITY CONCERTO. THE SERPENT MAGE (Berkley books, 343 pages, $3.50) carries on the story as the Sidhe and all of the inhabitants of the other realm start migrating to our world. Greg Bear is one of the few writers today who can handle any flavor of the genre from Hard SF (BLOOD MUSIC) to straight Fantasy. This is another fine book from a fine author. Highly recommended. [*****] * * * John Varley has always been a writer whose strength is in the shorter works. His latest collection is BLUE CHAMPAGNE (Berkley books, 290 pages, $2.95) and includes "Press Enter []", his award winning short story as well as seven other works. Some of the works, such as "Lollipop and the Tar Baby" will probably be familiar to Varley readers, but many of these have been collected from relatively small distribution publications. This collection also contains what I think is the best Varley story ever in the title work, which was originally published in NEW VOICES, an anthology series most people have probably never heard of -- the price of admission is worth this gem alone. The weakest story of the bunch, believe it or not, is "Press Enter []", which I found to be a very powerful story the first time I read it, but re-reading it was a disappointment, there doesn't seem to be the imagery or staying power I'd expected. Still, a good book from a master. [****] * * * When Gene Wolfe was writing the Book of the New Sun series, Locus magazine accidentally used the title THE CASTLE OF THE OTTER for one of the books. Wolfe liked the title enough that he wrote a book for it. The result, originally published by the small press Zeising Brothers, is now available through the Science Fiction Book Club. It is a small, 113 page book in which Wolfe discusses the writing of the series, the background, history, flavor and etymology that went into the classic series of books. Many authors, when they try this, end up sounding egotistical and self-indulgent. Wolfe carefully peels away the skin and bone, layer by layer bringing to light the mental processes inside a writers skull. It is a definite must for any writer or prospective writer, and anyone with an interest in the series or in what goes on behind the series should take the time to track this book down. It is of limited enough interest that I doubt it will show up on the mass market, so if you don't belong to the SFBC, find a friend who is and order it. [****] * * * Sometimes I wonder if Baen Books is self-destructive or if someone simply put a curse on them. Earlier this year they upset the bookstores with an abortive Book Club. So far, every book from them I've reviewed I've panned (for example, the HEROES IN HELL series ripoff of THIEVES' WORLD). Now, I've found a good book, but it is so poorly packaged and mismarketed that I doubt it will have a chance of selling well. It is beginning to look like they can't win. The book in question is ZOBOA by author Martin Caidin. Caidin is a solid author with credits such as MAROONED, THE MESSIAH STONE, and THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. Here he's written a very good action adventure SF Thriller with a topical subject. In a few days, a multi-national crew will be taking a space shuttle into orbit in front of a large crowd of dignitaries from around the world. Unfortunately, four nuclear bombs have been hijacked by a radical Arab death squad -- the target, the shuttle and dignitaries. Nine days to get the bombs back from a group of suicidal maniacs happy to take millions with them, or risk a major international disaster. This is a very well written book, with one proviso. It was not really written as a Science Fiction book, but as a mainstream adventure. The women jiggle, and when they're wearing anything it is tight fitting. The men cuss a lot, as Real Men are wont to do. The action is fast paced, moving along at a breakneck speed. This book could sell very well nestled into the mainstream lists next to Lawrence Sanders. Unfortunately, it has the Science Fiction label attached prominently, so the mainstreamers (who don't realize they're reading SF when they read Sanders...) won't touch it. And I think the mainstream aspects of the writing will turn off a lot of genre readers. This book has Best Seller written all over it if someone had just marketed it right. Unfortunately... We come to the second problem. The cover, by David Mattingly, is painted in colors that can only be described as putrid purples and pinks. It shows a shuttle blasting from the launch pad, surrounded by fighter planes and troops in combat gear. And the cover blurb says "This time it wouldn't be an accident." Now, it is obvious that this book was in preparation long before the shuttle accident early this year. There is a place in the book where the people who died in that accident are acknowledged briefly. Caidin looks like he tried hard to keep the book from capitalizing on our country's loss while acknowledging it. The cover blurb, though, is thoughtless, tactless, and in very poor taste. I found myself simultaneously revolted, insulted and outraged that someone could take the shuttle accident and try to turn it into a marketing tool. If it wasn't for that blurb, I could recommend the book with reservations about the mainstream slant of the writing. As it stands, unless they re-do the cover and re-issue the book, I won't. That someone at Baen can be so thoughtless, and that nobody else caught it before it shipped, is inexcusable. If you DO buy this book, I suggest you take the cover and mail it back to Baen and tell them what you think about it. I hope Caidin had a few choice words about how they treated this book -- I certainly would have. [*] * * * SONG OF KALI by Dan Simmons (Tor Horror, November 1986, 311 pages, $3.95) is another example of Tor's dominance in the growing horror field. It recently won the World Fantasy Award (we can argue about why a horror title should win a Fantasy award some other time) and the award is well deserved. Robert Luczak, his wife and infant daughter travel to the city of Calcutta in search of a new manuscript from an Indian poet thought dead. What they find is horror, the horror of man's inhumanity to man, the horror of the squalor of the human cesspool that is Calcutta. Simmons uses Calcutta, the Indian culture and a brush with the death cults that worship the Goddess Kali as examples of larger problems. There is no happy ending in KALI, but the slighest ray of hope peeks through the clouds of despair. Highly recommended. [****+] Two Views of the Hugo The following articles are not Copyrighted, and have been placed into the public domain to make it as easy as possible to reproduce and pass around. Feel free to copy and distribute these articles to anyone you feel would be interested. E-mail: chuq@sun.COM, djo@ptsfd.UUCP [In issue 9, I plugged the 1987 Worldcon and suggested that everyone should get involved in choosing the Hugos. The Hugo is the most visible award given in Science Fiction, and carries weight with the press, with the publishers, and with the general buying public. As you might guess, my suggestion to get involved or get out started a few discussions. It's continuing with the next few pages, where Dan'l Danehy-Oakes looks at what is wrong with the Hugo award today, and I take a few potshots from the battlements at what I think would make it better. I want to try to revive the lettercol in the next couple of issues, and I can't think of a better topic: these are the opening comments, but I want to know what you think of the Hugo as well, and I'll make sure the best of the comments get passed along in OtherRealms. The Hugo isn't perfect, by any means. But it IS important, so ignoring it isn't the answer. Lets see if we can make it better, instead.] CONSPIRACY? WHAT CONSPIRACY? by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes A while ago Chuq suggested that you all "Join the Conspiracy" -- purchase a supporting membership in the upcoming Worldcons so you could vote for the Hugos. I would like to suggest that the last thing the Hugo award needs is more people voting in its selection. Now, I realize that you are a person of excellent taste and fine sensibilities; that you are of refined and sophisticated critical judgement; otherwise you would not be reading such an estimable and excellent publication as OtherRealms. But does mere good taste and critical judgement qualify one to vote for the Hugo awards? Ideally, no. I'll explain that in a moment, but first... In fact, there is only one qualification currently enforced if one is to vote for the Hugo awards, and that is a financial qualification. You must be able to pay for at least a supporting membership in the World Science Fiction Association, the official name of the Convention's membership. This means that to vote for the Hugo, you don't even have to read the books and stories nominated. Think about that for a minute. Then think about this. In 1978, at the IguanaCon (the World Science Fiction Convention held in Phoenix that year), a small group of individuals buttonholed a rather larger group of attendees, and asked them whether they had voted for that year's novel Hugo; and if they had, how many of the nominees they had actually read prior to voting. Of those who had voted, less than 40% had read all the nominated books. Try this logic. The number of people who have read a book is proportional to the number of people who bought it. There is no reason to believe that this is less true within the population who vote for Hugos than outside it. The only substantial difference that can reasonably be expected between the Hugo- voters and the non-Hugo voters is a greater likelihood to buy and read hard- cover SF. The greater a book's advance publicity budget and/or the greater the author's reputation based on her PREVIOUS books, the greater the sales of a book will be. Hypothesis: Nobody votes for a book she hasn't read for the Hugo, over a book she has read, unless she -really- hated the one she read. (At this point, some Nimrod is jumping up and down, saying, "But being a best-seller doesn't mean a book is bad!" BINGO! Best-sellerdom doesn't mean a book is ANYTHING It means the publisher spent bucks, or the author has a reputation. But DelRey Books spent big bucks pushing THE SWORD OF SHA-NA-NA, and a man with a real big reputation once wrote something called FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD. Neither of the principal contributors to best-sellerdom is a reliable mark of quality.) Given these likelihoods and facts, a books advance publicity budget and the author's prior reputation have an unwarrantedly high degree of influence on who wins the Hugo. What can be done? In an ideal world, the Hugo might work like this. There would be two ballots for the general membership of the convention. The first would allow them to nominate the books and stories which would end up on the final list. The top five (or three, or seventeen) of each category would be that year's nominees. The second public ballot would be a slate of persons each of whom had agreed to read all the nominees before voting. The general membership would select who, from that list, they wished to represent them in selecting the winners of the Hugos. Perhaps a system of "weighting" their votes based on their support from the general membership might be adopted. At any rate, this would ensure that only people who had taken the trouble to become qualified to vote, by reading the nominees, would make the selection. In the real world, of course, such a plan would never be accepted. "It ain't democratic." Well... neither is writing talent. Some people have it; some don't. Democracy may not be the best way for judging an inherently UNdemocratic phenomenon. In the real world, there is only one thing that can be done. And only you can do it. If you are going to vote for the Hugos, read the nominees. Otherwise, you may help keep the best book from winning. If you can't make a commitment to read all the nominees... stay away from the ballots. Because the last thing the Hugo award needs is more uninformed voters. What's wrong with the Hugo? by Chuq Von Rospach Dan'l's article notwithstanding, I don't really think there is anything significant wrong with the Hugos. They do just what they are designed to do: show the world what the membership of the annual Worldcon thinks are the best in the genre for that year. Perceptions, on the other hand... The big problem is that the general public thinks that the membership of a Worldcon represents the readership of Science Fiction as a whole. Wrong. Because of this, there is a lot of breastbeating every year because people feel that the Hugos don't represent them. Most of these people, of course, would never be caught dead voting for the Hugo, of course. Which goes back to my comment in #9. If you get involved in the voting process, you CAN make the Hugo represent what you think they should. If you don't get involved, you shouldn't gripe about the results. The griping will continue, of course, no matter what I say. And the Hugos are in good company. The SFWA fights a running battle over the Nebula, and neither of these comes close to the second guessing and backbiting that goes on around the Oscar. Personally, I think the controversy is a good sign -- it shows people are paying attention and thinking about the results. Its better than being ignored. * * * There are a number of ways that the Hugo can be improved, though. First and foremost, to me, is the silly Australian ballot preference system used for counting votes. I won't attempt to explain the system -- it looks like a statisticians masters thesis and makes keeping score while bowling look easy. Rather, the following excerpt from Locus #309 says it all: "'The Only Neat Thing to Do' [...] had the most nominations AND the most first place votes and led for the first three rounds. It lost to the Zelazny story because it didn't command enough second place votes. The story eliminated next to last was the C.J. Cherryh, and most of these voters preferred the Zelazny story in their second place." In other words, Tiptree got the most votes, (208 to 194 for the winning Zelazny story) but lost because people who like C. J. Cherryh stories (who placed fifth in the voting, even though she got more votes than the fourth place Robinson story) prefer Zelazny to Tiptree. Huh? I'm sorry, but if you get the most votes, you take home the award. Except under a balloting system that requires an MBA, two computers, and an astrology chart. In 1986, out of 13 categories, the person with the most first place votes LOST in three categories. I'm just glad they don't do this with the presidential elections; can you imagine the possibilities? * * * It also seems obvious that the No Award award doesn't work. People will simply not vote rather than vote for nothing (two entirely different things!) thereby letting an award go to someone who doesn't have the support of the membership. One way to make the Hugo more valuable is to stop giving it out when it isn't deserved. No Award was supposed to do this, but it hasn't worked. Rather than forcing someone to take a positive action, I think it is better to simply remove No Award from the ballot completely, and only give the award in a category when 50%+1 of the valid ballots have a vote for the category. If 50% of the voters don't vote, the membership is saying there isn't something in the category worth voting for, and the award isn't justified. In the case of Best Fanzine this year, there was a major campaign for the No Award. If it hadn't been for the Australian counting, it would have "won" (239 votes vs. the winning Lan's Lantern 153). Under the suggested rules, there were 1267 legal ballots, and 805 voted for Best Fanzine. When you subtract the 239 No Award ballots, you end up with 566 votes for the category, well below the awarding level. The Fan Writer category would also not have been awarded, and the Fan Artist is right on the edge. Hugos should be given out for a reason, not because they exist. Changing No Award will make sure that when there isn't a mandate for an award, there isn't an award. * * * Finally, I think that the Best Pro Artist category needs to be rethought. Michael Whelan pulled himself from contention next year because he has won consistently. When someone builds enough of a presence in the industry (as Whelan deservedly has) it's possible for him to win even though they didn't do a single work of art in a given year, simply because they are well known. Does this make sense? We might as well be voting for Best Author instead of Best Novel. Best Pro Artist shouldn't be tied to the person, but to the work. Don't vote for the artist, but for the cover or illustration or painting that you feel is best. This does mean, potentially, that Whelan could be nominated two or three times in a year, but if that happens, it is simply showing his dominance of the field and not his name recognition. * * * None of this, of course, will make the Hugo perfect. I do feel, though, it will make it better. Still, a lot can be done if people simply get involved. The Hugo is, like it or not, your award, and it represents everyone involved in the SF genre. If you don't get involved, you aren't part of the solution -- you're part of the problem. The Masthead OtherRealms is Copyright 1986 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All Rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. Reproduction Rights: OtherRealms may be reproduced only for non-commercial uses. Re-use, reproduction, or reprinting of any individual article in any way on any media is forbidden without permission. OtherRealms is published monthly, except for the January issue in December, by: Chuq Von Rospach 160 Pasito Terrace #712 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 E-mail: chuq@sun.COM CompuServe: 73317,635 Delphi: CHUQ Publishers: review copies should be sent to this address for consideration. Submission Policy Material about Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror is solicited. The main focus is reviews of newer and lesser known authors and their books. Anything of interest to the serious reader of the genre is welcome. First Serial is requested. Pico Reviews are welcome on any book. Use the format in this issue, and limit your comments to one paragraph. Letters to OtherRealms are always welcome. All letters will be considered for publication unless specifically requested. A new Writers Guide is available for a SASE to the above address. Authors should include a bionote and make sure I know what address (E-mail or traditional [or both) should be published in OtherRealms. Copyrighted articles get a contributors copy of OtherRealms, so make sure I have your U.S. Mail address. Book Ratings in OtherRealms All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books should have a three star rating. Anything rated three stars or above is recommended. Stars may be modified with a + or a - to show a half star rating, with [***-] being slightly better than [**+]. [*****] Classic, Hugo quality [****] Hugo Nominee quality [***] Average book, good read [**] Somewhat flawed, has its moments [*] Not recommended [] Avoid at all costs Subscriptions OtherRealms is available in two forms. The electronic OtherRealms is available on Delphi, on USENET in the group "mod.mag.otherrealms" and on BBSes throughout the country. Readers on ARPA, CSNET, BITNET and UUCP can receive it through E-mail. To get on the delivery list, contact one of the E-mail addresses on this page. 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