Electronic OtherRealms #13 March, 1987 Part 3 Much Rejoicing Reviews by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes Episode One: Back to Yesterday's Future In the frozen wastes of Nador, they were forced to eat Sir Robin's minstrels; and there was much rejoicing. -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail I had often wondered what, after forty years, made Dr. Asimov suddenly begin pouring out new novels in the "Foundation" and "positronic robots" series. In the introduction to his newest, Foundation and Earth [Doubleday and Co., 1986; $16.95; ISBN 0-385-23312-4], Dr. A. tells us: Doubleday offered him ten times his usual advance to write the first of them. Well, I, for one, do not regret Doubleday's actions in doing so. The new books are not masterpieces of modern literature -- or even of modern SF -- but they have been solid entertainment, every one. Foundation and Earth is no exception. It picks up precisely where Foundation's Edge left off, and carries Golan Trevize and his crew through a series of adventures, looking for the birthplace of Mankind -- a birthplace they only presume to exist and know next to nothing about. Their quest leads them to the Spacer and Settler worlds of Robots and Empire, and finally to... Well, that would be telling. Questions deliberately left unresolved not only in Foundation's Edge but also in Robots and Empire are answered, and if some of the answers seem a bit unlikely, well, this is the 1950's. [***] Which is rather my theme song this issue. An awful lot of SF is looking backwards these days, reusing the ideas that fueled a series of Golden Ages. We have met the future and we don't like it, so we're reverting to the past, or at least its visions and versions of the future. Nobody understands this like Michael Moorcock. He has written a long string of novels concerning Jerry Cornelius, a fantasy hero who resembles an amoral James Bond, wandering through incest, death, resurrection, and an astonishing string of alternate-reality Earths in search of an acceptable version of the late Twentieth Century, but never quite finding it. The Cornelius Chronicles, Volume II [Avon, 1986; $3.50; ISBN 0-380-75003-1] consists of two of Jerry's unlikely adventures, combined in one inconvenient volume -- too large to fit into a jacket pocket, my usual keeping-place for paperbacks. The first of these, "The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius," is a loosely-connected series of short stories from the Sixties and early Seventies. These range from London to Southeast Asia, from uproariously funny to nearly incomprehensible. Over the years, Moorcock has developed a range of wonderful supporting characters for Jerry, from the grossly fat and loathsome Bishop Beesley to his sister and occasional lover, Catherine Cornelius. Most of these put in at least a cameo appearance in these stories, but they focus largely on Jerry and his irregular methods for restoring balanced imbalance to a Universe that seems, at times, to exist solely for the amusement of Jerry and his fellow time-travellers. The second book, "The Entropy Tango," is one of a number of books that we have been told over the years were the last Jerry Cornelius novel. Here Jerry's supporting cast are featured; the story is told from the view of the actress and revolutionary, Una Persson. The novel appears to be concerned with a series of small revolutions led by a particular hero of Moorcock's, the Ukrainian nihilist-anarchist, Nestor Makhno. But appearances are deceiving, and there's a lot of other stuff going on. Both books are enjoyable, but be warned; they are highly experimental in structure and style, and not a quick, light read. The method of storytelling Moorcock generally uses for these novels and stories is a series of quick slices, with little or no explanation of what goes between. If clues are missed, this can make for extremely frustrating reading. Not a book for speed readers. [***-] From one alternate world to another: I've heard a lot about David Drake over the years, but never read more than a few early short stories in Analog. So I jumped at the chance to review Fortress [Tor hardcover, 1986; $15.95; ISBN 0-312-93001-1]. I shouldn't have bothered. There is a basic rule in writing an alternate-world novel. You make one change in history, no more, no less, and let your world develop logically from that change. Drake gives us a world where, in November of 1963, President Kennedy was not shot. We all know Kennedy was gung-ho on space, right? So Drake reasons that Kennedy, in his second inaugural address in 1965, might have proposed something much like SDI. Well, okay. Then he postulates that, given a government push beginning in the '60s, it might be operational by the mid-'80s. We're getting into dubious waters, here; technology can only be pushed so fast, but I'll accept it. Now we meet our protagonist. Tom Kelly. He fought in the US "police action" in Turkey (huh?) in the mid-'60s aiding Kurdistani rebels. Because of this background, he is peculiarly suited to deal with a problem in Turkey in 1985: the Kurds seem to be working with some aliens. Well that makes sense; if Kennedy had lived, obviously we'd have been contacted by aliens by now. And of course, it turns out that the Kurds are really tools of the Nazis, who have been waiting all this time in Antarctica for a chance to come out of hiding with their flying saucers and take over the world. What could be more logical? The aliens help the Nazis take over Fortress (the SDI-like base), then turn around and help Kelly attack the Nazis. No hint of their motivations leaked through to my by-now befogged brain. Oh, and did I mention the Nazi base on the moon? Shades of Rocket Ship Galileo... which takes us back to the '50s. [*-] From the ridiculous to -- well, something much better, anyway. I've never liked Keith Laumer's work, so I'm pleased to say something nice about Galactic Odyssey [Tor, 1987; $2.95; ISBN 0-812-54385-8]. It's fun, of the classic Earthman-goes-to-space-and-has-adventures variety. In this case, the Earthman is a nearly-dead derelict named Billy Danger. Danger takes refuge from a storm in a silo (as in farm, not as in missile). The silo takes off, and so does the plot. Danger finds himself on the hunting ship of a human (not a humanoid) from a distant part of the Galaxy. The hunter and his assistant are killed, leaving Danger alone with the obligatory Beautiful Woman. The story runs through the gamut of love, adventure, hate, betrayal, and at least one plot twist that I confidently predict you will not. This is a reprint of a book from the sixties, and it does have a dated feel. It makes good bedtime reading, but nothing more. [***] Also in the eminently acceptable category, please welcome L.E. Modesitt. I enjoyed Modesitt's Ecologic Envoy very much, so asked specifically if I might review Dawn for a Distant Earth [Tor, 1987; $3.50; ISBN 0-812-54586-9], which purports to be "Volume I of The Forever Hero." Modesitt has no talent whatever for titles, alas, but don't let that put you off. The setting seems to be the same future Empire in which Ecologic Envoy took place -- at least there are a number of names and terms in common -- but from a radically different viewpoint. This books concerns itself with the ruins of Old Home Earth, which has been poisoned so that only a few barbarians live on its surface. One of these, a "devilkid," is kidnapped by an Imperial survey ship, cleaned up, given a name (MacGregor Gerswin), and sent to get an education. Later, as a newly-commissioned officer in the Imperial Space Service, Gerswin returns to Earth to assist in the clean-up, a project which may be impossible. Over a period of fifty or so years, he rises through the ranks, and accomplishes much toward the clean-up effort. Gerswin himself is not very likeable, but is very easy to identify with as he deals with impersonal bureaucracy and personal self-interest in attempting to accomplish his goals. Several times, Gerswin's ploys and tricks to acquire the resources his project requires made me want to cheer. The ending resolves very little; not terribly surprising in the first book of a series, but still somewhat annoying. Modesitt has a talent for producing interesting and believable supporting characters, which I observed in The Ecologic Envoy, is if anything more pronounced in Dawn. One set of plot twists, when Gerswin pays a return visit to his first lover, grows so inevitably and so unexpectedly from their characters and the nature of their previous encounter, that I started to read the passage aloud to the person next to me -- then stopped. It would have made no sense; it grew so organically out of what had gone before that I'd have had to summarize the entire book to that point. A well-constructed, entertaining novel. [****-] I wondered what Gene Wolfe would do when he finished The Book of the New Sun. The answer should have been obvious; he wrote another book. Free Live Free [Tor, 1986; $3.95; ISBN 0-812-55813-8] is a lot of fun, but hard to say much about. If I had to sum it up in a word, I'd call it "amiable." It concerns four not-very-nice, but very likeable, people -- a fat prostitute, a psychic Gypsy witch (she really is), an unemployed detective's op, and a lecherous novelty salesman -- who met in a house they came to because they were told they could live there rent-free. The house, belonging to a Mr. Ben Free, is demolished; Free vanishes. The four of them go in search of a treasure which may or may not exist, based on very little evidence. They don't know what it is even if it does exist (though each has an idea). In the course of the search they do strange and wonderful things and meet strange and wonderful people. Wolfe maneuvers his characters apart and back together with the skill of a master choreographer; the high point, for me, occurs when all of them, seemingly by chance, coincide at "Belmont" -- a thinly disguised Bellvue Hospital, which they proceed to turn, with the aid of an electrical blackout, into a literal Bedlam. Wolfe's writing is no less clear, concise, and unexpected than in New Sun. He brings the book to a conclusion as much by convincing you it's over as by ending it. This isn't a heavy like New Sun; it's more of a romp. [****+] Closet Classic: It is the purpose of your Humble Servant to alert you to books you might otherwise have missed. A number of books well worth your attention have, over the years, passed into and out of the shelves of your local purveyor of reading material. To this end, I'll be ending each installment of this column with a book that appeared and vanished some time ago, but deserves to be recalled from the dead. You're invited to recommend books for this feature, care of my E-mail (djo@pbhyc on Usenet) or this OtherRealms. This time, let me introduce to you the estimable David R. Bunch. In the late sixties and early seventies, Bunch produced a series of bizarre and twisted stories, which appeared everywhere from Ted White's Amazing to Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. The vast majority of these tales concerned a future version of Earth called Moderan. In Moderan, the Earth has been covered with plastic, the people have had their bodies replaced with wear-forever new-metal, and the people devote their time to endless pursuit of the pleasures of war, sex, war, the arts, war, and war. The stories progress from a kind of youthful energy, through domestic decadence, to the final disintegration of an entire society, in an elegant parable on the fate of all millenial empires. The book does end with hope -- or rather, it begins with hope, for the stories are introduced by people from another culture, after the fall of Moderan. Life goes on. These stories were collected by Avon in a book called (cleverly enough) Moderan -- originally published in 1973, out of print since. It's pleasantly and yet depressingly easy to find in used book stores all over the country. If you don't have a good used book store, or if they don't carry it -- or even if you do get a copy -- I recommend writing to Avon and asking them to reprint this little gem. I wouldn't steer you wrong. Words of Wizdom Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach The Master is back. After 23 years, Ray Bradbury has published a new novel. It doesn't matter that Death is a Lonely Business (Bantam, 216 pages, $3.95) isn't Science Fiction or Fantasy. Bradbury has always been his own genre. No matter what he publishes, Bradbury is special. To many people, like myself, he is the genre. He was, literally, my first, and that encounter is one you never forget. Walking through the slightly musty hallways of the library, your own library card clutched in a sweaty hand, you make a decision that will follow you for the rest of your days. Much to the annoyance of the librarian, I marched right past the kiddie section and into That Corner, where Those Books were, somewhat reluctantly, displayed. He was my first, and you never forget your first. Bradbury dedicated the new library in my home town, when the old one grew cramped and old. He spoke a couple of times at my school, spending as much time after the lectures simply talking and being available as he did behind the podium. Today, he is still a major factor in my life. When I'm depressed, when the words don't come, one of the dog-eared copies of Martian Chronicles comes out, solace and encouragement, a reminder to myself why I want to be a wordsmith. Out comes Dandelion Wine, or perhaps October Tree, signed one sunny day when his life touched mine for a short while, and carried from bookshelf to bookshelf through the years. This is not, really, a review. It really isn't possible for me to review a work by Bradbury and be rational and objective. The thought of trying to judge, to make a critical and objective comment, on Ray Bradbury seems to me the height of arrogance. He Is, and nothing will sway me from the reality that I'm good enough, perhaps, to sharpen his pencils, but not his prose. I found myself avoiding Death when it came out in hardback. Because I was afraid that he would disappoint me. And, more, because I was afraid I would disappoint myself, to be able to see the magic and not accept it. I was wrong. The magic is there. Death is a very good book, and Bradbury is still the Master. The magic is there. This book is somewhat autobiographical. The protagonist is obviously based on Bradbury himself. A young, struggling writer in Venice, California, during the time that the canals were dying and the pier was being torn down. When the trolleys still ran, red and noisy. People start dying. An accident here, a seizure there. All natural, all unconnected. Except to Bradbury. Death stalks the streets. Bradbury stalks Death, and also stalks himself. In the end, he finds what he needs to survive, to succeed. What has always attracted me to Bradbury was his skill at all levels of the writing process. Many authors can develop strong, living characters. Others concentrate on the plot, or the world that is spun out around the story. Others are known for the style the story is told, but Bradbury is one of the few authors that can work with all of these and meld them into a seamless whole. His characters breathe and sweat. So does his city. You open the book and you see, not the words on the page, but the images that Bradbury weaves inside your head. As you can guess by now, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It brought back memories of the classic Bradbury books, but it wasn't derivative of them. It is a good, solid, mystery, but I believe it has the Bradbury magic that will make it enjoyable to all of his fans, regardless of the genre you prefer to occupy. Bradbury transcends the genre. Regardless of what he writes, he defines his own category. This is not a book you want to miss. Editor's Notebook Polly Freas dies I'm very sad to have to announce the death of Polly Freas at 12:45AM, January 24th of cancer. Polly was a long time East Coast fan and the wife of artist Kelly Freas. A fund has been set up to help Kelly offset medical costs. Your donations should be sent to Butch Allen, C/O HAROSFA, P.O. Box 9434, Hampton, Va. 23670. According to CompuServe, the news broke at Confusion, and an impromptu auction raised over $2000. Kelly has requested that donations be sent in her name to the Children's Welfare Fund, Stabur Graphics Inc., 23301 Meadow Park, Detroit, MI 48239 in lieu of flowers. This is an organization that she helped found, and it is appropriate that we support it in her memory. Cards and letters to Kelly should be sent to him in care of OtherRealms and I'll make sure they get forwarded. There are other comments on Polly in this months lettercol. My sympathy goes out to Kelly and all of their friends. We've lost another of the wonderful people that makes Fandom a wonderful place to be. Publishing News St. Martin's Press will be publishing a mass market paperback line to supplement their hardcover offerings. Horror is edited by Lincoln Child and Science Fiction is edited by Stuart Moore. Baen Books is also starting a Fantasy paperback line. It will be edited by Betsy Mitchell. Murphy Strikes Again Dept. A couple of issues ago, Locus converted to a laser printer, and Charles Brown discussed some of the startup problems they had. So it was with some glee that I put last month's issue (my first on the Laserwriter) to bed ahead of schedule and with no pain whatsoever. I'd done a lot of planning on it, and having worked with the technology for a while, felt I had all the angles covered. When nobody was looking, I even chortled a little bit for outsmarting my arch-nemesis, Lord Murphy. Well, just to make sure everyone knows that the proud will do themselves in, it wasn't until the last issue of OtherRealms was printed, stuffed and stamped that I found out that the database with my subscription lists in it wouldn't print mailing labels on a Laserwriter. A couple of days of frantic scrabbling and patching and I finally got a set of usable mailing labels. This little episode shows a couple of things: that when you know nothing can go wrong somewhere, it will go wrong somewhere else, and even someone who knows technology can get tripped up by assuming the obvious. When a computer salesman tells you that what he is selling you is a complete solution, you better make sure that your definitions match. Murphy will out. By the way, since last issue I've got new and wonderful software that does mailing labels just fine, as well as a few things the old program couldn't do. The new functionality is useful enough that I'm finally getting around to indexing OtherRealms reviews, a compilation of which will be out as soon as I'm done. The New Address Astute readers will notice a new address in the masthead. OtherRealms has moved, so please make sure your mailing lists, publicity departments, address books and whatever else might be interested in the new address get the information. If I get mail from you, you'll probably get a private note as a reminder as well, just to make sure everything gets where it belongs. Actually, OtherRealms hasn't moved, but since we're planning on finding bigger quarters in the next few months, I finally got around to renting a drop box. Both U.S. Mail and UPS are acceptable, and with any luck, this will mean the suicide notes from my postman will stop. Grade Inflation? A couple of people have written in complaining of grade inflation, suggesting that in the last couple of issues the reviews grades have been trending upward. Well, thanks to my new database and the OtherRealms review index (see next item) I've been able to crunch some numbers and see what's been happening. The numbers are really aren't changing. The average for all reviews in a given issue has been solidly around 3.2 or 3.3 since issue five. The low point was a 3.1 in issue 5, and the hight point was issue 9 with a 3.5. The last three issues were 3.2, 3.3, and 3.3 respectively. So there isn't any real grade inflation in the magazine, the averages are staying pretty steady. That's the good news. The bad news is that looking back over the last couple of Words of Wizdom columns, there has been a tendency for me to get into "best book of the year this month" mode. Part of this is on purpose -- I firmly believe that the good books should be featured, so I select my reviews to emphasize the positive works I've read. Average or lesser works, in general, go into the Pico Review section. At the same time, though, I've seen situations where a given book might deserve the rating I've given it, but in comparison with other books, things get out of skew. I'm going to work on consistency in the next few issues, to make sure this doesn't get completely out of hand. OtherRealms Review Index Thanks to the wonders of computers, I've compiled an index to all of the reviews in OtherRealms. Over the previous 12 issues, there have been 433 reviews. Issue one had 13, issue 12 had 71; I feel like we covered a lot of territory in the last year. I'm still working out the report parts of the database, so the index isn't quite ready to distribute. What I'll probably do is key in this issue, and then make it available next month. Having all those numbers in the database gives you a good chance to play around and see what happens. According to the database, the most popular publishers (based on number of works reviewed in OtherRealms, a definitely biased sample) are Ace (46), Tor (42), Del Rey (37) and Bantam (30). Not surprising, since they are the largest paperback houses and have the widest distribution. What was more surprising, though, was that two hardcover houses (Doubleday at 19 and Arbor House at 16) had more reviews than major paperback houses such as Daw (18), Questar (6), and Signet(12). OtherRealms readers seem to read more hardback books than I'd expected. The number of different publishers reviewed were 73, which means the readership of OtherRealms gets around. Another thing I took a quick look at was the popularity of a given author. If you base popularity on the number of works reviewed, the Frederik Pohl, with 12, was the most read author. Orson Scott Card was runner up with 10, and Larry Niven and R.A. MacAvoy both had 9. If you look at the average rating, you get different names. If you throw out people with three or fewer reviews in the last 12 issues (to make sure a single 5 star review doesn't skew things too far), the favorite authors is Steven Brust, with a 4.4 rating. Runners up include: Raymond Feist (4.2), William Gibson (3.9), Orson Scott Card (3.75), David Brin (3.75), Ben Bova (3.4), and Anne Rice (3.8). What does all this mean? Damned if I know. Statistics are wonderful for proving whatever it is you want to prove, but beyond that the utility of things like this are left up to the reader. Regardless, the index should be out by next issue. OtherRealms Recommends The other night, a friend that I haven't seen for a couple of months asked me the fatal question "So what do you recommend reading?" Twenty minutes of rooting through the bookshelves later, I had a stack of books that will keep him busy for most of 1987, and a chance to give a second mention to some works I feel define the good side of Science Fiction in 1986. So, in no particular order, OtherRealms recommends: Death is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury; The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy; A Malady of Magicks and A Multitude of Monsters by Craig Shaw Gardner; Sword-Dancer by Jennifer Roberson; Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock; The Sorceror's Lady by Paula Volsky (which seems to be her second novel, not a first novel as Locus claimed); Teckla by Steven Brust; Bridge of Birds by Barry Hugart; A Baroque Fable by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; Wild Cards edited by George R.R. Martin; Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams; Silence in Solitude by Melissa Scott; Windmaster's Bane by Tom Deitz; Artificial Things by Karen Joy Fowler; and Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe. Which means I don't have to write a 1986: the year in review column. Thank Ghod... And Now a Word From Our Sponsor This month has been an interesting month, working out glitches in the layout and the software, playing with the new database, keying in the index data (ouch, my poor fingers...) and trying to catch up on all of the administration of publishing a magazine. The one thing this didn't leave a lot of time for was reading, which is why Wizdom is very short this month -- most of the books I read simply didn't deserve more than a Pico, so I'm filling space here rather than pushing books that I don't feel should get that much push. Besides, after reading the new Bradbury, everything else is anti-climactic. There are a few formatting changes since last issue. The typeface for the headlines has changed because the original face, while quite pretty, simply disappeared into the page. Also, I've put a little more white space between lines (from 9/10 to 9/11 points for you publishing types) because the text looked cramped. Thanks to everyone who sent me mail discussing the new layout and making suggestions--your feedback is making a good start even better. Finally, if you sent me an article or review prior to January first, and it hasn't been published yet, it won't be. As far as I know, all my old inventory is gone, so if I haven't printed it or contacted you, either the December disk crash (see last issue) ate it, or some other random factor has come into play. If something is missing, please let me know. See you next month... Letters to OtherRealms Polly Freas I've known the Freases for a long time and we encountered each other regularly at conventions. When did we first meet? I don't remember, but it was surely before 1974, when we invited Kelly to be Guest of Honor at Disclave. Thinking about her, the first quality that comes to mind was her gaiety of spirit. She had a bright smile with an infectious laugh and if you spent time with her, some of her happiness would rub off on you. She was also a class act. Polly was: a lady, supporting her husband in his career by handling the business details which everyone just naturally detests but especially artists, a loving wife, a devoted mother, a woman of courage, all of these things. The last time we saw here was at the Atlanta Worldcon, socializing at assorted parties as she lavished the energy she conserved during the afternoon. You could tell she was enjoying herself, and if her stamina was a little short, why that was just a problem to be worked around. To meet her was a pleasure anywhere. She enhanced the conventions she attended, and she will be truly missed by those who knew her. Alexis Gilliland Arlington, VA Polly Freas was far more than an appendage to Kelly Freas, more than an inspiration for his art. She was a delightful, warm, generous woman who enriched the lives of everyone she met. We shall all miss her. Mike Resnick Cincinnati, Ohio More on the Hugo I've long since stopped thinking of the Hugo award as anything but a glorified popularity contest. In a year like this, with books from each of the big three (Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein), it does not take clairvoyance to know what three of the five nominees for Best Novel will be when the ballot appears. My abilities as a handicapper aside, I think the current state of Hugo balloting is an outcome of the change in the SF field and in WorldCon attendance. There was a time, in the dim and distant past, when there wasn't as much SF as there is now, and most of it was published in magazines. Fans, whose numbers were significantly less than legion, could (if they put their minds to it), and often did, read everything as a matter of course. You simply can't do it today. Even if you had the time, the money, the ambition, and the stomach for it, you probably couldn't track down all the titles published as science fiction or fantasy, let alone the numerous titles that are clearly SF, but not marketed as such. You probably don't want to know about the romances published in the last few years that feature time travel or E.T.'s. The two times I've been a member of WorldCon, I made a sincere effort to nominate studiously, and to make sure I'd read all the nominees before I voted. I'm sure it made no difference whatsoever. My vote can be counterbalanced by the voter who's read only one item in each category and votes for it. And who's to say that's not right; after all, they paid for the privilege just as I did. The upshot of all this discussion is that switching to deciding a win by a simple plurality is adopting a new philosophy in what a vote in the Hugo balloting should mean, and doesn't address the bigger issue of why people want to vote for the Hugos when they've read only a few of the nominees. You also brought up the idea of insisting on a quorum of voters, using the Best Fanzine category as an example. Personally, I think too many people vote in that category already; how many people who vote for Best Fanzine have read all the nominees? A large number of the people who attend WorldCon these days are not fans in the traditional sense: they entered mainstream fandom from a "fringe fandom" like Star Trek or Dr. Who. They may not read any of the professional SF magazines at all (in fact, they may not know that they exist!), and they may never have laid eyes on something like File 770. If the fan awards are to remain part of the Hugo balloting, you have to accept the fact that many people who vote in the major fiction categories won't have read any of the fanzine nominees, and so the quorum for the fan categories should be smaller. Neither article mentioned a spectre that has loomed over the Hugos ever since the attendance increased to include many people who do not spring from the old reading tradition. I've heard a rumor to the effect that the Church of Scientology encouraged its members to join WorldCon and block vote a Hugo for Battlefield Earth. I know of an attempt to block vote for a media fanzine. Whether the awards would have been deserved is beside the point. Once someone with sufficient organization cottons onto the fact that the Hugo can be bought with enough warm bodies willing to spend the non-attending fee, the award won't even be a true popularity award. Kathy Godfrey kgodfrey@bbn.com.arpa And then they wrote... Sorry to hear you'll be going to a quarterly format, but I understand your reasons. You put an enormous amount of work into OtherRealms, and you've made good choices for your associate and contributing editors. Your rating system still bothers me. In case you're interested, a grep of #12 (Ah, the convenience of electronic media!) shows: 5 stars:13 4 stars:20 3 stars:28 2 stars:15 1 star:4 0 stars:3 If this is a gaussian distribution, it's compressed at one end. I'll be lucky to read 13 books all year, let alone manage to skim that many of the best each month. I think one solution may be to change your guideline of a 5-star book from "one of the best books of the year" to "one of the best books I've read in years". [see my comments in the Editor's Notebook on this] -- chuq On other topics, I think you overrated Free Live Free. It started out great, but Wolfe couldn't decide whether to write a serious book or a comedy, and the characters all mellowed too much at the end - they were very vivid the way he sketched them at the beginning. [Free Live Free is one of those books reviewers hate, since it is essentially impossible to review. I may well have rated it a star high, but at the same time, the book has stayed wtih me, haunting my thoughts long after most books have returned to the shelves. It definitely struck a chord somewhere, and I really believe that it is exactly what Wolfe wanted it to be, so in that way it is a success. Whether it is as successful to his readers, since it IS a real change of pace, each reader needs to decide individually] -- chuq Also I'd disagree with you on the Mirror of Her Dreams - I liked the Thomas Covenant books better. MOHD had complex characters, but I'm burned out on books about swordfights and evil magicians, no matter how well done. [As I've burned out on Celtic mythology books, no matter how good. That doesn't make MOHD a bad book, but a book that you probably shouldn't read at this time. Burnouts change over time, so perhaps this should go on the list for later, then] -- chuq George S. Walker Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-222 Beaverton, OR 97077 I am really impressed with your new layout for OtherRealms. It is so much easier to read than previously; the Pico Review section is especially nice. From what I've read so far, I'm going to enjoy reading your new reviewers. I like being able to develop an affinity for a particular reviewer, which the column format allows. I would like to commend Fred Bals for his review of Burning Chrome; he really put the book into perspective for me. I hope to read more of his reviews. I was interested to see that the Latin American authors Gabriel Carcia Marquez and Miguel Mujica Luniez were both reviewed in Issue #12, I have been wanting to read Marquez for quite some time, and now, not only do I have a good excuse, I have another Latin American author to try. Brett Slocum hi-csc!slocum@UMN-CS.ARPA OtherRealms Reviewing the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Editor Chuq Von Rospach Associate Editor Laurie Sefton Contributing Editors Jim Brunet Dan'l Danehy-Oakes OtherRealms #13 March, 1987 Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach. All Rights Reserved. One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors OtherRealms may be reproduced only for non-commercial purposes. With the exception of excerpts used for promotional purposes, no part of OtherRealms may be re-published without permission. OtherRealms is published by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA. 94560 usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ Review copies should be sent to this address for consideration. Submission Policy OtherRealms publishes articles about Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. We focus on reviews of authors and books that might otherwise be missed in the crowd, but OtherRealms will publish anything of interest to the serious reader of the genre. Pico Reviews are solicited on any book. Duplicate the format in the magazine, and limit your comments to one paragraph. Your comments are solicited! Letters to OtherRealms are always welcome -- tell me how I'm doing, what I'm missing, or where I've goofed. All letters will be considered for publication unless otherwise specified. If you have an idea for an article you would like to see covered in OtherRealms, drop me a line. I'm always looking for new and interesting things to bring before the eyes of my readers. Artists! OtherRealms is looking for a few good hands. I'm looking for genre oriented pictures, comics, dingbats, doodles, and anything else that looks good on the printed page. I need anything up to and including full-page cover art --my inventory is currently very small. Book Ratings in OtherRealms All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books should receive a three star rating Anything with three or more stars is recommended. Ratings may be modified by a + or a - to for a half star rating, so [***-] is better (slightly) than [**+]. [*****] One of the best books of the year [****] A very good book -- above average [***] A good book [**] Flawed, but has its moments [*] Not recommended [] Avoid at all costs Subscriptions: OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy bookstore, Palo Alto, California and through the mail. A single issue is available for $2.50. Subscriptions are for $11.00 for five issues and $21.00 for 10 issues. Please make checks to "Chuq Von Rospach." Fanzine trading rules apply. Publishers are welcome to a free subscription upon request. Electronic OtherRealms Electronic OtherRealms is a text-only version of this magazine that is available on a number of computer networks throughout the world. On the ARPA, CSNET, BITNET and UUCP networks, send E-mail to chuq@sun.COM for information on subscribing. On the usenet network, Electronic OtherRealms is available in mod.mag.otherrealms. Electronic OtherRealms is also available in the Science Fiction section of the Delphi timesharing system, and on numerous Bulletin Board Systems throughout the country.