Electronic OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Part 7 Pico Reviews, Part 1 The Alexandrian Ring Book One of the Gamester Wars William R. Forstche [**] Ballantine Books 295 Pg. $3.50 Despite the subtitle, the story is completed in this book with only a vague hint as to the next story. The story, the background universe, the culture and the characters are all very familiar. An experience reader can even predict the ending. Betting on the outcome of wars is a favorite past time of the Kohs (or nobles) of the Magellanic Cloud. One, Corbin Gablona, plans the ultimate war. Alexander the Great will be brought up from the past and set down on a ringworld populated by retrograde Humans and Gavarians. Alexander's Gavarian equivalent, Kubar Taug, will also be brought back from the past and set down on the ringworld as well. The resulting war between the Humans and Gavarians turns out to be very popular. Every Koh in the Cloud becomes involved in the betting. Gablona, of course, has plans to rig the game. Despite its unoriginality, this novel has several good points. The story is well told. The description of the war between Alexander and Kubar has a realistic appearance. The main strength of the story is the characterization. The characters are stereotypical for the most part but they are well drawn stereotypes. The character of Alexander is very well drawn. One could feel the charisma of the man and believe this is what the real Alexander was like. On the whole, this book could be described as entertaining journeyman quality SF. -- Danny Low hpccc!dlow The Architects of Hyperspace Thomas R. McDonough [*] Avon Books 265 Pg. $2.95 The story is a journey of wonders. The wonders encountered are suitably wonderful but everything else about this book is rather bad. The worst is the characterization. The characters are all one dimensional cliches. The love relationship is infantile. All the main characters act far too stupid and childish to be believable. The most plausible characters are the minor characters. They act like reasonable adults instead of spoiled retarded children. Amazingly, even the motivation for the journey is handled poorly. A journey of wonder story has a very simple plot. A group goes to a strange place, wander around for a while and has many glorious adventures while seeing many wonderful sights. The only thing that the writer has to supply is a motivation for the characters to want to do all this since the journey can also be very dangerous. The main character, Ariadne Zepos, has a perfect motivation. She wants to find her long lost father but the author does not use this very valid motivation well. Instead, some flimsy excuse about scientific exploration is given. Since the first expedition, which was far better equipped, all died leaving almost no indication of what had happened, the logical thing to do was come back with a full scale expedition that is much better prepared than Ariadne's ragtag expedition. Long past the point when the expedition should have stopped, she continues on ranting about the scientific wonders that still need to be explored. Eventually it is revealed that her desire to find her father was her real motivation but that was the whole reason Ariadne undertook the expedition in the first place and everyone knew it. This is very bad handling of the motivation. The book does punch the right sense of wonder buttons and if this were the 1930's, it would be a good book but this is the 1980's and an SF book today must also meet minimum standards of literature. This book does not do that. -- Danny Low Armor by John Steakley [**] DAW #605, 1984, $3.95 426 pgs., 0-87997-979-8 John Steakley tries a difficult maneuver in Armor and only partially succeeds in pulling it off. Steakley shifts from a point-of-view and world in which he's invested 93 pages establishing to a completely new group of characters and a new setting for the remainder of the novel. It's a jarring transition for the reader, and seriously hurts what is otherwise a good book. The initial plot deals with a mechanized suit of combat armor and its user, who is up against an implacable, ant-like enemy. Since this sounds evocative of Heinlein's classic Starship Troopers, I'll note that Armor focuses much more than Heinlein's book upon the effect which the "boredom punctuated with moments of total fear" that is warfare has upon the psyche. The remainder of Armor details the discovery of the suit - sans owner - on a colony planet. The story stalls at this point and never really regains its feet. With all its flaws, Armor is still worth picking up if you're interested in "combat" science fiction. My thanks to OtherRealms columnist Alan Wexelblat for sending me a copy of Armor. -- Fred Bals Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials Wayne Barlowe, Ian Summers, Beth Meacham [****] Workman Publishing, $10.95, 0-89480-324-7 Back in print at last, Wayne Barlowe's book of illustrations of classic SF characters. If you've ever wondered what a Mesklinite or a Puppeteer looked like (or how your view of it differs from other people's) this book is for you. Well worth looking for. -- chuq von rospach A Baroque Fable by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro [**] Berkley, 1986, 243pp, $3.50 This book was a disappointment. The idea is fun - a fantasy of a prince capturing a dragon, a witch's enchantments and rival kingdoms, presented as a musical comedy. Characters break into song, music provided, at every opportunity. But where it should have been light and spritely, the story plods along and seems to take forever to get anywhere (though that may be my own fault, since I was reading it right after finishing The Princess Bride). The lyrics are fine to read as poetry, but don't rhythmically fit the music, strong syllables are always falling on weak beats. This probably won't bother a non-musician, but a main reason I picked up the book was because it included the music to "sing along" with the songs. -- Mary Anne Espenshade mae@aplvax.jhuapl.edu Crazy Time by Kate Wilhelm [****] St. Martin's Press, 1988, $16.95 248 pgs., 0-312-01411-2 If you enjoy the great screwball comedies of Hollywood's Golden Age -- movies such as "Bringing Up Baby," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan," and "Topper" -- you're going to love Crazy Time. In fact, Kate Wilhelm's latest novel would make an excellent screenplay itself. Crazy Time has all the right elements in just the right mix. There's the shy, straightlaced, and career-oriented main character, Lauren Steele, a psychologist working in Seattle. There's the male lead, "Corky" Corcoran, who fixates on Lauren and disrupts her life after being turned into a ghostly figure by the accidental misfiring of an experimental laser. There's a frothy story that careens happily along to a satisfying ending. And like all good screwball comedies, there's a quirky group of supporting players in Crazy Time -- most notably Col. T.H. "Trigger Happy" Musselman, a Cold War holdover who is convinced that Lauren and Corky are "Commies." A welcome departure from the bleak worlds and grim antiheros currently popular in science fiction, Crazy Time is highly recommended. Don't wait for the paperback. Buy it now. -- Fred Bals The Crown Jewels Walter Jon Williams [**] Tor Books 247Pg. $3.50 This book is intended to be a wry witty comedy of manners. While it will not go down in history as a classic, it did invoke some chuckles and outright laughs. Drake Majistral is an Allowed Burglar. He is allowed to steal but only with style. In addition to the money he makes from his thefts, Majistral also sells the videos of his exploits to the media. While in Peleng City for a routine business trip, he takes a commission to steal an object for someone. Like the Maltese Falcon, the object is not what it appears and there are a lot of people who want it very badly and are willing to kill for it. Complicating matters for Majistral is the fact that his two assistants have bias towards the two main contenders for the object. The only serious problem with the novel is that Williams tries to present certain scenes using a cinemagraphic technique that he does not translate well into words and as a result, it is very difficult to keep track of what is going on. These are the dance scenes. On the whole, I was amused. -- Danny Low The Doomsday Effect Thomas Wren [***] Baen Books, $2.95, 288pp This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a gurgle- swoosh as a runaway micro-black-hole vacuums up Earth's interior until the planet collapses. Such at least is the fateful prediction of Ariel Ceram, UC Berkeley seismologist, and Grace Porter, chief troubleshooter of a San Francisco robotics company, as they work back from a dramatic aerial incident and a major quake. World ends in seven years: film at eleven. In fact, they have difficulty convincing either the news media or the government, who elect to play ostrich in the hope that time will prove the boffins wrong. A mere problem without a solution has little dramatic credibility, however, and so the two women head up a self-appointed task force to brainstorm for an answer, however difficult the execution might be. Here is SF in the Campbell tradition: take a scientific fact or theory and extrapolate an extreme situation. It seems to me I've seen this basic idea before, but Write does a creditable job with it. Fans of Clement should enjoy this book. The characters are reasonably well done, though occasionally they do implausibly dumb things. The plotting is as solid as one would expect of the hi-tech tradition, and the level of writing is acceptable. Those who like their SF straight up will probably find this book worth their time. -- David M. Shea Dragon's Gold by Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff [***] Although perhaps not a major new fantasy event, as the cover claims, this story is an amusing and entertaining journey into an extremely simplified setting. Anthony and Margroff provide an easy to grasp background by eliminating any extraneous detail. While this runs the risk of supplying too little information, or detracting from realism, the authors have, in this case, done an admirable job. The story concerns the travails of Kelvin Knight Hackleberry and his sister Jon. They strive to free their land from the personification of evil, fulfilling their destiny in the process (Kelvin's in any case). Characterization in this book is clear, if somewhat less than three dimensional. While this falls short of the ideal, the authors have not allowed the simplicity of the characters to prevent them from undergoing growth and change as the story progresses. The pace of the story is quite rapid. In fact, it is sufficiently rapid that it obscures what would otherwise be significant flaws. There is a prophecy so clear that a child could understand it. A magician of obvious power who is strangely impotent until it's too late. There is a healthy (unhealthy?) heaping of gratuitous coincidence (i.e. why, out of all the people in the world does Jon run into old acquaintances and their families just when she needs their help?). Fortunately, the plot moves along fast enough that the reader probably won't care. I recommend this book to younger readers particularly, and to anyone not looking for deep philosophical content. An excellent way to kill an afternoon. -- Peter Rubenstein ceo!WALLY!Peter_Rubinstein Faces Leigh Kennedy [***] Atlantic Monthly Press,, $15.95, ISBN 0-87113-140-4 It's hard to know what to say about Faces, a collection of short stories by Leigh Kennedy. Some are fantasy, some are soft science fiction, others are mainstream. In all of the stories, the focus is on the writing and the characterization, rather than on the plot. Most of the plots are, in fact, rather weak, sometimes leaving issues unresolved and often (in the non- mainstream stories) leaving mechanisms unexplained as well. As such, the stories are somewhat unsatisfying to one who reads primarily science fiction. It is not fair, though, to judge the stories only by this metric; they were not intended to compete with, say, Pournelle's or Niven's works. Instead, or in addition, we should ask how well Kennedy succeeds at her chosen task. Here the answer is more positive. The stories are carefully constructed, with artfully-drawn characters. Not that the characters are admirable -- most aren't -- or even particularly normal; still, they are realistic and believable. Kennedy takes us into the heart of a child abuser, lets us follow a left-over hippie as he visits old friends, and shows us a scientist who relates better to his work than to his lover. All of these portrayals ring true. To be sure, the writing isn't on a par with, say, Atwood's (I commend her recent book The Handmaid's Tale to all, though the ending is a cop-out), but it's still a cut above most genre fiction. The stories in general are about love or failure to love. That is, the actions of the protagonists turn on their love, or lack of love, for others. This is especially apparent in a pair of linked stories, about a child abuser and a childless couple. Faces is generally worth reading if you care about art more than artifacts; hard SF fans are likely to be disappointed. For those who are concerned with her credentials, several of the stories originally appeared in IASFM. One caveat -- the hard-cover price is rather steep for 152 pages. -- Steve Bellovin ulysses!smb Fever Dream Ray Bradbury [***-] St. Martin's/Night Lights, 31pp, $6.95, 0-312-57285-9 This is one of the first books in a new childrens series of story books that glow in the dark. This one contains an 1948 story by Bradbury illustrated by Darrell Anderson. It'd make a great gift for a youngster, although I think the material is too intense for the very young (which I would view as the most likely to be interested in a glow in the dark book). -- chuq von rospach First Flight by Chris Claremont [****] Ace, December 1987, $2.95 243 pgs., 0-441-23584-0 An exceptional first novel by the writer of the X-Men comic book (Claremont notes his various mutant characters as "paying the rent" in his acknowledgments and makes a continuing in-joke reference to the comic in First Flight). A strong "coming-of-age" plot, a remarkably real female protagonist and very well-handled attention to technological detail makes the early half of First Flight reminiscent of early Heinlein. Unfortunately, the deus ex machina introduction of aliens in the latter section side-tracks First Flight into a weak conclusion. Still, First Flight is one hell of a first flight into science fiction by anyone's standards, and should be a Hugo contender. I'm eagerly looking forward to Claremont's next book. Recommended. -- Fred Bals bals@nutmeg.dec.com Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes [*****] 1966 Gollancz Classic SF $7.95 Australian Flowers for Algernon is a poignantly beautiful book about Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded adult who desperately wants to be smart. Algernon is a mouse which has had its intelligence tripled by an operation which the doctors try on Charlie. The book consists of the "progris reperts" that Charlie makes during his transition from the subnormal to the exceptionally gifted and then his terrifying descent back to his original state. In Flowers for Algernon, Keyes highlights the cruelty and ignorance in the way society deals with the mentally retarded and the callousness of the scientific community towards its experimental subjects. He makes the reader view the world from a completely different perspective. The way in which Charlie's writing style changes with his intelligence absorbs the reader, His simple desire to become smart, his bewilderment with the world around him; "And the other ten times we did it [the maze] over Algernon won evry time becuse I coudnt find the right rows to get to where it says FINISH. ... I dint know mice were so smart" After finishing Flowers for Algernon I locked myself in the bathroom and wept for 15 minutes. It left me feeling incredibly sad, yet it gave me a sense of hope and faith in humanity, that in spite of everything there are still people who dedicate themselves to those who have less. In many ways this book is similar to Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in its gentle handling of the retarded and its moving portrayal of mankind. -- Sue McPherson sue@murdu.mu.oz Frame of Reference Jerry Oltion [**] Questar, $3.50 It's going to be difficult to review this book without blowing its simple plot wide open but lets take a shot. The author has begun by taking two old chestnuts of plots, and by melding them together has produces a curious by viable hybrid which avoids the worst features of both; though by no stretch of the imagination could this book be called original.the models seemed to have been the Heinlein juveniles strongly leavened with V and a dash of David Palmer's Emergence, though the book of which it most reminded me was Tom Monteleone's The Time Connection. LeAnne and Donivan, a couple of troublemaking kids, get exiled from the Starchile, which has been their people's home for many generations; the phrase "a thousand years" gets bandied about rather often. Instead of remaining crew, they are set by the ships computer to explore a world unknown to anyone on the ship. To this task they bring considerable enthusiasm, if a lamentable lack of talent; their attempting to light a campfire, and their eventual solution make for hilarious reading. In due course, however, they find that the world they wish to colonize has already been settled by an alien race. from that point on the author spins a routine but moderately lively first contact, good-alien/bad-alien story. There are the usual clangingly obvious coincidences needed to resolve the plot which one expects in a first novel, but on the whole the author succeeds well enough to justify a modest pat on the back. This book will not challenge your imagination, but it's sufficiently engaging as to be worth reading for a few hours light entertainment. -- David M. Shea A Hidden Place Robert Charles Wilson [**] Bantam/Spectra, $2.95, 212pp This book made the final ballot for the Comton Crook award, given for the best first novel in SF. It's not surprising that some people might like the book very much. As a piece of writing, it is excellently done. The author's evocation of a Thirties/Midwest/Depression small town is lovingly, painstakingly hand-crafted in exquisite detail. Though the style is not at all reminiscent of Delany, one gets that same feeling of each individual word having been carefully selected and delicately fitted into place. On those few occasions where word choices are obviously incorrect it stands out conspicuously. The problems with the book are subtle but real. In the first place, the solitary SF/Fantasy element which is its only claim to being a genre book is an old and familiar one; "cliche" is a harsh but not unfair term. Once one pins down this element, which is fairly early on, it is apparent that there is only one possible direction in which the story can go. It is also a very small story, in terms of content: basically this is just not a novel-length idea The net result is an exquisitely crafted, baroque little miniature, swaddled in an excess of superbly chosen but essentially superfluous detail. This would have made a very nice novella, or possibly a decent mundane historical; as a Science Fiction novel it struggles against, and ultimately fails by means of, its essential smallness. -- David M Shea The Ice King of Oz Eric Shanower [****] A First Graphic Novel, $7.95, 0-915419-25-4 Shanower has taken on an impressive task. To put together new Oz stories and draw them into a graphic novel format; to be true to the original Oz stories while keeping the stories fresh and interesting. He's doing a wonderful job at it, too, writing what are to me the best Oz stories since Baum's originals. The Ice King of Oz is no exception. A few glitches in the plot don't matter (besides, the originals were full of them, and it didn't stop us from enjoying them....) -- this is pure, wonderful Oz. These are original graphic novels, not collections of comics; and this series, more than anything else being published in the GN format, shows what you can do with the format when you really care about your material. Highly recommended. -- chuq von rospach Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #17 (1955) [****] edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg DAW, January, 1988, 349pp, $3.95, 0-88677-256-7 The latest in the series of anthologies that prints the classic works of yesteryear. For someone looking for older, hard to find stories, these are gems. This collection is especially strong and includes two of my favorite stories of all time, Walter Miller's 'The Darfsteller' and Cordwainer Smith's 'The Game of Rat and Dragon'. -- chuq von rospach Killashandra by Anne McCaffrey [*****] Del Rey, 1985, 373pp, $4.50 Once I started reading this novel, I couldn't put it down. Sent to install white crystal to replace part of a damaged organ in time for the Summer Music Festival on Optheria, Killashandra Ree, Crystal Singer, lands in another adventure. What is the Optherian government hiding, why do they discourage all music other than their great organs and why doesn't any native ever leave their 'natural' world? The unofficial reason for Killashandra's visit is to find the answers. SF with music and mystery thrown in. -- Mary Anne Espenshade Lord of the Crooked Paths Patrick H. Adkins [*] Ace Fantasy Special, 1987, $2.95, 216pp It is a Fantasy writer's perogative to draw on the classical mythologies for source material. The best known, lying as they do at the heart of our cultural heritage, are the Greek Myths, mined for 3,000 years of poets, storytellers and scholars. Charles Sheffield has rightly remarked that the first and greatest of these was wise enough to write the Oddysey only once. Possibly there is room for another re-telling of the myth of Cronos (or as Adkins would have it, Kronos). However, I'd frankly prefer to see it in more secure hands. It is obvious the author is familiar with the source material, and I'm not rabid purist enough to quibble over some of the modifications he's introduced. The problem here is that Mr Adkins is, to put it kindly, no Homer. His prose tends to the "and then he did this and then she said that" school; and when he puts into the mouths of the gods such leaden American dialogue as "I guess so", "Are you just going to sit there?", and "I didn't sleep half the night", the mind croggles. Unfortunately, this is not quite consistent enough to render the book readable as a camp farce; the author is earnestly, nay deadly, serious. Alas, Adkins' good intentions overrun his narrative skills. Unless you're a Greek myth completist, I suggest you give this book a pass. -- David M Shea Mage: The Hero Discovered, Volume 2 Matt Wagner [****] Starblaze Graphic Novel, $12.95, 0-89865-560-9 Wagner and Starblaze continue the collection of the classic comic book Mage (to be completed later this year in Volume 3). It's a great story, the biggest gripe I have is that the volumes break at issue endings, so they aren't standalone -- you better plan on buying all three volumes if you want any of this to make sense. Fortunately, this is a story that you'll want to have, so plan on buying the third volume when it comes out. -- chuq von rospach Marlborough Street by Richard Bowker [***] Bantam Spectra, March 1988, $3.95, 232 pgs., 0-553-27167-9 The first paperback release of a novel originally published in early 1987, Marlborough Street is a well-handled crossover between the science fiction and mystery genres. Fans of either will find it an enjoyable read, fans of both will find it an excellent example of this rapidly growing cross- genre. Billed as a "novel of psychic detection," Marlborough Street concerns itself with Alan Simpson, a psychic who is also something of a nebbish. In coming to terms with his "gift," Simpson has erected barricades around his life and emotions, neutral to almost everything happening in his world except the travails of the Boston Red Sox. Asked to locate the kidnapped son of Boston's mayor, Simpson is shocked out of his complacency by his involvement with a woman under the control of a person whose psychic talents may exceed Simpson's own. Bowker has a strong talent for creating characters and a sense of place. The scenes taking place in Boston's Back Bay are especially striking - comparable to mystery author Robert Parker's Spenser series. And readers who have lived on both Coasts will also find Bowker's comparison of the Los Angeles and Boston lifestyles amusing and right on target. Recommended. -- Fred Bals OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Copyright 1988 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 not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No individual article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author. OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA 94560. Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ CompuServe: 73317,635 GENie: C.VONROSPAC