Electronic OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Part 11 Words of Wizdom Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach Reviewed in this issue Taltos [***+] by Steven Brust Ace Fantasy, March, 1988, 181pp, $2.95, 0-441-18200-3 Great Sky River [****+] by Gregory Benford Bantam/Spectra, 326pp, December, 1987 $17.95, 0-553-05238-1 First Flight [***+] by Chris Claremont Ace Science Fiction, 243pp, December, 1987 $2.95, 0-441-23584-0 The Kindly Ones [****+] by Melissa Scott Baen Science Fiction, 371pp, September, 1987, $2.95, 0-671-65351-2. The Dark Lady, A Romance of the Far Future [***] by Mike Resnick Tor Science Fiction, 279pp, November, 1987 $3.50, 0-812-55116-8 Jack the Giant Killer [***+] By Charles de Lint Ace Fantasy, 202pp, November, 1987, $16.95, 0-441-37969-9 New Destinies, Volume III [***+] Edited by Jim Baen Baen Science Fiction, 273pp, February, 1988, $3.50, 0-671-65385-7 The Masks of Time Born with the Dead Dying Inside [*****] by Robert Silverberg Bantam Spectra, 561pp, April, 1988, $4.95, 0-553-27286-1 Buck Godot: PSmith [****] by Phil Foglio Starblaze Graphics, 72pp, December, 1987, $7.95, 0-89865-459-9 Taltos Steven Brust is one of the few writers that is invariably moved to the front of my reading list. The reason for this is that he's a great writer and he's never disappointed. Taltos, the fourth book in the series about Vlad Taltos, paid assassin, is no exception. Taltos is actually the first book in the timeline, and tells about the time when Vlad is setting up shop and how he meets Sethra Lavode, the vampire of Dzur mountain. Within the pages, he spends a lot of time trying to not get killed while tracking down the future leader of the Draegaeran's, who, it happens, is currently living in the Land of the Dead. This book, unlike the previous, very somber and emotionally charged Teckla, is much closer to the first books in the series with a lightning paced plot and a strong subtext of black, almost gallows, humor. Vlad's attitude seems to be that he expects to die at any moment, so he's not going to let it bother him; it's also never very far from his mind, though. I found Taltos to be primarily an entertainment book. Teckla, and to a lesser degree the other books in the series, had Messages and Heavy Thoughts attached. Taltos, on the other hand, is primarily a fun, enjoyable read. There isn't a lot of depth, but it makes for a very fine afternoon. Great Sky River Greg Benford writing Cyberpunk? No, although I'm sure someone will try to add Great Sky River into the camp. Because this latest novel from the Hard SF Maestro is much more than just Hard SF, and because this is a book that any movement would want to have attributed to it. Great Sky River is set in the far future of the universe of Across the Sea of Suns and In the Ocean of Night. The great battle between the machines and the humans has been fought. The machines won. The novel is a story of survival, of the remnants of a family unit making their way across the face of Snowglade, not with any hopes of getting somewhere, but simply to stay ahead of destruction. The mechs, sentient robots, have taken Snowglade and the remnants of the civilization are slowly being exterminated. This book is a real downer. It is also probably the best book Benford has ever written. Here he's taken a strong Hard SF novel and used it as the skeleton for an emotionally overpowering study of a group of once dominant people who are losing the only thing left to them: hope. My only complaint with the book is the ending, which simply seems to fade away as Benford tries to install a (somewhat artificial and forced) message of Hope Trancendent, giving the humans a pyrrhic victory that looks good, but in the end doesn't really mean anything (but on the other hand, if he'd let the book end on a downer, I don't know if the book would have been tolerable; it would have likely been too depressing. So you can't win, either way). Regardless of your reading preferences, Hard or Soft, Techie or Psyche, this book should be on your must read list. Benford has proven that he's not only the master of Nuts&Bolts SF, but of the written word. First Flight First Flight is a first novel by long time comic writer Chris Claremont. It's an auspicious start, as Claremont writes a fascinating action adventure yarn. Claremont's attitude seems to be that if you can't figure out what else to do, throw something nasty at the protagonist, which keeps the book moving at an almost hypersonic speed. Nicole Shea is a space jockey, a pilot going on her first flight. As usual, the rookie trip is a milk run, designed to give a new pilot experience without a lot of risk. Some milk run. After she's attacked by pirates, loses most of her crew, and is left streaking for the outer planets in a powerless spacecraft, it starts getting interesting. It's about then the aliens show up, you see. If this had been written humorously, I'd be comparing it to a Gilbert&Sullivan play, since the action is that complicated. But Claremont plays it straight and pulls it off -- it's not slapstick, this is a spacer's greatest nightmare come true. There's a gritty realism here I like. About the only thing I didn't like was the sex, which seemed contrived, artificial, and sort of wedged into the story in an unrealistic, mainstream-fiction sort of way. Fortunately, it isn't overdone, but I got the feeling it was in the book because Claremont felt like putting it there rather than growing naturally from the story. All in all, though, it's a successful, interesting book. And while Claremont is working on a sequel, this book stands very well on its own. As well thought of as Claremont is in comics, I'm glad to see him stretching his wings and spending some time on our turf as well. The Kindly Ones Melissa covered this book in depth in last issue's Behind The Scenes. I hadn't gotten a chance to read it prior to setting up that article, so I was looking forward to comparing my reactions to the story to Melissa's expectations in the article. I'm happy to note that The Kindly Ones is by far Scott's best book yet. For those that missed last issue, it is about a culture on a cusp, as a series of actions occur that will irrevocably change it in ways nobody understands or can really predict. Orestes is based on an extreme set of honor codes in a strict and rigid society, an extreme form of the Japanese Bushido. These are starting to break down due to both internal and external influences, and the story is told from various viewpoints that allow a close look at the tears in the fabric. It's a complicated plot with a fairly large cast of characters and a number of different viewpoints. Melissa covers the ground surely and quite successfully. The Kindly Ones will give you material to chew on long after the book itself is finished. Highly recommended. The Dark Lady I've decided that Mike Resnick refuses to re-use ideas. The last book of his I read, Stalking the Unicorn, was a light, almost farcical hard boiled detective thriller. The Dark Lady, however, is an intense, brooding piece that ultimately calls into question the definition of humanity. It seems that there is a timeless woman, someone who has been seen across the Universe, throughout time. Some people who see her are motivated to trying to reproduce her through art; most who see her, however, die a short time later. Is she real? Is she a Fantasy? And if so, how can so many people through so many cultures see the same woman? She is the Dark Lady, and her face shines out from paintings across the centuries. Leonardo, of the house of Crsthionn, is an alien in the midst of a Xenophobic humanity. He's also one of the top experts in the field of human art, and when a second rate piece goes for a large sum at auction, he investigates. The painting is one of the Dark Lady, and he is ultimately hired to search out other instances of her throughout time and acquire them for his employer. Leonardo travels around human space, which ultimately leads him into a philosophical search for his own humanity. The Dark Lady is another fine book from Resnick, who turns out consistently good work. About the only thing you can be sure of them, however, is that they'll be very different from each other. In an age of trilogies, ninety book series and multi-book sagas, I find an author that is interested in researching and writing different material each time to be refreshing and encouraging. You may not know what's coming from him next, but you will know that it's good. Jack, the Giant Killer Jack, the Giant Killer is the second book in Armadillo Press' Fairy Tale series, published and distributed by Ace. Because of shakeup's at Armadillo, this may well be the final book, which would be a pity because this series, re-telling classic fairy tales for adults, is a real joy. And while this book is written by Charles de Lint, who just happens to be a Contributing Editor for OtherRealms, I'm going to talk about it anyway, conflict of interest or no, because it's a really good book that deserves to be talked about. A couple of issues ago I raved about Emma Bull's first novel, War for the Oaks. In Jack, we have a rare but fascinating case of parallel development. You could almost believe that Bull and de Lint started out with the same set of notes and went out to write the same story their own way. Here, the Good and Evil sides of Fairie are fighting for Ottawa. Into the midst of the struggle stumbles Jacky Rowan, who joins the cause for Good. The parallels between this book and Bull's are stunning. Both have taken on the task of merging a traditional Fantasy element into a contemporary reality by allowing an outsider a glimpse into Fairie and giving them a Cause. There are significant differences as well. Bull's warfare and violence are ritualized and stylized, while de Lint has a straightforward, gritty reality. Bull's bad folks are to some degree archetypes, the necessary force that Opposes Good. For all that they're bad people, you get the feeling they're doing it because that's what they're supposed to be doing. The baddies in Jack, though, are really nasty. They like being evil. They're mean, ugly, smelly, sadistic beings who are in it for the ego and the power, which makes Jacky's ultimate success (definitely not pre-ordained, and by the skin of her teeth) that much more enjoyable. Bull's bad Fairies deserved to lose. de Lint's deserved to die. I'm personally very glad I don't have to choose which one I prefer. They're both really good books. And, if you think about it, what these two books really show is that good, strong, contemporary Fantasy is on the upswing. If you're tired of generic Celtic historical fantasy clones like I am, that's something to cheer for and encourage. And this is a good book to pick up if you haven't tasted contemporary fantasy yet. New Destinies New Destinies is a quarterly SF-Magazine-In-A-Book, a format created a number of years ago by Jim Baen at Ace Books with Destinies. The thought, of course, is to make the SF Magazine available to book readers, since many people who read SF novels don't read the magazines. This edition features fiction by Larry Niven, Dean Ing, and Dafydd ab Hugh as well as fact and opinion pieces by Jim Baen, Charles Sheffield and Hans Moravec. This is by far the weakest issue for fiction I've read in a while. Both the Niven and the Ing piece are scheduled to be published in other Baen anthologies later this year, and the ab Hugh piece is unremarkable. You could skip New Destinies completely and not miss much. Except for Charles Sheffield. Sheffield's fact piece this issue is on high-temperature super-conductors, and he's got the subject down cold (sorry, couldn't resist). He's been doing fact pieces for New Destinies for a while, and my respect for him as a writer who can take very complex and esoteric subjects and making them understandable and accessible by folks who aren't trained to understand them. If you can imagine someone taking article with the complexity reserved for Analog fact articles and writing them in a semi-Asimovian, very accessible and open style you've got a feel for what Sheffield is doing. And while Asimov discusses limited factual areas with limited general interest, Sheffield gets down into the guts of things that are happening and important today -- last volume, for instance, he did a very critical analysis of the space program that I found to be both to the point and very depressing. Sheffield doesn't mince words, and he doesn't hide behind jargon. As a populizer of science, something that Asimov's done successfully over the years (and which others, like Carl Sagan, had mixed success at) he's very good, better, in fact, than Asimov is these days. I'm reading New Destinies just for him, and happy to seem him have a forum where he can write about whatever seems to deserve being written about. Hopefully, someone will notice his articles and put them in their own collection someday, so they can get the attention they deserve. If you buy New Destinies just for Sheffield, you won't be disappointed. And normally, the fiction is stronger than it is in Volume III, which is just an added bonus. Dying Inside Bantam is putting some of Robert Silverberg's long out-of-print novels back into print in omnibus editions. The first contains three novels from the Seventies, The Masks of Time, Born with the Dead, and Dying Inside. Even though I don't normally review reprints, I'm bringing this to your attention because of Dying Inside, a book that I feel is Silverberg's best novel, and a book that I push on unsuspecting people at every possibility. Be warned. This is not a fun read. It's a very grim book. But having a happy ending isn't a prerequisite for a good book. It's the story of David Selig, a telepath who never comes to grip with his special powers, and what happens to him when he realizes his power is deserting him. Even though he never came to grip with his capabilities, it is the single thing that defines what he is, and losing it causes him to lose everything he is. This is, ultimately, a character study of failure and dissolution, emotionally overpowering and unrelentingly depressing. but it's also a very real look at the side of a power most authors take for granted (you always thought that being a telepath would be fun?) or avoid the side effects of. With all the new books published every year, I rarely find time to re- read anything these days. Dying Inside is one of the two books I make sure I find a way to read every year or so. The Lord of the Rings is the other. I don't think I can make a stronger recommendation than that. Buy this book. Be prepared to be depressed. It's worth it. Buck Godot: PSmith I'm not really sure how to explain Buck Godot. Phil Foglio has put together a 72 page color graphic novel (in many ways a comic book with a pituitary condition) about Buck Godot, bounty hunter. What Buck is about and how Foglio makes it all work is beyond description -- Foglio reminds me of the late Randall Garrett, a very strange, warped and funny sense of humor that keeps you trying to decide if you want to laugh or groan. I did a lot of both. If you like a giggle with your SF, track down Buck Godot. Stallion Gate Martin Cruz Smith Random House, 1986, 321pp, $17.95 Reviewed by Kevin J. Anderson Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach Stallion Gate, by Martin Cruz Smith, is a novel of peripheral, but vital, interest to science fiction readers. What event could have been as incredibly influential on the genre as the explosion of the first atomic bomb? Back in 1944, Cleve Cartmill's short story "Deadline" got him slapped with an immediate CIA investigation because he had unwittingly built his story around the Army's most Classified secret. Stallion Gate is a thriller based on the real events behind the Trinity test, the establishment of the secret town of Los Alamos in northern New Mexico, the greatest scientists gathered from across the Allied world in order to create a futuristic weapon that would end the war. "By December 1944, five thousand people were crammed onto the mesa and in the dark without streetlamps because the Army was still trying to hide its most secret project." Making a thriller out of real events is sometimes the only way to force a bit of history down the throats of the public. On the basis of Nightwing, Martin Cruz Smith is no stranger to the fantastic genres, and with the superb Gorky Park, he showed that he can construct a fine, complex, moving, and detailed story. Smith spent about five years researching and writing this book. Stallion Gate is a historical tale that centers around the usual fictional observer who always happens to be in the right place at the right time to watch history as it takes place. In this case, our observer is Joe Pena, an Army Sergeant who is also an Indian. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, General Groves -- all the historical figures are here, and they are real characters (especially Oppenheimer) rather than just cameo appearances as in a John Jakes book. Unfortunately, Smith assumes his readers already know the background detail and doesn't spend a great deal of time putting things into context. A bigger flaw, though, is the actual perspective of the book itself. Some of the events behind the development of the first atomic bomb are really just disconnected highlights. The storyline is disjointed, scattered, with a lot of talk and a lot of character interaction, a good dose of sex here and there (gotta aim for those bestseller lists, you know!) -- but not much happens. The prose is lean, and often devoid of real description so that scenes seem to be set in a vacuum. Every few chapters or so we are treated to a gratuitous shoot-out or some rather absurd "spy stuff"; the book does have a good climax, but a too-abrupt ending. The actual historical events are more like peripheral happenings in Stallion Gate, things occurring in the background while the author is doing a character sketch. This novel is more the story of an Army-ized Indian trying to "find himself" rather than the historical epic the promotional copy led me to expect. I've been to Los Alamos half a dozen times. I've been inside the lab buildings where much of the historical Manhattan Project work took place. I really wanted to like this book, and it's difficult for someone to make the subject boring. I'm glad someone finally fictionalized the story, but Smith could have done so much better! Maybe someone else will. 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