Electronic OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Part 7 Words of Wizdom Chuq Von Rospach Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach Darkspell Katherine Kerr Doubleday, 370pp, 1987, $17.95 0-385-23109-1 ***+ Pitfall (Alien Speedway #2) Thomas Wylde Bantam, 198pp, February, 1988, $3.50 0-553-26946-1 *** The Web (Alien Speedway #3) Thomas Wylde Bantam, 245pp, May, 1988, $3.50 0-553-27166-1 **+ The Man-Kzin Wars Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Dean Ing Baen, 289pp, June, 1988, $3.95 0-671-65411-X *** The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars Thomas M. Disch Doubleday, 72pp, $11.95, 0-385-24162-3. ****+ Resurrection, Inc. Kevin J. Anderson Signet Books, July, 1988, $3.50 0-451-15409-6 ***+ Silk Roads and Shadows Susan Shwartz Tor, March, 1988, 337pp, $3.95 0-812-55411-6 ***+ When Gravity Fails George Alec Effinger Bantam, 276pp, $3.95, 0-553-25555-X ****+ The Forge of God Greg Bear Tor, 473pp, $4.50 0-812-53167-1 ****+ Terry's Universe Beth Meacham, ed. Tor, 234pp, June, 1988 0-312-93058-5 ***** Tool of the Trade Joe Haldeman Avon, 248pp, June, 1988, $3.95 0-380-70438-2 **** A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes Stephen W. Hawking Bantam, 182pp, $19.95 0-553-05340-X. **** The Year's Best Science Fiction Fifth Annual Collection Gardner Dozois, Ed. St. Martin's Press, 678pp, June, 1988, $12.95 0-312-01854-1 **** The 1988 Annual World's Best SF Donald. A. Wollheim, Ed. DAW, 303pp, June, 1988, $3.50 0-88677-281-8 **** Kiteworld Keith Roberts Ace, 293pp, May, 1988, $3.50 0-441-44851-8 **** The Starcrossed Ben Bova Tor, 223pp, June, 1988, $2.95 0-812-53231-7 ***+ To Sail Beyond the Sunset Robert A. Heinlein Ace, 434pp, June, 1988, $4.95 0-441-74860-0 ***** I'm so tired of trilogies I want to scream. I've almost stopped reading anything with "Book 93 of..." on the cover, because I know I'm going to find myself reading a 700 page novel. A three volume, one plot story with two cliffhanger endings and nine months or so between chapters. Chances are it'll have an elf or a dwarf in it somewhere, or maybe some pseudo-Celtic goulash that was researched out of some other Generic Celtic Fantasy Trilogy(GCFT). I was talking with some folks on Delphi one night when this topic came up. I did a quick check on the number of series books in a typical Stuff Received. 30% of the books listed were in a series. What bothers me about GCFT is that, almost invariably, there's a good story in there. But the author takes three books to tell a one book story. How? They pad. They bring in lots of minor characters and let them disappear later -- or perhaps they remember to kill them off. They move off on tangents, they go on long, convoluted travels and quests. Why do they write them? Because they sell. Trilogies sell better than single, standalone books. It's a chance to go back and relive a favorite universe, for one thing, and book 2 in the series will motivate someone to go out and find book 1 -- and the bookstores to order book 1 again. It's less work for an author. It's more profitable for both the author and the publisher. The buyers seem to love it. So it's being done, more and more. All at the expense of the story. I don't have the time to commit to 800 or 1000 pages, to spending upwards of $10.00 paperback for something that's an average story. There are too many other, better books I could be reading. So I'm revolting. If the book says "Book" or "Volume" on the front cover, it's going to have to have something really special about it for me to pick up. Chances are, if I first see it at book two, it'll never get read. About 75% of the time, if I do read book one, I never bother with book 2, because I don't find anything interesting enough to bring me back. I think a story should be written to a length appropriate to the story. And I've just read too many three-volume, one book stories for my taste. If you're going to write that much material, give me something worth reading. Darkspell Now, of course, the first thing I'm going to talk about is a book two of a GCFT. Life is like that sometime. But Darkspell, the sequel to Daggerspell by author Katherine Kerr, is a perfect counterpoint to the problems I'm talking about. What we have here is the middle book of a Celtic oriented trilogy with Tolkien influences, elves, a couple of dwarves, magic, the long quest, the kingdom on the edge of ruin. Once she took all the pieces, though, she tossed out the rule book and went off and built a good story. We watch the continued struggles of Nevyn as he tries to complete the tasks necessary to fulfill the geas he placed upon himself. One fascinating shift from GCFT that Kerr has done is toss in a liberal amount of Eastern Philosophy with the addition of reincarnation. When a person dies, they return to inhabit a new body, and what happens in previous lives affects the personality and actions of the new incarnation. In Daggerspell, Nevyn caused the deaths of some close friends, and seriously damaged their Wyrd. He then was allowed immortality until he could help the friends that had died return to the proper paths. All of this is done surrounded by the larger picture of the problems in Deverry. Major political battles for power are going on, as well as continual fighting and raiding. The forces of Darkness are also working their ways in hopes of coming in and taking over. It all ties together, but never too neatly. When Kerr is done with the book, even with another book on the way, you're satisfied. Darkspell ends, rather than just stops waiting for the next installment. Much progress has been made, and many accomplishments and setbacks can be accounted. Darkspell, and Daggerspell, both made me look forward to the next book, rather than making me curse the author for making the next book necessary. These things separate Kerr's work from the Generic Celtic Fantasy Trilogy label: a large enough scope to make a trilogy work; three separate, if related stories -- each standing alone; growth and transition of the characters; originality -- even while handling familiar objects and themes; and an ending instead of simply a stopping point. Darkspell isn't quite the book Daggerspell was. Technically it is better. But there is a more of leisurely pace, a sense of waiting. The crisis is not as crucial as the first book, and the denouement hushed; this is definitely a middle book. The book is a real joy to read, as is the series as a whole, and I'm looking forward to the next one. Pitfall The Web What books could possibly follow a GCFT review? Obviously the ultimate in generic fiction, the Packaged Universe. A recent fad in publishing, packaged universes are an offshoot of shared world anthologies, where a book packager gets together with a big name author, does a designer universe and then packages it out to journeyman authors to do the actual writing. There are three major Packaged Universes these days: A.C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Asimov's Robot City, and Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedway. Both Venus Prime and Robot City have been getting so-so to negative reviews. Reviews of Alien Speedway have been so- so to good, so perhaps I got lucky when I picked it up, but this series is a lot of fun. I reviewed Clypsis, by Jeffrey Carver a couple of issues back and I thought I'd hang around and see how the rest of the series turned out. One of the things I was worried about was consistency between volumes, since different authors handle different books. Next thing I know, both book two and book three are both out. Both are by Thomas Wylde. And they're both lots of fun, especially if you like action-adventure space jockey stories. There are a few caveats, though. If you buy the rest of the series because you liked the style of the first book, beware. Carver and Wylde are very different authors. Clypsis was really a Juvenile coming of age story. The two Wylde books are much more mature, much darker books -- Mike Murray, novice pilot, has had some of the gloss rubbed off. Pitfall is best. There's sabotage going on, and unless Mike can track where and why, he's out of a job and being shipped home. It's an interesting mystery, and you really get a chance to learn about Clypsis and the racing life. The Web, unfortunately, gets off-track and goes looking into the history of Speedball Raybo, a racer who died 20 years earlier and has since been incarnated as an intelligent robot. The book ends up side-tracking into some gosh-wow-look-at-this-neat-thing plot twists that really weaken the series, sending it away from Murray, away from Clypsis, and away from the things that were focus points in the first two books. These are not heavy books, with deep, philosophical thoughts. They won't win awards, and they aren't going to give you nightmares. They're fun, entertaining, escapist fare, which is exactly what they were designed to be. The Man-Kzin Wars Another variation of the packaged universe is The Man-Kzin Wars, created by Larry Niven with novellas by Poul Anderson and Dean Ing and Niven's original Kzin story "The Warriors." The stories are good. But I felt, reading them, that while they aer set in Niven's Known Space, it wasn't the same. It's like looking at a print of a painting instead of the original. If the reproduction is good enough, you don't really notice it, but it still registers as a copy. I'd rather read Niven's Known Space rather than anyone else's interpretation of it. This is a good substitute, but it just makes me want the original more. The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars I don't know how he does it. When I first read The Brave Little Toaster, I didn't know whether to expect high camp or cloying sentimentality. What Thomas Disch did, however, was create one of the most beautiful and pure stories of friendship and love I've ever read. It was the story of a little toaster, who, along his friends and fellow appliances, set off in search of their missing master. The Incredible Voyage, with power tools instead of animals. In the hands of most authors, a concept like this would quickly degrade to sniggering, to simpering cuteness, to drug induced-like weird fiction. Disch, however, has pulled it off twice now. The latest, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, has our toaster teaming up with his friends and with a prototype hearing aid developed by Albert Einstein. They travel to the planet Mars to stop an impending invasion of Earth by a band of rogue appliances that want to wipe out humanity. They succeed, of course, but it isn't the simplistic victory you might expect in a "kids book." This is definitely a Juvenile work, but it's one that is not only accessible by all readers,but older readers can better appreciate just how well crafted and complex the story is. Resurrection, Inc. They've finally figured a way to put the blue collar workers out of work. They're bringing back the dead to do their jobs. Why? They work cheap. The unemployed workers, as you might expect, aren't amused That's the conflict in Kevin Anderson's first novel, Resurrection, Inc. The people at Resurrection, Inc. have found a way to bring the dead back to a form of mechanized life, allowing them to be used as slave labor. Riots randomly break out, usually surrounding one of the Servants, to be put down by the Enforcers, a private force that has taken over the duties of the police and tries to keep the peace. And a new cult, Neo-Satanism, is on the upswing, a cult that includes human sacrifice. And the Cremators, a mysterious group who's purpose is to guarantee that people who don't want to become Servants don't. They succeed more often than Resurrection, Inc. would like, but nobody can find them. If this sounds like a horror novel, you're close. There are a number of strong horror elements in Resurrection, Inc. but this is definitely a Science Fiction novel. The dead are raised with technology, not magic, and the problems are those of a near-future dystopia. All this is the background for the story of Danal, killed by the Neo-Satanists and raised by Resurrection, Inc. to be the Servant of the head of the Neo-Satanists. Something went wrong in the resurrection process, and Danal has access to memories of his past life -- something that normally can't happen. We follow him as he searches for his past and as he tries to understand his connections with the Neo-Satanists. There's a lot in this book; more complications than I can even start to discuss without ruining everything. Anderson sends out the various subplots to the four winds, but keeps control of them and brings them back together for the climax quite nicely. He's got a strong sense of dialogue and character, and throws in enough detail to make the world he's writing about come to life and mean something to you. The book isn't flawless. His science is somewhat simplistic, and his sociology is naive, which hurts the impact of the book. He bases an important part of the book on an unrealistic restriction that will be hard to swallow for many readers -- it tossed me out of the book when I ran into it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on it and plunged back in, and I wasn't disappointed -- it's a serious flaw, but not a fatal one, and it is the only serious problem with the book. This is a Anderson's first novel, and it's a good start by a promising writer. It will appeal to both Horror readers and Science Fiction readers (even SF readers who don't like horror) because it successfully melds the best of both genres. This is a book worth your time. Silk Roads and Shadows Evil is afoot in Byzantium; someone has poisoned the silk worms. If something isn't done to replace them, the empire may not survive. This sets the scene for Alexandra, of royal blood, to start the long trek across the silk roads to the east in search of silkworms for the crown. This is the setup for Susan Shwartz' latest, Silk Road and Shadows. The trail leads from Byzantium through the lands of Tibet, leading finally, after many altercations, to China and the worms. Along the way, Alexandra is marked for travel along the Diamond Path -- the legendary trails to Shambhala. The book sidesteps into eastern mysticism and self-discovery, with the original quest, the worms, always present but somehow on hold. Shwartz is a very good story-teller, and this is a good story. The problems with the book are related to there being so much inside the covers -- a little too much, in my eyes. She's trying to give you a realistic glimpse of three very different, complex cultures and tell a number of stories, all at the same time. She almost pulls it off -- enough so that I recommend the book without question. But I think it would have been better to narrow the scope somewhat, and perhaps split this into two different, related stories: the search for the worms and the Tibetan adventures. Both almost stand apart from each other already, and the entire book suffers somewhat because each sub-plot deserves the focus, but neither is allowed to keep it. When Gravity Fails I used to know what I was going to vote on for the Hugo this year (my personal favorite, Pat Murphy's The Falling Woman, didn't make the ballot, but it did win a Nebula, which is some consolation, I guess). I was voting for Gene Wolfe's Urth of the New Sun. I read it coming back from Worldcon last year, and nothing I've seen has come close to it in style, substance, and quality since then. I always read the other finalists, but this year it was just going to be a formality, you understand. To be fair. And then I'd vote for Wolfe. Then I read George Alec Effinger's When Gravity Fails, and I started to worry. It's good. It's very good. It's not really Science Fiction, but we can give him the benefit of the doubt. What When Gravity Fails is is a murder mystery set in an Arab ghetto. The lead character is an Arab, a loner, a drug addict. All of the people around him are the Arab scum you would expect to see in an Arabian ghetto. These really are Arab scum, not generic scum with Arab names. Everyone in the book, from the non-protagonist down, are very real, very nasty people. It's hard to find anyone you wouldn't want to take out and shoot. Finding a sympathetic character? Forget it. The book has rather obvious cyberpunk edges. It's a near future world, with plastic money and designer drugs and computer implants in your skull. But beyond that, not much has changed. The drugs will still kill you, the prostitutes rob you, the drinks will be watered, and the flophouses dirty and stale. Effinger builds an environment that could be any ghetto in any city in any town of the world, but he then takes it one step farther and brings it alive. These aren't just generic thugs in Anywhere, USA, but real, honest to God Arab thugs, in a squalid dump in the desert, trying to get by. The sense of detail, the structure built up and the characterizations create a vividness that goes beyond normal fiction. I won't say much about the plot, because to talk about a mystery makes it easy to say too much, and I don't want to ruin this one for you. Under normal years, my vote for the Hugo would be simple -- I'd vote for When Gravity Fails. But.... The Forge of God As soon as I finished When Gravity Fails, I picked up The Forge of God by Greg Bear. It's an Aliens-Are-Coming-to-Destroy-Earth novel. Well, maybe. Perhaps the aliens are coming to help mankind. Or perhaps there are one set of aliens trying to destroy earth, and one trying to save it. The opening of the book is one of the most pastoral, humane, and truly nice narratives on being a family that I ve ever seen. I was starting to look for Norman Rockwell's painting of it, it was so Nice and Sugary. You're not supposed to do that with openings, trailing off into pleasantries and trivialities. You're supposed to hook the reader, get them going, get them to turn that first page. And then the phone rang, and I realized that Bear had me, hook, line, and sinker. Because he's set up the perfect family, the perfect life, the perfect universe. And that one phone call is going to bring it all to an end. In the hands of most writers, this opening would have been boring or ineffectual. Bear, however, was in complete control the whole time, and by opening with a master's gambit and pulling it off, builds in a sense of horror that makes the entire book sing. Europa's disappeared, without a trace. Next thing you know, they've found aliens in Death Valley and Australia. Tthe two aliens are saying completely different and contradictory things. The end is coming. Or maybe salvation? Or neither -- could this be a hoax? There are only so many ways an "end of the world" story can end. The world dies, the world lives. Or the world dies but we aren't there. Bear concentrates on the people and the world -- the society and psychology of an entire planet lurching into possible darkness. In the past, many who have done the same have prophesied madness, social collapse, bacchanalia, the worst of man's sins unleashed, almost as though they are "proving" mankind deserves to die. Bear's end is different, calm, almost melancholy. From a number of places, viewing a number of people, you see people get ready. The Forge of God is Hard SF, but it's also a very strong book about people, attitudes, and a very positive look at humanity as a species and culture when it's somewhat in fashion to view ourselves in a negative way. And despite the fact that he really does blow up the earth in the end (which I hope isn't too much of a spoiler for folks) his tale is generally positive, with an ending that is hopeful without being sappy or contrived. And Bear is the first author I've seen who has tackled the problem of "if there ARE other lifeforms out there, why haven't we heard them?" (also known as the SETI Lament) - - and does so logically and in a way that is so Right (by Occam's Razor) that I wonder if I ought to be worried. And now, I find myself with an exceptionally unenviable choice. Three works, any one of which would demand a Hugo in an average year, and I have no idea how I'm going to vote. Because I'd hate to slight the other two. I'm leaning towards the Bear book because it's the most mainline Science Fiction book of the three, as well as the most original use of a standard SF theme I've run into in a long time. If it were up to me, I'd award three Hugos -- simply because awards that use arbitrary time slots every so often run into this situation: really good books that are going to lose because they happen to run head-on into someone else's really good book. Everyone can't win, but in this race, nobody is a loser. Terry's Universe I'm not going to mince words. You are going to go out and buy this book. Why? For starters, this is the way many people are saying goodbye to Terry Carr, a man who was one of the top SF editors in the field. It's also a way for them to acknowledge the debt they have for the man and what he did for the field and their careers. Not convinced? This book is also a benefit. All proceeds have been donated to Terry's widow to cover medical experiences. None of the authors are getting paid for the stories, or taking any royalties. All of the stories are new, and won't be reprinted anywhere else anytime soon. Still not convinced? Well, this is one kick-ass anthology. There are going to be award winning stories coming from this book. Terry's Universe does not have a weak story in it, or even a merely good one. What it does have, though, are new pieces by Robert Silverberg (my personal favorite of the anthology, "House of Bones"), Ursula K. LeGuin, a new Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser story by Fritz Leiber, Kate Wilhelm, Carter Scholz, Michael Swanwick, R.A. Lafferty, Kim Stanley Robinson, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, Greg Benford (a story related to Great Sky River) and what is considered Terry Carr's best short work, "The Dance of the Changer at the End of Time." All of these folks are power-hitters in the industry. All of these folks wrote killer stories to help remember Terry. You're going to miss some exceptional fiction if you skip this book, and you'll regret it later. Go buy Terry's Universe. You won't regret it. In fact, do it now. I'll wait. Tool of the Trade Joe Haldeman writes gritty, realistic Science Fiction. His work The Forever War took a post-Vietnam look Heinlein's Starship Troopers and in many ways redefined War in Science Fiction. His newest work, Tool of the Trade, is a very near-future version action- packed spy thriller. Nick's a mole, a Russia spy left hibernating inside the United States until they need him. But Nick has gotten used to the U.S. over the years, and isn't really sure that he wants to be activate. But now the C.I.A. is onto him, trying to force him into being a double agent. And Nick has this Thing, this ability to make anybody do anything he wants them to, as long as he gets within hearing range. Neither the U.S. or Russia knows this exist, and the one thing Nick is sure of is that he wants to keep it that way. Both sides figure out he's up to something, and mobilize. Nick cuts and runs, and we start a globe hopping chase as both sides stalk each other; the agencies trying to shut him down before he does anything, Nick trying to get himself out of the whole mess and reach his ultimate goal before he's stopped. What goal? That would be telling. But if you had a Thing that made anyone, absolutely anyone, do your bidding, what would you do with it?" I think Tool of the Trade is Haldeman's best work since The Forever War. I was up extremely late three nights running trying to finish it because it refused to let me go. Haldeman's twisting of the standard "individual fighting against the state" plot is fascinating. His protagonist isn't the clean-cut goody-goody man authors use, he's a spy, a willing killer, and yet still a person with morals. Using this to counterpoint the bureaucratic nastiness of the spy organizations simply makes the comparisons that more powerful. This one is highly recommended, but don't take it to bed with you. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes If you've ever tried to understand the leading edges of physics, but been completely overwhelmed by the jargon and math, there is finally a work that is aimed at those of us without advanced degrees. Better yet, it's from the person generally acknowledged to be at the forefront of theoretical physics, Stephen Hawking. It's fascinating to watch his mind at work, as he explains, in a technical but understandable format, how ideas are developed, fleshed out, presented, and sometimes thrown away. There's essentially no theory or math in A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes -- the only formula in the book is Einstein's E=MC^^2. Hawking here is not prove, but to explain, and he does a very fine job of it. A definite must for anyone interested in science from a layman point of view. The Year's Best Science Fiction Fifth Annual Collection The 1988 Annual World's Best SF It's June, which means it is time for the annual parade of the anthologies of the "best" things of the year. Frankly, it's hard to go wrong with these books. A lot of it depends on what you're looking for. These two books are representative. The Year's Best SF, edited by Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine editor Gardner Dozois, attempts to collect everything good in the year. This year, he has 28 stories and about 250,000 words in a huge trade paperback. Wollheim's Annual World's Best is a much smaller, mass market paperback with nine stories. Between the two, five stories are shared, as well as six authors (Dozois and Wollheim choose different Lucius Shepard stories -- these collections somewhat arbitrarily limit themselves to a single author, probably to keep themselves from becoming the "best short fiction of Lucius Shepard of the year" anthologies). There's enough difference between the two books that in a perfect world, readers would buy both, take the Wollheim book with them to read on the train and come home to snuggle up with Dozois before the fire. Since this isn't a perfect world and budgets rarely stretch far enough, which book you buy should really depend on your reading habits. If you want something transportable, or are interested in the highlights of the year, pick up the Wollheim book. If you want more stories, as well as Gardner's look back at last year and a final list of honorable mentions, then pick up the bigger work, but don't expect to stick it in your jacket pocket. Neither is "best" but both are good representations of what the "best" was in 1987. Briefly noted Briefly noted, some books that I've mentioned before that I think deserve a quick comment. Kiteworld, by British author Keith Roberts, is now in paperback. It's published as a Science Fiction novel; I would claim it instead to be Fantasy, but it should please readers of either genre. What Roberts has done is build a world that extremely vivid and real, pushing the fantastic elements so far into the background that the book becomes, not a Science Fiction work about the world, but a mainstream work published in the world. It's fascinating, and worth an effort to find. Ben Bova's The Starcrossed, a thinly veiled (and extremely funny) novelization of his life and times as Science Advisor on the short-lived Canadian television series The Starlost. Trying to describe this novel is impossible, you have to read it to believe it. Especially fun is trying to figure out which parts are real and which are made up, and picking out the various real people under their new, fictional names. Finally, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, by Robert A. Heinlein. Now out in paperback from Ace, and if not his best work, very close to it. It felt to me that he was very carefully and very lovingly saying goodbye. It turns out that he was. And I feel, very strongly, that this is one of the books he will be proud to be remembered by. OtherRealms #21 Summer, 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 from 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 article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author.