Electronic OtherRealms #22 Fall, 1988 Part 3 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced only in its entirety and only if all copyrights, author credits and this notice, including the return addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author. Scattered Gold Charles de Lint Copyright 1988 by Charles de Lint Installment #5: In which we explore some futures Antibodies David J. Skal [****] Congdon & Weed, March 1988; 169pp; $15.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-86553-199-4 Zero Eric Van Lustbader [****] Random House, 1988; 425pp; $19.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-394-56576-2 A Splendid Chaos John Shirley [***] Franklin Watts, 1988; 359pp; $17.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-531-15065-8 A Song Called Youth -- Book Two: Eclipse Penumbra John Shirley [****+] Questar, May 1988; 322pp; $3.95 Paperback; ISBN 0-445-20508-3 Stinger Robert R. McCammon [****] Pocket Books, April 1988; 538pp; $4.95 Paperback; ISBN 0-671-62412-1 Death in the Spirit House Craig Strete [***] Foundation, August 1988; 192pp; $14.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-385-17826-3 The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars Thomas M. Disch [***] Doubleday, 1988; 72pp; $11.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-385-24162-3 Chronosequence Hilbert Schenck [****] TOR, June 1988; 314pp; $17.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-312-93079-8 Unicorn Mountain Michael Bishop [*****] Arbor House, June 1988; 367pp; $17.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-87795-953-6 Mona Lisa Overdrive William Gibson [*****] Bantam/Spectra, November 1988; 260pp; $18.95 Hardcover; ISBN 0-553-05250-0 Mostly SF this time around -- for no particular reason except that's what I seem to be reading more of these past months. No spaceships, though. Except for when we talk about sentient household appliances and in the McCammon review, and it's a horror book. Go figure it. Antibodies "Born meat, you'll die meat." Unless you strike out against your fleshy prison. The "antibodies" of David J. Skal's second novel are aiming towards what they perceive as the next evolutionary step for mankind: the exchange of their bodily parts -- their "meat" -- for prosthetics until they are merely entities inhabiting machines. The heart of their worship is the Cybernetic Temple, an underground church that has videotapes, loaded with subliminal messages, as its sacrament. Considering just how pervasive cults already are in Western society, Skal's speculations have the uncomfortable ring of truth about them. This is not a safe book. Skal experiments with prose styles, particularly in those sections from the cult deprogrammer Julian Nagy's point of view. It has only one likable character who is rarely on stage. In fact, with its subject matter and characters, the book is perverse and unpleasant. But it is an important work and it should be read. Skal has developed a believable near future society, his speculations are impeccable, and even with his ouroboros ending, maintains a gripping and powerful storyline throughout. You won't necessarily enjoy the experience, but it will make you think. And you won't forget it. Zero In certain esoteric Buddhist sects involving swordsmanship, this is the last of nine magical words that are invoked as a form of Taoist meditation after the daily practice session. It means "where the Way has no power," the Way being the Tao of the swordsman. In Eric Van Lustbader's latest novel, Zero is also the name of what many consider to be an almost supernatural being who sees to the protection of the Taki yakuza clan, yakuza being a kind of Japanese gangster. In part, the novel leads the reader on a search for the identity of Zero; but it also relates to the striving that various of the protagonists make to attain or escape from the attitude of Zero. The action shifts principally between Hawaii and Japan as Michael Doss sets out to discover how and why his father died. The trail soon leads him to a complex plot amongst warring yakuza that has its roots in post-war Japan and the Cold War between the East and West. Van Lustbader has made a career out of his Far Eastern novels, staking out the territories of China, Vietnam and especially Japan in a series of engrossing thrillers that are more than just an entertaining blend of spy novel and Eastern mysticism. The author approaches his subject matter with great love and respect, and it's those aspects that the reader comes away with when the final page is turned. Yes, but it's not SF or fantasy, is it, so why am I talking about it here? Well, I've got two reasons. Those of you with long memories will probably recall that Van Lustbader began his literary career with the four-book "Sunset Warrior" series, SF novels heavily dependent on Eastern philosophies. So there's the peripheral interest. But it's also a damn fine book, as most of his novels have been, full of "alien" cultures (alien, at least, to most Westerners) and some fine world- building (by which I mean his fictional secret societies) -- although the latter is seamlessly grafted into the histories of our world, rather than set in the far reaches of space. A Splendid Chaos A Song Called Youth -- Book Two: Eclipse Penumbra Here, after an absence of a couple of years from the shelves of our bookstores, are two new novels by John Shirley -- the writer who, from time to time, has been taking on Ellison's mantle as shit- disturber of the SF field. Don't get me wrong -- I mean that as a compliment. Sometimes things need to be stirred up. But none of that should have any bearing on the books in hand, except that when Shirley speaks of the quality that the field needs, one can't help but judge his own books by the same high standards he wishes to impose on others. How does he match up? One near miss and one definite hit. A Splendid Chaos hearkens back to that old "travelogue" style of SF novel where the protagonist, or protagonists, wander across the planet (or solar system) and come across wonder after wonder -- and it's that, more than the actual plot, which is the hook to keep the reader turning the page. Sort of as in, what can possibly come next? In Shirley's novel, a native New Yorker -- a would-be filmmaker/punk named Zero -- gets taken away to an odd planet by mysterious aliens and finds himself embroiled in a.) a war between various other alien races brought to this world and some crazed humans who are being turned into "Twists" -- twisted versions of humanity -- and b.) on a quest across this new planet of wonders in which he, and his band of cohorts, run across pretty well the entire gamut of weird beings and situations. Shirley is highly inventive -- if a little brutal at times -- with his aliens and bizarre situations, but what lifts this book above being merely another retread of Golden Age (whenever that was) space opera is that his characters have real social and political concerns and it's these, as much as their bravery, etc., that allows them to come out ahead in the end. So you get some Good Thinks, and a fairly entertaining storyline, but it ain't exactly high art -- not as Shirley has yearned for in his essays. And it's not going to make you sit back and questions the wrongs of the world. For that reason -- by Shirley's own criteria -- it's a miss. And the hit? That's volume two of his "A Song Called Youth" -- Eclipse Penumbra. It's been three years since the first volume, Eclipse (Bluejay, 1985; recently reprinted by Questar) -- and that's a long wait for a series that's this good. Each book stands on its own, but taken together (at least, so far, when the first two books are taken together) they make a whole that's very much greater than its parts. Shirley postulates a time in the near future -- 2021 -- when, after a war in Europe, a brutal security force, the Second Alliance, has been hired to keep the peace. Unfortunately, the SA is being run by born- again fascists and racists whose primary goal is to make Earth as WASP as it can be. Coupled to the story of how the New Resistance is battling the SA on all fronts, from war-torn Europe to the subliminal propaganda of the media on the world-linking Grid, is a secondary storyline of the struggles of Earth's first space colony to get out from under the thumb of more of these same SA goons. Mixed into the brew is some fine characterization -- the personal stories of many of the characters have as much importance as the overall plot; a lot of well-thought-out, and frightening, speculation (because the world really is very close to just this kind of a situation); sections of hard-hitting prose set right beside lyrical sections that literally sing; and it's got a killer of a plot. You might say, well yeah, but we've already seen Hitler in all his guises -- so how's this any different? What makes it different is that this situation is drawn from how the world is today and serves as a timely warning. Shirley is using SF as a platform to deal with important issues and he's to be commended for both utilizing the material, and doing so in a manner that's never preachy. He works the soft sciences -- primarily sociology and psychology -- to show us how the worst horrors mankind has brought on itself can all too easily return, and adds to them those that are particular to our age -- environmental concerns, global politics and the nuclear issue. The plot's got a really sharp bite, and yes there's a great deal of carefully-worked war campaigning, but this isn't simply more There Will Be War bullshit. It's a tough, hard look at the future, with a bright warning label slapped on the side that reads, "The future's here now." Check out today's TV Evangelists; see what your government's up to right now (governments make war, not people); see what uses our fabulous new technologies are being put to. I'm no Luddite, but it all scares the shit out of me. Read A Song Called Youth and tell me what it does to you. Stinger Robert R. McCammon's Stinger is what Stephen King's The Tommyknockers could have been. That's not to cut down King, but The Tommyknockers wasn't his strongest outing -- probably as much because Misery was just so damn good and how was he supposed to follow it up? The reason I compare the two at all is that both books are by major writers (who are each considered to be solely horror writers), both dealt with alien first contacts, both were set in small towns, both writers are particularly strong in their characterization.... But that's where the comparisons end. King basically gave us a "sci fi" book -- lovingly based on all the B-movies he watched while growing up, and the book retained a lot of their goofiness. Stinger is firmly based in the current SF tradition -- lots of reasoned-out speculation. Basically we have two sets of aliens in Stinger. An escapee from an intergalactic prison who takes up lodgings in the body of a seven-year-old girl when her stolen spacecraft crashes on earth, and the bounty hunting Stinger who bears some resemblance to a scorpion and is capable of duplicating any form it wants to. The small Texas town of Inferno, where both aliens land, is cut off from the rest of the world by a force field for the space of approximately twenty-four hours, and away we go. McCammon has never been in better form. The strengths of his latest novel stem not from his plot (which is a real crackler), nor his ability to create tension (which stays at a high voltage level throughout), but from his ability to create real people and involve his readers in their lives. We don't just see their reactions to the aliens; we live through their day-to-day trials as well. For Stinger, McCammon has created another large cast and it's to his credit that we never lose sight of who's who. There are shades of grey throughout so that a coward gains bravery, old enemies are forced into uneasy alliances, a drunkard redeems himself.... This is good stuff -- something that will appeal to mainstream and genre readers alike. Once again, if you think you don't like horror, don't be put off by the packaging. This is adventurous SF, set in our contemporary world, and it's got something for everybody without ever once having to take itself down to the level of the lowest common denominator. Death in the Spirit House Craig Strete's Death in the Spirit House gives us two Native Americans. One is Red Hawk; a hunter, a killer, an amoral despoiler. The other is John Skydancer; raised by white men since he was seven years old, and more white now than Native. They come together in the Spirit House -- a sacred mountain. Red Hawk is there to hunt down his nemesis, an enormous black cougar that embodies the spirit of the mountain; Skydancer to push through a bill of goods on the Native people that live in the shadow of the mountain. With the signature of the tribal elders on a legal document, the company Skydancer works for will no longer be held responsible for the radiation poisoning that, unknown to the tribe, is slowly killing them. As a bonus, he gets the boss' daughter and a good position in the company if he's successful. Things don't quite work out the way either man hopes. Strete's novel is a simple story, almost a folktale in its sparseness, that gains complexities through its characterization, the seriousness of its underlying themes, and the sense of language utilized to tell the story. Unfortunately, while Strete's language is wonderful most of the time, there are enough moments where its sparseness is too spare, where its simplicity undermines the flow of the storyline. It's not often, but there is weak prose, and sudden shifts of perspective that don't work, to hurt the mood of the better sections. Death in the Spirit House is a brave attempt, but it doesn't quite match up to the power of his other more recent works such as "The Game of Cat and Eagle" (In the Field of Fire, TOR, 1987) or To Make Death Love Us (under the name Sovereign Falconer). The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars Thomas M. Disch writes weird stories -- no question about it. The ghosts of dead businessmen, sentient hair, a very strange episode of Miami Vice, haunted pillows and, of course, his toaster stories. The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars has the same household appliances as the first story, The Brave Little Toaster (F&SF, August 1980), only this time, rather than going on a quest from the cottage where they were abandoned in search of their master, they're saving the world from an invasion of Martian appliances. I wanted to like this book, but unfortunately, I have to say that it didn't really work for me. It has a lot of the charm of the first, but it's not really that different. The delight of sentient appliances was already covered in the first story; this one merely has them on a space opera adventure that could have been about pets, people, whatever -- although there are some nice touches, like Albert Einstein's hearing aid and the origin of the Martian appliances that could only fit into the story as it's told. If you've read the first, you'll probably like this one, but not as much. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do give it a try -- because I can see how this could be most charming if one hadn't met the characters before. Chronosequence Hilbert Schenck's Chronosequence begins innocently enough. At a book auction in London, England, Eve Pennington acquires a nineteenth century handwritten bound manuscript describing some odd events in Nantucket, New England, where she spent some of her happiest times holidaying with her family. That innocent purchase soon plunges her into an escalating series of events that has its roots not only in her own past, but goes back two hundred years, to the mysterious hauntings of a creature called the Yoho in Nantucket and a curious orrery discovered in the Scottish highlands that has an extra celestial body in orbit around our planet. Soon government agencies are chasing Eve and her allies -- a pair of antiquarian book sellers that are as charming a pair of rogues as one could hope to find -- especially the seventy-two-year-old Ed Berry. Schenck has a lovely prose style -- it has a hint of times past in it, but remains completely contemporary. His characters, too, are both modern and timeless, and if the book veers into Romanticism at times, is that really such a bad thing in these days of rush and bustle? My only complaint with the book -- and this is not leveled at Schenck, but is inherent in the kind of story that Chronosequence is - - is that once we understand just what the mysterious force behind all the strange goings-on is, when we're no longer wondering and speculating, but actually know, one's left with a vague sense of disappointment. It's not that Schenck cheated, or did a poor job, either in how he slowly revealed the mystery, or in what it proved to be -- both were done admirably. It's just that the solution to the mystery is never as wonderful as it was when it was still elusive. But don't let my mumblings put you off -- I'm never satisfied when this kind of mystery is revealed. Do read this book. Schenck's prose is delightful, his characters warm and quirky, and the story has both wit and charm. I know I'll be tracking down some of his earlier works when I have some free reading time. Unicorn Mountain Straight away, the cover and title of Michael Bishop's new novel Unicorn Mountain is liable to put some readers off. If you've had it up to here with cute quest fantasies (of which the unicorn has become the symbol as much as spaceships have for SF), you'll undoubtedly want to pass this by. I know I would have except for one thing: the Bishop name. There's no way, I thought as I held the book in my hand, that the author of The Secret Ascension or Who Made Stevie Crye? is going to approach this subject in a saccharine manner. And he doesn't. Unicorn Mountain isn't so much about unicorns as it is about some very real contemporary issues. Such as AIDS and the reactions of both the victims and those around the victim. Or the complex,changing face of Native Americans. Briefly put, Libby Quarrels and her ranch hand Sam Coldpony are trying to make a go of their Colorado ranch that Libby has won in a settlement from her ex. Enter her ex's cousin Bo Gavin, dying of AIDS. Now Libby has the ranch and Bo to worry about; Sam is coming to grips with his own heritage and the uncomfortable realization that he was wrong to desert his daughter, now sixteen and becoming a novice shaman, when he left his wife; and Bo is dying. Bishop's novel also has unicorns. They remain otherworldly creatures, a kind of metaphor for the wonder that lies at the heart of the world, the wonder that all the characters are trying to connect with in their own way. Unfortunately, the unicorns are dying of a disease that is very similar to AIDS. Unicorn Mountain is a complex and absorbing novel. Like the best fiction, it operates on many different levels, all of which resonate to and strengthen each other. Bishop's prose has never been in better form. His characters are real people and immediately recognizable -- not because they are stereotypes, but because Bishop brings them to life with such skill that we can't help but recognize and believe in them. And what's especially good about his work here is that while he's unabashedly embracing one of the most outworn images of fantasy, he has imbued it with an appeal that is at once timeless and fresh. This book won't appeal to lovers of cute quests -- but they've got enough books of their own anyway. It was long past time that someone sat down and wrote a mature, contemporary fantasy novel for the rest of us. And Bishop's done just that. Mona Lisa Overdrive In Mona Lisa Overdrive, William Gibson returns to the future world of his earlier novels with a vengeance. All the elements that made Count Zero and the multiple-award winning Neuromancer the forerunners of a new movement in science fiction are present once more: the high-tech, street-wise prose and characters, the hard science thrust that's so seamlessly melded to serious humanistic concerns, and convincing extrapolations of how our contemporary culture will change as it moves into the future. The viewpoint characters are almost all women this time -- a fascinating collage, chosen from a cross-selection of Gibson's future world. There's the media star Angela, recovering from drug abuse, who hears the voices of voodoo gods in her head; Kumiko, the Yakuza crimelord's daughter; Mona, a hooker whose own addictions draw her into a web from which she discovers escape to be impossible; and Sally Shear, an assassin who proves, more than the others, to have her roots in the earlier books. The one male viewpoint is that of Slick Henry, a down-at-his- heels ex-con who is dealing with his previous incarceration through the building of huge robotic representations of figures important to his past. It's in the deserted factory that he shares with two other squatters that the various threads of the narrative are drawn together in a satisfying conclusion. It's then that cyberspace -- a concept that Gibson has chosen as a physical depiction of computer data -- is finally explained in terms that encompasses both the ancient voodoo symbols that Gibson first utilized, and what we know now of Artificial Intelligences. The reader new to the series will find Gibson's speculations provocative and fascinating, while old time readers will be delighted as many of the puzzles that Gibson has dealt with in the earlier books fall neatly into a coherent whole. Through the vigor of his writing and world-view, Gibson injected a much-needed breath of fresh air into the moribund state in which contemporary SF had found itself at the beginning of the eighties. With Mona Lisa Overdrive, he brings this phase of his career to a close and, like the best practitioners of any craft, moves on to fresh challenges. His next book is The Difference Engine, a collaboration with Bruce Sterling set in Victorian times that features a steam-driven Babbage computer -- which is about as far from cyberspace and the future world of Neuromancer as an author can get. But if Gibson brings the same originality of vision and clarity of writing that has marked his earlier work to this collaboration, it's likely he'll be at the forefront of yet another new movement in SF. And justifiably so. ---- End of Part 3