Electronic OtherRealms #22 Fall, 1988 Part 9 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. Dreams of Flesh and Sand W.T. Quick Signet 0-451-15298-0, April 1988, 301 pp., $3.50 Johnny Zed John G. Betancourt Popular Library/Questar 0-445-20559-8, July 1988, 213 pp., $3.50 Reviewed by Michael C. Berch Copyright 1988 by Michael C. Berch Ingredients: % A dreary near-future setting % Extrapolation of computer technology and human interfaces % Obsessive fascination with weapons and drugs, the nastier the better % A disaffected anti-hero(ine) protagonist % Greedy oligarchies and corporate conglomerates Mix generous quantities of the above and beat to a pulp-like consistency. Add appropriate buzzwords (the matrix, ice, the Sprawl, technical boy). Add corrupt hedonists to taste. Season with colorful character names (Japanese, if possible) and garnish with assorted references to computer security techniques. Serves 100,000. Dreams of Flesh and Sand A strong case can be made that recent literary movements in speculative fiction have developed in four distinct phases: first come the short stories, knocking on the door and demanding critical attention, followed by a solid core of novels by the movement's "leaders" (which they were writing while the seminal stories attracted attention), then a spate of (often commercially successful) formula imitators, and finally a collapse into self-parody and cannibalism. By this time, the original leaders are usually well on their way to something else. William T. Quick's first novel, Dreams of Flesh and Sand, leads me to believe that the cyberpunk movement is well into its third phase. Dreams may well become a commercial success, but its close adherence to the well-traveled paths of cyberpunk make it difficult if not impossible to enjoy Quick's crisp, witty, fast-paced prose style. From the beginning, Dreams disturbing resemblance to the works of William Gibson hinder the reader's attempts to discover the author's thematic and dramatic intentions. By page 23, when one of the main characters (after a discussion of wetware and information matrixes) inserts a jack under her right ear and, a few pages later, she and an associate take off on a visual tour of cyberspace -- excuse me, the "metamatrix" -- I put the book down and looked at the cover to make sure that I hadn't accidentally purchased a copy of Cyberpunk Combat Command in the World of Burning Chrome.. Dreams of Flesh and Sand concerns a large, oligarchic corporation -- Double En -- run by a Mr. Nakamura and a Mr. Norton. Nakamura and Norton are having some sort of feud, and our two main characters, Jack "Iceberg" Berg, and his ex-wife, "Icebreaker" Calley, are either hired or not hired by one or both or neither of the principals, ostensibly to find out what the other is up to and take countermeasures. The scene weaves in and out of the metamatrix (involving various representations of Berg, Calley, Nakamura, Norton, and a number of lesser characters), interrupted by a generous helping of chases, shootouts, raids, and interrogations. Unfortunately, neither Icebreaker nor Iceberg (who were, in theory, named on account of their respective intrusion and intrusion-countermeasures abilities) seem to demonstrate any technical knowledge of these areas beyond what one might read in a PC magazine. This strains the reader's identification with these otherwise sympathetic characters. I kept waiting for Dreams to break out of its cocoon and head for some uncharted territory; towards the end it showed a few signs of doing so -- as the true nature of the metamatrix and the Nakamura-Norton dealings are revealed -- but never quite got there. Since Quick has promised more novels in this genre, we can hope that the next and its successors will make strong moves away from formula and toward the author's own innovations and futures. Johnny Zed Many of the same elements are present in Johnny Zed, John Betancourt's second novel. But instead of letting them form the stuff and substance of the book, the author has relegated them to the background and allowed the story to predominate instead. Johnny Zed is a political novel, about revolution, terrorism and corruption. On a more personal level, it is about trust and betrayal and a revolutionary trying to figure out her political and personal identity. In Johnny Zed the U.S. Congress has gone off its rails, suspending elections and ruling by decree. Congressmen and Senators openly buy and sell favors, become wealthy off the proceeds of foreign colonization, and pass their seats on via inheritance. As the government and ruling class have grown completely corrupt, the American people -- those with jobs, anyway -- have withdrawn into fantasies of consumerist mall culture or drugs or street technology. This society could not be complete without a revolutionary movement. Our focus is Shelley Tracer, urban terrorist -- or freedom fighter -- and member of a Disruptionist cell. The Disruptionists seem to lack neither money nor technology, and Tracer and her cell leader, one Johnny Zed, rush from one attack to the next, pausing only to replace blown-off fingers with fancy imported prostheses. If this sounds a bit comic-bookish, it should; Johnny Zed is a novel painted in bright primary colors; its characters are almost constantly in action. Contemplation, if any, seems to be restricted to the (intentionally) platitudinous "quotations" that introduce each chapter. But mere fast-pacedness does not render a novel a mere adventure or romance; Johnny Zed manages to delve into some interesting questions of power and how it corrupts. Shelly Tracer learns that where power is involved, loyalties become fluid; things are quite often not nearly what they seem. This is a book of disguises, assumed identities, secret police, double agents and double crosses, overlaid on a background of cyberpunkisms like underground medics, drug and weapons merchants, people with modified bodies (the catmen and the reptilian Esteban Grammatica are particularly effective), and, of course, the mandatory treatment of computer and communications security hacking. Johnny Zed is plausible in a larger-than-life sense. This is more a dark satire than a comic novel, but the author shows that he does not take himself too seriously, and his tongue is occasionally found planted firmly in his cheek. While Johnny Zed may not break new literary ground, I found it an enjoyable, well-paced novel. Brightsuit Macbear L. Neil Smith Avon paperback, 1988, 212pp., $2.95, 0-380-75324-3. Reviewed by Neal Wilgus Copyright 1988 by Neal Wilgus The front cover blurb says "To save the Confederacy, a young man embarks on a wild journey across galaxies...and enters exotic new worlds." But the blurb writer screwed it up, because the teenage hero doesn't save the Confederacy, there is no wild trip across galaxies, and only one semi-exotic world gets entered. What happens is that young Berdan Geanar follows his villainous grandfather down to the surface of the not-so-exotic planet Majesty and eventually recovers the brightsuit of the title, along with a new name: MacDougall Bear. The back cover blurb tells us that this is "the first adventure in an exciting new series set in the Tom Paine Maru universe," but that's not quite right either. Brightsuit Macbear ends with the evil Hooded Seven (who never appear on stage) still at large, so presumably Mac Bear will run into them again in as many volumes as the market will bear (pun gratuitous). But the truth is that this "new" series is the same as the old one -- what's changed is the publisher, since the earlier volumes were brought out by Ballantine/Del Rey. For those not familiar with the series, the Confederacy is a sort of loose anarcho-libertarian civilization which developed in an alternate universe in Smith's first novel, The Probability Broach (1980). Broach was a pretty good novel and it justly won the Prometheus Award given by the Libertarian Futurist Society, but except for it and the third volume, Their Majesties' Bucketeers (1981), the series has been a big disappointment, with the same old "Hamiltonian" villains and the same old Confederacy good guys duking it out in volumes such as The Venus Belt, The Nagasaki Vector and The Gallatin Divergence, as the improbable Confederacy science and society spreads from Earth to space to the whole damn galaxy. Brightsuit is the, um, seventh in the series, and little that is new or interesting happens, just more of the same. The brightsuit, by the way, is a refinement of the smartsuit which made its first appearance in Tom Paine Maru, and while the smartsuit would only keep you warm and healthy and safe, the brightsuit will give you superpowers such as flying through the air and space, blasting your enemies with thunderbolts and saving the Confederacy in a single bound. Smith does include one of his more interesting aliens, the Sodde Lydfan scholar Pemot, in this story, and the fauna and flora of Majesty are mildly interesting, but these crumbs do little to make up for the lackluster story and style. If you're following the whole series as I've been, you'll want to read this one too, I suppose -- otherwise, don't bother. At Winter's End Robert Silverberg Warner Books, 1988, 0-446-51384-9, 404pp, $17.95 Reviewed by Dean R. Lambe Copyright 1988 by Dean R. Lambe Silverberg, who seems to have passed through more artistic periods than Picasso, has moved into megacorporate publishing heaven -- the fat book series. If ever a novel cried out "there's more coming," this is it. Sadly, like Clarke's 2061, this tour de force is all tour. Following the 26 million year cycle of the Nemesis hypothesis, this tale of Earth's reawakening after a 700,000 year stint on the meteor hit parade ought to have ample sense of wonder. As they emerge from their underground cocoon into the New Springtime, chieftain Koshmar and her twining partner, offering woman Torlyri, lead the small band of People west from the ancient Mississippi River to the fabled Great World city of Vengiboneeza. During the dangerous trek, the old chronicler of the tribal records and myths dies, and all precedent is broken when Koshmar appoints a very young, impulsive Hresh to take his place. Hresh, with more psychic power than most of his People, represents both scientific inquiry and adolescent insecurity. Once Vengiboneeza, parts of which are still in good repair, is finally reached and the tribe settles in, Hresh slowly unearths functioning machines from the past glories of the Six Peoples. Gradually, too, he comes to realize what the reader knew all along, that Koshmar's small tribe is not human, and was in fact, given human help to evolve from New World monkeys during the Long Winter. For all the wonderful background that surrounds Hresh and his friends, for all the finely detailed works of the long- collapsed Great World and its races, for all the implied threat of the similar Beings and the very different, insectoidal Hjjks, the plight of these People barely kept me awake. As with his Majipoor stories, Silverberg has exposed a vast and glorious panorama to watery emulsions. Wait for the paperback. Antibodies David J. Skal Congdon & Weed, 1988, 0-86553-199-4, 169 pp., $15.95. Reviewed by Dean R. Lambe Copyright 1988 by Dean R. Lambe In a chilling update of Bruno Bettelheim's case study of "Joey, the Mechanical Boy," and Bernard Wolfe's classic Limbo, Skal give us a near-future sociopathic horror. In San Francisco, Diandra marks time as an avant garde department store window dresser, while she awaits full conversion to the Cybernetic Temple. Under the influence of cult leader Venus Tramhell, an armless sculptress whose robot arms promise so much, Diandra starves herself ever closer to her dream of machine conversion, of escape from her hated meat existence. When Diandra falls into a catatonic trance at work, however, she becomes the unwilling patient victim of Dr. Julian Nagy, whose Resurrection House uses questionable methods to deprogram such "antibodies." Nagy's frustrated wife, Gillian, on the other hand, has secretly penned the underground science fiction novel that inspires the antibody cult, while her paraplegic lover urges her to write an expose of her disgusting husband and gain her freedom. In the ensuing struggle over the eternal mind/body problem, more than mere flesh is lost. With just the right level of SoCal behavior-mod glitz over pseudo- Freudian psychobabble, Skal flays much of contemporary American fads and fancies -- with not a few swipes at SF fandom. This is not a pleasant story, but short as it is, you're going to finish it in one fascinated sitting. The Big Lifters Dean Ing Tor Books, 1988, 0-312-93067-4, 243 pp., $16.95. Reviewed by Dean R. Lambe Copyright 1988 by Dean R. Lambe Before American powers-that-be were jerked around by Shiite terrorists, Ing told them how to respond in Soft Targets. There is little evidence that they listened. Let us hope, as Ing again tosses out more clever ideas, that somebody with Ing's can-do attitude about Man's future in space is paying attention. Wes Peel, founder and CEO of Peel Transit, has a dream. Due to a strict Christian upbringing and a tragic loss of close family in trucking accidents, Peel wants to replace trucks with more efficient, safer ways of moving freight. He is on his way, thanks to his brain trust of Tom Schulteis and Dave Kaplan, who have designed Delta One, a massive, state of the art, cargo dirigible. In addition, Peel Transit is testing a maglev track maintenance train contracted by railroad interests, which has a few tricks designed by Schulteis and Kaplan that even Wes Peel doesn't know about. When hot pilot Glenn Rogan is hired to test both airship and train, the secret agenda of Peel's scientists is underway. Unfortunately, other interests have secret agendas as well. Joey Weatherby, head of the largest truckers' union, feels the threat of Peel's future shock to transportation. And an obscure Iran-born college professor, along with a band of Shiite Kamikazis, has targeted those Americans who bring hope to the Great Satan, like John Wesley Peel. This is an idea book, a set of gedanken experiments in fiction form, but the characterization and action plotting offer plenty of excitement. As you cheer on the good guys, you'll hope that all these workable ideas are already off the drawing board. ---- End of Part 9