Electronic OtherRealms #23 Winter, 1989 Part 11 Copyright 1989 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 only if the return address, copyrights and author credits remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way without the permission of the author. All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the original author. Lots and Lots of Reviews by Lots and Lots of People Part 2 The Making of the Atomic Bomb [****] Richard Rhodes Simon & Schuster, 0-671-65719-4 The history of the A-bomb, from the discovery of subatomic particles to Hiroshima and Nagasaki (plus an epilogue taking the story through the first H- bomb tests). Highlights include very clear nontechnical explanations of the science and interesting personality portraits of the scientists, generals, and statesmen involved. The sidelights on military strategy and nuclear diplomacy are also worthwhile. The book won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. An important book for anyone living in the atomic age. --Chuck Koelbel Prelude To Foundation [**-] Isaac Asimov Doubleday, 432pp, SFBC This is the sixth book in Asimov's classic Foundation series, though chronologically it is the first. In the Author's Notes section of each of Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, and this book, the Good Doctor claims he had no intention to write yet another Foundation book, but that his readers/publishers pressured him into it. It shows. Prelude To Foundation is thoroughly predictable, even more so if you're aware that Asimov has been caught up in the recent merged universe mania from which Robert Heinlein suffered. He has been trying to merge the Foundation series with his Robot series, and the result is a loss of credibility. Robots are starting to pop up more and more frequently, whether as myths or as actual entities, to the point that one has to wonder why they have such a mythical status in the Empire/Foundation in the first place. The characters in Prelude To Foundation are two-dimensional at best, consistent with those in the first three books. That worked fine in the 1950's, but is out of place with today's more sophisticated audience. Such characters work in Asimov's lighthearted works (such as his short stories featuring Azazel, the two- inch demon), but fail in his more major, serious works. If you've slogged through the first five books, you might want to pick up Prelude To Foundation, if for no other reason than completeness. Otherwise, give this one a miss. --Rick Genter Red Sun of Darkover [****] Marion Zimmer Bradley DAW, $3.95, 1987, 287pp. Darkover continues to expand through short stories as a shared world anthology. This is yet another collection by MZB and the Friends of Darkover, with stories covering a mix of periods. Some are about familiar characters from the novels, such as Regis Hastur and Dani Syrtis in "The Shadow" by Bradley herself, and the Renunciates Camilla and Rafi, who appear as incidental characters in "Different Path" by Penny Buchanan, but most are about original characters. Some explore the alienness of Darkover, such as "Salt" by Diann Partridge about a native sea-dwelling race, or "Coils" by Patricia Shaw Mathews about a different sort of dragon ("How do you burp a baby dragon?--very very carefully!") and two involve the meeting of Darkover tradition and Terran influence--"The Sum of the Parts" by Dorothy Heydt, where a Keeper and a Terran pilot must work together and "Devil's Advocate" by Patricia Anne Buard, about a Terran priest investigating the Darkovan cristoforo beliefs. Many are adventure stories, but "The Wasteland," by Deborah Wheeler, has more of a horror effect. Another good collection for people like me who can't get enough Darkover. --Mary Anne Espenshade Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber [*]/[***] Roger Zelazny and Neil Randall Avon Books $ 8.95 221 pg. This book gets a double rating because of its specialized subject matter. If you are an Amber fan, this book is a must buy. If you are not, then this book is of little interest. The book is an illustrated guide to Castle Amber, done in the form of a guided tour by Flora, Princess of Amber. The illustrations are all black and white. They are very competently done but hardly great works of art. Almost half the book is taken up with black and white reproductions of the Greater Trumps. The main problem with this book is that it should have been a 4 color slick coffee table book with extensive and lavish illustrations. --Danny Low Shadow of the Warmaster [***] Jo Clayton 1988, DAW books, 3.95, 398 pages Some more escapism from Jo Clayton, who in my opinion uses real sugar in her mind-candy, avoiding the generally rampant saccharine. For a book that's essentially action/adventure, this one has some interesting features. For example, the interlocking sequences told from various viewpoints keeps the subordinate characters and subplots from seeming too much like spear-carriers. It is worth noting that it does not extend this courtesy to characters who are really nasty, I suppose so that we don't feel so bad about them when they are dispatched by somebody from the set of "good guys." But at least we have a pretty good and pretty large ensemble cast heroing around here, not just Generic Hero and His Capable Band of N (for small numbers of N). This is interesting because you don't notice this at first. At first, it looks an awful lot like it'll be just another GHaHCBoN action adventure. It is centered around a heroic band of mercenaries who hire themselves out for rescue operations. But it quickly grows more intriguing than that. I think it is all part of Jo Clayton's gradual improvement over time. Lately, with Skeen, Soul Drinker, and things like the current book, the reading has been quite good and getting better. Speaking of the Diadem series, this book borrows the background and follows some of the subordinate characters from that series. In particular, the Generic Hero here is Swardheld Quale, late inhabitant of the Diadem, set free by Aletys. Not much is made of this in the story and the cover blurb doesn't even mention the Diadem series. But it is interesting for us in-the-know to pick up the few mentions of old characters passing by, old scenes and circumstances mentioned. One last point. We have here a society dominated by Mega-corporations, with the attitude being rape and exploit everything around and about before it can rape and exploit you. In several ways, it reminded me of Cyberpunk without the mirrorshades or cyberspace. Good stuff. --Wayne A. Throop Spacer: Window Of The Mind [***] John Maddox Roberts Ace, 1988, $2.95, 182 pp Rescued from a rampaging slum mob by spacers, young Kiril is soon adopted as "ship's girl," the juniormost crew member of the tramp freighter Space Angel. She has little time to adapt to the job, as the Angel and its crew are hastily drafted onto a top secret alien contact mission. When an old enemy of the captain shows plans of beginning a war and blaming it on the crew of the Angel, it proves to be Kiril's semi-telepathic talent which is the key to unlocking a peaceful contact with the alien Dzuna, and possibly preventing a confrontation the human race can scarcely afford. This is a good straight-ahead action adventure story, thoroughly within the mainstream of entertainment type science fiction. On that basis, it is a good solid read. --David M. Shea Spock's World [*****] Diane Duane Pocket, 1988, $16.95, 310pp. The first Trek hardback, and well worth it. Duane is one of the best recurring Trek novelists and this novel is one of the best I've read in the series. Character use and plot consistency across novels is settling down and much improved over the early Trek novels. The story opens with more detail than we usually get on day-to-day starship operation. This is more a character interaction piece than an adventure tale. We even get to look in on a ship-wide party--listen to the Starship Enterprise String, Reed and Banjo Band, with a three handed banjo player and "a synthesized percussionist (the musician, not the instrument...)," see Lt Naraht munching on expired data solids with crude oil and iron filings dip, and watch Sulu play "video" games. There is even a ship BBS, complete with an enterprise.flame that looks very much like USENET (responses to an article include agreement, misunderstanding, claims that it was just a joke or quoted out of context, and one flame that the original poster violated copyright by including a newspaper article-- some things never change). Sarek and Amanda are again major supporting characters, central to the debate over Vulcan's place in the Federation and other characters from episodes turn out to be important. Chapters on the debate alternate with interesting looks into Vulcan history and cultural development. An excellent book for Trek fans, but not one for the action/adventure crowd. --Mary Anne Espenshade Star Rider [****+] Doris Piserchia Bantam, 1974, $1.25, 219pp This is a novel I'd nominate as a Closet Classic. Her name is Jade and she is a jak, which is to say, more or less human. her companion is named Hinx, and he is a mount, which is to say, a dog--at least his ancestors were dogs, two million years ago. Individually helpless, jak and mount together form a telepathic, teleportative team who can skip anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye. Jade is an ignorant hedonist with only two ambitions: to find the legendary home planet, Doubleluck; and then to "go to glory" (depart this galaxy entirely). But Jade and Hinx between them have a unique talent, and all the oddballs of the galaxy--the gibs, the dreens, the varks, Big Jak, and cross-eyed Shaper--want a piece of the action. Other novels by this author have never done a great deal for me, but Star Rider is a barn-burner. It takes off at a dead sprint in the first paragraph and seldom slows down thereafter; the plot is complicated but never loses sight of where its going. True to its own eccentric vision, this far-future adventure scatters humor, drama, and ideas like sparks off a skyrocket. The characters are all a little whacked out, but all are convincing, with the narrator Jade having a special appeal. Star Rider remains one of the least known good novels in the genre. It's well worth looking for. --David Shea Steam Bird [***+] Hilbert Schenck Tor, 1988, $3.50, 213pp Hilbert Schenck is best known for his evocative and moody tales of the sea-- the collection Wave Rider (1980) and the mystic novel At The Eye Of The Ocean (1981). This short novel represents something of a departure. The "steam bird" of the title is the world's only nuclear-fueled, steam-powered aircraft: an idea which the author insists, the U.S. Air Force seriously worked up design criteria in the early 1950's. Schenck postulates an alternate universe in which this strange device was actually built. The President of the United States orders the steam bird to launch--and then must figure out what to do with the aerial monstrosity once its aloft. Uncharacteristically, Schenck plays this as very broad gonzo farce a la Ron Goulart. The result was like what I feel when reading a Goulart book: I found it amusing, though I didn't believe it. The volume also has "Hurricane Claude," which is much more in the usual Schenck vein, a hi-tech but thoroughly human oceanic thriller, not unlike the author's "Bouyant Ascent." In this tale, a research company attempts to short- circuit a hurricane before it can smash ashore with devastating force. Schenck's careful attention to detail at least makes for a plausible adventure. In their disparate ways these two stories are both interesting additions to the author's repertoire. --David Shea The Stones of Nomuru [***] L. Sprague and Catherine Cook de Camp The Donning Company $8.95 215pg. This is a typical de Camp adventure story. Keith Salazar is an archaeologist excavating an alien ruin on the planet Kulkulkan and Conrad Bergen is a developer who wants to put a resort on the site of the dig. In addition, both Salazar and Bergen are wooing the same woman, Kara, who is also Salazar's ex-wife. Bergen is vain and violent and does not like Kara's rejection. Complicating matters is an imminent invasion by the local equivalent of Genghis Khan. Salazar is a typical de Camp hero, self-deprecating but very competent. He's is not quite a super-hero. For example, Bergen is always able to beat up Salazar as he is much bigger. The story is filled with the satirical humor that characterizes de Camp's stories. This story has a slightly more Monty Pythonish flavor than de Camp's previous stories. Salazar has to do several outrageous deeds to save his dig and his life. The result is very much like a toned down Monty Python skit where the protagonist has to maintain a calm front while the world is turned upside down around him. The only criticism is one of the problems, the invading nomads, is solved in too much of a deus ex machina style. This is a well done book which is a treat from an Old Master such as de Camp. --Danny Low The Suiting Kelley Wilde Tor Books, 1988, ISBN 0-312-93069-0, 239 pp., $16.95 The haunted suit of clothes tale has been off the rack for a few centuries, yet Wilde manages a fresh bit of tailoring. Set in contemporary Toronto and Montreal, this tasty bit of modern horror truly fits the old adage: the clothes make the man. When wise guy Jean-Paul Bouchette sneaks back to Toronto to buy the finest of suits, his old nemesis bookie, Derek Cole, arranges a private baseball game-- with Jean-Paul's head as the ball. By a fluke, Victor Frankl, a nerdy little maritime shipping clerk comes upon the soulless suit, with its "Good Luck Made to Measure..." label, and Victor vows to shape his body to the cloth. After months of extensive dieting and body building, Victor comes close to a proper fit, and begins to dream of dating the lovely Vivvie from his office. Victor's friend George notices more disturbing, nonphysical changes, however, as the meek clerk takes strange, historical trips to Montreal, and starts to covet his boss's job. The gradual and chilling transformation of Victor is well done, with just the right touch of madness. Secondary characters are more than backdrop, as well, and the sense of place and language in French Canada adds color and intensity to this familiar story. A fast, enjoyable read marks Wilde as a writer to watch. --Dean R. Lambe Swordspoint Ellen Kushner Arbor House, 269pp, 1987, $15.95, 0-87795-923-4. Maybe I'm missing the point (get it?), but creating a fantasy world in which to tell a story that would be quite at home in 17th century France is pointless. Pseudo-historical fiction has no great advantage over historical fiction--except that maybe you can call it fantasy, which seems to be selling well these days. But I'm getting ahead of the story. Swordspoint takes place in a nameless city that could have been Paris or London a couple of hundred years ago, but isn't-- and involves the exploits of aristocrats and swordsmen who might have been historical figures from that period, but aren't. The main character is Richard St Vier, the best damn swordsman of them all, who lives in the slums called Riverside where no respectable citizen dares to; but who is hired by all the best aristocrats from the Hill to fight their duels for them under a strange set of rules that are not historical, but might be. St Vier lives with his lover Alec, an ex-student who is obviously an aristocrat, although it's not until the end of the book that we discover, not too surprisingly, who he really is. Alec loves to get St Vier into situations where St. Vier has to defend or avenge Alec's honor (such as it is), and Alec does little else except sit around and make melancholy jokes. St Vier, meanwhile, is caught up in a series of plots and counterplots in which the aristocrats are indulging and aren't worth sketching here. Make no mistake, Ellen Kushner is a good stylist and the plot itself is well done- -some of the characters are even moderately interesting. What I'm put off by is not the writing, which is very good, but the pseudo-historical framework and stereotyped gyrations and character manipulation. Or, put another way, Swordspoint might have had a point--but doesn't. --Neil Wilgus Time for Yesterday [Star Trek #39] [****] A. C. Crispin Pocket, 1988, $3.95, 303pp. The crew of the Enterprise helps save the very fabric of the universe, again. The sequel to Yesterday's Son reunites Spock and his son Zar to solve a problem with the Guardian of Forever, but that is only a small, and rather anticlimactic, part of the plot. Most of the story takes place in Sarpeidon's past, where Zar is trying to establish a peaceful civilization among warring, bronze age tribes. In the timeline for the Enterprise's crew, the story takes place between the first and second films, setting up Kirk's teaching at the Academy and some of his regrets over never having gotten a chance to know his own son, debating whether or not to make time to visit Carol and David Marcus. Good character development and foreshadowing. I wish more of the Trek authors would note at the beginning, as Crispin does, where in the timeline her story fits, it's often hard to guess where a story belongs and how much to assume about the characters' development. --Mary Anne Espenshade Time Trap [Star Trek #40] [***] David Dvorkin Pocket, 1988, $3.95, 221pp. An average Captain Kirk adventure story, in which he gets the girl and saves the Federation, in that order, even though he has to give up the girl at the end. It's the best use I've seen in a long time of lots of episode information, building a story on it instead of "this reminds me of the time when ..." references. Kirk ends up aboard a Klingon ship, with Spock working to get him back. I was getting irked with some of the characterizations mid-way through, but most of what is causing people to act out of character turns out to be part of the plot. And a very involved plot it is. Very little can be said without spoiling some of the convoluted details. I couldn't resolve McCoy's out-of-character behavior though. Secondary characters barely get mentioned, as many of the Trek novels lately don't seem to do anything with anyone beyond Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Kalrind is an interesting new character however, especially to speculate what would happen if she and Kirk met again under more normal circumstances, each in command of their own ships. --Mary Anne Espenshade Wolfsong, Blood of Ten Chiefs, Vol. 2 [**] Richard Pini, Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey TOR, $7.95, 1988, 307pp. Nine Elfquest stories, chronologically ordered and set over much of the wolfrider's history. Not as interesting as volume 1. Some of the stories bring out intriguing elvish powers, "Dreamsinger's Tale" by Janny Wurts especially. Some stretched on too long to make their points. Regular EQ readers probably want it, but it might bore the rest of you. --Mary Anne Espenshade