Electronic OtherRealms #25 Summer/Fall, 1989 Part 4 of 17 Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved OtherRealms may not be reproduced without permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Permission is given to electronically distribute this issue only if all copyrights, author credits and return addresses remain intact. No article may be reprinted or re-used without permission of the author. From Beyond the Edge Reviews by our readers (Part 1, continued) Shadow Games [***] Glen Cook Tor $3.95 311pg. While this book is the start of a new series about the Black Company, there are many references to past events and people. This is especially true in the second half of the book. As a result, anyone who has not read the first series will suffer from some confusion. When the first series ended, the Company was down to seven people and Croaker expressed the intention to return the company annals to Khatovar, where the Company originated. The first half of the book is about the journey south. Unknown to the Company the Shadow Lords stand between the Company and their final destination. However the Shadow Lords know about the company and are trying to stop them. The reason for the Shadow Lords' enmity become clear in the second half. The ending is a cliffhanger. The Company suffers a major defeat at the hands of the Shadow Lords. Croaker is captured. Lady may or may not be dead. No mysteries are solved. No conflicts are resolved. The whole book is basically the first installment of a very long serial. This is a well written book although not up the level of Cook's best work. -- Danny Low Shadow Guests Joan Aiken Dell 1986, $2.95 This is a children's book about ghosts and responsibility. Cosmo, whose mother and brother disappeared in Australia, returns to England, while his father sells off the remains of their life down under. Cosmo lives with his aunt on weekends in the family's ancestral home and discovers that there is a curse on his family in which the eldest son of each generation is killed in battle with his mother dying of sorrow afterwards. The shadow guests of the title are the ghosts of previous sons from history. Cosmo works to bring the curse to an end during the story. I enjoy the individuality of Joan Aiken's work -- Joyce Scrivner The Singing [***-] Theron Raines Atlantic Monthly, 1988, 163 pp., $12.95, 0-87113-177-3. The Singing is so full of cliches and stereotypes that you'd expect it to be a complete disaster, but it is saved to an extent by the smooth style of its literary-agent author. Atlantic Monthly Press doesn't publish much science fiction, but when it does it's typically by "mainstream" writers like Theron Raines who are apparently unaware of the vast SF world Out There. Thus they tend to reinvent the rocket -- or in this case, the Man from Mars. The Man in The Singing is a Martian called 4-S-T, who arrives in a UFO with several co-conspirators bent on finding and mating with Earth women in a last ditch effort to save the dying Martian race. 4-S-T meets a girl named Mary Alice after his spacecraft crashes onto the roof of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, but it's no accident, for each of the Martian agents have their future loves already targeted, and with the vastly superior Martian mental powers at their disposal, it doesn't take long to get things going. Soon Forrest, as Mary Alice calls him, is working in her office and sleeping in her bed -- and fathering her child as the Martian plan to reinvigorate both races moves forward. Alas, as the time approaches for Forrest to abandon Mary Alice and return to Mars, it becomes clear that the attempt to merge the two races will fail and that there will be no revival of the Martians or improvement of the Earthians after all. But even though his mission is a failure, Forrest ends on an upbeat note, a poetic and mystical stream- of-consciousness interchange with his Martian brothers -- an interplanetary slam-bam-thank-you-mam, to put it crudely. Yep, them Martian devils skip out on child support and Everything, but redeem themselves by listening to and appreciating The Singing of Ole Mother Earth on their way out. The Singing is subtitled "A Fable About What Makes Us Human", and if you can see it in that light you'll probably enjoy the book. Veteran SF readers, however, will probably have trouble understanding why anyone would want to read such soft core speculative fiction at all when there's all that Good Stuff out there still waiting to be read. Be warned -- The Singing is pretty thin stuff. -- Neal Wilgus Space Mail Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh Fawcett, 1982, $2.50 Another anthology of stories by classic writers. The diaries area holds excerpts by Mark Twain (in a biblical tradition), Arsen Darnay (meditation on nuclear power), Will Stanton (on animal intelligence), John Collier (living away from modern life), Joan Vinge (mortality and advancement), and Algis Budrys (advancement and the military.) Memos section holds work by Walter Jon Williams (politics and society), Anthony Boucher (alien views), R.A. Lafferty (education from biased view), Gerald Jonas (growing up and parents), and Arthur Clarke (travel and invasion). The letters section bears up under Sharon Webb (alien medicine and romance), Paul J. Nahin (military secrets), Al Sarrantonio (controlling children), Barry N. Malzberg (writing and publishing), John Sladek (revolving history), Murray Leinster (curing madness), L. Sprague de Camp (historical view) and John Campbell (hope and man). A good selection from new work (and writers) to old stables. -- Joyce Scrivner Starfarers [****] Vonda N. McIntyre Ace, 3.95, 0-441-78053-9 I've just finished reading this book, and it's one of the few books that I simply could not put down. The first third of the book is taken up in setting up personal relationships. Normally this would irritate me to no end. I like books that get moving rapidly, but in this case, the relationships were interesting of themselves! The ideas behind them were fascinating. When the action did start, it was extremely well paced, and didn't appear to sag except when the characters themselves couldn't seem to find the right thing to do. Unlike quite a few recent books, I found that I could not figure out what was going to happen next. Though the major climax occurs several pages before the end of the book, the ending is excellent. It leaves no dangling threads, but the future is left wide open and exciting! I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys science fiction. -- Edwin Wiles String in the Harp Nancy Bond Puffin Newbery Library 1976, $5.95 Books for children, though ignored by many readers, seem to me to have several things which I enjoy: they have clear, clean plots with characters with integrity (though the characters have no overt sex life, they can be as convoluted as any human) and the major problem(s) have resolutions, though not always happy. Newbery and Caldecott winners in particular tend to be well-written and pleasant to read. So I do. This book is no exception. The story is about a family with three children (two girls and a boy (in the middle)) whose problems include the fact that their beloved mother died shortly before Christmas, and the father and two youngest siblings moved to Wales for a year for his can do research. The living situation in Wales is foreign and difficult for all of them, the boy in particular. The oldest child, who was finishing school in America arrives for Christmas and stays for the rest of the year learning to organize the family as her mother might have done. The boy Peter finds an ancient harp key (which belonged to Taliesin from the Mabinogion legend) and through the mechanism of the key, history and the Welsh lifestyle bring the family to several resolutions. The legends retold are not those most Americans recognize, and the division in the family is believable as are the characters of several Welsh who befriend them. -- Joyce Scrivner Svaha [***+] Charles de Lint Ace, 1989, $3.50 I'd known Charles de Lint as an author of contemporary fantasy, but I'd seen Svaha reviewed as cyberpunk. It is. The Native Americans have developed advanced technology and retreated in to sealed Enclaves, while the rest of the world has gone to hell. Life isn't so bad in the megaplexes (especially if you're pure Japanese), but it's a different story in the squats, especially for the little people like Lisa Bone, courier, and Phillip Yip, security officer for Ho Anzen, who finds his job is full of ethical dilemmas. An Enclave flier crashes, and Gahzee is sent out to recover its chip. Needless, everyone else is after this item, too, from the yaks (yakuza clans), to the triads, to Ininzi/Bell Northern, though who is working for who isn't always clear. De Lint manages to combine Gahzee's trip to a gritty cyberpunk city (full of interesting details) with his visits to Dreamtime. He uses at least 5 different languages for added color. And he provides the insight as to why someone would replace perfectly good parts of their own body. I found one assumption of the background hard to believe, but enjoyed both the setting and the story. -- David Dunham Swimmers Beneath The Bright [***-] M. Coleman Easton Questar 1987 $2.95 US 236 pp 0-445-20456-7 Mera Magus, the cyborged last guardian of Safehold, has slept in her orbital station for eight thousand years, while the water-adapted people of the colony world have gone their own way unhindered by technology. Now, however, Mera Magus has been revived by the ancient machinery, for the immemorial enemy, Spore, poses a new threat. The sea-change, bred into the semi-aquatic folk of Safehold through countless generations, may be humankind's last hope -- if only the ancient and dying "god" from the sky can teach them how to activate and use it. This is by no means a bad book. It held my attention and though after about 100 pages I had my fill of local color, and began wishing the author would simply get on with it. There are also some hazy areas; the entire mechanism of the gleaners and their relationship to the "god- metal" is simply taken for granted, never explained. (Perhaps this would be obvious to a metallurgist; it wasn't so to me.) Swimmers reminded me slightly of Vinge's Snow Queen on a smaller scale. I would consider reading another book by this author. -- David M. Shea A Talent for War [****] Jack McDevitt Ace $3.95 310pg. Christopher Sim was the Hero of the Resistance. His death after his betrayal by his best friend Talino united the human worlds against the invading Ashiyyurs. However the details of the betrayal and death are clouded by mystery as almost all the main participants died within months of that fateful event. Two hundred years later, the death of Alex Benedict's uncle thrusts him into a search for the solution to what really happened to Sim. Benedict is drawn in almost against his will. He starts out with a handicap. Some one does not want him to continue his uncle's research into the matter. A key document is stolen and Benedict must attempt to recreate his uncle's research. The mystery is very well constructed. All the denouements are foreshadowed by hints so the reader can figure them out beforehand. The solutions are sensible and sometimes even ingenious. The solutions are easy to figure out since McDevitt is more interested in developing the story than challenging the reader. The background universe has a feeling of depth that is often lacking in other books. The characters are very well developed. It is the characters, not the mystery, that is the focus of the story. The characters are complex and often irrational just like real people. The solution to the mystery is ultimately based on the frailty of even the strongest person. The basic idea of the Sim story has been used before by other SF writers. McDevitt has managed to come up with only a minor variation on the story. As told by McDevitt, the story is a dramatic tale of tragedy and redemption. -- Danny Low Tales from the Spaceport Bar [***] George Scithers & Darrell Schweitzer Avon, 1987, $3.50, 235pp. Callahan's Place and the White Hart aren't the only bars with unusual regulars and tellers of unbelievable tales. This short story collection includes famous and not-so-famous tales set in and about bars of every dimension, 22 in all (including a limerick). Most of the stories keep to SF but a few stray into fantasy, though the editors decided to leave out the sword and sorcery taverns -- there are probably enough of those for an entire collection of their own. Many well known authors are represented here -- Niven, Kuttner, Aximov, Clarke, Zelazny, Silverberg. My favorites: "What Goes Up" by Arthur C. Clarke, a tale about a real anti-gravity device; "One for the Road" by Gardner Dozois, questions asked in a bar; "Strategy at the Billiards Club" by Lord Dunsany, a cautionary tale from 1948 on the dangers of atomic weapons; "They Loved Me in Utica" by Avram Davidson, a down-on-his-luck bar entertainer is the same in every age, giving this story a quite surprising ending. -- Mary Anne Espenshade Taltos [****] Steven Brust Ace, 1988, $2.95, 181pp. A story set early in the career of Vlad Taltos, assassin -- the whole book is flashbacks. Each chapter begins with Vlad at work on a spell that actually concludes the story, then alternates scenes of his journey through the Paths of the Dead and anecdotes from his childhood and early career -- his studies of witchcraft, his training in weapons, the first time he kills, the first time he's paid to kill and the first time he kills with a Morganti weapon. Lots of light, comic touches, particularly in Vlad's comments to his jhereg familiar, Loiosh (watch for a Blake's Seven quote and a reference to the computer game "Adventure"). Sequel to Jhereg, Yendi and Teckla, it takes place before all of them and could be read first. A must-read if you have the other three. -- Mary Anne Espenshade The Thief of Bagdad [***] Achmed Abdullah Donning/Starblaze, 1987, $12.95, 120pp. The first volume in the Starblaze Classics series of illustrated novels is an Arabian fantasy originally written in 1924 and long out of print. It is the novelization of the silent film of the same name and one of the earliest movie novelizations written. The prose style is like nothing you'll find now -- every sentence in a paragraph long, adjectives and adverbs travel in packs, never in less than groups of 10 -- flowery only just begins to describe it. But the story is great fun, fast paced with rambling breaks into the "historical" sources. For those interested in the fantasy of an earlier and decidedly different time and place. -- Mary Anne Espenshade To Sail Beyond the Sunset Robert A. Heinlein It is the 'history' of Lazarus Long's mother, Maureen, and how she grew up from the late 1800s into the 2100s. All the women are beautiful, their breasts don't ever droop (unless they want them to), they succumb to the scent of desire of the male anatomy (only hypocrisy drives them away, and no science fiction reader has hypocrisy, correct?) Some of the men get snotty over not having enough women in the ways they want them, but it is always brought on by the petty jealousy of a not-so beautiful woman (ie. Maureen divorced Lazarus' father due to another woman's desire for possession) or female lack of control (the two youngest children of Maureen and her first husband are emotionally twisted by the girl's absolute passion in bed for her brother, or if she can't get her brother, anything in pants.) This is another long 'talky' novel in which the narrator (ie. Maureen) tells the story for chapter upon chapter. Only in the first couple chapters and the last couple chapters do the framing incidents of time travel and Maureen's lust for her father win out. My suggestion would be go buy a selection of the Heinlein juveniles. Nothing he has written in the past ten years can better those. This is a male fantasy as the cardboard women just fall in bed with them. -- Joyce Scrivner Under the Mountain Maurice Gee Oxford University, 1979, $9.95 This is another children's book by this New Zealand author. The story concerns red-haired twins whose stay with relatives has legend woven into it. Theo and Rachel spend the book solving the problem. The setting is Auckland, which has a slight cultural difference to the US reader, and adds to the feeling of eerieness. I thought the children were slightly flat (like Coke that has grown lukewarm) as major characters, but the situation and their struggles are emotionally satisfying. -- Joyce Scrivner Walkabout Woman [****] Michaela Roessner This is a novel based on the Australian Aborigine idea of the Dreamtime, sort of a parallel reality to ours. It gives a feel for a very alien perception of the universe, and does it well. Part 1 (the first two- thirds of the book) describes the heroine's education about the Dreamtime, and how she is brutally cut off from it. This is by far the stronger section of the book, both because of the conflict of cultures (Aborigine versus white) and the conflicts within the tribe. Part 2 picks up the story a decade later, after Raba has been living in the white's world. The conflicts still exist, but are not as emotionally involving. Maybe the author overextended herself tackling bigger and bigger themes, or maybe the supporting characters were just less interesting. In spite of the somewhat weak ending, I do recommend this book highly. It is one of the best evocations of an alien culture I've read recently, and the culture really exists here on Earth. -- Chuck Koelbel Weaveworld Clive Barker Posideon, 1987, $24.95 This is being marketed both in the US and UK as the Clive Barker blockbuster. The book that will change him to a best seller like Stephen King. Well, I don't know how Stephen King got to be a blockbuster, but I doubt if this does it for Barker. It is a good, involving book, though. It is a long (584 pages), interwoven story about a fantastic land which resides along side the 'normal' everyday life you and I know so well (i.e. work, eat, work, eat, weekends off and back to work). The land had been protected from destruction by placing it into the rug and now enemies are coming close again. Suzanna, the granddaughter of the last guardian, fights hard to protect the land with Calhoun, who had seen and revealed the land by accident. They attempt to defend it from Immacolata and her stooge, Shadwell. Recommended as a well-constructed fantasy. For those who like horror, check out Barker's Books of Blood. -- Joyce Scrivner Who's Afraid of Beowulf? [***] Tom Holt St. Martin's, 206 pg. Tom Holt turns around Arthur C. Clarke's saying that any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. In this book, it takes a very advanced technology to duplicate the effects of magic. Hildy Frederiksen is an archaeologist who stumbles upon the find of her dreams, an intact Viking burial ship. However the ship is intact because it and its crew have been preserved by a magic spell. The spell is intended to be lifted when the Evil Sorcerer is once again ready to take over the world. That time is now. Willy-nilly, Hildy is caught up in the quest of 1200-year-old Vikings to find their ancient enemy who is quite real and running a worldwide conglomerate. The Vikings are not as helpless as Hildy first thinks. They know all about elevators and television. In fact, the magical versions they had were much better. Naturally they all wear enchanted armor which is totally bullet proof and wield magical swords that can slice through composite tank armor like it was so much cardboard. The book is very well done and is very humorous. Holt walks the line between satire and caricature and succeeds. His Vikings are simple but not simplistic. They are not the brutish killers of a Harry Harrison or Keith Laumer parody. Holt does some contrasting between Hildy's modern sensitivity and the Vikings casual attitude towards killing. Their leader, Hrolf Ketilsson, is an intelligent leader who quickly adapts to the modern world. In summary, a well-done humorous story. -- Danny Low With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony Del Rey, 1985, $3.95 This is the third of the unique Incarnations of Immortality series. People assume the guise of an incarnation to achieve an end they desire. The first two books concern death and time, this one is about fate. Each book is separate within itself, yet reveals aspects of a more complex story. Niobe takes on an aspect of fate when her lover is shot in a plot to kill her by Satan. She spends the remainder of the novel opposing other machinations against herself and her descendants. The resolution depends upon a test very much in the classical question-of-the-Sphinx tradition. -- Joyce Scrivner The Wizard in the Tree Lloyd Alexander Dell, 1975, $3.25 Lloyd Alexander is best known for his Prydain chronicle based on Welsh mythology, but I also enjoy his other children's books. This is the story of Mallory, a kitchen maid, who finds the wizard Arbican in an oak tree. She attempts to help him in his journey to Vale Innis, Land of Heart's Desire and is opposed by the greedy town squire and his henchmen. This is another of the charming-young-hero(ine) and helpful- older-wise(man) stories with morals and manners and pleasant writing, it is easy to read and forget. -- Joyce Scrivner Wizards Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles Waugh Signet, 1983, $3.50 An anthology of stories by science fiction's master writers. Jack Vance "Mazirain The Magician," L. Sprague de Camp's "The Eye of Tandyla," Ron Goulart's "Please Stand By" (in shades of humor) and Robert Howard "The People of the Black Circle" tell stories in their unique styles. Larry Niven's "What Good is a Glass Dagger" has long since become an oft- reprinted classic. Greg Bear has "The White Horse Child" which talks of one type of daily magic for the modern world. Ursula Le Guin's "Semley's Necklace" shows how technology can appear as magic to the less technical society. John Jake's "And the Monsters Walk" is now a rare item to be in print. Theodore Cogswell's "Wall Around the World" revels in human accomplishment. Manly Wade Wellman's "The Seeker in the Forest" talks about human weakness. A good collection of interesting work. -- Joyce Scrivner Wolf Moon [***-] Charles de Lint Signet 1988 252 pp, $3.50 0-451-15487-8 Fleeing a predatory magician/harper and his magical monster, Kern the shapechanger finds shelter at the Inn of the Yellow Tinker. Among the staff of the inn Kern finds acceptance, friendship, and eventually love. But to those pursuing him, Kern's death is not enough: they will twist all his happiness into tortured betrayal before striking the fatal blow, if they can. Will Kern's wolf powers and the loyalty of his friends stand up against evil magic? Here we have standard plot number 3-B, were-creature as inadvertent hero (see Andre Norton's Year Of The Unicorn, Clifford Simak's The Werewolf Principle among others). The setting is a standard pseudomedieval world. The writing is graceful but overdone, carefully explaining each minutest point, as if the reader cannot be trusted to figure out anything on his own. The strength of the book lies in its characters, who are pretty much standard issue fantasy characters, but are mostly fleshed out well enough to be plausible as people. Wolf Moon is, as diverting entertainment, a perfectly good read, though I would have liked it better if it had a little more faith in the reader. -- David M. Shea ------ End ------