Issue 15, May 1987 (part 1)

Electronic OtherRealms #15
May, 1987
Part 1

Table of Contents

Part 1

Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach

Darkchild-Bluesong-Starsilk
Barbara Jernigan

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels
Jim Day

The Regiment
Danny Low

The Adventures of Hajii Baba of Ispahan
Dave Taylor

A Door Into Ocean
Alan Wexelblat

With a Single Spell
Peter Rubinstein

Part 2

Things Received

Pico Reviews

Part 3

Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach

Terry Carr Dies

Back and Forth Across the Ghetto Walls, and Other Perigrinations
James Brunet

Editor's Notebook

Bureaucracy in Action

I suppose it had to happen eventually. I've had reports that some copies of #14 showed up with postage due. It was a small issue, and according to my scale under the limit, but some folks at the USPS evidently disagreed. Most copies seem to have come through unharmed, but if you were one of the ones who got caught, my humble apologies. If you can figure out a way of letting me know (without costing yourself more than the $.17 you had to tithe the PO) I'll make you whole -- say, at a con or at the bottom of that LOC you were going to write me.

Of course, the USPS isn't perfect. I sent six copies of #14 into Canada, and due to temporary brain malfunction put U.S. postage on them. Of the six, four came back for more postage, and there were two different values for postage due. And when they went back out with proper postage, one came back a second time, just for the hell of it. I guess I've been lucky to date, the Post Office hasn't done anything nasty to me, although my postman has occasionally threatened suicide when forced to put all that mail in that little tiny box. Keep up the good work! (I like getting mail...)

A Letter in My Mailbox

Speaking of getting mail, the lettercol seems to be dying off again. The Hugo argument has disappeared without a trace, and except for a few screwups on my part, I don't seem to hear from you folks much. There are pages just waiting for your thoughts to be shouted to the world. So why don't you folks write?

The rules for a LOC (Letter of Comment) are simple. You write it and mail it to me. If it gets published, you get a free copy of OtherRealms, and the masses see what you have to say. The only topic that isn't allowed in the Lettercol is glowing praise for me or my magazine (those I frame in the privacy of my own home, where nobody can see me blush).

The New Address

Please make sure that you use the new address in the masthead. By the time you see this, I won't be living in Sunnyvale anymore, and I don't want to confuse the postman any more than I have to. They are supposed to forward things, but right now I don't quite trust them...

Con Schedules

Just as a side thought, since I like meeting people interests, if you're going to be at a Con that I'm at, please feel free to track me down and say hello. My current schedule has me at Baycon and Westercon here in the S.F. Bay area, and I'm also planning on making the trip to Brighton for Worldcon. If you're going to be there, I'd love to hear about it so we can find time to sit and talk.

Coming Up

As we grind our way to going quarterly, you'll start seeing some changes in OtherRealms, change I hope all of you can help. Besides dedicating more space to the lettercol (hint! hint!) I'm starting to look for more feature material to supplement the reviews. I have articles on Historical Realism (by Harry Turtledove), Hard SF (by Jim Brunet) and Brian Aldiss (by Davis Tucker) but I need more. If you want to write an article on your favorite author, your favorite style of fiction, or just about anything you want that has to do with authors and books, please drop me a note about it. My hope is to eventually run about 25% feature material and 75% reviews. I'm also interested in doing a series of author or artist interviews, either new or reprints. If you are an author who is tired of answering the same questions over an over again, why not try this? Interview yourself!

I'm also looking for more art. My inventory is up (thank you!) but I still need a lot of smaller, filler type material and cover art. I hope to do my first cover art in the July issue in time for Westercon, and I have a nice piece from joan hanke-woods, last year's Hugo winner, to kick it off, but unless I get more covers, that will be the only cover I'll do. If you're an artist with some genre material, I'd really like to hear from you.

Until next month!

Darkchild -- Bluesong -- Starsilk

Sydney J. Van Scyoc

Berkley Science Fiction
[****+]

Reviewed by Barbara Jernigan
barb@oliveb.ATC.Olivetti.COM

Copyright 1987 by Barbara Jernigan

WARNING: slight spoiler, as the books do build upon each other.

One of the most common complaints against Fantasy and Science Fiction is that the alien cultures just aren't alien enough. Van Scyoc's books are above the crowd. The people of the planet Brakrath, human colonists stranded when their ship crashed, and thus isolated from the human mainstream for generations, keep step within an alien culture defined by both physical and social mutations to their less-than-hospitable world. It is a logical society with a rich history, with legend -- particularly when speaking of the barohnas, the stone-women who serve as living solar collectors, bringing warmth, light and a long enough growing season to the valley folk on the sun-starved world. The reader can believe in this world, in its people, with their culture as rich as any on real-time Earth. My only criticism, and this a point of personal prejudice, is that Van Scyoc is not quite sensual -- as in sensory details -- enough. A small quibble indeed, for she certainly provides enough fodder for complete imagery -- her brush- strokes are spare, like the best of the Chinese Zen painters.

All three books are "rites of passage," and the three taken together serve as an epic. Each is a complete tale -- though best read in order for the sense of history. They are also written in an interesting controlled point of view style. Chapters bear the headings of one of the characters -- Khira, Darkchild, Danior, Keva -- and follow that character in so tight a third-person that only a heartbeat shift would make it first-person perspective. Occasionally, the same scene will be retold from another character's point of view in the next chapter. It is refreshing to read so disciplined an author.

Darkchild has three protagonists, Khira, last surviving palace daughter of the Valley Terlath, Darkchild, the curious boy she finds midwinter, a stranger to Brakrath, and the Guide, an entity embedded in Darkchild's consciousness with the command to protect the boy, and keep him learning. For Darkchild, we immediately discover, is an information gathering tool of the Benderzic ("Who could refuse or distrust a child? And who, but a child, is most able to learn a very great deal in a very short time?"). The Benderzic then reclaim their unsuspecting information gatherers and drain their memories selling knowledge the target worlds' treasures -- and fatal weaknesses -- to the highest bidder.

Darkchild has no memory when Khira finds him, crouched in the snow; he is a blank slate, obedient to the control of the Guide, the Guide who controls the mental doors leading to Darkchild's true identity and to memories the boy best not see for the pain they would bring. Khira is also Darkchild's protector -- and Darkchild is her protection from a winter of loneliness. For in the valleys of Brakrath, all but the palace daughters -- barohnas never bear sons to term -- hibernate the deep-snow winters, while their barohnas await the return of the sun in their winter palaces, high in the mountains. Khira was alone, for her sister had failed in her challenge that summer, the ritual of facing and slaying a dangerous beast in the mountains, an act that would bring the sudden mutation from frail human adolescent to tall, strong featured, bronze-skinned, sun-stone commanding (among other things) barohna. Failing her challenge, the palace daughter never returned, and the legends of the people said her soul became a bird....

Khira befriends Darkchild, and teaches him the ways of Brakrath. He is a quick study, though he feels she doesn't appreciate just how quick he is. She does appreciate, with no small annoyance, that there is more than just Darkchild in the dark-haired waif. There is another. And the other is not her friend -- nor, she senses, is he Darkchild's. Plus there is the warning of the Armini, another information gathering race, who are surveying Brakrath with the Council [of barohnas]'s permission. They inform Khira of Darkchild's Benderzic connections, and, worse to them, that he is a Rauthimage, a clone among hundreds of clones, created without permission from explorer Birnam Rauth. The explorer is a mystery, disappeared centuries ago, his call for help repeating in the song of a strange alien white silk.

Darkchild tells of Khira's coming of age -- and that of Darkchild and his Guide. Each has a challenge -- like any adolescent, that of finding themselves. Khira and Darkchild meet that challenge against the tapestry of a very strange, and quite intriguing world.

Bluesong takes up the thread twenty years later. Darkchild has been reborn as Iahn, and is the barohna Khira's consort. They have several children, one is a boy, Danior. Danior, at least in his own eyes, is a nonentity. There is no place but civil courtesy for a palace son, for there has never been a palace son. There is no tradition to guide his steps, as there is for his sisters -- even though his sisters' tradition will likely get them killed when they challenge. He bitterly bears this lack of place as an albatross around his neck. He must make a legend for himself -- as his father made a legend for himself. But what? He has no direction, nothing but simple-minded, shorter-lived adolescent impulses. Until he takes a pairing stone into his hand and it glows with life -- a pairing stone, which should answer only to a barohna, and then only if another barohna has the stone's mate. The barohna that should have the other stone is dead, her consort, Iahn's Rauthimage "brother" Jhaviir and their young daughter long disappeared. Danior's destiny glows in his hand, and his first impulse is to throw it from him. He at last decides to go to his great-great grandmother in the plains, hoping to find wisdom in her uncanny understanding.

Keva is the other player in Bluesong's saga of growing up. She has dreams of a bearded, dark haired man riding a whitemane and a blue silk that sings a voiceless song in the wind. Just dreams, she is told by her foster mother, a member of the isolated, antagonistically suspicious fisher- people, who live by the warmstreams without need of the evil, power- hungry barohnas, who drew the sun's fire as easily as one might draw water from the warmstream...and used that fire to destroy all who would stand against them, enslaving the rest. She reluctantly accedes to this, though the dreams constantly haunt her like insistent memory, until she finds evidence in her foster mother's effects to the contrary: a thin strip of blue silk and a stone, set as if for a necklace. Knowing the truth, that she was stolen from her wandering, nameless father, Keva leaves the warmstreams to seek him. She is woefully ignorant of life beyond the warmstreams -- and, worse, has been trained to distrust, even hate the enslaving barohnas of the mountains. This becomes great trouble when she unwittingly meets her challenge, in a moment of protective adrenaline taking "stone into her heart" and transmorphing in a space of heartbeats (no surprise to the reader) into a barohna. Now her quest is two-fold, to find her father, and to learn to accept, and then master, her considerable powers -- powers that seem to wield themselves.

Danior finds her, recognizing her instantly as his cousin, nay, as his Rauthsister -- for their Rauthimage fathers are genetically identical. Here is a kindred spirit, he decides, one who can share his quest for identity. She also holds the other pairing stone.

Keva understands nothing of this -- she wants only to find her father, he can explain this unwelcome change. If he is not in the valleys or the plains, then perhaps the desert. She slips away, trodding ignorantly into greater danger. Danior, of course, follows -- and together they find themselves, and their destinies, their legend, in a delightfully unexpected way.

Finally, there is Starsilk. Starsilk strays from the boy-girl formula of the first two books, focussing instead on Reyna, Iahn and Khira's youngest daughter, and Tsuuka, a cat-like sithi residing on the planet of the singing silks. When the book opens Reyna thinks she has a place, unlike her brother Danior in the preceding book. Her two older sisters have failed their challenges, her father, after an apparent quarrel with her mother, has left to visit his brother in the desert, his return date disturbingly indefinite. Reyna cannot bear the loneliness. She knows, at fifteen, she is past her majority, past her time -- and is driven, greatly by fear of failure, to train for her challenge. But she is not to go, her mother says with the backing of an Armini gauge. Even if she were to kill her beast, she would not change, she did not have the brain mutation that would transform her into a barohna, she would die, if not by the first beast then by the next she would undoubtedly seek, and her death would have no meaning. So what could she do? Remain forever a palace child? Already quickening in her mother's womb is the daughter that will, according to the Armini scanner, succeed her; a daughter fathered by a stranger, as was typical barohna custom, the white-haired hunter Juaren. Reyna, then, was nothing. She had no place. The heiress to the sun throne would be born before the next spring. Well then, Reyna decides, she will face her challenge anyway, death preferable to a life trapped in a child's body. But that is not Reyna's destiny. True, she was not born to be a barohna, but she can meet another challenge, that of finding her grandfather, Birnam Rauth, whose distress call is recorded on the white silk. Her brother Danior has seen visions in the silks' songs, the Armini know the home-planet of the silks. It is there Reyna must look, her challenge is to be the first Brakrathi to leave the planet. Her challenge and Juaren's. Who has a promise of his own to fulfill.

Tsuuka, meanwhile, has her own troubles, born of nightmare and memory. Her bowersibling, Maiilin, was stolen from her when they were but weanlings, transformed, mysteriously, into a mindless growler by something she should not have seen in the heart of the forest, where no sithi should ever go. Tsuuka blames Maiilin's loss on herself, for she was too timid to stay by her side in her recklessness. And now, Tsuuka's favorite cub, Dariim, the very image of Maiilin, is drawn into the forbidden depths of the wood, called by an angry red starsilk she has claimed for her own. Can Tsuuka bear to let history repeat itself? And what of her own questions? What is it that the sithi should not know? Who is the Unseen? What is the truth of the singing silks? And who are the strange beings who now walk her planet with their own quest? Are they her enemies? The Unseen's? What waits in the dark groves of the forest's heart?

Together, Reyna and Tsuuka find their answers -- and in that answer Brakrath's own challenge is discovered. In the words of Juaren, the last of the hunters who knows his true sworn task, that of protector, the enemies of Brakrath must be discovered, studied, and understood, and the protector must then wake the people. Brakrath has long lingered in ignorant isolation. But, with the growing interest of outside races, the studious Armini, the opportunistic Benderzic, it is time for Brakrath to wake.

Three quests of discovery, three rites of passage, and the birth of a world's awareness to the galaxies beyond its dim star. Van Scyoc creates in detail the cultures of two worlds, one the human outgrowth of generations of adapting to a hostile planet, the other completely alien -- and very believable. Plus glimpses of many more. Her universe is that of splintered humanity, First Earth but a distant memory. It is a rich tapestry, a real tapestry, exceedingly well wrought. Van Scyoc understands human nature. Her protagonists are fully human, they have hopes, fears, doubts, shortcomings, and surprising (to them) inner strengths -- and they, like the worlds they inhabit, are real. This trilogy has placed itself in my top- ten. Go read!

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels

David Pringle

224 pages, 1985, $15.95 hardcover
Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.
[***]

Reviewed by
Jim Day
JimDay.Pasa@Xerox.Com

Copyright 1987 by Jim Day

David Pringle is well known to readers of British Science Fiction as editor of Interzone, the only SF magazine currently being published in Britain. He also edits Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, published three times a year.

Following a foreword by Michael Moorcock is an introduction in which Pringle gives a short account of the development of SF as a distinct form of fantastic fiction. Next is a very brief bibliography of reference works dealing with science fiction. Although useful, the list is far from complete.

The main part of the book consists of a series of essays arranged in chronological order from 1949 to 1984. Each essay discusses the merits of a book selected by Pringle as an outstanding example of the SF novels of its time. Are all of these books truly outstanding? Pringle admits that not more than a dozen could really be considered literary masterpieces, and he explains that his purpose is not to tout these novels as great literature but to encourage people to read good SF.

To provide some indication of Pringle's critical judgement it may be useful to mention the first book chosen by him from each decade of SF.

The first of these is George Orwell's 1984, published in 1949, a story about life in the future totalitarian state of Oceania. Pringle notes that the book is really not so much a prediction of things to come as it is an exaggerated view of the way things actually were in the forties.

The first book from the Fifties to be discussed by Pringle is Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, a colorful collection of stories about human exploration and exploitation of the planet Mars. According to Pringle, Bradbury ignored consensus views on how SF should be written and used the motifs of science fiction to achieve his own literary ends, often slighting technical detail and scientific plausibility to express a particular style or mood. Pringle's favorite story from Bradbury's book is "And The Moon Be Still As Bright."

The first novel selected from the Sixties is Rogue Moon, by Algis Budrys, a story in which human volunteers travel to the Moon via matter transmission. Their task is to map a deadly lunar maze constructed by an unknown alien race. Pringle explains that the primary emphasis of this novel is on psychology rather than technology, exploring the ultimate limits of human endurance.

The first novel from the Seventies is Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson, the story of a starship bound for a planet some 30 light-years away. An accident occurs in which the ship's deceleration system is destroyed, causing it to accelerate inexorably toward light-speed. Pringle says, "The consequences, for the ship's crew and for the fabric of reality, are ingeniously worked out -- mind boggling seems much too mild a term to describe them."

The first novel selected by Pringle from the present decade is Timescape by Gregory Benford, a story in which a small group of scientists tries to avert a global disaster by sending a warning message 35 years into the past. Pringle comments that "... the very difficulties of the enterprise, the stubbornness of actuality against which the characters are continually bruising their heads, make this the most convincing example of time travel in all science fiction."

Although I have not read all of the novels discussed in Pringle's essays, I tend to agree with his evaluation of those that I have read, and believe that he has succeeded quite well in outlining, by example, the development of SF over a span of 35 years.

The book provides information about first and current editions of each novel discussed, and also includes an alphabetic index of names and titles.

The Regiment

John Dalmas

Baen Books, $3.50, 404 pages
[***]

Reviewed by
Danny Low
hplabs!hpccc!dlow
Copyright 1987 by Danny Low

While the book has enough military action to satisfy those who like military SF, the military action is only half of the book. I could not identify a single original story element in this book. On the other, Dalmas has put together a tasty and unique stew of a SF story using old SF plot ideas and devices.

The main character, Varlik 681 Lormagen, is a journalist assigned to cover what appears to be a minor local uprising on the planet Kettle. He quickly discovers that the minor rebellion is a full scale uprising by a well trained, well equipped and well led native army with outside support. The government is using T'swa mercenaries in an attempt to defeat the rebels. Varlik attaches himself to the Red Scorpion T'swa Regiment. His adventures with the regiment forms the first half of the story. Varlik discovers the T'swi soldiers are finely cultured which does not fit into his image of professional soldiers. Wounded, Varlik decides to visit the T'swi's home planet while recuperating. This begins the second half of the book. He learns something of the T'swi culture and the plot that is behind the rebellion on Kettle. The trail of the plotters leads back to the capital and some very high government officials. The characterization is adequate. The description of military routine and action is realistic. The plot is reasonable. The only serious flaw is that the nature of the plot is obvious from the very beginning to an experienced SF reader.

The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan

James Morier

Originally published in 1824
Oxford University Press edition of 1954
[*****]

Reviewed by
Dave Taylor
hplabs!taylor
Copyright 1987 by Dave Taylor

Fantasy is a genre that has been around for a long time. The roots are the oral histories of ancient civilizations and the moral lessons of cultures (Aesop's fables, for example). A particular geographic region also occasionally creates a type of story, and the Mysterious Middle East before and during the initial British colonization efforts was a fertile ground for exciting Fantasy.

The most famous of these tales is The Arabian Nights, the premise of which is that the wily princess Scheherazade foils her husbands plot to kill her by spinning out a new tale each night to avoid her execution. Another popular tale of this genre is the magic lamp/three wishes story -- Aladdin and his Magic Lamp is popular to all, as is another tale Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

Most of those don't really impart much of a feel of the culture and civilization that they take place in. The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan is quite different. It is a tale of a scoundrel, Hajji Baba, who wanders about Persia getting into and out of scrapes with deftness, wit, and the occasional beating.

The story begins with our hero being educated by his parents, and his learning about the "ways of the world." He decides to travel, rather than simply take up his father's trade, and is almost immediately kidnapped by the vicious Turcomans, who make a slave boy out of him.

Fortunately, Hajji has learned enough from his father to be able to give very good shaves, and he manages to get out of this particular scrape okay. Of course, he becomes a thief, stealing the Turcoman money. Then he finds himself in the position of having to steal back into his home city and rob it with a band of cut-throats.

Hajji manages to find quite a bit of adventure, and a fair sprinkling of love and friendship, and grow from boyhood into manhood. As the reader, we are not only allowed to know of Hajji, but we are also given a fun, colorful tour of Persia in the early 1800's.

To give you an idea of how fun this book is, here's an excerpt from where Hajji describes to his doctor associate (don't ask how he became an assistant to a doctor!) how the Shah of Persia took the medicine of a Western (Frank) doctor:

When once he had got possession, he looked at it with intense eagerness, and turned it over and over on his palm, without appearing one whit more advanced in his knowledge than before. At length, after permitting him fully to exhaust his conjectures, I told him that the Frank doctor had made no secret in saying that it [the pill] was composed of jivch, or mercury. "Mercury!" exclaimed Mirza Ahmak -- "just as if I did not know that. And so, because this infidel, this dog of an Isauvi [follower of Jesus], chooses to poison us with mercury, I am to lose my reputation, and my prescriptions are to be turned into ridicule. Whoever heard of mercury as a medicine? Mercury is cold, and lettuce and cucumber are cold also. You would not apply ice to dissolve ice? The ass does not know the first rudiments of his profession. No, Hajji, this will never do; we must not permit our beards to be laughed at in this manner."

Suffice to say that this is one of my all-time favorite books, one that I have read at least five times since I got it. It's wonderful, lots and lots of fun, and highly amusing. It's also a fine glimpse of a very different culture and of how the Persians first viewed and treated the strange beardless Westerners. Very highly recommended.

A Door into Ocean

Joan Slonczewski

Avon, 406 pp, 1986, $3.95
[***]

Reviewed by
Alan Wexelblat
wex@mcc.Com
Copyright 1987 by Alan Wexelblat

How does a reviewer go about disagreeing with the New York Times Book Review? That august publication has said of A Door Into Ocean that "you not only know the protagonists intimately, you care passionately about the outcome." I'm sorry to say that, for this reviewer, it just wasn't so.

A four-hundred-page novel has to be fairly spectacular for me to become passionate about it. Door is not spectacular. It has its good moments and its bad. Slonczewski has obviously put a great deal of time and effort into developing this work. The characters are three-dimensional, with histories and futures. Even the minor characters are drawn in painstaking detail. The world they live in is also well-drawn; taken as a whole, it hangs together well.

However, in four hundred pages, there is room for a lot of mistakes; some of the goofs here are real whoppers. Some have to with not thinking out the full consequences of the setting; others are as simple as allowing a character to use the word hassle the way we 20th-century Americans do. These mistakes crop up just often enough to play havoc with the reader's suspension of disbelief.

A Door Into Ocean is the story of the clash of two cultures. This clash is shown through the eyes of protagonists who travel from one culture to the other. Slonczewski goes to great lengths to create aliens who are truly alien. The cultures are well-developed, with rich backgrounds and an abundance of detail. At times this becomes oppressive; Slonczewski has a tendency to use the unusualness of her setting as a club with which she bashes her readers. Despite the length of the book, we are never given the chance to slip into the culture. Either we understand immediately or we are lost from the start.

The novel is set in a far-distant future in which the watery moon Shora circles the planet Valedon. Each planet has human-descended inhabitants. They are physically distinct, though, because the natives of Shora have developed adaptations that allow them to survive better in an ocean/island environment.

Valedon is an ordinary world. Post-holocaust in nature, the majority of the people live at a low technological level. Atomic energy is known but forbidden by the feudalistic overlords. The people live as traders, small merchants, soldiers and peasants. The upper classes monopolize the high- technology items that are available and control the world's spaceport. Valedonian society is organized around stone: each person must wear a stone indicating his or her profession; most of the names of people and places are derived from mineral names.

Shora, on the other hand, is anything but ordinary. It is populated exclusively by females. They live on and in giant sea-plants that serve as rafts, homes, food sources and more. They have developed an advanced biological and genetic science that allows them to reproduce and live in perfect harmony with their world. Their culture is peacefully anarchic -- decisions are made by Gatherings of all adults. They also follow the doctrine of non-violence that we associate with Ghandi (although the author never credits him).

Spinel, a native of Valedon, is the male lead of the story. He is brought to Shora by Merwen, an influential Shoran who wishes to use him to prove to her sisters that Valedonians are human. Valedonians wish to trade with Shora to obtain the valuable sea-silk that the Shorans harvest and spin into fabrics. However, many Shorans oppose the use of the items that the Valedonians trade. Also, some Shorans suffer from a debilitating psychological addiction to the gems that the traders bring. A debate ensues whether to close the planet and expel the Valedonians.

In the midst of this, the rulers of Valedon invade Shora. They set about conquering the planet. The Shoran's non-violence sets up a situation wherein we find out what happens if they held a war and one side didn't show up.

While Slonczewski handles both plot and characters with reasonable skill, the thing that most alienated me from this book was the subtext. Door is clearly intended as a metaphor for our 20th-century American society, with Valedon representing the authoritarian, nasty, destructive, warlike males and Shora the anarchic, kind, peaceful females. We are shown how men mess things up and how only women can understand and harmonize with the world we live in. Some people may like the message; I found it simplistic and vaguely insulting.

With a Single Spell

Lawrence Watt-Evans

Del Rey, 263 pages, $3.50
[***]

Reviewed by
Peter Rubinstein
Copyright 1987 by Peter Rubinstein

In With a Single Spell, Lawrence Watt-Evans tries his hand at a common story line. The plot line of young innocent being forced to rely on his own resources, coming of age and growing to adulthood should be familiar to everyone. How the author sets the situation, develops the characters, and injects unique elements into the story determine how entertaining the novel will be.

The protagonist, Tobas, begins as a spoiled, lazy rich kid who resists being forced into the cold cruel world once by tricking an aging wizard into accepting him as an apprentice. When Roggit, the wizard, dies after teaching Tobas but a single spell, Tobas is finally forced to leave his sheltered environment and seek his fortune elsewhere. He is then faced with a series of trials that he must negotiate successfully using his wits and his one spell.

As I read this novel, I found myself waiting for Tobas to acquire more spells, enabling him to deal with his problems. The author manages to remain faithful to his original premise, however, while still allowing a gratifying development of increased power for the reader identifying with Tobas.

Evaluating this book according to the criteria presented above, I would say that the situation is set reasonably well. Watt-Evans provides ample opportunity for the reader to identify with Tobas. The story continues plausibly enough after the stage has been set and Tobas starts out on his adventures. One of my few complaints is that the author has rigged things to make Tobas' biggest obstacle susceptible to his single spell.

In the area of character development, the story is a bit weaker. The initial layout of Tobas character is adequate, but as the story progresses, little is done to add to the reader's insight into his personality. I received the impression at the end that Tobas was still essentially a child. Additionally, there is little done to establish more than one dimension in any of the secondary characters.

Finally, there is the injection of unique elements into the plot. Here Watt-Evans has done a much better job. The concept of Tobas facing his obstacles with a single spell is maintained effectively. The plot twists that advance the story and the punch line (punch chapter?) are both well done.

The book is sufficiently entertaining to be recommended, although readers who enjoy complexity in their reading may come away disappointed.

OtherRealms #15
May, 1987

Copyright 1987
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 be reproduced in its entirety only
for non-commercial purposes. With the exception of
excerpts used for promotional purposes, no part of
OtherRealms may be re-published without permission.

Issue 15, May 1987 (part 2)

Electronic OtherRealms #15
May, 1987
Part 2

Things Received

[editorial note: starting this month, Books Received is renamed and expanded because I'm starting to get a constant flow of Small Press magazines, fanzines, and other material that doesn't really fit under the term book but still ought to be mentioned. I'll find time to review the best of the stuff down the road as time and space permits.Also, I'm going to start printing information on how to contact some of the Bulletin Board Systems that carry SF related material. Note that to access them you'll need a computer and a modem -- chuq]

Books

Ace Fantasy

Brust, Steven. Brokedown Palace, 270 pages, 1986, $2.95.

Brust, Steven. Teckla, 214 pages, January, 1987, $2.95.

Brust, Steven. To Reign in Hell, 269 pages, 1984, $2.95.

Brust, Steven. Yendi, 209 pages, 1984, $2.95.

Avon Science Fiction

Noel, Atanielle Annyn. Murder on Usher's Planet, 181 pages, April,
1987, $2.95.

Silverberg, Robert. Nightwings, 190 pages, $3.50. Reprint of a 1969 novel.

Zelazny, Roger. Unicorn Variations, 249 pages, $3.50. Reprint of a
1983 collection.

Bantam

Innes, Evan. City in the Mist, 374 pages, April, 1987, $3.95. Volume 3
in the America 2040 series.

Martin, George R.R. Wild Cards II: Aces High, 390 pages, April, 1987, $3.95.

Monoco, Richard. Unto the Beast, 473 pages, April, 1987, $3.95.

Fandom
Unlimited Enterprises

Larson, Randall. The Complete Robert Bloch, 126 pages, $10.00.
Limited edition (1000 copy) paperback that is an extensive
bibliography of the writings of Robert Bloch including Film,
TV, Movie and Fanzine material. Available from P.O. Box 70868,
Sunnyvale, CA. 94086.

Franklin Watts

Aldiss, Brian. The Year Before Yesterday, 256 pages, April, 1987, $16.95.

Bester, Alfred. The Stars My Destination, 197 pages, April, 1987,
$15.95. A new hardcover edition of the 1956 Hugo winning novel.

Koman, Victor. The Jehovah Contract, 277 pages, $16.95 hardcover, April, 1987.

Ocean View Press
P.O. Box 4148
Mountain View, CA. 94040

Boston, Bruce. Alchemical Texts, 16 pages, $3.00. Poetry Chapbook.

Richardson & Steirman

Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. The Time Wanderers, 213 pages, March,
1987, $16.95. Translated from the Russian language by Antonina
W. Bouis. This is a Russian SF novel by, according to the
liner notes, two of the best authors in Russia.

Signet

Adams, Robert. Friends of the Horseclans, 284 pages, April, 1987,
$3.50. Anthology of stories in the Horseclans universe by
different writers.

McKiernan, Dennis L. Trek To Kraccen-Cor, 251 pages, April, 1987,
$2.95. Book one of the Silver Call duology.

Tor
Adventure

Morris, Jim. Spurlock: Sheriff of Purgatory, 320 pages, April, 1987, $3.95

Tor
Fantasy

Douglas, Carole Nelson. Keepers of Edanvant, 346 pages, May, 1987,
$15.95 hardcover. Sword and Circlet #1.

Moran, Daniel. Keys to Paradise Book 1: The Flame Key, 222 pages,
April, 1987, $2.95.

Roberts, John Maddox. Conan the Champion, 280 pages, April, 1987,
$3.50. First publication of this story. Includes chronology
of Conan stories and afterword by L. Sprague de Camp.

Tor
Horror

Armstrong, F. W. The Devouring, 284 pages, April, 1987, $3.95.

Farris, John. Nightfall, 311 pages, April, 1987, $3.95.

Sarrantonio, Al. The Boy with Penny Eyes, 278 pages, April, 1987, $3.50.

Tor
Science Fiction

Dalmas, John. The Yngling, 254 pages, $2.95. Reprint of a 1971 book.

Dickson, Gordon R. The Man From Earth, 288 pages, $2.95. Reprint of
a 1983 book.

Leiber, Justin. Beyond Humanity, 254 pages, April, 1987, $2.95.

Norton, Andre. Flight in Yktor, 251 pages, April, 1987, $2.95.

Williams, Walter Jon. Hardwired, 343 pages, April, 1987, $3.50.

Velocities
Andrew Joron
P.O. Box 5293
Berkeley, CA 94705

Boston, Bruce. All the Clocks are Melting, 38 pages, $3.00, 1984. Part
of the Velocities Chapbook series. Science Fiction Poetry.

Fan and
Other Zines

Controversy in Review #16. Richard Geis, P.O. Box 11408, Portland, OR
97211. Bi-monthly. 6/$9.00. Part reviewzine, part
personalzine, covers SF and whatever catches Geis' eye in the
new. Reincarnation of Science Fiction Review and The Naked Id.

Fantasy Review #98. Robert A. Collins, College of Humanities, Florida
Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, 33431. Monthly.
$27.95/year. Fantasy oriented semi-pro news and review magazine.

File 770 #65. Mike Glyer, 5828 Woodman Ave. #2, Van Nuys, CA 91401.
Irregular. 5/$4.00. Newszine for fandom. Glyer won last years
Hugo for best Fan Writer.

Grue Magazine #4. Peggy Nadramia, Hell's Kitchen Productions, P.O. Box
370, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108. $4.00, 3 issues
$11.00. Small Press Horror Fiction, lots of good art.

The Insider #129. St. Louis Science Fiction Society, P.O. Box 1058, St.
Louis, MO 63188. 16 page monthly newsletter for the SLSFS.

Lan's Lantern #22. George "Lan" Laskowski, 55 Valley Way, Bloomfield MI
48013. Irregular. Trade, articles, art, or $2.00/issue. Won
the Hugo for best Fanzine last year.

Ouroboros #5. Erskine Carter, P.O. Box 141, Mansfield Depot, CT
06251. $2.50. Small Press Horror Fiction.

Pandora. P.O. Box 625, Murray, KY 42071-0625. Irregular. $10/4 issues.
Small press innovative fiction magazine.

Scavenger's Newsletter #38. Janet Fox, 519 Ellinwood, Osage City, KS
66523. Monthly. $8.00/year.

Science Fiction Chronicle #91. Andrew Porter, Algol Press, P.O. Box
4175, New York, NY 10163-4175. Monthly. #23.40/year. Semi-pro
newsletter of information about SF, Fantasy, conventions,
publishing notes, and other things.

Short Form #1. Orson Scott Card, P.O. Box 18184, Greensboro, NC,
27419-8184. Quarterly. $12.00/year. Short Form is a
reviewzine of short fiction, and is attempting to cover
everything shorter than a novel published. Includes Card's You
Got No Friends in this World column from Science Fiction Review
as well as columnists Jane Yolen, Charles de Lint, Maia Cowan,
and Gloria Wall. The first issue is 60 pages of very small
type, hard to read but well worth doing so.

Twilight Zine #38. Janice M. Eisen, MITSFS, Room W20-473, 80
Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139. 4 times a decade
(decade defined as the time it takes to do four issues).
Trades, submissions, or because they like you. House organ of
the MIT Science Fiction Society.

Science Fiction BBSes

FSFNET.CSDAVE@MAINE.BITNET. Irregular. Available on BITNET, ARPA, CSNET
and UUCP networks. Experimental electronic fiction magazine.

P-1 Fido. Mike Bader, SYSOP. 313-545-1931. 300/1200/2400. 24
hours. SF Conference.

Terraboard. David Dyer-Bennet, SYSOP. 612-721-8967. 300/1200/2400. 24
hours. SF, Writers conferences. I hang out here (meaning well
run & highly recommended).

Pico Reviews

Amo, Amas, Amat and More        by Eugene Ehrlich       [***]
        Perennial Library, $7.95

This is a dictionary of Latin phrases, useful for someone looking for an exotic sounding comments to spice up your conversation (and confuse your friends). Cute, not terribly useful unless you're a writer, but unless you collect dictionaries, probably not going to make it onto your buy list.

-- chuq von rospach

Anthonology     by Piers Anthony        [**+]
        Tor, 1985, 381 pp, $14.95

Anthonology is a collection of short stories by Piers Anthony from his
early days as an author. Most of them have seen print before. The
stories range over a wide area of topics, both Fantasy and Science
Fiction, and vary in quality, though most are rather good. One warning
when reading this book, a number of the stories could be offensive or
upsetting to sensitive readers. Piers Anthony warns people very nicely
in his introduction to each story if he feels that it may offend
people, so heed his warnings or don't complain.
--Jim Winner
winner@cua.bitnet

Bard    by Morgan Llywelyn      [**]
        Tor Fiction, $4.50, 461pp, 1984

This is an overlong story of the settling of Ireland by the Celts. This
book appears to have been originally marketed as historical fiction,
and was resurrected to feed the current 'Celtic craze.' The characters
on the cover don't even meet each other until the book is 90% through,
and then only briefly. I kept waiting for something to happen; it took
over half the book to get the characters on the boat to Ireland, and
more chapters until they actually landed. The book is more accurately a
historical fiction about the lives of the Gaelician Celts than a
historical fantasy about Ireland.
-- Laurie Sefton
lsefton@sun.com

Beyond Sanctuary        by Janet Morris [***+]
        Ace Fantasy $3.75 Canada

I have never read a Thieves' World book before but I gather this one
sums the whole thing up anyway. The whole things opens in Sanctuary
(described in words my mother doesn't know) where a plot to overrun the
Rankan empire is uncovered. The hero(?) Tempus and his personal army
would not be too upset by this except that they are slated for
slaughter to prepare the way. Roxane, a witch of great evil and amazing
silliness, botches the elimination of Tempus but butchers enough people
to get herself in hot water. Good vanquishes over evil which is not
normal for Thieves' World I gather. I loved it.
--Richard Loken
ihnp4!alberta!auvax!tech

Blood Hunt      by Lee Killough [***]
        Tor Horror, $3.95, 319pp, 1987

I've always been a fan of the "vampire-detective" genre, and this book is a solid example of it. Blood Hunt follows the standard plot; detective gets bitten, detective becomes vampire, detective hunts down vampire who did it to him. Killough manages to vary the vampire lore to allow Garreth Mikaelian, the detective, to work within "normal" society, while still allowing him to stand apart. Garreth undergoes a lot of character development, at times to the detriment of the plot. Unfortunately, this book is burdened by a terrible cover; the standard large breasted female vampire has tan lines.

-- Laurie Sefton

Borderland      created by Terri Windling & Mark Alan Arnold    [***]
        Signet, 252 pages, $2.95

The second volume in the shared world anthology series started by Bordertown. This volume is full of good stories, but doesn't have the intensity of the first volume. If you liked Bordertown, you'll want to read this book, but otherwise, probably not.

-- chuq von rospach

City Of Sorcery by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [**]
        DAW, 1984, 423 pages

Continues Magda and Jaelle's story after Thendara House, but doesn't
really finish it, leaving unresolved questions at the end for yet another
sequel. Darkovans and Terrans are working together more at this time
than at any other. A Terran pilot claims to have seen a city beyond the "Wall
Around the World", an impassible mountain range, and sets out to find it
with Rafaella as her guide. Magda and Jaella lead a party trying to bring
them back. The city is the home of the Sisterhood of the Wise, who are
opposed by the Dark Sisterhood, but you never really find out what either
of those groups are or what there power is over Darkover. The recent
Darkover books keep getting longer while containing less and less plot.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Cyborg and the Sorcerers    by Lawrence Watt-Evans  [***-]
        Del Rey paperback 1982

The Cyborg and the Sorcerers is "Space Opera meets Fantasy in the
Aftermath"; fortunately, that's not as bad as it sounds. A cyberneticized
human (termed Slant) and his computer are scouts for Old Earth in the
revolution of the space colonies. Despite the fact that Earth lost the war
three hundred years ago, the computer is programmed to blow the Slant
up should he attempt to "fraternize with the enemy" until such time as it
receives a release code. Of course, the computer defines any colonial
inhabitant as an enemy, especially the wizards who seem to have developed
a "new weapon" that might be used against Earth. The focus is on the
relationship between Slant and the computer, and the problems that arise;
therefore, the descriptions are sometimes lengthy, but they do manage not
to be too intrusive.
--Lisa Besnett
hi-csc!slocum@UMN-CS.ARPA

Darkover Landfall       by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, 1972, 160 pages

This book is the first Darkover story chronologically, though written
about 10 years after MZB began publishing Darkover novels. It tells of
the 200 survivors of a 21st century Earth Colony Expedition Force ship
that crashes on an uncharted planet. The main families seen later in
the books have their origins in a small group of Gaelic speaking Scots
who have preserved their old Earth culture and the few surviving
members of the crew and technological advisors. They must adapt to the
harsh planet as attempts to preserve technology and knowledge fail.
They meet and learn from one indiginous race - the Chieri. A basic
stranded colony story, it sets up a necessary foundation for the rest
of the series. A good place to start if you are new to Darkover, though
very different from the rest of the books.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Enterprise      by Vonda McIntyre       [*]
        Pocket, $3.95, 1986, 371 pages

This could have made a good story set in a original universe and an even
better one set in the Star Wars universe (Corellians are mentioned in
passing), but even I don't have enough suspension of disbelief to take this
as a part of the Star Trek universe. It took all my self control not to throw
the book out in disgust before I got 100 pages into it. Not only does the
author get trivia-type details wrong, (which may be understandable but
doesn't anybody edit these books?) but the whole tone is just right for Star
Wars and totally out of character for Star Trek. I've liked McIntyre's other
Trek work and I don't expect continuity between Trek novels, but I do
expect them not to contradict known background too completely. The only
thing saving it one star is the nice presentation of a very alien culture. If
she had kept the story to just the first contact part that makes up the last
quarter of the book, it would have gotten a much higher rating from me.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Forbidden Tower     by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, 1977, 364 pages

Continues the story of Andrew Carr and the Darkovan family he has
joined. Much detail on laran powers and how they are used in and out of
the towers is included. The towers' power over Darkover is diminishing as
fewer Comyn psi powers remain in each new generation. This is mainly a
love story set in a very alien culture.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Friends of the Horseclans       edited by Robert and Pamela Adams       [***+]
        Signet Books, 284 pages, $3.50

Not just for Horseclans fans, this is an anthology of 12 stories by authors such as Andre Norton, George Alec Effinger, Joel Rosenberg, Steven Barnes and John F. Carr. All of the stories are set in the Horseclans universe, making this sort of a shared world anthology.

-- chuq von rospach

Gloriana        by Michael Moorcock     [**]
        Popular Library, $3.95, 1978, 378 pages

In a word -- boring, though it picks up a little for the last 100 pages,
which saved it from one star. I usually like Moorcock and since this is an
alternate universe fantasy version of the court of Elizabeth I, I was
predisposed to like it. Unfortunately, he never uses 2 words where 25 can
be substituted, resulting in a book that is overblown, over-long and under-
interesting. Some parts may offend but even the implied sex in this book
doesn't liven it up.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Hawkmistress    by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, 1982, 336 pages

Later in the Ages of Chaos, during the time of the "Hundred Kingdoms,"
this is the story of Romilly, a young girl who inherits the MacAran laran to
relate to animals. She runs away from her family, who will not acknowledge
her powers because she is female. She would use her talent to heal and
protect animals but finally must use it to bring an end to one of the inter-
family wars of the period. The Sisterhood of the Sword, who later become
part of the Guild of Renunciates, are introduced here. One of my favorite
books out of the series, though it has its down spots.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Jehovah Contract    by Victor Koman [*****]
        Franklin Watts, 277 pages, $16.95

Phil Dick is dead, but not to worry. Victor Koman is still alive and in his latest novel carries on the tradition of Phil's final, wildest, weirdest, most profound work in fine style. Dell Ammo, professional hit-man, takes on the biggest assignment of his life. The victim? God. The Question? Which award will this book rip off... The Nebula? The Hugo? The Edgar? Or the Big Bird? Not even The Fat Man knows.

-- Ray Faraday Nelson

Lythande        by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, $3.50, 1986, 237 pages

This book collects the stories about MZB's Thieves World character, the
magician Lythande. You don't need any background knowledge of the
Thieves' World books, I've never read them, to enjoy these stories. Though
occasionally serious, these are light fantasy stories of magical adventures. A
story by Vonda McIntyre that features Lythande is also included.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Mindkiller      by Spider Robinson      [**]
        Berkley Books $2.95 246 pages

This is the first Spider Robinson I have read and if I hadn't been on a
train with time on my hands I would have dropped it. The science premise
of a new addictive electronic drug is good -- I can buy every word of it and
thats it. As for the stunningly complex, multitalented body as a hero and
his inscrutible indestructible enemies, forget it.
-- Richard Loken
ihnp4!alberta!auvax!tech

Modesty Blaise: The Xanadu Talisman by Peter O'Donnell [***+]
Tor Books, 278 pages, $3.50

Not Science Fiction, but who cares. At the beginning of the book, Modesty is buried under the rubble of a hotel by an earthquake. After that, things get interesting. Good, solid spy escapism from the female version of James Bond.

-- chuq von rospach

Murder on Usher's Planet        by Atanielle Annyn Noel [**-]
        Avon, 182 pages, $2.95

A disappointing murder mystery set in a strange house on a faraway planet. The book reads as if the author was watching Thin Man detective movies, the main characters are very thin and try to attain a dry wit -- without quite making it. They stumble their way through the plot, making a hash of any number of Poe stories along the way. If they hadn't been quite so stupid, the book would have been half this size. Not recommended.

-- chuq von rospach

M.Y.T.H. Inc. Link      by Robert Asprin        [***]
        Donning/Starblaze, $7.95, 1986, 150 pages

A seventh volume of adventures with the Myth crowd. This begins new
stories about M.Y.T.H. Inc., the company Skeeve and associates form. Each
chapter tells a different character's adventure, linked together by Skeeve
as he gives them their assignments. Gleep's view of his pet (Skeeve) and
friends was the most fun. There's a lot of thought behind his one word
vocabulary. Numerous references are made to past adventures that would
probably be confusing to new readers so it helps to know the series so far.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Night's Master  by Tanith Lee   [****]
        DAW 1978

Tanith Lee is a master of the heroic fantasy epic; she writes in the style
of legend and myth. Her use of language is exquisite; her descriptions are
magical. She paints with words and captures the emotion and power of a
magical era. This books tells three stories about Azhrarn, Prince of Demons
and the heroic and tragic lives of the mortals whose fates were intertwined
with him. This is adult fantasy; some scenes may offend the prudish, but
passion is essential to true legend. If you want to read of imagination and
dreams, read this.
--Brett Slocum
hi-csc!slocum@UMN-CS.ARPA

The Other Side of the Mirror
        by Marion Zimmer Bradley with Friends of Darkover        [**+]
        DAW Fantasy, $3.50, 303pp, 1987

This presents more stories from Darkover, with the bulk of the book taken up by Bradley. All of the stories appear to be trying to patch Darkover continuity; some by providing more information on a character, others by providing more background information on the planet and its inhabitants. The stories by the Friend of Darkover suffer from giving the reader too much information. You don't need to be given the recent bloodline of a character or mention already known characters as to give the period to enjoy the story.

-- Laurie Sefton

The Shattered Chain     by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, 1976, 287 pages

Beginning in the Dry Towns, this story takes place around the same
time as the Andrew Carr stories. Dry Town culture is very different from
the rest of Darkover (the Domains), and is the home of bandits and traders.
The first part of the story tells of the rescue of a kidnapped Comyn lady,
Melora, and her daughter Jaelle by a group of Free Amazons hired by Lady
Rohana Ardais and Jaelle's fostering to the Free Amazon Kindra. Part two
introduces the Terran characters Magda Lorne and Peter Haldane, both
raised on Darkover and working for the Terran Spaceport. When Peter is
captured by bandits who mistake him for Kyril Ardais, Magda goes in
disguise to rescue him. When she meets real Amazons, including Jaelle, in
the Hellers during a storm, she is forced to take the Guild oath herself.
She is the first Terran to learn any details about the Guild of Renunciates
and gets permission to go to the Guild House to fulfill the terms of her oath
and continue her work on languages and customs of Darkover from within
the culture. A true exchange program is set up as Guild craftswomen gain
Hastur's permission to work for the Terrans. This period is one of the rare
times Darkover and the Empire try to work together.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Spell Sword by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [****]
        DAW, 1974, 156 pages

One hundred years after the Terran Empire rediscovers Darkover, they
have set up a space port and trade city. The rest of the planet is closed to
off-worlders but some mapping and exploration has begun. Andrew Carr
survives the crash of a mapping plane, is taken in by a local family and
learns of Darkovan life, including the acceptance of laran powers and
matrix technology. The plot is a straight forward adventure story of fighting
the native Catmen to rescue a kidnapped keeper but The Spell Sword and
its sequel, The Forbidden Tower, include lots of information of Darkovan
life outside of Terran influence.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Stormqueen      by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [**]
        DAW, 1978, 364 pages

Set during the "Ages of Chaos", the lost period in Darkover's history.
This time is the height of power for the Towers, before Comyn rule was
unified, when talents were being bred into the ruling families. This in-
breeding and ever more dangerous psi powers can bring catastrophe to
those involved. A rather depressing story, this fills a historical gap but is
better read after some of the chronologically later books so you know
where the culture is headed and don't just get depressed and give up on
the series.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Teckla by Steven Brust [****]
Ace, $2.95, 1987, 214 pages

This story is more serious in tone than Jhereg and Yendi, the other
books in the series so far, but no book that uses the main character's
laundry list as the table of contents can be entirely serious. It is
introspective, more about Vlad's thoughts on what is going on around him
than on the events themselves though he does put himself into the thick of
things, as usual.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Thendara House  by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [*]
        DAW, 1983, 414 pages

Very little happens in this book. You learn more of how the Terran and
Darkovan cultures see each other but not much else. There are lots of
details about Magda's housebound time learning the ways of the
Renunciates (this is the more interesting part) as in the Terran Zone
Jaelle learns things she'd rather not about the Empire. I had "suspension of
disbelief" problems with this one - here and now a married woman can
chose to retain her maiden name and make the bureaucracy go along with
it, I don't see how an interplanetary federation government could insist
that Jaelle only use "Mrs. Peter Haldane" as her official name. The story
intersects with The Forbidden Tower. The Terrans had believed Andrew
Carr dead, when they discover he is alive and living as a Darkovan, officials
try to force him back into the Empire's service. The Empire begins trying
to turn Darkover into a standard colony, with a culture and government to
match the rest of the Empire that Darkover has so far successfully resisted.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Third Apple by Jean-Louis Gassee    [****]
        Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, March, 1987, $14.95

Part personal memoir, part discussion of the computer industry, and part analysis of society, Jean-Louis Gassee, the lead Marketing Guru for Apple Computer, uses the thread of the computer being the cornerstone of the third societal revolution. His comparisons of French and American cultures are very interesting, and while you may agree or disagree with his views, the book will leave you with a number of things to think about.

-- chuq von rospach

The Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss [*****]
Atheneum, 444 pages plus footnotes and index, $24.95

Subtitled "The History of Science Fiction" this update of Aldiss' The Billion Year Spree is a literary history of the Science Fiction genre. This will be the single most important research tool for anyone studying Science Fiction for years to come. Starting with Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, Aldiss examines Science Fiction's history and looks at the important milestones of the genre. His research looks impeccable, although you won't always agree with his conclusions. A must for anyone serious about the genre.

-- chuq von rospach

Tuf Voyaging    by G.R.R. Martin        [****]
        Baen Books, March 1987, 376 pages

This book is a collection of stories about a man who aquires a mobile space-based biowarfare laboratory, and what he does with it. It has a strong ZPG subtext, and gets somewhat preachy at times, but is a good read nevertheless. It is hard to put my finger on just why I like this book so much. I suspect it is because in some ways the protagonist, Haviland Tuf, is a sort of Lt. Columbo analog. Columbo comes across as a fuzzy minded slob, but under this appearance he has a quick mind and a keen eye. Haviland Tuf comes across as an effete incompetent, but when the going gets tough, Tuf gets going. (You didn't imagine for a moment I'd skip that pun, did you?) In essence, what caught my interest was the continual question of "what does Tuf have up his sleeve THIS time?" And Martin provides interesting answers every time.

-- Wayne Throop

Two To Conquer  by Marion Zimmer Bradley        [***]
        DAW, 1980, 335 pages

The story of a Terran on early Darkover, before Earth knows of the lost
colony's existance - Paul Harrell, a criminal in the civilized Confederated
Worlds, is brought to Darkover by "sorcery" because he is the astral twin of
Bard diAsturien. This time sees the beginning of the Compact as a treaty
barring the use of sorcery for war. This develops into the major Darkovan
law forbidding weapons that go beyond the wielder's reach. The
Priestesses of Avarra and the Sisterhood of the Sword join to form the
Order of Renunciates. A good adventure story. Including a Terran character
as an outsider that 'common knowledge' must be explained to gives the
reader a familiar reference point and highlights how different Darkovan
culture has become from its Earth origin.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Ubik    by Philip K. Dick       [***]
        Dell SF 1970

How can one adaquately describe a Philip Dick book. He is one of the
most unusual authors in the genre. His descriptions are top-notch, and his
plots are unique, to say the least. In UBIK, Joe Chip is a tester for a
company that protects people from psionics by employing 'inertials', those
with an anti-psionic talent. After his boss dies, Joe's 1990's reality seems
to be decaying into 1939, piece by piece. And someone is killing off all the
inertials. And Joe had better find some UBIK or he'll be next. The style is
straight forward; just the events are confusing. Definately a fuse-blower.
--Brett Slocum
hi-csc!slocum@UMN-CS.arpa

Under the Wheel         created by Elizabeth Mitchell   [***]
        Baen Books, 272 pages, $2.95

Three anti-utopian novellas, all original to this volume. Authors are Gregory Benford, John M. Ford, and Nancy Springer. Volume III in the Alien Stars anthology series.

-- chuq von rospach

Vamps   edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh      [***]
        DAW Horror, $3.50, 365pp, 1987

A collection of short stories about female vampires, 1/3 of which are good, 1/3 are average, and 1/3 are wretched. The best, by Stephen King, is "One for the Road", which had previously appeared in his own collection of short stories, "Night Shift." However, the editors have also included stories that were written from the 1800's to the 1930's, and these stories suffer from their style. The cover, while not presenting the standard large breasted female vampire, does have one who looks slightly potted.

-- Laurie Sefton

Wielding A Red Sword    by Piers Anthony        [**]
        Del Rey (SFBC), 1986, 249 pp.\

This is Book Four of Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" series. In this book we see the struggle of a prince who becomes the Incarnation of War, or Mars if you prefer. Unfortunately, this books lacks the characteristic which gave such hope to this series. There is no clear personality of War itself. What I would expect to be sidelines in the story (Mars' journey through Hell) seem more important than the concept of War. It's a nice story but, for me, it missed its potential and promise. There is also, of course, an entertaining 26 page (pp. 250-276) Author's Note for those who are familiar with Mr. Anthony's books.

--Jim Winner

Wild Cards II: Aces High        edited by George R.R. Martin    [***+]
        Bantam, 390 pages, $3.95

The second volume in the Wild Card "mosaic novel" series. This volume focuses on the Aces, the folk who were given special powers by the Wild Card virus, as they fight a giant, intelligent yeast infection from outer space. This definitely deserves the term mosaic novel instead of shared world anthology because all of the stories intermingle instead of being read sequentially. The format is quite successful, and shows the strength of Martin as an editor. I'm not as happy with this volume, though, because of the growing use of graphic violence, language, and sex. It is a very good book, but somewhat of an anticlimax after the wonderful first volume.

-- Chuq Von Rospach

With a Single Spell     by Lawrence Watt-Evans  [***]
        Del Rey, March 1987, 263 pages

This book is the story of an apprentice wizard, who's master dies before instructing him in more than the rudiments of his profession. In fact, he has learned a single spell. Most of the book deals with his search for a way to make a living at his profession despite his sketchy education, and towards the end, how he deals with a windfall legacy with some catches. A light read with nothing profound happening. It compares well with the earlier book with the same setting, The Misenchanted Sword.

-- Wayne Throop

Wolves Of The Dawn      by William Sarabande    [***+]
        Bantam, 1986 450 pp, $4.50

This story has one major flaw, it needs a sequel. It actually should be the
first of a two book series since the story does not really end. The story
centers around the son of the chief of a tribe at the very beginning of the
Bronze Age. It shows they young Balor's struggle to learn his father's
wisdom in the face of more glorious possibilities. The characters in this
book come to life and perform their story in front of you, though you often
know what the performance will be before it is done. The author almost
lost me when, at page 400, I realized that there is obviously (I hope) a book
two planned, though this very needed conclusion is not mentioned
anywhere. In the class of Clan Of The Cave Bear, look for this in the fiction
section as a novel.
--Jim Winner
winner@cua.bitnet

OtherRealms #15
May, 1987

Copyright 1987
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 be reproduced in its entirety only
for non-commercial purposes. With the exception of
excerpts used for promotional purposes, no part of
OtherRealms may be re-published without permission.

Issue 15, May 1987 (part 3)

Electronic OtherRealms #15
May, 1987
Part 3

Words of Wizdom

Reviews by
Chuq Von Rospach

Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach

Common publishing wisdom says that thick books don't sell, because they intimidate the impulse reader. For a book to run 511 pages in paperback, the publishers have to believe there is something going -- either the author has a name to rely on, or the book itself is something that is so good it simply must be published, marketing wisdom aside.

When that 511 page book is by a first author, and when the publisher puts one of the best Whelan covers I've ever seen on a book on it (a wraparound cover, at that) and embosses the cover, and goes so far as to use two difference covers on the book (actually, the wraparound cover is flipped) you can only assume two things -- that the publisher has lost all sense of reality (you don't push first novels, you don't put Whelan on first novels, and you don't put advertising behind first novels) or the publisher knows something we don't.

The book in question is In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman. The publisher is Elsie Wollheim at DAW books, and the book is wonderful.

This book tells the story of two civilizations -- the Braxi are a nasty bunch, ruled by a small overlord of genetically superior (but almost sterile) men. Women have no power. In fact, a woman may be waylaid, may even be killed, at the whim of a man. Non purebreds serve at the whim of the pureblood, and may even be put to death at their wish. They are an aggressive, warlike race, breeding their sons to hate and and hunger, to wish for the Universe and strive to grasp it.

Their opponent in a multi-millennia long interstellar war are the Azean. The Azean's are warring pacifists, hoping to end the interminable war in the hopes of peace. They are advanced geneticists, bringing forward those with psychic talents for training and culling those with less than perfect genes.

The story is told primarily around two people: the Braxin Zatar, an ambitious man who wishes to reduce the ruling Braxana pureblood leadership to a single person, himself; and Anzha, a psychically superior woman who is refused citizenship by Azea because of her genes, but who nevertheless fights her way to the leadership position in the Azean forces.

The book covers a large period of time: from the birth of the two opponents to their final battle and the resolution, a period of about 40 years. Trying to summarize the plot is impossible, because there are really three plots in the book (one for each society, and one for the conflict between them) as well as seven or eight major subplots. All of them intertwine very carefully, without a seam. There isn't a story here, but any number of them. While the Braxin are very nasty people (at one level they make a good analogy to the problems with Apartheid) their opponents aren't exactly wonderful, either, with their commitment to genetic superiority -- and the associated genetic culling they consider necessary. Azea even abuses their privileged, the telepaths, by sending them for training at the Institute not so much to maximize their skills, but to control and manipulate them.

The societies, then, are very complex and very real. The story that weaves around them is just as complex and just as real. This is one of those rare books that will appeal to both the Hard SF readers for its science and technology and the readers who prefer people stories.

DAW is taking a chance on this book. They are pulling out the stops to make sure you see this book. When you read it, you'll know why, and you will want to read it. [*****]

Another first novel is Deborah Turner Harris' The Burning Stone (Tor trade paperback, 307 pages, $7.95). This is labeled Book One of The Mages of Garillon, and is, unfortunately, another book that suffers from sequelitis -- the disease of good books weakened by the need to tack another book on the end. Magic is a healing art, and Caradoc is a talented young man studying to join the initiate. He is rejected, however, because of an attitude problem, and during the raging drunk that follows is recruited by a master- criminal and rebel mage to help in an assassination plot.

The plot is to kill the eldest son (and heir) of the local ruler to put the current queen's son on the throne. The rebel mage, of course, sees profit in all of this, and instead of killing the boy outright he abducts him and hides him where he can be useful later.

This book suffers from three main flaws. The author works very hard, at times too hard, to describe the setting in the early chapters, and the early part of the book falls prey to adjective abuse. Everything, it seems, has multiple adjectives attached: the stream isn't lazy, but lazy and meandering. This gets distracting after a while, but later chapters are also written more sparingly. A worse problem, for me, is that every character you meet has a Purpose. You know they'll be back. The young stable boy, for instance, is really the missing prince with magic induced amnesia, something I don't hesitate to tell you because you'll figure it out for yourself quickly. These characters telegraph the plot along, and there are very few surprises along the way because of it.

The third flaw is the ending. The end of the book is resolved in a very weak way. While it leaves things open for a sequel, it does so at the cost of an unsatisfying ending.

I can't really blame the author for this, because this stopping point syndrome where there is no real ending point or climax, just a convenient place to rest until next year when book 2 comes out, is a growing problem with the genre -- everyone is writing 93 book series these days and forgetting that, with a few notable exceptions, each book really ought to stand on its own. Most don't, unfortunately. I'm really looking forward to the end of this fad, because many of the series I've read have enough material for a single book, but get padded out to fit. The result: flabby, lazy books with weak endings and little to really recommend them.

The Burning Stone isn't a bad book, but it could have been a much better book. The extra cost of the trade paperback makes it an even more questionable buy. [**+]

Jack Chalker's latest book, The Labrynth of Dreams (Tor, 320 pages, $3.50) is another first book in a series, in this case it is G.O.D. Inc #1. It is also a good example of how you ought to write a series book. This book has a beginning, a middle, and an end. While it leaves itself open to a sequel, this story is completed and there are no artificial hooks hanging around trying to coerce the reader into buying the next book.

Which makes me want to read the next book that much more. This book is barely Science Fiction -- one of the growing number of crossovers between this genre and the spy/detective genre. In this book, two down and out detectives are hired on to track down a bank executive who skipped town. They find a very convoluted trail that leads them to G.O.D. Inc., purveyor of fine goods through the midnight hours of television, and a multi-dimensional labyrinth between parallel universes.

This is good writing, especially fun if you have a hidden appreciation for detective fiction. It is written as a hardboiled novel, along the lines of Sam Spade of Phillip Marlowe. There are a few really rotten jokes and puns in the book, but in general this is quite a good novel. [***+]

Gene Wolfe has written another book that will make you sit back and think your way through. Soldier of the Mist (Tor hardcover and Science Fiction Book Club, 266 pages) is written as a translation of a recently discovered scroll written by a soldier in Greece about 479 B.C. Latro, his main character, has suffered a head wound that causes him to forget everything that has occurred longer than about 12 hours ago, so in an attempt to build himself a past he writes down his adventures. We follow him through his days as he searches for the answer to the mists that cloud him from himself and his home, and we watch as he sees the society around him through virgin eyes each new day.

Wolfe has written another wonderful book here, a master of forcing his readers into being active participants in the reading process. Like his classic Book of the New Sun series, this work has a richness and a lifelike feel to it that is rare in fiction today. As he did with Book of the New Sun, Wolfe is exploring new territory, and redefining the barriers around the categories by showing that you can write solid, accessible fiction that is also highly literate. This book is a success on many different levels, and while it is the first book of a series, unlike many series, it is a cause for joy. [*****]

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the premier Science Fiction authors in Russia, and scheduled to be among the Guests of Honor at Worldcon this year. Publisher Richardson and Steirman has translated their latest book, The Time Wanderers (213 pages, $16.95). It is an interesting insight into the state of the art in Russia.

The book is written as a journal of entries in a report. I found it pretty tough reading -- the quality of writing is on a par with the material published in the 1950's in the U.S., and occasionally I got the feeling that the translation was getting in the way of the prose, although I could never quite figure out why. Still, it is good SF, in the traditions that Campbell would have published in Analog, so if you like that kind of fiction, I can recommend it to you. [***]

Terry Carr Dies

I'm very sad to have to announce the death of Terry Carr, long time fan, editor, and writer, April 7, 1987. Probably best known for his Best Science Fiction of the Year series of anthologies, he was also the editor at Ace books that first published R.A. Lafferty, Joanna Russ, Bob Shaw, and later William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Time and space don't allow me to deal with Terry adequately this month, so I will write a full obituary next month when it can be done properly. If you are interested in contributing to the Terry Carr material, please contact me.

Terry Carr was a wonderful man and an important figure in Science Fiction. He will be missed greatly on both counts. -- chuq

Back and Forth Across the Ghetto Walls
and Other Peregrinations

Reviews by James Brunet
ism780b!jimb
Copyright 1987 by James Brunet

From beyond the wall of the SF ghetto comes Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and its very appearance will topple, or at least loosen, several stones from that wall. Already the book has garnered the Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Award for 1986 -- an accolade reserved to "serious" (i.e., mainstream) fiction -- and yet it also a finalist on the Nebula ballot for best novel.

The Handmaid's Tale is set in a near-future America susceptible to increasing fundamentalist influence. Against a backdrop of economic and ecological crises, women have their rights suspended. A simple recoding of computer programs suspends all bank and credit accounts marked "F" in the sex field, leaving the accounts dormant until they can be transferred to a husband or male next of kin. Paramilitary detachments descend upon employers, forcing the discharge of female employees. Finally, Congress is machine-gunned and a Scripture-based law imposed. The result is the Republic of Gilead, a revolutionary society not unlike an American version of contemporary Iran. Jews are allowed to emigrate to Israel or to convert. Blacks -- descendants of Ham, or so says Scripture -- are forcibly resettled from the inner cities to the Dakota prairies. There is resistance, of course. Communities and strongholds of non-conformists -- Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics -- must be "salvaged." Those guilty of great sins -- priests who spread false doctrine, doctors who committed abortions, etc. - - are hunted down and executed; it does not matter that their activities were legal under civil law at the time they were committed, for the laws of God know no statute of limitations. Eyes of the Lord, the secret police, are everywhere, as are their informants.

And women? Oh, yes. Women. Because ecological disasters have made reproduction a fragile endeavor, women are prized for their ovaries and their wombs. They are closely bound to their homes, either as wives or servants. Reading is forbidden, for knowledge and thought are dangerous. (At one point the viewpoint character savors the challenge of trying to puzzle out the meaning of "Non illegitimi carborundum," which she has found scrawled in a concealed place.) The few stores allowed to be open have picture-signs to designate their function, such as milk and eggs, or meat.

In this society, children are seen as a blessing from God. But not all wives of the elite, the most deserving, can reproduce. The solution is the institution of the handmaid. Surplus women are made available. Any woman party to a marriage where one partner had been previously married is an adulteress. Such unions are dissolved, with the men being drafted for the Army or sent to the New Colonies, such as Los Angeles, for toxic waste clean-up operations that are invariably fatal within two to three years. The women are given the option between the New Colonies or, if they are still capable of reproduction, becoming handmaids. What is a handmaid? In the words of Atwood, "She must lie on her back once a month and pray that [the head of her adoptive household] makes her pregnant." Once a month, in a ceremonial manner, she submits to the head of the household. The wife is present at this time and contact between the husband and the handmaid is forbidden at all other times.

In a long nutshell, this is the background of The Handmaid's Tale, a background reminiscent of Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 as much as anything. And yet in Atwood's book, it is background; the synopsis above is pieced together from snippets dropped throughout the entire book. The Handmaid's Tale is not an excursion tour into a morbidly fascinating new world, nor is it a political or social tract. It is a record of the daily activities and reminisences of Offred, who enters a household as a handmaid. (Handmaids take their names from the head of household, and thus their names would change if they were transferred, e.g., Ofglen, Ofcharles, etc.) Plot as such is subdued in this book, inasmuch as the accounting of a period from any individual's life does not lend itself to conventional plot. The account is intensely personal, a study in character, an account of daily life. In this The Handmaid's Tale is on solid ground with the conventional aims of literature in exploring the human condition.

Atwood delivers her material with a vivid prose so rich that it may take some readers a while to build up a tolerance. Some accounts of daily life are rendered so vividly, so intimately, that they are painful to digest. The sheer power of the literary execution is such that is seldom found in SF, yet by force of character Atwood does not fail to provide an engrossing entertainment, if of a grim and provocative bent.

This melding of stefnal icons and images with a coventional literary sensibility for character and style produces a powerful book. I recommend it highly. And I wonder at the reaction of Atwood, or members of the so- called literary establishment, at SF claiming the book as one of its own. For if The Handmaid's Tale has made a significant breach in the walls of the ghetto, it also surely is letting part of the ghetto escape beyond its walls.

If Margaret Atwood succeeds in breaching the ghetto wall from without, Barry Longyear seems to essay a similar mission from within in his Sea of Glass. For me, this book was easy to begin, difficult to continue, and well worth finishing.

Like Atwood's book, Sea of Glass is set in a near future United States, beginning in the year 2012 to be precise. The following is from the opening section of the book, where six-year old Thomas Windom (Windom: Wisdom:: Godot: God?) is watching a then-contemporary TV satire with his parents:

With its left arm, the horned creature on the screen lifts the struggling baby by its feet and grins at the viewers as the deafening music quiets to an ominous background roar.

The creature's right hand points a clawed finger at the viewers.

"People of Earth." The clawed finger swings until it points at the child. "Meet your enemy."

The baby's cries become hysterical, gasping screams. The creature cradles the baby in its left arm. "Hush little baby, don't you cry." The claws of the creature's right hand dangle tantilizingtly over the child's pulsating belly.

"Aubry will love you 'til you die."

I gasp and hold my breath as the claws plunge into the child's middle; a scream, silence, and the hand comes away dripping blood. I see the hand very close. The fingers slowly open to reveal a tiny, still beating heart.

Mommy holds her hand to her mouth and looks at Daddy. "Isn't that a bit much?"

"I just hope that bastard Cummings is watching."

Daddy's voice is mean. Bitter.

The creature's grinning face again fills the screen. "Protein, friends. Imagine, if you will, the inefficient utilization of scarce resources your enemy employed to keep this insignificant scrap of muscle twitching."

The dead baby fills the screen. Blank eyes stare at nothing.

The horned creature flings the tiny corpse to his left. In slow motion the body tumbles in a grisly arc, coming to rest at last upon a mountain of dead babies.

The heap of infant flesh quivers from the impact. ...

Tough stuff. As the parent of a seven-month old, it hit me pretty damned hard. I forced myself to continue. The Secretary of Projections, Aubry Cummings, is almost a government within the government of the Compact, the union of western nations. Two inexorable numbers govern all calculations: the Wardate and the Downlimit. The Wardate is the Optimum War Probability Projection Date, a prediction of when the war will have to happen, not if. Various events on the world stage affect this date, one way or the other. Through most of Sea of Glass, the Wardate hovers somewhere in August 2033. The Downlimit is the amount of time remaining before the strain of poplulation and resources passes the threshold beyond which the human race can't recover.

Ah, ha. Sea of Glass is a cautionary ecological tale. Check? Wrong-oh. Thomas Windom, an illegal child, does reveal himself to the outside world. He is dragged away from his parents, who are summarily executed by slow electrocution as provided by statute, and sent to a farm-cum-concentration camp in New York state. In short order, he is marinated in the brutality of the environment and kills a camp guard.

Ah, so this is the story of of Thomas' survival. Well, partly. Thomas does survive life in the camp, eventually borrowing books from the camp's once- a-week bookmobile to teach himself all he can about Aubry Cummings, the Department of Projections, and the political, economic, and ecological crises that shape his world. He comes to understand the grim necessities behind the system that is so abhorent to him. Then, with a few other inmates, he escapes into the world at large and assumes identies to shield himself from the Department of Projections and its computer, MAC III. Oh, in the process of his escape, he cuts off the penis of a particularly brutal guard and stuffs it in the pocket of the bound, still-living guard.

After living the life of an underground fugitive for a while, Thomas' identity is exposed. And in the course of fleeing, he suddenly stops and realizes that every significant circumstance back to somewhere in his days at the farm has been manipulated by MAC III. In short order, Thomas Windom is recruited as a special agent of the Department of Projections. He is trained, wired to MAC III, and sent out to adjust circumstances in the world in order to make sure that the most optimal events occur. For MAC III has an interesting view of the world; for instead of taking on an Otherworld (eastern bloc) division directly, conditions are arranged so that, by way of metaphor, Ivan kills Vladimir, Igor kills Ivan, and so forth until the last despondent survivor commits suicide.

Ah, finally the light becomes clear. What the story is is evident. It's about being co-opted by the system and adapting to all the institutions that you once hated. Closer, dear friends, but no cigar. One of Thomas missions is to assasinate one of his closest friends from the farm, one who escaped with the same group Thomas did. Thomas' faith in his new calling fails him and he asks "Why?" For this, he is allowed to visit the Shrine of Why, deep in the bowels of the MAC III computer. Connected to the computer by a direct Link, he is allowed to see all the convoluted trails of causality that lead to the assasination of his friend, and just how much worse off the world will ultimately be if this act is not accomplished, and accomplished by him, Thomas Windom. Is anyone ready to venture that the story is about Faith and Being?

Ultimately, no. Come the Wardate, it is Thomas who ignores the authority of the new anti-Projections President-General of the Compact and sets off the War. Only in the infinite wisdom of MAC III, there is no nuclear holocaust. Ivan kills Vladimir, Igor kill Ivan; meanwhile Harry is killing Tom and Dick is killing Harry. (What? You thought all the casualties would be on the other side?) A few little wars heat up, ten or twelve revolutions kick off, floods and storms occur, and there is an increase in the starvation rate, traffic accidents, murder, disease, suicide, and carelessness. And at the end of it all, there will be four and a half billion dead. And mankind is safely within the limits of resources, with enough time for the newly discovered interstellar propulsion system to give meaningful access to the stars.

Finally, at the end of the road, Sea of Glass is about manipulation. As MAC III manipulates Thomas Windom, so Longyear manipulates the reader, just as the reviewer has tried to manipulate the review-reader. The book is not a pleasant experience. The reader's realization that he has been manipulated is not much different, I suspect, from Thomas' moment of epiphany concerning his relationship with MAC III. Yet the prose is taut, the imagery is powerful, and the book continues to niggle at the mind long after it has been put down. If there is a weakness, it is that so much of the manipulation is achieved by sheer artifice (for instance, forced sterilization or police-inspected contraceptive implants would be a more rational method of dealing with the population problem); yet that artifice, too, may be part of the message.

While Atwood is assaulting the ghetto wall from without and Longyear deals with some weighty concerns safely from within, reading Gene Wolfe's Soldier of the Mist could make one think "What ghetto?"

Based on events that occured in Greece in 479 B.C., Soldier of the Mist is the tale of Latros, a Greek soldier who was one of many that fought for the Persian invader Xerxes against an alliance of Greek city states. In the course of a battle, Latros suffers a head wound that causes him most peculiar problems with his memory: he can only remember events of the current day. Everything else he must commit to a scroll, which he must reread every day if he is to remember what has happened. There is a compensation for this impairment, however. Latros can see and converse with gods, goddesses, and other supernatural apparitions.

Latros is taken prisoner by the men of Rope (Sparta) and then begins a goddess-inspired quest to recover his memory. His is a picaresque adventure, as he acquires a slave, a sorceror, a black warrior, and a woman as his companions. Seemingly, the end to his quest is around every corner, so much so that it was only in the last ten pages that this reader began to have the horrible feeling that was confirmed by the words "(These are the last words of the first scroll.)" on the last page. Anguish.

For Wolfe is writing a mystery, an adventure, a fable.... Soldier of the Mist is not easily classified, yet it is a dizzying work to read. The prose style of Soldier of the Mist is slightly more accessible than Wolfe's Book of the New Sun quartet and Tor has had the grace to include a glossary of names and terms at the back of the book. The plot is episodic and revelatory in form. To say more is not easy. Wolfe has written a brilliant book which may be his best yet. If you like Wolfe, you have a treat in store for you. Wolfe's style and characters make it easy to question how SF could possibly still be confined to any sort of ghetto.

Avram Davidson was voted a Life Achievement award as part of the World Fantasy Awards last November. A Hugo winner (for "Or All the Seas With Oysters", 1958) and well-regarded novelist (The Phoenix in the Mirror, et al.), Davidson has nonetheless failed to earn some of the acclaim and notoriety, to say nothing of money, that has been garnered by lesser writers.

Two of Davidson's out-of-print novels are delights to be enjoyed by the diligent miners of the used-book shelves. Peregrine: Primus and its sequel, Peregrine: Secundus, are romps through central Roman Empire and vicinity in the company of Peregrine, bastard prince of Sapodilla, which, as every schoolboy knows, was the last pagan kingdom in the world to resist Christianity.

Peregrine's adventures take him through brothels, rebellions against local caesars, involvement with sundry heresies, and magical transformation into a falcon. Two episodes give a good idea of the flavor of the writing. Peregrine loots the hoard of a dragon, a very small dragon as it turns out. The loot contains three oboli and one drachma, all of a very devaluated coinage (inscribed "Sennacherib XXIII, Great King, King of Kings, King of Lower Upper Southeast Central Assyria"), one very battered metal bracelet inscribed "Cailus loves Mariamne" made of base metal, and a rotting leather case containing the long-lost serpent crown of the Ephts.

Later, the boat on which Peregrine is passenger is attacked by a horde of Huns, which "filled the scene as far as eye could see." However, in the bend of the river, sunken rather deep between overhanging bluffs, the eye can't see very far and the Hun horde consists of eleven men (two riding postern) and three moldy yourts being drawn by an ox apiece.

In the second book, the adventures continue in the precincts of Alfland, in far northern Europe, where Peregrine is transformed from falcon to naked Bastard Prince in the middle of a royal dining table. He then becomes the romantic target of a young princess, is aided by the weefolk, and is used for ballast by a dragon. Among other things.

Davidson writes with an exhilarating exuberance rarely found anywhere. There are few writers who display a greater love for language and its rhythms, few writers who are more playful in their prose. Davidson's characters are capable of uttering long, convoluted sentences that charm and delight instead of, as with any lesser writer, being an unintelligble mass of gibberish.

If you like broad wit coupled with high adventure in a wonderfully spoofed and skewed version of history, search out these books. Peregrine: Primus was published in 1971 (hardcover) and 1977 (paperpack); Peregrine: Secundus, appeared in 1981 (paperback) after having parts anthologized in two magazine appearances.

Davidson recently noted that Peregrine: Secundus, seemed to have sunk without a trace, without a single review. I hope that this small notice can serve as partial redress for this oversight. Davidson is a master of historical fantasy, fully on a par with Poul Anderson, and his books ought not vanish without a ripple. I hope you find them and I hope you like them.

OtherRealms Reviewing the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.

Editor & Publisher
Chuq Von Rospach

Associate Editor
Laurie Sefton

Contributing Editors
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Jim Brunet

OtherRealms #15
May, 1987

Copyright 1987 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 be reproduced in its only for non-commercial purposes. No article may be reprinted without the express permission of the author.

OtherRealms is published monthly, through July, the quarterly by:

Chuq Von Rospach
35111-F Newark Blvd.
Suite 255
Newark, CA. 94560

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ

Review copies should be sent to this address for consideration.

Subscriptions

OtherRealms is available for the usual bribes & trades: a copy of your zine, submissions, letters, comments, artwork or because I want you to see it.

People who don't like to write can still get OtherRealms for money: $2.50 for a single issue, or $8.50 for four issues. Folks in the publishing industry can qualify for a free subscription. Just ask.

OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy bookstore, Palo Alto, California. Stores interested in OtherRealms should contact me.

Electronic OtherRealms

An electronic, text-only version of OtherRealms is available on a number of different computer networks and bulletin board systems. On the Arpanet, Bitnet, CSNet, and UUCP networks, send E-mail to chuq@sun.COM to subscribe. On USENET, OtherRealms is distributed in the group mod.mag.otherrealms.

It is also available on the Delphi timesharing service and a number of Bulletin Board systems across the country.

Submissions

OtherRealms publishes articles about Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. The primary focus is reviews of books that otherwise might be missed in the deluge of new titles published every year, but the magazine is open to anything involving books.

Authors are welcome to submit articles for the Behind the Scenes feature section, where you want to talk about the research and background that went into your book.

I'm also interested in author interviews. Interview yourself, and finally get to that question you've always wanted to be asked. Any thing of interest to the reader of book-length fiction is welcome at OtherRealms. We don't cover shorter lengths, media, or fannish news.

I NEED ART. Lots and lots of art. Especially small filler art for those little white spaces and cover art. I am also desperate for a few good pieces of cover art. The covers for my Westercon and Worldcon issues are still not filled (as are almost all the other issues, for that matter). Cartoons. Genre art. Anything! Help me make OtherRealms more fun to read!

Book Ratings in OtherRealms

All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books receive
[***]. Ratings may be modified a half step with a + or a -, so [***-]
is somewhat better than [**+]

[*****] One of the best books of the year [****] A very good book -- above average [***] A good book [**] Flawed, but has its moments [*] Not recommended [] Avoid at all costs nd Charles Brown discussed some of the startup problems they had. So it was with some glee that I put last month's issue (my first on the Laserwriter) to bed ahead of schedule and with no pain whatsoever. I'd done a lot of planning on it, and having worked with the technology for a while, felt I had all the angles covered. When nobody was looking, I even chortled a little bit for outsmarting my arch-nemesis, Lord Murphy.

Well, just to make sure everyone knows that the proud will do themselves in,