OtherRealms 19 — Chuq Von Rospach - Birds - Landscapes

OtherRealms — Issue 19, Winter 1987

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 1)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 1

Table of Contents

Part 1

Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach

Part 2

Behind the Scenes: The Kindly Ones
Melissa Scott

Part 3

The Jehovah Contract
Rick Holzgrafe

Marooned in Real Time
Wayne Throop

Interview: Jack Chalker

Part 4

Bibliography: Jack Chalker

Stuff Received

Part 5

Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint

Part 6

Pico Reviews, Part 1

Part 7

Pico Reviews, Part 2

Part 8

Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach

Part 9

War Stories
Alan Wexelblat

Mindplayers
Fred Bals

Part 10

No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton

Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Part 11

Letters to OtherRealms, Part 1
J.N Williamson
Kevin O'Donnell, Jr.
Neil Harris
Greg Benford
Frank Miller
Fred Bals
Gene Wolfe
Melissa Scott
Larry Kaufman
Steve VanDevender
Michael Kupfer
Graham Higgins

Part 12

Letters to OtherRealms, Part 2
Susan Shwartz
Ted White
Michael C. Berch

Breaking Strain
Danny Low

The Masthead & Other Gory Details

Editor's Notebook

Chuq Von Rospach

This issue kicks off a new feature for OtherRealms. Author Melissa Scott talks about how The Kindly Ones (Baen Books) came into being and some of the background and research that went into the creation of the book in our first feature in the Behind the Scenes series. I think it is important not only to review books, but to understand the what and the why of books, and I hope the Behind the Scenes series will contribute to that. I'm looking for future installments of the series -- if you have a book you want to write about, let me know.

The readership statistics are in for issue #18. According the the USENET readership reports, OtherRealms was distributed to 7,100 electronic mailboxes. The OtherRealms mailing lists add another 500 to 600 addresses. The printed edition was mailed to about 200 people. You add all of these numbers up, and OtherRealms is now seen by close to 8,000 people (perhaps more if many folks share their copies, but I don't have any idea how many do). That's up by about 60% from when I checked six months ago, and rather mind-boggling. I guess I must be doing something right.

As of this issue, I've dropped any pretense of covering the Horror scene. While it's been part of the masthead, the actual amount of Horror coverage has been minimal, and I don't see that improving any time soon. I'm the only regular writer for OtherRealms that seems to have a taste for horror, and I've been unable to find someone willing to do a special Horror column. At the same time, my discussions with readers on the various nets indicates that few of you are reading Horror, and fewer are interested in trying it, my exhortations notwithstanding. Rather than continue a fruitless search for someone to cover the Horror scene, I'm changing the official focus of the magazine to match what it's really covering. You can bet that there'll still be some horror coverage in OtherRealms, but this way people looking for a source of Horror reviews aren't misled into believing that OtherRealms is doing something it really isn't. Maybe, when I can increase pages and find someone to cover Horror, it'll be back. Until that happens, I suggest you take a look at Ed Bryant's book review column in Twilight Zone magazine. He covers more than just horror, and does it well.

Contributor Notes

Have you seen Brad Foster's comic book? Mechthings is a bimonthly black and white from Renegade Press. Two issues are out, and Renegade has committed to at least six. If you like Brad's art here in OtherRealms, you should track it down -- it's up to his usual high quality and detail. Brad's one of the few artists I can think of that really seems to understand black and white drawing, and it shows.

Fred Bals, who has written a number of reviews for OtherRealms, has sold a short story to the original anthology Full Spectrum, due out in 1988. Fred's first published fiction, by the way, was The Ozzie and Harriet, published in OtherRealms #10 before I decided to specialize. He's a good writer, and I'm glad to see him breaking through. Congrats to Fred!

On a sadder note, James Brunet has resigned OtherRealms as contributing editor. He's been with me since issue one, and we're going to miss him. Trying to free-lance full time, keep his fiction writing up going and keep to the deadlines I needed didn't leave him enough to polish things as much as he demands of himself. He's putting the time he was spending for me back into his fiction.

Publishing News

[I've merged publishing news here due to the paucity of material. When it grows large enough, I'll split it back out into a separate section. As always, I'm looking for information about publishing, writing and the people in it. If you know something that should be printed here, drop me a note.]

Kevin Anderson sold his second novel, Gamearth, a Fantasy, to Signet through agent Richard Curtis. He has also sold to Full Spectrum.

Chuq Von Rospach, editor and publisher of OtherRealms, and Laurie Sefton, associate editor, were wed in a private ceremony on November 14, 1987. The couple honeymooned at Worldcon in Brighton.

According to the November Nebula Awards Report, the top ten nominated novels are: The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent; Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe; The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy (a second novel); Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick; Vacuum Flowers by Michael Swanwick; .gypt by John Crowley; Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis (a first novel); The Uplift War by David Brin; When Gravity Falls by George Alec Effinger and In Conquest Born by C. S. Friedman(a first novel).

Charles de Lint has sold Wolf Moon, a high fantasy, to NAL. He's also sold a three book package to Berkley which includes Svaha, an SF thriller, The Killing Time, a straight Horror, and Drinking Down the Moon, a sequel to Jack the Giant Killer.

The Best of 1987

The end of the year is upon us, and it's time to take a look back and see what happened. In trying to come up with lists, it is immediately obvious that there is a lot of good fiction out there -- more than anyone can possibly find time to read, regardless of the type of fiction they prefer. My biggest regret is that I couldn't shove more into my schedule; for every book I read last year, at least two others went by the wayside with a sigh. To me, that says more about the viability of the field than anything. If someone tells you there isn't any good fiction being published anymore, run away -- they simply aren't looking.

For me, the highlight of the year has to be the new talent. Again, if someone tells you that new writers aren't published, or they need an "in" you should run away. I've seen at least 25 books cross my desk this year that were first novels. There are many more that I didn't see or didn't catch. When a new talent rises out of the slush pile, it is time for rejoicing. This year, C.S. Friedman's In Conquest Born [DAW] , Emma Bull's War for the Oaks [Ace], and Loren J. MacGregor's The Net [Ace] were the best of a strong set of first novels. For the class of 1987, these are the three I'm watching closest to see where they go next.

The old hands were at it this year, too. Robert Heinlein comes up with the best book in years, perhaps one of the best of his career in To Sail Beyond the Sunset [Putnam[. Gene Wolfe continues the wonderful New Sun series with Urth of the New Sun [Tor] and starts a new series with Soldier of the Mist [Tor]. And, non-genre but a sentimental favorite for me, Ray Bradbury publishes his first book in over 20 years with Death is a Lonely Business, a wonderful look at his earlier days. Steven Brust changes gears with Teckla [Ace]. It's not as funny, but the writing is his strongest ever and the emotions run long and deep. It may be his best work ever.

Finally, a new media is struggling for legitimacy, and shows signs it may well get it. The Dark Knight Falls [DC], a graphic novel, makes it to the Hugo ballot, and losing partially because it was hopelessly miscategorized and partially because it was up against Brian Aldiss' The Trillion Year Spree. The Watchmen, another graphic novel, stands a good chance of making the final ballot as well. Both show unequivocally that some stories can be told as well with a minimum of words. Comic books take a bad rap as "kid stuff" that needs to be re-examined. No media is inherently good or bad -- it is how the media is used that determines that. Dark Knight and Watchmen prove that comics can tell as good a story as a novel; some stories they tell better. The graphic novel format is where the next evolutions in the field are coming. You should keep an open mind and check it out.

The Best from the Rest:
Contributing Editor's Look at 1987

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: Other reviewers hunt for trends. I like to think of each author as a movement unto herself. The authors below moved in directions I found particularly admirable in 1986. If there's one connecting theme, it's that you won't feel you've wasted your money on any of these books:

David Belden's The Children of Arable -- a first novel by an extremely interesting and promising voice. Describes the fall of a unisex culture.

Ben Bova's The Kinsman Saga -- an all-around tour-de-force of character writing. Consists of revised versions of Kinsman and Millennium.

John M. Ford's How much for just the Planet? -- the most thoroughly gigglesome book I've read since I stumbled across The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. Recommended even if you hate Star Trek. In fact, especially if you hate Star Trek.

Leslie Gadallah's Cat's Pawn -- a well-made first novel about a human surviving in an alien culture. Carries some of the seediness of cyberpunk without the by-now-cliche gadgetry.

William Gibson's Burning Chrome -- a short story collection, originally from 1986, but out in paperback late this year. This is the Gibson that everyone raves about: clean, incisive, high-tech, low-rent science fiction. Watch that man.

Robert A. Heinlein's To Sail Beyond the Sunset -- if this were to be Heinlein's farewell, it would be more than satisfactory as such.

George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards 3: Joker's Wild-- The most tightly- woven shared world piece I've ever seen; not an anthology, but a genuine multi-author novel.

L.E. Modesitt's Dawn for a Distant Earth -- a good adventure story, no minor accomplishment in itself, and very promising as first in a series books go.

Connie Willis's Lincoln's Dreams -- probably the best fantasy novel of the year. Do not wait for the paperback. Buy it now.

Walter Jon Williams's The Crown Jewels -- a stylish caper novel in the spirit of the lamented Anthony Villiers.

Gene Wolfe's The Urth of the New Sun -- Severian journeys again. Flawed, primarily in that it makes explicity much of what was deliciously implied by the original tetralogy, but still some of the most beautiful writing SF has ever had.

Laurie Sefton: A Flame in Byzantium, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: This is the first book about Olivia, the Roman matriarch from the St. Germain series. Yarbro paints sucha a detailed portrait of Byzantine Constantinople that it's sometimes hhard to tell where the history ends and the fiction begins.

Intervention, Julian May : Rogatien Remillard is only one of the exquisite characterizations in this bridge between the Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu series. May moves the story through current time, and make you hold your breath througout.

The Hall of the Moutain King, Judith Tarr: Tarr creates a fantasy world that doesn't need elves, dwarves or magic quests to be magic. The characters are full of life and the story is enthralling.

The Throne of Scone, Patricia Kennealy: The best of the Celtic crop, by far. This is the second book of the Keltiad, and mixes the best elements of fantasy and science fiction.

Teckla, Steven Brust: The third of this series, Brust takes a turn from the light hearted style that flavored Jhereg and Yendi. This makes for a harder read, but a deeper story.

Cycles of Fire, William K. Hartmann & Ron Miller: Subtitled, "Stars Galaxies and the Wonder of Deep Space," this is a magnificent collection of art. The reproductions of the painting depict planets star systems and galaxies, that if they weren't this exciting, we'd wish them to be.

Reviewers in Review

Last year I wrote the article Reviewers in Review in OtherRealms #9. Since then, lots of things have changed. Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Review are dead. Fantasy&SF is supplementing A.J. Budrys criticisms with a more traditional review column by Orson Scott Card. Card does a good job, and seems to be slanted towards the more obscure books in the field, which I have to applaud. Who needs another review of Asimov?

Tom Easton at Analog continues to be my favorite reviewer, with Baird Searles continuing his fine column at Isaac Asimov's. One unfortunate thing to note is that Searles has lost one column a quarter to an essay/criticism by Norman Spinrad. Spinrad's column, unfortunately, is high on personal attacks and emotional content and low on critical material or insight. He remind of nothing less than an angry Harlan Ellison without the facilities of the English language or the ability to make a positive use of the anger. As far as I'm concerned, Spinrad's column is a waste, and I hope Baird is returned to full time status.

At the semi-prozine level, Debbie Notkin, my favorite Locus reviewer, has left to become an editor at Tor books. A mixed blessing, for while I miss her reviews, I'm certain that she'll be an asset at what is already one of the best publishing houses there is. Locus is still looking for a permanent replacement, and Tom Whitmore (not so coincidentally a co- partner of Notkin's in Berkeley's Other Change of Hobbit specialty book store) is the strongest candidate they've published yet. Also on the plus side, Dan Chow, who I jumped all over in the original article, has improved steadily and is turning into a solid reviewer. Overall, of the pro and semi- pro magazines, Locus consistently has the most complete and strongest coverage.

A semi-prozine that seems to be trying to take the place of Fantasy Review is Thrust. I've only read a couple of issues, so it is to early to make a definitive statement, but my initial feeling is that Thrust is missing a strong focus. There's nothing I can say about it either very positive or negative. My best advice is to get a copy and see for yourself. Another semi- prozine that started within the last year is SF Eye. It's been highly recommended to me by a number of people I trust, but I haven't seen a copy yet. I'm looking forward to it, though.

In general, the reviewing field is as good or better than it was a year ago. Even though we lost Fantasy Review, I frankly can't feel too bad about it. By the time it died, it had turned into a weak invalid of a publication, its potential squandered and lost. It's loss can even be considered a plus, because it was almost embarrassing to read some of its articles the last few issues (especially the brutal and completely off-base attack on Card in the second to last issue). With Thrust and SF Eye stepping in to its place, there's a good chance that the small-press review market will improve significantly because of it.

OtherRealms in Review

Finally, a look at myself. Which is always the most difficult. Working as closely as I do to OR I see the glitches, the typos, the things that got through into the final product that make me wince. It's hard to be objective when you eat, sleep and breathe something like I've done with OtherRealms for the past year.

The biggest change to OtherRealms has to be the conversion to quarterly. It's a controversial one, since the reviews are a little less timely, so there has to be a corresponding advantage. Having now put together two quarterly issues, I have to say that I think it should have happened long ago. The change in schedule has definitely helped me -- I have more time for tweaking, for editing, for cleaning up the raw edges. I turn out a better product, I think. More importantly (to me), I have time to do something other than OtherRealms. I'm finally able to focus on other projects a little, take a deep breath, occasionally just goof off for a weekend. This makes OtherRealms a lot more fun and a lot less of a task than it was, which makes it easier to continue publishing.

Also, I think the larger format gives me a lot more flexibility, and the ability to use more (and wider varieties of) material makes it a better magazine. I've gotten lots of positive feedback on last issue, which makes me believe I've made a good choice. More importantly, OtherRealms is finally starting to resemble my vision for it. I'm finally publishing the magazine I set out to publish two years ago.

Things aren't all perfect, of course. While the magazine itself has prospered, this has implied larger subscriptions, a larger set of correspondence to deal with, more material and information from publishers and sources, and lots of administrative details that I used to be able to handle on the side. No more. Frankly, my filing system is still in the Dark Ages, and it's starting to create glitches. So my current focus is more towards the administrative, cleaning up the subscribers database, building up some of the filing and administrative tools that I need to make my interface with publishers cleaner (one place I'm hopelessly weak in is getting tear sheets back to publishers, which I hope to have fixed permanently by next issue). The subscriber database needs an overhaul, because while I haven't lost anyone (that I know of!) keeping track of them isn't as easy as it should be, either. If subscriptions double in a short period, I'd have some pain getting the current system to cooperate.

And, of course, the long promised review index is still on the "hopefully next issue list." On the plus side, however, good progress has been made, primarily because it's tied in very closely to fixing the tear sheet problem, and because it hooks in with the system I'm building to track review copies. All of this is being done with Apple's wonderful HyperCard program for the Macintosh, and when it's done I expect to make the program available to interested parties -- it'll be a database for a book collection, among other things, and for folks who have Macintoshes you'll be able to track down reviews on-line rather than on paper (a paper version of the index will be made available, also). Eventually, I hope, the Book Index stack will become the equivalent to an electronic Books In Print for the SF and Fantasy field. We'll see.

I'm still playing a little bit with the layout of OtherRealms, but I expect that to settle down. I love graphic fesign, but there's only so much tweaking I can do before it starts getting in the way. The biggest design change I expect in the next year is a stronger use of art, with more pieces by a wider variety of artists. I also hope to go offset, so I can do the art justice and make OtherRealms a saddlestitched publication. I may also experiment with high resolution scanners to see if I can make use of them. This may be premature, however. I would like to start working with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to save re-typing of non-electronic articles, if I can find a system that works reliably. If anything of note shows up here, I'll pass it along -- wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to hire a data entry person to type in manuscripts, and a proofreader to fix their mistakes? (you would, of course, still need someone to fix the author's mistakes but why complicate your life?)

As always, your feedback is welcomed. Let me know how I'm doing, what you think, and what I'm ought to be doing. The things that have made OtherRealms a success are many -- and an important part are all of the other people who have bought into my dream (and obsession) and taken the time to work with me, to comment, to suggest, to join and and be a part. Thanks to you all!

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No individual article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 2)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 2

Behind the Scenes:
The Kindly Ones
[Baen Books]

Melissa Scott

It's always difficult to pinpoint the precise beginning of a novel, not because I don't remember, but because the actual inspiration is usually so banal. In this case, The Kindly Ones has its origins in a series of Japanese-inspired fantasies I read during my senior year in college. Like many Westerners, I find the idea of bushido, the samurai code of honor, dramatically appealing; I began thinking, vaguely, about a science fiction novel with that kind of absolute code of honor at its core. My first novel, The Game Beyond, did indeed involve a strict code of behavior -- Convention -- but that code was little more than the rules of the game, to be evaded or turned to the players' advantage, rather than something that must be blindly obeyed. The idea of social rules so strong that they could actually compel the suicide of a guilty, or merely mistaken, person continued to nag at me. The word "honor" retains much of its evocative power even today; the high price exacted for mistakes under such a system has a certain dramatic appeal, too -- and the tension between the good and the bad aspects of such a system certainly had potential.

Once I sat down to work out a science fictional world whose sociology was based on some variant of bushido, however, I ran into a major problem. The Enlightenment, and all the other Western philosophical and politics developments that exalt the rights and responsibilities of the individual, have inescapably happened. I didn't think that, unless I had a population drawn exclusively from eastern cultures, I could create a society that would impose the death penalty as the only punishment except in the most extreme circumstances -- aboard a lost colony ship when supplies are limited and any mistake or unregulated quarrel could mean the death of the entire population; or perhaps in the first years of colonization in an unexpectedly hostile environment. Once those extreme circumstances were removed, I felt that western sensibility would demand some outlet for those who choose to disobey the code. And that was where the idea of "social death" came into play. A person could choose to disobey the code, and not actually lose their life -- but society would treat them as dead. That person becomes a ghost, invisible to "living" society. And the only person who can talk to a ghost is a medium.

Out of that simple idea came an unsold short story titled "As Many Ghosts As There Were Days" about an off-worlder employed as a medium, who tried and failed to stop a disaster caused by the strict interpretation of the social code. I already had a shadowy multi-system government called the Conglomerate, in which planets continued to be named after mythological figures, and wanted to set the story in that universe. When I mentioned this to my roommate, she laughed, and said that the obvious name for a planet obsessed with honor, justice, and omnipresent ghosts was Orestes. She was right: and the planet's name eventually shaped the society, the final title, and ultimately the plot itself. After all, The Eumenides ends in resolution....

The name also took the whole situation away from its too obvious Japanese origins. To continue this separation, because the story's plot had a fatalistic attitude toward the ultimate likelihood of beating the system, which felt like the old Norse attitude towards Ragnarok, and because I liked the visual possibilities of a burned tower with its shadow of soot spread out across a snowfield, Orestes became a cold planet. This may seem to be a rather minor distinction, but climate shapes clothing, customs, architecture, native and imported wildlife, the plant life, everything.

At this point, I had an unsold short story, a simple world and society that I liked fairly well, and a main character who annoyed me. I put the story away, but the basic idea continued to nag at me. For me, the problem with the short story had been that I had not had room enough to explore a potentially intricate situation. The Orestes of "As Many Ghosts As There Were Days" had not really been connected to the conglomerate to which is supposedly belonged, which limited the possibilities for the main character, an outsider, to comment on the anomalous system -- but if it were connected, if the Oresteians had even limited contact with worlds that believed in a less demanding ethos, why and how would the code survive? My answer was that it wouldn't, and the focus of the story shifted from an incident that simply reaffirmed the code's power to the destruction of that code.

It also became quite clear that, whatever the story finally turned out to be, it couldn't be told within the confines of a short story. The feeling of increased space was wonderful, but it also meant that I had to do some serious thinking about the code, about what had created it and what was destroying it, in order to make the system believable. I stuck to my original idea that only a major disaster could force a partly-western society to accept such a Draconian code. Orestes, I decided, had been settled by accident: a generation ship's guidance computers malfunctioned, taking the colonists off course and forcing them to impose strict controls both to make it through the lengthened journey, and then to survive the first years on a planet far more hostile than their original destination. That created the society I wanted; now, I had to put it under sufficient stress to force a change. For that, I turned to the easiest method: if you change the economic base, you change the society, and Oresteian society could bend only so far without breaking completely. Originally, therefore, Orestes' economy had been based on mineral wealth. Now, those mines were nearly played out, and the five clan-like Families who controlled the world were struggling to find some other source of wealth. One Family, the richest, was probably going to succeed; the others were probably going to fail.

This set the stage, so to speak, but the society remained fairly simple. In particular, I was still bothered by the lack of any outlet except social death for those people who couldn't live within the system. In the first generations, of course, this wouldn't matter, but as the settlements stabilized and the population expanded, it would become a new cause of tension. My story had to be set late in Orestes' history -- I needed the effect of hundreds, perhaps even a thousand years of blind obedience to the code -- and therefore that problem had to be solved. Thus a new social class was born: the para'an, the outsider. At any point in a person's life one could choose to step outside the system, to say, in effect, "I won't play any more," but for a price. The para'an was no longer part of the Family into which they were born, not could they claim any of the rights of Family membership, from the basic right to support by one's kinfolk to the right to participate in political decisions -- but the para'an was no longer obliged to follow the code, or to serve the Family in any way whatsoever. the para'anin as a class differed from the ghosts in that a para'an had a legal and social existence of sorts; a ghost does not.

The nice thing about playing games with societies is that when you change one parameter you change the rest of the system with it. Para'anin turn out to be dramatically useful in two other ways. First, they as a class provide a rootless, socially unconnected work force that could become extremely important in the changing economy. Second, they are a large group of people who have been disenfranchised for no good reason, unlike ghosts, most of whom have done something that the majority finds offensive. Therefore, they are a potent source of power for anyone who wants to change the system. At this point, I felt I had enough background to work up a plot outline, and submitted it to Jim Baen at Baen Books.

Having spent quite a bit of time playing with abstract structures, I turned back to the original inspiration for the novel, and began reading again about Edo Japan. This time, instead of looking at the nobility and the samurai, I looked at the merchant class, and found the great crystallizing idea I had been looking for. In sixteenth and seventeenth century Japan, the merchant class was the lowest of the social orders, ranking even below the peasants. (A peasant produces something; a merchant, as a middleman, does not.) The merchants were also the richest people in Japan. This disparity between social position and actual power (merchants were known to keep samurai and even lesser nobles on pension) helped produce the magnificent phenomenon of the Floating World.

The "floating world" of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century Japan is an urban phenomenon, confined almost entirely to the cities of Edo and Osaka -- but what a wonderful world it is. This is the culture that produced the magnificent woodblock prints, in turn the inspiration for the European impressionists three hundred years later, and the first popular novels; this is the world of the teahouse and the courtesan and the geisha. This is the world of kabuki. And the kabuki theater, for all that it provides a momentary escape from the restrictions of society (men play women, and, very occasionally, women play men; men and women of samurai class compete with merchants and beggars for the actors' favors; the plays may even have outright villains as protagonists), ultimately affirms the rightness of that society. Kabuki, like the European carnival, overthrows only to restore.

Orestes needed its own kind of kabuki. It needed some institution -- and theater seemed the ideal form -- that could provide both escape from and affirmation of the social code. I wanted Orestes' theater to be a mirror for its society, and to contain all the possibilities implied in the word "kabuki" itself. Originally, the components meant "song-dance-woman," the final ki being written with a character that meant "woman/prostitute"; later that ki was replaced by one that simply meant "person." Thus, sexual license and/or irregularity were implied in the word; other connotations included both "askew" or "off-center" and all the meanings carried in English by the term "avant-garde."

However, kabuki itself, considered as a form of theater, wouldn't provide the images I wanted. It is, like all theater, very much a creation of its own time and place. I needed its equivalent, not the thing itself. I had some old notes for a short story that hadn't gone anywhere, in which I'd started sketching a theater that used holographic puppets, and mixed those puppets with live actors. The idea seemed promising -- I liked the idea of being able suddenly to transform an actor/puppet into something else, or into a genuine ghost -- and I decided to transfer the form and a couple of the characters into the novel.

The conjunction of theater and revolution reminded me of a fact I'd come across in my first year of graduate school. During the French Revolution -- at the height of the Terror, in fact -- the Parisian theaters played to full houses -- but the plays being performed were the crudest of melodrama. Was it just a search for order, as some historians have suggested, for the promise that Good would indeed triumph over Evil, in a time when that seemed far from certain, an escape from the guillotine into a world of black and white? Yes, possibly, but these fantastic melodramas also implicitly justified the Terror by setting up a world in which powerful evildoers were punished, not by law, but by an act of God, or, failing that, by the rough justice of the streets. Once again, popular theater was in an extremely ambivalent position, at once critical of and in complicity with the society that created it. This reaffirmed my feeling that the Oresteian theater had to become an important part of the story.

Looking at the French Revolution was also a salutary reminder that playing with economics and social structure is a dangerous and usually bloody business, especially when things have gone so far that compromise is impossible. Once my main characters stepped outside the code, there would be no going back -- and no way of avoiding a bloodbath. I was willing to write that story, but at the same time I found it vaguely unsatisfying. To end this particular story in bloody revolution was too easy, melodrama rather than tragedy. While I could make no claims to writing a tragedy in the true classical sense, I could at least avoid crude melodrama. Besides, the Oresteia ends, as I've said, in resolution, not revolution, and I wanted to keep playing on the parallels.

It was at this point, while I was still mulling over all the issues I've raised so far, that I went to Boskone. Boskone is one of those conventions at which I always end up running around in a state of wild-eyed near-hysteria, because I'm usually on panels, listening to friends on the concom tell me about disasters, and trying to sell books at the same time. This particular Boskone was no exception. Both my agent and Baen Books' editors were in attendance, and I knew perfectly well that they were negotiating -- and then Jim Baen appeared at the door of the room I was sharing with several other people towards the end of a rather subdued party. He proceeded to explain why he wasn't sure about the outline for The Kindly Ones (he felt it was much too low-tech as it stood), and suggested setting the story on three planets instead of one. Aside from making it more high-tech, and thus more obviously science fiction, putting it on three planets would let him put a spaceship on the cover, which would boost sales significantly. He made this suggestion in such a way as to make absolutely clear that his solution to the problem was not the only one possible. At the same time, he made equally clear the fact that he felt the story as it stood was too low-tech for him. To my mind, this is one of the absolute prerequisites for a good editor: the ability to define a problem, suggest possible solutions -- and then step back and let the writer grapple with what's been said.

In point of fact, I didn't like the idea of three planets: to make the social system work, I needed more or less instantaneous communications among the various Families. On the other hand, his points about the world feeling too low-tech were well taken, and in fact I hadn't intended Orestes to be particularly primitive. I suggested three moons orbiting some kind of gas giant, and that seemed acceptable. Jim thanked us and left, I hoped to continue talking to my agent in the morning.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of Orestes' being a moon -- the parent planet was obviously Agamemnon, the sister moons Electra and Iphigenia -- primarily because of the visual (descriptive?) possibilities of an immense ghostly shape hanging in the daytime sky. However, I wasn't entirely sure I could justify having a habitable moon in the position I wanted -- or, more precisely, I wasn't sure how I could justify it. Don Sakers and I happened to be on a world-building panel the next morning with Hal Clement, and Don bullied me into asking Mr. Clement if it was possible to get life on the kind of moon I needed. Mr. Clement very patiently considered the matter, and decided that it was, given certain parameters, and explained the possibilities in as much detail as we had time for before the panel started. (Mr. Clement, as anyone who's ever met him knows, is a true gentleman, and quite amazingly patient).

The more I thought about the idea, the better I liked it; by the time I met Jim and my agent for drinks that afternoon, I was more than willing to make the changes Jim wanted, and a rough agreement was reached, contracts to follow. Don, intrigued by the astronomy, offered to make some of the calculations I needed, and in fact I started getting letters from him almost as soon as Boskone ended. I told him what was absolutely necessary for the story, he worked out how to achieve that, and what else would happen under those conditions, and then I asked more questions. In the first letter, he provided basic information -- mass, period, surface gravity -- and mentioned a few extra things about the system that he thought would interest me. One of those was the fact that there would be a "midday" eclipse on Orestes, which I promptly seized on. The next letter deals with the timing and duration of the eclipse in more detail, and discusses the question of volcanic activity and earthquakes during close approach. The letter after that answers a question about angular diameters -- and told me that, from Orestes, Agamemnon was going to seem immense (an angular diameter of 18 degrees, about thirty-six times bigger than our moon seen from earth). And so on. Finally, Don wrote me a computer program that would display the moon's relative positions at any given date. The program -- and the tables I made from it - is the origin of the almanacs that are mentioned more than once in the novel.

In essence, all of these calculations filled in my picture of the moon, from the sheer size of full Agamemnon, to the duration of the long "night" and of the eclipse. Then I started fitting the society I'd invented into the new physical world Baen had forced me to provide. In the long run, I think it worked even better than the original idea could have. The seventy-one hour night was an ideal time for the theaters, bars, brothels -- all parts of the "kabuki" world -- to function; equally, those businesses would close during the long day. I borrowed an idea from the authorities of the Edo, and decided that all theaters and related businesses, and housing for most ghosts, in the city of Destiny would be confined to a single walled district, known naturally as the Necropolis. And all other Oresteian cities had to have a Necropolis, too, since they would also have substantial populations of ghosts.

While filling in the details of Orestes, I was also working on the two other moons. The larger of the pair, Electra, became in its entirety the Holding of the least important Family, the Orillon; the smallest moon, Iphigenia, was too small and too far from the other moons for life to have evolved on its frozen surface, and was to be uninhabited. Electra had to be poorer than Orestes, or the Orillon would not be its only Holders. I knew it was significantly colder than Orestes, and lacking in the mineral wealth of its larger cousin. It had been settled thirty-nine years after Orestes, as part of a feud settlement, and it was clear to me that the Orillon had lost the feud. I ended up drawing the surface map for Electra while proctoring an exam, and came up with a set of archipelagoes, linked by a permanently frozen inner sea. It was just possible, given the stable land-mass and the climate, to feed a moderate local population, but at the same time Electra's people remained dependent on Orestes -- which was vital to the plot.

The major elements of the background were not pretty well in place. The novel's main characters had been evolving with the setting: Trey Maturin, the Mediator, remained the central figure, and the narrator of most of the story, but the supporting cast had filled out properly. I wanted another off-world perspective, to match and contrast with Maturin's, and I needed someone to fly a spaceship at one point: Leith Moraghan, ex- Peacekeeper, present mailship captain, was born. I needed Oresteians, too, and wanted a dramatic foci for the two "disadvantaged" classes: I got Rehur, ghost and holo-puppet actor; and Guil ex-Tam'ne para'an of Tam'ne in Orillon, and a tug pilot for the Port Authority in Destiny. Strangely, those two characters reversed the obvious social positions. It was Rehur the ghost, with no legal existence, who by virtue of his profession of puppet- actor, was truly a part of society, while Guil the para'an was more fully disenfranchised by her in-between status. The subsidiary characters fell into place as well, both the members of the Halex Family, by whom Maturin was employed, the actors and technicians of Witchwood and of the other theaters, the various Brandr antagonists, and so on. It was time to start writing.

Looking back on this long essay, the thing that strikes me most is how inadequate this sober, linear explanation is to explain the way odd bits of information and experience weave themselves into a story. How, for example, do I really explain the impact of going to the Museum of Fine Arts one Sunday morning, and stumbling into the standing exhibits of Japanese woodblock prints, many of which that quarter seemed to show scenes of people and places in the snow -- Oresteian scenes, for all that there is nothing Japanese in either the clothes or the architecture of Orestes -- and of going from the prints to the textile exhibit, which was displaying a Noh costume, a green choken with gold cords? Neither had any direct impact on the story or setting, but something of the image, the emotional resonance of these things, stayed with me while I wrote. The same is true of trips I've made to the yarn mills around Boston: all the exotic yarns that I couldn't afford, silk, ribbons, mohair, alpaca, knitted themselves into the Oresteians' clothing, and became the industry that might save the world's economy. And what's to be said about the impact of my own family's rather far-flung web of kinship -- I was told during my freshman year in college to be sure to look up my maternal grat-uncle's second wife's godson (my god- cousin, we decided), who was also at Harvard -- on my conception of the Oresteian Families?

And, of course, none of this was happening in a vacuum. Each bit of information interacts with everything else: changing one parameter changes the entire structure, while inventing a new idea or a new term automatically shapes all subsequent decisions. For example, the decision not to specify Maturin's gender involved a reconsideration of all the gender references in the book, and drove me ultimately to wonder if it is possible to write non-sexist English. All "masculine" nouns had to be neuter -- e.g., Maturin may have been an actor, but so is the woman Jahala an actor -- which is, I suppose, the logical English usage anyway, since the language persists in using the same form for the masculine and generic human. But that, I suppose, is how novels get written, or at least how I go about it. It's a peculiar mix of sober intellectual consideration, emotion, and sheer visual pyrotechnics, fueled by omnivorous reading and flagrant coincidence.

Welcome to Orestes.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 3)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 3

The Jehovah Contract

Victor Koman
Franklin Watts, 256pp, $16.95

Reviewed by
Rick Holzgrafe
Copyright 1987 by Rick Holzgrafe

Koman has brought off a difficult feat. Few authors can write a novel that functions well on more than one or two levels. The Jehovah Contract can be read in at least four ways: as a gentle pastiche of the "tough private eye" genre of pulp fiction; as a straight action-adventure SF yarn; as social satire; and as a philosophical treatise. All of these efforts are successful, and they don't interfere with each other. In fact, they blend.

The meat of the book is the philosophy. Koman has a bone to pick with established religion (all established religions). This is one of the "tough questions": the issue is complex, deep, and emotionally charged. The cheapest kind of attack is to write a fiction in which all the antagonists (in this case, priests, ministers, rabbis, ayatollahs, et al) are either hypocritical bad guys, or naive and misled dupes. Koman's are: but that doesn't prove anything, and he knows it.

The next stage of attack is satire, holding the antagonist up to ridicule. This is more difficult, and approaches the matter more closely. To ridicule well, there must be chinks in the opponent's armor. Koman's satire is pointed, effective, and funny, but satire still doesn't prove anything. Koman wants a clean kill and goes after it the hard way, with a rigorous philosophical attack. Philosophy is not merely a collection of personal opinions, vague aphorisms, and warm feelings. It is a mental discipline relying on clear recognition of basic values, precise definition of terms, and careful logic. Koman understands this, and it is with a merciless vision and sharp logic that he carries his attack. He is not satisfied with making you feel that he is right; he wants to prove it to you. More: he wants to make you think it through for yourself, for this issue is too big to polish off in one book, even were it all philosophy. (In fact, hundreds of years of books which are all philosophy have failed to polish this one off.) Koman makes his point as sharply and rigorously as he can... and then leaves you to ponder further on your own.

A book like this can bog down in learned dissertation, but here Koman's skill at blending carries the day. The deep discussions are lightened by the first person's flippant, Bogart-tough-guy conversational style. Exciting action alternates with serious logic-chopping. Solemn treatises are relieved by witty satire. These contrasting elements could be jarring, but Koman rarely overdoes any of them. They work together. The Jehovah Contract is not perfect, and may not be to everyone's taste. But no book can be all things to all people; you can't fit enough words between the covers to do that. This book excited me, surprised me, made me laugh and made me think. I could (and do) ask for more, but I don't often get it.

In a nutshell, I thought The Jehovah Contract was a good book. (If that seems like faint praise, I mean a "good" book as opposed to a "lousy" book, a "so-so" book, or a "great" book. Damn few books make it onto my "great" list.) In some ways, it is a rough diamond. Koman is not a great wordsmith, though in places his prose is lyrical. He is not the master storyteller that Heinlein is (few of us are!), but for every place where the storyline dragged, there were two where you couldn't have paid me to close the book. Character development could have been stronger, but it wasn't absent.

Marooned in Real Time
Vernor Vinge

Baen Books, $3.50, 312pps.

Reviewed by
Wayne Throop
Copyright 1987 by Wayne Throop
mcnc!throopw

[****+]

I finally got to read it. I like it a lot. Basically, the story is a murder mystery, the victim being a person deliberately left outside of an area of time-stasis (called a "bobble") as a group of people jump futureward. Naturally, this person is "marooned in real time", and dies of old age before the travelers' bobble bursts. The whole background of why this group of people are jumping futureward, how they come to have the resources to do what they do, and so on and on, form a large and very interesting part of the book. But basically, we have W.W. Brierson, detective extrordinare, trying to understand which of the people in the group of time-travelers has done the deed.

In one of the most moving scenes, Brierson reads the extensive diary left by the marooned Marta Korolev. I got the impression from earlier passages that Brierson didn't think the crime was all that horrible... after all, Marta had lived more than fourty years before dying of old age. True, she could have lived quite a lot longer with adequate medical attention, but her life was not a lot more brutal, and certainly not a lot shorter, than that many have had to deal with. As he reads the diary, he realizes that in some ways the exile was worse than murder, even worse than his own predicament (which he already considered in some ways worse than murder). He thinks:

Someone had done this to Marta. W.W.Brierson had been shanghaied, separated from his family and his world, thrown into a new one. But [the crime against him] was a peccadillo, laughable, hardly worth Wil's attention. Compared to what was done to Marta. Someone had taken her from her friends, her love, and then squeezed the life from her, year by year, drop by drop. Someone must die for this.

The murder mystery itself would make a fine book. But a larger speculation underlies the whole story: the story of how the travelers came to be jumping futureward, and what they hope to accomplish. In the far past (and our relatively near future), humanity had vanished from the earth, in what some of the travelers call the Extinction, and others call the Singularity. Some of the travelers hold that humanity was murdered. Some think it comitted suicide. Most don't pretend to know. But their aim is to save enough of the people who inadvertently survived the event (by skipping past it in time-stasis) to have a viable starting point from which to restart a technical civilization, so that humankind will survive.

The possible murder of an entire civilization and the tremendous power of that civilization as revealed by the capabilities of the "hi-tech" futureward-traveling survivors, brings back definite echoes of the good (or bad) old space-opera days of E.E. "Doc" Smith, and John Campbell. And yet, in Vinge's hands, it is definitely not corny or hackneyed. We are slowly let in on just how powerful humanity had gotten before the Singularity when W.W. Brierson interviews the person who was "embobbled" the shortest time before the dissapearance of humanity in an industrial accident.

Tunc describes the project he was working on when a matter-antimatter blast caused automated safety devices to embobble his spacecraft:

"Such a fine idea it was. Our parent company liked big construction projects. Originally, they wanted to stellate Jupiter, but they couldn't buy the necessary options. Then we came along with a much bigger project. We were going to implode the Dark Companion, fashion of it a small Tipler cylinder." He noticed Wil's blank expression. "A naked black hole, Wil! A space warp! A gate for faster-than-light travel! Of course, the Dark Companion is so small that the aperture would be only a few meters wide, and have tidal strains above 1E13g's per meter -- but with bobbles it might be usable. If not, there were plans to probe through it to the galactic core, and siphon back the power to widen it."

And in talking about why there was matter-antimatter stored where it could cause his accident:

"We were running a matter/antimatter distillery. But look at the numbers. Yelen's stations can distill perhaps a kilo per day -- enough to power a small business. We were in a different class entirely. My partners and I specialized in close solar work, less than five radii out. We had easements on most of the sun's southern hemisphere. When I ... left, we were distilling one hundred thousand tonnes of matter and antimatter every second. That's enough to dim the sun, though we arranged things so the effect wasn't perceptible from the ecliptic. An absolute condition of our insurance was that we move it out promptly and without leakage. A few days production would be enough to damage an unprotected solar system."

So much for physical power. Tunc now lives separated from much of the mentally-linked computing power he was used to. Even so, his personal, portable computing resources, what you might think of as a pocket calculator, are greater than those of all the other saved resources combined. He allows others to use his personal interface computer in his headband as a mainframe to run compute-intensive problems. He is left with such a pittance of the computing power that he is used to, however, that Brierson is prompted to ask him:

"I've never experienced direct-connect -- much less the mind links you talk about. But I know how much it hurts a high-tech to go without a headband. [...] If I understand what you say about your time, you've lost much more. How can you be so cool?" The faintest shadow crossed Tunc's face. "It's not a mystery really. I was nineteen when I left civilization. I've lived fifty years since. I don't remember much of the time right after my rescue. Yelen says I was in a coma for months. They couldn't find anything wrong with my body; just no one was home. [...] We spent every spare gAu on our processor system and the interfaces. When we were linked up, we were something ... wonderful. But now that's all memories of memories -- no more meaningful to me than to you." His voice was soft. "You know, we had a mascot: a poor, sweet girl, close to anencephalic. Even with prosthesis she was scarcely brighter than you or I. Most of the time she was happy." The expression on his face was wistful, puzzled. "And most of the time, I am happy, too."

So we see that even with more computing power than any of the other travelers, he considers himself crippled, almost brain-dead. Personally, I think this is the best book I've read in a few years. The technological speculation is fascinating, and handled well, so it doesn't become a space opera, or a ridiculous mish-mash (even if you disagree with it, as I do). And anybody who can read the first and last scenes above in context and remain unmoved has all the empathy of a stone. Read it. I think you'll like it. PS: Even the cover is well done, showing one of the high-tech probes observing the Peacer bobble floating on a sea of magma. Nice.

Interview

Jack Chalker

September 20, 1986

This interview was held on the Delphi timesharing system by Ralph Roberts and other Delphi members.

If you are interested in joining the Delphi Science Fiction group, the local access number can be located byt calling 800-544-4005. Log onto Delphi with account JOINFICTION and password URANUS, which will qualify you for a special discount]

Albatross> One thing I've always admired about your writing style are
the beginnings, especially the first few paragraphs. When I
started writing, I sometimes referred to certain of your books
to get into the swing of things. Do those come easily to you?

Chalker> Writing is hard work, just like anything else. I am a natural
writer of sorts in that I have never had much trouble writing
well, but it's still hard work to write fiction. As you do more
of it you learn the tricks of the trade, as it were. I also
entered writing this genre by the back door -- I was an editor
and publisher first.

Albatross> You seem to straddle the line between fantasy and SF. In the
future, are you planning to keep to that line, or are you going
to bend one way or the other?

Chalker> Most of my books are actually hard SF, but the physics I use
is apparently a bit beyond the average reader. It doesn't
matter. The Dancing Gods and my new Changewinds project are
fantasy Whatever best does the job.

Albatross> So, what's on about the Middle Dark series? You raised a lot
of questions in the first book, so I figured the second one
must have already been pretty much in the bag...

Chalker> Actually I've done three of them. Not even recently. I object
to Del Rey's decisions to spread them out so far but what can I do?

Frobotz> How long ago did you really write Jungle of Stars and Identity Matrix?

Chalker>Jungle was 1975, Matrix was 1977.

Albatross> Why do you use Tor books some times, and Del Rey others?

Chalker> I write a lot and I write fast. Also, there are editorial
restrictions on some of the matter for some publishers. Soul
Rider's sex could not have been published by Del Rey, for
example. I'm just finishing a book (of three) for Berkley, too.
My Del Rey books will be PG and R and my Berkley R and my Tor X.

Frobotz> What was the creative force behind your little purple haystack?

Chalker> The haystack was Jungle. Actually, the little purple haystack
that preyed on kids from the back of an ice cream truck was a
very early story of mine -- written when I was 16 or so.

Frobotz> Thanks for bringing out Flux and Anchor #5!

Chalker> I had to. The story wasn't finished. It is now. I am putting
together a collection of my short stories.

Albatross> When will it be out?

Chalker> When I finish. I'm doing a Harlan -- lots of intro, etc. It
even has a rejection letter from John W. Campbell in it as well
as the favorite of all my writing, Dance Band on the Titantic.
That will also be the collection name. Probably 1988.

Albatross> And you'll be doing screenplays next, and producers will
curse the day you were born.... or are you forgoing the full
Harlan?

Chalker> I don't do screenplays. I just sell the books to Hollywood and
collect when they can't afford to produce them.

Albatross> War of Shadows seems like something that wouldn't be too bad
to make.

Frobotz> Which of your books would you like to see on the silver screen?

Chalker> Midnight. And so would almost every major Hollywood producer I
have a passing acquaintance with. But it would cost 70 million
so it's unlikely to be done. And the Devil Will Drag You Under
is most likely. War of Shadows actually got to the
pre-production stage before they went broke. I don't need to
write screenplays. I make more than most of them writing what I
want to write -- more than Harlan according to him on just my
last deal. And I don't have to live in LA.

Ralph> I would love to see a movie of And the Devil Will Drag You Under.

Chalker> Ralph, neither you nor I are going to like what they do with
it. Remember Damnation Alley? You just take the money and run
and hope it hypes the book.

Albatross> My favorite was The Identity Matrix. It seemed frighteningly
relevant.

Chalker> More than you think. The fact is, there is a lot of research
going in that field right now that is proving my nutty ideas
more right than wrong. They aren't doing it my way, but I think
the selective editing and rewrite of human memory is no more
than 20 years away.

Albatross> One of the things that disturbed me about the book was that
a person is their memories... there's either nothing more, or
it doesn't matter.

Chalker> That's the point. Lots of critics blasted the book because
they took it as a sex switch book. But the point was that it
was being written in the first person by somebody who's been
through the process at least three times and the character is
somebody else's idea of what "she" should be. Well, most
readers got it from the mail & comments I get, and the
mainstream critics got it just fine. It's only the SF critics
who seem to need it all spelled out.

Frobotz> How many critics do you know that only skim-read?

Chalker> Most critics read it all. It's their judgment and sense I question.

Albatross> What are you working on now?

Chalker> I am 90,000 words into When the Changewinds Blow, a new
project for Berkley-Putnam. I should have it done some time
around mid-October but you won't see it for a year or so.

Albatross> Is Changewinds going to be another multi-volume series,
agonizingly spread out over several years?

Chalker> Well, I have some hope for you. When a series starts from Tor
in January called God, Inc. (first title The Labyrinth of
Dreams) this is not a serial but a series. Each book stands on
its own They are parallel worlds private detective novels.

Ralph> Jack, can you tell us why Lester turned down Judy Lynn's Hugo?
a real shock to me.

Chalker> I think his letter said it all. There was a campaign by Ben
Bova in the fanzines to give it to her posthumously which he
really detested. But if they really meant it they would have
given it to her while she lived I would have the same reaction.

Albatross> It seems that women prefer your Dancing Gods series to any
others. Is this true?

Chalker> Not from my mail. Women seem to like my stuff in general but
Well World is their favorite. The more classical type of SF
like Four Lords is less to their liking. I write for me,
though. It's nice that so many others of both sexes like it,
too. It occured to me just a couple of days ago that I have a
tendency to plot like a soap opera. I wonder if that has
anything to do with it.

Albatross> I've noticed that you leave several subplots going from one
book in a series to another. Could that be the reason? Your
writing based on the way the story is published?

Chalker> Well, there are series and there are serials I write both.
Yeah, you always are aware that you have to break the book up.
That calls for some planning.

Albatross> Will any characters carry over to the last Soul Rider book?
(And, will we finally go to some of the other Anchors?)

Chalker> Oh, sure Even Cassie makes a walk-on but it's Suzl's book.
More Fluxlands, not more anchors. Anchors are dull. It's a
chase that ends in the climax with a massive battle between one
force and New Eden.

Albatross> In the first three books, they did magic. Then in the fourth,
it turns out that the hyper-intelligent computers figured all
along that things would turn out like this. So what happens
to the computers, anyway? Give it up for lost, and stay away?

Chalker> See Chapter 16 of Children and all will be revealed. But read
the first 15 chapters first. Magic is just a scientific or
mathematical way of doing something we can't. Soul Rider is
based on the old idea of matter transmission. If you can do
THAT, then you can do what I describe. It's a lot more than
beam me up, Scotty.

Albatross> Maybe magic is what people do when they don't understand science.

Chalker> No, magic has logic and rigid rules. It has to. The problem
is, I'm cursed with a logical mind. That's why sometimes we get
the sex and power and control things in my books. If A is true,
then B must be. And, historically, if something is possible and
logical, even if it's negative, some bright boy will find a way
to do it and somebody else to misuse it.

Albatross> Yes, but it never happens so fast in real life... which is
why, I guess, it's real.

Chalker> Our knowledge in virtually every field is doubling every ten
years along with the improvement in our tools. Twenty years ago
I worked at Hopkins on a mainframe with far less power and
memory than this. That was state of the art. Now I have four
times that on my desk.

Albatross> Jack, you mentioned a couple of years ago that all the
societies in your books were real, sometime, somewhere. Okay,
where and when was New Eden?

Chalker> New Eden is based primarily on the writings of the Ayahtollah
Rafsanjani, currently Iran's real leader, and a few of the most
radical thinkers of that revolution. It was coupled with some
basics from lots of other cultures including some African ones
and Mormonism. I'm a historian by training and I read all their
stuff. I wrote a book based on the writings of some esoteric
far left French and Chinese communists called Dancers in the
Afterglow and their followers took power in Cambodia and put it
into practice before the book even got published.

Albatross> Jack, did you read Greg Bear's Blood Music? How did his view
of micro-life jibe with your Dreensa?

Chalker> Greg and I are old friends. I don't mind that he took one of my
ideas and ran with it. I often claim to be the father of cyberpunk.

Albatross> Well that's two, then for Greg Bear. I just finished Eon,
and thought, "This is Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama taken to
it's logical conclusion."

Chalker> I think Greg is an excellent writer with a good future. He
grew up in this field as I did. Would you believe he started
out as a pretty good artist? He's also married to Poul
Anderson's daughter. Me, I married an SF con chairwoman. We
keep inbreeding. The powers that be type critics lump Bear,
Gibson, Sterling, and a few others together as cyberpunk
writers. Actually, it's an attempt to put them all together so
critics can explain it.

Albatross> I don't see a similarity.

Chalker> They once called Zelazny and Delany New Wave writers -- to
Zelazny's horror, at least.

Albatross> Zelazny is much more zennish. If I were forced, I'd put
Steven Brust as Zelazny's younger counterpart, but that's all.

Chalker> No, Brust is a dedicated ideologue (Trotskyite type). Roger is
not. Brust is a nice guy and a good writer and he consciously
tries to imitate Roger's style in places but their interests
and purposes in their books is totally different, even
radically so.

Albatross> Jack, is there any author you ever tried to imitate?

Chalker> Imitate? No. It's pretty easy to imitate most writers, even
Harlan or Bradbury. Stolen from? Sure. Eric Frank Russell most
of all, Phil Farmer, too.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

↑ Top

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 4)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 4

Bibliography

Jack Chalker

1. A Jungle of Stars, Ballantine/Del Rey, 1976. Also Editions Albin
Michel, Paris, 1979 (in French). Some German fans insist there
was a German edition circa 1978 but if there was I never saw it.

2. Midnight at the Well of Souls, Del Rey, 1977. Also Penguin Books,
U.K., 1981; Goldmann, Munich, 1978 (in German). Danish and
Dutch editions now appearing, more to come. Series sold to
Italy in 1987, my first seven-figure advance. Unfortunately
it's lira....

3. The Web of the Chosen, Del Rey, 1978. Also Wilhelm Hein Verlag,
Munich, 1981 (in German); also in a highly rewritten Hebrew
edition (Tel Aviv, 1981).

4. Exiles at the Well of Souls, Del Rey, 1978. Also Penguin Books,
U.K., 1982; Goldmann, Munich, 1979 (in German). Danish, Dutch,
Italian editions now appearing.

5. Quest for the Well of Souls, Del Rey, 1978. Foreign editions as above.

6. And the Devil Will Drag You Under, Del Rey, 1979. German edition,
Goldman, 1983, with same cover. French edition 1987 with new
cover in large-size trade paperback format. Optioned to the movies.

7. A War of Shadows, Ace: An Analog Book, 1979. Reprinted with new
(good) cover and packaged like a mainstream thriller, Ace,
October, 1984. Optioned off and on to the movies.

8. Dancers in the Afterglow, Del Rey, 1979, 1982. Also Goldmann,
Munich, 1982 (in German as Der Tourister Planet).

9. The Return of Nathan Brazil Del Rey, 1980. Foreign editions as above
(see Midnight.).

10. The Devil's Voyage Doubleday, 1980, in hardcover. Japanese rights
were sold but no book produced so far in Japanese. Out of print
at Doubleday, after 3 printings. After a long dispute with me
over paperback rights, Doubleday found a loophole and sold it
at the last minute to Critic's Choice paperbacks, a new company
in NYC about which I know nothing except that they seem SF
oriented and bought this for my name. Unfortunately, they
published the Doubleday version, not the one I wrote; 1985,
with a great cover. Book is a WWII novel, not SF, although John
W. Campbell is a minor character.

11. Twilight at the Well of Souls, Del Rey, 1980. Foreign editions as
per Midnight.

12. Lilith: A Snake in the Grass, Del Rey, 1981. Also Goldmann, Munich,
1982 (in German). British edition pending.

13. Cerebus: A Wolf in the Fold, Del Rey, 1982. Also Goldmann, Munich,
1983 (in German). British edition pending.

14. The Identity Matrix, Timescape: Pocket Books, 1982. Reprinted, with
new cover and fresh typesetting, by Baen Books, January, 1986.
Sold to Goldmann, Germany, other foreign sales pending.
Although #14 in publication, this was written #3, immediately
after Midnight at the Well of Souls.

15. Charon: A Dragon at the Gate, Del Rey, 1982. German edition
(Goldmann), 1984. British edition pending.

16. Four Lords of the Diamond The Science Fiction Book Club, 1983,
March main selection. Contains all four "Diamond" books (#s 12,
13, 15, and 17) although slightly rewritten by me to eliminate
some recap that was needed in the four but unnecessary in a
single volume edition. Original cover by Richard Powers for
this book. British and other foreign sales are pending; there
is suddenly a lot of interest in it abroad.

17. Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail, Del Rey, 1983. Also Goldmann, Munich
(in German), 1985. British edition pending.

18. The River of Dancing Gods, Del Rey, delivered in March of 1982 but
Del Rey did not publish it until February, 1984. British
edition, Futura, 1985.

19. Demons of the Dancing Gods, Del Rey, delivered in October, 1982;
published May 24, 1984. British edition, Futura, 1986.

20. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Tor Books, 1984. First of a large novel
split into 3 books.

21. Empires of Flux and Anchor, Tor Books, 1984. Second in the Soul
Rider books, delivered in May, 1983 and written continuously
with #20 above. Marketed as Soul Rider: Book Two with the title
off to one side.

22. Downtiming the Night Side, Tor Books, May, 1985. A complex time
travel novel not connected to a series or other works.
Delivered December, 1983.

23. Masters of Flux and Anchor, Tor Books, January, 1985. Third but not
last in the Soul Rider saga, although it completes the original
novel as outlined. Delivered January 25, 1984. Copies were
received in Nov. 84. The Danish edition of this one will be
abridged, and not by me.

24. Vengeance of the Dancing Gods, Del Rey, July, 1985. Third but not
the last of the Dancing Gods series, although the last written
to date. Delivered April, 1984. Futura, U.K., 1986.

25. The Messiah Choice, St. Martins/Blue Jay, May, 1985 in hardcover.
Mass market paperback, Tor Books, May 1986. A horror novel with
SF overtones, should appeal to my regular readers who don't
like horror. Delivered August 1, 1984. Blue Jay is bankrupt
(not my doing!) and the copies were remaindered by St. Martins
and may be available cheap somewhere. The Tor paperback is
still in print, though.

26. The Birth of Flux and Anchor, Tor Books, 1985. A "prequel" to #s
20, 21, and 23 above, set 2600 years earlier. Delivered January
15, 1985, copies received November 14, 1985. No, they called it
Soul Rider: Book 4, not Book 0.

27. Children of Flux and Anchor, Tor Books, September, 1986. Not a
sequel, as originally intended, but actually the last part of
the mega-novel I thought I could cover in #3 but ran out of
room to do.

28. Lords of the Middle Dark, Del Rey Books, June, 1986. First volume
in a new mega-novel, The Rings of the Master, which was not my
series title (I called it The Malebolge Rings). Delivered July
15, 1985. Entire series sold to Hodder in Great Britain for
publication starting late in 1987 and going through late 1988.

29. Pirates of the Thunder, Del Rey Books, March, 1987. Continuation of
the Rings of the Master series begun with #28 above. Delivered
March 27, 1986. British edition from Hodder.

30. The Labyrinth of Dreams, Tor Books, March, 1987. First in an open-
ended series of at least 3 stand-alone novels with the same
lead characters and premise. The series overtitle is G.O.D.,
Inc. Originally intended as a mega-novel, this turned out to be
a true series, each book complete. I had so much fun with the
first one I wrote it in near record time and delivered it on
August 10, 1985, five months before it was due. It sort of does
to parallel worlds and thirties' detective fiction what the
Dancing Gods series does for Conan. Rescheduled because of the
St. Martins buyout of Tor so while I had no books for 9 months
come out this comes out the same month as Pirates. This book
and its sequels have been banned in parts of Alabama, Tennessee,
and the Carolinas because distributors considered the overtitle
sacreligious. Chain book stores there will have it, though.

31. The Shadow Dancers, Tor Books, July, 1987. Second of the G.O.D.,
Inc. books. The first was sort of Raymond Chandler; this one is
more like Alternate World Vice although it has a fun parody of
The Thin Man at the end. More serious than #29 but still fun.
Delivered December 15, 1985, copies received June 17, 1987. See
banning notice on #30 above.

32. Warriors of the Storm, Del Rey Books, August, 1987. Third in the
Rings of the Master series begun with #28 and #31 above.
Delivered May 25, 1986 at Disclave. British: Hodder.

33. When the Changewinds Blow, Ace/Putnam, September, 1987. After 3
books from 3 publishers in 3 consecutive months people are
going to think I have Clark Kent's typing speed. First in a
projected trilogy that is one long continuous novel and is a
totally continuous narrative. It is fantasy, not terribly
comedic although it is satire of a different sort, but it has
all the elements you've come to expect from me (and the worst
pun I have ever had the guts to commit in a book). Delivered
October 20, 1986. The book has a really fine wrap-around
Darrell Sweet cover.

Written And Delivered
But Not Yet Published

34. Masks of the Martyrs, Del Rey, January, 1988. Last of the Rings of
the Master series, delivered February 24, 1987. Yes, it ends
the series, and quite bizarrely, too. British: Hodder.

35. Dance Band on the Titanic, Del Rey Books, 1988. Story collection
with lots of commentary. You will even learn such things as why
I write a lot of books on transformation themes. Lots of
prefatory matter, commentary, barbs and darts, and even some
memoir, much taken from the stuff I do at conventions but a lot
blunter, particularly my views on critics, criticism, and
failed writers. Some sting may be lessened by publisher's lawyers.

36. Riders of the Winds, Second book in the Changewinds series (see #33 above)
for Ace/Putnam. Delivered May 22, 1987. Now slated for May, 1988.

37. The Maze in the Mirror, Tor Books, 1988. Third in the G.O.D., Inc.
series begun with #29.

38. The War of the Maelstrom, Ace/Putnam, 1988 (maybe). Not due until
October of 1987. The third and climactic Changewinds book. If
you ever liked the wildest parts of my writing you won't want
to overlook this. If you want a book with a wild and woolly
hundred plus page climax including sword and sorcery battles
with tactical nuclear weapons -- and the swords win -- you will
like this one.

39. Swords of the Dancing Gods, Del Rey, late 1988 (at least). This may
-- or may not -- be the last book, but considering what the
series satirizes there was no way I could leave it at a cliched
trilogy. Be warned: this involves a massive frozen
battleground, the Master of the Dead, the Baron, both Irvings,
and a strange and epic fantasy quest involving Gilligan's Island.

40. The Quintara Marathon, This is the overtitle of a three-book series
I will be writing starting in 1988 for 1989 publication for The
Berkley Group. It will be issued first in hardcover as part of
the deal, so it might be 1990 before the pb of the first one
appears.All I can tell you is that it's SF, really cosmic, has
lots of alien worlds and creatures but does not have a
transformation motif (although people find it in books I write
without it anyway and probably will here) and should appeal to
those who liked Four Lords and the Rings series.

Stuff Received

Avon

Deitz, Tom. Fireshaper's Doom, 306pp, $3.50, 1987, 0-380-75329-4.
Sequel to Windmaster's Bane.

McDonough, Thomas R. The Architects of Hyperspace, 265pp, $2.95,
December, 1987, 0-380-75144-5.

Baen Books

abHugh, Dafydd. Heroing, 352pp, $3.50, October, 1987, 0-671-65344-X.
First Fantasy novel.

Asire, Nancy. Twilight's Kingdoms, 376pps, November, 1987, $3.50,
0-671-65362-8.

Brown, Mary. The Unlikely Ones, 426pps, November, 1987 reprint of a
1986 novel, $3.95, 0-671-65361-X.

Callin, Grant. A Lion on Tharthee, 352 pages, October, 1987,
0-671-65357-1, $3.50. Standalone sequel to Saturnalia.

Drake, David. Hammer's Slammers: Counting the Cost, 267pps,
November, 1987, 0-671-65355-5, $3.50.

Laumer, Keith. Retief: Diplomat at Arms, 214 pages, October, 1987,
0-671-65358-X, $2.95. New edition of a collection of Retief stories.

McLoughlin, John. Toolmaker Koan, 416 pages, $15.95, October, 1987,
0-617-65354-7.

Pournelle, Jerry. Imperial Stars #2: Republic and Empire, 399 pages,
October, 1987, $3.95, 0-671-65359-8. Anthology edited by John F. Carr.

Scott, Melissa. The Empress of Earth, 346pps, November, 1987, $3.50,
0-671-65364-4. Conclusion of the Silence Trilogy.

Shaw, Bob. A Wreath of Stars, 220pps, November 1987 reprint of a
1976 novel, $2.95, 0-671-65365-2.

Vinge, Vernor. True Names... and Other Dangers, 275pps, November,
1987, $2.95.

Bantam/Spectra

Benford, Gregory. Great Sky River, 326pp, December, 1987, $17.95,
0-553-05238-1.

Bowker, Richard. Dover Beach, 272pp, $3.95, 0-553-26810-4.

Busby, F.M. The Rebel Dynasty, 443pp, $4.95, 0-553-26954-2.
Combined novels Star Rebel and Rebel's Quest.

Carver, Jeffrey A. Clypsis, 192pp, $3.50, 0-553-26536-9. First in the
Alien Speedway series created by Roger Zelazny and Byron Preiss.

Estes, Rose. Blood of the Tiger, 198pp, December, 1987, $3.50,
0-553-26411-7. Volume one of the Saga of the Lost Lands series.

Goldstein, Lisa. A Mask for the General, 201pps, November, 1987,
$14.95, 0-553-05239-X.

Hazel, Paul. Winterking, 259pp, $3.50, December, 1987, 0-553-26945-3.
Volume 3 of the Finnbranch Trilogy.

Martin, George R.R. Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild, 374pps, November,
1987, $3.95, 0-553-26699-3.

Preiss, Byron. The Universe, 335pps (oversized clothbound with color
plates), November, 1987, $27.95, 0-553-05227-6. A combination
of science Fiction and science fact on related topics with high
quality color photos and illustrations.

Sargent, Pamela. The Shore of Women, 480pp, $4.95, 0-553-26854-6.

Scarborough, Elizabeth. The Goldcamp Vampire, 247pps, November,
1987, $3.50, 0-553-26717-5

Scarborough, Elizabeth. Song from the Seashell Archives, 560pp, $4.95,
0-553-26957-7. Combined edition of the novels Song of Sorcery
and The Unicorn Creed.

Tepper, Sheri. After Long Silence, 344pp, December, 1987, $3.95,
0-553-26944-5.

Wylie, Jonathan. The First Named, 281pps, November, 1987, $3.95,
0-553-26953-4. Servants of the Ark Volume 1.

Carroll & Graf

Ballard, J.G. The Terminal Beach, 300pp, $3.50, 0-88184-370-9.
Reprint of a 1964 collection.

Dick, Philip K. Time Out of Joint, 263pps, $3.95, 0-88184-352-0.
Reprint of a 1959 novel.

Moorcock, Michael. Behold the Man, 143 pages, $2.95, October, 1987,
0-88184-369-5. Reprint of a classic time travel book.

Pringle, David. Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, 220pps, $7.95
trade paperback, 0-88184-346-6. Non-fiction.

Delacorte

Vonnegut, Kurt. Bluebeard: A Novel, 300 pages, $17.95, October, 1987,
0-385-29590-1.

Dell

Naha, Ed. Robocop, 189pp, $3.50, 0-440-17479-1. Novelization of the movie.

Rose, Colin. Accelerated Learning, 256pp, $8.95, 0-440-50044-3. Non-fiction.

Smith, Guy N. Entombed, 192pp, $3.50, 0-440-12280-5.

Dell/Laurel Leaf

Bell, Clare. Ratha's Creature, 259pp, $2.95, 0-440-97298-1. Marketed
as an older Juvenile, this is a good read for adults as well.

Harris, Geraldine. The Seventh Gate, 241pp, $2.95, 0-440-97747-9.

Del Rey

Faust, Joe Clifford. A Death of Honor, 326pps, February, 1987, $3.50,
0-345-34026-4. A first novel.

Forstchen, William R. The Alexandrian Ring, 295pps, October, 1987,
$3.50, 0-345-33581-3. Book one of the Gamester Wars.

Gadallah, Leslie. Cat's Pawn, 262pps, March, 1987, $2.95,
0-345-33742-5. A first novel.

Gauger, Rick. Charon's Ark, 375pps, August, 1987, $3.50, 0-345-31773-4.
A first novel.

Kilian, Crawford. The Fall of the Republic, 293pps, September, 1987,
$4.75, 0-345-34273-9. A novel of the chronoplane wars.

Steussy, Marti. Forest of the Night, 265pps, 1987, $2.95, 0-345-33815-4.

Dolphin/Doubleday

Carlisle, Anne. Liquid Sky: The Novel, 186pp, December, 1987, $9.95
trade paperback, 0-385-23930-0. Novelization of the cult movie.

Franklin Watts

Dvorkin, David. Budspy, 268 pages, $17.95, October, 1987. Science
Fiction/Spy cross genre.

Harvey, M. Elayn. Warhaven, 288pp, $15.95, 0-521-15068.

Putnam

King, Stephen. The Tommyknockers, 448pps, $19.95, 0-399-13314.

Starblaze Graphics

Asprin, Robert & White, Mel. Duncan & Mallory: The Bar-None Ranch,
$6.95, 0-89865-506-4.

Asprin, Robert. Myth-Nomers and Im-Pervections, 180pp, $7.95 trade
paperback, December, 1987, 0-89865-529-3. Eighth in the Myth
Adventures series.

Doran, Colleen. A Distant Soil: Immigrant Song, $6.95 color graphic
novel, 0-89865-514-5

Fancher, Jane. Gate of Ivrel: Claiming Rites, $6.95 color graphic novel,
0-898675-515-3. Based on the novel by C.J. Cherryh.

Reynolds, Kay. Robtech Art 2, 131pps, color graphic novel, $12.95,
0-89865-417-3.

St. Martin's Press

Bradbury, Ray. Fever Dream, 32pp, $6.95 clothbound, 0-312-57285-9. The
Night Light's line of illustrated stories for children,
illustrated by Darrel Anderson. A Glow in the Dark Book.

Clute, John, et al. Interzone: The 2nd Anthology, 208pp, $16.95, 0-312-01325-6.

Goulart, Ron. Starpirate's Brain, 184 pages, $2.95. The Exchameleon #2.

Stchur, John. Down on the Farm, 216pp, $15.95, 0-312-01021-4.

Tremaine, Peter. Zombie!, 183pp, $2.95, 0-312-90923-3. Reprint of a 1981 book.

Weaver, Michael D. Mercedes Night, 240pp, 16.95, 0-312-01066-4.

Tor

Bishop, Michael. The Secret Ascension, 341pps, $16.95, November,
1987, 0-312-93031-3.

Bova, Ben. The Kinsman Saga, 566 pages, $17.95, October, 1987, 0-312-93028-3.

Saberhagen, Fred. The Second book of Lost Swords: Sightblinder's
Story, 248pps, November, 1987, $14.95, 0-312-93032-1.

Wolfe, Gene. The Urth of the New Sun, 372pps, $17.95, November,
1987, 0-312-93033-X. Recommended.

Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn. A Flame in Byzantium, 470 pages, October, 1987,
$17.95, 0-312-93026-7. First in a series of books about Olivia,
a character from the St. Germain series.

Fan & Other Zines

CinemaScore #15. Randall Larson, Ed. 160 pages (double issue), $8.95.
Irregular heading towards semi-annual. Coverage of Film Music.
Subscriptions $13.00/3 issues. Fandom Unlimited Enterprises,
P.O. Box 70868, Sunnyvale, CA 94086.

File 770 #69. Mike Glyer. Irregular fannish newszine. $5.00/5 issues
from 5828 Woodman Ave. #2, Van Nuys, CA 91401.

Lan's Lantern #23. George "Lan" Laskowski. Irregular, for the regular
or $2.00 from 55 Valley Way, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48013. A Hugo
finalist this year and previous winner of Best Fanzine.

Locus #332. Charles Brown. Winner of Best Semi-prozine Hugo. Industry
Newszine. Monthly. $24/year from Box 13305, Oakland, CA. 94661.

The Ozoids: Limericks in Oz. Neil Wilgus. $5.95, Booklet of limericks
with an Oz background, from Juxtapedia Press, Box 25771,
Alburquerque, NM, 87125.

Rune 76. Jeanne Mealy & Dave Romm, editors. 17pps, irregular, available
for the regular from the Minnesota SF Society, box 8297 Lake
Street Station, Minneapolis, MN, 55408.

Scavenger's Newsletter #45. Janet Fox. Monthly small press market
reports. $8/yr from 5129 Ellinwood, Osage City, Ks.
66523-1329.

Science Fiction Chronicle. Andy Porter. Industry Newszine. Monthly.
#23.40/yr from Box 4175, New York, NY 10163.

SPWAO Newsletter. Stephanie Stearns, editor. Bi-monthly, to members of
Small Press Writers and Artists Organization, $12.50 to George
St. Lewis, 13 Southwood Drive, Woodland, CA 95695.

Thrust #28. D. Douglas Fratz. Quarterly semi-pro reviewzine, $8/year
from Thrust Publications, 8217 Langport Terrace, Gaithersburg,
MD 20877.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 5)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 5

Scattered Gold

Charles de Lint

Installment 2:
In which we travel a little further afield

Reviewed in this issue:

Dover Beach
by Richard Bowker
[**]

Bones of the Moon
by Jonathon Carroll
[****]

Weaveworld
by Clive Barker
[***]

Slob
by Rex Miller
[***]

Mantis
by K.W. Jeter
[***+]

The Lost Boys
by Craig Shaw Gardner
[**+]

The Sensitives
by Herbert Burkholz
[***]

Crow's Parliament
by Jack Curtis
[***]

Sepulchre
by James Herbert
[***]

The Hamlet Trap
by Kate Wilhelm
[***+]

A Man Rides Through
by Stephen R. Donaldson
[***+]

The Forge of God
by Greg Bear
[***]

A Book Dragon
by Donn Kushner
[****]

Postcards from the Edge
by Carrie Fisher
[****]

It was Lord Dunsany who first coined the phrase "Beyond the Fields we know," referring to the lands of Faerie that lie beyond the fields of men. We, however, reading as we do so much fantasy and SF, might consider ourselves to already be in the lands of Faerie, so when I mention that we'll be travelling further afield in this column's subtitle, I mean to take us into some unfamiliar lands, yes, but it'll be more like journeying from Faerie back to more mundane fields to see how some out-of-genre writers are handling themes which we're already quite familiar.

Last issue I promised a review of two books by Richard Bowker. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for the special order I made on Malborough Street published by Doubleday, so all I can cover here is the Spectra release which I do have on hand.

Dover Beach [Bantam/Spectra, October, 1987, 272pp, $3.95, 0-553- 26810-4] is a private eye novel set in post-holocaust Boston. In a world where basic survival takes up most people's concerns, would be PI Wally Sands first case begins when he's hired by a clone to find the prominent biochemist from whom he was cloned.

The premise is good, the first person narrative smooth, but there's a certain lackadaisical quality to the plot that makes it plod. There are lots of great touches -- like the bookseller who collects post-holocaust novels, or the image of two young teenagers who have known nothing but pain, finding a moment's peace dancing cheek to cheek in an abandoned bomb shelter --- but somehow the book never quite clicked for me.

One of the great strength's of Jonathon Carroll's two earlier books -- The Land of Laughs (Viking, 1980) and Voice of Our Shadow (Viking, 1983) -- is his own particular, and peculiar, juxtapositioning of the Fantasy element with the real world. The fantastic slides into the here and now, starling in its originality, yet the mesh is perfectly apt. Unfortunately he doesn't quite pull that off in Bones of the Moon [Century Fantasy & SF, 1987, 216pp, #9.95, 0-7126-1504-0].

Cullen James has serial dreams of an otherworld named Rondua where events, apparently not connected to her life in the waking world, eventually prove to be very relevant. The real world sequences are wonderful, showing Carroll's other strengths: he's a superb stylist and his characters live beyond the page the moment they're introduced. Cullen and her husband Danny, the wonderfully eccentric Eliot Kilbertus, the intense film director Weber Gregston, Alvin Williams the murderer who Cullen calls "the Axe Boy" ... they're brought to life with sure deft strokes.

But in Rondua....

Carroll's portrayal of the otherworldly dreamland balances between absurdism and surrealism on the one hand, and bits that are very effective on the other. Where the fantastic elements bleed into the real world, they work wonderfully, but taken as a whole in the sections where Cullen is on her quest for the Bones of the Moon in Rondua, they don't always ring quite true.

In a lesser writer's hands, this could have easily flawed the entire book. But coming from Carroll, with all the strengths of his writing, I was captivated enough to put those slight nags at the absurdities of Rondua aside and read on. And I can still wholeheartedly recommend the book to any lover of contemporary Fantasy. Because even lesser Carroll is still better than so much else that's out there on the stands today.

This, by the way, is the English edition of the book that I'm reviewing. You can probably get it through an importer, or you could wait for the Arbor House edition which is due out next spring.

Ever since the publication of the first three volumes of Clive Barker's Books of Blood (Sphere, 1984) which garnered the British author the now famous quote from Stephen King -- "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker"-- Barker's star has been on the rise. Not solely from that quote, but the quote didn't hurt.

Barker set the horror genre on its ear, basically forwarding the premise that there are, and should be, no limits to what one writers. Following his own advice, Barker's Books of Blood are full of graphic depictions of violence, sex, and gross horrors. But present though those elements are, they are not the sole reason that the work exists, and that's what makes the difference between Barker and those other writers who just go for the "gross-out."

"It's a real problem," he has said, "if you'd doing graphic work of one kind or another, that there's always going to be a segment of the audience who will read, or view it, for just that reason. They don't see beyond what's underpinning that violence."

What Barker did for the genre was to open it up -- to allow that anything was possible in a creative work, so long as it had a viable reason for existing that was beyond mere shock value. He continued this thematic thrust of breaking new ground with a second three volumes of Books of Blood (Sphere, 1985) and then his first novel, The Damnation Game (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985).

By this time Barker was a publishing phenomenon in England and genre readers in North America were eagerly anticipating his debug here. In England, the six paperback collections of Books of Blood were reissued in hardcover editions, complete with cover art by Barker himself, as well as in deluxe boxed editions that are now worth hundreds of dollars. A playwright before he began writing fiction, he's now a screenwriter and film director as well, with theater's currently showing his newest film -- based on his novella "The Hellbound Heart" (from Night Visions 3, Dark Harvest, 1986).

With all this behind him, anticipation of the publication of his new novel Weaveworld [Collins, October, 1987, 732pp; Cdn $24.95, 0-00-223271-5] has been running high.

Simply put, it's an epic contemporary fantasy mostly set in Barker's hometown of Liverpool. To hide from the Scourge, an enemy bent on genocide, a race of magical beings known as the Seerkind have woven their entire world -- their arts, philosophy, flora and fauna, and themselves -- into a carpet, the Weaveworld of the title. Considering themselves better than mankind, the Seerkind refer to humans as Cuckoos; our work as the Kingdom of the Cuckoos.

When the book opens, the two human protagonists are looking for the carpet at the same time as others are -- the later set upon the destruction of the Weaveworld and its denizens by delivering them to the Scourge.

Where the book fails is that it breaks no new ground. Barker doesn't do for contemporary fantasy what he did for horror. All the elements of Weaveworld -- questing, hidden magical world, human protagonists, magical beings, evil antagonist -- are the staples of fantasy. We've seen them all before, in other guises.

However, there's a delightful description of conceptual reality when the lack of magic in our world is explained. "We realized that your kind like to make laws," one of the Seerkind tells a Cuckoo character. "Like to decree what's what, and whether it's good or not. And the world, being a loving thing, and not wishing to disappoint you or distress you, indulges you. Behaves as though your doctrines are in some way absolute."

Barker's previous strengths and weaknesses are both present. The plot is a rambling affair, the characters are distanced from the reader and often have confusing motivations, and there is some very sloppy writing. On the plus side, there are also sections that feature some Barker's best prose to date. The characters, particularly the protagonists, are more accessible than those in Barker's earlier work, and there's a wild sense of imagination let loose in these pages that often carries the book ahead all on its own, particularly in his physical descriptions of the evil characters and their minions.

It might be that Barker has taken on too many careers all at once -- novelist, film director, playwright and artist. Any one of these would be a full occupation for someone else. Trying to juggle them all must be a very difficult task.

Yet if Barker isn't breaking new ground here, he's at least not losing ground either. Weaveworld's disappointments are due more to the high expectations readers will have because of the startling originality of his earlier work, rather than particular weaknesses in this novel. coming from another author, this might well have been considered a tour de force. From Barker, it's merely marking time.

For entertaining as it is in parts, Weaveworld appears to be more of a bridge between Barker's earlier work and what is still to come, rather than a book that will make us sit up and take note of it now.

Imagine a monstrosity of a man -- five hundred pounds of serial killer that you can smell a half block away. He's been trained by the government. He's a Vietnam vet and an ex-con. He has a presentient ability to sense people, even in the utter dark. And he loves to kill.

Against him only one man, Special Agent Jack Eichord, an expert in serial killings, has a true inkling just how much of a horror the killer is, and he pursues him with a relentless need to see him brought down.

If it sounds like Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (Putnam, 1981; made into the film Manhunter a couple of years ago), then you're right. Slob [Signet, November, 1987, 301pp, $3.95] does tread some of the same ground, but it is by no means a simple rehash.

There are flashes of real brilliance in this, Rex Miller's first novel -- scenes so chilling, so repugnant, so seamlessly portrayed in their intensity that they can't help but tear a reaction from the reader. Its contemporary flash flickers like a music video and its portrayal of a serial killer makes the true case histories in a book like Elliot Leyton's Hunting Humans (McClelland and Stewart, 1986) seem tame by comparison, though one should never forget that Slob is only fiction, while Ted Bundy and his like were really out there. Are still out there.

But unfortunately, for all of hits high points, the book has some real flaws as well. Most of these are probably due to Miller's need to grow as a writer. He tells more often than he shows with long scenes of authorial exposition. He begins with an effective juxtapositioning of past and present tense scenes, but they begin to bleed into each other at times, killing their effect. And sometimes his prose simply gets out of control, stumbling into the machine gun ramblings when it should be lean and tight.

Still it's an ambitious novel, with some astonishing moments and real muscle. Not to everyone's taste, perhaps, but the darkness is out there and sometimes it's good to be reminded of it when we start feeling too cozy.

Mantis [Tor, October, 1987, 281pp, $3.95, 0-812-52009] is a twisted book. Coming from the author of Dr. Adder (Bluejay) it's perhaps not all that surprising, but this book really gets down into the ugly parts of the human psyche. that isn't to say that it's not worth reading -- this is very well done portrayal of the dissolution of a man's sanity -- but I'm giving you fair warning, it could leave you feeling a little queasy.

What's really interesting about mantis are the continual surprises that Jeter throws at the reader -- but this also makes the book difficult to talk about without spoiling some of those surprises.

So let me say this: Mantis is about a man who lives on the edge of the Wedge -- a red light district where the cheap bars exist and the hookers ply their trade. He's a commercial artist who has a very strange relationship with a man named Michael who haunts the Wedge, a man who gives certain women what he believes they want -- pain, and a close brush with death. It's not until Michael and the protagonist meet Rae -- a woman as obsessed as Michael -- that things start to get really out of hand.

Jeter keeps the tension razor tight and, as I mentioned above, he keeps throwing curve balls, one after the other, each of them unexpected, each of them changing the reader's understanding of all that went before in the narrative. This is strong stuff. I haven't seen a fictional exploration of pain this intense since Whitley Streiber's "Pain" (Cutting Edge, Doubleday, 1986). Both are unpleasant pieces, but where Streiber wallows in his material, trying to convince us that pain can lead us to a kind of redemption, Jeter is exploring a disturbed psyche, giving lots of intense characterization, but not trying to preach, to convince us of anything. Except that people like this really do exist. And that they can offer up reasoned explanations for the most despicable of actions.

Scary Stuff indeed.

I don't normally read, or review, movie novelizations, but I like the idea of teenage vampire gangs and having read and enjoyed one of Gardner's light high Fantasies -- A Malady of Magicks (Ace, 1986) -- I was curious to see what he could do with this contemporary subject matter. Well, The Lost Boys [Berkley, August, 1987, 220pp, $3.50, 0-425-10044-8] ain't high art, but it's entertaining.

Michael and his younger brother Sam move to Santa Carla, California, with their recently divorced mother where Michael gets caught up with a biker gang called the Lost Boys and Sam meets a couple of weird comic book fans who consider themselves to be "vampire hunters." Naturally, in the best tradition of this tongue-in-cheek kind of story, there are vampires and both brothers get caught up with them very quickly on.

Gardner's prose isn't exactly inspired, but it moves nicely, his characters are well sketched out, and he keeps the light story moving ahead at a good pace, plus there are lots of good one-lines of dialogue. In other words, it's a light read, suitable for a night when there's nothing on the tube, but you don't feel like starting some new heavy-handed opus and just want to have some fun.

Taken on those terms, The Lost Boys is highly successful -- Gardner delivers the goods.

One in a million -- these are the "sensitives," people with a gift of sensitivity to the thoughts of other people that's almost like telepathy. They are usually found in asylums or homes for the retarded, often abused as children or considered mad because of their inability to deal with the bewildering influx of other peoples' thoughts that fill their head.

That's the way it's remained for ages until the world's intelligence services learn about them. Tracking them down, they train these sensitives in the use of their gifts, letting them live the high life between missions in which their powers can make all the difference between a successful negotiation and failure. The down side is that not one of the sensitives lives past the age of thirty-two, because the Rauschner's Syndrome that gives them their gift also shortens their lifespan.

That's the background to Burkholz's new novel, The Sensitives [Atheneum, 1987, 278pp, 0-689-11842-2] against which he plays out a relationship between American sensitive Ben Slade and his KGB counterpart Nadia Petrovia. Does this sounds like a near future SF novel? Of course it does. But it's marketed as a standard thriller -- another case of SF themes unobtrusively finding its way into the mainstream.

The writing style has all the ear marks of a thriller: one man against the many, lots of plots and counter-pots, lean fast-paced writing. The settings range from European casinos to a Gypsy carnival. The intriguing thing about Burkholz's book, however, is that the SF aspects of it -- for all that we've seen telepathic agents innumerable times in the field -- maintains a sense of freshness.

Burkholz isn't hampered by the SF traditions. The idea's exciting to him and that excitement is conveyed to his readers -- even the hardened SF reader -- so that they're carried along with his enthusiasm for the material.

Crow's Parliament, a debut novel by West Country author Jack Curtis [Bantam Press, 1987, 329pp, #10.95, 0593-012151] is another case of a mainstream thriller masking some SF/Fantasy elements. Again a form of telepathy is involved, though this time on a much smaller scale than in Burkholz's novel.

Simon Guerney specializes in the rescue of international kidnap victims. When he's called in on his latest case -- the abduction of a wealthy man's teenage son -- it soon involves in him a complex net of international intrigues. complicating this is the strange bond Guerney comes to realize exists between himself and the kidnap victim -- a form of telepathic communication that comes in dreams as the boy sends Guerney information on his abductors and where he's being held.

Again there are a number of the formula aspects of an international thriller present -- the one man against many, betrayals, complex plotting. In Curtis's case, what makes the book work so well is the strength of his prose. Oddly for a thriller, it literally singes in place -- evocative, moody -- without ever letting go of that lean tension so necessary for this kind of a book.

It makes for a fine first novel, and an intelligent entertainment for the discerning reader.

While delving into some of the same material explored in the Burkholz and Curtis titles discussed above, James Herbert comes at it from a different direction again. Known primarily as a horror writer -- of the grisly school of horror -- Herbert has begun to present a positive world view, rather than a bleak one, with this fiction. His recent Moon (New English Library, 1985) and The Magic Cottage (Hodder & Stoughton, 1986) bear this out.

Sepulchre [Hodder & Stoughton, 1987, 316pp, Cdn $25.95, 0-340- 39472-2] doesn't so much continue this trend as present a blend of his old grisly style with the new more positive outlook that he's begun to experiment with.

Liam Halloran is an operative of Achilles Shield, a security organization dealing with the solving and prevention of international kidnapping. their newest client is the Magma Corporation who wants their resident mystic Felix Kline protected. Kline's gift is a form of precognition that allows Magma to stay ahead of its competitors in the field of mineral resources.

What Halloran discovers, however, is that Kline is not so much a gifted individual as the recipient of power from an ancient Summerian cult. The use of this power has a price, one that Halloran begins to learn of firsthand as he begins the task of guarding the reclusive Kline at a haunted country estate.

While this book has many of the elements of a spy thriller, its true flavor remains rooted in the horror field, creating an odd, but satisfying mix of genres. And if it hasn't Burkholz's freshness, nor Curtis's evocative prose, it's still an ambitious book for a writer who could have merely continued to churn out his bestselling horror novels, but prefers instead to stretch himself as a craftsman should with each now project.

Speaking of the freshness that an author of one genre can offer to another, perhaps it's time to see what SF author Kate Wilhelm does for the mystery field with her new novel The Hamlet Trap [St. Martin's, 1987, 234pp, $15.95, 0-312-94000-9].

The detectives -- ex-NYPD cop Charlie Mieklejohn and his wife, psychologist Constance Liedl -- have appeared at least once before, in the excellent novella "The Gorgon Field" (Asimov's, August, 1985). In their first book-length appearance, they don't appear on stage until some eighty pages into the story.

Now this is something different. Mysteries usually start with the crime in the first chapter (or the search for the missing person, object, etc.) and are often told in first person as well. What Wilhelm has done is started with the characters, well before the crime, and lets us get to know them very well, before having the crime occur and bringing in the detectives.

In fact, the detectives, unlike those in most mysteries, remain cyphers to some degree -- at least in comparison to the rest of the cast who are all fully rounded. What this lets the reader do is concentrate on knowing them, understanding them, and thus making their own conclusions about the mystery.

You'll notice I'm not saying much about the plot. There's a good reason for this -- to tell too much will spoil the story -- just as the blurb did for me. Don't read it,; just read the book. The prose is excellent, the setting of a small Oregon town's repertoire theater is brought vividly to life, the mystery's a real puzzler, and the characters are wonderful.

For the past couple of years, Stephen R. Donaldson has temporarily put aside his popular series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever to give us his two volume work Mordant's Need. Volume one, The Mirror of her Dreams (Del Rey, 1986) introduced us to Terisa Morgan, who was taken from her apartment in New York City to the magical land of Mordant by the apprentice Imager Geraden

In Mordant, magicians work with mirrors and are called Imagers. Donaldson has obviously taken some care in developing his system of magic, providing not only detailed workings of and limitations on the Imagers and their mirrors, but also raising the philosophical concern as to the reality of what the Imagers bring out of their mirrors.Are these beings and objects created by the Imager, or do they have an independent existence in their own world?

When Geraden brings Terisa back, claiming her to be the champion he was sent to find, the Congery, or conclave of Imagers, are more divided on the question of her existence. It doesn't help that Terisa claims to have no importance in her own world (she doesn't), nor does she believe it likely that she has any kind of magical power in Mordant.

To complicate matters there are a number of political divisions in Mordant as well, all ready to go to war with one another. The true villain, the Master Imager Eremis, is perceived to be a heroic figure, so when things being to go wrong, it is Terisa and Geraden who are blamed. Volume one ends with Terisa imprisoned and Geraden fled, presumed dead.

Volume two, A Man Rides Through [Del Rey, November, 1987, 656pp, $19.95, 345-33299-7], opens with the principal castle of Mordant under siege and continues with the complex plotlines introduced in the first volume being played out. It moves at a slow pace, but the reader is rewarded by the obvious care that Donaldson has put into his creation of Mordant, its surrounding Kingdoms, Imagery, and the large and varied cast through which he tells his story.

Mordant's need makes a nice change of pace from the dour outlook of the covenant books, and the main character Terisa, after remaining largely ineffectual for the first volume, really shines in the second. Moral choices and loyalty are the keystones to survival here and both are handled with a richness and depth absent from many of the fantasies that currently proliferate on the bookstands.

The two books aren't a quick read -- this isn't a movie or television show translated to the written page -- so the reader looking for a fast- paced thriller might be disappointed. But for those who can appreciate a slower pace and expect a little more thought in their fiction, Donaldson's latest will amply reward them for the time they spend in its company.

I might as well admit at this point (you're going to find out sooner or later) that I'm not much enamored with hard Science Fiction. I like the speculation involved, but most of what I've read (and admittedly it's been some few years since I've made much of an effort to read any Hard SF unless it was assigned for review) has been very long on the speculation, but short on story and especially on character. Not to mention that the prose often reads like it came straight out of a tech journal.

But of course there are always exceptions -- the odd hard SF writer who is equally at home with good writing (plot, character and prose) as they are with the scientific speculation.

Greg Bear's Blood Music (Arbor House, 1985) and Eon (Bluejay, 1985) come to mind. As does his recent The Forge of God [Tor, September, 1987, 474pp; $17.95, 0-312-93021-6].

A large cast becomes involved with various mysterious happenings. Europa, the sixth moon of Jupiter, vanishes. Strange cones with the look of volcanic origins appear suddenly in Death Valley and Australia. And then Earth learns that aliens have landed.

This is a fine first contact novel with numerous strengths. I like the fact that Bear spends time with common folk like you and me, as well as with experts and political world leaders. He explores both soft and hard sciences. His prose is straightforward. And best of all there's a good plot and some fine characterization mixed into the brew.

Part of the reason for the success of all of this might be that Bear is equally at home with SF or Fantasy and he brings his expertise and understanding from one genre to the other. His duology The Infinity Concerto (Berkley, 1984) and The Serpent Mage (Berkley, 1986) stands head and shoulders above much else in the contemporary fantasy field, mostly because of Bear's careful extrapolations behind the fantastic happenings -- an SF strength. but the characterization, and especially the fantastic sense of wonder, carry over from his Fantasy work to his SF.

In fact, in Bear's prose the lines blur. And that's how it should be. Pigeon-holing creative endeavors helps only the publisher, retailer and critic. but if confines the author and reader. So if you're a Fantasy reader, give one of Bear's SF books a try; if you prefer SF, read one of his fantasies. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised either way.

In a time when the word Fantasy merely conjures up images of Tolkienesque clones, its refreshing to come across something like A Book Dragon [MacMillan, September, 1987, 197pp, Cdn$16.95, 0-7715-9515-8], proving perhaps that it takes someone from outside the genre to breathe some new life into it and that just because something is marketed as a Young Adult book doesn't mean it's just kids' stuff. After all, Tolkien's books themselves were initially aimed at a YA market.

Donn Kushner is a Canadian author, a professor of microbiology at the University of Ottawa and a violinist. The latter enthusiasm was responsible for inspiring his previous book, The Violin-Maker's Gift which won the 1980 Canadian Library Association's Book of the Year for Children Award.

A Book Dragon follows some five hundred years in the life of a dragon named Nonesuch who, when he sees how men are taking over the world, learns to shrink himself. Instead of a hoard of treasure, a dragon's traditional raison d'tre, he guards an Illuminated Book of Hours.

The story ranges from England in the Middle Ages up to an unnamed harbor town on the New England coast in contemporary times, describing quiet joys but it also has its fair share of intrigues and adventure. What makes the novel so outstanding is Kushner's clear lyric prose and his ability to write tongue-in-cheek humor while maintaining his respect for the subject matter.

The novel is illustrated and designed by Nancy Ruth Jackson who provides her own whimsical touches to the book with tiny archers shooting page numbers off the page, dragons and birds perching on page tops and delightful illuminated letters to open each chapter.

Warm and charming, this really is a book for all ages -- aimed at a Young Adult market, yes, but meant for the child in us all.

Postcards from the Edge's [Simon & Schuster, August, 1987, 223pp, 671-62441-5] connection to the SF/F genre is tenuous as best -- for that one reader out there who doesn't know, the author played Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogy -- but it's such a fine book, never mind that it's only her first, that I wanted to just mention it in passing.

The plot is simple: it deals with an actress recovering from drug abuse. But what makes the book so outstanding is Fisher's delightful wit. The story could have drowned in pathos. Instead, it remains serious without ever losing its sense of fun. For any reader out there who senses the absurdities in life, while still willing to take life seriously.... this book's for you.

Well, it's time to go. Next time we'll be looking at how Raymond Feist handles contemporary Fantasy, at Michael Bishop's use of Phillip K. Dick as a character in his new book, and at new novels by Koontz and King. And that's just for starters.

See you then.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

Chuq Von Rospach
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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 6)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 6

Pico Reviews
Part 1

Arrows of the Queen     by Mercedes Lackey      [****+]
        DAW, $2.95, 1987, 320 pages

This is the best first fantasy novel I've read in a good long while. I
picked up the book because Mercedes Lackey is the finest lyricist in
fandom. Her facility with words is evident in the clear, flowing prose
style. It is a fairly standard coming-of-age story: Talia, a runaway,
is chosen to become a Herald of the Queen. Talia growing up and helping
to defend the kingdom against it enemies forms the rest of the story.
What really makes this book special, however, is its characterization.
Everyone rings exceptionally true, the characters are people who have
real problems and triumphs. An excellent start for a novelist I expect
to read for some time.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Arslan  M. J. Engh      [****]
        Arbor House, 1987, $ 17.95

This is a disturbing book, not the least because it is so well written and effective. How was it that, in a field as rife with awards and reviewers as SF, nobody noticed this book when it first came out eleven years ago? The book begins as the inhabitants of Kraftsville, Illinois, learn the alarming news that General Arslan of (of all places!) Turkistan has achieved control over the armies of the world (yes, all of them): it is the twentieth century, and the world has been conquered by a brilliant and ruthless man, Arslan. But this book is about the people of Kraftsville and their reaction to Arslan's presence among them after he decides to make his temporary headquarters there. This reaction is characterized by the two narrators: Franklin Bond, former school principal, who adapts to the new situation but does not accept it, and Hunt Morgan, who both loves and hates Arslan, typifying the new era where all value, but also much suffering, is ultimately due to Arslan. The portrait that results is quite impressive, as ordinary people find means to cope with quite extraordinary suffering, and with the presence among them of a man at once fascinating and ruthless. The two narrators are quite clearly distinguished (they do have different writing styles: I found Hunt's hard to take), and the human aspect of the story that they convey makes this book less bitter than it might have been, and make it very rewarding. This is serious SF, but it is also a good, if not always pleasant, read: not to be missed.

-- Fernando Gouvea

Atta    by Francis Bellamy      [**]
        Pocket, 1974, 172 pages.

This story is closer to the fantasy of Wind in the Willows than true
science fiction. One man is mysteriously shrunken into the insect world
and there he meets intelligent ants with a primitive but complex
civilization. The story is told after all the events have happened and
consequently there is a great deal of foreshadowing as the story
progresses, a technique I found somewhat annoying.
russell.Wbst@Xerox.COM

Bard IV, Ravens' Gathering      Keith Taylor    [***]
        Ace, 235 pp, $2.95, 0-441-04924-9

A good sequel with a disturbing ending. Felimid mac Fal and Gudrun Blackhair fight their final battle together. King Arthur gets thrown in the middle of the book, but for no more than a side trip. The story drags down to a "why bother" ending. Maybe this was the only way out of the current story line, but it could have been handled differently.

-- Laurie Sefton

The Blood of Ten Chiefs ed. by Richard Pini     [***]
        TOR, $6.95, 1986, 314 pages

This short story anthology is a set of shared-world stories based on
the comic book series Elfquest, one story for each of the ten chiefs in
the wolfriders history. The stories are linked by connecting passages
of a storyteller relating these histories/legends to give advice to
members of the tribe. Good background if you're already an Elfquest
fan, otherwise probably not too interesting.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

The Bloody Chamber      by Angela Carter        [****]
        Harper, $3.95, 1979, 164 pages

This book takes several classic fairy tales (Beauty and the Beast
[twice], Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood
[thrice], and others) and retells them in a hazy, sensuous fashion.
This has much in common with Tanith Lee's "Red As Blood" collection,
but important differences also exist. While Tanith Lee's stories are
elegant and ironic, Angela Carter's stories are moody, atmospheric
pieces much more concerned with style then plot. One short story, "In
The Company of Wolves", was made into an underrated movie of the same
name. I found it amazing how such small tale was directly translated
into a movie; the film only added the opening and closing scenes in the
20th century, all else was directly taken from the 12 pages of the
story. Recommended.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Challenge of the Clans          [***]
The Dark Druid  Kenneth C. Flint        [**+]
        Bantam Books, 326 pp,
        0-553-25553-3, 0-553-26715-9

Two books about Finn Mac Cumhal, one of Eire's greatest legendary warriors. These books break off from the earlier Flint books, while the Celtic flavor is there, a Norman influence be peeking though. Instead of both brave hearted female warriors, Finn's ill-fated wife is a fading lily; she needs to be rescued. The second book is marred by a bad cover. Technically, it's not too bad, but it's better suited for a romance novel than a Celtic legend retold.

-- Laurie Sefton

Chess with a Dragon     by David Gerrold        [***-]
        Walker and Company, 207pp, $15.95, 0-8027-6688-9

The third in the Millennium series of Science Fiction novels based on traditional themes written towards the younger reader. This time, Gerrold takes on Interstellar Empires, and Gerrold goes after it with a vengeance, putting an Earth Diplomatic mission into the InterChange, an information bank where you can buy and sell with other cultures. Earth, a new entrant, is just finding out what happens when the bills start coming due, and have to either learn to survive in an intergalactic Ponzi scheme or be eaten. Parts of it are fascinating, but other parts (especially some of the alien names) step over the boundary and become too cute for their own good. Also, some of the content is probably too intense for younger kids, since one of the cultures involved is strongly cannibalistic.

-- chuq von rospach

Cold War in a Country Garden    by Lindsay Gutteridge   [***]
        Pocket, 1973, 157 pages.

In this story a group of men are miniaturized as part of an elaborate
government project. They spend the first half of the book learning to
survive in a normal backyard. The second part is a rather fantastic spy
mission they are sent on behind the iron curtain. I enjoyed the first
part more than the second. There is at least one sequel, Killer Pine.
russell.Wbst@Xerox.COM

Counting the Cost       David Drake     [**]
         Baen Books 267 Pg. $3.50

Another Hammer's Slammers novel. This is basic combat SF and is utterly
unremarkable except for the cover. That is an excellent example of bad
marketing. The format of the cover, the cover painting and even the
color scheme is so much like the previous Slammers novel, At Any Price,
that my first impression when I saw this book in the bookstore was that
it was a reprint of At Any Price. I only stop to check the book out
because it was in the new books section of the store. As it was, I had
to go home and verify that it was a new book and not a re-issue of At
Any Price. Using a fixed format for a book cover can be a very useful
marketing tool for notifying readers that this book is part of a series
that they like. But in this case, the format is so fixed that the books
in the series look too much like one another that a reader cannot
distinguish between a new book and an old book in the series. As for
the story, it is based on the palace coup that overthrew Diem's regime
in Saigon except in this case the Diem character, Delcorio, wins.
Danny Low
hplabs!hpccc!dlow

Courtship Rite  by Donald Kingsbury     [****]
        Pocket, $3.95, 1982, 409 pages

Another type of SF is world-building. The real stars of Dune, Ringworld
or Helliconia is the worlds themselves. Courtship Rite is another
exercise in world creation, one that succeeds overall. Be warned that
this book is not for the faint of heart. An lost human colony, due to
incompatible biocultures their primary source of food is cannibalism.
You didn't expect people to eat alien foods did you? Their science is
an interesting mixture of technological and primitive. Their biology is
quite advanced (as a matter of survival), but other sciences are at a
generally medieval level. The other portions of the culture are equally
fascinating, from marriage customs to politics. Recommended for those
who don't mind the subject matter.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Cvltvre Made Stvpid     Tom Weller      [****]
        Houghton Mifflin, $7.95
        ISBN 0-395-40461-4

The guy who brought us a new look at Science (and won the 1986 Hugo for it) is back, and this time his target is art and cvltvre. Again he's right on as he takes on Michaelangelo, Gutenberg, Opera (can you imagine Linda Rondstat and Barry Manilow doing the Broadway version of the Ring?) and people with pretensions or artistic bents. He doesn't always hit, but Cvltvre Made Stvpid is on target often enough to make this a very enjoyable piece of parody.

-- chuq von rospach

Cybernetic Samurai      by Victor Milan [****]
        ACE, $3.50, 1985, 337 pages

A novel of the creation of the first artificial sentient being in
post-WWIII Japan. Building on 5th generation AI computers, Dr.
Elizabeth O'Neill creates TOKUGAWA and trains him with scenarios of
feudal Japan. Interesting both as a view of a post-WWIII world and as
a SF extrapolation of computer science.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Daughter of The Empire  Raymond E. Feist and
        Janny Wurts     [***+]
        Doubleday, 394 pp, $17.95, 0-385-23393-0

A companion piece to the Riftwar saga, this tells the story of Mara, who becomes the Ruling Lady of the Acoma, on Kelewan, after her brothers and father are killed in battle. She must learn to play the deadly game of politics in Kelewan, which will decide the future of her house and herself. Mara is able to manipulate her way to power, while proving she isn't the frail fainting flower that many believed. The story itself is good, as it provides another viewpoint to the Riftwar. However, the pacing suffers from too much expository dialogue; all the characters describe what they're going to do, when they're going to do it, and why in painful detail. A bit of detail on the character, and why they happen to be where they are would have sufficed. The reader doesn't need everything spelled out to him.

-- Laurie Sefton

Deep Domain (Star Trek #33)     by Howard Weinstein     [****+]
        Pocket, $3.50, 1987, 275 pages

Definitely the best one of these I've read in a long time: good
incidental characters that don't overrun the story, interesting aliens,
good conflict, new discoveries, teamwork, the Enterprise on a
scientific mission for once instead of meeting "a threat to the
universe" and a conflict that is resolved without an interplanetary
war. Most of the Star Trek novels have been, to me, passable SF but
poor ST, this one gets high marks on both points.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

A Distant Soil: Immigrant Song  Colleen Doran   [**]
        Starblaze Graphics, $6.95
        ISBN 0-89865-514-5

Doran has significantly reworked her B&W WArp series and published a new, color graphic edition of the series. Her claim is that this edition is how she has always envisioned the story. Unfortunately, she may be a little too close to the story for her own good, because Immigrant Song is very sketchy and bounces around all over the place without any attempt to help a reader unfamiliar with the story follow it. I was left confused and disappointed.

-- chuq von rospach

The Dragon Waiting      by John M. Ford [****-]
        Avon, $3.50, 1983, 383 pages

Every once in a while, I run across a novel that makes me wish I knew more history. This is such a book, and the time period is middle 15th century Europe. It is a alternate history tale, but the story sticks close to the true history of the times (at least from what I know of the period). The most obvious changes are the fantasy elements: the main characters include a Welch wizard and a German vampire. Christianity seems to have never taken root, and magic is political fact of life. The setting is the Italian city states, London around the time of the crowning of Richard III, and points between. The story itself is confusing if you are unfamiliar with the period, but is well told. I intend to re-read it after doing some research on the period. Recommended if you are willing to do some work to follow the author.

-- John Wenn

Duncan & Mallory #2: The Bar-None Ranch
        Robert Asprin and Mel. White    [**]
        Starblaze Graphics, $3.95,
        ISBN 0-89865-506-4

I had misgivings about this series -- the first issue had potential, but was a fairly blatant attempt to recreate the success of the Myth Adventures series without the sharpness or the humor that makes it fly. The second issue unfortunately continues this -- the humor is flat, the story somewhat self-indulgent (the characters continually smirk at the reader from the page) and it just doesn't have the edge to the material that it really needs to be good. White is a good artist, although she seems to be putting more energy into emulating Phil Foglio than she is in showing her own capabilities. It doesn't look like this series is going to go anywhere, and I have to (somewhat regretfully) give it a Not Recommended.

-- chuq von rospach

Free Lancers    Elizabeth Mitchell, ed. [****]
        Baen Books, $2.95,
        ISBN 0-671-65353-0

This is the fourth volume in the Alien Stars series, original anthologies of novella length material. This time there are three stories about mercenaries by Orson Scott Card, David Drake, and Lois McMaster Bujold. The Card work, "West" is from an upcoming book titled Tales of the Mormon Sea. It is also, unfortunately, the least successful of the three. Not bad, but it could have used another draft. The Drake story is related to the Hammer's Slammers series, and the Bujold story, "The Borders of Infinity," is a Vorkosigan story. That story is currently at the top of my list of Hugo novella nominations for 1987.

-- chuq von rospach

FTL: Further Than Life  by Michael Lindsay Williams     [*]
        Avon, $3.50, 1987, 327 pages

This wins the turkey of the month award. A silly plot, absurd science, cardboard characters, and several "in jokes" too cute to be tolerated (e.g. robots have Asimov circuits). A definite miss.

-- John Wenn

The Guardians of the Flame: The Sleeping Dragon [****]
The Sword and the Chain
The Silver Crown
The Heir Apparent       Joel Rosenberg,
        Doubleday (1,2,3), Signet (4)

Would you like your Saturday night dungeon session to be real? Really? A group of college students find out that living the life of their gaming character isn't all they thought it would be. When you get hurt, it's for real, not just hit points taken. And let's face it. no one thinks about indoor plumbing when they're on a quest. Through the first four books, the students find themselves integrated into what they thought was a fantasy world, while trying to drag the residents, kicking and screaming, at least into the 19th century. And technology isn't the answer to all their problems, as there is enough questing and wizardry about. The books aren't high literature, but they're extremely entertaining.

-- Laurie Sefton

Hardwired       Walter Jon Williams     [****]
        Tor Books, $3.50, ISBN 0-812-55796-4

My own personal feelings about the viability of Cyberpunk as a subgenre notwithstanding, if more of the works being touted under that banner had the quality of this book, I'd have to rethink my position. This is a bleak and unrelenting view of a future Earth controlled by orbital megacorporations and a group of panzerboys -- people who work outside the system smuggling needed good across the continent. It's good, although the book won't be to everyone's taste.

The Isle of Glass               [****]
The Golden Horn         [****+]
The Hounds or God       Judith Tarr     [****]
        Tor Fantasy, 0-812-55601-1,
        0-812-55603-8, 0-812-55605-4

The three parts of The Hound and the Falcon trilogy shouldn't be missed. Tarr is able to create a convincing land of Faerie in England during the time of the crusades. The books follow the life of Alfred of St. Ruan's a foundling of the fair folk and Thea Damaskena, one of the court of the kingdom of Rhyiana. Their lives are examined beyond the usual gloss of magics; for example. what happens when you find that you have out-lived all your family? Or, if the fair folk live forever, what use would be immortal souls? This is an important question in medieval Europe--the church is strong, but the Crusades, the sacking of Constantinople, and the constant bickering among political factions make the existence of the people of Rhyiana a volatile situation. Tarr is able to blend history and fantasy so well that, even though you know what's going to happen, getting there is the best part.

-- Laurie Sefton

Insect Warriors by Rex Levie    [***+]
        Ace, 1965, 143 pages.

This is the story of a primitive tribe trying to survive against the
insect world. It is the one I enjoyed the most of this set of books
because it stayed on track as a simple adventure story of the struggles
of these people in a different world for most of the book. The end has
a possible explanation as to how the tribe came to be.
russell.Wbst@Xerox.COM

The Lady of Han-Gilen   Judith Tarr     [****]
        Tor, 310 pp, 0-312-94271-0

While the second book of a trilogy is often a travelogue or a preparation for the third book, Tarr has written a middle story that not only managed to move the greater story along, but is a whole and entertaining volume on its own. Elian, the Lady of Han Gilen, runs away from her royal family, and their hopes of a political marriage. After many troubles, she finds Mirain, only to be brought into a final battle between him and a mad priestess of the dark, who believes that Mirain will cause the end of the world. The world of Mirain and Elian is both familiar of exotic; it's a refreshing change from the ante-deluvian venues, while being comfortable enough that the reader isn't thrashing with the scenery.

-- Laurie Sefton

Lincoln's Dreams        Connie Willis   [****+]
        Bantam Spectra, 1987, hardcover, $ 15.95

Here is a book which centers not on plot, but on people and their
feelings. A plot summary doesn't do it justice, since it depends so
strongly on the moods it evokes and the characters the author portrays.
The story turns on Annie, who is having dreams that seem to recall the
American civil war. The dreams distress her, and she seeks help, first
from a specialist in sleep disorders, and eventually from Jeff, the book's
narrator, who is a historian currently working as researcher, assistant,
and general errand boy for a well-known historical novelist. The plot
concerns his attempts to help her and the relationship that develops
between them. Along the way, the book achieves a high level of
intensity, even though nothing much happens. One leaves it with genuine
affection for the characters; this is a book I will remember. There is
a real danger that this quiet but effective book may be lost in the
shuffle, its voice drowned out by the louder but less deep statements
that prevail in the genre. But readers who really care won't miss it.
Fernando Gouvea

The Man Who Folded Himself      by David Gerrold        [***+]
        Popular Library, $0.95, 1973, 160 pages

What would you do with a time machine? That question occupies an entire subgenre of SF. The obvious thing to do is sight-see throughout the ages. But there are all those paradoxes lurking out there. Killing your grandfather before he married you grandmother, killing yourself, saving Lincoln, preventing the machine from being invented, etc. This book is an examination of all the paradoxes time travel I've heard of, as well as adding a few new ones. The style is OK, and the characterization is irrelevant to some degree. I mean what does characterization mean when multiple copies of the hero exist at once? An interesting reductio ad absurdum of time travel.

-- John Wenn

Marion Zimmer Bradley Presents Sword and Sorceress IV   [***]
        Daw, 285 pp, 0-88677-210-9

This is a mixed bag of over the edge feminist rehashes, and some very good stories that just happen to have women as the main characters. Look for Dave Smed's story about gullriders and Deborah Vogel's short-short, the first for anyone who has ever seen "saddle up and ride" seagulls, and the second for a stunning example of how a short-short should be written.

-- Laurie Sefton

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 7)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 7

Pico Reviews
Part 2

Mathenauts, Tales of Mathematical Wonder
Ed. Rudy Rucker [***]
Arbor House, $9.95, 1987, 300 pages

A collection of new and reprinted short SF stories that revolve around
mathematical concepts, puzzles and mathematicians. The stories are of
very mixed quality. A few I didn't see the math connection to but most
include interesting mathematical puzzles and several go almost too far
to include math terms. Some are computer oriented and seem the most
dated, even if written within the last 10 years.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Matters of Form Scott Wheeler   []
        DAW Books 240 Pg. $2.95

This book is incompetently written. Most of the time, the first person
narrative is used to describe events, including those where the
narrator was not present. Periodically, the narration switches to the
third person. The switch may occur for a few paragraphs or a few
chapters. The switches happen suddenly with no transition passages or
story breaks to signal that such a switch is to take place. The
narration is so long and boring that sometimes the unexpected switches
in viewpoint was a relief.There is no character development. Even the
narrator is not developed as a character. The story is a unoriginal
nonvariation of an old SF theme. I am amazed that something this
incompetently written could ever have been published by a well
established publishing house such as DAW. Good or bad, DAW books have
usually been competently written.
Danny Low
hplabs!hpccc!dlow

Micronauts      by Gordon Williams      [***]
        Bantam, 1977, 282 pages, with illustrations.

This has the best attempt at a scientific explanation for how you might
miniaturize humans. The first part of the book deals with Earth in the
not to distant future where mankind is starving to death because he has
polluted the environment so badly. The second part deals with the
secret research of a group of scientists to provide a new 'world' for
mankind by reducing him in size. Both parts of the book make good
reading and the entomology and botany of the second part help to
enhance a good adventure. There is a sequel, Microcolony, which I would
probably read based on the first book.
russell.Wbst@Xerox.COM

Mindplayers     Pat Cadigan     [*]
        Bantam, $3.50, ISBN 0-553-26585-7

This is Cadigan's first novel, and while I really enjoy her shorter work, I couldn't finish Mindplayers. She's attempting to write in an artificially Cyberpunk style about a society advanced heavily into technological decadence. She is a good writer, but I wasn't able to find a single character I was able to care about -- there is such an emphasis on the style and the decadence that none of the people in the story really seem to exist. Without that point of reference, none of what she wrote mattered to me. Folks with more of a bent towards Cyberpunk or with a little more tolerance of weak characters should enjoy this a lot more. I, personally, will have to settle for looking forward to her next book.

-- chuq von rospach

The Model       Robert Aickman, [***+]
        Arbor House, 1987, hardcover, $ 14.95

This strange and dreamlike fantasy is set in czarist Russia, and has a
genuine hypnotic effect. It concerns a young girl, Elena, who dreams of
becoming a ballerina. She builds a model of an opera house, scavenging
the necessary materials from her large and rather mysterious household,
and fantasizes herself as the main dancer. Then, strangely, her
fantasies start to come true, with sometimes dreamlike, sometimes
nightmarish results. Events are not really ever explained, but draw
their effect from the strong archetypal images which Aickman introduces
at every turn. It all adds up to a strange book, but one which will
reward the reader, especially if she is in search of a different sort
of fantasy book.
Fernando Gouvea

New Destinies Vol II    Jim Baen, Ed.   [***+]
        Baen Books, 232 pages, $2.95
        ISBN 0-671-65346-6

This is the latest edition of Jim Baen's quarterly anthology magazine. It contains a number of fiction pieces (including good ones from Harry Turtledove, and Phillip Jennings) and some really well thought out non- fiction by Charles Sheffield. this is basically a theme-less original anthology, and while the quality varies to some degree, there's enough here to please just about anyone.

-- chuq von rospach

Never the Twain Kirk Mitchell   [***]
         Ace Books 294 Pg. $3.50

This book is really a straight historical novel. The time travelling is
only a gimmick to get the story started. As a historical novel, it is
better than most. The story is even written as if it were a straight
historical novel from an alternate timeline created by the events of
the book. Howard Hart was a poor orphan who only wants to be wealthy
and well placed. Unfortunately, he is not competent enough to succeed
honestly and not unscrupulous enough to succeed dishonestly. The result
is that he is about to lose the little wealth and position he managed
to gain and faces a Federal prison term as well. Fortunately for Hart,
his best friend has just found a way to travel back in time. Hart sees
this as way out of his troubles and realize his life's ambition. The
plan calls for him to kill Mark Twain before he is ever born by making
Samuel Clemens so rich that he will never become so desperate for money
as to take up writing for a living. The story and the time travel
paradoxes are handled very well. There are clues throughout the book as
to how the story will proceed. The historical details are well handled.
The only flaw is that the ending is just not believable. The ending
requires a major character change on the part of Howard Hart. The
ground work for this change is well done and that part is believable.
The problem is that Hart also has to become very competent but
throughout the story, his behavior only emphasizes his incompetence
with no indication of any improvement. The implication that Hart's
change of character was all that was needed to transform him from
insecure incompetent into self-assured self-made man is too
unbelievable. Still, except for the fairy tale ending, the book is very
well written and worth reading.
Danny Low
hplabs!hpccc!dlow

Pro     by Gordon R. Dickson    [***]

This is a pleasant little adventure about two men and their different
approaches to helping a planet's civilization advance. Interestingly
enough, our hero disappears from the book at the end chapter of two and
doesn't really reappear until almost the very end of the book. The way
he triumphs is also relevant. Sort of reminds me of a lot of American
companies -- the experienced but not degreed old timer versus the new
kid on the block right of college. The book is well paced and makes a
cozy afternoon's reading.
Larry Kaufman
lsk@sun.COM

The Quest for Saint Camber      Katherine Kurtz [****]
        Arrow Books, 423 pp, #3.50, 0-09-950360-3

Another typical Kurtz novel. Typical for Kurtz in that she creates a tapestry of a world so lush and full that you wish it was real. Kurtz has a knack of description and characterization that makes her works swallow up the reader. The Quest for Saint Camber follows King Kelson and Dhugal, on their journey to find the relics of Saint Camber. However, they don't know that Kelson's cousin, Conall, is eager for the throne, and has taken up Deryni training, and (or) also having planned a few mishaps for the travel party. The integration of the Deryni/human conflict plus the conflict in the royal family moves the greater story of the kingdom forward.

-- Laurie Sefton

The Ragged Astronauts   Bob Shaw        [***]
        Orbit (UK), 310pp, #2.95
        ISBN 0-7088-8227-7 (also
        Baen books hardcover)

One of the 1987 finalists for the Hugo, this is an interesting Science Fantasy but I'm not sure it belonged on the ballot. It's a look at a society under siege by a natural menace that is trying to escape to a nearby planet -- by balloon. Shaw is writing this as a Hard SF book, but I could never quite decide if he was playing games with the Science or not.

-- chuq von rospach

The Riders of the Sidhe         [****]
Champions of the Sidhe
Master of the Sidhe     Kenneth C. Flint
        Bantam,$2.95 each

These aren't only a good re-telling of the Lugh Lamfda saga, these are a fun re-telling. The stories have the feel of of a Spielberg movie, while keeping true to the legend. Flint is able to dress out the Tuatha de Dananns, so they aren't just figures in a story; they feel like people we've known. The explanation behind the existence of the de Dannans, the Firbolgs, and the Fomorans is unique and believable. Manannan MacLir is particularly well done; those who expect all their gods and demi-gods to be stuffy are in for a shock. Even the slightly melodramatic endings of the first two novels don't rankle. A good story for those who like their legends to come alive.

-- Laurie Sefton

Roderick        by John Sladek  [****+]
        Caroll and Graf, 1987, $3.95, 348 pages

I'll recommend this book, but with a caveat. It has a somewhat surreal
approach, reminding me of Illuminatus works, so it probably won't be to
everyone's taste. But with that in mind, it touches on a wide variety
of subjects, and quite thoroughly explores the notion of a robot
created as an infant-like learning machine growing up in a parody of
our own society. The thing that grabs you in this book is the dialog.
Most everything is revealed as a by-product of fascinating discussions
between the characters. This is not something I take to, normally, but
Sladek gets away with it nicely. I rate it [****+] if you like
surrealism, a real dud if you don't.
-- Wayne Throop
mcnc!xyzzy!throopw

Shadowspawn     Andrew J. Offutt        [**-]
        Ace Fantasy, $3.50

The fourth Thieves' World novel, and the first full length book to feature a character other than Tempus, I really enjoyed Shadowspawn as a character in the anthology series, but this novel just didn't do anything for me. The characterization was flat and I just didn't care much for the plot. It could have been much, much better than it was.

-- chuq von rospach

The Shrinking Man       by Richard Matheson     [***+]
        Gold Medal, 1962, 192 pages.

This is the book that the movie The Incredible Shrinking Man was based
on . The story concerns one man who, because of a strange sequence of
events, starts shrinking 1/7th of an inch a day. The story alternates
between his last several days at insect size trapped in his own
basement, and flashbacks from his experiences leading to that period.
This is a fairly good horror tail and does a good job of conveying the
anguish one might go through in the course of shrinking out of the
familiar world of family and friends.
russell.Wbst@Xerox.COM

Starquake       by Robert L. Forward    [****]
        Del Rey SF, $3.95, 1985, 339 pages

Starquake is the sequel to Dragon's Egg, continuing the story of the
Cheela civilization on the neutron star they call Egg. The Cheela have
passed their human teachers in scientific knowledge and are a
space-going race themselves when a starquake, a collapse of the outer
surface of the neutron star, all but wipes them out. The survivors in
space rebuild the civilization, reclaim the planet and go on advancing
their knowledge, all in the course of one 24 hour human day. The "slow
moving" humans can do little to help and are rescued by the Cheela
several times. Advanced degrees in nuclear physics probably helpful -
technical appendix and bibliography provided.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

A Storm Upon Ulster     Kenneth C. Flint        [***]
        Bantam Books, 309 pp, 0-553-24710-7

A re-telling of one of the Cuculain legends, this of his holding off the forces of Queen Maeve at the river Oun Dia. Flint is true to the original story, instead of relying on another interpretation, as some of the authors of "Celtic" legends have. The story tends to drag out a bit, and the "evil druid" is played a bit melodramatically, a bad Celtic Iago. If you can glide past this, it works much better.

-- Laurie Sefton

Tatja Grimm's World     Vernor Vinge    [**]
        Baen Books, 277 pp, $3.50, 0-671-65336-9

This is a collection of shorts, cunningly disguised as a book. The cover has more to do with one of the ruses in the book than the book's character itself. The pieces of the stories are well tied together up until the last quarter, where the premise starts to fall apart. It's almost as if Vinge decided against his first outcome and rewrote the ending. The story itself has to do with a woman who is an evolutionary blip--she is so much more intelligent than anyone else on her planet that she schemes and devises her way to the stars, just to find someone to talk to. It's a great premise, and I wish it had been carried out better.

-- Laurie Sefton

Thieves' World Graphic #5       Robert Asprin & Lynn Abbey      [**+]
        Starblaze Graphics, $3.95, ISBN 0-89865-521-8

The continuation of the B&W Graphic novel version of the Thieves' World story with art by Tim Sale. The art is good, but this issue seems a little flat. If you read the anthology, the story will be familiar.

-- chuq von rospach

To the Haunted Mountains        Ru Emerson      [****]
        Ace Fantasy, 314 pp, 0-441-79558-7

It's refreshing to see a fantasy that has nothing to do with anything Celtic. Emerson is able to create a believable world for the fantasy, the description of the environs is enough to make the reader comfortable, without boring the reader with minute detail. The inner workings of the characters are well done; the members of the group aren't cut-outs, with one personality factor's difference. These are real people. The one problem I had with the book was the discussion by the cat, a cat infused with magic, but a cat nonetheless, at the beginning of each chapter. It was almost as if the cat was providing crib notes for the book; read the cat's discussion, and you know what's going to happen.

-- Laurie Sefton

The Traveler in Black   by John Brunner [****-]
        Ace, $0.75, 1971, 222 pages

A classic story collection of the One Who Has Many Names But One
Nature, and his attempts to bring reason and order to the chaos of the
cosmos. His method of changing a situation has a certain witty
elegance; he grants a persons spoken desire, but not generally in the
method desired. These are tales of magic and style, I am most reminded
of "The Dying Earth" by Jack Vance.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Twisting the Rope       by R. A. MacAvoy        [****]
        Bantam, $3.50, 1986, 242 pages

Music, mystery and maybe murder in another adventure with Martha
Macnamara and Mayland Long from Tea With The Black Dragon. The fantasy
elements are there if you know where to look, but this is mostly a
detective story, with a victim nobody was sorry to see dead and
suspects who aren't what they appear to be.
--Mary Anne Espenshade
mae@aplvax.arpa

Universe 17     edited by Terry Carr    [***+]
        Doubleday, 1987, $ 12.95

This latest Universe series is quite typical of Terry Carr's skill as
an anthologist: all of the stories are quite good, even though none of
them strikes me as a real winner. The best this time is Jack McDevitt's
In the Tower, a moody story set on an alien planet; there are also
strong stories by James Tiptree, Jr., Marta Randall, and Cherie
Wilkerson. What is mostly lacking in many of these stories are adequate
conclusions: some are marred by unbelievable endings, some by lack of
closure; in either case, the endings reduce the value of good stories.
Still, people who like short SF would do well to pick this up, at least
when it comes out in paperback.
Fernando Gouvea

The Wandering Fire      by Guy Gavriel Kay      [***+]
        Ace, $3.50, 1986, 271 Pages

I really liked the first book of this trilogy: it was an entertaining
high fantasy with several modern characters as well. But I am disappointed
by the direction of the second book: instead of the archetypal but
still new characters of The Summer Tree, he introduces a personage from
standard fantasy (you're guaranteed to find out who in three guesses).
The strengths of characterization and description are still present
here, but the entire concept doesn't work as well this time.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Watchtower      by Elizabeth Lynn       [****]
        Berkley, $2.50, 1979, 226 pages

I almost didn't review this book. Periodically I find books to review
by going through my library looking for little known books I liked. I
picked out Watchtower since it was a really good book, but even after
re-reading it I couldn't pinpoint the reason I liked it. After
reviewing several other books in my list, however, I figured out what
it was. All the elements: the style, the characters, the plot, the
descriptions, all combine seamlessly to tell a story. All work so well
together that I couldn't find anything to point to. It's a fairly
standard plot of a deposed prince seeking to regain his throne, but
told with uncommon skill. Also recommended are the sequels The Dancers
of Arun and The Northern Girl. They tackle more original plots, and (a
detail I like) each book is set ~100 years after the previous book, so
that the changes made previous book are shown in the current one.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

When HARLIE was One     by David Gerrold        [***-]
        Ballantine, $1.25, 1972, 279 pages

An oldish entry into the "sentient computer" story sweepstakes. It
avoids the hard question (how DO you build a sentient computer) by a
lot of hand-waving, but does try to address the nature of a machine
intelligence. The main conflict is that HARLIE needs to financially
justify his existence to the bean-counters on the corporate board. The
story works fairly well, the major problem is that untold pages are
spent having HARLIE and his psychologist discussing philosophical
questions of existence, morality and love. Worthwhile if you enjoy
computer SF stories.
-- John Wenn
wenn@gandalf.cs.cmu.edu

Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild     ed. by George R.R. Martin       [**+]
        Bantam, $3.95, 374pp, 0-553-26699-3

The third in the Wild Card shared world anthology series. In this one, Martin does a strong editing job and turns it into a true mosaic novel, with the various stories intertwined in a true novel format. This works, mostly, but sometimes breaks the stories up arbitrarily, leaving you with a choppy, hard to follow plotline. I was disappointed that, with so many interesting things to talk about, they went back and worked over the Astronomer again.

-- chuq von rospach

Wings of Flame  by Nancy Springer       [***+]
        TOR 1986, pb. $2.95

Springer fits into that category of excellent, but overlooked authors. Her characters have depth, her settings are interesting, and her plots are worth reading. Wings of Flame deals with perceptions: national and personal. Two countries have customs based on the worship of the Horse God, Suth, but one country's sacred rituals are the other's blasphemies. The main characters are a young warrior-prince, sent to the other country as a hostage, a young outcast girl, lower than a slave, and the pacifist magician-king. Together they must overcome their prejudices about each other and themselves in order to end the curse that has kept their countries constantly at war.

-- Brett Slocum

Wingwomen of Hera       Sandi Hall      [**]
        Spinsters| Aunt Lute, 180 pp, $8.95,
        0-933216-26-2

This is a book in need of a good technical editor; the story is there, it just needs to be cleaned up. The premise of sister planets is good, how they get there isn't. Comets just don't have the firepower to knock one planet entirely out of orbit, and another into a figure-eight around two stars. Also, the idea of popping into another universe to get to a planet in the same star system is a little obtuse. The comparison of the two worlds; one a highly regulated, frozen (in more ways than one) sphere, with its only hope a girl child born to be its future Guider; and the other a lush garden planet, with parthenogenic, loving, sensual, and extremely intelligent "wingwomen" gives a big hint who the heroines of this story are going to be. A good basis for a story, good characterizations, but the technical flaws in this work keep coming back to bite the reader.

-- Laurie Sefton

The Witches of Wenshar Barbara Hambly [***+]
Del Rey, 339 pp, $3.95, 0-345-32934

What happened to Starhawk and Sun Wolf after Sun Wolf was thrown our of Mandrigyn? Well, they wandered south into the desert kingdoms, into the area known for the evil of the witches of the ruined city of Wenshar. I don't consider this a sequel; you can read this without having read The Ladies of Mandrigyn, and still be able to enjoy the book. Sun Wolf and Starhawk both grow in this story; Sun Wolf learns the control of his power, and of the uses and abuses of it. Starhawk grows within herself, and shows that you don't have to be a wizard to be powerful. I hope to see more of the both.

-- Laurie Sefton

Wolf Dreams     Michael D. Weaver       [**+]
        Avon, 186 pp, $2.95, 0-380-75198-4

This is a series of what appears to be separate stories about Thyri Bloodfang, worked into a novel. The heroine, Thyri becomes a werewolf after defending her cousin from another werewolf. After that, she wonders, trying to keep others from sharing her fate. The book itself is disjointed, the person keeps changing without notice, and the chapters aren't given in chronological order. You spend a lot of time wondering when something specific happened, and rereading chapters to try to figure it out.

-- Laurie Sefton

World Enough and Time   by James Kahn   [***+]
        Del Rey, $2.25, 1980, 340 pages

The basic plot is SF, but most of the story elements are fantasy. The setting is post-apocalyptic: there are only a few scattered humans after several wars and plagues. The fantasy elements come from the winners: vampires, unicorns, centaurs, griffins, and the like. These were the results of genetic engineering, and they rose together to fight human civilization. The story is the quest of a human scribe, a centaur, a talking cat and a neuroman go to rescue their families that were kidnaped by the "new animal". It is the world presented during their quest that was most interesting, a good mixture of both SF and Fantasy. While this story stands alone, there is a sequel "Time's Dark Laughter", which is also recommended. Rumor says that a third book is planned, but I have no idea how one could follow the second book.

-- John Wenn

The Year's Best Science Fiction: fourth annual collection
        ed. by Gardner Dozois   [****]
        St. Martin's Press, 1987, paper, $11.95

Of the several best-of-the-year anthologies supported by the SF field,
the one edited by Gardner Dozois is the biggest and, every year, the
first one to appear. Just that would be a recommendation, but Dozois
also has broad but discerning tastes which usually lead to excellent
results. If this year's volume is a little less impressive than the
preceding ones, it seems more the effect of a less-than-stellar year
for short SF than anything else. The parameters of the book have
remained essentially the same over the years, most especially the large
format and the generous amount of stories. The one significant (and, I
feel, unfortunate) change this year is that fewer novellas were
included.Still, this volume includes several excellent stories, from
Connie Willis's "Chance'' to Lucius Shepard's "R&R'' to Somtow
Sucharitkul's "Fiddling for Waterbuffaloes". Especially for those who
do not usually follow the magazines, this can offer several hours of
reading pleasure. The "Summation" by Dozois is, as always, a competent
summary of the year in SF, and the book concludes with a (much too
long) list of honorable mentions. Not to be missed by anyone who likes
to follow short SF.
Fernando Gouvea

Young Rissa     by F. M. Busby  [****]
        Berkley, $2.95, 1976, 177 pages

The first of the Rissa/Tregare chronicles (the many ways that the stories have been published is too long to go into here). This is good space opera with characters well above space opera standards. The evil empire keeps much of Earth's population in Total Welfare Centers, holds control of its stellar empire with a stolen alien space drive, trains its army under brutal conditions, and is generally not very nice. This is the story of Rissa Kerguelen, a Total Welfare Client who escaped by winning the lottery through a corrupt official's mistake, ran into the Earth's underground, and escaped to the stars. All the characters are well realized, although they suffer from extreme competence in every field. The characters do have problems to balance their numerous skills, making for a believable situation. One thing I enjoy is that the space drive is slower than light (with relativistic effects). Many of the implications of how one fights a battle under those conditions are well thought out and presented. This, and most of the other books of the series are recommended. The books I can't recommend are those that happen after the good guys win.

-- John Wenn

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 8)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 8

Words of Wizdom

Reviews by Chuq Von Rospach
Copyright 1987 by Chuq Von Rospach

Reviewed in this issue:

Clypsis
Jeffrey A. Carver
[***]

The Urth of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe
[****+]

A Mask for the General
Lisa Goldstein
[***]

A Flame in Byzantium
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
[****]

The Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbon
[***+]

Sign of Chaos
Roger Zelazny
[***+]

How Much for Just the Planet
John M. Ford
[***+]

A Difficulty With Dwarves
Craig Shaw Gardner
[***-]

Napoleon Disentimed
Hayford Peirce
[***]

True Names... And other Dangers
Vernor Vinge
[****]

Best SF of the Year #16
Terry Carr
[****]

The Essential Ellison
Harlan Ellison & Terry Dowling
[****]

Counting the Cost
David Drake
[***]

Adventures
Mike Resnick
[***+]

The TENth Planet
Leo Melamed
[*]

The Universe
Byron Preiss
[***+]

What's the next evolutionary step beyond the Shared World Anthology? The Shared Universe.

The concept isn't new. Lovecraft did it with the Cthulhu mythos years ago. Other authors have borrowed another Universe, from Oz (Farmer's Barnstormer in Oz) to the Berserker worlds of Fred Saberhagen.

There were, last I looked, three different series of books being published based on a top name authors Universe: A.C. Clarke's Venus Prime, Isaac Asimov's Robot City, and Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedways.

What happens is this. A book packager goes to an author, and together they either rework an existing story or build up a framework under which stories can be written. The packager then contracts out to other, not quite so Big Name authors to actually write novels based on this universe. The books are then published, making heavy use of the Big Name of the consulting author in the hopes that it will cause more people to buy the book than would normally have done so.

What has me interested in this phenomenon is that it has the potential to bring some of the good authors that haven't broken through to make their own name yet.

Case in point: Jeffrey Carver, who wrote the kick-off novel in the Alien Speedways series designed by Roger Zelazny and packaged by Byron Preiss. Carver's a good author, and in Clypsis he writes a nice coming of age tale.

Mike Murray wants to be a racer. Not just any racer, but a racer at Clypsis, an entire solar system converted into an interplanetary racetrack. When his aunt dies suddenly, he is forced to run away from everything he knows and stows away on a ship, bound for his dream.

Carver's got the energy of the track, the obsession that makes people attempt the impossible down cold. This is a good book and I hope the use of Zelazny's name in the promotion brings some new readers into Carver's stable.

But. As you might imagine, there always has to be a but. While it looks to me as if Preiss and Zelazny have taken some care in crafting a good basis for a book series, others may not. And there is always the possibility that some readers buy the book believing it is a Zelazny story -- if you look at the cover, the spine and the title pages, a casual reader could easily make this mistake.

The Alien Speedways series seems to be crafted towards helping good, relatively new authors get some sales and exposure. It's hard to fault those goals. But if this fad succeeds, you can expect other series to show up where the primary purpose is not to give exposure, or share an interesting universe, but to try to leverage sales off a Name. Books somewhere about the quality of a second rate movie novelization, plastered with promotions from someone who's primary interest is the royalties generated. If (or, as I fear, when) that happens, all the writers involved in these series will have to tread warily or get stomped in the backlash.

This new setup can be a no-lose situation -- authors can get sales they normally wouldn't be able to generate on their own, readers can find new authors they otherwise would have missed, and publishers can build up a promotable universe and stable of authors that can be worked with on a long term basis. Clypsis is an example of how this can all work.

Gene Wolfe is a master of the English language. He is not just content with putting together words that tell a story -- the words themselves have a story, a meaning steeped in the history and life of language itself. In his series on the New Sun, he sent many a reader scurrying off to the dictionaries in search of meanings.

One thing Wolfe does not do is snow the reader. Unfamiliar words are found in context, and the meanings, the images behind the words are there for the reader to find. All he requests is that the reader meet him halfway.

A writer such as Robert Heinlein might be the master storyteller of the genre, but Wolfe is the linguist. The enjoyment of reading him is not in the story, but in the act of reading.

His latest work starts a new cycle in the stories of Severian the Torturer, Severian the Autarch, Severian the hope for the New Sun and the rebirth of Urth. The Urth of the New Sun [Victor Gollanz SF (UK), 372pp, #11.95, ISBN 0-575-04116-1; also Tor Hardcover] tells the travels of Severian to the testing ground, to the place where his world will be judged fit or unfit for a new beginning on his judgement and worth as ruler.

The pace is staid, as a travelogue ought to be. The language is rich and complex, as a Wolfe book will be. This is not an author to be used for escapist reading. To enjoy The Urth of the New Sun requires active participation of both writer and reader. Such participation is well rewarded, however, by a book that is as enjoyable and engrossing and will be remembered long after the average escapist pulp is gone and forgotten. Wolfe is in many ways a writer's writer. You will find yourself reading a page again and again, picking new meaning from the words with each pass, savoring it as you would a fine wine. For those that aren't afraid to work a little, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Lisa Goldstein is a unique writer. I don't say that lightly, but she has a vision and a voice that is unlike anyone in the field. Her latest, A Mask for the General [Bantam Press, 201pp, $14.95, 0-553-05239-X] is another one of these works that is almost impossible to categorize or talk about intelligently. It is set in a near-future, post-collapse Berkeley. The United States has gone through an economic collapse, and has been taken over by a military dictatorship run by the General, and Berkeley is a hotbed of dissent and the home of the counter-culture.

The counter-culture is identified by masks, totem identifiers created by the Mask Makers, a group of people given mystical powers by the populace looking for hope. The government, trying to snub out the dissent, outlaws the masks, and Layla, the greatest of the maskmakers, is given the quest in one of her visions to make a mask for the General, so that he will understand.

The entire book is primarily character and mood oriented, as we watch a group of people desperately trying to survive and find some pleasure in the rubble of what was once a great society. At the same time, Goldstein shows the government not as the Great Evil, but as a group of people trying to simply keep things alive and getting them moving forward again. The action in the book is minor, the books purpose being to look at a slice of life of things that might be. The ending is intentionally ambiguous and low- key, but not one that looks to be a setup for a sequel.

It's a good book. It made me pick it up and read it until it was done. There are images that sit in my memory and surface when my mind is wandering. This book will mystify some, bore others, and ensnare many. It will likely leave you feeling slightly troubled or uncomfortable. It's marginally SF at best, but also one of the better mood pieces I've read in a while.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is a veteran writer with over 30 books to her name including a series of historical horror novels centered on a vampire named St. Germain. Now, after a number of years, Yarbro has started a new series of books based on another vampire from the series, Olivia Clemens -- a Roman woman rescued from death by Germain and who has acted as companion since.

The first Olivia novel, A Flame in Byzantium [Tor Books, 470pps, $17.95, ISBN 0-312-93026-7], is set in Fifth century Constantinople, during and immediately after the final fall of Rome in the reign of Justinian. This is the Byzantine era, which seems to be growing more popular with authors as everyone grows tired of celtic rehashes, and Yarbro shows it in full, glorious details. Justinian is a rabid orthodox Christian intent on restoring the full power of the Empire by following God and expunging the pagans, the non-believers, the heretical, the inconvenient. Justinian was responsible, among other things, for the burning of the libraries of Alexandria, the single most damaging act in the history of the written word and ancient knowledge.

Olivia, forced to leave her native Rome because of encroaching barbarians, relocates to Constantinople. The story unfolds her attempt to simply live her life as around here a fundamentalist regime takes root and the powermongers try to do whatever necessary to get ahead. Murder, torture, lying, extortion, rape -- all of these are proper tools of the arbiters of the name of God.

Olivia is twice damned: a woman in a society where women legally do not exist, can not own property, manage money, or plead their own case; and a foreigner from Rome, the pagan state that destroyed the Empire. Her benefactor, a General in Justinian's Army, becomes enmeshed in a web of conspiracy by those looking to increase their own power, which further complicates her life.

The story, then, is one of a woman trying to cope with a time in our history when women were reviled and abused. Never mind that she is a vampire, something that Yarbro tends to take for granted (this is not, I might add, a negative against her book -- Yarbro has never used the vampire as a character of horror in her stories, but as a character through which to show the horror of humanities unwillingness to accept anything "different" than themselves).

The books strength is the research Yarbro does on the period she is writing about. The research is impeccable. She didn't just set the story in Byzantium, this is a story about Byzantium, and her knowledge of the period shows. The St. Germain stories were in many ways historical romances with an edge of horror, but in this book Olivia has little to feel romantic about.

Olivia is a much different person than Germain, and in many ways more accessible and interesting. There are many differences between being a male and a female vampire, an area Yarbro takes some delight in exploring without ever letting the sexual angle get out of control or sideline the book. A Flame in Byzantium is up to Yarbro's normally high standards, and a great beginning of what looks to be a very good series.

And now to what is the most difficult book to review this issue. In 1986, DC Comics published a mini-series and graphic novel titled Batman: The Dark Knight Falls. It was a redefinition of the Batman and it showed that the graphic novel/comic format could be just as powerful a storytelling medium as the word-based novel. It was well enough received to make the final ballot for the Hugo (placed incorrectly on the ballot as an Art book in the non-fiction category because the category descriptions simply couldn't handle the graphic novel format appropriately) and ended up placing second in the balloting.

And this year, a lot of ballyhoo has been made of another series that has also been published in a combined graphic novel format. Many folks have declared that The Watchmen, by author Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons [DC comics, color graphic novel, $14.95], will follow Dark Knight onto the Hugo ballot and take the honors that will prove, once and for all, that the graphic novel is a legitimate art form and should be recognized as such.

My big worry with The Watchmen is that it may do the opposite. If it doesn't make the ballot and doesn't win, many people may write off the graphic novel format, claim that Dark Knight is a fluke, and ignore an entire sub-genre that is literally coming to life before our eyes. And I want to make myself clear here -- anyone who refuses to look at the graphic novel format is fooling themselves. The G/N will never replace words, but as Frank Miller and Dark Knight proved, some stories can not be told as well in just words. The Graphic Novel is here to stay, and they deserve a space on your shelf.

Unfortunately, the proponents of Graphic Novels may be doing themselves a disservice by pushing The Watchmen. The Watchmen is a story of contemporary society, a society where super-heroes, the masked avengers, were not super-power beings but a societal fad, regular people running around in homemade costumes because it was The Thing To Do. That phase is done, but Armageddon is at hand, as the super-powers come closer and closer to mutual destruction.

And someone has started killing retired super-heroes. Why? Coincidence? Or is there more going on?

The Watchmen is a very bleak book. It isn't as good as Dark Knight, in my eyes, although it is certainly better than a lot of the stuff published in the more traditional markets. As a society-on-the-edge-of-survival novel it works, and works quite well. It depressed the hell out of my while I was reading it, and it carries a strong emotional impact. The art is quite good -- some of the best and most complex art I've seen in the comic field in the last year.

So why do I think pushing The Watchmen may be a bad idea? Accessibility. One thing that Dark Knight had going for it was the fact that The Batman has a context outside of the comics field -- everyone can relate to the Batman to some degree, which gives non-comics readers a way to meld Dark Knight into their reality and enjoy it.

The same can't be said for The Watchmen. The primary focus of The Watchmen is super-heroes, and Alan Moore uses the book as a platform to poke a fair amount of fun at super-heroes, a comic-book staple. Here, they aren't anything special, they're just a fad, something that came and went again. While the end-of-the-world subplot is important, and grows as the end of the book nears, if you have no interest in super-heroes (and no context to figure out just which characters Moore is lampooning) a lot of the attraction and interest in the book is lost. Unlike Dark Knight, there isn't a lot here to make someone want to cross over the line and want to read this book. Everyone cares about Batman, which helped make Dark Knight a crossover runaway best seller both in comics and Science Fiction. I don't think The Watchmen will crossover nearly as well, or be nearly as well received. It tells a good story, but a story that is primarily of interest to comics folks, not the rest of us. And I think that will hurt it in the Hugo balloting, and may well hurt the cause of Graphic Novels in the Hugos in general. The Watchmen is a good book, and you ought to take a look at it, but I hope that the publicity it has been getting doesn't overshadow its quality and create problems for future crossovers.

If any other author had opened the middle book of a series in a bar, with the lead character having a drink with the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat, I'd worry about incipient senility. But this is Amber, where anything you can believe in can be made real, and the author is Zelazny, who has published the latest round in the hottest soap opera in Science Fiction. He knows what he's doing. As you might expect from the third book of five, there are no major resolutions to the burning questions, although a Zelazny does toss a few interesting tidbits our way to keep us interested. The fun is all in the journey, and in trying to second guess the author in the twists and turns the plot takes. If you're not already reading Amber (if that is possible) this is not the book to start, as the series has a definite timeline and you'll get completely lost. If you are reading Amber, this book will have you looking forward to the next.

When you have a successful property, you would expect that the people that own the property would do everything in their power to keep it successful. Generally, this involves being very careful, very conservative, and in some cases, stifling creativity until the very things that make the property successful get squeezed out.

Nobody can argue whether Pocket Book's Star Trek series is successful. They've shipped over three million copies of the titles in the series in 1987 alone, with a lower than average return rate. New titles regularly show up on the bestsellers lists. Star Trek is making a fair amount of money for them. The last people you would expect to publish a parody of Star Trek would be Pocket.

Pocket, however, has, with John M. Ford's How Much for Just the Planet [Star Trek #36, Pocket Books, 253pps, $3.95]. Ford pulls out all the stops -- take your average Star Trek story, wrap it with a Gilbert & Sullivan staging, some W.C. Fields, a little Laurel and Hardy, a couple of Hitchcock movies, Bogart, stir vigorously and you come out with one of the most bizarre plots you'll ever see.

We open, for instance, in the mess room of the Enterprise on a normal morning, as the officers attempt to carry on a conversation over the kibbitzing of the food service:

[Scotty:] "Rubber's hardly the word for the material, Captain. It's a triple-monolayer sandwich: an organic polymer inside to keep th' gas in, metal film on the outside to reflect sensors like a real ship's hull, an' a pseudofluid sealant between 'em."

"Ploop" went the wall. "I do not have that sandwich on today's menu." it said, in a pleasantly maternal voice. "May I suggest the grilled cheese with Canadian Bacon?"

Any ship that goes ploop can't be all bad....

By the time the plot really gets going, a planet called Diredia is discovered and found to have one of the largest supplies of Dilithium in the galaxy. The Klingons and the Federation both travel to Diredia to compete for control of the planet under the terms of the Organian truce (the Organians are affectionately called lightbulbs...)

The current residents have other plans, and before we know it, all hell has broken loose as various members of the starships find themselves wondering if long-term association causes mental disturbances. You see, among other things, the colonists of Diredia have this unusual tendency to burst into song, complete with canned music.

The climax of the story is, as you might imagine, a pie fight between the Federation and the Klingons. ("Scotty: set your blueberry on stain!" the reviewer interjects for the hell of it).

This is a funny book. But more importantly, and this is what makes this book shine, Ford works the comedy around the series: while he expands on the characterization of some of the characters, he never breaks away from the Star Trek universe -- he uses it to his advantage.

This is a book that people who like Star Trek will love. More importantly, I think, is that I also believe this is a book that people who hate Star Trek will also love. It pokes fun at the series without ever being mean or losing sight of itself, and never misses a beat (or fails to take a straight line). It's the Blazing Saddles of the Star Trek universe, and it had me laughing so hard at times that my sides hurt. You gotta read this book.

Readers will know that I'm a fan of Craig Shaw Gardner's Ebenezum series. So when the latest book, A Difficulty with Dwarves [Ace Fantasy, December, 1987, 188pp, $2.95, 0-441-14779-8] came out, I jumped at it.

I wasn't disappointed, either. This is the first book that is primarily about Wuntvor, Ebenezum's apprentice. While trying to remove Ebenezum's magic allergy, all of Vushta's wizards contract the malady themselves, rendering the entire magical population useless. At the same time, a new attack on Vushta begins, as the Netherhells starts their devastating Conquest by Committee. Wuntvor, Vushta's last hope, sets off to the Eastern Kingdom in search of assistance. Along the way, the normal strange thing happen, and Wuntvor meets the Seven Other Dwarves (Nasty, Touchy, Spacey, Snooty, Dumpy, Noisy, Sickly and Smarmy. Yes, I know that's eight. Don't blame me, I'm only the reviewer).

It's about what you'd expect from an Ebenezum book. You either like it or you run screaming from it. The only real criticism I have of it is that, unlike the previous books, this one closes on a stopping point instead of an ending point, leaving too many things open until the next volume for my taste. But this isn't as bad as some series do it, and don't let it keep you from some rather strange and funny fantasy.

There is no field so open to the newcomers as Science Fiction. Only here will you find something like the Ace Science Fiction Specials, edited until his death by Terry Carr. The only purpose of that series was to publish first novels of authors that not only deserved publishing, but deserved some special notice that first novels normally don't get. The quality of the titles in the Ace Specials is legion, including many that have not only withstood the test of time but have come to be known as classics in their own right.

So when someone else starts up a line of first novels, it is inevitable that it be compared to the Ace Specials. The new line is Ben Bova's Discoveries, edited by the long time SF writer and former editor for both Analog and Omni magazines. Even if the comparison is unfair, it'll be brought up.

The comparison is unfair, of course, because the tendency is to compare the best of the Ace SF series (which is what we all remember) with the current releases in the Discoveries series. Better we compare track records when Bova has a dozen books out, rather than two. So, now that I've brought it up, I'm going to drop it back in the corner where it belongs and try to deal with Hayford Peirce's wry Napoleon Disentimed [Tor, November, 1987, 306pp, $3.50, 0-812-54898-1] on its own virtues, and leave the larger comparisons for when we can make them intelligently.

In the preface, Bova compares Peirce to Vonnegut. That's asking a lot of a new author, and while he shows flashes of brilliance, he's not quite there. Yet. Napoleon Disentimed is basically an alternate universe story with some convenient time travel tossed in. On our current world, MacNair of MacNair, con-man extraordinaire, is working his latest con when into his lap falls the infamous Godhead -- a religious artifact of a local cult leader that happens to be encrusted with lots of perfect, investment quality diamonds. Unfortunately, the local Mob wants it, too, and the ensuing gunfight damages the Godhead.

Just as, on the alternate universe down the street, the local resistance force tests its time machine. Next thing we know, the MacNair is sitting in the time machine, wondering what's going on.

The reality crux the splits our universe from this other universe involves Napoleon. In this alternate reality, Napoleon didn't send his forces against Russia, and ended up splitting Europe with the Germans. He also sired a line that continues rule to this day. England is under French rule, and the resistance is trying to build a time machine so they can go back and change history to return England to dominating independence.

From here, it starts getting strange. Peirce has a very dry wit and strong sense of humor, and the story starts looking like a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Peirce is almost up to the task -- while the plot occasionally goes sailing off out of control, he always gets it reeled in again before everything falls apart, and by the end of the book, all the loose ends are tied up and the reader probably has figured it all out. This is not an outrightly funny book like the Ford book, but a book where the author tries to twist things as strangely as possible while still keeping it from falling into a heap on the floor. You don't so much laugh as you do groan and wonder how he's going to write himself out of this latest plot twist.

I don't think Napoleon Disentimed is a classic on the lines of the best of the Ace SF series, but I also don't believe that either Peirce or Bova thought it would be. It's a good, solid, enjoyable book from a new author with a lot of talent and potential.

In 1981, Vernor Vinge wrote a story called "True Names" that was published as part of a series called Binary Stars. The series quickly fell into oblivion, but "True Names" avoided the fate, being one of those titles that computer hackers passed to each other whenever the topic of books came up. Baen Books has now re-issued the story as part of a collection of Vinge's shorter works, and all I can say is that this is a must-read for anyone who uses the computer nets.

Vinge extrapolates from the current network situation to a time when direct brain connections give a hacker a chance to go inside a network and create a subjectively real counter-culture. The Government, of course, doesn't like this, so a constant battle wages between the hackers and the forces. The network, however, has been invaded by a third force, and the Hackers and the Government are forced into an uneasy truce trying to deal with something that might destroy both sides.

There are strong SF and Fantasy elements along with a well done detective/thriller story. When Varley's "Press Enter []" was published, it got a lot of publicity and acclaim. I think it's safe to say, however, that "True Names" is the work that is going to be remembered as the classic computer story of the Eighties.

Every year there are a plethora of "Best of" anthologies that try to compile the best short fiction published in the previous year. Every year I look at them all and compare them to the volume put out by Terry Carr, and invariably the others come up a close second. This year, unfortunately, is the last time Terry's anthology will be published, because he passed away last April, shortly after finishing this one. Terry Carr's Best Science Fiction of the Year #16 [Tor Books, 402 pages, $17.95, ISBN 0-312-93025-9] is as strong as ever. While choosing the best of anything is a subjective job, I can only find one story where I might have chosen differently -- Carr chose Lucius Shepard's "Aymara" instead of his Hugo/Nebula nominated "R&R." Both are fine stories, and it's more an argument for Shepard's writing ability that the choice is hard to make.

This book also contains Carr's yearly recommended reading list and a year in review article by Locus publisher Charles Brown.

Is it possible to review over a thousand pages of material in a couple of paragraphs? Is it possible for a mere reviewer to disagree with an author who puts out a tome with the title The Essential Ellison? [Nemo Press, 1019 pages, $29.99, ISBN 0-914261-01-0]

Well, I'm sure it's possible, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to rise to the questions implied by the title. Is this Essential? And is this Ellison?

As to the latter, the answer is definitely yes. The Essential Ellison is over 1000 pages of articles and stories from thirty five years of the writing career of one of the most important writers in the field. With editor Terry Dowling, Ellison has put together what they obviously feel to be the collection of material that will prove his worth as a writer to future generations. They have gone through and cleaned up the manuscripts, updating some, removing the occasional unwanted editorial improvement, and put them out for the world to see. This, they are saying, is what Ellison is.

Some of the material is of primarily historical interest. The first published story, published at the age of 15. The first professional story. Other material is familiar, such as "I Have No Mouth and I must Scream" or "A Boy and His Dog." The only story that I would personally consider missing is "Basilisk."

On to the final question. Is it Essential? Or even Necessary? I'd say yes. Much of Ellison's material is out of print or otherwise hard to find. This book not only makes these stories available again, but in a form that the author is happy with. If you're a person who appreciates Harlan Ellison, this book is a must.

Adventures [Signet, 1985, $2.95, 239pp, 0-451-13867-8] is billed as a Science Fiction novel by Mike Resnick. This is interesting, because there isn't a single Science Fiction concept in the entire book. What the book does have is a very enjoyable, light-hearted pastiche of every Africa-white hunter-elephant's graveyard-Tarzan-jungle novel (and movie, for that matter) you can name. We follow the adventures of Father Lucifer Jones, pastor of Saint Luke's Tabernacle and cathouse, as he travels the continent trying to gather enough funds to open his house of worship. Jones, an unrepetant con man, wins and loses many fortunes as he travels from place to place, normally one step ahead of the local authority. It's a lot of fun -- who cares if there isn't a laser beam or space ship to be found?

Counting the Cost [Baen Books, 267pp, November, 1987, $3.50, 0-671- 65355-5] is the latest in the Hammer's Slammers series. Author David Drake writes about mercenaries doing their job -- not the glories of war, but the day to day grind of fighting someone else's war. This is not a series that glorifies battle, but goes from the assumption that humanity will fight, and that war is a necessary evil.

This book has the Slammers on Bamberg, where two religious factions are trying to exterminate each other over what the appropriate date for Easter should be. Things are coming to a head, and the decision becomes one of how to keep the current government alive long enough to get the real offensive going.

Drake's books show a realistic view of humanity, one that many people who believe that humanity has an inherent morality won't like. It shows people's emotions -- greed, bigotry, lust, power, insensitivity -- in a way that many will find disturbing, but it is a world view that history tends to prove out. It's a good read. It isn't deeply moralistic, it doesn't have axes to grind or positions to bolster, but at the same time, it's going to make you think twice about man's humanity to man. This is another good book from Drake.

I was really worried when The TENth Planet showed up for review. The author, Leo Melamed, is Chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and according to the publicity is a life-long SF fan. The publisher is Bonus Books, well known for technical books, but not for Science Fiction. And it is published as an expensive trade paperback, by far the most difficult format to successfully market. I went into the novel expecting the worst.

I wish I could say I was pleasantly surprised. For a while, early in the book, I was. Unfortunately, I think Bonus Books did Melamed a disservice publishing the book themselves instead of passing it along to a mass market house.

The reason I say this is two-fold. First, while I might have given this book a marginal recommendation at $3.50 in a mass market format, at $8.95, the book isn't worth it. There are too many structural flaws, the prose is rough and uneven, it sputters, it strays, it never really creates a focus for the reader. You just don't care.

This is what really bothers me about this book. Melamed can write, and write well. But he isn't used to writing fiction -- his other books are technical non-fiction, and it shows. This novel even has footnotes, guaranteed to break up any narrative flow that might otherwise be generated. If this book had had an editor who knew the field and edited fiction, it could have been turned into a strong first novel. This book, with a rewrite and under the care of a strong editor, could have been something wonderful. As it stands, unfortunately, there is a good novel here, but it is hidden under rough edges and the problems and glitches that a good editor could have, and should have, tracked down and eradicated.

What got published was an unfinished manuscript, a gem in the rough. What should have gotten published was a rewrite of this book.

This is a classic case of an editor and publishing house that fell in love with a manuscript and published it despite the fact that it it out of their expertise. The quality of the manuscript suffers, because the editors can't edit the manuscript properly, and because the title is outside the normal line of books, can't be marketed or sold properly. The manuscript, with the best of intentions, gets killed with kindness.

If you're an editor, and you run into a manuscript that you have to see published, even though it's wrong for your house, do everyone a favor. Call a friend down the street and push it to them. There is a reason why technical houses publish technical books, and mass market houses publish mass market books. When you step outside your specialty, you're asking for it. And when it does happen, rarely does it work out.

Hopefully, Melamed will try again. And hopefully, the manuscript will fall into the hands of a fiction house. But this is not a book that you should go out of the way for, or judge the author by.

Finally, a book that would make a good present to any SF Fan. The Universe, edited by Byron Preiss [Bantam, 335pp, $27.95, 0-553-05527-6] is expensive, but is one of those books who's worth can't easily be summed up. What Preiss has done is taken essays about the various parts of the Universe, written by the top experts on the subject, and teamed them up with fictional views by some of the top writers. For good measure, he's added some very high quality interstellar photography and artwork to create something that not only looks good on a coffee table, but is an interesting thing to read as well. Strong production values and good writing make this something you can give your favorite fan for Christmas with some assurance that they won't already have it and will really enjoy it.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 9)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 9

War Stories

Reviewed in this issue:

Berserker Base
Fred Saberhagen
[****]

Armor
John Steakley
[****+]

War for the Oaks
Emma Bull
[***+]

Combat SF
Gordon R. Dickson
[***+]

One of the joys of planning ahead is that you can make all the pieces fit together. Or, at least, you can try. Last month's bunch of odds and ends convinced me that I ought to plan out in advance what my theme would be for this month and select books to be read according to that theme. Goodness knows I have enough unread books on my shelves to keep me busy for years.

I set out first to balance the poor marks I gave Saberhagen's Pyramids by reviewing something of his that I liked. The Berserker Base collaboration is not exactly a Saberhagen novel, but it bears his indelible stamp. Then my wife insisted I read Emma Bull's first novel, War for the Oaks. With that in my hands, the theme for this column became obvious -- I would talk about war stories.

Of course, that's still a lot of ground to cover. The science fiction end of the spectrum offers space operas with grand armadas streaking across the stars, space-ship combats with daring pilots recreating the glory combats of WWII, armored ground troops with high-powered blasters. On the fantasy end there are armies of elves and orcs, bands of brave soldiers, hand-to-hand duels and fantastic monsters.

Obviously, I can't cover this in one column, and probably couldn't in ten. So, instead of trying to cover everything, I decided to give you a sampling - - something that will allow you to get a taste of what's available and then go out and find more of what you like.

Fortunately for my plans, Saberhagen and Bull are at pretty close to the opposite ends of the spectrum. To fill in the space in between a little, I chose Combat SF, an anthology edited by Dorsai master Gordon Dickson, and John Steakley's Armor, another first novel by another promising author.

Berserker Base [Tor Hardcover, 218 pp] is an unusual collaboration. The berserker series of books had been Saberhagen's exclusive preserve for many years. Unlike Marion Zimmer Bradley with her Darkover universe, Saberhagen has not coauthored any novels nor had he allowed related stories to be professionally published. In this book, however, he has brought together short stories by six excellent authors and written linking pieces to tie the shorts into a coherent whole.

Saberhagen has also written beginning and ending pieces completing a kind of umbrella tale which arches over the other works. In this cover tale, human Lars Kankuru is forced into a telepathic link with nonhuman Carmpan who are also prisoners at the berserker base. The bonded duos observe the six shorter stories which are woven back into the umbrella story by Saberhagen.

The first short is Stephen Donaldson's "What Makes Us Human." It is the story of a generation ship launched from a world that has never heard of berserkers. Protected by her designers' conviction that nothing can go faster than the speed of light and by a supposedly-impenetrable shield, Aster's Hope has no weapons with which to fight the berserker. Worse, the home world Aster is totally unprotected. Somehow, Temple and Gracias -- the only awake crew members -- must stop the berserker from destroying both ship and planet.

"What Makes Us Human" is a classic man-versus-machine story solidly in the Saberhagen tradition. Donaldson quickly sets up two likeable characters in an 'impossible' situation and then lets the action flow. The ending is a little predictable, but that doesn't seriously hamper the story.

"With Friends Like These" is Connie Willis' entry into the collection. She tells the story of Pat, a company mining engineer, and Gemma, the representative of the Cotabote race -- natives of the planet being mined. The natives are "belligerent, spiteful, evil-minded ... and sneaky" -- to say the least. They continually interfere with the mining operations and with Pat's attempts to bed Gemma. They are also less than helpful when a berserker shows up.

At first reading, it's hard to see why Saberhagen chose to include "With Friends Like These." The berserker is really not that important to the story, which is a fairly straightforward humor/love story. But it is important to realize that, even in a universe threatened by death machines, life goes on. Willis' story reminds us of this in a humorous way and helps round of the Berserker Base collection.

In "Itself Surprised," Roger Zelazny takes us aboard a smuggler's space ship. Dr. Juna Bayel is the illicit cargo -- a robotics and cybernetics expert hired to teach classes on those topics on the planet Corlano. The rulers of that planet want to forbid any knowledge of those topics, thus the secrecy.

Dr. Bayel's expertise is called into play earlier than expected when the smugglers come across an ancient artifact floating in space. It appears to be some kind of robotic warship, perhaps even a berserker. Unfortunately, the smugglers also come across a berserker which wants the artifact. It's a race against time as the crew tries to stall the berserker long enough for Bayel to figure out what the artifact really is and why the berserker wants it so badly.

Zelazny writes a tight, suspenseful plot which I'm not going to spoil by saying any more about. "Itself Surprised" is, I think, the best story of the collection.

Zelazny is followed in the collection by "Deathwomb," Poul Anderson's entry. Once again, the story concentrates on the humans and aliens inhabiting a planet under berserker threat.

Dr. Sally Jennison is a researcher at University Station on Ilya. One day she returns from the field to find that the human military has 'invaded' Ilya. They have removed all the other University personnel and are in the process of demolishing the station.

Dr. Jennison at first sees the military as a monolithic monster, bent on the destruction of her and her comrades' life work and uncaring toward the natives.

However, Captain Ian Dunbar -- the enemy personified -- is no monster. He is the quintessential concerned soldier, following orders. The military is on Ilya for a purpose and Sally Jennison slowly discovers what is up.

Anderson handles the denouement with his usual talent. "Deathwomb" ranks a close second behind Zelazny's story.

"Pilots of the Twilight" by Ed Bryant is another somewhat-unusual story. Although casual mercenaries are a standard fixture in future- and space- oriented SF, Saberhagen had not written them into his universe before this.

Bryant creates a pair of worlds with frequent continental low-intensity conflicts. In this environment, a class of fighters for hire has grown up. Operating in semi-symbiosis with their spaceships, they are the mercenaries of this system. Holt Calder is a special member of this group. Although young and fairly inexperienced, he has a natural talent for warfare. He also has an unusual heritage.

Teamed with him for the fight against the berserker is Morgan Kai- Anila. She too is a natural talent, but she has age and experience as well. So does Tanzin, the third member of Bryant's main cast.

However, all the skill and experience of all the pilots on the planet is not enough to stop the berserker. The team must call on the 'Reen -- the original inhabitants of the planet. They raised Holt Calder when he was abandoned as a baby to die in the wilderness. Most humans regard the 'Reen as animals because they superficially resemble large badgers and live in a simple hunter-gatherer tribal culture. The 'Reen have been hunted and driven off most of the planet by humans. However, they have a power that just might stop the berserker if the two races can cooperate in time.

Bryant sets up and executes the story nicely. However, he does get a bit preachy at times. "Pilots of the Twilight" is a lot like a modern cowboys- and-indians story, with the humans as Indian-hating cowboys and the 'Reen as unexpectedly civilized and strangely powerful Indians. Nevertheless, it's still a fairly good story.

The last short story in Berserker Base is Larry Niven's "A Teardrop Falls." This story revolves around the fact that the berserkers' builders equipped them with an intelligence equal or greater than that of human beings. Man cannot yet build a machine that smart.

However, Niven postulates that we could capture a human mind and encode it into a computer. "A Teardrop Falls" tells the story of a battle between a berserker and the computer with the mind of Hilary Gage.

Hilary has only two weapons with which to fight the berserker. The first is his human ingenuity and cunning. Functioning at the same speed as the berserker's brain, he can match its thought power. His second weapon is a program called Remora -- a program he has carefully crafted over the two centuries since his mind was transferred into a machine.

Niven turns these simple elements into a tight, exciting story of computer-versus-computer conflict.

Berserker Base has no bad stories. The only flaw I could find was an overall sense of hurriedness, as though Saberhagen put the book together under deadline pressure. Still, it is an excellent anthology. I recommend it to newcomers to the berserker universe and to lovers of Saberhagen's previous works.

I have an autographed copy of Armor [Daw SF paperback, 426 pp, ISBN 0-87997-979-8]. It reads "For Alan & Jennie -- hereby absolved of guilt." The signature and the book were obtained at a little con held here Austin. John Steakley was a Guest of Honor, but so was Robert Asprin. And Robert, being his natural self, dominated the scene.

After the last panel late Saturday afternoon, Asprin retired -- in a crowd of autograph-seeking fans -- to the hotel bar, where he proceeded to hold court. After getting my Myth book signed, I retreated to a corner of the pack where a good-looking fellow was sitting morosely drinking gin and tonics which were brought to him by a good-looking lady.

Since the gentleman seemed bent on getting drunk, I struck up a conversation with the lady, who revealed that they were from Dallas and when we finally got around to exchanging names I found that I was talking to Steakley and his girlfriend. And it quickly became apparent that not only did I not have a copy of his book, no one else in the room did either.

I immediately excused myself and rushed off to the dealer room where I bought myself a copy of Armor, then brought it back for Steakley to sign. Thus, my guilt was absolved.

Armor is Steakley's first novel, but he has been a writer for a long time. For most of his writing life, he has been creating scripts for Hollywood movies. Studios like to have several dozen scripts on hand at any given time. This helps insure that their highly-paid actors and directors don't sit idle (or get bored and go elsewhere). These scripts are commissioned and paid for in advance, and 99.9% of them never see the light of day.

Steakley was making good money doing these scripts but, like other authors, he wanted to make it into the public eye. The final straw, he says, was when his script for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre II" finished second in the race to see whose script would be used. Frustrated with comfortable anonymity, Steakley gave up taking Hollywood commissions and sat down to write Armor .

Armor is an unusual book in that it is not really a book about a person or persons. Rather, it is the story of a suit of high-tech battle armor and what it does to and for the people who possess it. Steakley's cinematic talents work well in this kind of setting.

The book is divided into three sections. The first section is clearly Steakley's homage to Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers -- a major source of inspiration for the book. This first part is the story of Felix, the wearer of the armor, and his first drop onto Banshee, the aliens' homeworld.

As in Starship Troopers, the aliens are hive creatures with no individual minds. Most are workers, a few are warriors armed with weapons that are crude compared to the sophisticated armaments of the troopers. However, Steakley's "ants" all have claws and mandibles and a strength capable of opening a person's armor the way a human cracks open a lobster. Thus, each ant is a threat.

There is also another critical difference. Where Heinlein gave us fast- moving troopers in constant individual combats, Steakley gives us waves of thousands of ants, swarming everywhere over every trooper.

Though their blaze-guns and blaze-bombs kill hundreds and thousands of ants, the troopers quickly run out of power and are forced into hand-to- claw combat with the ants, clubbing and killing with their armored bodies. Combat is a very direct and very personal thing when you must face each opponent at that range. Some troopers can't handle it and go under immediately. Others fight until they are overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

Felix is thrust into this living hell in scout's armor -- lighter and faster than a regular trooper but with less armament. We quickly learn that Felix is different from the other soldiers around him. First and foremost, he hates. He hates the "Black Suit" and being imprisoned in it and what he must do while in it. He hates the ignorant and incompetent commanders of Fleet who send him and his comrades onto Banshee unprepared. He hates the fact that he will have to watch his comrades die. He hates the War and the ants he must fight.

Second, Felix fears. He fears dying. Fears it in a close and personal way. Out of this hatred and fear is born "The Engine," a kind of alter-ego within Felix. The Engine is the perfect warrior. It neither hates nor fears. It merely psyches itself up to do what it must -- kill ants and keep Felix alive.

The first part of the book follows Felix/The Engine as he descends into the carnage of Banshee. It tells what they do there, who they meet and what happens to them all. Steakley is good at making characters 'live' with a minimum of verbiage. We see these people as we see the battles -- through Felix's eyes. Steakley is careful not to let the focus wander, a danger when writing cluttered and active battle scenes.

The second part of the book is the story of Jack Crow. Rogue, pirate, semi-hero -- Jack is a man trying to live up to the myths about him, his public image.

The second part of the book opens with Jack's escape from prison. Unfortunately, he falls into the clutches of Borglyn, leader of a band of mutineers.

Borglyn and his crew have a ship, but they need fuel. The only place they can hope to get it with all of Fleet looking for them is at a remote scientific colony. Borglyn does not have the power to blast his way in and take the fuel. What he does have is spies on the planet -- and now he has Jack Crow. Borglyn wants Crow to use his wiles and charm to infiltrate the project and take down the defenses from inside. If Crow succeeds, he gets to keep an abandoned Fleet courier ship Borglyn found. If he fails or refuses, he dies. Being a practical man, Crow agrees.

At the last moment, Crow decides to take with him to the planet a suit of scout armor found in the courier ship. Of course, he can't wear it; it's customized for its one original wearer. But it's an interesting artifact and his agile mind can surely make use of it.

The rest of the novel revolves around Crow's adventures on the planet, what's recorded in the suit, and what it does to the people who come into contact with it.

Steakley's writing is quite good. He has smoothness and polish that are rare in first novels. Four-hundred-plus pages is also hefty for a first-timer, but the action is so well-paced that the reader's interest is continually held. Steakley builds good characters and ties them into their setting very well. I also liked the ending which -- although a bit cinematic -- is very satisfying.

There is a war brewing in the streets of Minneapolis. Unknown to most of the city's human inhabitants, the two major powers of Faerie -- the Seelie and Unseelie courts -- are about to embark on one of their seasonal wars for territory. This time, however, it's going to be more serious. The Seelie court is going to 'recruit' a mortal -- Eddi McCandry. Her presence on the battlefield and the spells woven around her will turn sport into deadly earnest; with her there, the deaths suffered by the beings of Faerie will be permanent. Immortals will die.

The Unseelie court, being quite fond of their immortal existences, would like nothing better than to destroy Eddi and thwart the Seelie court's plans. So Eddi is assigned a protector -- a phouka, one of the most infuriating creatures in existence. As he says "I am a phouka, my sweet, and by nature a tricksy wight. I cannot be otherwise."

Eddi wants none of this. She doesn't care about Faerie wars, even when convinced of their reality by the phouka's shape-changing and an assassin's arrow. What she wants is to be left alone with her best friend Carla to form a band and forget about Stuart Kline, ex-boyfriend, ex-lover, and currently number two on the pain-in-the-ass list (after the phouka). If you're beginning to get the idea that this is a basically fun story with serious overtones, you're on the right track.

The last time I read something by Emma Bull, it was her co-authoring of "Danceland" in the Bordertown anthology. Many of the elements of War for the Oaks [Ace Fantasy, 309 pp, ISBN 0-441-87073-2] are reminiscent of that earlier work. There are dance clubs, rock and roll bands, and fey characters mixing with humans.

This is Bull's first novel and it has some first-novel weaknesses. The pacing is somewhat uneven and the air-of-band-practice is done to death. Nevertheless, Bull succeeds in drawing the reader into an increasingly- interesting story. Eddi is well-drawn and well-motivated, even if she is a little slow to pick up on clues that are obvious to the reader. The phouka is also well presented. At first I, like Eddi, wanted to take his head off with a blunt axe. As the story progresses, though, he becomes increasingly likeable.

My major gripe with this book is with the ending. Without spoiling the plot, I'll just say Bull sets up what ought to be a tense, gripping ending. But it fails -- it doesn't build properly. The reader never doubts the outcome -- never feels the tension that ought to be present. The whole affair seems hurried and somewhat choppy. There are two possible explanations. One is that Bull is not confident enough to give full rein to her stories. The other is that someone talked her into cutting too much out of the ending. Either way, it seems a flaw in this particular book, not in the author. I don't think it will happen again.

War for the Oaks is not bad for a first novel. I expect Bull will get better with practice and I will be sure to get a copy of her next novel, when it comes out.

This is an updated reprinting of an old anthology, first published in 1971. It contains thirteen stories, dated between 1949 and 1979. (Obviously, the reprint added stories not in the original.) As Dickson explains in the introduction, it is an attempt to survey a small segment of the war-stories spectrum. According to Dickson, Combat SF [Ace SF, 266 pp, ISBN 0-441-11534-9] concentrates on what we would call "hard SF."

However, that emphasis does not overly restrict the pieces that Dickson has selected. There are pieces that we traditionally associate with hard SF, such as Arthur C. Clarke's excellent "Hide and Seek" and Hal Clement's abysmal "Fireproof." These stories turn on key elements of physics, especially the physics peculiar to space. However, there are also pieces that cheerfully violate known physical laws, such as Fred Saberhagen's "Patron of the Arts," a berserker story with FTL drives.

There are also a couple of surprisingly human-oriented pieces, notably Dickson's own "Ricochet on Miza" which tells the story of a brutal human hunter and the wily animal he hunts, and Keith Laumer's "The Last Command," an interesting Bolo story.

There are also a couple of pieces that are hard to classify. "The Horars of War," by Gene Wolfe is a disturbing look at the psychology of soldiering. Although it has a futuristic setting, the feel is like the stories that Vietnam vets tell. Frank M. Robinson's "Situation Thirty" is another mind-game story, this time about a duel of wits between spaceship commanders.

There are a couple of very short entries. "Men of Good Will" is by Ben Bova and Myron Lewis. It is a cute little ditty about physics on the moon. Joe L. Hensley's "The Pair" is a pulpish piece from 1958 about the end of a war between humans and aliens.

Some of the pieces express an author's sadness about the combat depicted. David Drake's "The Butcher's Bill" and James White's "The Scavengers" are in this category. White's story has an ending twist that really surprised me, something that hasn't happened in a while.

And finally, there are two stories that use hard-SF settings to create a situation of personal one-on-one combat. Joe Green's "Single Combat" shows how a modern man might cope with the treacherous realities of an uncivilized tribal culture. Poul Anderson's classic "The Man Who Came Early" shows just the opposite -- how a modern man might fail to cope with a tribal culture he does not understand.

It's hard to assign a single ranking to any collection with this many stories. Two are downright awful, some are classics, most are good. In all, it's an average book which gives a fairly good overview of what the field of Combat SF has been like over a thirty-year stretch. I recommend it to readers new to the field; more experienced readers should buy Bull's and Steakley's books instead.

Mindplayers

Pat Cadigan
Bantam, $3.50, 0-553-26585-7

It's amazing how quickly Mindplayers goes bad, the story souring like a bowl of ptomaine-laced tuna left out in the sun too long. After an explosion of an opening section that could have been Hugo material if published as a novelette, Pat Cadigan's first novel ratchets its way downhill like a cheesy one-minute roller coaster ride. You plow through the book and keep expecting the machinery to start up again, the chain to catch, the car to begin jerking forward and carry you to the next peak. After all, you brought us up there at the beginning, didn't you, Pat? You told us about the view, quickly let us see some things we never saw before, teased us with glimpses of the sights on the midway from your beautifully warped perspective. But somewhere in Mindplayers, the reader begins to realize that the tease of the first few chapters is never going to be fulfilled, at least not on this trip. You find you only have 100 pages left to finish, then 50, then 10, and you're still waiting for something more to happen. But the machine has stopped, and there's a kid on the walkway waiting for you to lean the bar away from your seat and get off. "Ride's over," he tells you. "What do you want for three bucks and a half anyway, buddy?" Well, whatever you want -- or expect -- from your reading, I suspect you'll feel short-changed by Mindplayers. The initial concept of the book is beautiful, the sort of promising idea that many burnt-out authors would sacrifice a year's worth of royalty checks to come up with. Alexandra Victoria Hass, known as Allie, and sometimes (in what rapidly becomes an overworked one-liner) as Deadpan Allie, is a woman convicted of deliberately inducing an unlicensed psychosis in herself, one of the few No-Nos of the future society Cadigan postulates. Offered the alternatives of jail or "community service," Allie opts for the latter choice. In her case, the community service is to become a mindplayer -- a specialist who enters other people's minds through a groddy technological hookup (groddy due to the necessity of popping out your eyes in order for it work. Gag me with a detached retina.). Mindplayers come in all sorts of flavors -- thrillseekers, who can help you discover what really turns you on; belljarrers, who use sensory deprivation as therapy; dreamfeeders, who do what the term implies; neurosis peddlers, who will give you that special fetish you've always wanted; and pathosfinders. Allie chooses the last as her profession. Pathosfinders aid creative people -- artists, musicians, writers -- in realizing new works of art or in breaking past blocks through controlled mind therapy. Mindplayers opens with Allie's arrest and a walk through her own mind with a professional mindplayer. In this opening section Cadigan's talent really shines through. Especially well-handled are the descriptive passages describing Allie's mindscape. The inner scenery of Allie's mind is both weird and strangely familiar at the same time, as if Cadigan somehow had tapped into a block of racial memory shared by the reader. The world of Mindplayers is also fully developed in the space of a few pages, a Cadigan strength she's previously developed to good ends in her short story writing. She spins off ideas like a rapid barrage of Roman candles, probably offering more to spark the reader's imagination in any given paragraph than the total of any 10 other science fiction novels you'll read this year. Given all that, why does Mindplayersgo wrong? The largest problem is the lack of plot in the book, a failing Cadigan shares with many other good short story writers who have tried to make the transition to novels. The story begins to sputter in the second section, when Allie enrolls in an institution to develop her mindplaying talent. The distinctive landscape of her mind that Cadigan used to such good effect in the first section is barely referred to again. Instead, we have wretchedly boring narrative as Allie struggles to become a "lucid dreamer" and develops a strange relationship with someone who may be real or may be a product of her imagination. Ultimately, the reader doesn't care. You just want something -- anything -- to happen rather than the endless arguments between Allie and her tutors that make up the bulk of this section. The plot does pick up somewhat in the latter half of Mindplayers, but nowhere achieves the promise offered in the beginning of the book. In a series of encounters, Allie works as a professional mindplayer, delving into the minds of actors, poets, and musicians. But the separate stories seem to be variations on a single theme. While the different characters Allie works with are distinctive enough, their problems all seem too similar, the resolutions all blandly the same. There's an interesting little subplot worked through Mindplayers concerning an acquaintance?/friend?/lover? of Allie's with the cyberpunkish name of Jerry Wirerammer. Wirerammer is the cause of Allie's arrest and continues to make cameo appearances through the rest of the book as he scrambles through his sleazy existence. Cadigan seems unsure whether to use the Wirerammer character as a counterpoint to the main storyline or to develop his role into a separate story. In the end, she straddles those two choices, leaving the reader wishing for more. In many ways, Mindplayers succeeds better when read as a series of linked novelettes which share common characters and backgrounds. Looking at it from that perspective, parts of Mindplayers are excellent indeed. But as a novel it doesn't work. The promise of better things to come is there though, and I'll have ticket in hand the next time the Cadigan carnival comes to town.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 10)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 10

No Prisoners!

Reviewed in this issue:

Intervention
Julian May
[*****]

The Fionavar Tapestry
The Summer Tree
The Wandering Fire
The Darkest Road
Guy Gavriel Kay
[****+]

Caught in Crystal
Patricia C. Wrede
[***+]

Arrow's Flight
Mercedes Lackey
[****]

Every once in a while it's good to have an enforced vacation. You get a chance to think and do things that you either would have put off or have never gotten around to. My enforced vacation was a case of pneumonia that had me flat on my back for two weeks. Since I had a lot of time, and not a lot of energy, I worked through my overflowing "in-box" of books. My lungs' loss were my mind's gain; I came across some gems that would have otherwise gathered dust.

Intervention, by Julian May [Houghton Mifflin, $18.95, 546 pp, 0-395-43782-2], the "bridge" novel between the Pliocene Exile series, and the coming Galactic Milieu books. It is essentially the autobiography of Rogatien Remillard, with others' viewpoints interspersed throughout the book. The force behind the books is a friendly "ghost", from the Galactic Milieu, who, besides Rogatien, is the only common character throughout the book.

It turns out that the Galactic Milieu has been watching Earth longer than we had thought. The first time we see them is just after World War II. They realize that humans have the capability to become members of the Milieu, but they are waiting to see if Earth will survive the appearance of operant psychics. They have developed some interesting habits during their mission; they're quite fond of Scotch Whisky and jazz.

This is one of the methods that May uses to describe the characters and their settings. The food that each is eating is lovingly described to the point where I brought out my cookbook collection, just to see if I could cook what was being eaten. The descriptions of what is being eaten and when gives more information on that character than a chapter of expository dialogue.

Beyond the descriptions of food, the descriptions of each of the characters is so vivid that I expected to be able to find Denis Remillard's Psi lab, along with Rogatien's book shop. This is much harder than it sounds; since a large portion of the book occurs in current time, it would be a lot easier to disbelieve what is happening. Especially since, if you've already read the Pliocene exile series, you know what's going to happen. From the first meeting of Rogatien and his "friendly ghost", to the last stand of the operants, under siege from Denis's younger brother, I didn't want to put the book down.

Don't wait for the paperback: Intervention is one of the best books of the year. I can't wait for the Galactic Milieu trilogy.

I was prepared to actively dislike the Fionavar Tapestry [Arbor House, Unwin Hyman, #10.95]; the last two years have been big ones for Celtic fantasy, and there has been a lot of dross emerging as the publishing cycle reaches its peak., when I read the first book, The Summer Tree, I had just finished with a spate of mediocre pseudo-Celtic adventure novels. Celtic overdose clouded my judgement, and the book ended up in the "who cares?" stack. However, after hearing enough glowing reports about the book, I decided to get the last book of the trilogy, and attempt to read them all at once.

The second reading, not clouded by my previous perceptions, revealed a classic. The theme, the ultimate battle of good and evil, isn't stilted or trite, and Kay is able to use his modern characters as a foil and to give a different viewpoint from the legendary characters. However, even the modern characters become part of the legend.

Fionavar is the "first of all worlds", the primary focus from which all the other worlds descend. Using this, Kay is able to give understandable versions of common archetypes; the sacrificial king, the exiled prince, the wild hunt, and the ultimate evil under the mountain coming to life. In all this he even manages in inject, and even more importantly, resolve, the story of Arthur, Guenivere, and Lancelot. This is quite a package for any author to tackle, and Kay is not only able to control it, but to guide and shape it to a glorious end.

Kay is also able to tackle an area that stymies a lot of fantasy writers: where does all this stuff come from? I like the explanation of each wizard having a power source, and that power source being finite. And oh, yes, that power source is another sentient being. All the fantastic elements of Fionavar work, whether it's wizardry, curses, or pre-cognizance. There is a rational explanation for each occurrence.

I'd recommend that you buy all three volumes of the Fionavar Tapestry, and spend a long weekend reading them. You won't be disappointed.

Besides the overdose of Celtic adventure, another part of the current crop of fantasy that annoys me is the emergence of the stupid but stacked female warrior. While she's shortchanged in the intelligence department, she looks like a graduate student of the Mark Eden school of bust development. You know the type; she's young, vicious, and wears low cut chain mail in the dead of winter. Fortunately for us, there's a remedy for all that, Patricia Wrede's Caught in Crystal [Ace Fantasy, $2.95, 293 pp, 0-441-76006-6].

Kayl, the warrior is none of the stereotypes. She's heading toward forty, the mother of two, and she's bulging in the wrong places. However, she has brains to spare, and a master strategist. Here we meet Kayl, she is running an Inn, having left the Sisterhood of Stars, a fellowship of warriors and magicians many years before. The reason for her departure, a disastrous mission to the Twisted Tower, comes back to haunt her. For it seems that the Sisterhood's magic is failing, and they trace it back to the Tower. Joining her and the Sisterhood on the new mission to the Tower is Glydon, a wizard from the original mission who has suffered from fits since his brush with the Tower's evil.

Wrede has set this in the world of Lyra, where there once co-existed four races; humans, the Wyrds, who look somewhat like anthropomorphic cats, the Nereids, a fish race, and the Shee, a race of fair folk. There is tension between the races, and between the humans. Even the Sisterhood has the social dynamics of any corporate board.. It's refreshing to see a questing group that isn't all fair rosy cheeks and singing.

Caught in Crystal is a good introduction to Patricia Wrede's works. Once you've read one of Wrede's books, you'll be back for more.

Arrow's Flight, by Mercedes Lackey [Daw Fantasy, $3.50, 318 pp, 0- 88677-222-2], is the second book in a trilogy about Talia, a Herald in the Kingdom of Valdemar. The Heralds are the "Arrows of the Queen", people who listen to disagreements among the populace, direct the army, and oversee the running of the kingdom. Each has a Companion, horse-like magic creatures who choose and bond with their riders. Each Herald has at least one form of psychic ability; most have some level of telepathy, while others are clairvoyant. Talia is a projective and receptive empath. While this ability isn't unheard of in court, the healers are empathic, it is unknown among the Heralds. Talia is assumed to have control over her abilities, and isn't trained as the other are. The lack of training, coupled with a plot by the nobles to ruin Talia's reputation as the Queen's Herald, bring Talia troubel, and are the main plot of the book.

Mercedes Lackey creates a believable world, close enough to our own to be understandable. Even in this world, where there are magic Companions, the same everyday troubles wander in; mix-ups over who's in love with who, grumpy feelings with your partner at the end of a long day, and exasperation with people who just don't seem to be getting the point. Enough of Talia's background is given so you can see things from her perspective. She's been abused and belittled by an small minded family, she still can't quite believe that this is all happening to her, and in the back of her mind, she fears of losing it all.

You don't need to read the first book of the trilogy, Arrows of the Queen, to enjoy Arrow's Flight, but reading both will more than double your enjoyment. I'm looking forward to the third book, Arrow's Fall, with sadness; I just don't want to see this series end.

Much Rejoicing

Reviews by
Dan'l Danehey-Oakes
djo@pbhyc.uucp
Copyright 1987 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Episode 4: Standards

As much as possible, do not bore your fellow man.

-- Zoroastrian Holy Writing

Reviewed in this issue:

How Much for Just the Planet
John M. Ford

The Kinsman Saga
Ben Bova

Bluebeard
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Crown Jewels
Walter Jon Williams

Wild Cards 3: Jokers Wild
George R.R. Martin

Alchemical Texts
Bruce Boston

The Wall
Ardath Mayhar

The Terminal Beach
J.G. Ballard

Infernal Devices
K.W. Jeter

To entertain, a story must be told in a competent manner; a writer who doesn't know what she's doing will just bore you. Competence is a collection of writer's skills, such as idea, plot, character, style, setting, and theme. If one of these is poor or missing, a story may stand through unusual balance of the other five. If two are missing, the story is likely to be in trouble. Three, and the story is almost certainly dead on arrival.

So, with these thoughts in mind, let's examine a few books...

I don't normally read Star Trek books. ("Normally" means I haven't read one since James Blish died.) Therefore, it is a matter of some puzzlement to me that I actually bought and read John M. Ford's How Much For Just the Planet? [Pocket, 1987, $3.95, 0-671-62998-0] I don't know why I did it.

But I'm glad I did. Ford pokes at Trek's worst cliches ("Why is it that every woman that we meet is an old flame of yours, Captain?") with loving homages to everything good in comedy, from Gilbert and Sullivan to the Three Stooges.

The result is worth at least a chuckle a page. The Enterprise picks up a distress call from a survey ship which has discovered a planet practically made of dilithium crystals -- at the same time as the Klingons. In accordance with the Organian peace accord, the Federation and the Empire send diplomatic missions to the planet's inhabitants, who will make the final determinaion as to who gets to exploit them.

The plot becomes inexplicable at this point, involving bedroom- hopping, laundry chutes, Klingons in tuxedoes (I'm not making this up, you know), a lost race with an immortal queen, a inflatable rubber starship, and more.

Don't read this with your mouth full; it'd be messy.

Let me state right at the beginning that I'm very, very impressed by The Kinsman Saga [TOR Hardback, 1987, $17.95, 0-312-29590-1]. I've never been very fond of Ben Bova's fiction before this. In fact, some time ago, I panned Prometheans in these pages.

Saga is a reprint and revision of two of Bova's books from about ten years ago, Kinsman and Millenium. Millenium in particular was highly praised on first publication; somehow, I never got around to reading it.

I'm glad, now, that I didn't. The two books deserve to be read together. They form the complete biography of Chester Kinsman, a pacifist who is forced to kill so his dreams can live, to betray causes he loves in the service of higher causes. We follow his career as a young Air Force trainee, a shuttle pilot, the Commander of America's first lunar base, and beyond; in the end, he may be the savior of mankind.

Along the way, he laughs, loves, and hurts. Kinsman's story is riddled with guilt, but without the kind of whining that pervades so much of modern fiction: his condition is not that far from ours, and we can understand it.

Perhaps the best way to indicate the measure of Bova's achievement is this: I am opposed to the "Space Defense Initiative." This isn't a forum for political debate, but suffice it to say that I live near dozens of prime military targets, and I'd be in favor of anything that would keep missiles from falling on me. The Kinsman Saga is in large part pro-SDI propaganda - - that is, propaganda for a political position I find reprehensible. I'm praising it anyway; it's a damn fine book. Go read it.

Kurt Vonnegut is no longer a science fiction writer, but he deserves some mention here: very well, let me say that his new book, Bluebeard [Delacorte Press, 1987, $17.95, 0-385-29590-1] though it contains no fantastic or science-fictional elements whatsoever, is as good a book as he's written, and deserves to be read by any and all of you.

If you need to know what it's about: it's about an artist, a man who stood at the center of the Abstract Impressionist movement, hung around with and supported some of its major figures, and finally wound up a nobody (though a very rich nobody) through one of the Little Ironies Vonnegut's books have been filled with since he began. And, unusually for Vonnegut, it has what I regard as a genuinely happy ending.

Alien Elvis impersonators! Croquet on other planets! Annoying domestic robots! These, along with a number of other silly and amusing things, appear in Walter Jon Williams' new novel, The Crown Jewels [TOR, 1987, $3.50, 0-812-55798-9].

The Crown Jewels is the tale of a ne'er-do-well nobleman, slightly down on his luck, who has found a career as an Allowed Burglar.

(Allowed Burglar?) Well, yes. One of the things the Khosali --

(Khosali?) Will you stop interrupting? The Khosali conquered Earth a while back, but the humans eventually won a sort of precarious independence. Anyway, they allow burglars in their culture if the burglar is sufficiently stylish and entertaining, and Our Hero, Drake Maijstral, Baron Dorgo, etc., is just that.

It is this same Drake Maijstral who steals an Artifact which, unbeknownst to him, contains the Fate of the Constellation, the Fate of the Empire, and, yes, the Fate of Civilization Itself.

Naturally, he makes one hell of a profit on the deal...

In one sense, this is something of a descendant of Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villiers novels; it glitters with the same elegance, style (in both senses), wit, and bizarre characters that made those books so lovely. In another, it's what Harry Harrison's Jim diGriz might have been if Harrison had bothered to work out an interesting and complex society to set the Rat's adventures in.

It's a fun book.

Confession time: I've become addicted to a "shared world" series.

The idea of a "shared world" had occurred to me, as it had to many other people, before Thieves' World came along and made it a reality. The idea is appealing; gather a bunch of talented, very different writers and see what they do with a common concept. Thieves' World was, to be blunt, disappointing. The stories in it had a quality of sameness that drove me away by the third volume.

Since then, I've read one or two volumes of several other such series, and been disappointed in each on one ground or another. The most common failings have been in range: either too little, as I mentioned for Thieves' World, or too much, with stories that seem to have little bearing on one another.

Until Wild Cards.

Wild Cards [Bantam, 1987, $3.95, 0-553-26699-3] has never described itself as a "shared world." George R.R. Martin, the series editor/coordinator, has called it a "mosaic novel" series, and I think that's a better description, and it's become more so as the series progresses.

The first volume was an anthology. It told, in bits and pieces, the story of various superhuman and subhuman beings created by aliens in 1946, and their impact on history. The second, though still an anthology, focussed on a single, complex, story of alien invasion, evil Masonic cults, and other strangeness.

But the third is a novel: a novel with better than half-a-dozen collaborators and protagonists, but a novel just the same, where the various plots and subplots twine around and through each other to a final common resolution. It is not divided into stories by each author, as the previous volumes were. Instead, each author's contribution is slotted into various spots throughout the book, in firm chronological order, with a note at the end explaining more or less who wrote what.

Each author's style and strengths are used to good effect. Some of the authors from earlier volumes are missing, but those who remain are all solid, quality folks, and they tell a story complex enough that I'm astonished to find it could be pulled off at all, let alone so well. I'd love to know how Martin coordinates these (he called this volume an "editorial hat-trick," as good a term as any).

Oh yeah -- what it's about. The Astronomer, chief human villain from volume two, is out for revenge, and sets about to kill the "aces" (Wild Cards term for what anyone else would call a superhero) of New York. In the meanwhile, a thief steals a book whose contents may control the balance of power in the New York underworld. There are several other plots that wrap around these two, but they form the novel's main structural supports.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I loved it.

I don't think there's such a thing as "science fiction poetry." Science fiction is fiction, descended from the bourgeois novel; poetry is a different form. Poems have never before now been classified by the type of fiction their contentmakes them seem kin to; if there is a group, or movement, or whatever of poets using science fiction subject matter in poetry -- and it seems inarguable that there is -- then certainly they need and deserve a name, but calling poetry fiction isn't the way to do it. (I have a similar problem with "SF films.")

Nonetheless, the name seems entrenched. Possibly the best-known poet of the science fictional (I exclude people like Ray Bradbury, who are not primarily poets) is Bruce Boston. You've probably seen his work in Asimov's and other places. If not, let me tell you he's good. Very good.

Which is why I found Alchemical Texts [Ocean View Press, 1985, $3] a tremendously disappointing little book. It's not even much of a book; more of a pamphlet, which is the form taken by far too many single-author poetry collections these days. (I don't see what can be done about this; it seems that there are just too damn many good poets working for the market to absorb, and the small press does what it can.) The poems contained in Alchemical Texts wander around the perceptions of an individual referred to as "The Alchemist," who seems to stand as a hazy metaphor for hermetic knowledge.

This should be a sufficiently powerful and malleable metaphor for a poet of Boston's quality to generate any number of original and compelling insights; instead, the poems bog down in a rather trite sort of mysticism. (It is, of course, possible that I, who am not privy to a large body of hermetic knowledge, may be missing some significance which a more trained observer of arcana would pick up right away.)

The language, on the other hand, is as clear and startling as anything of Boston's I've seen elsewhere. The poems are certainly well done: my question is whether they were worth the effort, and my answer, I'm afraid, is a qualified no.

Speaking of the small press... Time&Space books offers a short novel, more a novella, in Ardath Mayhar's The Wall [Space and Time, 1987, $6.95, 0-917053-06-0]. Pink Floyd fans need not apply; this is a quiet little tale of the supernatural.

I can't really bring myself to call it a horror novel, as the emotions it conveys are rather too gentle for the term; but it is a ghost story in the classic American tradition, set in a vaguely modern South, dealing with the difficulties faced by Alice Critten in taking up residence in her late Great- Aunt's former residence.

The Aunt in question was a curmudgeonly old lady, not at all popular with the "better" folk of the town, but comfortable with shopkeepers and the residents of the black settlement nearby. But she never seemed the type to surround her house with a thick stone wall -- yet the wall is there: hence the title.

Some hints of the reason for the wall's presence appear right away: strange sounds in the night, an vaporous humanoid form which appears at night, trees burned to ash by persons unknown. Alice's attempts to discover who, or what, is doing this, and to stop them, forms the basis for an entertaining and satisfying little supernatural mystery.

The solution seems a little pedestrian next to the events which surround it, but it certainly satisfies. I probably wouldn't take great steps out of my way to find The Wall, but if you see a copy in a bookstore or on an order form, it's definitely worth your hard-earned cash.

I seem to recall complaining, a while back, about the non-availability of J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. That was an understatement. The sad truth is, most of his books have had sporadic availability at best in this country, and they deserve better. (The situation may be improved when Spielberg's film of Empire of the Sun is released; at any rate, I hope so.)

Now one of his best collections of short stories has been made available for the first time in many years.

The title story of The Terminal Beach [Carroll & Graf, 1987 (reissue), $3.50, 0-88184-370-9] is one of the most frequently-reprinted stories of recent years. Not one of the most frequently-reprinted SF stories: one of the most frequently-reprinted stories, period. "The Terminal Beach" is the classic example of Ballard's "condensed novel" short story style, a complex story boiled down to its essentials, so stripped-down that the few details which remain take on an obsessive, puzzling, almost mystical air. The terminal beach is not a beach at all, but the sandy interior of the island of Bikini, site of early above-ground H-bomb tests; and the story deals with an individual whose life has taken on meaning through his attempts to penetrate to the center of the island.

Obsession is, as always, the keynote of Ballard's writing, but the stories here are mostly easier reading than the highly dense and experimental stories of The Atrocity Exhibition. There are, for example, the story of an expedition into the jungles of South America in search of a lost, manned spacecraft; the story of the last fish on earth; and the strange case of the stolen painting. Ballard requires more work of his reader than the average sf writer, but the stories in The Terminal Beach allow a relatively easy introduction to his work. If you aren't sure whether you want to invest the effort in reading a book like The Atrocity Exhibition or Crash!, then you can't get a better testing ground than The Terminal Beach.

The Victorian mentality, as it wished to believe, was quite unable to easily accept sudden, untoward changes in its picture of reality. When a Victorian gentleman found himself confronted with something utterly outside his normal realm of experience, whether it were the lower class or the supernatural, his usual reaction was to do his best to close his eyes to it, pretending the encounter had never occurred.

But beneath this placid and regular exterior, many Victorians longed for adventure, change, the unexpected. Thus was born in so many the desire to serve Her Majesty abroad; thus came the popularity of novels of mystery, adventure, and intrigue, as the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his contemporaries.

And thus when a dull and unusually stodgy Victorian watchmaker named George Gower found himself on the brink of what a modern reader might call the Twilight Zone, he held back not at all, but, consumed by the desire of adventure, plunged forward to discover the meaning of the piscine visage on a mysterious coin, and found himself entangled with far more trouble and adventure than he had ever wished for.

This, at least, is the conception of K.W. Jeter's peculiar little book, Infernal Devices [Signet, 1987, $2.95, 0-451-14934-3]. Jeter's plot tortures poor Mr. Gower almost beyond the limits of his endurance, but, the Reader will be glad to know, he is permitted to live and tell the tale of how he made the Ultimate Sacrifice for the security of the Empire and the World.

A bargain at $2.95. These days, any book is a bargain at $2.95, but this would be worthwhile at more modern prices.

Closet Classic: Someone pointed out that I haven't reviewed a real novel as a Closet Classic to date. Well, I'm going to make up for that and then some with this one.

Honesty requires that I admit I haven't read all of it. I can't. There are large parts of it that I simply can't get hold of, though I've spent enough time (and money) haunting rare book shops. You see, The Biography of the Life of Manuel is comprised of 18 volumes, including novels, romances, collections of short stories, poetry, a play, and two lengthy essays -- and all but two are out of print. This is shameful, when you consider that one volume of the cycle (Chivalry) was the book that Mark Twain kept at his bedside in his final illness, and others were praised by persons ranging from Sinclair Lewis to Arthur Machen to Teddy Roosevelt.

Ballantine/Del Rey books reissued six volumes of the Biography some years back (Figures of Earth, The Silver Stallion, Domnei, The High Place, and Something About Eve), and Dover books has kept two volumes (Jurgen and The High Place) in print for some years now. I've managed to acquire 11 volumes, or 61%, of the Biography.

The author, James Branch Cabell, begins with the conceit that there were three basic philosophies one could take toward life. One might regard life as a time of testing, and oneself as God's steward here on Earth, and this he called the Chivalric point of view. One might regard life as all very well, but finally meaningless, and amuse oneself with what pleasures one might while life lasts; this Cabell calls Gallantry. Finally, one might regard life as raw material, from which to make what one can of beauty. Cabell called this the philosophy of the Poet.

In the Biography, Cabell created a great mythic figure, Dom Manuel, the "Redeemer" of the imaginary French province of Poictesme, and envisioned his descendants through twenty or more generations, in France, in England, and finally in the American South. The first novel of the Biography, Figures of Earth, follows the career of Manuel himself, from his strange rise to his doubtful disappearance. Manuel begins as a young swineherd with odd visions and proceeds, through various magical and fantastic adventures, to become Count and finally mystical Redeemer of Poictesme. Throughout, he advances not by boldness or prowess, but by his ability to compromise with the necessities of life.

Subsequent volumes follow his many descendants through many generations, and the reader sees how each of them lives his life through one variation or another of the philosophies outlined above. In this manner, they repeatedly play out the acts of a repeating comedy: "The first act is the imagining of the place where contentment exists and may be come to; the second act reveals the striving toward, and the third act the falling short of, that shining goal, or else (the difference here being negligible) the attaining of it, to discover that happiness, after all, abides a thought farther down the bogged, rocky, clogged, befogged heart-breaking road, if anywhere." Indeed, as often as not, Cabell's theme is a man who easily achieves all he wishes, and finds that this does not make him happy.

The most famous of these books is undoubtedly Jurgen, the tale of a middle-aged pawnbroker given his youth, freedom from his wife, and a magic sword, with all of which he cuts a swath through the lovliest ladies of myth and legend, only to find that this was not what he was seeking. Jurgen was originally published in 1919, and was banned as obscene. A modern reader may find this banning rather fantastic, as Jurgen -- like many of Cabell's books -- is not at all "dirty," but uproariously bawdy.

All the acts of all the characters throughout the Biography seem to be the repeating themes and melodies of a monstrous symphony in which human lives are the instruments, and history the score. The composer is not Cabell (or is he?) but the mysterious and ever-recurring Horvendile, who appears,usually as a minor character, sometimes disguised, in nearly all volumes of the Biography.

Cabell's books are witty, cynical, and utterly fantastic. At times the reader gets the impression that the author is winking at her, telling a tall tale for its own sake -- which, of course, he is. Cabell's style is exact and easy to read, conveying perfectly his paradoxical feelings that man is "an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing trees," and that at the same time the doings of man somehow matter, however small they may be on a cosmic scale.

In the end, we learn that Cabell has indeed been having us on, that the Biography is just a huge, a cosmic joke at the reader's expense -- but what a grand joke!

If some publisher could be prevailed upon to reprint the complete Biography, it would be a public service of unequalled virtue. In the meanwhile, I recommend to all readers of this column a quick order to Dover books for their edition of Jurgen, one of the funniest books in the history of American literature.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 11)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 11

Letters to OtherRealms
Part 1

Corrections

I was glad to see your review and that by Mr. Danehy-Oakes of my How To
Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, and SF, but his criticisms of George
Clayton Johnson's piece seemed the most unfair I've ever read --
because Mr. Johnson is not in my How To! Check it out; a serious
mistake, indeed, was made. I know whom he meant and how the error
occurred, but I doubt the competence of reviewers who don't even glance
at a byline again to be certain their targets have work in the book
under attack! Curious; all those "people (Danehy-Oakes) never heard of"
weren't nearly as mistaken in their remarks as the critic.
J.N. Williamson

[Dan'l responds: Mr. Williamson is absolutely correct. I managed in the space between the book and the keyboard to do a mental swap of George Clayton Johnson and his collaborator on the novel Logan's Run, William F. Nolan. It was Mr. Nolan who wrote the article which I attributed to Mr. Johnson. Apologies are hereby tendered to Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nolan, and Mr. Williamson for the error.

And my apologies to everyone involved as well. As editor and final proofreader of everything published (and having also just read the same book, for that matter) I should have caught the mistake. Since I didn't, final responsibility lay here. -- chuq]

I'd like to correct one point of fact in Charles de Lint's review of The
Shelter. I am not Mary Kittredge's husband. Never have been. I'm married
to Kim Tchang. A completely different person altogether. They don't even
look a little bit alike.
Kevin O'Donnell, Jr.

[Charles de Lint replies: While Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. has lived around the corner from, workshopped with, and published Empire: For the SF Writer while she editied it, he is not and never has been the husband of Mary Kittredge. He is married to Kim Tchang and my apologies go to all three of them. Please go back to your copy of OtherRealms #18 with a black pen and put a nice thick line through the misinformation]

In James Brunet's piece in part 5 of Other Realms 18, he calls
"Hardwired" a first novel. Not only did Walter Jon Williams have two prior
SF novels in print ("Knight Moves" is one, and I can't recall the name of
the other at the moment), but he was an adventure novel author under a
variation of his byline before he started writing sf.
Neil Harris
(atari!neil)

And
Comments

Good issue. I enjoyed the Mike Resnick interview a lot and found myself agreeing all along the way. I, too, simply like writing although most pros like to have written. He's quite savvy about the genre taking what it wants from an innovation (New Wave, Cyberpunk) and throwing the rest on the ashcan. I remember pros telling me copies of the 1960's New Worlds would be priceless in a few decades because they marked the true maturing of the field...

I'll buy Harry Turtledove's thesis about Historical Realism. He's a
welcome addition to the great practitioners of that mode. What makes it
work in SF-type writers is the constraints of accuacy, which such
readers enjoy. Similarly, they like mysteries and adventures which Get
The Facts Right. I, too, find much SF that doesn't bother to learn and
science or other such details rather shallow. Most of the big
prizewinners lately have been of this type, suggesting that we're
losing that facet of the genre... to our detriment, I feel.
Greg Benford

Please thank Alan Wexelblat for his generous review of Ronin. One
correction is required, though. Lynn Varley's remarkable work on Ronin
is hers and hers alone. If it wasn't black, I didn't to it. This is an
understandable mistake, and one from which Lynn takes no offense. Her
work has transformed a largely dismissed and ignored aspect of comic
art into a powerful and versatile tool for storytelling. Even within my
field, her contribution has gone largely uncreditted.
Frank Miller

De Lint looks like he's going to be a worthwhile addition to the mag. You can tell he likes doing reviews, and perhaps more importantly, knows how to do it.

Nice to see jayembee's article. He's a good - if still unmet - friend here, one of the better writers I know, and certainly one of best-informed people I know about almost any subject under the sun. I use him as an information-resource often, and he's never failed to have an answer for me - or to point me to an answer. Hope to see more from him.

I think you're finally got the review headings working. Certainly they
were easier to follow than past issues.
Fred Bals
(bals%nutmeg.DEC.com)

Conspiracy
Comments

My impressions of Conspiracy were generally like yours, though I went with lower expectations and so was less disappointed. I also had the advantage of staying in the Grand, an expensive but excellent hotel.

I read your review of Writers of the Future III with a good deal of
pleasure, as you can imagine. But perhaps someone ought to point out
that there is no real conflict between Clarion, which attempts to train
promising beginners, and the Writers of the Future contest, which
attempts to encourage and reward them. It would be very surprising to
learn that Clarion objected to training beginners who have been
encouraged and rewarded by WoF; and certainly WoF has no objection to
encouraging and rewarding beginners trained at Clarion or anywhere else.
Gene Wolfe

Someone I met, who is himself in the construction business, was
estimating that a good twenty percent of Brighton was being rebuilt
while were there. I can't help wondering if your view on paying for
things isn't just a difference in expectations. After all, you pay 60p
and up for a program when you go to a British theater, so perhaps this
is just the way things are done.... Never having been to a British con
before, I don't know, though I will agree that the Masked Ball wasn't
worht the #10. Wasn't there supposed to be a hall costuming contest
attached to that? Or was it cancelled in one of the progress reports I
didn't get? I'd also like to put in a good word for the Holland people
I met, who were perfectly nice and rational when I was talking to them....
Melissa Scott

Having had the pleasure of bumping into you at Brighton, you know I survived my first WorldCon, too. And while you are correct in your description of the facilities, I cannot forget just about the first thing that my friend from Boston said to me (he being the "convention expert" of my little group). As we took our first stroll between buildings he said something like, "Every American in the place is going to bitch when they realize they have to walk outside."

You neglect to mention that all the facilities were directly across the street from the ocean, and a nice long esplanade. As you say, for Brighton, the weather was very cooperative. It was nice to stroll between programme streams and look out over the ocean and get a breath of fresh air.

You say the British fans made you feel unwelcome. I can name at least two British authors who at the mere mention of my friends and I going to take a post-con wandering tour, insisted we drop by -- and they meant it. And the same with some fans giving us great advice on where to go, where not to go, where to eat, etc. etc. (And apologies to our new author friends, we got to see wonderful parts of Scotland -- it was all wonderful -- but we never made it to Glasgow. We realize this is a tragic mistake, but it gives us an excuse to go back again!)

You missed the Bedford. This means you missed the "Which Lift will get stuck with 30 people in it next" contests, which happened quite a few times. Rather than complain, most of us in the lobby formed a nice pool and used it as a conversation starter.

Now you run fanzines, and I was on vacation, so my viewpoint was perhaps a bit more relaxed. Sure, there were inconveniences. But there were great panels and great stories. Alan Cole And Chris Bunch ("Sci-Fi on Tee-Vee") come to mind. Here were two American TV writers slamming the industry execs up one side and down the other, telling hysterical stories about some big stars (I'd name them, but you never know what lawyer might read this), and they were clearly having a fun time, as was the audience. British and American alike, there was a true one group feeling, and we all loved it.

As for the bitterness of the Holland group, etc. Seems to me all the "vote for us for the next con" groups were the most business oriented and unpleasant lot of the whole convention. I was treated just as rudely by the people from Los Angeles and Orlando, as I was by the people from Holland. After that, I just stopped talking to all of them. If everyone was like that, I wouldn't go to any other Worldcon again anywhere.

And what amazed me were so many of the "big names of Science Fiction" I met who were truly pleasant and very helpful. These are human beings, and this is their big time too pitch their stuff, but given all that, the vast majority were amazingly open and cheerful. To parallel our own computer industry, the authors at the Con did a lot better than most company reps at a "Unix con".

This was my biggest surprise of the convention. For example, the panel Frederick Pohl and Robert Silverberg did ("On Writing Books", though my marked up programme and memory might be wrong) was sheer enjoyment, indeed, it was sheer poetry. And we'd still be there today listening to their stories and banter if we could.

In any event, even though I really agree with most of what you said, I
found your viewpoint was a little bit too "ugly American" so I thought
I'd write. My little group had a swell time, and I would like Britain
and your readers too know that, with the right attitude, the Worldcon
was a great time, much appreciated by this American and his American friends.
Larry Kaufman
lsk@mabstoa.sun.com

While reading your account of this year's WorldCon, I cringed a little every time you mentioned how you had to go up and down stairs to get to places around the convention sites. Being a non-biped, I hold stairs and the bipedal architects who build them in the highest contempt. Also, after experiencing this year's Alternacon (aka Norwescon) in a hotel which had ramps so steep that I decided getting out of my 'chair and pulling it up the stairs after me was easier to manage (although I fortunately found more accessible but more circuitous routes later) the thought of attending a con so horribly set up gave me visions of feeling for extended periods the sort of annoyance and loathing for bipeds I feel briefly when I find some idiot has parked in front of the only curb cut on the block.

What I found refreshing was that you actually pointed out that the convention site was living hell for non-bipeds (at least more so than it was for bipeds). Generally I find that the only person I know who has much feeling for whether a place is accessible, and who cares about it, is me (although several family members and close friends have absorbed the talent). Seeing a self-proclaimed biped voicing these same concerns makes me regret chanting "Death to Bipeds!" to myself when facing the difficulties of being a non-biped in a bipedal culture.

(The terms "biped" and "non-biped" came from an utterance of a friend,
which was approximately "Well, you know it's tough for us bipedals."
This came after he had listened to me brag about what I considered to
be the superior speed and grace of the wheelchair, and complaining
about the annoying traffic habits of pedestrians who seem to have far
less foresight and care than I do when I weave through them at high
speeds. I stuck with the terms because of the humorous connotations
they have for me, because "non-biped" is easier to say than "wheelchair
user", and because they lack the negative connotations of other terms.)
Steve VanDevender
stevev@oregon1.BITNET

A friend of mine forwarded to me a copy of Hard Hat Fanzine #1. While I agree with much of what you wrote, I'd like to rebut at least one complaint.

Then there's the Con Suite. Or, rather, the lack of one. Most of the folks who normally hang out there moved to the Fan Room. Finally, the bar. ... if you wanted something in the Fan Room, even water, you paid for it. Most of the folks who hang out in the bar moved into the Fan Room.

Y'know, they did warn us about this in at least one of the PR's. Apparently this is the way the Brits run their cons. We Yanks get sugar highs at our cons, they get sloshed at theirs. I imagine they get rather annoyed at coming to an American con and having to pay large sums of money for icy cold beer.

Not having free water anywhere is one of those quaint European customs - like smoking - that one simply must endure while traveling there. When I saw a water fountain at Gatwick I did a double-take, almost thinking I was back in the States...

The only hotel at all tolerant of con parties seemed to be the Grand.

The Grand was even helpful. They loaned the @-party wine glasses so
that we could drink the orange juice that the hosts had brought in.
Michael Kupfer
Michael_D._Kupfer.osbunorth@Xerox.COM

Internal WorldCon politics sound much like the politics of any international organisation. 5000 is too big for any convention, I am an AI worker - not animal husbandry - and now steer clear of the "biggies" like the US national conference and the Internation Joint Conference - too many people. The smaller ones have a much better atmosphere. Do you think it's possibly time to abandon the idea of a single WorldCon and have a USCon & a EuroCon & an AfroCon ... etc.? The Brighton hotel sounds fairly typical of a major UK conference facility, why were you so surprised? You are used to the superb conference facilities available in the US. Considering that the UK has only twice the population of California, it's hardly surprising that the US has developed superior facilities to provide single- site accommodation for extremely large conferences!

I'm surprised that you weren't aware of the strong anti-American sentiments over here. Well, perhaps that's one reason for their existence, I have found on my US travels, that Europe has a fairly accurate perception of modern-day America (albeit primarily gathered from the media), but we seem to meet a lot of visitors who have laughably (and often insultingly) simplistic and inaccurate perceptions of "The Old Country". Let me hasten to add I am aware that this is not true of the majority of Americans, but why is it so frequently true of those Americans who can afford to tour "Yurrup"?

Additionally, it can be difficult to separate one's attitudes towards the people of a country from one's attitudes towards its government. Your President is something of a laughing stock over here - well he would be, if he weren't so dangerous. The recent arms reduction agreement with the Soviet Union is a case in point. How come the US and the Soviets are negotiating over nuclear weaponry in Europe? If you see my point - it seems to shut the Europeans out of a situation which is a hell of a sight more important to those of us living here than it is to a foreign government 3000 miles away! It's a pity that the force of this argument is so vitiated by the fawning behaviour of our own Prime Minister, who seems hell-bent on keeping nuclear arms for no apparently sane reason. Three decent-sized air-bursts spaced down the North Sea would completely irradiate the UK. Did you notice that the "survivalist" mentality is noticeably missing in Europe - you can fit the whole of England, Scotland and Wales into California, twice over (Holland is about the size of Wales, a little smaller), there's just nowhere to hide! We are still suffering from the Chernobyl effects, did you know? There are several Welsh farms where the sheep still show unacceptably high levels of radiation contamination - and the source of that was about 1500 miles away. It provides a clear warning of something a little closer to home could do!

You should also recognise that there is a substantial difference in standards of living. A return air flight from London to San Francisco costs about half a month's pay. Compare that with cost of a US internal flight from Chicago to San Francisco. There are many factors which promote European resentment, a substantial amount of British (and I presume other European countries') heritage is being freighted to the US (OK, we got our own back, with that moron buying "London Bridge"), but both the Government and the major heritage trust organisations frequently have to make special efforts to gain funding to prevent significant collections from vanishing into American museums. It has been noted that we seem to send the US all our best quality things, fine antiques, clothes, leather, china - what do we get back? fast-food chains, Coca-Cola and vulgar tourists in Hawaiian shirts.

A friend of mine, who is extremely keen on SF - (I just like reading it, he's really into it) observed that now that SF is "acceptable", it seems to have lost a lot its "magic" and appeal. Once upon a time, you could be an SF fan and (gratifyingly) be considered weird because of it. Now everyone's into it (courtesy of Spielberg, et. al.), it seems to be less exciting, fantasy is rapidly going the same way. The exclusivity has been lost. Perhaps that's what they mean when they complain that the US has "highjacked" SF. That's a fairly strange claim to make, I don't see any references to the European equivalent of John Campbell and the like - it was largely an American "scene", almost from the beginning. However, the "old days" have gone and SF is now "acceptable fiction" (almost), all things must pass.

Your comments in "Hardhat" imply that you aren't a "typical" American
(OK, they aren't as common as they once were). I'm glad you enjoyed
your trip to London (the restoration is repairing 150 years of
pollution and decay). I appreciated your recognition of the importance
of books, in which I think "SF" is primarily embodied, the literary
tradition is still strong over here, but then again it's a different
country. For instance, what would contemporary US society make of a man
who sings in church, grows flowers and plays darts? (He's a Welsh coal
miner, typically and usually hard as nails).
Graham Higgins
Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol.
mcvax!ukc!hplb!gjh

[I think SF is big enough these to support a North American con and European con each year. I don't know exactly how to deal with Australia in all of this. Practically, we do this already, with NaSFIC, and there is no reason why we can't have both each year The competition and boundaries are artificial, and while they helped get the European worldcon off the ground, they're now in the way. Perhaps a better way of handling it would be to change the boundaries to put foreign bids, rather than make them poor cousins to the Real con-people. Instead of the current three boundaries, set up four: American West, Australia, American East, and European. American's can run NasFIC's during the foreign slots, and the rules can be set up so that if no qualified bid arrives for a slot, it gets thrown open to all comers. There's no need to 'protect' or otherwise make special dispensation for the foreign con bids anymore.

For the record, I've got my slew of horror stories about bloody American's. Boy, I can tell a few nasties about my own crew. Loud, nasty jokes about the shape of the money in restaurants. Loud, obnoxious people in restaurants in general. I had a ball in Brighton for the two days I was there before the con started. Once the con folks moved in (and most of the hassles I saw were from American fans) it was a zoo. And it wasn't Brighton's fault -- a small but noticable percentage of American fans left their manners (and in some cases brains) at home. I was at various times embarassed to admit to being (1) part of the con, or (2) simply being american.

Americans need to learn some foreign phrases: "please" and "thank you" at the top of the list. And to say them like they mean them. "Sorry" would be a nice addition, too (spending two weeks in england taught ME the difference between "excuse me" and "sorry" -- I hope I never forget...

Now I firmly believe the Bloody Americans were a very small minority. But they are the ones you notice. And they are the ones that make all Americans look bad. I'll happily apologize for them, since they probably don't notice how obnoxious they are -- and I'll hope I wasn't one of them at some time without noticing.

The reason HHF #1 emphasized the negative was because it was short on space. Frankly, a lot of the positive things are things you would expect at a con. I tried to emphasize the extra-ordinary and point out the problems in the hope that others might avoid them in the future. In general, England was wonderful. While I don't think I'd attend a Worldcon class convention in Britain, I do plan on going back and visiting in the future and perhaps look in on a smaller British con -- one better suited to the size of the convention facilities. The people were invariably wonderful, and I want to see how things work when they're done on a scale a little more suited to the kind of function British people are used to. -- chuq]

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

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Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 12)

Electronic OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987
Part 12

Letters to OtherRealms
Part 2

I'm glad to see Harry Turtledove's article, "Historical Realism," and I feel I must explain that, although my CRT does show green type, it appears on a blackish screen. Not, as might be expected, pink. Nor is there a cute little alligator on the screen -- or on the computer's dust cover.

I personally think he's onto something. I'm fascinated by the whole problem of researching an historical fantasy or an alternative timelines novel, especially if you no longer have a university library to rely on. I don't think that any of us would be likely to state that we were the wave of the future: most of us are too firmly and fondly grounded in the past for that, and we know what happens to people who make such pronouncements. there's nothing quite as stupid as an out-of-date manifesto. Except maybe two out-of-date manifestos.

I was intrigued by your conreport on Conspiracy. My experience with European fans seemed pretty good. The norwegians were just great, and I didn't have any of the run-ins that you and your friends unfortunately did. Perhaps this might have been due to my own attitudes. I had utterly no intention of standing still for Yank-bashing. To responses that Americans seem to spend a lot of money (a comment I ran into in London from Mundanes whom I met in the normal course of running about), I simply pointed out, "well, don't you spend money when you're on holiday -- and then you have to go home and be very, very good until you've saved up enough for the next bash?" They seemed to understand that line of reasoning, as well as the "well, I live in New York, and we're all workaholics there" line of thought.

The way I felt was that, as a guest, I had to be polite. But as hosts, so did they. I saw no reason to carry abour a burden of guilt or any other burder because I was American: there was no way I'd have said anything rude about anyone else's country, and I was damned if I'd let anyone say anything about mine.

I agree with you that Brighton simply wasn't up to a 5,000 person convention, though I must admit that going through the train station and seeing many people from the States was very funny. The World Fantasy Con next year will be in London; I'm hoping to be able to go.

If Worldcons, increasingly, become Eurocons, I predict a vasst rise in the size and prestige of the Nasfic, simply because of economics. I'm damned sure I can't afford Australia, but I definitely could manage Chicago, for example. That may be imperialist or any adjective that people wish to throw at me: it's also realistic.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sick and tired of hotels having
two policies: one for paying guests; a second -- and far more restrictive
and unfriendly one -- for convention-goers. In self-defense, and
because the Brighton ConCommittee screwed up my hotel reservations, I
had a place far away from the Metropole Messup; and they were charming.
I don't want to have to check into a non-convention hotel in order to
be treated with courtesy, but that seems to be what's happening.
Susan Shwartz

I can't disagree with much that you say in your con report, but I think you're overlooking a few things which to some extent mitigate your criticisms, especially those of the con comittee.

To begin with, England is a different country. It is unrealistic to expect facilities which could have been transplanted from anywhere in the USA (albeit damned few US cities can now muster the facilities for a 5,000 plus Worldcon) -- although the Brighton Centre came close. More to the point, Britain has been suffering economically on a scale which we've not seen for fifty years: staggering unemployment and inflation have created a standard of living seriously inferior to ours. It's easy for American concoms to throw about the bucks with free soft-drinks (at the least) and munchies, but far more difficult for a British concom to do so, and what is "traditional" here simply isn't traditional at British cons. However, and offsetting that, the Brits have the tradition of buying rounds -- drinks for everyone in the group -- so that it may well be that clever maneuvers one can cop a number of free drinks, although if others catch on there could be a problem.

My hotel facilities in Brighton were awful. The first hotel -- Keehan's, on Regency Square -- was clean and hospitably run, but our room required a climb of 88 steps (six and a half flights), there being no lift, and the toilet was down the hall (the bath a flight down). Worst, the lock on the door fell off at the first push. Despite a listing in the Brighton Chamber of Commerce publication that assured it took plastic, Keehan assured me he "never had done." We stayed two nights, settled our bill (for cash)_ and moved to the Churchill Palace Hotel, where we were only one flight up (a lift was available), a bathroom adjoined the room, and plastic was acceptable. On the other hand, we had to awaken a resident each night to get in (the night porter was never there), a dunk used our door for his toilet, and the people in the next room never let us slepp past 9:00 AM. In each place the general quality of furnishings and maintenance of plumbing was best characterized as "shabby." I haven't seen such inferiour hotels in this country in thirty years. But the room rates (30 pounds a night in Keehan's; 40 at the Churchill Palace) compare closely with the rates I paid for first-class accommodations in US hotels at recent Worldcons.

I attended little of the pro programming -- just the dialogue John Brunner and I had on the sixties -- but the fan programming was definitely superior at Brighton to that found at American Worldcons. (Mike Glyer's protestations and pullout from the "Why have American's Hijacked the Worldcon?" panel were an embarrassment to all American fans, but all too typical of LA fandom's highhandedness. I voted for Holland so that LA wouldn't end up with another quarter of a million dollars in profits from this non-profit convention -- and so I'd have a good excuse to visit Holland, a country I've never been to. As for the program item, it was not at all what you appear to think it was -- perhaps you should've attended it -- and its title accurately reflects the annoyance non-Americans have over the American proclivity for pronouncing American events "World" events. If we want to hog the "Worldcon" perhaps we should call it the "national Con" and stop pretending otherwise....)

I've been to two previous British worldcons -- 1965 in London and 1979
in Brighton -- as well as local British cons like the Mexicon, and in
general I think the Brits put on better-programmed conventions than we
do. But just keep in mind that they're working with a) less money, and
b) less cooperative venues than we do.
Ted White

Reviewers
&
Critics

Your Editor's Notebook in OtherRealms #18 brings up some interesting issues about the nature of reviewing and, by extension, the difference between a reviewer and a critic. I certainly agree with your admonition to look at authors' works, not their lives, for political and cultural conclusions.

However, I think that there is a place for the kind of critical writing that goes beyond plot summaries and "I liked this book, you will too", and looks at an author's relationship to his or her audience, to the genre, to contemporary (or period) literature in general, and even to his or her social and political views, to the extent that they are reflected in the work discussed. I, too, regularly read the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, and many other mainstream critical publications, and believe that the quality of writing (and therefore the service to the readers, authors, and publishers involved) is quite high and worthy of emulation by those of us in the SF/Fantasy community. While "having the first mention of the work on the second page of a review" may be an extreme case, I think that the mainstream reviews offer a level of comprehensive literary criticism and analysis that just is not found in our community beyond writers such as Samuel Delany, Ursula K. LeGuin, Algis Budrys and perhaps a few others.

I have seen evidence of this kind of critical ability in OtherRealms, particularly among the regular columnists, and it is a service to the SF/Fantasy community that is well worth cultivating. In encouraging writers to "review the book", let us not drive out more complex and analytical criticism simply because it doesn't mention the book title often enough, fails to tell the reader whether he will like it or not, or delves into the "forbidden" areas of the author's political and social attitudes.

One example of "irresponsible" criticism that you cite in your
discussion of the demise of Fantasy Review is the article in FR #102
attacking Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead as
being thinly-veiled Nazi apologias [and so forth]. I'm sure that I
found the article in question as offensive and preposterous as you did,
but I am glad that FR published it. We need to air controversial
views, especially unpopular ones. It is not a discredit to Robert
Collins and FR for publishing it; on the contrary it was a credit that
he permitted Mr. Card to review the article and publish a full
response. If anything, it made me feel better about FR -- and that much
sorrier that it is gone.
Michael C. Berch
mcb@tis.llnl.gov

[There definitely is a place for criticism, and I encourage it where I can. The fact is, however, that writing good criticism requires a strong background in writing and the fields involved and a lot of work, things very few people can claim to be qualified. For every Budrys, there are dozens of people who mistake opinion for criticism and come off half cocked. Criticism has its place here, and I hope to see more of it in the future. Reviews are my bread and butter, and it allows people who's voices aren't as skilled or their background as deep to be heard -- something I consider to be very important.

About the Card article, I have nothing against controversy, but there is a line where it stops being controversial and starts becoming irresponsible. We can disagree where that line lay, but I still feel that the article was set up as a "controversy for the sake of controversy" hit-job with Card as a convenient (and prominent target) by someone trying to make a name for themselves. The fact that Collins allowed a rebuttal to be printed is laudable, but doesn't refute the fact that, to me, the article in question was unpublishable in any professional venue. It was factually inaccurate (starting with the very obvious blunder that the author called Card a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, when in fact it is a generally known fact that Card is Mormon), it was inconsistent and self-contradictory, it was full of accusations that were not backed up or backed up by quoted material taken out of context, and the tone was one of anger, not of critical examination. There is a difference between criticism and hack-jobs, and it stepped across the line

-- chuq]

Breaking Strain

Paul Preiss

Arthur C. Clarke's
Venus Prime
Volume 1
Avon Books, 262pp, $3.95

[**]

This novel is built around an old Arthur C. Clarke story, Breaking Strain, which appears in modified form, as part 3 of the novel. There is no intrinsic connection between the novel and Clarke's story. It could have been replace with a different story with no effect on the novel. The use of Clarke's story and name is nothing more than a marketing ploy to associate Clarke's name and appeal with Preuss' story.

For all practical purposes, the novel is wholly the creation of Paul Preuss. The story outline should be very familiar. Sparta, as a result of childhood trainning and some physical alterations, has superhuman powers. She also has several gaps in her memory and is being held prisoner as the story opens. She escapes and now must:

1. Stay alive. 2. Find out what happened in those missing periods of her memory. 3. Stay alive. 4. Find out who did all this to her and why. 5. Stay alive.

Basically, this is a traditional superhero SF story. Preuss had added a couple of minor twists. Sparta is a woman and her superhuman powers does not include superhuman strength or endurance. It is well written but is not extra ordinary enough to interest anyone who is not already interested in this type of story. Those who have a preference for superhero stories will enjoy this one.

OtherRealms #19
Winter, 1987

One time rights have been
acquired from the contributors.
All rights are hereby assigned
to the contributors.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach.

OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by:

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

Usenet: chuq@sun.COM
Delphi: CHUQ

Subscriptions

OtherRealms is available for the usual bribes and trades: a copy of your zine, submissions, letters, comments or artwork. If you don't want to be a part of OtherRealms, you can subscribe for one year (four issues) for $8.50. A single issue is $2.50. OtherRealms is available at Future Fantasy Bookstore in Palo Alto, CA.

People in the publishing industry can qualify for a free subscription. Please contact me for details.

Electronic
OtherRealms

An electronic, text-only version of OtherRealms is available on many different computer networks and bulletin boards.

On the ARPAnet, BITNET, CSNet and UUCP networks, send E-mail to chuq@sun.Com to be placed on the mailing list. For people with access to USENET, OtherRealms is available in rec.mag.otherrealms. It is also available on the Delphi Timesharing service.

Submissions

OtherRealms publishes articles about book length Science Fiction and Fantasy. The primary focus is reviews of books, especially the newer and lesser known authors that might otherwise be missed in the crowded shelves of your bookstore. Other material about books and the authors that create them are welcome, including bibliographies and interviews.

Authors are invited to write articles for the Behind the Scenes series, where the background and research that went into a book can be discussed.

Please query on interviews, Behind the Scenes articles, and longer works. Reviews should be sent in their entirety. OtherRealms does not publish poetry, fiction, movie or fannish material.

Submissions can be made either on a Macintosh or MS-DOS disk. With the Mac, either text, MacWrite or Word files are fine. For MS-DOS, please submit ascii readable disks.

Please include an envelope and return postage. If you ever want to see your submission again, you need to post bail. Also, while I don't mind multiple submissions, you need to tell me if something is going to multiple markets. I take first serial rights unless we agree on something else. Folks who forget these rules will find it hard to get published in OtherRealms in the future.

You can also submit via the networks to either the account CHUQ on Delphi or"chuq@sun.COM" on USENET.

Submission deadline is the 15th of the month prior to publication or when I run out of room. Letter column deadline is the first of the month of publication.

Publishing
News

OtherRealms is interested in publishing news about the happenings in the field -- contracts, promotions, deals, sales, market needs. If something has happened to you that you want the word to know about, I want to know about it.

Art

I'm always in need of good genre art, from small clip-art pieces to front and back covers. Anything with a genre flavor is welcome here! I prefer reproductions and photocopies to originals.

Those
Funny Runes

The gobbledygook attached to the names of many OtherRealms contributors are addresses. Computers use them to figure out how to get to another computer to pass along a message. If you don't understand them, don't feel bad -- neither do many computers, and they're the experts. Believe it or not, it does work. Most of the time.

The
Details

OtherRealms is published using a Macintosh computer, a Laserwriter Plus, Ready, Set, Go! 4.0, Microsoft Word 3.0, SuperPaint, and various other pieces of software. The body typeface is Palatino 10/11, the Headers use Bookman Bold and Zapf Chancery in various sizes.

Review Copies
Press Release

Books to be considered for review in OtherRealms, press releases and
other interesting stuff should be mailed to:
OtherRealms
35111-F Newark Blvd.
Suite 255
Newark, CA. 94560.

OtherRealms

Science Fiction and Fantasy
In Review

Editor & Publisher
Chuq Von Rospach

Associate Editor
Laurie Sefton

Contributing Editors
Charles de Lint
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Alan Wexelblat

Book Ratings
in OtherRealms

All books are rated with the following guidelines. Most books published should fall into the range [***-] to [***+]. Ratings are modifed with - or + to show a half step, with [***-] subjectively better than [**+].

[*****] One of the best books of the year
[****] A very good book, Above average
[***] A good book. Recommended
[**] Flawed, but has its moments
[*] Not recommended
[] To be avoided

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OtherRealms — Issue 19, Winter 1987

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 1)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 2)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 3)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 4)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 5)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 6)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 7)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 8)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 9)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 10)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 11)

Issue 19, Winter 1987 (part 12)

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