Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 1)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 1

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Table of Contents

Part 1
Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach

Behind the Scenes: Return to Honor Doug Beason

Part 2
Reviewing The Reviewers
A Survey of Science Fiction Critics
Chuq Von Rospach

Part 3
Behind the Scenes:
Spirits of Cavern and Hearth
M. Coleman Easton

Creme de la Creme Alan Wexelblat

Part 4
Stuff Received

Part 5
The Agony Column
Rick Kleffel

Part 6
No Prisoners!
Laurie Sefton

Part 7
Scattered Gold
Charles de Lint

Part 8
Much Rejoicing
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Part 9
Words of Wizdom
Chuq Von Rospach

Part 10
Lots and Lots of Reviews
Lots and Lots of People
[part 1]

Part 11
Lots and Lots of Reviews
Lots and Lots of People
[part 2]

Part 12
Your Turn: Letters

Editor's Notebook
Chuq Von Rospach

If you've been reading OtherRealms for a while, it's probably obvious that it's gone through another metamorphosis with this issue. OtherRealms finally has gotten large enough and expensive enough that I can no longer ignore the budget.

Last issue ran me over $1500 to print and mail, and I simply can't afford that. The spreadsheet also clearly shows that my hope of a self-supporting newsletter are extremely unlikely at best, and would have been impossible given the way the page-count and print-runs were growing.

So I've spent the last few months making some tough decisions and making some radical changes in the format. OtherRealms is now on a budget, and rather than expand OtherRealms to fit the material, I'm now making OtherRealms fit a given size.

When I discussed these changes with my editors and the people who are close to OtherRealms, the first question everyone asked was "Why aren't you going semi-pro? Take in advertising." Why not? Because there are many implications of taking advertising I don't want to deal with. One of them is that taking advertising means that OtherRealms becomes responsible to its advertisers instead of its readers. And the advertisers are going to be the people who publish the books OtherRealms reviews. That creates a potential conflict of interest I want to avoid. Another reason is financial. Without boring you with numbers, two weeks with a spreadsheet building business plans convinced me that going semi-pro was a great way to lose even more money, faster than ever before--unless I got lucky. Then I'd break even. If you care about the details, catch me at a convention.

So OtherRealms is a fanzine, and a fanzine it stays. To get costs back where they belong, I've cut pages from last issue's whopping 60 to 32. To try to minimize the damage this implies, I've also gone to a smaller typeface. Switching from a 10 point face to 9 allows me to fit about 75% of the text into the new format. That's the good news.

The bad news is that 75% is only 75%. To make up the difference, all the editor's agreed to write to a specific word count, and I've cancelled a some features. The Windows on the Future and Reader's Column features, both announced last issue, are on hold indefinitely. I've also cancelled publishing interviews and bibliographies for the time being, although I hope to bring the interviews back in a couple of issues. I'm continuing the Behind the Scenes series because of its popularity, but otherwise focusing on reviews.

After all is said and done, OtherRealms is basically unchanged, I believe. The core is there. I've tried to leave what I think are the important parts alone as much as possible. Only you, the readers, can tell me whether I've succeeded or not. Please do.

Another side of the cutback I'm taking a close look at is the complimentary subscription list. I'm a firm believer in the faanish "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" philosophy, so the free copies for "the usual" still apply. So do comps to publishers and people with material or artwork waiting for publication. But my subscription roles have slowly fattened with people who have stopped LOCing, submitting, or giving me any feedback at all, and I'm going to be trimming them severely. Check your mailing label. If the expiration issue is '0' you're on the hit-list and you should Do Something. This doesn't necessarily mean subscribing, but people do need to be active in OtherRealms to deserve getting it for free--whether that is sending me your fanzine, reviews, LOC's--The Usual.

The layout had to be completely redone for the new size faces. As usual the first time you do something like this, there are some warts. In general, I'm happy with how it turned out, although it's not close to perfect. Let me know what you think. I know where I think it needs improving, but I want to hear your ideas as well.

I was expecting total disaster having to make so many changes across the entire zine this issue. Surprisingly, I really think that this issue of OtherRealms is as good as the last few, and over the next couple of issues will continue to improve. Hope you agree.

Schedules

This issue is coming out in January, not December as originally planned. As I started working on it, I decided that setting a deadline to fall in the middle of two holidays was a silly thing to do--especially since Laurie and I normally travel to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with family. There are just too many things going on in December to try to publish an issue, so I shifted the schedules a month to make things more realistic. This is, therefore, the first issue of 1989 and not the last issue of 1988, but who's counting?

The Optimistic Sturgeon

I'm happy to announce the pending formation of a new fanzine. Dan'l, longtime writer for me, is starting The Optimistic Sturgeon, which will emphasize criticism. He's gotten some good people to write for him Jeff Meyer on comics and graphic novels, Dave Bratman on Fantasy, Mary Holstege on Science Fiction, and, of course, Dan'l. It should be interesting, and considering who's involved, definitely lively. If you're interested in reading or writing for it, contact Dan'l at 22 Berkshire Road, Alameda, CA 94501. I can't wait for my first copy.

And speaking of Dan'l....

Dan'l and Alan, one of my other editors, are the proud fathers of a winning collaboration. The two writer's were chosen as the winners in the latest quarter of the Writer's of the Future contest. Well done, folks!

Nolacon Coverage

I know I promised coverage of Worldcon this issue. It's not here, for which I apologize. Part of the reason for this is, of course, the lack of space for it.

Another reason, however, is because when I sat down with all the people who were going to write about it for me, I found out we really didn't have much to say about the convention!

Fred Bals had a wonderful essay on the city of New Orleans. I was waxing eloquent about the week in Orlando at Disneyworld. Laurie was talking about the problems and administrative fiascos of the hotel and committee. Nobody had anything to say about the convention itself--which is, when you think about it, a strong comment on the convention. See you!

Behind the Scenes of:
Return to Honor

Doug Beason

Copyright 1989 by Doug Beason

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Or sell a novel. You see, I'm an SF writer. Or at least I thought I was until I started sending my first SF novel around.

All the signs were there: I had short story sales to Full Spectrum, Amazing, New Destinies, Endless Frontiers, There Will Be War...and these guys publish science fiction. So when I got the great idea to expand one of those short stories into a novel, I naturally thought I was writing SF.

But what the publishers told me was something different. In fact, Return to Honor (Pocket Books, February 1989) is being marketed as a near-future thriller. More specifically, as a military thriller--something I didn't intend to do, but quite fortuitously, has now enabled me to expand out to another genre, whose population just might take interest in my first love: "real SF."

So for those of you wondering what this "borderline" SF stuff is--you know, the stories with no aliens, so it can't be SF...but yet it's too speculative for mainstream--then Return to Honor is definitely borderline fiction.

But I really should start at the beginning....

The summer of '85 I read The Hunt for Red October and was astounded that Clancy could pull off a best-seller filled with techno-jargon. Soon after finishing Red October, I read the Niven-Pournelle bestseller Footfall. These two books impressed me with their scope--the magnitude of events that they both brought together. I'd only been writing seriously for two years at the time and was fascinated at the premise of having something big happen, placed in a near-future setting. These two books motivated me into writing the novelette "The Man I'll Never Be." (Amazing, May 1987 and There Will Be War, Vol 8).

The premise behind "The Man I'll Never Be" came to me while listening to Boston's second album. The song, "A Man I'll Never Be," reminded me of Elton John's "Rocket Man"--a person reluctantly living up to someone else's expectations.

I envisioned a person who was expected to excel in a job--a leader who was groomed, primed and cocked--ready to rise to the occasion. This person would fall short of his goal and realize that the people he's leading are actually better suited for doing his job. I wanted it to be more than the typical "Joe Blow grows up and is taught a lesson" story; I wanted the stakes to be sky high. I wanted this guy to confront a situation so critical that it wasn't just his life on the line, but everyone he was leading--with half the free world thrown in as well.

That summer I attended a lecture on "Technology in 2001." It featured real live stuff like the National AeroSpace plane (except back then it was called a "TAV," or TransAtmospheric Vehicle), a space plane that could scream into a suborbital trajectory and travel halfway around the world in forty-five minutes. Now take that lecture and mix in the TWA hostage crisis that was peaking about the same time.

All of a sudden it hit me: what if the President of the U.S. had been kidnapped and had six hours to live?

Hopefully there would be a rescue attempt. And knowing the military, suppose the person who had been put in charge of this rescue team had gotten there not by any measure of competence, but rather because of "political" reasons? So when this guy screws up, it just isn't his life he's endangering. Or even the President's. Conceivably an entire nation could be lit up in turmoil.

This set the stage. I wrote "The Man I'll Never Be" as a fast paced rescue mission, relying on twenty-first century technology. The protagonist, Krandel, realizes halfway through the story that he's going to screw up the rescue. Because of his incompetence, Krandel's right-hand-man dies and Krandel has to sacrifice the rest of his men to get the President out alive.

The novelette left out enough to make a novel. That, coupled with the fact that I had left Krandel and his men on a runway crawling with terrorists, made the novelization relatively easy.

Going back to the earlier influences: The greatest influence that Hunt for Red October and Footfall had on Return to Honor was the use of strong multiple characters. My novelette "The Man I'll Never Be" had one strong protagonist, William Krandel. He's a person that I expect we'll be seeing more and more in the U.S. military: a "whiz-kid" manager with no combat experience.

In the novel I tried to show that this is bad. I wouldn't want to be led into battle by a brown-noser who had spent his whole life sitting behind a desk. But paradoxically, I also brought out that that's good, since that means we haven't had any wars for those guys to get that combat experience. The main point is that Krandel is an inexperienced leader, and he realizes (when it's too late to back down) that he doesn't have what it takes. Believe me, that will make you wake up and smell the coffee.

In Return to Honor I wanted to contrast three other types of personalities, each one coming to the realization that they are "The Man I'll Never Be," but have them rise to the occasion.

Sandoval Montoya is the first Hispanic President of the U.S. Fed up with the politics, he's allowing the government to operate on "auto-pilot" until he can retire...and is forced to restructure his political philosophy when he's about to be executed.

Robert Gould is a hot-shot TAV (TransAtmospheric Vehicle) pilot with an ego problem. He has never really grown up, but when tasked to fly the rescue mission, he has his nose rubbed in the fact that there are more important allegiances than to himself.

Finally, Hujr Ibin is the terrorist. Motivated by religious fervor, he's devastated when he's double crossed by his superiors. He has to disregard old loyalties in order to survive.

Return to Honor proceeds in a parallel fashion, moving from one point of view to another as the story builds. The characters' motivations are revealed as they move toward the President's kidnapping and subsequent rescue--each one grows in his own particular way, and sometimes not for the good.

I'm convinced that's why my editor at Pocket wanted me to change the title to Return to Honor: action is the name of the game in this genre, not character change. I guess this is Pocket's way to get to their audience--I was told that including the word "Honor" in the title would boost sales by 30%. So for those of you who may be drooling over a "bang-bang shoot-'em-up" mindless adventure story, sorry to disappoint you.

I guess the moral of the story is to never give up. I could have tossed Return to Honor after it made the rounds of the SF houses. But sometimes I feel like the dumb frog who hopped in an urn of milk with his friend, the smart frog: The smarter frog figured that there was no way out of the urn, so he gave up and drowned; the dumb one wasn't smart enough to figure that out, so he just kept paddling until he churned enough butter to sit on until rescued.

What I mean is there's a whole world of publishers out there. What I had wasn't quite SF; but it took a year for me to realize that it might fit better in another genre. And a better paying one at that. (Pocket doubled the advance for my second novel.)

If I had an agent at the time, he might have saved me time and money. But I didn't, and I had to find out the hard way.

So I guess the bottom line is this: I still can't believe my novel isn't SF. After all, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck... !

OtherRealms
Science Fiction
and
Fantasy
in Review

Issue #23 -- Winter, 1989

Copyright 1989 by
Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved

Editor
Chuq Von Rospach

Science Editor
Laurie Sefton

Contributing Editors
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
Charles de Lint
Rick Kleffel
Alan Wexelblat

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

OtherRealms is published in January, April, July and October by:

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

USENET: chuq@sun.com Delphi: CHUQ CIS: 73317,635

Subscriptions

A single copy of OtherRealms is $2.85. A one year (4 issue) subscription is $11.

OtherRealms is available on a returnable basis to bookstores. Please contact me for details.

Complimentary subscriptions are available for arranged trades with your fanzine, at the whim of the editor or for "the usual."

Submissions

OtherRealms is looking for reviews on Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and related non-fiction. We cover book-length material only.

Authors are solicited to write for the Behind the Scenes. This series allows you to describe the background and research that went into your book and the things that make it special to you.

We are interested in a variety of feature material about the field and the people in it.

Please query on all material except reviews.

Submissions can be made in either Macintosh or 5.25" MS-DOS disk, to one of my network addresses by E-mail, or the old-fashioned ink-on-paper format. Please include SASE to guarantee return of material.

OtherRealms uses first serial rights.

Art

I'm always looking for good genre-related artwork, from small clip-art pieces to full-page covers. Originals will be returned after use, but I prefer copies since it is safer for both of us.

I request one-time non-exclusive rights on art.

Deadlines

Deadlines for all material is the 15th of the month prior to publication. Publication date is the 30th of the month. Next deadline: March 15.

Letters

OtherRealms solicits your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and Science Fiction in general. Letters will be considered for publication unless otherwise requested. Letters may be edited for length or content if necessary. Addresses will not be published unless you specifically permit it.

Is this your last issue?

The number on your mailing label is the issue your OtherRealms subscription dies. Negative numbers indicate complimentary subscriptions. If the number is zero, this is the only issue you will see unless you Do Something.

Book ratings in OtherRealms

[*****] One of the best books of the year
[****] An above average book
[***] A good book. Recommended.
[**] Flawed, but has its moments
[*] Not recommended
[] To be avoided.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 2)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 2

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Reviewing The Reviewers
A Survey of Science Fiction Critics

Chuq Von Rospach

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach

Why review the reviewers? It is impossible for any reviewer or publication to completely cover the field. I want to help readers find reviews that can help them make their purchasing decisions. Different reviewers have different preferences and I feel it is important that people find reviewers they are comfortable and compatible with. Finally, I think it important that the people who are doing a good job get some recognition and the people who aren't get constructive criticism.

I differentiate between a reviewer and a critic. A reviewer is a consumer advocate--they help people make purchasing decisions. OtherRealms is a reviewzine--it gets information to the buying public to help them find the books that are right for them.

Critics try to put a book into context, to look at the deeper meanings and help us get a better understanding of the work and how it relates to us and to the field. This requires a good literary background and a deep knowledge of the genre and its history. A.J. Budrys of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the New York Review of Science Fiction are two examples.

Reviews should be considered "pre-sales" writing. They're written to help a reader make a purchasing decision. Criticism, on the other hand, is best studied after you have finished the work, when you can consider the writing and the criticism together to gain a better understanding.

I've broken the publications discussed into three categories: the major magazines, semi-professional magazines and everyone else. Remember that size isn't an indicator that the reviewer is better.

The major magazines are Analog, Amazing, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Twilight Zone and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Amazing doesn't publish reviews, but it has been running a series of essays that I've found fascinating. In the January, 1988 issue, they published a piece by Greg Benford that basically said that fantasy wasn't as good as real science fiction, and that people who wrote fantasy did so because they weren't able to write good SF. Any reader of fantasy knows these arguments are (1) patently false, and (2) guaranteed to create a Controversy. It did--in the January, 1989 issue a group of fantasy writers (Judith Tarr, Susan Shwartz, Lillian Stewart Carl and Katharine Kerr) wrote a strong, well- reasoned rebuttal. In the same issue, Poul Anderson used the same article as a starting point in his essay "Science Fiction and History," where he discussed the societal structures used in science fiction and their analogs in Earth history.

Analog is the largest magazine and Tom Easton, its reviewer, is the best in the field. He has a strong bias towards hard SF, which isn't surprising considering the magazine he writes for. He has the ability to put a book into perspective without wasting words, although occasionally, like his review of Full Spectrum, he gets so succinct he never says much of anything. If he has a weakness, it is fantasy, and when he does cover fantasy books he sometimes seems to be rating them down because they're fantasy rather than their having any specific flaw.

Hot on Easton's heels is Baird Searles at Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine. I'd call it a dead heat except for a couple of structural problems in Searles' column. His reviews are started with column headlines that tend to fall somewhere between cute and irritating, and I've talked to a couple of authors who have found the titles demeaning--even if it's a positive review. Another thing Searles does is mention books being published by people associated with IASFM. I think the column would be better served by either reviewing them, or ignoring them. Currently, they get an implicit nod of the head without ever really being discussed.

Beyond that, Searles is witty and lots of fun to read. He has a strong knowledge of the field and he covers both SF and fantasy with enthusiasm. While Easton is slightly better technically, Searles covers a wider range of material.

Also writing for IASFM on a quarterly basis in a critical mode is Norman Spinrad. I'm not a big fan of Spinrad's writing, and the first few columns he wrote for IASFM were nasty, mean-spirited attacks in the guise of criticism. In the last few columns he's dropped the Harlanesque angry-young-man pose and started doing some serious criticism. I don't always agree with him but he's makes me think. He might yet turn into a powerful voice in the field of criticism. I don't recommend him as a reason to get IASFM, but he makes a good addition to Searles' work.

Fantasy & Science Fiction is the home of A,J. Budrys,who is considered by many to be the premier active critic in the field. In the last year and a half, they have also added Orson Scott Card as a reviewer to free Budrys to do more criticism in his column. I think, in retrospect, that this was a mistake. Card's column is interesting and he is determined to review good but obscure books you're likely to miss. He does a competent column, although it's somewhat lifeless and dry at times.

The problem at F&SF is Budrys. Freed of the need to structure his criticism around books, there are times when he seems to be groping for Something Important To Say, he sometimes overemphasizes something trivial or unimportant in an attempt to be Critic At Large. Another problem is tone. Budrys used to write about important things in the field. Now he writes about things that Budrys feels should be important. Sometimes they are, but not always. Budrys' column no longer revolves around science fiction. In the column, SF revolves around Budrys.

A major problem I have is that Budrys has shilled, on more than one occasion, the Writers of the Future Contest (he is chief administrator) or a book by one of its winners. Notwithstanding that I agreed with him on it. He is using the column to push something that he has a financial commitment with. This creates a conflict of interest and kills his credibility.

I have a lot of respect for Budrys. In obscure ways, he was one of the catalysts to the founding of OtherRealms. I now find myself doing little more than skimming his column--I don't trust his judgment anymore, and he isn't saying much I find interesting to read. James Blish, in The Issue at Hand by William Atheling Jr. (A pseudonym for Blish; Advent Press) talks about some of the problems he had with his criticism because of his decision to choose a pseudonym to write under, and the problems of conflicts of interest in criticism. I see parallels to that here. Budrys has, for what I believe he sees are the best of intentions, dug himself a credibility hole and jumped into it head first. Unless he can extricate himself, he's going to put himself in a position where he'll be useless as a critic.

The last of the large magazines is Twilight Zone, which runs a review column by Ed Bryant. Bryant is the only reviewer covering Horror. Bryant's good, and he does a good job of looking at a book in-depth without wasting precious column space. If you read horror and aren't reading Twilight Zone, you're missing an important resource.

The next category is the semi-professional magazine. These are smaller, generally under 10,000 circulation. Two of the magazines, Locus and SF Chronicle are trade journals. The third, Aboriginal SF is a large semi-pro or small professional fiction magazine, depending on how you define it.

Aboriginal uses two reviewers: Darrell Schweitzer and Janice Eisen. Schweitzer has been around the field for a while and knows his stuff. Eisen is the former editor of the fanzine Twilight Zine and looks at more fantasy. Both are good, solid reviewers who are assets to the magazine.

Locus is the major trade publication for the science fiction field. While officially considered a semi-pro for Hugo purposes, it is a large, professional magazine. Editor Charlie Brown has four different review columns, dedicating more space to reviews than any non-fanzine. The reviewers are Faren Miller, Tom Whitmore, Carolyn Cushman and Dan Chow. It's hard to choose a favorite. I read both Miller and Whitmore closely each issue, Cushman has a strong background in fantasy that she uses to good effect, and Chow has turned himself into an good columnist (in a previous version of this article, I ripped Chow to little pieces. I now happily recant that position). Cushman and Miller both do a mixture of reviewing and criticism, while Chow and Whitmore stick primarily with reviews. There are some voids in their coverage (no horror, and there are some authors who don't seem to get as much coverage as their stature in the industry would imply), but they also make a good attempt to read and report on first novels and the lesser publicized, smaller works. I read Locus' reviews carefully every month, and usually find an interesting booksI would have otherwise missed.

Science Fiction Chronicle is the smaller competitor to Locus. While in many areas Locus and SF Chronicle cover the same material, SF Chronicle is weaker as a review resource. There is a single reviewer, Don D'Ammassa, who is limited in what he can do by the format--SF Chronicle publishes as many reviews as it can fit in (typically 40 or more per monthly issue) with a paragraph or so for each book. This means D'Ammassa can't talk about anything in detail--there's little more than a quick overview or plot summary and a few simple comments. I find the reviews to be of very limited value. There simply isn't enough information in them for me. Fans of OtherRealms' Pico Review section may well prefer SF Chronicle's reviews to other sources, but I can't recommend it.

The last category are fanzines and small magazines. They're defined as having very small print-runs (under most circumstances, less than 1,000) and are usually hobbies or personal publications rather than commercial publications. In some cases, all they discuss is criticism or reviews. In other's that's only part of their material.

Fosfax is a fun fanzine, and is the fanzine I feel is closest to OtherRealms. It's almost exclusively reviews and has an letter column that covers a wide range of subjects. It reminds me of OtherRealms when it was monthly. It's monthly, and unlike most fanzines keeps to its schedule, and is a magazine I look forward to every month.

Lan's Lantern is a Hugo winner. It's a large (typically more than 100 pages) fanzine that is published about three times a year. While a good portion of is dedicated to reviews, it has a very strong letter column and publishes a range of articles about many different topics. Lan's is always fun to read and has a wide range of opinions.

One of the newer kids on the block is SF Eye. Four issues have been published so far. SF Eye is a review/criticism semi-pro, but doesn't seem to have decided what it wants to be when it grows up--issue #3 was fiction.

SF Eye is marginal right now. If they get their act together, it can turn into a fascinating publication. Unfortunately, the administrative end seems to be somewhat chaotic--they had a major hassle with their Post Office Box a while back, their publication schedule is erratic, and their subscription system has some glitches--I was notified that my subscription, which started with issue #3, was expiring with issue #4. When I contacted them, they promptly fixed it.

There's some good stuff here: an interview of Clive Barker by Dick Lupoff; an interview of Ellen Datlow (of Omni magazine) by Ed Bryant. Much of the rest is pedestrian material, although there's nothing really bad. The range is from about average to pretty good. The design of the magazine needs work. Many of the photos they publish (especially in the Datlow interview and the covers in the review section) are so badly reproduced they would have been better off with white space.

SF Eye did a couple of things that pushed my buttons While they claim to have a no-pseudonym policy, they broke the policy to allow various people to attack Bridge publications and the Hubbard people. For whatever reason, they've allowed people to publicly attack another organization from a privileged, private bunker. If they made the exception here, where are they going to make the next exception? When someone wants to write an 'objective' review of something they were involved in? When someone wants to make sure their own book gets reviewed? Credibility is the only thing a magazine of reviews and criticism has to offer its readers. James Blish discusses it in The Issue At Hand. SF Eye has severely damaged their credibility with me. For the best of intentions, they've followed Budrys into the credibility swamp.

Another thing they did was an attack against fantasy in their editorial: "...with your letters we can become invincible, we can banish all levels and unicorns forever, why we can even... Well, maybe we won't get that serious." (emphasis theirs) Yes, they're being flippant, but the attitude is obvious--fantasy is not real fiction. This kind of holier-than-thou attitude from within the SF community bothers me, especially when you realize it's nothing more than the same kind of bullshit that frosts us when the mainstream does it to science fiction. Fantasy is a legitimate fiction form, and the folks who insist on thinking of it as bastardized SF are playing the same kind of power-games that the mainstream tries to play on SF to "keep us in our place." It's time we all realize there's room enough for all of us out there. If we can't keep from building our own Ghetto within a Ghetto, do we have any hope at all that we'll get the walls around science fiction broken down?

New York Review of Science Fiction is the newest magazine on the block, having published (as I write this) two issues. It has a strong, well qualified group working with it--Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, David Hartwell, Samuel R. Delany, Susan Palwick and Debbie Notkin. They're attempting a 24 page monthly magazine that does primarily criticism. The first two issues have been interesting, and once it settles in and finds its direction, this could be a top-flight magazine. Right now, it's uneven, but worth looking at.

Thrust is one of the older criticism semi-pro magazines. I have sincere doubts about its survival. It has skipped issues completely and when it does publish the material is boring. It has been abandoned by much of its staff and advertising. It's marking time before it dies. I can't recommend it--there isn't anything to it any more.

Weird Tales has brought on John Betancourt to do book reviews. He reviewed for Amazing in the past and it's good to see him with a column again.

My recommendations? Locus is the best resource for a person interested in science fiction reviews. I also recommend Tom Easton and Baird Searles. People interested in criticism should locate a copy of the New York Review of Science Fiction.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 3)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 3

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Behind the Mountains with:
Spirits of Cavern and Hearth

M. Coleman Easton

Copyright 1989 by M. Coleman Easton

Spirits of Cavern and Hearth (St. Martin's Press) started with a documentary about Mt. Kilimanjaro. The camera began near the snowy peak and showed how the landscape changed gradually during the long descent to the plains. Suddenly, I imagined a much larger mountain--one that spanned a continent, with civilizations thriving at many different levels along its flanks. The concept of WorldMount was born.

As I explored the idea, it changed Instead of a single mountain, I ended up with a series of ranges, each higher than the next but with deep valleys in between. In the center stood the ultimate mountain, the Peak-of-the-World. And I settled for depicting, in this one book, only a small portion of the continent. I have plenty of territory to explore if I choose to write a sequel.

I wondered what sort of people inhabit this portion of the world. At first I imagined two distinct races--one based in the north and more primitive, the other based in the south. Later I decided that the two groups were of common ancestry, but had separated some hundreds of years earlier, one group continuing a nomadic existence in the north while the other settled down to farming. The split had left a long-lasting enmity, for the southerners had driven the nomads up into the highlands, then built a huge wall to keep them there.

In my earliest notes I find the notion of a "call," a sudden emotional and physical change that can drive a person to leave his family and pursue a somewhat mystical goal. This was a rare occurrence, and in the south was viewed as an affliction. In the north, however, the called person was considered godstricken. I chose a southern physician, a man of a prominent family, to discover for himself what such a call might mean.

I have long been interested in folklore and mythology of Northern Europe and Asia, and my yurt-dwelling nomads are the result. My characters names are based on Mongolian patterns, in which certain vowels are feminine, others masculine, others neutral. The nomads follow a shamanistic religion, and believe in spirits of all sorts--hearth-sprites, water-sprites and imps. The spirits serve as intermediaries between humans and their gods, but also have lives of their own.

The nomads of my book depend on horses for their survival. To learn more about horse behavior and care, I consulted several books and also talked to an experienced horsewoman, Avis Minger. Finally, convinced that some practical experience would be useful, I rented a sturdy beast. It was only my fourth time in the saddle, and I felt apprehensive from the start. All went well, however, until we reached a fork in the trail. I had no idea which way I wanted to turn. Apparently the horse realized this and decided to take charge, for it turned around and headed for home. Nothing I did could convince it otherwise, so shortly we were back at the stable. With a bit of help, I finally managed to get my oat-burner on the trail again. In memory of the event, I added a few stubborn horses to my story.

The book was about half written when my agent, Russ Galen, called with the news that it would be published in hardcover. I had not expected to jump out of the paperback ranks that quickly!

At last, after many revisions, the manuscript was done. My editor, Stuart Moore, mentioned that he wanted Tom Canty to do the cover, and I innocently asked if I could talk to Tom about it. To my surprise, Stuart agreed, and I had several fascinating conversations with the artist. What particularly impressed me was that Tom was doing not just a painting but a whole cover design.

Did I have any influence on the cover? You may notice the curved knife in the skeletal hand. I suggested that, but you'll have to read the book to understand its significance.

Will I do a sequel? That depends. For now I am off to a different realm--Iceland at the end of the tenth century. I suspect I'll be there awhile.

Creme de la Creme

Alan Wexelblat

Copyright 1989 by Alan Wexelblat

Always save the best for last. We start out the new year with a selection of six of the best works I could find. This is no Christmas generosity, though. All of them earned the high marks they got.

Chaos: Making a New Science     [****+]
James Gleick
Viking paperback, 1987, 0-670-81178-5

The world we live in is not the neat, orderly, linear, solvable world we learned about in physics. In fact, Euclidean-geometric-type physics describes a vanishingly small portion of the real problems of the real world. In most cases it's not even a good estimate.

The world is fundamentally chaotic; disorder and unpredictability reign. In everything from the formation of clouds to the rise and fall of animal populations to the occurrence of line noise on a modem-to-modem data line, chaotic models are better predictors than conventional models. The dimensionality of the coastline of England is 2.7; the coastline is infinitely long, but bounds a finite area. Is it weird enough for you yet?

This strangeness of the universe encompasses Lorenz attractors and Mandelbrot's fractal sets--patterns that repeat themselves at different levels of detail and can be worked out on the simplest computer. Out of it is emerging a new science, a way of seeing new things in the swinging of pendulums, and the boiling of water. Gleick gives us glimpses over the shoulders of these new pioneers.

The book is a fascinating look into an emerging revolution in the way scientists, economists, meteorologists and others are looking at the world. For my taste, Gleick spends too much time on the people and too little on the science they are doing. But this book is a must-read if you want to know what the next scientific revolution is going to be.

A Splendid Chaos        [****]
John Shirley
Franklin Watts, 1988, 0-531-15065-8

In a chaotic system, two points that begin next to each other can end up arbitrarily far apart. John Shirley starts off next to the standard "kidnapped hero wakes up on strange world as plaything of superior beings" story and ends up with a solid Movement novel. Along the way, Shirley reworks the "quest across the world" cliche, the "good versus evil" cliche and a host of others.

Zero is kidnapped from the streets of New York. He wakes up on Fool's Hope, a world populated with dozens of alien intelligences, deadly carnivorous flora and fauna, and with a human settlement reduced to early Medieval technology. The whole mess is run by aliens called the Meta who have brought the humans and other inhabitants here to fight it out for survival. Each species tries to reach stations where the Meta have placed some item of technology which can give the holder advantage.

To spice things up, there are the Currents: tornado-like bursts of IAMtons, the basic particles of chaos. (I think, therefore IAM--get it?) These Currents cause wild mutations in the creatures they touch, turning them into Twists. Twists reveal their innermost natures by the powers they acquire from the Currents: some become vampires, some become brainless muscle-bound hulks, and so on.

The villain is Harmon Fiskle, an advocate of violent social darwinism, of selective eugenics and breeding. He is a tight-assed, prissy university professor who didn't like Zero before and certainly doesn't like him now. When Fiskle is Twisted and begins a campaign forcing the humans to Twist and join him or die, Zero and friends set out for the greatest Technology Station of them all, hoping to find something that will help the humans. As fantasy readers know, no quest is complete without elves and dwarves (in some guise). Some strange aliens accompany Zero and his friends.

Shirley sets up the idols of fantasy to smash them with a hammer of eighties' sensibility: the leader of the human encampment is a lesbian woman, the Meta are not benevolent providers or evil slave-masters, the Twists are a running commentary on the venality of people. Fiskle is a Reaganaut carried to its right- wing extreme, and Zero is an eighties version of a young Everyman. Despite carrying the load of this double-level message (or perhaps because of it), Splendid Chaos manages to be entertaining and engrossing.

Deserted Cities of the Heart    [****+]
Lewis Shiner
Doubleday, 0-385-24637-4, 1988

The time is today, the place is Mexico. It's a bad year for the PRI, the party that has ruled Mexico since 1946--they have brushfire rebellions springing up all over, the peasants are as unhappy as ever, and the gringo soldiers from the north are trampling about doing as they please. In the ruins of Na Chan three Americans, a handful of descendants of the Mayans, and a ragtag band of Mexican revolutionaries are coming to grips with experiences that will change them, will change Mexico, and may change the world.

Thomas is an idealistic anthropologist trying to complete his studies of Mayan culture and figure out why an apparently-thriving civilization vanished almost overnight. His brother Eddie, a burned out rock guitarist, signed himself out of the psychiatric hospital one night and vanished into the Mexican jungle apparently in search of himself. Lindsay is Eddie's wife and the object of Thomas' unrequited love. She is looking for Eddie and will use any means and anyone, including Thomas, to find him.

Eddie's trail leads them to Na Chan, where Thomas had led a previous excavation of the ruins. The Lacondes, descendants of the Mayans, have brought Eddie here. For them, Na Chan is a mystical city and civilization is ending another of the cycles recorded in the Mayan calendar. Their last living shaman will perform a ritual here to usher out the old cycle and bring in the new.

For Carla, revolutionary hero, Na Chan is a place to make a last stand with her peasant brigade against the guardia and the Americans. Outmanned, outgunned, and wounded, it doesn't look good.

And then there are the mushrooms. Hallucinogenic, extremely toxic, native only to this region. To the Lacondes, they are sacred; to Eddie they are a siren call, a last escape. It is claimed that one who takes them spiritually travels into the past and experiences what went on in history.

Throughout all of this, Shiner's writing is top notch. He carefully avoids explanation or interruption of the flow. As a result, the levels of real reality (the Mexico city earthquake, the Iran-Contra scandal) blend with the levels of unreal reality (time travel that reveals details no one should have known) until the reader isn't at all sure what's going on. I was strongly reminded of the best parts of Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus trilogies. There are no guideposts; you are left to figure out what's real and what's the author playing with you.

Neon Lotus [****]
Marc Laidlaw
Bantam, 0-553-27165-2, 1988

Laidlaw has a talent for making the most outlandish ideas work by sheer force of writing talent. His Mirrorshades story, "400 Boys," about post-nuclear mutant gangs made an interesting read of a ludicrous-seeming plot. Neon Lotus strains the reader's credulity again and Laidlaw succeeds again.

The plot revolves around Tibetan lore. A brilliant Tibetan scientist has developed a device to track souls as they journey from death to reincarnation. When he is assassinated, his soul is tracked to the body of Marianne Strauss. Grown to young adulthood, she goes to Tibet to try and deal with the half-felt memories and urgings she feels in a classic journey in search of herself.

Tibet is occupied by the Chinese, who have suppressed Tibetan religion and culture. When Marianne is deemed by the State Oracle to be the Gyayum Chenmo--the Great Mother--who will free the land from the Chinese and bear the child that will be the next Dalai Lama she becomes an instant target.

Marianne is given a mission by Chenrezi, the patron god of the Tibetans, to retrieve five magical relics. The book is the story of her search for the artifacts and her journeys across Tibet.

The novel is rich with the feel of Tibet. It's blended with equal helpings of science fiction (night-flying radar-absorbing CIA jets) and fantasy (bodhisattvas that live in Marianne's mind). This is no easy task--given our unfamiliarity with the legends and culture involved it would be easy to stoop to condescension or triviality. Similarly, it would be easy to portray the occupying Chinese as monolithic brutes and the natives as noble savages. Laidlaw avoids these pitfalls and others.

My only gripe with the book is the ending. Somehow it all seems too easy in the end. The story just stops. Not with a bang, not with a whimper--just ends. Still, it's a worthwhile read.

Mindplayers [*****-]
Pat Cadigan
Bantam, 0-553-26585-7, 1987

I can't say enough good things about this book. Simply put, Cadigan's writing is the most mindblowingly brilliant stuff I've seen since I first read William Gibson. Every few pages I found myself shaking my head in amazement as Cadigan wove in new idea after new idea.

In the not-too-distant future, the drug of choice will be the mind. We will enter the artificial realities inside our skulls. Here simple things like the laws of physics have no sway; reality is what we imagine it to be and it changes with our whims. We will have whole classes of professional mindplayers: neurosis peddlers, reality affixers, pathosfinders, and more. You can buy madcaps--helmets that will induce a small insanity for a little while. Why not; it's a trip like any other, right?

Yes, you read that right--the word is "madcap." One of the brilliant strokes of the book is the weaving in of obvious puns and humor. Cadigan manages to walk the tightrope between funny-haha and funny-crazy and use the best of both worlds. Who else could have a sardonic heroine called Deadpan Allie?

When Alexandria Victoria Haas gets stuck with a madcap's paranoia that doesn't go away when it should, she is left at a mental drycleaners and picked up by the police. Faced with the alternatives of jail and psychological service she opts for the latter, entering training to become a pathosfinder. So she goes to J. Walter Tech, the country's premiere school for mindplayers. The book tells the story of her training there, the people she meets, and her graduation and move to the Nelson Nelson agency. N.N., head of his self-named business, hires out mindplayers to help clients. Deadpan Allie meets some pretty strange folk while working for Nelson Nelson.

The book's only real weakness is its structure. Told as a series of episode- chapters, the format works well until Allie is established at the agency. After that, one chapter begins to look like any other and the recurring characters--though interesting--don't do much to help. In a way this is less a novel than a novella and a couple of short stories.

Nevertheless, this is still the most devastatingly original writing I've seen in a long time and I highly recommend it to one and all.

Mona Lisa Overdrive      [*****]
William Gibson
Gollancz hardcover (British edition), 0-575-04020-3, 1988

This is where it all began. The Sprawl. Home to cyberspace, to the cowboys and their decks. Home of gomi--the detritus of the upper classes--and the hustlers and hackers who make use of it. William Gibson has brought us home one last time.

If you haven't read Neuromancer or Count Zero recently, go back and reread them. They and their characters figure prominently in Mona Lisa Overdrive and Gibson doesn't stop to let you figure it out. If you can't pick up on the hints and whispers, you're out of luck.

There is also a cast of newcomers mixed in with the old favorites. Kumiko-- daughter of a Yakuza warlord, she is sent to England to be safe from her father's enemies. But her English guardian may or may not have sold her out. Slick Henry-- small-time ex-con and hustler in the Sprawl. In payment of a favor, he takes in the comatose body of The Count, jacked permanently into an advanced cyberspace rig. Angie Mitchell--now the world's favorite simstim star, drying out from a designer-drug habit, still haunted by memories of Bobby and still running with the loas of cyberspace. Unable to escape them and the biochips in her head, she has changed, they have changed, and cyberspace has changed. Mona--hooker, drug addict, attached to a useless dreamer, dying for a ticket out of the Sprawl. Of no interest to anyone, until one day someone important notices that she looks like Angie.

Gibson uses the spiraling plot technique of Count Zero to great effect in this book. You know that these people will, somehow, get together--that their destinies are intertwined. Yet Gibson skips among them with such ease and fluidity that it's still a surprise.

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not this will be the last Sprawl novel. Gibson is reputed to have said so, but people doubt that he can walk away from such a huge money-maker. After reading this book, I have no doubt. Gibson has, in Mona Lisa Overdrive, pushed the envelope of mirrorshades writing. He either has to move on or crash and burn.

The style was thought to have been worked for all it's worth--certainly cheap imitators are moving in in droves. But Gibson proves once again that he's the master, the one whom the others are trying to imitate. If you don't like William Gibson's writing, you're not going to like this any better. But if you have any respect for a writing genius, don't pass this one by.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 4)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 4

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Stuff Received

Books Received

Amis, Kingsley. The Alteration, Carroll & Graf, October, 1988, 205pp,
$3.95, 0-88184-432-2.

Anderson, Kevin J. Gamearth, Signet, March, 1989, 335pp, $3.50, galley.

Anthony, Piers & Margroff, Robert E. Serpent's Silver, Tor, 313pp,
December, 1988, $17.95, 0-312-93103-4. Sequel to Dragon's Gold.

Anthony, Piers. Heaven Cent, Avon, October, 1988, 324pp, $4.50,
0-380-75288-3. Xanth #11.

Asimov, Isaac, Azazel, Doubleday/Foundation, 221pp, November, 1988,
$16.95, 0-385-24410-X. Fantasy collection.

Asprin, Robert. Mythnomers and Impervections, Ace, November, 1988,
200pp, $3.50, 0-441-55279-X.

Baen, Jim. New Destinies, Vol. VI. Baen, 284pp, December, 1988, $3.50,
0-671-69796-X. Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Issue.

Ballard, J.G. Memories of the Space Age, Arkham House, 216pp. $16.95,
December, 1988, 0-87054-157-9. Collection. Illustrated by J.K. Potter.

Barker, Clive. Weaveworld, Pocket, October, 1988, 704pp, $4.95,
0-671-66506-5.

Benford, Gregory. Great Sky River, Bantam, October, 1988, 340pp, $4.50,
0-553-27318-3. Highly recommended.

Bode, Mark & Todd, Larry. Cobalt-60, Starblaze, October, 1988, $7.95,
9-89865-677-X. Reprints material from Epic magazine based on
characters and ideas by Vaughn Bode.

Boston, Bruce. Skin Trades, Drumm Booklets, #31, $3.50, from Chris
Drumm, Box 445, Polk City, Iowa, 50226. Collection.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer. Four Moons of Darkover, DAW, 284pp, November,
1988, $3.95, 0-88677-305-9. Anthology.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Firebrand, Pocket, October, 1988, 603pp,
$8.95, 0-671-66703-3.

Card, Orson Scott. Treason, St. Martin's Press, November, 1988, 275pp,
$18.95, 0-312-02304-9. An expanded version of A Planet Called Treason.

Chalker, Jack. War of the Maelstrom, Ace, October, 1988, 360pp, $3.95,
0-441-10268-9. Book three of Changewinds.

Cherryh, C.J. Festival Moon, Daw, October, 1988, 300pp, $3.50,
0-88677-192-7. Merovingen Nights $1. Re-issue.

Cherryh, C.J. Smuggler's Gold, Daw, October, 1988, 293pp, $3.50,
0-88677-299-0. Merovingen Nights #4.

Clayton, Jo. Shadow of the Warmaster, Daw, October, 1988, 398pp. $3.95,
0-88677-298-2.

Dick, Philip K. Clans of the Alphane Moon, Carroll & Graf, October,
1988, 269pp, $3.95, 0-88184-436-5. 1964 reprint.

Dickson, Gordon R. The Chantry Guild, Ace, October, 1988, 428pp,
$17.95, 0-441-10276-X. A Childe Cycle book.

Dickson, Gordon R. Ends, Baen, October, 1988, 342pp, $3.95,
0-671-69782-X. Collection.

Dillard, J.M. War of the Worlds: The Resurrection, Pocket, September,
1988, 405pp, $3.95, 0-671-67111-1.

Disch, Thomas. On Wings of Song, Carroll&Graf, 359pp, December, 1988,
$3.95, 0-88184-443-8.

Douglas, Carole Nelson. Counterprobe, Tor, November, 1988, 344pp,
$17.95, 0-312-93102-6.

Drake, David & Fawcett, Bill. Counter-Attack, Ace, December, 1988,
311pp, $3.95, 0-441-24087-9. Original Anthology. The Fleet, book 2.

Drake, David. Crisis of Empire, Baen, 310pp, November, 1988, $3.95,
0-671-69789-7.

DuPont, Denise. Women of Vision. St. Martin's, December, 1988, 216pp,
$14.95, 0-312-02321-9. Critical essays on SF by women in the field.

Easton, M. Coleman. Spirits of Cavern and Hearth, St. Martin's, 294pp,
December, 1988, $16.95, 0-312--2287-5.

Ellison, Harlan. Angry Candy, Houghton-Mifflin, October, 1988, 324pp,
$18.95, 0-395-48307-7. Collection.

Fine, Stephen. Molly Dear: The Autobiography of an Android, St.
Martin's, November, 1988, 420pp, $18.95, 0-312-02254-9. First Novel.

Flint, Kenneth C. Isle of Destiny, Bantam, 438pp, November, 1988,
$4.50, 0-553-27554-5.

Forstchen, William R. & Morrison, Greg. Crystal Warriors, December,
1988, Avon, 308pp, $3.50, 0-380-75272-7.

Gear, W. Michael. The Way of Spider, DAW, January, 1989, $3.95,
0-88677-318-0. Volume 1 of The Warriors of Spider.

Gibson, William. Mona Lisa Overdrive, Bantam, 260pp, November, 1988,
$17.95, 0-553-05250-0.

Godwin, Parke. A Truce with Time, Bantam, 310pp, December, 1988, $4.50,
0-553-27500-3.

Goldin, Stephen. The Storyteller and the Jann, Bantam, October, 1988,
277pp, $3.95, 0-553-27532-1.

Goldstein, Lisa. A Mask for the General, Bantam, October, 1988, 224pp,
$3.95, 0-553-27312-4. Recommended

Grant, Charles L. The Best of Shadows, Doubleday/Foundation, October,
1988, 219pp, $15.95, 0-385-23894-0.

Greenberg, Martin H., Waugh, Charles G. & McSherry, Frank D. Jr. Red
Jack, DAW, December, 1988, 333pp, $3.95, 0-88677-315-6. Reprint
anthology about Jack the Ripper.

Grossinger, Richard. The Night Sky, Jeremy P. Tarcher Books, September,
1988, 470pp, $12.95, 0-87477-489-6. Non-fiction.

Hartwell, David G. Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment, St.
Martin's Press, December, 1988, 622pp, $19.95, 0-312-02250-6.
Anthology.

Hogan, James P. Endgame Enigma, Bantam, 436pp, November, 1988, $4.95,
0-553-27037-0.

Holt, Tom. Who's Afraid of Beowulf? St. Martin's Press, December, 1988,
206pp, $15.95, 0-312-02669-2.

Horowitz, Lois. She-Devil, Pageant, April, 1989, 352pp, $3.50,
0-517-01011-9. galley.

Ingrid, Charles. Celestial Hit List, DAW, 285pp, November, 1988, $3.50,
0-88677-306-7. Book Three of the Sand Wars.

Kaplan, Aline Boucher. Khyren, Baen, October, 1988, 374pp, $3.50,
0-671-69781-1.

Kube-McDowell, Michael. Alternities, Ace, October, 1988, 383pp, $3.95,
0-441-01774-6.

Lackey, Mercedes. Oathbreakers, DAW, 318pp, Janurary, 1989, $3.95,
0-88677-285-0. Book 2 of Vows and Honors.

Lackey, Mercedes. The Oathbound, DAW, 302pp, July, 1988, $3.50,
0-88677-285-0. Book 1 of Vows and Honors. Re-issue.

Lichtenberg, Jacqueline. Those of my Blood, St. Martin's Press,
November, 1988, 402pp, $19.95, 0-312-02298-0.

Martin, George R.R. Wild Cards 5: Down and Dirty, Bantam, 528pp,
December, 1988, $4.50, 0-553-24763-5.

Mike Ashley, ed. The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels, Carroll &
Graf, October, 1988, 518pp, $8.95, 0-88184-429-2.

Moon, Elizabeth. Divided Allegiance, Baen, October, 1988, 522pp, $3.95,
0-671-69786-2. The Deed of Paksenarrion, Book 2.

Moon, Elizabeth. Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Baen, June, 1988, 506pp,
$3.95, 0-671-65416-0. The Deed of Paksenarrion, Book 1. Re-issue.

Moran, Daniel Keys. The Ring, Doubleday/Foundation, October, 1988,
466pp, $19.95, 0-385-24816-4.

Morris, Janet&Chris. City at the Edge of Forever, Baen, 312pp,
November, 1988, $3.95, 0-671-69787-0. A Tempus/Niko novel, but not part
of Thieves' World.

Morris, Janet. War in Hell, Baen, 277pp, December, 1988, $3.50,
0-671-69792-7. Latest in the Heroes in Hell shared world anthology.

Newcomer, Alan Bard. Spell Singers, DAW, 236pp, December, 1988,
$3.50. Paperback edition of Hypatia Press' Bardic Voices One.

Norton, Andre, Moon Mirror, Tor, January, 1989, 330pp, $17.95,
0-312-93098-4. Collection.

Novak, Kate & Grubb, Jeff. Azure Bonds, TSR, October, 1988, 380pp,
$3.95, 0-88038-612-6.

Paine, Michael. Cities of the Dead. Charter Horror, October, 1988,
246pp, $3.50, 1-55773-009-1. A first novel

Platt, Charles. Free Zone, Avon, January, 1989, 233pp, $3.50,
0-380-75411-8.

Pohl, Frederik. The Day the Martians Came. St. Martin's Press, 248pp,
December, 1988, $15.95, 0-312-02183-6.

Powers, Tim. On Stranger Tides, Ace, November, 1988, 322pp, $3.95,
0-441-62686-6.

Ptacek, Kathyrn. Women of Darkness, Tor, January, 1989, 306pp, $17.95,
0-312-93096-8.

Rawn, Melanie. Dragon Prince, DAW, 574pp, $4.50, December, 1988,
0-88677-312-1. First Novel.

Reeves-Stevens, Gar & Judith. Star Trek: Memory Prime, Pocket, October,
1988, 309pp, $3.95, 0-671-65813-1.

Reeves-Stevens, Garfield. Nighteyes, Doubleday/Foundation, 548pp,
April, 1989, $18.95, 0-385-24755-9

Rhodes, Daniel. Adversary, St. Martin's Press, 354pp, December, 1988,
$18.95, 0-312-02148-8.

Rasmussen, Alis A. The Labyrinth Gate, Baen, 345pp, December, 1988,
$3.50, 0-671-69793-5. First novel.

Saberhagen, Fred. The White Bull, Baen, 323pp, December, 1988, $3.95,
0-671-69794-3.

Saha, Arthur, W. The Year's Best Fantasy Stories 14, DAW, 239pp,
November, 1988, $3.50, 0-88677-307-5. Anthology.

Sargeant, Pamela. Venus of Shadows, Doubleday/Foundation, 544pp,
December, 1988, $19.95, 0-385-24820-7.

Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann. The Healer's War, Doubleday/Foundation,
November, 1988, 303pp, $17.95, 0-385-24828-8.

Schmidt, Stanley. Unknown, Baen, October, 1988, 304pp, $3.50,
0-671-69785-4. Anthology.

Schweitzer, Darrell. The Shattered Goddess, Starmont House, 1988,
183pp, $9.95, 1-55742-112-9. (Starmont House: Box 851, Mercer Island,
WA 98040)

Schweitzer, Darrell. We Are All Legends, Starmont House, 1988, 183pp,
$9.95, 1-55742-112-9. (Starmont House: Box 851, Mercer Island, WA
98040).

Scott, Melissa & Barnett, Lisa A. The Armor of Light, Baen, October,
1988, 504pp, $3.95, 0-671-69783-8.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Starblaze, October,
1988, 88pp,$8.95, 0-89865-710-5. Illustrated by Charles Vess.

Sherrel, Carl. The Curse, Pageant, February, 1989, 512pp, $3.95,
0-517-00954-4. Galley.

Simon, Jean. Descendants, Pageant, 352pp, March, 1989, 0-512-01029-1. Galley.

Smith, Stephanie A. The Boy Who was Thrown Away, DAW, January, 1989,
254pp, 0-88677-320-2, $3.50. Sequel to Snow-Eyes.

Spencer, John & Evans, Hilary. Phenomenon: Forty Years of Flying
Saucers, Avon, 413pp, January, 1989, $4.50, 0-380-70654-7.
Non-fiction.

Spinrad, Norman. Other Americas, Bantam, October, 1988, 273pp, $3.95,
0-553-27214-4.

Stasheff, Christopher. The Warlock's Companion, Ace, December, 1988,
235pp, $3.95, 0-441-87341-3.

Stith, John E. Deep Quarry, Ace, February, 1988, $3.50, 0-441-14276-1. Galley.

Sturgeon, Theodore. The Golden Helix, Carroll&Graf, 335pp, January,
1989, 0-88184-450-0.

Tyers, Kathy. Fusion Fire, Bantam, 231pp, November, 1988, $3.95,
0-553-27464-3.

Vinge, Vernor. Threats...and Other Promises, Baen, 320pp, November,
1988, $3.50, 0-671-69790-0. Collection.

Vinicoff, Eric. Maiden Flight, Baen, 405pp, December, 1988, $3.50,
0-671-69795-1.

Wagner, Karl Edward. Legion from the Shadows, Baen, 247pp, November,
1988, $2.95, 0-671-69788-9. 1976 Reprint.

Wagner, Karl Edward. The Year's Best Horror Stories XVI, Daw, October,
1988, 303pp, $3.95, 0-88677-300-8. Anthology

Webb, Don. Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book. 154pp, $8.95, from The Fiction
Collective, C/O Department of English, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY
11210. 0-932-51118-X. Winner of 1988 Illinois State University
Fiction Collective Award.

Wellman, Manly Wade. Twice in Time, Baen, 214pp, November, 1988, $2.95,
0-671-69791-9.

Wilhelm, Kate. The Dark Door, St. Martin's Press, October, 1988, 248pp,
$16.95, 0-312-02182-8.

Willard, Nancy. Things Invisible to See, Bantam, October, 1988, 262pp,
$3.95, 0-553-27652-2. Second printing.

Wilson, Robert Anton. Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy, Dell, November, 1988,
16pp, $10.95, 0-440-50070-2. Contains The Universe Next Door, The Trick
Top Hat and The Homing Pigeons.

Wolfe, Gene. There are Doors, Tor, December, 1988, 313pp, $17.95,
0-312-93099-2.

Wurts, Janny. Shadowfane, Ace, November, 1988, 259pp, $3.50,
0-441-76082-1.

Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn. Crusader's Torch, Tor, October, 1988, 459pp,
$18.95, 0-312-93088.

Zachary, Fay Nedra. ...Cradle and All, Pageant, January, 1989, 320pp,
$3.50, 0-517-00825-4. Galley.

Zahn, Timothy. Deadman Switch, Baen, October, 1988, 373pp, $3.95,
0-671-69784-6.

Zelazny, Roger & Randall, Neil. Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle
Amber, Avon, November, 1988, 220pp, $8.95, 0-380-75566-1.

Zimmer, Paul Edwin & DeCles, John. Blood of the Colyn Muir, Avon,
October, 1988, 245pp, $3.50, 0-380-75368-5.

Magazines Received

Aboriginal SF. Charles Ryan, ed. $24/6 issues (one year). Box 2449,
Woburn, MA 01888-0849. 1988 Best Semi-pro nominee.

Analog, Stan Schmidt, ed., $19.50/12 issues (1 year). P.O. Box 1936,
Marion, OH 43306.

Locus. P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA, 94661. $28/12 issues (one year).
1988 winner of best semi-pro Hugo. The industry trade magazine.
Recommended for anyone serious about SF.

The New York Review of SF, Kathryn Kramer, ed. $24/12 issues from
Dragon Press, Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.

Riverside Quarterly V8#2. Leland Sapiro, ed. Box 464, Waco TX 76703.
$6/4 issues.

Scavenger's Newslettter. Janet Fox, ed. 519 Ellinwood, Osage City, KS
66523-1329. $9/12 issues (one year). small press market newsletter. A
critical resource for writers.

Science Fiction Chronicle. Andy Porter, Ed. 1 year (12 issues) $27 from
Box 2730, Brooklyn, NY 11202-0056.

SF Eye #4. Stephen Brown, Ed. Box 43244, Washington, DC 20010-9244.
$10/3 issues (one year).

The SFWA Bulletin, George Zebrowski & Pamela Sargeant, ed. $12.50/4
issues from Peter Pautz, Box 4236, West Columbia, SC 29169.

Thrust. Douglas Fratz, ed. $8/4 issues (one year). 8217 Langport
Terrace, Gaithersburg, MD 20877.

Weird Tales, George Scithers, et al, editors. $18.00/six issues from
P.O. Box 13418, Philadelphia, PA 19101-3418.

Fanzines Received

8 1/2 x 11Zine. David Thayer, 7209 DeVille Drive, NRH, TX 76180-8257.
Thayer's (aka Teddy Harvia) personal fanzine.

The Dillinger Relic 59. Arthur Hlavaty. $1 or arranged trade from P.O.
Box 52028, Durham, NC, 27717.

Foxfax. C/O Fosfa, Box 37281, Louisville, KY 40233-7281. Monthly
reviewzine. Recommended.

Mad 3 Party. Noreascon 3, Box 46, MIT Branch PO, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Leslie Turek, ed. The fanzine of the 1989 Worldcon. Nominated for Best
Fanzine, 1988. Turek was nominated for Best Fan Writer, 1988. A
fascinating look behind the scenes of a Worldcon. Glad I'm not running
one.

Mimosa, Dick&Nicki Lynch, 4207 Davis Lane, Chatanooga, TN, 37416. Some
of the most interesting fanzine writing I've seen recently. Available
for $2.00 or the regular.

Phlogiston 17. Alex Heatley, Box 11-708, Manners Street, Wellington,
Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Renaissance Fan #4. Rosalind Malin & Dick Pilz, 2213 SE 53rd, Portland,
OR. 97215.

Science Fiction Randomly, Steve Antczak, $2.00 from box 12705,
Gainesville, FL, 32604-0705.

The Insider. St. Louis SF Society, Box 1058, St. Louis, MO 63188.
Clubzine.

Thyme. Peter Burns, ed. Box 4024, University of Melbourne, Vic 3052,
Australia. The Australian newszine.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 5)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 5

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

The Agony Colum

Rick Kleffel

Copyright 1989 by Rick Kleffel

The cringing virgin, the tortured beast, the psycho killer, the tainted priest, the master vampire, the Satanic son, the town with a secret, the impotent gun--this is what horror is made from....

These are the scary stereotypes of horror, the shredded scraps of skin and muscle that are carelessly grafted to skeletal plots by Stephen King wanna-be's, then packaged in glance-grabbing wrappers and aimed at an unsuspecting audience. Monsters (vampires, werewolves, aliens) and their victims (virgins, scientists, military madmen) should be fertile ground for the invention of new stereotypes. Instead, they become fertile ground for re-invention; everybody wants to do their version of the vampire. Writers like Clive Barker and Anne Rice manage to make something old seem new again. But in less competent hands, these cliches become crutches. They allow the writer to be lazy. After all, think of all the information that comes with the word vampire; bloodsucking, shapechanging, undead, fangs.... But even the less-than-literate serve their purpose. It is only in their territory that new stereotypes are noticeable. In fact, the eighties have presented us with a new monster, another carrion-fed cliche to haunt readers of the future. Look closely at what you've been reading recently, and you'll see him--the Vietnam Veteran--hero, monster, victim--this decade's nominee for the Hall of Horror Stereotypes.

Koko    [*****-]
Peter Straub
Doubleday, $19.95, 0-525-24660-6

Koko by Peter Straub is being billed as a thriller by a man who is best-known for his horror novels. While it's true that the supernatural is missing from Koko, few who finish this novel will walk away unaware that this is yet another horror novel, one in which the monster is war and the men who enjoy it. In this novel, the Vietnam veterans are given the treatment they (or any other "group") deserve; they are first and foremost people, with jobs to keep them busy during the day and friends and family to keep them company at night.

Koko's ingenious plot draws together four disparate members of a platoon fifteen years after the war, when one of them discovers that a string of serial killings in the Orient can only be the work of someone who was once a member of their fighting unit. Despite an intricately constructed exposition, the novel is easily read, as the reader is swept into the demonic, hallucinogenic world of the characters' perceptions. These aren't the stock maladjusted malcontents, nor are they hibernating supermen--they're ordinary people who have lived through an extra-ordinarily horrifying experience. And, even though supernatural events are absent, the feeling of pervading evil is very much present. This combination of real and perceived evil make Koko Straub's best book since Ghost Story--in many ways, better. In addition, the Straub stories "Blue Rose" in "Cutting Edge" and "The Juniper Tree" in Prime Evil, offer another glimpse of the characters in Koko. They enhance the novel, but are not required reading. Complex and compelling, Koko is at the forefront of today's realistic horror movement.

Monastery       [**]
Patrick Whelan
Pocket Books, $3.95, 0-671-66187-6

At the other end of the spectrum is Monastery by Patrick Whelan, a thoroughly pedestrian "Rambo versus Dracula" saga, set on a remote island off the coast of Washington. Braille, our stoic veteran hero, would make even Rambo look like wimp. Caught assassinating an aging North Vietnamese general, he is tortured for months by the man's son. This is the perfect preparation for his confrontation with Gregory, the Ancient, a Master Vampire entombed on the island hundreds of years ago by Secret Order of the Catholic Church. It's doubly surprising when they become buddies in combat only because any surprise in this book is itself surprising. This novel unveils a new stereotype while conforming to the description of an existing stereotype--the artificial, cheesy vampire novel, easily read, admirably absentminded, easily forgotten.

Necroscope      [***+]
Brian Lumley
Tor, $3.95, 0-812-52166-8

Queen of The Damned     [***+]
Anne Rice
Doubleday, $18.95

Cabal   [****+]
Clive Barker
Doubleday, $17.95

Happily, in Necroscope, by Brian Lumley, Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice and Cabal by Clive Barker, these big name horror writers fare quite well in their encounters with the undead. The first is the thoroughly enjoyable start of a "Trilogy of Terror!," but works well as a self-contained novel. The premise, cleverly developed if not completely original, is that Harry Keogh, a "necroscope," (one who can talk to the dead) is recruited by England's rather advanced ESPionage agency to help fight the bad Russians, in a sort of "spook versus spook" battle. Dragosani, the Russian's star esper, is a necromancer (one who rips apart the bodies of the dead to learn their secrets). Much to his regret, he has made a deal with a particularly slimy, science-fiction style vampire. Once you resign yourself to enjoy this luridly-written novel, you'll find that it's like those rare "great" B movies--a fast, fun time. The next one should be a real kick.

Then, when you're done slumming, you can turn to Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned which completes her "Vampire Trilogy" and heralds the beginning of the "Vampire Chronicles." For those who liked the first two books, her sensual, evocative writing and grand Guignol plotting remain firmly in place. Better yet, there's no cliff-hanger waiting at the end this novel, and the finale is satisfyingly spectacular. The only problem is the reader's memory, since this is really just the second half of The Vampire Lestat. Artistic attempts to recapitulate the action from that novel won't fill all the gaps in most reader's memories. Soon enough, though, Rice's sensual vampires, Lestat and company, start to feel like old, cultured, friends. Wisely choosing not to self-destruct a bestselling series, Anne Rice does leave an option open, frankly stating that more sequels are on the way. If you haven't yet read the other books you have something to look forward to. On the other hand, if you read The Vampire Lestat, then you've probably already bought Queen of the Damned. In either case, you could do worse, and you'd be hard put to find better.

In Cabal, Clive Barker introduces "The Nightkind," creatures who fit squarely between the slime of Necroscope and the sensuality of Queen of the Damned. Barker's writing is perhaps too artistic for hack'n'slash fans, and too gritty for the lace-lovers of Rice's vampires, but his fans will be ecstatic over Cabal, which combines the visceral horror of Books of Blood with the fantasy elements of Weaveworld. As a bonus, those who have not yet managed to sniff out an imported copy of Books of Blood, Volume 6, are given the contents of that collection in addition to this short novel. Barker's ability to write poetic prose describing extreme violence has deservedly earned him the "New [Stephen] King of Horror" badge. While there are some nagging doubts about descriptions that sound suspiciously like directions for special effects make-up, in the end this shapes up to be yet another remarkable contribution to the Barker's growing catalogue.

City Jitters    [****+]
Christopher Fowler
Dell Publishing, $3.50, 0-440-20115-2

More City Jitters       [****+]
Christopher Fowler
Dell Publishing, $3.50, 0-440-20146-2

Blood and Water [****]
Patrick McGrath
Poseidon Press, $15.95

The Selected Stories of
Charles Beaumont        [****]
Roger Anker
Dark Harvest Press, $19.95

With the spectacular success of Barker's Books of Blood, the market for horror anthologies has exploded, as publishers begin to line up their candidates for "the next Clive Barker." While no writers with Barker's eye for poetry and violence have yet surfaced, a number of writers with similar promise but different sensibilities have made their mark. Patrick McGrath, in Blood and Water and Christopher Fowler, in City Jitters and More City Jitters, each establish themselves as possible heirs to their own throne, while Selected Stories of Charles Beaumont from Dark Harvest cements this late writer's place amongst the great influential writers of horror.

The most unusual of these collections is McGrath's Blood and Water. This writer, most of whose pieces were published in "literary" magazines, covers a wide range of genres, from (almost) mystery to (nearly) science fiction, but the gothic sense of justice and retribution are most reminiscent of Poe. Very entertaining, tainted by a pitch-black sense of humor, Blood and Water is highly recommended to those looking for something different but not too strange. Christopher Fowler's City Jitters and More City Jitters also encompass a wide range of genres, but exhibit a "Twilight Zone-like" sense of revenge and the plot twist. The prose is excellent, the stories are fun to read, and the segues between the pieces are also enjoyable. Like Barker's Books of Blood, these books were first published as British paperbacks by Sphere Books, and are now available in the US from Dell Paperbacks--a major debut in a minor arena. And let us not take the name of the "Twilight Zone" in vain without mentioning the must-buy Selected Stories of Charles Beaumont, a writer whose name will be familiar to viewers of that series as the author/and or screenwriter of 22 of the most famous episodes. Beaumont's skill as prose writer alone would make the trip worthwhile, but the introductions by editor Roger Anker, and Dennis Etchison, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Roger Corman and others, tell the uniquely involving story of this writer's brief, tragic life. Top this off with the evocative black and white illustrations of Peter Scanlon and you have the best effort yet by Dark Harvest press, whose products seem to be getting better and better.

Fine Frights    [*****-]
Ramsey Campbell
Tor $3.95, 0-812-51670-2

The Best of The Horror Show:
An Adventure in Terror [*****]
David B. Silva
2 AM Publications, $9.95, 0-937491-05-5

Omnibus anthologies are often a hit-and-miss proposition--some stories are good, some are filler, and some are repeats from other collections. Two anthologies that buck this trend are Ramsey Campbell's Fine Frights: Stories That Scared Me and The Best of the Horror Show. Fine Frights is a case of truth in packaging, with every story a great, several unforgettables, and nary a familiar title in the bunch. "Child's Play" by Villy Sorenson tops the unforgettables, followed closely by Bob Shaw's "Cutting Down," David Case's "The War is Over" and Karl Edward Wagner's "More Sinned Against." Each of these stories will leave the reader stunned for a couple of hours after finishing them. Other notables include a horror story by Philip K. Dick, "Upon the Dull Earth," that ranks as one of his best in any genre, and Thomas Ligotti's very poetic and disturbing "The Greater Festival of Masks." The Best of The Horror Show, edited by David B. Silva, features Robert R. McCammon, Ramsey Campbell, Steve Rasnic Tem and others in short to short-short stories that have never been seen outside of the pages of this great magazine. The length, the variety, and the uniformly high quality of these stories make this a collection no horror fan should miss. If you're looking for swift, deadly fun, either of these anthologies is guaranteed to satisfy.

The Fifth Child [****+]
Doris Lessing
Doubleday, $15.95

Hospital of the Transfiguration [*****-]
Stanislaw Lem
Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, $17.95

One would not expect to see either Doris Lessing or Stanislaw Lem reviewed in a horror column. Both of these writer/philosophers are known for their forays into densely intellectual SF, but strictly speaking, both The Fifth Child and Hospital of the Transfiguration are not genre fiction. They are finely crafted, mainstream novels that lead the reader into a realistic world of emotional terror. In these books, the writers shed their philosophers' shoes, and create easily-read works of art.

Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child is a stripped down look at family life and economic distress in modern day England. The protagonists, Harriet and David, rebel against the hip rebellion of the late sixties, deciding instead to marry young, buy a big house and have large, happy family--until the birth of Ben, the fifth child. For despite the doctor's assurances, despite what her friends and family say, Harriet is certain that he is not completely human. Ben soon becomes a force that helps to tear apart a family already under assault by economic pressures and criticism for their unpopular decision. Lessing theorizes that trolls, gnomes, and evil elves are not fairy tales, but the result of a "throwback gene" that gives birth to what we would now call "born criminals." The unsettling alternatives facing the parents of these creatures are institutionalization or responsibility for the child. There are no stereotypes of horror here--no evil changelings, no elves--but freedom of choice and the responsibility it entails are certainly terrifying enough.

Hospital of the Transfiguration is Stanislaw Lem's first novel, a semi- autobiographical work that is not SF. Because of this, it seemed almost certain to be an inferior work. However, this novel ranks with the best of his SF, and includes many of the same features that make his SF so appealing--the dark humor, the philosophical speculations, and the observations of characters so real that despite cultural differences, they seem like people you know or might meet. How is this a horror novel? It's set in 1939, in Poland, shortly after the Nazi invasion. The protagonist is a doctor who takes up residence in an insane asylum to avoid the spectre of war. Now, if the state of brain surgery in 1939 is not enough to qualify this book for the horror genre, then Nazi executions of helpless inmates certainly are. Needless to say, this book isn't going to be competition for King, Barker, and Straub--but it's every bit as scary.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 6)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 6

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

No Prisoners!

Laurie Sefton

Copyright 1989 by Laurie Sefton

Let's start this out with yet another corollary to rules of good fantasy: Common sense counts.

Common sense is essential to the growth and continued existence of the character. This is not to say that intelligence doesn't count for anything; a minimum amount of intelligence is needed for the system to operate, much less avail themselves of any common sense they might have. However, all the intelligence in the world isn't going to do you much good if you don't know what to do with it. For example, let's say you're the local wizard's apprentice. Actually the local ex-wizard's apprentice, since he's just been done in by the horde at the door.

Now, do you: 1) Run like hell, and get to whomever's in charge? or 2) die valiantly in defense of the ex-wizard, letting those in charge of the place wonder what has happened to you when you don't send the weekly missive?

I think you get the idea.

Crusader's Torch        [****+]
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tor, 459pp, 1988, $18.95

Atta Olivia Clemens wants to do just that. The heroine of Flame of Byzantium having settled in the city of Tyre, now desperately needs to leave. She is caught in the midst of the Crusades. Saladin is in Jerusalem and Richard the Lionhearted and the Pope are planning another attack. Various factions of crusaders and knight are at constant struggle against each other. The Knights Templar always seem to be found in the middle, plotting for their own personal gain.

In the midst of this constant treachery, Olivia struggles to be allowed to return to Rome. She needs the permission of the local magistrate to take her belongings, after the magistrate and his minions get their due, and leave for home. The officials manage to come up with one excuse after another, while artlessly wheedling bribes. As with Flame in Byzantium, the loss of personal freedoms, especially for women, is emphasized. Olivia, who lost the freedom to conduct business on her own while in Byzantium, has lost her freedom to move as she will. The story of the Chatelaine de Fraizmarch, who is sent on a degrading penance by her husband for having the temerity to defend their estate (and win), parallels Olivia's struggle.

Olivia finally leaves Tyre, accompanied by a Knight Hospitaler, Valence Rainaut. In a fatally ironic turn of events, he develops Porphyria, a disease, which in its worst form, causes the victim to be unable to withstand sunlight. His mottled skin causes he and Olivia to be declared lepers, and they must struggle to escape both the edicts of the Church, and the bandits and pirates who patrol the Mediterranean.

The horror of Crusader's Torch doesn't stem from Olivia, the vampire, it comes from the baser aspects of humanity; greed, prejudice, and ignorance. Olivia is one of the few noble figures in the story, she watches as humanity seems bent on committing suicide.

The Dragon Prince       [*****]
Melanie Rawn
DAW, 574pp, 1988, $4.95

The Dragon Prince is an excellent example of common sense in action. The book could have been padded out by at least another 100 pages if the characters acted in the same brick headed manner that seems to be loose in the fantasy genre. Instead, when confronted with a problem, an evil high prince, his equally nasty daughters, or a man killing dragon; the characters do the right thing. This is incredibly refreshing. The Dragon Prince accounted a for a good deal of sleep deprivation during the first week of my vacation. I started it on a cross-country flight, and didn't put it down until it ended.

Rohan, the prince of the title, is thrust into his role as the ruler of the desert kingdom, when his father is killed by the dragon he was hunting. Most of the court are suspicious of Rohan's ability to rule; he is too learned and too quiet to be the successor to his father. However, Rohan proves his worthiness by kiling the dragon who slew his father. He also makes an important discovery; dragon eggshell, when flamed by dragonfire, becomes gold. In a poor kingdom this is the key to power.

Power is also the goal of the Lady of Goddess Keep, the leader of the Sunrunners, who use beams of sunlight and moonlight to communicate and see from afar. She brings Sioned to be Rohan's bride. Sioned is no fainting flower of generic fantasy. She is smart, opinionated, and decisive. She also a has streak of vengance in her that is used quiet handily against the high prince's daughters. Sioned is the perfect foil for a prince who might become a little too aware of himself.

The high prince would rather that Sioned and Rohan not be wed. He is interested in the desert lands and what treasure they might hold. The high prince attempts to seduce Rohan, rape Sioned, and when those fail, assassinate the prince and attack the kingdom. All fail due to Rohan, Sioned and the rest of the court realizing what is happening before it all gets out of hand. There's plenty of suspense involved, but none of the convoluted nonsense seen all too often in fantasy.

The Dragon Prince is an excellent beginning in what should be one of the best fantasy series yet.

Oath of Gold    [*****]
Elizabeth Moon
Baen, 501pp, 1989, $3.95

Oath of Gold is the final book in The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, which is one of the finest, ground breaking series to come along in years. The series is one of the few I have seen that has been recommended across a number of groups; I recently found glowing reviews of it in a women's BBS.

Paksenarrion is as competent and resourceful as ever. Those of you who read Divided Allegiance (and those of you who didn't, go out and buy the book now.) know that at the end of it, Paks (as she is called) had been mentally assaulted by the dark elves, and to save her live, the Girdsmen had to remove that part of her mind that made her fearless. Many other books would have left Paks this a way a goodly portion into the third book, only to be magically put back together for the finale. Paks, however, is helped to become whole fairly early on in the book. Note I said helped; Paks does a lot of the healing herself. And while she isn't returned to her previous state of fearlessness, she is now tempered with the knowledge of how the average person feels in battle. Not a soldier, but a person; defenseless, alone, and afraid.

The Oath of Gold refers to Paksenarrion's quest to find and return the rightful king of Lyonya, a kingdom ruled jointly by humans and elves. The crown prince of Lyonya was allegedly murdered some 50 years before, and when it is found that he is alive, and the heir to the throne, Paks must find him before the kingdom is torn apart. While in her quest, an after she finds the prince, she a beset by those who want the kingdom to fall, as well as those who have personal vendettas with Paks. A note to the reader: there is a fairly nasty and graphic torture sequence in the book. And it is very nasty; Moon has an ability to take ideas that are presented as something fairly normal and benign in the fantasy world, and let the gritty reality of it show through.

Paksenarrion manages to overcome all the obstacles in front of her, and Oath of Gold is satisfying ending to a superb series. I would recommend this series as a perfect entrance into fantasy.

The Dragonbone Chair    [****+]
Tad Williams
DAW, 654pp, 1988, $19.95

Tad Williams is known for the bestseller, Tailchaser's Song. He proves that this is not the only great book he had in him with The Dragonbone Chair.

The land of the Dragonbone chair, Osten Ard, combines both Arthurian, Nordic and Celtic elements. Prester John, the High King in Osten Ard, and the rightful heir to the throne, Josua Lackhand, must defer the kingdom to his brother Elias. Josua lost his hand, and Elias his wife, at the same time. Much is hinted about the event; it's known that Josua loved Elias's wife, but not much more is said.

The main character of the piece is Simon, a servant boy, and apprentice to Morgenes the wizard. Morgenes is one of the League of the Scroll, magicians who are pledged to see that right is done. And with the passing of Prester John, and the descent into evil of Elias, there is much to be done if the kingdom is to be saved from the Sithi. Oh yes, the Sithi. The Sithi are the elvenfolk who originally inhabited the castle and kingdom of Prester John. Ever since their defeat, hundreds of years before, an off-shoot of the elves have worked to get their kingdom back. With Prester John dead, and a malleable Elias in their hands, the time is ripe for their revenge.

Only Simon, and Binabik, the snow troll, can keep this from happening These two have some of the pieces pointing to what the Sithi, and their northern cousins, the Norns are planning, and what is needed to stop them.

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the various plots and subplots in ths book. Tad Williams has created a vibrant, breathing world, complete in all phases. Everyone is represented here; from kings to dukes, to wizards and clerics to servants and peasants. And they all are affected by the events. This is rare in a genre where the peasants and servants are only there to mop up after the great and glorious battles of the nobles and royals.

This is also the first time I have seen trolls shown in a good light. One would almost suspect that the bad reputation that the trolls have is due to their prgamatism, their convoluted manner of speaking, and bad public relations in general.

The Dragonbone Chair is not an easy read. Give yourself a lot of quiet, uninterrupted time, and you'll find yourself enveloped in a beautifully wrought work.

Dragonsdawn     [****]
Anne McCaffrey
Del Rey, 431pp, 1988, $18.95

Speaking of dragons, Anne McCaffrey has finally written the prequel to the Pern adventures. Dragonsdawn is the story of how the Pern colony evolved into the world of Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and the rest of the Pern series. The earlier Pern books have straddled the line between science fiction and fantasy; the telepathic dragons are SF, while the medieval society harkens to fantasy. This book is pure science fiction; the dragons are there, while the setting is definitely in a science fiction mileu. The settlers of Pern are those who survived, and never want to return to, an advanced, scientific society recently ravaged by war. Among the settlers are Emily Boll and Paul Benden. Benden is the former admiral in the war, a known a respected war hero. Emily Boll is the former governor of a major palent settlement. More familiar names appear, and it happens that some holds on Pern were named for less than admirable reasons.

However, with strong and charismatic leadership, combined with life threatening situations, it's not surprising that the people of Pern developed a quasi-feudal system of government. The complete change in societal structures isn't shown here, just the tantalizing beginnings.

Back to the dragons. The beginnings of the dragons, as well as the watch- whers, are given. The dragons are a mixture of some very sophisticated genetic engineering, as well as augmentation of what their progenitors already had. The reasons for leaving the southern hemisphere become clear, as well as a number of small points that appeared in the earlier Pern books. However, a number of new niggling points are created. Telepathic dolphins came with the settlers of Pern, and they appear in a number of spots, just to disappear about two-thirds of the way through the book. This is the same point as when the dragons suddenly become important to the plot. This, and other points of interest beg for a sequel, just to explain what happened and what happens next.

All in all, Dragonsdawn is a good companion to the rest of the Pern series.

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 7)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 7

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Scattered Gold

Charles de Lint

Copyright 1989 by Charles de Lint

Installment #6: In which we consider some more high-ranked books.

David M. Shea makes a good point in his letter last issue and Chuq answers it well. What I'd like to add is merely a repetition of what I said when we first set out on this column a few issues ago and that is that I prefer to concentrate on material I like, as opposed to cutting apart the bad books.

The latter course is too easy andI'd rather spend my time reading good material instead of plowing through the bad. Like Chuq, I won't review something I haven't read all the way through (unless I point out that fact in the review) and when a book's going badly, I just don't have the inclination or time to spend in its pages. For every book you see in this column, there's four or five others that I've read or started that, for one reason or another, don't get discussed here.

The Last Coin   [*****]
James P. Blaylock
Ace Books, November 1988; 328pp, 0-441-11381-8

Having a personal fondness for the Southern California beach town Seal Beach, the setting for James Blaylock's new novel The Last Coin, I have to admit that I went into this book already anticipating a good read. Being enamored with Blaylock's storytelling ability and his deft hand with a good turn of phrase, didn't hurt either, I suppose, but I digress. Let me tell you about the book itself.

The main character Andrew Vanbergen, for all his quirkiness and foibles, is a true Everyman. His strengths are his innocence and his good heart; his major weakness is his inability to take responsibility for the most simple of errors, compounding the initial problem with excuses and convoluted lies that would do proud Basil Fawlty (the hotel owner that John Cleese played so effectively in the British TV series Fawlty Towers).

Vanbergen and his wife Rose are in the midst of setting up a hotel and cafe in Seal Beach, aided and plotted against by as entertaining a cast of characters as you're likely to meet in a novel. There's Aunt Naomi, bedridden in the attic and surrounded by her cats; Uncle Arthur, at once wise and mad; Vanbergen's friend Beams Pickett who sees a conspiracy in the most innocuous event; the mysterious Pennyman whose every move seems calculated to distress Vanbergen.

There's a very real sense of place present as well, from interiors of the inn, the cafe, and Vanbergen's garage where any amount of plotting goes on, to the town of Seal Beach itself. Its streets and beachfront, the old pier, the Naval Station nearby and Leisure World, the old folk's home--they're all brought vividly to life.

Complexities, real and imagined, abound wherever Vanbergen treads, perfectly suiting a Blaylock book where the plot doesn't so much unfold as unravel in a hundred directions, all at once, like a knitting bag spilling out a half dozen balls of yarn. In this case we learn of the real import behind the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas, of pigs carrying magical spoons in their mouths and flocks of parrots with cavalry instincts, of the magical importance of carp and of coin magic, as opposed to coin tricks. The Wandering Jew is explained, but far more is left mysterious and secret--as well it should be.

For the strength of Blaylock's work isn't simply the whimsical characters nor the delightful prose. It lies instead in an underlying theme that has pervaded most of his writing to date: Everything that exists can have more than one meaning. There's the natural, sensible meaning, but settled side by side with it could be any number of complexities and moments of wonder. Simply by having us consider the possible existence of these other levels of meaning, Blaylock allows us to see the mundane world through new eyes, to perceive the familiar as strange, and therefore fascinating--for what it is as well as for what it might be.

The Last Coin is an utterly charming book. Under its madcap carryings-on lies one of Blaylock's most solid plots to date--almost everything is connected in the tradition of the best conspiracy paranoias. And the characters--particularly with the development of Vanbergen, the Everyman who slowly realizes his part in the scheme of the universe--while painted in broad strokes, also contain in their makeup all the small idiosyncrasies that a real person would, making them very satisfying to have met.

I had thought with the publication of Land of Dreams (Arbor House, 1987) that we had been given the quintessential Blaylock book, but I was wrong. Blaylock, while retaining his own distinctive style, has far more tricks up his sleeve than the average writer, and I don't doubt that he will continue to surprise, and charm, his readers with each new book for many more years to come.

Walkabout Woman [****+] Michaela Roessner Spectra/Bantam, September 1988; 276pp; $3.95, 0-553-27545-3

Michaela Roessner's Walkabout Woman has got it all: clean, lyric prose; a fascinating "alien" setting juxtaposed with a contemporary one; and a guise of Mystery not often seen before.

To be more specific, the story centers around a young Aborigine named Raba who is training to become a wuradilagu, a healing woman expert in woman's magic. The first half of the novel follows her growth both as a practitioner of a native Australian "Way" and as a child becoming a young woman. Roessner has done an admirable job of depicting Aborigine life in the forties and fifties. She mixes pathos with charm and deftly portrays the simplicity of a people who are-- if one looks at them through their own eyes rather than that of a "white-fella's"-- far more complex than surface appearances might allow.

(I refer you to a quote from one Stanley Garn: "If the Aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it." )

The second half of the book picks up Raba's life some fifteen years after a climactic occurrence in her teens (and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is--read the book and enjoy the discovery of it all for yourself). By this point, Raba has been denying her Aborigine past, but now the Dreamtime is impinging on her comfortable new world with frightening results. Only a young Welsh witch can help her, but she appears as though she might have some questionable designs of her own.

There is power in Roessner's prose and a simplicity that's as beguiling and deceptive as that of her subjects themselves. And like the Dreamtime of the Aborigines, there's a gritty sense of truth underlying what is still, at heart, a fantasy novel.

I must tell you as well that there's a certain Romanticism involved in this book- -not related to Harlequin et al, but rather to a worldview that allows the possibility of a magical occurrence that, in this otherworld, could make right a wrong; an occurrence that, unfortunately, won't come about in our own world. However, this doesn't lesson the book's impact, nor what we can learn from it. What it does do is provide the reader with a thoughtful, as well as entertaining read, and allows the epilogue to acquire a poignancy that's both uplifting for how things work out in this otherworld, and a sadness that it won't do so in this one.

Twice Upon a Time       [****]
Allen Appel
Carroll & Graf, 1988; 351pp; $18.95, 0-88184-384-9

Allen Appel's Twice Upon A Time is for those of you who are tired of time travel books in which everyone's trying desperately not to mess up the past. It's for those of you who want someone to try to set right some past wrong for a change, because to do anything else would be immoral.

Appel is the author of Time After Time--not the movie that came out a few years ago, apparently, but a novel set in revolutionary Russia that first introduced the character of Alex Balfour, a member of a family who can inadvertently travel back through time. This is an ability that has its drawbacks as a return trip isn't guaranteed.

In this new novel Balfour is drawn back to the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876. There he becomes involved with the rescue of a pair of Indians, eventually setting off on a voyage across the Western frontier with the Indians, a black man and Mark Twain as his companions. Balfour has decided to attempt to stop the Little Big Horn massacre--believing that it was this particular incident that fanned the white hatred for Indians to the extremities from which our present-day Native People have yet to recover.

Meanwhile (as they say), his lover Molly Glenn is still in our time, covering a story for the New York Times that also deals with Native People: the possible beginning of a new uprising that could have connections with Crazy Horse's slaughter of the Custer and his men exactly one hundred years ago.

Over the course of the novel both Balfour and Glenn (and thereby the readers) are presented with some hard facts about racism, past and present, against black and Native. This alone, if it makes people think and remain aware of a problem that is still far too prevalent, would make Twice Upon A Time well worth reading. It's obvious that Appel has done his research from how he presents Native Americans' struggles in each time period.

But it's also an entertaining adventure novel; a finely-tuned and well-considered time travel story; and a well-written piece of fictional craft that includes some sharp insights into how the human mind and heart work--both in times past and the present. And there's also the fun of "hanging out" (you'll understand the emphasis I put on that phrase when you've read the book) with a character like Twain-- someone who I, having grown up on his books, would love to have met.

Roofworld        [***+]
Christopher Fowler
Ballantine, September 1988; 333pp; $7.95, 0-345-35701-9

UK author Christopher Fowler's Roofworld works on a neat premise: what if there was a whole society that lives up on the rooftops of London? Squatters, who travel by night from building to building utilizing special harnesses and cables to bridge the gaps made by the streets, or following certain permanent "runs" that criss-cross the city. They could remain undetected for years for how many people really take the time to look up?

Scriptwriter Robert Linden and amateur photographer Rose Leonard end up doing just that, he in search of the author of a book he wants to acquire for his film production company, she out taking photographs one night and happening upon a band of the rooftop dwellers on one of their cross-city runs. The pair get caught up in a war between two rooftop factions, a war that soon has murdered bodies showing up on street level with ever-increasing frequency.

Fowler's the author of a couple of short story collections and some non- fiction. For his first time out at novel length he's done a fine job. His prose is clean--even inspired at times; his characters are warmly portrayed and a likable group; his ideas are intriguing and well-thought out; and he conveys a good sense of the city of London--from both its rooftop and street level views.

The only real problem with the book lies in parts of the storyline itself where we find some awkward plotting. The sections from the police's point-of-view are fine until we reach the end where the main character we've followed for large portions of the book ends up having nothing to do with the finale. Instead, one of his colleagues--barely on stage before--is pulled out of the hat and plays a sudden pivotal role.

Some of the scene shifts are awkward as well, but the other main plotting problem comes with the character of Chymes who heads up the bad guys. Although revelations are promised, we never really learn anything about him and one's left at the end to feel as though there's a sequel coming, which would be unfortunate, as I, at least, would prefer to see Fowler utilize his delightful sense of prose and speculations on a fresh subject, rather than rehashing an old one.

If I seem a little harsh discussing those plotting elements, it's only because the book began with such promise that I really wanted it to be fabulous all the way through. As it is, it's still a fine read and I hope you'll try it. I've already ordered a copy of his short story collection City Jitters from my local bookshop and will be watching for more of his work in the future.

(Late date addendum: The above review was written before the World Fantasy Convention in London where I had a chance to talk to Fowler and discover, to my horror, that the American edition is three chapters shorter than the UK one-- fantasy elements were taken out, but also the ending was changed. I haven't had the chance to read the original version, so my review of the Ballantine book stands as above, but I urge you to seek out the UK version if you're at all interested in reading this book. Given some time, I will be doing the same.)

Someplace Strange       [****]
Ann Nocenti & John Bolton
Epic Graphic Novel, 1988; 64pp; $6.95, 0-87135-439-X

Ann Nocenti & John Bolton's Someplace Strange proves that a good contemporary fantasy can be found in any medium. It's not necessarily usual-- especially when one considers the comic book field which certainly isn't the place we're going to regularly find either good writing or fresh ideas--but it does happen.

So what's it about?

Basically it's an exploration of consensual reality. It has the feel of Jonathan Carroll's Bones of the Moon, with dashes of Blaylock and that other Carroll-- Lewis. But while the dialogue is very good, what makes Someplace Strange so enchanting is Bolton's artwork--a wonderful combination of realism and surrealism. Bolton appears to have used a number of mediums to achieve his desired effects--again something not necessarily commonplace in the comics field--and the overall effect is very effective.

When the art's put together with Nocenti's delightfully witty script, it is, indeed, a time to "get scared, get dizzy, get up, get wild/time for razzmatazz and soft shoe shuffle...."

You don't have to be a comic book fan to like this one. In fact, it would probably help if you weren't, so check it out.

Due to new space considerations for OtherRealms, this column is, and will continue to be, somewhat shorter than it has been. I don't cover as many books this time around because the column was mostly written beforehand, so I edited it by chopping off reviews of books by Holt, Vinge, Wilhelm and DiSilvestro. They might appear next time, in shortened form. And in fact, most of the reviews will be shorter.

My question to you, as the readers, is do you want a larger number of short reviews, or fewer reviews, but longer ones? Do write in to the magazine's letter column so that I can get an idea as to what you would prefer to see.

Until again....

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 8)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 8

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Much Rejoicing

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Copyright 1989 by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

Episode 8: Special All-Nice Installment

If you can't say something nice about somebody,
don't say anything at all. --the generic mother

Reviewing is not an objective business.

You read books, react to them, and articulate your reactions so that others can make an informed decision as to whether or not they'd be likely to enjoy those books.

But we all have blind spots. There are writers I simply can't stand; but people whose taste I respect praise these writers to the stars. And there are writers that, in my eyes, can damn near do no wrong.

One of the latter is Harlan Ellison. You've been warned.

Angry Candy
Harlan Ellison
Houghton Mifflin, 0-395-48307-7, $18.95

Friends and neighbors, Ellison has a new collection of short stories out, Angry Candy, and it's scrum-dilly-icious. Each of these stories is a raw blast of pure emotion, dramatized and set down in black and white to remind you that the world is full of folks like you, who laugh, cry, hurt, bleed, and love.

Ellison hammers his theme in again and again, the one he's been hammering for a couple of decades, the cliche that can never be repeated often enough: "You are not alone." He's also derived some corollaries about the responsibilities accruing to a not-alone being. Frankly, I don't think there's anything better a short story can do.

Go get this book, even if you have to test-drive a car to do it.

Writing Science Fiction
Christopher Evans
St. Martin's Press, 0-312-01849-5

Fair warning: if you aren't interested in becoming a writer, skip this section.

Okay, I presume the rest of you are?

Good. Now I'll tell you something you already knew: you can't learn how to write from a book.

There are a books on writing out there, most of them published by Writer's Digest but none of them is going to make you a writer. The only way to do that is write.

Still, there are some of them that can teach you how to avoid some of the dumber things new writers do. Books like John Gardner's The Art of Fiction, or Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

Which brings me to Christopher Evans's book Writing Science Fiction. This is the first book specifically for the would-be science fiction writer that I can praise wholeheartedly. Like the Strunk and White, it's thin, but densely packed. Like the Gardner, it covers adequately what can be told and tells you that it can't tell you the rest.

It isn't perfect. There are topics that Evans might have covered in more detail--such as the business side of writing--but these are covered in other places. Evans doesn't have anything really new to say about writing; but he gives it all the right spin for writing SF.

In short, if you are born to be a writer (and not, say, a sewer guard or a professor of biochemistry), then Writing Science Fiction is as likely as any other book I've seen to get you over the hump. If not, nothing will.

The Brothel In Rosenstrasse
Michael Moorcock
Carroll & Graf, 0-88184-406-3, $6.95

Carroll & Graf, whom I've praised before for bringing the finest works of the '70s back into print, are still breaking rules. Hasn't anyone ever told these people that good taste is a sure way to go bankrupt?

Now they've gone and brought out Michael Moorcock's The Brothel In Rosenstrasse, a "novel of decadence" set in Waldenstein near the end of the last century.

If Waldenstein doesn't sound familiar, don't worry. There's no reason it should. It's just one of many tiny European countries that disappeared during the period from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I, squashed between the Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

The hero, von Bek, is a remittance man, a noble son paid by the family to stay away from the ancestral grounds. He has seduced--or been seduced by?--the very young daughter of a fine family of Waldenstein, Alexandra. At first, the novel seems to be about their erotic adventures, both in and out of the titular Brothel.

But ever-present entropy sets in; Waldenstein is wracked by rebellion and its lovely capital is laid under siege. Beauty is destroyed. Nobles take up residence in a brothel. Innocence corrupts first itself and then corruption. As the city walls collapse, love is lost...or betrayed.

The whole is told in some of Moorcock's finest writing, language for which you could cry or die. Von Bek tells his own story, from his deathbed, years later. The language allows the story to blend, sometimes imperceptibly, with his thoughts on his final circumstances, and his relationship to a strange, sullen, and grouchy manservant. The relationship reflects young von Bek's relationship with Alexandra, and the whole makes a strong comment on faith and betrayal in human relationships.

Recommended reading, but not for everybody.

To Warm The Earth
David Belden
Signet SF, 0-451-15485-1, $3.95

About a year back, I praised David Belden's first novel, Children of Arable. His second novel is out, now, and it's a sequel. (I hear the "uh-oh" chorus. Yeah, I worry about sequelitis, too.)

To Warm The Earth is not, however, a direct sequel. It takes place in the same universe, but a generation later and with a different cast.

Belden starts with some strikes against him: he introduces major characters more than halfway through the book; he slips occasionally between past and present tense for no discernible purpose; and he's writing a goddess-worship religion. There's nothing wrong with this last, but it's extremely au courant, almost as cliche at this point as the Celtic milieu for adventure fantasy.

But there's good stuff, too. In Children, Belden created a human-hegemony Universe large enough to warrant further exploration; here, he explores corners of it not touched before. Particularly Earth.

Earth is struggling through a new ice age, brought on by what the inhabitants call the "New Clear Winter." They practice magic and religious ritual to hasten the end of the ice age and the return of summer.

One old priestess, however, has a plan to hurry the natural processes along. Her fellows think she's crazy; her own chosen successor doesn't believe in her; but she knows the plan can work.

There are numerous marvellous scenes, here. The heroine finds herself trying to introduce pagan rituals into a sanity-and-sanitation-oriented space station society, and the conflicts that arise from it swing wildly from funny to touching.

To Warm The Earth may never find its proper audience. It's packaged to look like a space-going romance novel, and I've seen it stuffed in with the gothics in the supermarket. But hell, at least it made it to the supermarket...

Mona Lisa Overdrive
William Gibson
Bantam, 0-553-05250-0, $17.95

If you care that William Gibson has a new novel, you've probably either already bought Mona Lisa Overdrive or decided to wait for the paperback. But just in case you're sitting on the fence....

The good news and the bad news are both "it's more of the same." It's set once again in the "Sprawl" future of Neuromancer and Count Zero. While we might have hoped that Gibson would turn to something new, it's hard to complain: he's still growing as a writer, and MLO is better than its predecessors..

It has flaws in common with them, though. In particular, it's hard to identify with Gibson's protagonists; he succeeds in making them so realistically gritty that they don't make easy fantasy-identification figures.

But for readers who don't always want easy fantasy-identification figures, it's worth the effort. Gibson has a sense of plot that won't quit; the four plot threads of MLO tie together much more neatly and less artificially than the three of Count Zero. He's achieved a control of language found only in a few writers--Vance, Bester, Delany--and uses it as a precision tool. Also, we find out what happened to Case after the Straylight run, though the answer won't please the hacker-ethic cyberbabies out there.

Because there are so many plot threads, it's hard to give a sense of what Mona Lisa Overdrive is about. The four plot threads begin like this: a warped artist is pressured into receiving a very strange guest; the daughter of a Yakuza leader is sent to England for protection; a penny-ante whore is offered the seeming chance of a lifetime; and the biggest media star on Earth returns from drug rehab to commune with the loas.

Yes, those all tie together. Don't ask how--it would be telling.

Other Americas
Norman Spinrad
Bantam 0-553-27214-4, $3.95

If you haven't read the Full Spectrum anthology, go get a copy; it contains two masterpieces, Fred Bals' "Once in a Lullabye" and Norman Spinrad's "Journals of the Plague Years," which if it doesn't win every award this field has available for 1988, there just plain ain't no justice left anywhere.

Spinrad is another of those writers like Ellison who make my jaw drop and my typing fingers wither with envy. I'd kill three close relatives to be able to write things like Bug Jack Barron, The Men in the Jungle, Riding the Torch, or last year's Little Heroes--all novels that have been unconscionably ignored by the American public.

But, ignored though his novels may be, Spinrad's short work is even less well-known. His novels are like riding the world's biggest roller-coaster, in near darkness, without a seatbelt: you go up and down at incredible speeds and sometimes the world turns upside down, and occasionally you lose your lunch. But his short work, especially in the novella length, is like one of those huge waterslides: one long, fast ride, one slope down (though with bumps in it), an immense splash when you get to the bottom. And you're always afraid some joker will pull the plug out of the pool.

Spectra Books has collected four of Spinrad's finest novellas into a nifty book called Other Americas. They are:

% an all-too-believable future New York, where one mistake or one bad break can put you on the street, fighting for a subway to sleep in and subsisting on "people kibble";

% an uproariously funny "final solution" to the world's
terrorism problem, agreed on in principle and action by a
dead Soviet Premier and a satyrized American President;

% a haunting and touching glimpse of post-Space Age America,
the "lost continent" ; and

% the final attempt of the Reaganista CIA to co-opt exiled
dissident writer Norman Spinrad.

Spinrad has a talent for making, if not happy, at least positive, endings come out of impossible situations. All these stories cast light on what the American dream is really about. All will leave you feeling a little bit better about being human.

Autumn Angels
Arthur Byron Cover
Pyramid SF, 0-515-03787-7, $1.25

Closet Classic: Science Fiction, like rock and roll, is a safe harbor for a largish number of looneytunes--people like Robert (Mindswap) Sheckley, Douglas (Hitchhiker's Guide) Adams, and Damien (Striped Holes) Broderick. (That last is a new writer, and if you haven't seen Striped Holes, it's very silly. Trust me.) I don't know if it's because SF readers are an accepting lot, or if maybe we're just a bunch of looneytunes ourselves.

But in the '70s, looneytunehood reached what may have been its all-time peak with the advent of one Arthur Byron Cover. He burst on the publishing world, like unto a wet raspberry, with a book called Autumn Angels, and there has never been anything like Autumn Angels before or since.

Imagine the far future. No, not that: the far, far future. Mankind's problems are all solved; we have become something better, Godlike Humanity, able to bring anything we wish into existence by wishing for it, and getting rid of anything we don't like by wishing it into the anti-matter universe.

Alas, though, godlike humanity has no imagination. Rather than rushing off boldly to go where no godlike man has gone before, they adopt roles and live lives of drab sameness for millennia.

This is the situation when the fat man, the demon, and the lawyer decide to get godlike humanity moving again. What does godlike humanity lack that mere humans had?

Depression.

So Autumn Angels is the story of three crazies out to depress the entire godlike human race.

But wait! There's more!

Because every character in the book is a Reference. The fat man, for example, is Sidney Greenstreet. The lawyer is Doc Savage's aid, "Ham."

If you've read John Myers Myers's Silverlock, you know the pleasant game of guessing at the references in a book of this type. Silverlock, however, was a hifalutin tome about litterchure. Autumn Angels is about nothing but itself; further, you don't have to read a buncha litterchure to get the references. They're all from pop culture--like the Big Red Cheese, or the Insidious Oriental Doctor.

Unless Pyramid reissues it, you may have a task finding this one. But make the effort. Read it and weep--tears of laughter.

Mentioned in passing and recommended:

The Art Of Fiction, John Gardner Full Spectrum, Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy, eds. The Elements Of Style, Benjamin Strunk and E.B. White The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas R. Adams Mindswap, Robert Sheckley Striped Holes, Damien Broderick

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 9)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 9

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Words of Wizdom

Chuq Von Rospach

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach

It's strange how things work sometimes. While I was working on Reviewing the Reviewers (elsewhere this issue), a couple of people dropped me mail on the networks complaining that I've been giving too high a rating to books that were merely entertainment. Merely is their word, and the one word both messages had in common, by the way. And at Worldcon, I was on a panel with David Hartwell. On the panel, he said something that still has me dumbfounded.

He claimed, with all seriousness, that publishing shouldn't be putting out all these new books every month. He proposed, instead, that publishers should put "the classics" back in print and only publish those few books each year that would join the ranks of the classics and have appropriate literary merit. He also opined, much to my amusement, that OtherRealms was wrong for emphasizing reviewing instead of literary criticism like the New York Review of Science Fiction (which he is involved in).

I spent most of that panel somewhere between dumbfounded and amused-- primarily trying to not giggle out loud at him. The problems his viewpoint brings up are so immense I can't see how someone as well respected in the industry can miss them.

He's built a Ghetto. He has declared that literary science fiction is the only important science fiction, and therefore the only fiction worth publishing. This argument sounds suspiciously like the arguments the mainstream literati toss at all of science fiction, if you think about it. Ghettoes within ghettos.

The problems with his approach are numerous. One obvious problem is that classic works are rarely declared by foresight. Shakespeare, to name just one writer, was a popular writer of his times and disliked by the literati of his day. The same with Dickens. Under Hartwell's plan, we'd have neither today. Who would we have? The writers the literati at that time, for the most part, have melted into the dust.

Great writing is not promoted, it survives the times and proves its worth. Trying to pre-define the term 'classic' and only publishing what fits your view of that term is nothing more than literary censorship. It's an attempt to coerce the readers into reading what you want them to, nothing more.

Another problem with his beliefs comes from publishing only those works "of literary worth." It makes an implicit assumption that great written works spring forth from the brow of great writers, or some such, and that these writers either don't need time to develop their skills or shouldn't get paid for it. Until you actually do write that classic, you're on your own. How many writers are going to practice for ten or twenty years hoping that someday they'll sell that one, classic book?

Finally, to what I think is the crux of the matter. Entertainment. Hartwell wants all of us to read important books about important things. Unfortunately (for him) these important writers (the Lem's, the Ballard's, the Wolfe's, et al) don't sell nearly as well as the 'trash' writers like Asimov and Anthony. The thinking of the literati is clear here--get rid of the trash, and those readers will read the writer's we think ought to be read.

In reality, get rid of the 'trash' writers, and lots of people will stop reading. The literati do not wish to admit that there are many of us--and I place myself firmly in this category--who read because we enjoy it, because we like being entertained, because it's fun.

The literati would like us to read what they want us to read. Me, I'd rather read what I want to read, and help people find what they'll enjoy reading. Literary criticism? I'll leave it to someone else. I'm too busy enjoying myself to worry about whether my tie is crooked.

So let's let our hair down and look at some Good Stuff. Literati need not apply. It may be mind candy, but it won't cause cavities.

Spirits of Cavern and Hearth [***]
M. Coleman Easton
St. Martin's Press, 288pp, $16.95

Spirits of Cavern and Hearth (featured this month with a Behind the Scenes article) is Easton's first hardcover. It's an interesting Fantasy about two cultures in conflict. More than that, though, it's a look at the people in the middle of the conflict.

People are Easton's strength, and he creates a number of fascinating ones here--Yarkol Dolmi, kicked out of his tribe after an illness that leaves him soul- stricken; the Kag, leader of the other tribe, also soul-stricken, but in his culture, this is seen as a sign from the Gods that this person is to lead; Takijaly, the Kag's shaman, who tries to moderate the Kag's zealous lack of caution while guiding him to the clan's future.

The land they populate, however, is not as vivid. After finishing the book, I realized that while the characters were distinct and interesting, I couldn't remember much about the world itself--as though the the carefully-crafted characters were placed down upon a world painted in weak watercolors. The plot of the book is fairly standard--Yarkol, alone and cast out by his clan, single- handedly tries to create peace between his clan and the Kag while coming to grips with his illness. The Kag, God-touched, is leading his people to their destiny, while ignoring the hazards on the path he's chosen; the Shaman trying to keep everything from blowing up in their faces, willing to do anything or use anyone to protect his people.

The characterization keeps this from falling into stereotypes, but the plot is predictable and readers of Fantasy won't find much in the way of unusual concepts or unexpected twists. It's a good, enjoyable, entertaining Fantasy.

Angry Candy [****]
Harlan Ellison
Houghton Mifflin, 324pp, $18.95, 0-395-48307-7

Angry Candy is Harlan Ellison's first new collection in years. It includes a wide range of pieces from sources and diverse as Galaxy and Omni to Gallery and Shayol. The works collected were published between 1980 and 1986, except for "The Region Between," which originally came out in 1969.

Ellison is one of those authors you either love or hate. This volume won't change your mind--people who read Ellison will find a volume of well written, emotionally powerful stories that will keep you up late into the night; people who don't like Ellison will find another collection of stories that reinforce why they don't like him.

Ellison challenges the reader, forcing them to join him in the story and making them react along with the characters. He's a master of the English language, and Angry Candy shows what you can do with words when you're completely in control of them. This is another strong collection of fiction, and if you're looking for good fiction, Angry Candy is highly recommended.

Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, Issue 1 [***+] Pulphouse Publishing, 267pp, $17.95, no ISBN

Pulphouse is a new twist on an old concept--the magazine-published-as-book. In this case, the people from Pulphouse Press (Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rush) are putting together a limited edition (1,000 copy) hardcover magazine. The first issue is a horror issue and includes stories by many of the big names of the field: Ed Bryant, Kate Wilhelm, Ron Goulart, Harlan Ellison, Jack Williamson, Michael Bishop and many others.

Taken as an original anthology series, which is what it really is, it's a strong, successful debut. Pulphouse is full of well written, innovative and occasionally experimental fiction. The fiction is housed in a beautifully designed and produced hardcover book--nice enough to use as a gift for someone special, or to keep in a prominent place in your shelves. Pulphouse has no ISBN, and is a specialty item, so you're going to have to find it through a specialty story or directly from the Publisher (Pulphouse Publishing is at Box 1227, Eugene, OR 97440). It's more than worth the hassle, and if future editions hold out the promise this volume shows (the list of authors that have sold to Pulphouse makes me think it will) you're going to want to put this series on your buy list as long as they decide to publish it.

The Dragon Never Sleeps [****]
Glen Cook
Questar, 422pp, $3.95, 0-445-20349-8.

One of the things I do to keep from falling into reading ruts is to make every fifth book I pick up something by someone I've never read before. Sometimes I run into pure schlock. Occasionally, however, you run into something really good, which makes all the bad books more than worth it.

The Dragon Never Sleeps, by Glen Cook, is one of those books. It's Space Opera on a grand scale. While it isn't Cook's first novel, it's the first time I've run into him, and after reading it I'm sorry I didn't try him sooner.

Canon space is the part of the galaxy populated by humans. It is maintained and controlled by the Guardships--huge interstellar ships that travel from system to system, cleaning up trouble and protecting Canon space both from outsiders and from itself. The Guardships, even though they're the protectors of Canon space, are completely separate from the culture and are generally feared (with reason).

What Cook does here is take about half a dozen major plotlines and many different points of view and weave a complex tapestry that will almost make you want to take notes to keep it all straight. Cook does keep it straight, and without a stumble, ties it all together into a single, massive crisis and the following society- changing climax.

Reading The Dragon Never Sleeps was a real joy. I could only think that it was the kind of story Doc Smith would be writing if he were around today. It is very much cut from the classic Space Opera cloth, but is a modern, well-written story that will please any reader of Science Fiction. Highly recommended.

Alternities [***+]
Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Ace, 383pp, October, 1988, $3.95,0-441-01774-6

Another new author for me is Michael P. Kube-McDowell. His new book, Alternities, takes the standard SF theme of alternate universes and puts a new twist on it. If you take a number of discrete, unique alternities and set up a controlled access path between them, the alternity that discovers and controls the path has a strong advantage over both its enemies and the other Alternities.

The prime alternity is a United States turned isolationist after the fatal plane crash of Dwight Eisenhower. As a result, The Soviet Union controls most of the world. The current President has had enough of this, and plans to use alternity- based technology to beat the Communists back.

Taking out the SF elements, this book is a suspense novel, as the President and the Russians go nose to nose waiting for one or the other to blink. There are a number of sub-plots on the various alternities. The primary belongs to Rayne Wallace, a runner between alternities. His home-life not working, he gets involved with a woman on another alternity that he left behind before, looking to go back and undo his past mistakes in another reality. The after-affects of his actions come back to bring the home alternity down around the ears of the President at the climax of the book.

Alternities is a really strong, powerful, well-written book, and definitely worth reading. Highly recommended.

Cities of the Dead [***+] Michael Paine Charter Horror, October, 1988, 246pp, $3.50, 1-55773-009-1

My third new writer this issue is Michael Paine. His first novel, Cities of the Dead, is a horror novel set in early 1900's Egypt. It's reminiscent of Song of Kali, in that the horror is not supernatural but built up from the situation and society. Howard Carter is an antiquities expert from England, formerly of the Antiquities department and now 'freelancing' as a guide and middleman.

A market has turned up in mummies. Nobody can figure out where they're coming from, but Carter starts looking for the source. What he finds, and the vividness that Carter displays the time period in, create a book that generates no sudden chills or horrors, but builds to a strong, satisfying climax.

Deep Quarry     [***]
John E. Stith
Ace, February, 1989, 140pp, $3.50, 0-441-14276-1

My final 'discovery' this time is John E. Stith. His latest is Deep Quarry, a mystery set in a science fiction domain. Ben Takent is a private investigator on the planet Tankur, which is about as close to Hell as any person might want to come. During the day, it's broiling. Since the sun never sets, night's not an issue. He's hired by Kate Dunlet, who's heading up an archaeological dig of some alien relics in the area. Someone seems to be spiriting away the relics from the dig and selling them on the antiquities market (shades of 1900's Egypt). Takent's job is to find out who is doing it and how they're getting the material through the security system.

So far, this sounds like pretty standard mystery fare, and it is. But Takent is more than just a detective, he's a problem solver, and when some things at the dig don't add up, he starts worrying them like a dog on a bone. So when the problem of the relic is solved, things start getting really interesting. By the time he's done, Stith has woven in a number of complex mysteries including an alien culture so embarrassed by its past that it has hidden it completely to the rest of the universe, a massive locked box that needs to be opened (from the inside), a number of skeleton's in the closet, and 10 million murders (give or take a few) to tie up.

This was an enjoyable book to read. There aren't a lot of original concepts or exceptionally inspired writing, but it's a strong, interesting, satisfying mix of comfortable themes from two genre's that rarely seem to mix this happily. This book should meet the approval of both mystery and SF readers, and be a good choice to help introduce readers of one genre to the other.

House of Shards [***+]
Williams, Walter Jon
Tor, 309pp, December, 1988, $3.95, 0-812-55783-2

Even more enjoyable is Walter Jon Williams' House of Shards. This is the second adventure of Drake Majistral, Allowed Burglar, and in this episode everyone who is anyone in the Diadem is at Silverside Station, a new upper-upper crust resort for the coming-out party of the new heir to the throne. Coming along with them looking for interesting things to borrow are Majistral and heavy rival, Geoff fu George.

Having two Allowed Burglars on board is enough to send the station staff into apoplexy. An Allowed Burglar is a licensed thief--rated on both what they steal and how they steal it. A heavily regulated industry, if they still possess it after the second midnight, they get to keep it. If they get caught, they go to jail. Good Allowed Burglars, obviously, don't get caught. The Burglars steal everything on tape--not only to qualify for the style points and prove their ownership, but because Burglaries are highly-watched sports on the media and sell for high prices.

The goal at Silverside is pretty simple--to steal the Shard, the primary Jewel of the Throne, to make sure the other Burglar doesn't steal it first and to hold onto it long enough to legally own it and not end up in jail for the rest of their lives. All while being in a classic locked room environment while everybody, including a highly paranoid security chief and his sophisticated alarm systems, is watching you. And remember, once you do steal it, they know you have it, so you have to keep them from finding any proof that you have it until after the deadline.

Williams does a wonderful job of setting this all up. At the same time, the book is a spoof of high society (among other things, the members of the Diadem literally give each other fingers and delicately sniff each other's earlobes in greeting). His tongue is stuck so far into his cheek that one stumble would cause him to bite it off, but that never happens. You find yourself simultaneously giggling over the almost surrealistic situations he puts together and admiring the skill that he uses in building the Burglaries--while the book is a lot of fun, he doesn't use that as an excuse to get sloppy in his detail-work, and this is what makes the book really work for me. Throughout the book I kept envisioning Roger Moore doing a remake of the movie The Pink Panther.

The only weak spot is Mr. Sun, the head of security. He is so officiously snotty and stupid that he rapidly turns into a poorly defined stereotype of everything we hate about people in power. Williams overdid this character to the point where attempting to play off of him falls flat--he's cardboard, nothing but a strawman conveniently places to look stupid, and the places where he's being used in the book are by far the least successful. If Williams had put a little more life and complexity into Sun the book could have been even better. As it is, the Burglars defeat Sun trivially, and there's never even a question as to whether the character's in the game or not.

Overall, however, a great romp and a good escapist read with a lot of staying power. Majistral's definitely turning into one of my favorite characters.

Liavek: Spells of Binding       [***+]
Will Shetterly & Emma Bull
Ace, 245pp November, 1988, $3.50, 0-441-48191-4

What can I say about Liavek: Spells of Binding? Not much, except that it continues what I think is the best Shared World Anthology series being published. If you like the Shared World environment, the Liavek series is definitely the one to read. This installment has some very strong stories, including Kara Dalkey's "Portrait of Vengeance," John M. Ford's "Riding the Hammer" and Patricia Wrede's "Mad God" (my personal favorite). There really isn't a clinker in the bunch, and this is a series that I hope goes on for a long time.

Invitation to Camelot [***]
Parke Godwin,ed.
Ace, 258pp, March, 1988, $3.50, 0-441-37200-7.

Arthurian Fantasy is one of the stalwarts of the fantasy genre. Every author, it seems, writes about the ageless king at one time or another in their career, and the readers of the variations of the myth are legion. One of the top Arthurian authors is Parke Godwin--who better, then, to edit an anthology of Arthurian fiction?

Who indeed. Godwin does a fine job with Invitation to Camelot, including stories by Jane Yolen, Morgan Llywelyn, Tanith Lee, Susan Shwartz, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Godwin himself. The variations on the myth seem infinite, and one of the attractions of this book is the enjoyment of the different interpretations of Arthur and his people. If you enjoy Arthur, this is a must read. If you're just starting to explore this area of our literary heritage, this is a wonderful first stop, because it will let you sample many of the best authors in the sub-genre and help you decide where to travel next.

King Arthur [****+]
Norma Lorre Goodrich
Lawrence Watts, 386pp, 1986, $21.95, 0-531-09701-3

Merlin [****+]
Norma Lorre Goodrich
Lawrence Watts, 386pp, 1987, $24.95, 0-531-15060-7

Norma Lorre Goodrich is generally considered the premiere Arthurian historian in the United States, with good reason. Her book King Arthur takes a close look at the historical and archaeological evidence behind the Mythic figure to see what lays beyond. The journey is fascinating. Her careful re-examination and re-translation of the works in question brings a new light to the old myths. One of the suppositions made in this book later bore fruit when archaeological digs on the Isle of Man turned up artifacts from the Arthurian age.

In Merlin, she turns her attention to the mystical figure of the enchanter who stood beside the King in fact and fantasy. This book is important in a number of ways: the historical research into the various myths that went into the person that is now called Merlin; the archaeological research into the locations that these characters, and most especially a new translation of a long ignored historical poem, The Prophecy of Merlin.

These are serious academic works and not easy reading. For someone serious about Arthurian times or considering using them in their writing, they're critical, fascinating resources.

Short Takes

A few quickies before we go. I want to mention New Destinies Vol. 6 (Baen Paperback). It's a special Heinlein memorial issue, and all R.A.H. fans should grab a copy. And I want to second Laurie's recommendations on Melanie Rawn's The Dragon Prince (DAW) and on Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Crusader's Torch. I'm as enthusiastic about these books as she is. Rawn is a new talent that's going to really set the Fantasy world on fire, and Yarbro comes through again with another wonderful historical horror.

I almost completely agree with her on The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams (DAW). It's a wonderful first book in a series that looks like it's going to be an epic the size and complexity of Lord of tthe Rings. My only complaints are that it starts off rather slow due to the sheer volume of material he needs to introduce, and it stops at a convenient stopping point rather than an ending point. Definitely the first book of a multi-book story (as is LotR) rather than the first book of a series. I give it [****] and can't wait for the next one.

A major disappointment for me was Gene Wolfe's There Are Doors (Tor Hardcover). I really love Wolfe's work, but I tried twice and neither time got past about page 50. Nothing made sense, and nothing pulled me into the work. I can't rate it as a bad book as much as a book that made me want to not read it. It reminded me a lot of Free, Live Free, which fought me every step of the way, which I wasn't sure if I really liked, but which haunted me long after I put it down- -except that in this case I really didn't like it and it didn't make me finish it like FLF did.

Arthur Saha's The Year's Best Fantasy #14 (DAW, $3.50, 0-88677-307-5) is like all the "year's best" collections--something to argue over with friends and use to collect the good fiction from the magazines. I wasn't overly impressed with the stories this time--but I think it was a weak year for short fantasy anyway. The only story I actively disliked was Bruce Sterling's "The Little Magic Shop" which was a pedestrian, mean-spirited story that covers all too familiar ground all too familiarly. Give it a [***-] and see for yourself if there's enough in it to be worth grabbing.

Finally, Carroll&Graf have supplemented their wonderful Science Fiction: The 100 Best Books with sister volumes about Fantasy and Horror. Fantasy: the 100 Best Books by James Cawthorn (with Michael Moorcock's name on the cover because he thought of it) ($15.95, 0-88184-335-0) carries on the tradition of defining the best of the field and giving everyone a good place for their arguments to start. If you define the quality of the book by the percentage of books you agree with, Fantasy succeeds. The normal kibbitzes occur: is Frankenstein SF, Fantasy or Horror? Including The Trial, the Castle and Moby Dick are sure to give the literati heartburn ("it's not Fantasy! It's Literchure!"). All in all, a good reference piece. Give it a [****].

Horror: the 100 Best Books ($15.95, 0-88184-417-9), edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman is another story. Rather than follow the format laid out by the other two books, they polled a number of top horror (and other) writers and asked them all to write essays about their favorite works. When the inevitable logjams occurred, some writers were asked to write essays about other works, just so they ended up with 100 authors doing 100 essays. If this sounds chaotic, it is-- and the book shows it. There's a sense of the "too many cooks" syndrome here, rather than a single informed voice. Horror: the 100 Best Books didn't impress me like the others did, and I find it hard to recommend it. Rating: [**]

Until next time!

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 10)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 10

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Lots and Lots of Reviews
by Lots and Lots of People

Anachronisms    [****]
Christopher Hinz
St. Martin's Press $17.95 304 pg.

The crew of the starship Alchemon is sent to the planet Sycamore after a probe revealed bacteria life on what should have been a lifeless planet. The study of the bacteria leads to the discovery of what may be an intelligent creature. The crew decides to take it back to Earth. Almost from the beginning of the voyage home, one disaster after another occurs. The crew must not only prevent the ship from being destroyed but also find the source of the disaster. Is it the creature from Sycamore? Is it one of the crew? Is it the company, Pannis? Is it space pirates?

The story is a very original rendering of a familiar SF plot. One point of originality is to write the story as a true mystery instead of a puzzle story. It is not a given that there is a hostile alien loose on the ship. The crew is a collection of misfits, and it is made clear from the beginning that this is deliberate. Why this mismatched crew was allowed to ship out is not revealed until the end. The solution to the mystery is eventually revealed, but only after the reader has had an opportunity to figure it out and doing so is not easy.

The characterization is uneven. About half the characters are fairly distinctive personalities and the rest are rather vague. It is no coincident that all the survivors are the more distinctive characters. None of the characters are very likable, although by the end of the story, certain of them develop into people for whom the reader can feel some empathy.

Hinz has created an interesting technology for his FTL drive and it plays an important role in the story. The ship is also a very interesting artifact of its own. The story universe appears to be unrelated to that in Hinz' first book, Liege-Killer. While the story does not have the epic tone of Liege-Killer, it is as good and is highly recommended.

--Danny Low

Anachronisms

The science fiction ghost story, the haunted space ship, the mixing of horror and space opera--this half-breed genre offers rich possibilities that few have explored. Christopher Hinz adds to the sub-genre with his second novel, Anachronisms.

I was excited when I picked up this novel. Since I've always been a sucker for this type of story, I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, Hinz borrows too heavily and too obviously from the few other similar stories and doesn't do enough of his own work. Surely all the ideas in the hybrid SF/horror sub-genre haven't been played out already? A research vessel from the Pannis corporation goes to a storm-swept blasted world and finds a mysterious supposedly dead alien organism, which they bring aboard the ship (does it already sound like Alien or It: The Terror from Beyond Space?). On their way back to Earth, the alien comes alive again and starts messing with the mind of a psychic crew member, causing all sorts of funky haunted-house things to take place (now it feels like we're reading Nightflyers...). The alien begins to take over the master computer, but the computer has its own orders and its own defense mechanisms, the Sentinels, who will fight off the intruder, no matter what these defenses might do to the crew members (gee, now it sounds like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Frank Herbert's Destination: Void).

The characters seem to be lifted right out of Star Trek or Alien. I found myself baffled at why Hinz had taken the easy way out so many times, as if he thought he had a good idea but didn't have the interest to keep going. Much of the writing is clumsy lecturing, inept introduction of background material and clunky explanations over and over again. Some of the plot threads are weak links and don't hold together well.

On the good side, several of the spooky scenes are vivid and very effective, such as when some of the ship's defenses awaken and the crew try to fight back, or when the alien takes over the biological gardens and begins to terraform them into its own long-lost alien world. These are chilling and cinematic, and they show the true talent Hinz holds--but he doesn't let it shine through often enough. The brilliant scenes are so good they are worth reading the book for, but unfortunately the pieces don't fit together into a solid whole.

--Kevin J. Anderson

The Ascension Factor    [***]
Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom
Ace/Putnam $18.95 381pp

This is the third book of a series, preceded by The Jesus Incident and The Lazarus Effect. While there is a definite sense that there are previous books, the story in this book is sufficiently self-contained that it can be read by itself. Much of the richness of the tale is lost, but the story still comes across as a well written action/adventure story.

Raja Flattery has gained control of Pandora and is about to complete his Voidship. His plan is to abandon the planet and its people. To build his Voidship, Flattery has altered Pandoran society to the point that the society and the planet will certainly fall into chaos along with the physical destruction of the planet when he leaves.

There are several groups with various motives working against Flattery. The story revolves around the conclusion to all their plotting as well as Flattery's. The groups have little or no idea of each other's existence. When they finally meet, their plans fall apart convincingly. The story is told as a series of parallel story lines that converge in the end. There are also some independent vignettes whose purpose is to convey a sense of the society. Everything is suitably chaotic. The characters are well done, with a lot of action.

Read by itself, this is a good fast paced action story. When read as part of the series, it is a well done story that advances the series. The ending is a suitable one not only for the book but for the series as well.

--Danny Low

Bloodthirst [Star Trek #37]     [***]
J. M. Dillard
Pocket, 1987, $3.95, 264pp.

Perfect Halloween reading--a Star Trek vampire story. Yet another vampirism as a disease tale, plus bio-weapons, Starfleet conspiracies, and the threat of Romulan attack. Dillard tends to use Kirk, Spock and McCoy and her own characters with only token mention of the rest of the regulars and lots of "gee, how many episodes can I refer back to," a trait that annoys me when it isn't relevant to the plot. Still, it works up to a tense conclusion with lots of action in a reasonable episode-like plot, especially since for once they just save themselves instead of the universe.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

The Chantry Guild       [*]
Gordon Dickson
Ace Books $17.95 428 pg.

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is this book is the long awaited continuation of The Final Encyclopedia. The bad news is that this book is also long, repetitious and never comes to an ending.

The Final Encyclopedia stopped after Hal Mayne and Bleys Ahrens meet as adults and agree that their differences are irreconcilable except by the Final Battle. The Chantry Guild starts with Mayne stymied in his attempt to develop the weapon that will insure victory in the Final Battle. He leaves The Final Encyclopedia for a solution. The story parallels his quest in the first book. It is shorter because Mayne only has to go to one planet this time instead of three for enlightenment.

Both books could be reduced by a third without any effect on the story by simply eliminating the endless reiteration of events and philosophies. Hal Mayne suffers from a lack of personality. In the first book, as a youngster developing into a man, this was not a problem. As an adult, his lack of personality makes him an uninteresting character. The secondary characters, such as Rukh, have more personality, and they are nothing more than personification of archetypes. Despite his lack of "on stage" time, Bleys Ahrens is the most interesting character in the story.

The book finally stops with Mayne finding the breakthrough he was looking for. The confrontation between Mayne and Ahrens is still to come. This book is of interest only to true fans of Dickson's Childe Cycle and completist collectors. It cannot be regarded as an independent book but rather as volume 2 of an excessively long novel.

--Danny Low

Cradle
Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee
Warner Books, 1988, 0-446-51379-2, 293 pp., $18.95

The late Mr. Heinlein never allowed contemporary marketing forces to create his novels, but the other two at the top of every SF readership poll, Asimov and Clarke, seem less resistant to such manipulations. With Cradle, we see yet another variant of the shared-world concept, where apparently the old master has an idea and the young turk fills in the outline, for no one familiar with Clarke's impressive body of work would confuse it with this novel's prose style. Lee strives mightily to overcome the NASAese in which he toils daily at JPL--and fails. At times, the narrative reads like an incomplete outline.

Something is missing, too, from the story, a tale of first contact beneath the warm Gulf waters off Key West. Girl reporter in brass brassiere, Carol Dawson, leaves her dull lover at his Miami Oceanographic Institute, and reluctantly teams up with dropout misanthrope Nick Williams. Williams and his buddy, computer whiz Troy Jefferson, run the charter boat "Florida Queen," when they're not diving for sunken treasure. Carol hires them to blow the lid off the U.S. Navy's loss of a newly tested cruise missile. Only the Keystone Kops of the Navy and a robot crew aboard a stranded alien seedship have other plans. Lt. Todd, the kneejerk idiot of the story, is convinced that the pesky Russians stole the missile, and tries to convince Commander Winters that Carol, Nick, and Troy are spies. The Commander, meanwhile, lusts after the teenage lead in his amateur theater troupe, and is haunted by memories and a cold wife. And just to add a pirate flair, Capt. Ashford and his menage a trois splash across the stage with some very convenient gold bullion.

Sadly, this collection of Hollywood cliches just doesn't gel. The love story is loveless; the lust ends in a cold shower; the mystery scales down to red herrings; and the whales simply wander off. Even if you wait for the paperback, you're going to wonder if this wasn't the other, alcoholic "Arthur" at work. Give this one a pass.

--Dean R. Lambe

Crown of Stars [****]
James Tiptree, Jr.
Tor Books, 0-312-93105-0

A volume of Tiptree stories that were uncollected (and in some cases unpublished) at the time of her death. In general, everything you expect from Tiptree stories: well-crafted prose, beautiful imagery, wonderful characters. The themes range all over the map: aliens, love and sex, life and death, heaven and hell, even adoption and abortion. All the individual stories are good; many can be called great. This collection shows how much the science fiction community lost with Tiptree's death. --Chuck Koelbel

Deep Quarry
John E. Stith
Ace Books, 1989, 0-441-14276-1, 140 pp., $3.50.

Stith appears to have specialized in that difficult earthquake zone, the area between murder mystery and science fiction. With his third novel, he moves to a alien setting, a planet distant in both time and space where humans are but one of four sapient species.

In the hot and dusty constant daylight of Tankur, a planet whose astrophysics conflicts with its habitability, Ben Takent, an equally tired and dusty wisecracking private eye, wishes he could afford a secretary while he battles with the air conditioning repair company. While Ben sweats it out, he almost loses a paying customer in the lovely form of Kate Dunlet, resident egghead and archaeologist at the alien dig up the road. Kate and her fellow potsherd pickers hire gumshoe Ben because artifacts from their 10,000 year old Womper village are drifting past supposedly tight security into the local black market. While quickly puzzling out the crime--which doesn't much stump the reader either--Ben shows what a real detective mind can do with the greater mystery of Tankur, the ancient Wompers, and the resident Ayers Rock. Kate, Dr. Foster and the other scientists aren't too happy with the deductions of an amateur, but they follow him into the huge alien structure anyway. Wompers, ancient and modern, as well as the obligatory guy named Sam, then radically change the direction of the story, and Ben and friends wend through the maze and leave no turn unstoned.

If the above seems a bit lackluster, a retread of the Bat Durston type, well it's not--quite. There is a solid SF gimmick here that is crucial to the plot, and save for the bar scenes that were tired when George Lucas used them, the story delivers solid entertainment. Expect even better from his next one, Redshift Rendevous.

--Dean R. Lambe

Dracula's Brood [****]
Richard Dalby
Crucible, 1987, 348pp.

I don't often read horror--at least not the gore that passes itself off as horror fiction these days--but I do like gothic horror and this collection of short stories is in just that vein (sorry). Subtitled "Rare Vampire Stories by Friends and Contemporaries of Bram Stoker," the 24 stories in this collection date from 1867 to 1940. Some of the authors are familiar names from other works, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, others, most of the rest to me anyway, are obscure authors whose works have never been reprinted. Doyle's story, "The Parasite" (1894), is about a psychic vampire, drawing soul and vitality from the victim rather than blood. There are several of these in the collection. There are also traditional vampires in "Ken's Mystery" (1888) by Julian Hawthorne and "The Last Lords of Gardonal" (1867) by William Gilbert and some very unusual "vampire" objects in "The Living Stone" (1939) by E. R. Punshon and "The Feather Pillow" (1907) by Horacio Quiroga.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Final Circuit
Melinda M. Snodgrass
Ace Books, 1988, 0-441-22876-3, 244 pp., $3.50.

Snodgrass did not disappoint with the end of her trilogy about Judge Cabot Huntington and his Jenny, off in the asteroids with the new American Revolutionaries. It's every bit as bad as I expected. This new writer showed some potential in her first novel, for she aped classic Heinlein, but by the end, she had copied her own ignorance and created a tsunami of disbelief.

As Cab Huntington jumps from frying pan to the fire, first in Earth orbit, then on Mars, and finally on the curiously-located Ceres (both 200 and 700 million miles from Earth in the same week), his law partner, Jenny McBride, becomes such a sex object that she loses her last name and is knocked up and sent to bed so the "boys" can talk. Meanwhile, the new American President is a doormat for his female Chief of Staff, and an odd band of Kenyan terrorists hijacks an antimatter drive spaceship, which gives the Russians an excuse to nuke American asteroid habitats. Forced into deep thought and backed into rebellion, the judge and all his friends sit down in micro-gravity and zilch partial pressure of oxygen to have a smoke with all the cigars, pipes and cigarettes available to the American Tobacco Institute. Back on the home world, the President's chief bitch takes a Valium. Then the technology and politics get really stupid.

Even those who visit Africa via used books should know that it's not "secretary of the treasury," but the Honorable Minister of Finance & Planning who handles Kenya's money. Those who throw around concepts like "artificial gravity" and "anti-hydrogen" might make some effort to understand what they're talking about from one page to the next.

Of late, Mesdames Brandewyne and Taylor have complained that the SF community has been unkind to their spaced-out romance novels. Never mind aphorisms about heat and kitchens, ladies, if you don't understand the rules, don't play the game. You too, Melinda. Should any care to learn, hundreds of SF writers-- women writers if that's the only language you speak--can show you how.

--Dean R. Lambe

Full Spectrum   [***+]
Lou Aronica & Shawna McCarthy, editors
Bantam-Spectra, 0-553-27482-1

An anthology of short stories that the editors describe as "on the leading edge of science fiction." As you might expect, the quality does vary from author to author, but even the worst of these stories rate a [***-] in my opinion and the best are probably around [****+]. I expect to see some award winners out of this collection, and recommend it to anyone interested in SF. --Chuck Koelbel

Ghosts Have No Feelings [****] Barbryn Press, 1988, 116pp.

This anthology contains the 18 best stories from a short story competition to write about the ghosts of Warwick Castle. I picked this up when I visited England this summer. I didn't meet any of these ghosts personally at Warwick but some seem quite nice, like the Phantom Jogger in "The Wall" by Paul D. Wapshott or the talkative title character in "A Friend of Walt's" by Audrey Elizabeth Roberts, a comic piece. Others are real horror story ghosts, setting traps for unwary visitors and out for revenge. Some don't even know they are ghosts, like the sad little girl in "Run to Mama" by Sandra Gourlay. I go to medieval banquets in costume myself, but after the experiences of the narrator of "The Banquet" by F. B. Atkin, who attends one at Warwick castle, I'll be more wary of them.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Here Be Demons [***-]
Esther Friesner
Ace, 1988, $2.95, 233pp, 0-441-32797-4

A group of demons have been banned from Hell and exiled to one of the more dismal corners of the Egyptian desert. Their offense: being insufficiently evil. Their ticket home: one genuinely damned human soul. After centuries of boredom, a golden opportunity presents itself: several archeology students and their inept professor on an amateur "dig." You would think that five demons could get at one American college student to commit a mortal sin.

Janet Morris takes Hell seriously. Esther Friesner does not. Of the two, I am inclined to favor Friesner's choice. The author has a finely honed sense of the absurd; though what is absurd is not always funny. This book violates rather outrageously Mr. Twain's dictum of "one miracle per story"; and frankly, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It might have worked better had the author maintained one focus, rather than simply letting everything run hog-wild. However, I found the book at least mildly amusing. Some might find it hilarious. It depends on your sense of humor.

--David M. Shea

The IDIC Epidemic [Star Trek #38]       [*****]
Jean Lorrah
Pocket, 1988, $3.95, 278pp.

This book is a sequel to The Vulcan Academy Murders, featuring the same characters responding to a plague on the Federation research colony Nisus. Much of the action takes place on Nisus rather than the Enterprise, as Dr. McCoy, Dr. Corrigan and Sorel join the medical teams combatting a fast-mutating virus that seems to attack nearly all Federation races equally. Klingons turn out to be immune, and there is one Klingon scientist on Nisus.... Lorrah uses the view of Klingon society from The Final Reflection and the two Klingon races from the films. This story is as much a mystery as Lorrah's previous book--but a medical one this time instead of a murder mystery, a race to find cures and vaccines for multiple races as the disease becomes more virulent with each mutation.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 11)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 11

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Lots and Lots of Reviews
by Lots and Lots of People
Part 2

The Making of the Atomic Bomb   [****]
Richard Rhodes
Simon & Schuster, 0-671-65719-4

The history of the A-bomb, from the discovery of subatomic particles to Hiroshima and Nagasaki (plus an epilogue taking the story through the first H- bomb tests). Highlights include very clear nontechnical explanations of the science and interesting personality portraits of the scientists, generals, and statesmen involved. The sidelights on military strategy and nuclear diplomacy are also worthwhile. The book won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. An important book for anyone living in the atomic age. --Chuck Koelbel

Prelude To Foundation   [**-]
Isaac Asimov
Doubleday, 432pp, SFBC

This is the sixth book in Asimov's classic Foundation series, though chronologically it is the first. In the Author's Notes section of each of Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, and this book, the Good Doctor claims he had no intention to write yet another Foundation book, but that his readers/publishers pressured him into it.

It shows. Prelude To Foundation is thoroughly predictable, even more so if you're aware that Asimov has been caught up in the recent merged universe mania from which Robert Heinlein suffered. He has been trying to merge the Foundation series with his Robot series, and the result is a loss of credibility. Robots are starting to pop up more and more frequently, whether as myths or as actual entities, to the point that one has to wonder why they have such a mythical status in the Empire/Foundation in the first place.

The characters in Prelude To Foundation are two-dimensional at best, consistent with those in the first three books. That worked fine in the 1950's, but is out of place with today's more sophisticated audience. Such characters work in Asimov's lighthearted works (such as his short stories featuring Azazel, the two- inch demon), but fail in his more major, serious works.

If you've slogged through the first five books, you might want to pick up Prelude To Foundation, if for no other reason than completeness. Otherwise, give this one a miss.

--Rick Genter

Red Sun of Darkover     [****]
Marion Zimmer Bradley
DAW, $3.95, 1987, 287pp.

Darkover continues to expand through short stories as a shared world anthology. This is yet another collection by MZB and the Friends of Darkover, with stories covering a mix of periods. Some are about familiar characters from the novels, such as Regis Hastur and Dani Syrtis in "The Shadow" by Bradley herself, and the Renunciates Camilla and Rafi, who appear as incidental characters in "Different Path" by Penny Buchanan, but most are about original characters. Some explore the alienness of Darkover, such as "Salt" by Diann Partridge about a native sea-dwelling race, or "Coils" by Patricia Shaw Mathews about a different sort of dragon ("How do you burp a baby dragon?--very very carefully!") and two involve the meeting of Darkover tradition and Terran influence--"The Sum of the Parts" by Dorothy Heydt, where a Keeper and a Terran pilot must work together and "Devil's Advocate" by Patricia Anne Buard, about a Terran priest investigating the Darkovan cristoforo beliefs. Many are adventure stories, but "The Wasteland," by Deborah Wheeler, has more of a horror effect. Another good collection for people like me who can't get enough Darkover. --Mary Anne Espenshade

Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Castle Amber    [*]/[***]
Roger Zelazny and Neil Randall
Avon Books $ 8.95 221 pg.

This book gets a double rating because of its specialized subject matter. If you are an Amber fan, this book is a must buy. If you are not, then this book is of little interest. The book is an illustrated guide to Castle Amber, done in the form of a guided tour by Flora, Princess of Amber. The illustrations are all black and white. They are very competently done but hardly great works of art. Almost half the book is taken up with black and white reproductions of the Greater Trumps. The main problem with this book is that it should have been a 4 color slick coffee table book with extensive and lavish illustrations.

--Danny Low

Shadow of the Warmaster [***]
Jo Clayton
1988, DAW books, 3.95, 398 pages

Some more escapism from Jo Clayton, who in my opinion uses real sugar in her mind-candy, avoiding the generally rampant saccharine.

For a book that's essentially action/adventure, this one has some interesting features. For example, the interlocking sequences told from various viewpoints keeps the subordinate characters and subplots from seeming too much like spear-carriers. It is worth noting that it does not extend this courtesy to characters who are really nasty, I suppose so that we don't feel so bad about them when they are dispatched by somebody from the set of "good guys." But at least we have a pretty good and pretty large ensemble cast heroing around here, not just Generic Hero and His Capable Band of N (for small numbers of N).

This is interesting because you don't notice this at first. At first, it looks an awful lot like it'll be just another GHaHCBoN action adventure. It is centered around a heroic band of mercenaries who hire themselves out for rescue operations. But it quickly grows more intriguing than that. I think it is all part of Jo Clayton's gradual improvement over time. Lately, with Skeen, Soul Drinker, and things like the current book, the reading has been quite good and getting better.

Speaking of the Diadem series, this book borrows the background and follows some of the subordinate characters from that series. In particular, the Generic Hero here is Swardheld Quale, late inhabitant of the Diadem, set free by Aletys. Not much is made of this in the story and the cover blurb doesn't even mention the Diadem series. But it is interesting for us in-the-know to pick up the few mentions of old characters passing by, old scenes and circumstances mentioned.

One last point. We have here a society dominated by Mega-corporations, with the attitude being rape and exploit everything around and about before it can rape and exploit you. In several ways, it reminded me of Cyberpunk without the mirrorshades or cyberspace.

Good stuff.

--Wayne A. Throop

Spacer: Window Of The Mind      [***]
John Maddox Roberts
Ace, 1988, $2.95, 182 pp

Rescued from a rampaging slum mob by spacers, young Kiril is soon adopted as "ship's girl," the juniormost crew member of the tramp freighter Space Angel. She has little time to adapt to the job, as the Angel and its crew are hastily drafted onto a top secret alien contact mission. When an old enemy of the captain shows plans of beginning a war and blaming it on the crew of the Angel, it proves to be Kiril's semi-telepathic talent which is the key to unlocking a peaceful contact with the alien Dzuna, and possibly preventing a confrontation the human race can scarcely afford.

This is a good straight-ahead action adventure story, thoroughly within the mainstream of entertainment type science fiction. On that basis, it is a good solid read.

--David M. Shea

Spock's World   [*****]
Diane Duane
Pocket, 1988, $16.95, 310pp.

The first Trek hardback, and well worth it. Duane is one of the best recurring Trek novelists and this novel is one of the best I've read in the series. Character use and plot consistency across novels is settling down and much improved over the early Trek novels. The story opens with more detail than we usually get on day-to-day starship operation. This is more a character interaction piece than an adventure tale. We even get to look in on a ship-wide party--listen to the Starship Enterprise String, Reed and Banjo Band, with a three handed banjo player and "a synthesized percussionist (the musician, not the instrument...)," see Lt Naraht munching on expired data solids with crude oil and iron filings dip, and watch Sulu play "video" games. There is even a ship BBS, complete with an enterprise.flame that looks very much like USENET (responses to an article include agreement, misunderstanding, claims that it was just a joke or quoted out of context, and one flame that the original poster violated copyright by including a newspaper article-- some things never change). Sarek and Amanda are again major supporting characters, central to the debate over Vulcan's place in the Federation and other characters from episodes turn out to be important. Chapters on the debate alternate with interesting looks into Vulcan history and cultural development. An excellent book for Trek fans, but not one for the action/adventure crowd.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Star Rider      [****+]
Doris Piserchia
Bantam, 1974, $1.25, 219pp

This is a novel I'd nominate as a Closet Classic.

Her name is Jade and she is a jak, which is to say, more or less human. her companion is named Hinx, and he is a mount, which is to say, a dog--at least his ancestors were dogs, two million years ago. Individually helpless, jak and mount together form a telepathic, teleportative team who can skip anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye. Jade is an ignorant hedonist with only two ambitions: to find the legendary home planet, Doubleluck; and then to "go to glory" (depart this galaxy entirely). But Jade and Hinx between them have a unique talent, and all the oddballs of the galaxy--the gibs, the dreens, the varks, Big Jak, and cross-eyed Shaper--want a piece of the action.

Other novels by this author have never done a great deal for me, but Star Rider is a barn-burner. It takes off at a dead sprint in the first paragraph and seldom slows down thereafter; the plot is complicated but never loses sight of where its going. True to its own eccentric vision, this far-future adventure scatters humor, drama, and ideas like sparks off a skyrocket. The characters are all a little whacked out, but all are convincing, with the narrator Jade having a special appeal. Star Rider remains one of the least known good novels in the genre. It's well worth looking for.

--David Shea

Steam Bird      [***+]
Hilbert Schenck
Tor, 1988, $3.50, 213pp

Hilbert Schenck is best known for his evocative and moody tales of the sea-- the collection Wave Rider (1980) and the mystic novel At The Eye Of The Ocean (1981). This short novel represents something of a departure. The "steam bird" of the title is the world's only nuclear-fueled, steam-powered aircraft: an idea which the author insists, the U.S. Air Force seriously worked up design criteria in the early 1950's. Schenck postulates an alternate universe in which this strange device was actually built. The President of the United States orders the steam bird to launch--and then must figure out what to do with the aerial monstrosity once its aloft. Uncharacteristically, Schenck plays this as very broad gonzo farce a la Ron Goulart. The result was like what I feel when reading a Goulart book: I found it amusing, though I didn't believe it.

The volume also has "Hurricane Claude," which is much more in the usual Schenck vein, a hi-tech but thoroughly human oceanic thriller, not unlike the author's "Bouyant Ascent." In this tale, a research company attempts to short- circuit a hurricane before it can smash ashore with devastating force. Schenck's careful attention to detail at least makes for a plausible adventure. In their disparate ways these two stories are both interesting additions to the author's repertoire.

--David Shea

The Stones of Nomuru    [***]
L. Sprague and Catherine Cook de Camp
The Donning Company $8.95 215pg.

This is a typical de Camp adventure story. Keith Salazar is an archaeologist excavating an alien ruin on the planet Kulkulkan and Conrad Bergen is a developer who wants to put a resort on the site of the dig. In addition, both Salazar and Bergen are wooing the same woman, Kara, who is also Salazar's ex-wife. Bergen is vain and violent and does not like Kara's rejection. Complicating matters is an imminent invasion by the local equivalent of Genghis Khan.

Salazar is a typical de Camp hero, self-deprecating but very competent. He's is not quite a super-hero. For example, Bergen is always able to beat up Salazar as he is much bigger. The story is filled with the satirical humor that characterizes de Camp's stories.

This story has a slightly more Monty Pythonish flavor than de Camp's previous stories. Salazar has to do several outrageous deeds to save his dig and his life. The result is very much like a toned down Monty Python skit where the protagonist has to maintain a calm front while the world is turned upside down around him.

The only criticism is one of the problems, the invading nomads, is solved in too much of a deus ex machina style. This is a well done book which is a treat from an Old Master such as de Camp.

--Danny Low

The Suiting Kelley Wilde Tor Books, 1988, ISBN 0-312-93069-0, 239 pp., $16.95

The haunted suit of clothes tale has been off the rack for a few centuries, yet Wilde manages a fresh bit of tailoring. Set in contemporary Toronto and Montreal, this tasty bit of modern horror truly fits the old adage: the clothes make the man.

When wise guy Jean-Paul Bouchette sneaks back to Toronto to buy the finest of suits, his old nemesis bookie, Derek Cole, arranges a private baseball game-- with Jean-Paul's head as the ball. By a fluke, Victor Frankl, a nerdy little maritime shipping clerk comes upon the soulless suit, with its "Good Luck Made to Measure..." label, and Victor vows to shape his body to the cloth. After months of extensive dieting and body building, Victor comes close to a proper fit, and begins to dream of dating the lovely Vivvie from his office. Victor's friend George notices more disturbing, nonphysical changes, however, as the meek clerk takes strange, historical trips to Montreal, and starts to covet his boss's job.

The gradual and chilling transformation of Victor is well done, with just the right touch of madness. Secondary characters are more than backdrop, as well, and the sense of place and language in French Canada adds color and intensity to this familiar story. A fast, enjoyable read marks Wilde as a writer to watch.

--Dean R. Lambe

Swordspoint
Ellen Kushner
Arbor House, 269pp, 1987, $15.95, 0-87795-923-4.

Maybe I'm missing the point (get it?), but creating a fantasy world in which to tell a story that would be quite at home in 17th century France is pointless. Pseudo-historical fiction has no great advantage over historical fiction--except that maybe you can call it fantasy, which seems to be selling well these days.

But I'm getting ahead of the story. Swordspoint takes place in a nameless city that could have been Paris or London a couple of hundred years ago, but isn't-- and involves the exploits of aristocrats and swordsmen who might have been historical figures from that period, but aren't. The main character is Richard St Vier, the best damn swordsman of them all, who lives in the slums called Riverside where no respectable citizen dares to; but who is hired by all the best aristocrats from the Hill to fight their duels for them under a strange set of rules that are not historical, but might be.

St Vier lives with his lover Alec, an ex-student who is obviously an aristocrat, although it's not until the end of the book that we discover, not too surprisingly, who he really is. Alec loves to get St Vier into situations where St. Vier has to defend or avenge Alec's honor (such as it is), and Alec does little else except sit around and make melancholy jokes. St Vier, meanwhile, is caught up in a series of plots and counterplots in which the aristocrats are indulging and aren't worth sketching here.

Make no mistake, Ellen Kushner is a good stylist and the plot itself is well done- -some of the characters are even moderately interesting. What I'm put off by is not the writing, which is very good, but the pseudo-historical framework and stereotyped gyrations and character manipulation. Or, put another way, Swordspoint might have had a point--but doesn't.

--Neil Wilgus

Time for Yesterday [Star Trek #39]      [****]
A. C. Crispin
Pocket, 1988, $3.95, 303pp.

The crew of the Enterprise helps save the very fabric of the universe, again. The sequel to Yesterday's Son reunites Spock and his son Zar to solve a problem with the Guardian of Forever, but that is only a small, and rather anticlimactic, part of the plot. Most of the story takes place in Sarpeidon's past, where Zar is trying to establish a peaceful civilization among warring, bronze age tribes. In the timeline for the Enterprise's crew, the story takes place between the first and second films, setting up Kirk's teaching at the Academy and some of his regrets over never having gotten a chance to know his own son, debating whether or not to make time to visit Carol and David Marcus. Good character development and foreshadowing. I wish more of the Trek authors would note at the beginning, as Crispin does, where in the timeline her story fits, it's often hard to guess where a story belongs and how much to assume about the characters' development.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Time Trap [Star Trek #40]       [***]
David Dvorkin
Pocket, 1988, $3.95, 221pp.

An average Captain Kirk adventure story, in which he gets the girl and saves the Federation, in that order, even though he has to give up the girl at the end. It's the best use I've seen in a long time of lots of episode information, building a story on it instead of "this reminds me of the time when ..." references. Kirk ends up aboard a Klingon ship, with Spock working to get him back. I was getting irked with some of the characterizations mid-way through, but most of what is causing people to act out of character turns out to be part of the plot. And a very involved plot it is. Very little can be said without spoiling some of the convoluted details. I couldn't resolve McCoy's out-of-character behavior though. Secondary characters barely get mentioned, as many of the Trek novels lately don't seem to do anything with anyone beyond Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Kalrind is an interesting new character however, especially to speculate what would happen if she and Kirk met again under more normal circumstances, each in command of their own ships.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Wolfsong, Blood of Ten Chiefs, Vol. 2   [**]
Richard Pini, Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey
TOR, $7.95, 1988, 307pp.

Nine Elfquest stories, chronologically ordered and set over much of the wolfrider's history. Not as interesting as volume 1. Some of the stories bring out intriguing elvish powers, "Dreamsinger's Tale" by Janny Wurts especially. Some stretched on too long to make their points. Regular EQ readers probably want it, but it might bore the rest of you.

--Mary Anne Espenshade

Issue 23, Winter 1989 (part 12)

Electronic OtherRealms #23
Winter, 1989

Part 12

Copyright 1989 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.

OtherRealms may not be reproduced without written
permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic
edition may be distributed only if the return address,
copyrights and author credits remain intact.

No article may be reprinted or re-used in any way
without the permission of the author.

All rights to material published in OtherRealms
hereby revert to the original author.

Your Turn: Letters

Jennifer Roberson

An author responding to a negative review is always put in a bad position. There is no way I can avoid sounding defensive; after all, I am defending my book. You did a pretty good job eviscerating Sword-Singer. It's your right, certainly, to state your opinion. That I disagree with much of what you said is my right, and I'm exercising it freely in this letter.

Addressing your belief that Tiger was cardboard and Del an automon is trickier because the interpretation of characterization is always a subjective thing. Obviously, I disagree. And the incredible degrees and extremes in reactions to Sword-Singer in other reviews, letters, and conversations leads me to firmly believe that although people don't always agree with my resolution, they most certainly do believe in Tiger and Del as very realistic characters. I'm not saying you're necessarily alone in your summation, just that T&D's characterization has never been an issue.

And then there is the ending. This, I fear, is the primary bone of contention. I've received more letters from readers concerning Sword-Singer's ending than my other six books put together.

Why? Because people are pissed off. Whether they like Del or not isn't the issue--some do, some don't--but I killed off a character they cared about very much. Or, if they don't care about her necessarily, they care enough about Tiger to dislike what Del's death will do to him. Or else they enjoy the rapport between T&D so much they don't want to see it ended. All of these people have told me in a variety of ways (some rather rudely) that I really upset them by killing off Del.

A few read more carefully and realized that: a) I never said Del was dead. (you caught that one, too.); and b) That in order to blood the sword in proper Norther fashion to make it a proper Northern jivatma, Tiger had to kill and key, an act which requires a song. Tiger did not kill Del, nor did he ever sing (key). The latter is something he repeatedly said he would never do; hence, he cannot properly blood the sword. Tiger is tone deaf, something I mentioned more than once.

Obscure? Maybe so. I felt it was clear enough; for some readers, it was. For others the possibility of Del's survival was very real, and they wrote me to find out the truth. But the vast majority of readers reacted on a strictly emotional level, assuming Del was dead even thought there was no body (always a risky thing, even in our legal system). There also was no tremendous remorse or grief on Tiger's behalf, as you pointed out, which I felt was a pretty good indication of the truth of the matter.

Contrary to what you may believe, the intent of this ending was never to trick, lie to or otherwise hang the reader out to dry. The intent was to leave readers wondering, not convinced one way or the other, because if a writer is predictable there's no internal challenge to read the work. I wanted to write an emotional, evocative ending with a lot of drama and impact. I wanted to build tension, which is required in a series. Last but not least, I wanted people to care about what happened. Because if people don't care, I've failed my duty as a writer.

No author enjoys bad reviews. But is particularly painful when a reviewer states categorically that the book is "tired," and that the writer "seems to be going through the paces," and "doesn't seem to care." I care very much about all of my novels, Sword-Singer in particular. Not liking Sword-Singer is a reviewer's prerogative, but no reviewer has the right to imply what he believes to be my state of mind. Using the qualifiers "seem" and "seems" doesn't get you off the hook, any more than "allegedly" buys reporters out of libel suits. To suggest in print that I don't care is not part of your job and is very unappreciated.

The third book, Sword-Maker, is currently being written and is due in September. I will also eventually do a fourth, titled Sword-Breaker, but have no immediate plans because I have projects currently scheduled through 1991.

Whether you choose to read any additional entries into the series is your decision, and nothing I can say (or write) can make you decide differently. But I hope you realize that with each book I make an attempt to grow as an author and to cause my characters to grow. No one remains the same. To expect each successive book to be a carbon copy of the preceding is unrealistic. I can't please everyone, reviewer or reader, but I can certainly do my best to remain unpredictable.

[[[Sword-Singer was one of the toughest reviews I've written, both from the level of negativism and trying to quantify why I reacted to the book the way I did. After a lot of thought, I'm sticking with my review as I originally wrote it. I'm going to expand on it a little here, but I'm going to try to avoid last-word syndrome since Jennifer's comments have some points that are important and might make a difference to readers.

The areas in the review where we seriously disagree are the ending and the characterization. On the ending, while Jennifer feels there is no way to force a reader to read the next book in a series, I disagree. Unless you piss off a reader so much they give up on you, leaving a reader at a cliff-hanger ending--or worse, not ending at all, but simply stopping--is a good hook. I railed about this exact problem a couple of issues ago in my Generic Celtic Fantasy Trilogy editorial. The most blatant case of this I've seen is Donaldson's Mordant's Need, which is nothing but a two-volume novel cut in half. There's no way the first volume can be enjoyed on its own; you must read the second volume to finish the story.

This is different from a multiple-volume series, where every book, if it doesn't stand alone, at least works independently of the others. This is one major problem I have with Sword-Singer. Sword-Dancer was a book that was obviously part of a series, but stood on its own. Sword-Singer, on the other hand, is incomplete. There are significant plot angles that aren't dealt with in the book. The magic dogs are one major plot device that is used extensively, but which remains a complete black box--to be explained, I am assuming, in book three.

For many readers this isn't a problem. For me, leaving as much of the story hanging at the end of the book really bothered me. While you could read Sword- Singer and get a complete story, to completely tie up the story in Sword-Dancer, you must also read Sword-Maker. There are two distinct storylines Sword-Singer is one, and Sword-Dancer/Sword-Maker is the other.

On characterization. I went back and re-read Sword-Singer to make sure I didn't write a review based on my memories of the book, rather than on the book itself. To me, the characters in the two books shared names, but they have different personalities. My reading of Tiger in the first book doesn't match up with the stubborn Male Chauvinist Pig aspects of the character in book two. Stubborn, definitely, but he's smart enough to figure out that Del's really a peer. In book two, though, he never does figure it out. Del, on the other hand, is an intelligent, strongly-focused person with a purpose. In the second book, I find her confused and indecisive--never quite sure which goal to go after first. That's very different from the first book's Del. This is not to imply that characters cannot grow or change. They should. In this case, I feel that the changes are not part of the story, but because the characters were written differently.

This is very much a judgement call. The structure of the story and its dependence on book three is one of those things I feel very strongly about. The characterization shifts I see also bothered me strongly. But others, obviously, will feel differently. I didn't like Sword-Singer because it was different from Sword- Dancer in ways that bothered me.]]]

Fred Bals

On David Shea's comments on ratings, specifically my giving one star to a book I couldn't finish As both David and you noted, ratings are subjective. According to the rating guidelines, one star translates as "Not recommended," which I think is fairly clear. My opinion is that the blank [] rating should be reserved for books which are genuinely offensive--racist, sexist, or simply stupid.

Speaking of stupid, in retrospect my giving Metrophage a dual rating was a mistake. I don't know what "cyberpunk" is. Nor do I think anyone else does. Metrophage is a marvelous book, and should be read by everyone interested in good writing. [*****] and leave it at that.

Greg Benford

I liked the Joel Davis interview and admire him and Bob Forward for writing Mirror Matter--a subject which is a sure bet to grow exponentially. The field is further along than many think and applications will abound.

Dean Lambe (whose line, "A tour de force that is mostly tour" is truly memorable) is right about the Fermi Paradox being an old subject in sf. Even the exobio and SETI people are still remiss in giving proper credit to sf for many ideas--witness Carl Sagan's "discovery" that near-c ships could span the galaxy in onboard human lifetime, as published in Icarus, and John Ball's "Zoo" hypothesis which just repeats 1950's Astounding notions.

I suspect I wasn't the first to use the idea that the Great Silence arises because noisy races are wiped out by malignant competition, as in In the Ocean of Night. I didn't know about Saberhagen's Berserker's then. I think the main point is still that there is no evidence to rebut this view....

Ian L. Kaplan

I just read the review of Mona Lisa Overdrive in issue #22 of OtherRealms. While I like the Mona Lisa Overdrive a great deal, I did not like the ending, because it was so obscure. Gibson spends the entire book bringing the treads of his story together in "The Factory." When they arrive, it is unclear to me what actually happens. Bobby Newmark (aka Count Zero) has zoned off into a huge bio-matrix, that is one of the largest storage devices ever built. Note that at the end, Bobby is dead, but still apparently alive in the storage device. Presumably this is not just a storage device, but also contains active computational elements (like the Connection Machine). This matrix is apparently large enough to provide an analog of cyber space, without being connected. In this matrix, in addition to Bobby, we also find Lady 3Jane (whom we previously met in Neuromancer). 3Jane apparently has it in for Angie because she is jealous of her direct connection to cyberspace (via the bio-chips implanted in Angie's brain by her father). Then there is the AI (or AIs) that Case liberated into the cyberspace. In the end Angie and Bobby are somehow joined in the matrix that Bobby is plugged into. I don't understand the result or the importance of this union. Nor do I understand what interest the AI's have in it, or 3Jane's role (other than a malevolent force). Perhaps reading Count Zero again would help, but I think that Gibson is being overly obscure.

So while I love Gibson's writing and the world he creates, I am dissatisfied with how he has tied up the series he began with Neuromancer.

In reference to Gibson and Sterling doing a book together I shudder. While intellectually I realize that one should separate an authors personality from their work, I find this hard to do with Sterling. I am revolted by the Sterling that I see in Cheap Truth. Perhaps his intention is to revolt people, just as the 50's greasers did. As far as I am concerned, Sterling has written one decent book, Schismatrix. I though that Mirrorshades was, at best, a mediocre anthology. Involution Ocean was trash. I thought that Alan Wexelblat was much too kind. Sterling is a sort of Damon Knight of current science fiction. He is a hanger on, without writing much himself. Sterling is just a minor talent wanna-be (as is, I believe, Tom Maddox). It is interesting to notice that only the wanna-be's are obsessed with the idea of cyberpunk. I have not heard Gibson, W.J. Williams or Jeter tout the "cyberpunk revolution" (although their publishers are happy to). I don't care if it's cyberpunk or soviet realism. Good writing is good writing. Just as good cooking, in Creole, French, Italian or Chinese, is still good cooking, regardless of the style.

I am an avid reader and I consume a fair amount of science fiction. In many case the quality is low. I think that OtherRealms should be stronger in its opinions. After all, strong opinions make the most interesting reading. Even Sterling knows this see his vicious attacks in Cheap Truth. These attacks would be worth something if they were not so indiscriminate.

[[[There is a big difference between a strong opinion and an attack. At one point I competed interscholastically in forensics in college, which quickly teaches you the difference. Argue all you want about the issues. Start attacking your opposition and you get kicked out of the competition. As it should be.

My policy with OtherRealms is the "cocktail party." I don't feel anything should be published that you're unwilling to say to that person in front of their face. You might very well carry on an attack at a party, but you're likely to either be well intoxicated when you do or find that you don't get invited to many parties after a while.

I don't want OtherRealms known for its strident tone, but for its information and knowledge. Bear-baiting people in public gets you known. Intelligent, informed criticism gets you read.

There have been times in the past when I've toned down issues that today I wouldn't. The line between acceptable criticism and attack is something you learn with experience. There have been times when OtherRealms has been a bit bland because of this. I believe these times are over. Time will tell.

OtherRealms will never get into the "controversy sells copies" mentality, or the "Kick them while they're not looking" mindset. If you're looking for blood in the gutters, this is the wrong fanzine.]]]

Rick Genter

OR#22 was an excellent issue, one you should be quite proud of. I understand the pressure to drop the size of the magazine to stay within budget, but I think you'll be doing yourself a disservice in the long run. The quality of the mag is high enough that I wouldn't mind paying more for my subscription in order to keep the quantity high. In my mind you've got something that is almost as good as Locus. I'd be willing to pay more for my subscription, as long as you don't hit something ridiculous like $10/issue.

The level of technical editing was much better than OR#21. The only gripe I had with the content of OR#22 was Charles de Lint's use of profanity in his reviews. "Colorful metaphors" can be quite powerful when used properly. Charles' reviews of John Shirley's two books just contained so much "shit" that it turned me off.

[[[The problem, unfortunately, is not just the subscription price, but also the cost of the complimentary copies. To support a fanzine of the size I printed last issue would require not only raising subscription prices, but reducing the number of fanzine trades and complimentary copies I ship out, and I don't want to do that. The fannish aspects of OtherRealms are of growing importance to me, and I'd rather find a compromise that lets all of these aspects work together. If it was just cost of production vs. cost of subscriptions, I could go semi-pro and take in advertising. That's another option I chose not to do]]]

Ben Bova

Two reviews in the same issue! How pleasant. But I must make one point in response to Dan'l Danehy-Oakes' review of my novel Peacekeepers. People keep looking at the politics of my novels first, and the story second. I wish they wouldn't.

Dan'l says, "Peacekeepers is another approach to 'We need SDI now!!!' which Mr. Bova handled so entertainingly and well in his marvelous Kinsman Saga."

Well, I'm glad he liked The Kinsman Saga, which certainly did deal with the realities of SDI. But Peacekeepers is not an attempt to promote SDI or anything else. The novel looks at the possible consequences of a working SDI system. To my mind, it falls squarely into the "What if ..." style of science fiction.

John Betancourt

Reactions to Michael C. Berch's review of Dreams of Flesh & Sand (by W.T. Quick and my own Johnny Zed his recipe doesn't quite serve 100,000; more like 50,000. (I know the print run of both books.) One extremely minor quibble JZ is my third novel, not second; everyone in the universe--including the book buyers- -seems to have missed the novel I did for TSR, Rogue Pirate. Which is fine by me, since the copy-editor did a real butcher job on the novel...things like "sea- serpent" got changed to "sea crustacean."

I also don't view Johnny Zed as cyberpunk. That wasn't what I set out to write, and it isn't what I think I ended up with. It's more a political novel with a bit of telecommunications thrown in. I hasten to point out the term "the Sprawl" wasn't invented by Gibson; in fact, it was in textbooks we used in high school. To me, at least, cyberpunk requires punk characters or characters with a punk mindset. Neither are present in my book. I'm still happy Michael liked the book. That's all that really matters, in the end.

Other topics I think you are being a bit too hard on Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Marion's experience has all been on the editorial end previously, and production/distribution/editing for a magazine is vastly different from an annual anthology.... Read MZB'sFM for four issues and see how it's evolving.

I admit I may be biased I have a story in the second issue, and have read both issues cover-to-cover. I definitely think the second's contents are a vast improvement over the first. Graphically, though, the magazine still has a long way to go.

P.S. In case your readers are interested, I run a BBS in Philadelphia called "The Hub"--1200/2400 baud, 215-889-0997.

[[[I do plan on keeping an eye on MZBFM, but there's a budget to keep in mind. MZBFM was priced at the high end of the magazine market--the cost of a paperback these days--and you have to then ask yourself whether you want to use part of your reading budget on that or whether that money is better spent elsewhere. If the magazine had been priced at $3.00 instead of $3.95, I might have been more forgiving, but their price implies a level of quality that isn't there. For less money, you can get better fiction and a higher quality magazine from Argos, or Aboriginal SF or Weird Tales. Or you could buy one extra paperback. Until the quality does go up, the money is better spent elsewhere.]]]

We Also Heard From

Charles de Lint, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Joel Rosenberg, Marge Simon, Dawn Atkins, David Thayer, Ginjer Buchanan, Sheryl Birkhead, Roger Zelazny, David Shea, Heidi Lyshol, Dave Smeds, Dave Meile, Brad Templeton, M. Elayn Harvey, Andy Porter, A.C. Clarke.