The Science Fiction Book Club Reviews Revisited: 1986 (fourth quarter)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Lists courtesy of Andrew Wheeler.

Contents for anthologies and omnibuses from the Locus Index to Science Fiction www.locusmag.com/index/

October LYONESS: THE GREEN PEARL by Jack Vance

I never read this.

[I still have not read it. On the bright side, because Andrew Wheeler is a Vance fan, I did read other Vance novels]


The Starry Rift James Tiptree, Jr. (Tor 0-312-93744-X, Jul '86 [May
'86], $14.95, 250pp, hc) [*Rift]; Collection of 3 loosely
connected sf stories set in the Rift -- not a novel, though it
may look like one.

+ 1 o In the Great Central Library of Deneb University o pr
+ 7 o The Only Neat Thing to Do o na F&SF Oct '85
+ 81 o Good Night, Sweethearts o na F&SF Mar '86
+ 143 o Collision o na IASFM May '86


Well, this is embarrassing. I know I read this but I don't seem to remember any of it clearly...

One of these [The Only Neat Thing to Do] is a tragedy about a girl put in an unpleasant situation by disease, a very little like "The Cold Equations", except that the Tiptree doesn't suck.


LYONESSE: SULDRUN'S GARDEN by Jack Vance (Alternate)

I never read this, either.


THE 1987 J.R.R. TOLKIEN CALENDAR, illustrated by Alan Lee, Roger
Garland, Ted Naismith and John Howe (Enclosure)

Self-descriptive, which is good because I never saw it.


BORIS VALLEJO FANTASY OLYMPICS 1987 CALENDAR by Boris Vallejo

Huh.


Special Cycle #1 THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and THE TWO TOWERS by
J.R.R. Tolkien (sold as a 2-vol set)
THE RETURN OF THE KING by J.R.R. Tolkien


It's not clear to me from the description whether the two volumes up there are FOTR and TTT or whether FOTR+TTT is one volume and ROTK is the other.

I appreciate Tolkien's craft without having any great desire to experience it. Plus Tom Bombadil reads like he stumbled in from Great Comic Tales of Middle Earth, as might be done by Fry and Laurie.


Fall THE BOOKS OF THE BLACK CURRENT (3-in-1 of THE BOOK OF THE RIVER, THE
BOOK OF THE STARS and THE BOOK OF BEING) by Ian Watson

Aside from a short story here and there I have missed most of Watson.


SOLDIER OF THE MIST by Gene Wolfe

A Greek soldier in the time of the Trojan War loses his ability to integrate new memories into long term memory. As a result, his ability to understand what is going on around him is somewhat impaired; he soldiers on anyway. Recommended.


The Year's Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection ed. Gardner
R. Dozois (Bluejay 0-312-94486-1, May '86, $19.95, 624pp, hc);
Anthology of 24 stories -- the editor's choice for the best of
1985. This is easily the best of the "Bests" as far as fiction
and recommendations. The introduction leans heavily on Locus
but can't seem to get the subscription price right (most of the
proofreading is pretty bad). Still, highly recommended. (CNB)


CNB up there = Charles Brown, just in case it isn't clear.


+ 13 o Summation: 1985 o Gardner R. Dozois o ar
+ 27 o The Jaguar Hunter o Lucius Shepard o nv F&SF May '85
+ 50 o Dogfight o Michael Swanwick & William Gibson o nv Omni
Jul '85
+ 69 o Fermi and Frost o Frederik Pohl o ss IASFM Jan '85
+ 84 o Green Days in Brunei o Bruce Sterling o na IASFM Oct '85
+ 129 o Snow o John Crowley o nv Omni Nov '85
+ 144 o The Fringe [*Carpenter] o Orson Scott Card o nv F&SF
Oct '85
+ 166 o The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things o Karen Joy
Fowler o ss IASFM Oct '85
+ 178 o Sailing to Byzantium o Robert Silverberg o na IASFM Feb
'85
+ 232 o Solstice o James Patrick Kelly o nv IASFM Jun '85
+ 265 o Duke Pasquale's Ring [*Dr. Eszterhazy] o Avram Davidson
o nv Amazing May '85
+ 304 o More Than the Sum of His Parts o Joe W. Haldeman o nv
Playboy May '85
+ 320 o Out of All Them Bright Stars o Nancy Kress o ss F&SF
Mar '85
+ 327 o Side Effects o Walter Jon Williams o nv F&SF Jun '85
+ 355 o The Only Neat Thing to Do o James Tiptree, Jr. o na
F&SF Oct '85
+ 402 o Dinner in Audoghast o Bruce Sterling o ss IASFM May '85
+ 414 o Under Siege o George R. R. Martin o nv Omni Oct '85
+ 441 o Flying Saucer Rock & Roll o Howard Waldrop o ss Omni
Jan '85
+ 459 o A Spanish Lesson o Lucius Shepard o nv F&SF Dec '85
+ 486 o Roadside Rescue o Pat Cadigan o ss Omni Jul '85
+ 494 o Paper Dragons [*Paper Dragons] o James P. Blaylock o nv
Imaginary Lands, ed. Robin McKinley, Ace, 1985
+ 510 o Magazine Section o R. A. Lafferty o ss Amazing Jul '85
+ 522 o The War at Home o Lewis Shiner o ss IASFM May '85
+ 526 o Rockabye Baby o S. C. Sykes o nv Analog mid-Dec '85
+ 551 o Green Mars o Kim Stanley Robinson o na IASFM Sep '85
+ 620 o Honorable Mentions: 1985 o Misc. Material o bi

No comment, except that the gaps in my reading seem to be the size of the Grand Canyon.


MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE--SOLD! By Terry Brooks (Alternate)

I never read this.

[I have since read a sequel and am not convinced I missed anything by not reading the original]


ALIENS by Alan Dean Foster (Alternate)

Novelization of the James Cameron movie.


November ACROSS REALTIME (2-in-1 of THE PEACE WAR and MAROONED IN REALTIME)
by Vernor Vinge

The first is a tedious Analog style story of a band of plucky individualists and the Evile One World Scientific Cabal that prevented WWIII by killing off most of the planet with their (Badly modeled, as it turned out) time-stopping bobble technology. You can skip this and miss nothing of note.

The second is more interesting, following a small group of people (who missed what seems to have been the extinction of humanity by method unknown by virtue of having been bobbled at the time) as they travel forward through time. A murder mystery of sorts, featuring one of the slower murder weapons in fiction.


THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH by Arthur C. Clarke

This is a slight but enjoyable expansion of the short story by the same name, in which a low population human colony is visited for the first time by other humans. There are differences: in the short, Earth is still around, although apparently not too good at sending out message torpedoes[1]. In the novel, the Sun has suffered a previously undocumented type of nova (related to the 'missing neutrino' problem [2] as I recall), and the various worlds were settled using automated probes carrying human sperm and eggs.

A crewed ship must stop to rebuild its ice-shield. Some mostly benign interaction occurs and a moderate amount of increased genetic diversity results. This has one of the lower key romantic triangles in SF, I think: one of the apexes simply goes on an extended trip until his rival has left for the stars, never to return. Clarkeian characters are very civilized.


1: Clearly set before it was realized mundane 20thC radio telescopes can be used to communicate across tens of thousands of light years.

2: Predictions for the number of detectable solar neutrinos turned out to be about three times larger than the number actually detected. Some people, and I have no evidence this included actual scientists, worried that the shortfall might mean that the sun was more variable than was previously thought and that a period of cooling might be coming. Of course, it takes millions of years for a photon to get from the core to the surface, so it might well not be our problem.


THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS by James Morrow (Alternate)

Moralistic tale of modern day humans put on trial by their un-born descendents for the crime of allowing WWIII to wipe out humanity. A bit shrill for my tastes and never addresses how immoral it would be to have spent billions and billions on nuclear weapons and then never use them.

Off-topic: the comic potential in Able Archer (a wargame in Europe that very nearly convinced the Soviets that it was the opening shot of WWIII) remains untouched as far as I know.


THE DERYNI ARCHIVES by Katherine Kurtz (Alternate)

I missed this.

Hitler Victorious: 11 Stories of the German Victory in World War II
ed. Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg (Garland
0-8240-8658-9, Oct '86 [Aug '86], $19.95, 299pp, hc); Anthology
of alternate-history sf stories. Several are originals.

+ 1 o Preface: Imagining the Abyss o Gregory Benford o pr
+ 5 o Introduction: Hitler Victorious o Norman Spinrad o in
+ 11 o Two Dooms o C. M. Kornbluth o na Venture Jul '58
+ 57 o The Fall of Frenchy Steiner o Hilary Bailey o nv New
Worlds Jul/Aug '64
+ 89 o Through Road No Whither o Greg Bear o ss Far Frontiers,
ed. Jerry Pournelle & Jim Baen, Baen, 1985
+ 95 o Weihnachtsabend ["Weihnachtabend"] o Keith Roberts o nv
New Worlds Quarterly 4, ed. Michael Moorcock, London: Sphere,
1972
+ 131 o Thor Meets Captain America o David Brin o nv F&SF Jul
'86
+ 159 o Moon of Ice o Brad Linaweaver o na Amazing Mar '82;
revised.
+ 221 o Reichs-Peace o Sheila Finch o nv *
+ 243 o Never Meet Again o Algis Budrys o ss Infinity Science
Fiction Mar '58
+ 259 o Do Ye Hear the Children Weeping? o Howard Goldsmith o
ss *
+ 271 o Enemy Transmissions o Tom Shippey o ss *
+ 291 o Valhalla o Gregory Benford o ss F&SF Apr '82


Some of these aren't bad, like the Kornbluth, but on the whole I found this dull and disappointing.

[Dull and disappointing describes a lot of 1980s SF, at least from my point of view]

December

The Shattered Sphere ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey (SFBC #10469,
Dec '86, $7.98, 728pp, hc) [*Thieves' World]; Omnibus edition
of three "Thieves' World" anthologies.

+ o The Dead of Winter o oa New York: Ace Oct '85
+ o Dramatis Personae o Lynn Abbey o pr
+ o Introduction o Robert Lynn Asprin o in
+ o Hell to Pay o Janet Morris o nv The Dead of Winter, ed.
Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o The Veiled Lady, or A Look at the Normal Folk o Andrew J.
Offutt o nv The Dead of Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn
Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o The God-Chosen o Lynn Abbey o nv The Dead of Winter, ed.
Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o Keeping Promises o Robin Wayne Bailey o nv The Dead of
Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o Armies of the Night o C. J. Cherryh o nv The Dead of
Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o Down by the Riverside o Diane Duane o nv The Dead of
Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o When the Spirit Moves You o Robert Lynn Asprin o ss The
Dead of Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace,
1985
+ o The Color of Magic o Diana L. Paxson o nv The Dead of
Winter, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o Afterword o Andrew J. Offutt o aw The Dead of Winter, ed.
Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1985
+ o Soul of the City o oa New York: Ace Jan '86
+ o Dramatis Personae o Lynn Abbey o pr
+ o Power Play o Janet Morris o nv Soul of the City, ed. Robert
Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Dagger in the Mind o C. J. Cherryh o nv Soul of the City,
ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Children of All Ages o Lynn Abbey o nv Soul of the City,
ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Death in the Meadow o C. J. Cherryh o nv Soul of the City,
ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o The Small Powers that Endure o Lynn Abbey o nv Soul of the
City, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Pillar of Fire o Janet Morris o nv Soul of the City, ed.
Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Blood Ties o oa New York: Ace Jul '86
+ o Dramatis Personae o Lynn Abbey o pr
+ o Introduction o Robert Lynn Asprin o in
+ o Lady of Fire o Diana L. Paxson o nv Blood Ties: Thieves'
World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Sanctuary Is for Lovers o Janet & Chris Morris o nv Blood
Ties: Thieves' World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey,
Ace, 1986
+ o Lovers Who Slay Together o Robin Wayne Bailey o nv Blood
Ties: Thieves' World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey,
Ace, 1986
+ o In the Still of the Night o C. J. Cherryh o nv Blood Ties:
Thieves' World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace,
1986
+ o No Glad in Gladiator o Robert Lynn Asprin o ss Blood Ties:
Thieves' World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace,
1986
+ o The Tie That Binds o Diane Duane o nv Blood Ties: Thieves'
World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Sanctuary Nocturne o Lynn Abbey o nv Blood Ties: Thieves'
World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace, 1986
+ o Spellmaster o Andrew J. & Jodie Offutt o nv Blood Ties:
Thieves' World #9, ed. Robert Lynn Asprin & Lynn Abbey, Ace,
1986
+ o Afterword o C. J. Cherryh o aw

I avoided this. The series descended into Maximum Suckitude pretty quickly.


HIGHWAY OF ETERNITY by Clifford D. Simak

I missed this.



STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE: THE FIRST ADVENTURE by Vonda N. McIntyre
(Alternate)

And this. Boy, I preferred McIntyre pre-contact with Trek fiction to post-contact.

[Basically, I didn't like her Starfarers books]

INTO THE OUT OF by Alan Dean Foster (Alternate)

And I had stopped reading ADF at this point, for no particular reason.

[I think I'd read as much of his stuff as I wanted to. I still have a bunch of his early books upstairs, though]

Comments

[oh6]

I recall "Good Night, Sweethearts" as being about space pirates, almost in the E.E. "Doc" Smith vein, except better written.

The Lyonnesse series (Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl, and Madouc) were my first exposure to Vance at novel length after being wowed by "The Moon Moth". The first book in particular has a great, spooky, creepy trip through the wilderness that struck me as a series of fairy stories strung together, and I didn't mind that at all.

"Dinner in Audoghast" is kind of similar to "Flowers of Edo" in that it's a historical fantasy in a non-European setting, medieval Ghana for the former, Meiji Japan for the latter. Thinking on it, they are kind of similar in other ways, featuring more or less crazy people with visions of the future, the invasion of the Almoravids and World War II, I guess, respectively.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Soldier of the Mist is my favorite Wolfe by a wide margin. It has one of my favorite paragraphs about religion in fiction, and the ending is just perfect--so perfect that my main problem with the sequel, Soldier of Arete, is that it exists at all.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I was very much hoping Wolfe would sent Latro to Achaemenid Palestine in Soldier of Sidon, because if you're going to be a Catholic henotheist, you might as well go for broke. Alas, no.

[sanskritabelt.livejournal.com]

'Soldier of the Mist' is just a gem, and I think I have the opinion of 'Soldier of Sidon' that you do of 'Soldier of Arete.'

[sanskritabelt.livejournal.com]

But if there's a fourth book, yeah I'm going to read that thing.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

I didn't even try Soldier of Sidon. I haven't liked any of Wolfe's recent books very much and I'd rather keep my memory of the first book intact in isolation.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

Magic Kingdom for Sale was better than its sequel, but it was still not very good. Brooks basically wanted to write a Miracle Play.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There's that Dozois. It made me a ritual buyer of the Dozois anthology for many years after that, though none of the others seemed quite as good. It's quite possible that I'd feel differently about some of these stories today.

The "Green Mars" novella is probably the best visit to KSR's Mars. Probably my favorites in there were the Gibson and Swanwick (so far as I know, the only gritty cyberpunk story ever to be set in Williamsburg, Virginia; might be too rapey in hindsight), Sterling's "Green Days in Brunei" (a cozy post-Peak-Oil romp about robotic bricolage, with a happy ending), the Lafferty (pleasantly nuts), and the aforementioned Silverberg. I can't decide whether "A Spanish Lesson," which involves alternate universe zombie Hitler and his ghost stormtroopers, is great or awful or so awful it cycles back around to great again, but it's certainly extreme.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The "Green Mars" novella

Note, the novel of the same name is not an expansion of this, though it's a possibly divergent version of the same setting (which KSR used over and over, not just in the trilogy). This one is about an expedition to climb Olympus Mons, and the strange consequences of being very long-lived with a finite memory.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Regarding "A Spanish Lesson": yes.

I think this was a vintage season, before the inexorable demographic effects of subcultural inbreeding really took hold.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...in that one respect, "Dogfight" resembles James Blish's A Life for the Stars, to my knowledge the only work of distant-future interstellar space adventure set in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I recall McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure to be a pleasantly cracktastic piece of Trekfic, though you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell that Vonda McIntyre had been a major SF writer.

The Songs of Distant Earth is arguably Clarke's last novel that was any good, though it's not one of his best. I love the digression into futuristic music criticism that happens at one point.

Having enjoyed A Fire Upon the Deep, I read Across Realtime and was boggled at how just plain bad The Peace War was. Libertarians with Boy Genius vs. the Sneering Statist Cabal, and of course they never had a chance. Marooned in Realtime, though, managed to be an interesting fusion of Singularity-fic with a Hercule Poirot-type locked-room mystery.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

There are little flashes of insight throughout Vinge's writing. But when it's time for the BIG MESSAGE, he starts up the jive turkey steamroller; and he perpetually misjudges his own cleverness, like a naturally funny person who becomes humor-deaf when they deliberately tell a joke.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

A fine synopsis/review of the McIntyre:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/08/take-heart-good-people-of-starbase-13-captain-kirk-is-bringing-you-a-mime-vonda-mcintyres-enterprise-the-first-adventure

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

I read that book, I believe; it taught me how to properly blindfold someone. (Or, at least, the flaws with improperly blindfolding.)

[gareth-wilson.livejournal.com]

The Peace War could make more sense in terms of the Peacers outlawing all military technology, and counting government as a military technology. Makes fighting a war so much easier, after all. So the libertarianism is just another restriction imposed by the Peacers. Except that New Mexico doesn't fit this at all - they have a government, and the Peacers are fine with it.

[(Anonymous)]

"Soldier of the Mist" takes place much later, 479 BC according to my copy. The soldier is a Latin who is somehow in Greece. I don't know if he is Roman - at this time Rome is only a village, though they've thrown their kings out. There's a reference to his being a scarily effective fighter (he doesn't recall the incident, naturally) a foreshadowing of the future empire.

"The Green Pearl" is probably the Lyonesse book I like the most, though that opinion may change on a reread.

"Weinachtabend" is a fine story. I can't recall "The Fall of Frenchy Steiner", but I can remember, long ago, making the case to someone that Hilary Bailey's fiction was wildly undervalued.

William Hyde

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Latro, the narrator of Soldier of the Mist, is one of a platoon of pre-Empire Roman mercenaries in the service of the Persian Empire during their second invasion of Greece. I have no idea if there's any historical basis for Roman mercenaries doing such a thing at that time.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, right.

I don't know that we have any evidence of Romans serving in the Persian army, but it isn't utterly implausible. Even in the early republic Romans quarreled among themselves violently enough to produce a nice crop of exiles. Wander down to Campania, sign up with a Greek who is recruiting for the Persians and off you go.

Wolfe might like the idea that he's one of those who left with Coriolanus, but I can't find a putative date for C (if he existed) and 479 feels early.

William Hyde

[(Anonymous)]

Suldrun's Garden is really a marvellous piece of Vance. The Green Pearl, its sequel, is significantly less good but still IMO worth reading. (There is a third book, which can be ignored.)

Doesn't "moralistic tale of..." describe pretty much all James Morrow?

"Dinner in Audoghast" is a fine short story. It's available to read online: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dinner-in-audoghast/


Doug M.

[(Anonymous)]

My opinion of the Lyonesse books when I first read them was more or less yours, above. On a reread (well, second reread) the later books improved considerably (and the first was still just as good as ever).

William Hyde

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting to add: The actual resolution to the missing solar neutrino problem turned out to be a lovely one. There are three varieties of neutrinos, and the early experiments could only detect one: the electron neutrino, the same type produced in the Sun.

Only, as it turns out, neutrinos have a tiny mass, and the states of definite mass are quantum superpositions of the three types. The upshot is that a solar electron neutrino will oscillate between the three types as it travels from one place to another, and may not be an electron neutrino any more by the time it gets to the detector. Therefore, a detected shortfall of two-thirds.

[*]

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

Still unrealized: a really good reason WHY there are three varieties of neutrino, other than "Well, there are three varieties of electron - electron, muon, and tauon - and three varieties of up and down quarks, it just makes sense to have one neutrino in each 'generation' too, because otherwise we'd get a LOT more 'electrons changing into muons' and the like than we ever actually see".

(Apparently the recent discovery of the Higgs, says Wikipedia, puts strong constraints on the possibility of a fourth generation, because the particles in IT would be at LEAST more massive than the Higgs, and would have changed its properties enough, due to their mass being due _to_ the Higgs, that we wouldn't have found it where it was [*]. But again, this is an "okay, it's this way in reality", not a "this is why it's that way"...)

--Dave

[*] It's okay, you're Allowed to have this make your head hurt. Physics isn't always pretty.