The Science Fiction Book Club Reviews Revisited: 1997 (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/

I am sorry but mostly Q4 of 1997 seems to have been an almost complete wash for me.


OCTOBER

SORCERERS OF MAJIPOOR by Robert Silverberg

I missed this.


THE RISE OF ENDYMION by Dan Simmons

And this.


THE SHADOW MATRIX by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Alternate)

And this.


FANTASTIC 4: THE REDEMPTION OF THE SILVER SURFER by Michael Jan Friedman (Alternate)

And this. Who is MJF anyway?


DONNERJACK by Roger Zelazny & Jane Lindskold (Alternate)

And I missed this.


RUNNING WITH THE DEMON by Terry Brooks (Alternate)

And this. I have read other Brooks books that me think Mark Twain's comment about Austen applies here.


GIANT BONES by Peter S. Beagle (Alternate)

I missed this.


THE ALIEN LIFE OF WAYNE BARLOWE by Wayne Douglas Barlowe (Flyer)

This is probably an art book.


DRACULA by Bram Stoker (Flyer)

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I have never read this. In fact the only Stoker I have read is The Jewel of the Seven Stars.


DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS by Stephen Spruill (Flyer)

Missed this. And I do mean missed: I had no idea he was still getting published.


MY SOUL TO KEEP by Tananarive Due (Flyer)

Missed this.


NOVEMBER

HOW FEW REMAIN by Harry Turtledove


I think this is an alternate history where the South won. I must admit I didn't read it. The South Wins book I want to read has not been written, I think.


MASKERADE by Terry Pratchett

This is a Witches entry in Diskworld. In this one, a replacement must be found for Magrat, who has gone all Queeny. The best candidate is off in the big city, entangled in an opera plot not too unlike Phantom of the Opera [Actually it is completely unlike the recent ALW [?] version or it would consist of one paragraph repeated a thousand times] so the two Witches travel there to collect their new third.

Worth reading, of course.

[I found the musical Phantom tediously repetitive]


X-FILES: ANTIBODIES by Kevin J. Anderson (Alternate)

Media tie-in by Keven J. Anderson. Like that is going to be readable.

[Someone must like his stuff, because he keeps getting published]


THE TIMELINE WARS [3-in-1 of PATTON'S SPACESHIP, WASHINGTON'S DIRIGIBLE and CAESAR'S BICYCLE] by John Barnes (Alternate)

I only read the first of these. Total crap, in the carnographic men's adventure mold.


BERSERKER FURY by Fred Saberhagen (Alternate)

I missed this.


JACK FAUST by Michael Swanwick (Alternate)

And this, even though I am a raving Swanwick fan.


THE DRAGON AND THE GNARLY KING by Gordon R. Dickson (Alternate)

I missed this.


THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES [6-in-1 of AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE DOLL, TWIST OF FATE: THE LOCKET, ASHES TO ASHES: THE DRAGON'S FLAME, IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL: THE HANDKERCHIEF, DAY OF RECKONING: THE STEREOSCOPE and ASYLUM] by John Saul (Alternate)

And all of these. Horror, maybe? Did one of the periodic rises from the dead of Horror occur about then?


FABULOUS BEASTS by Malcolm Ashman & Joyce Hargreaves (Flyer)

And I missed this.


INFINITE WORLDS: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION ART edited by Vincent di Fate (Flyer)

And I missed this.


SPECTRUM 4 by edited by Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner (Flyer)

Another art book.


THE GRATITUDE OF KINGS by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Flyer)

And this.


DECEMBER

LORD OF THE ISLES by David Drake

I missed this.

[I've read sequels, I think. I thought they formed a fairly weak series, although I was impressed that he seemed to have burned the set down at one point]


/ SLANT by Greg Bear

And while I have fond memories of reading this, nothing of the actual book sticks with me. Same universe as Queen of Angels, Heads and Moving Mars


DREAMING METAL by Melissa Scott (Alternate)

I missed this.


IN ENEMY HANDS by David Weber (Alternate)

I had stopped reading HH books by this point, to save my eye from the glare of her Pearly White Glow.

[And then, of course, I started getting sent them for review]


THE GREAT GAME [3-in-1 of PAST IMPERATIVE, PRESENT TENSE and FUTURE INDEFINITE] by Dave Duncan (Alternate)

I think DD is one of the best fantasy authors I don't read. I have no reason not to read him, aside from my biases about fantasy.


GRAVELIGHT by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Alternate)

Missed this.


KINGDOM COME by Mark Waid & Alex Ross (Flyer)

This is a collected volume of a limited series, in which the pure-hearted heroes of the Silver Age have to come back and deal with the violent, amoral current generation of super-powered beings. Power corrupts and all that.

Kind of a trite story (And what is it with killing off Wesley Dodds in series like this?) and while the art is beautiful, it is also static and often confusing.


STAR TREK: VULCAN'S FORGE by Josepha Sherman & Susan Schwartz

I missed this.


WINTER

FAULT LINES [2-in-1 of EARTHQUAKE WEATHER and EXPIRATION DATE] by Tim Powers

Wow, that must have been a thick book. I don't recall anything about the first book but the second involves a young boy who does a very stupid thing with the spirit of Thomas Edison.

I used to be a raving Powers fan but these are the least favourite of his books for me.


ST. LEIBOWITZ AND THE WILD HORSE WOMAN by Walter M. Miller, Jr. & Terry Bisson

I missed this.

[Sequel written from Miller's notes. Not up to the original but then few books are]


X-MEN: MUTANT EMPIRE [3-in-1 of SIEGE, SANCTUARY and SALVATION] by Christopher Golden (Alternate)

And this.


EARTHLING by Tony Daniel (Alternate)

And this. I have been supremely unimpressed with the two books of his I did read.

[Three books of his I've read, now. Third one didn't involve interplanetary cable cars but still wasn't much good. Daniels is the writer I give the most credit to for my Seeing Ear Theater rule]


POLGARA THE SORCERESS by David & Leigh Eddings (Alternate)

I have never read Eddings.

[Interestingly, while I get sent lots of EFP I have never been sent an Eddings]

A DIVERSITY OF DRAGONS by Anne McCaffrey; illustrated by Richard Woods (Alternate)

And I missed this as well.


SECRETS by Luis Royo (Flyer)

And this.

Comments

[eagle]

Michael Jan Friedman is a fairly prolific Star Trek tie-in writer who branched out into various other universes and also wrote for a bunch of comics, mostly published by DC. I recall him doing a fairly good job with the Star Trek comic series published by DC, at least insofar as one can do that sort of thing well.

[srogerscat.livejournal.com]

The South Wins.... Hmmm.

A tale in which a victorious South is torn apart by the nationwide slave rebellion that erupts because the North (blaming Blacks for the war) no longer allows the Underground Railroad to function as a safety valve would be interesting.

Of course, it would be a bloodbath that would require a David Drake or S. M. Stirling to do it justice.

[nebogipfel.livejournal.com]

Yes, sure. As if a self-proclaimed high tory like Stevar who wants the empire, victorian-style back, would support a slave rebellion.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If the South won, there might be slave revolts. There would be either secession from the Confederacy and/or more civil war to hold it together.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Or: The slave system hangs on well into the 20th century in the CSA, which is a natural member of the Axis. The delayed conclusion of the Civil War erupts as the North American campaign of World War II, devastating the continent and keeping the US out of Europe. The USSR finally beats Hitler sometime in the Fifties, goes nuclear first and the global march of international Communism frees the slaves and unites the world.

[srogerscat.livejournal.com]

As a southern male born and bred some may consider this apostasy on my part.... but I don't think the CSA lasts that long. The role of the Underground Railroad as a safety valve against slave revolt is a factor that, I think, is consistently and hugely underestimated.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

There's also the fact that the Civil War was fought over not just the defense of slavery, but the expansion of slavery into the new territories. It's not like that issue would have gone away if Gettysburg had gone differently. The South winning the War could just as well be the beginning of a period of violence culminating in the collapse of an economically unstable CSA, America as a fragmented country becomes globally less influential, segue into mmcirvin's last sentence above.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Of course, above I'm being a bit facetious, in that I suspect a US that is less of a global player changes world history enough that a lot of things would have played differently by the 1940s; you might not necessarily get the USSR or the Third Reich as we knew them.

(However, I do suspect the alternate history in which the US allies with the Nazis ends with Stalin getting the bomb first, and a somewhat different set of cities learning about it the hard way.)

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

How I'd write that: without the American Dawes Plan of 1924 propping up Weimar Germany, that particular house of cards collapses while Adolf Hitler is still in jail over the Beer Hall Putsch. The new government is Communist. Oooh, wait, maybe a restored monarchy, perhaps of a different German royal house. Announcing his majesty, Charles Edward, of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Edward,_Duke_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha

[chrysostom476.livejournal.com]

Sorcerers of Majipoor is where Majipoor really started to get dire, for me.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I've always seen Sorcerers of Majipoor as a remake/pastiche of ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros. There are a number of parallel scenes, and the ending is (I think) pretty clearly a revision of WO's controversial ending.

The female lead is the only character I think of who doesn't have a one to one correspondence to a Worm character, but I'm pretty sure she's based on Fiorinda from the Zimiamvia trilogy.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Slant is, if I recall correctly, about a conspiracy of the elitest 0.000001% to cull the rest of the world's surplus human biomass, which they have decided is of no use to them. Not as interesting as Queen of Angels, though I remember liking the attempt at describing the problems of a world trying to deal with the fact that technology has rendered a large fraction of the population idle.

[(Anonymous)]

"How Few Remain" is far more interesting than, say,
"The guns of the south". It takes place some decades after a southern win, yes, but IIRC the south hasn't had a sudden change of heart ("My God", said General Lee, "Slavery is really, really naughty!") to the degree of the earlier book and I had no trouble finishing it. There were problems here and there, but the book never hit the wall.

That said, it's a bit of a crapsack alternate universe, neither the south nor the north being good places to live, particularly if you happen to be black. I'm sure that a reread would reveal problematic bits I've forgotten, but I'm content with my memories of Lincoln the socialist. It may have been the last Turtledove I read.

The Endymion series replicates the Hyperion series, at a lower level. The first book is much the better, the second declines in the second half and falls utterly apart at the end. On a reread a few years ago I was surprised at how readable TROE was, until it went off the cliff. I suppose that the question of which of Simmons duologies has the worst ending could make an amusing discussion. This would be a strong candidate.

I am very fond of "Expiration Date", which for me just flows along, the kind of book I have to stop myself from reading because suddenly it's 4am, but somehow I never managed to finish "Earthquake Weather", despite two attempts. As with Wolfe's "On Blue's Waters" I can't point to any specific reason for abandoning the book. I wasn't enjoying either, but just why remains a mystery.

William Hyde

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Rise of Endymion kind of turns into Jonathan Livingston Seagull there at the end. It's a pretty spectacular meltdown.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Earthquake Weather had some cool stuff in it, I especially liked the Winchester House stuff. But yeah, not up there with the other two. And I'd agree this is my least favorite Powers, but still, I reread the first two :)

Only allowed myself to get Earthquake Weather recently so haven't reread yet and I read fast on a first through so the second go is when I can get at all critical. Powers ability to bring so many threads together that seem so disparate may have been over done in Earthquake Weather. You get the Fisher King and Tarot and other stuff from Last Call and then the ghosts and their various threads from Expiration Date, plus Winchester House, the Sutro Baths, Colma, the wine and the vineyards... And all the old characters in addition to the new ones. But I'll read it again.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

This isn't my least favourite Powers. Those would be Dinner at Deviant's Palace, The Skies Discrowned and An Epitaph in Rust.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

I haven't read those yet, but they do seem to be at the bottom of most lists. I'm wary of others taste in Powers because I didn't think Anubis Gates was all that great, fun yes, but nothing on Stress or Declare. Though I have no idea what you think of Anubis Gates.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I liked Jack Faust but I suspect that you would strongly dislike it - it's a deconstruction of male-stereotype Competent Man SF power-fantasy in the same way as his previous The Iron Dragon's Daughter deconstructed female-stereotype Super Special Mary Sue fantasy power-fantasy. And while there are hints of possible redemption in the ending of Iron Dragon's Daughter there are none at all in Jack Faust.

[(Anonymous)]

Jack Faust is a book that I can engage with intellectually, but it's so relentlessly dark and dreary that I disliked it and have no interest in rereading it. (Yes, I get that this is the effect Swanwick was going for. He's a very talented writer.)


Doug M.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

As I heard, Walter Miller had almost finished "Wild Horse Women", and Bisson wrote the last couple of chapters. The MS was a bit more than notes. Never read it, though.

I had "Donnerjack" once, but The Purge got it before I could make myself finish it. Is it worth another try? (It's supposed to be more Zelazny than Linskold ...)

Lots of "Bradley" this quarter. Post-stroke?

[(Anonymous)]

Donnerjack worked on a meta level for me. The title character is a very Zelazny hero, but he dies about a third of the way through the book. The rest of is about his kid, and I wondered at the time how much of the story Zelazny wrote before his own death.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

And it's Discworld! Sorry, pedant sometimes takes over and I can't help it.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, but my computers have discs-not-disks, so what do I know?

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

I began my internetting on alt.fan.pratchett. Which is also my answer to those idiots about authors in fan spaces...

[khavrinen.livejournal.com]

DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS by Stephen Spruill (Flyer)

Missed this. And I do mean missed: I had no idea he was still getting published.

This was the second in his "Hemophage" series, following RULERS OF DARKNESS. As far as I can tell the third book, LORDS OF LIGHT, was only published in the UK ( Hodder & Stoughton, 1999 ). As one might guess from the series designation, it's yet another Urban Fantasy with vampires ( at least they don't sparkle ). I would have liked to see the fourth in the series, which hopefully would have followed up on the clear implication at the end of the third one: that the "Hemophages" were a lost branch of the family of "Angels" who were the focus of LORDS, and were only forced to drink blood because they hadn't gotten the proper training in the use of their powers that Angels were supposed to get.

[ I'm quite fond of the "feel" of Spruill's writing, though I'll admit his "Science Fiction" is almost devoid of any actual science... ]

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

The Shadow Matrix was another Darkover novel, this one set _after_ Regis Hastur's experiment with the Sharranauts for a change. It's Classic Darkover The Next Generation, in a way.

The Brooks was in his Knight of the Word series, as far as I know, which I've never touched. The Saberhagen and the Dickson reveal their series allegiance in the title. I liked the Drake series, which doubles as a planar travelogue. Somehow I did not actually expect the way it ended until partway through the last volume. I don't think I've disliked any Duncan series I've actually read (and he's one of yours by immigration, James!); this one crosses First World War Earth with a plane called Nextdoor and a Great Game of intrigue, lies, magic, and gods - you know, the usual stuff.

If they published Fault Lines in that order and with only those two novels, They Wur Doin It Rong - the pseudo-trilogy is Last Call, Expiration Date, and Earthquake Weather, pretty much in that order. And yes, EW is a mashup of the first two WITH new elements thrown in and new important characters, so yes it's spilling over with stuff. It's my personal go-to for rereading Powers.

Finally, the Eddings is another "same story, told from the perspective of, backstory fleshed out and added" like Belgarath the Sorcerer was.

--Dave, hoping this helps a little