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%T Cathouse
%A Dean Ing
%I Baen Books
%D May 1990
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 247
%G 0-671-69872-9
This book continues Baen's annoying prediliction for repackaging stuff he's
already bought once under a new cover. At least this particular new wineskin
is honestly labelled; the material was originally published in parts in the
Man-Kzin Wars shared-universe anthologies. And the stories
themselves are pretty good; Ing puts a deal of knowledge of animal ethology to
work in painting a more interesting and convincing portrait of the Kzin than
Niven himself ever has. So maybe this one's worth buying anyhow.
%S Demon Crown
%T Symphony of Storms
%V 3
%A Robert E. Vardeman
%I TOR Books
%D May 1990
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 280
%G 0-812-50084-9
All right, I tried, OK? I really tried to read this wretched pile
of heroic-fantasy genre cliches through. I couldn't. Like the rest of
Vardeman's innumerable cookie-cutter formula pieces, this turkey is so
bad it glows in the dark. Shame on TOR for publishing it, and excuse
me while I ceremonially burn it.
%T Home Is The Hangman/We, In Some Strange Power's Employ...
%A Roger Zelazny/Samuel Delany
%I TOR Books
%D May 1990
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 96/81
%G 0-812-50983-8
This is TOR Double #21, a pair of reissues from 1975 and 1968
respectively. Both are strong early works by two of SF's best prose
stylists. Ignore Zelazny's nonsense about AI resurrecting vitalism and you'll
find the "science" of Hangman eerily prefigures today's
preoccupation with neural nets and trainable systems. We has
dated a bit more but still bears rereading quite well.
%T The Dream Master
%A Roger Zelazny
%I TOR Books
%D May 1990
%O paperback, US$3.50
%P 196
%G 0-671-69874-5
Another early (1966) work by Zelazny that retains its relevance quite well
-- his story of Render, the dream-engineering therapist who wanders into peril
through failing to understand his own dark dreams. One of the few
successful attempts at psychological SF.
Up to Eric's Home Page | To Index | Wed Apr 25 07:57:55 EDT 1990 |
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>