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%T Cat-a-lyst
%A Alan Dean Foster
%I Ace
%D July 1991
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 325
%G ISBN 0-441-64661-1
This is a better book than Foster's previous outing Cyber
Way (RR#51) but not by much. As
usual, Foster gets real cute; cats as superior aliens,
extraterrestrial invasion by refugee Incas wielding subliminal TV as
their main weapon, and help for poor humanity from giant sentient
carrots who talk like Victorians 'cause they used to hang out with
Lewis Carroll. Unfortunately the result has such visible seams and
the noise from turning plot-gears is so loud that it's hard to enjoy
the jokes. Buy it used, maybe.
%T Only Begotten Daughter
%A James Morrow
%I Ace
%D July 1991
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 312
%G ISBN 0-441-63041-1
Other people have different prejudices, but to me a theological
novel that is blurbed "it deserves to be measured against the best in
American literature" has two strikes against it from the start --- I'm
led to expect a pompous, pretentious, sprawling, angst-ridden turkey
like John Kessel's Good News From Outer Space (RR#71). This novel manages (albeit narrowly)
to avoid that trap, perhaps because the author (unlike Kessel) seems
to genuinely like his characters. All of them. Jacob Katz, the
mild-mannered Jewish recluse and bookworm who lives in a lighthouse,
makes his living donating to a sperm bank, and is more than shocked
when he discovers he's the parthogenetic father of a divine daughter.
Julie, the luckless and otherwise ordinary Girl Next Door who happens
to be the daughter of God, able to walk on water and perform miracles
but fairly sure for various reasons that she should not. Phoebe, her
worldly-wise and polymorphously-perverse best friend. Even the Devil
--- a dedicated professional extremely distressed by the decay of
sin-inducing Christianity, determined to see Julie sacrificed on a new
cross to guarantee the founding of a religion even more thoroughly
wedded to fanaticism, blood and evil. Then, too, Morrow's theological
speculations are quirky and original (if not always convincing).
Unlike Stranger In A Strange Land, this novel has no
particular moral subtext, no prescription for saving the world. Its
central, subtle theme is that we are all in Julie's shoes,
trapped divinities grappling with the Problem of Evil; it is a victory
simply to have our own lives against all the odds. This may seem too
pessimistic for some (it is for me) but it's an improvement on the
usual modern "literary" message that even the attempt to own your own
life is futile. The result isn't a great book, but it is a good
one.
Up to Eric's Home Page | To Index | Sat Jul 27 18:40:28 EDT 1991 |
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>