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%T Eight Skilled Gentlemen
%A Barry Hughart
%I Doubleday
%D Jan 1991
%O trade paperback, US$10.95
%P 255
%G 0-385-41710-1
Barry Hughart does it again in this sequel to Bridge Of Birds
and The Story Of The Stone, giving us an utterly delightful mix
of comedy, orientalia, high fantasy and murder mystery as Master Li and Number
Ten Ox struggle to solve a series of gruesome murders in the Forbidden City of
Peking, circa A.D. 650. If you haven't read these books, run -- do
not walk -- to your nearest bookstore and get them. Just the first scene, set
at a public execution that turns into a mad cross between a Lovecraft scenario
and a Marx Brothers movie, is worth the price of admission by itself.
%T Summertide
%A Charles Sheffield
%I DelRey
%D Jan 1991
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 281
%G 0-345-36937-8
This is volume one of "The Heritage Universe", a tasty space opera
for sophisticates that looks like it's set to wring some new life from
the SF cliche of a vanished forerunner race of Builders. Their huge,
incomprehensible artifacts, salted throughout the Spiral Arm, have
begun changing in inexplicable ways. To those few who can see the
pattern, the focus of this activity is the otherwise unexceptional
double planet of Opal and Quake, about to undergo a harrowing
periastron passage called Summertide. Specialists from throughout
known space are converging there in search of insights into the nature
and fantastic technologies of the Builders. The expectable intrigues
and dramas ensue, all competently written, but the real interest is
the puzzle Sheffield is sending us. I'll look forward to the next book.
%T Nicoji
%A M. Shayne Bell
%I Baen
%D January 1991
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 243
%G 0-671-72034-1
Orson Scott Card loves this novel, but I can't for the life of me figure
out why. It's a painfully obvious take on H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy
Papers, complete with cute fuzzy exploited aliens talking in a language
humans can't hear. Bleagh. Avoid.
%T Conan the Guardian
%A Roland Green
%I TOR
%D January 1991
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 280
%G 0-812-50961-7
Ho-hum. More routine hack-and-slash. I must admit to liking
Green's version of Conan better than most, though, as he actually
shows some glimmerings of intelligence once in a while. More than
anything else, though, this makes me wonder when the #@&$ Wandor's
Battle is finally coming out...
Up to Eric's Home Page | To Index | Sun Jun 09 23:14:47 EDT 1991 |
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>