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%T Nothing Sacred
%A Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
%I Bantam
%D January 1992
%O paperback, 334 pp, US$4.99
%G ISBN 0-553-29511-X
As the author herself aptly characterizes "Nothing Sacred,"
"There's good news and bad news about this book. The bad news is, I
end the world. The good news is, there's a sequel." Despite its
novel setting (a prison camp high in the Tibetan Himalayans) and focus
(the evolution of that prison camp into a healthy, peaceful
community), Scarborough's themes are the standard apocalypse-novel
motifs of "let's stop killing each other" and "let's stop poisoning
the environment before its too late." Only her powerful command of
language and her unusually sensitive -- and believeable -- depiction
of the interactions among the camp's denizens raise "Nothing Sacred"
above the self-righteous moralizing characteristic of this sub-genre.[CCO]
%T Gifts of Blood
%A Susan Petrey
%I Baen
%D February 1992
%O paperback, 192 pp, US$4.50
%G ISBN 0-671-72107-0
This slender volume contains a handful of charming, novel stories,
most of which are about an Asian steppes tribe/subspecies called the
Varkela, who use their uncanny abilities of smell, taste and energy
field sensing to heal others, in exchange for the "gift of blood"
which they need to live. It is unfortunate that the author, who had a
degree in microbiology, did not live long enough to meld these
science-fictional "vampire" stories into a developed, coherent whole.[CCO]
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Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>