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%T The Thirteenth Majestral
%A Hayford Pierce
%I Tor Books
%D May 1989
%O paperback, $3.95
%P 315
%G 0-812-54892-2
This book is a screamingly funny sendup of Jack Vance's writing style by the
author of Napoleon Disentimed and the Chap Foey Rider stories in
Analog magazine. If you are a Vance fan, do not miss
it!
%T The Founder
%A Christopher Rowley
%I Del Rey
%D Dec 1989
%O paperback, $3.95
%P 251
%G 0-345-33175-3
A basically forgettable prequel set in the world of The War For
Eternity and The Black Ship. It doesn't tell us
anything about Fenrille we didn't already know from the other books
and is too slight to stand on its own. Unless you are a completist
about series, forget it.
%T A Fearful Symmetry
%A James Luceno
%I Del Rey
%D Dec 1989
%O paperback, $3.95
%P 265
Nazi magicians menace the Earth! Can our heroes figure out what's
going on in time to Save The Day? Can the reader figure out what's
going on through Luceno's lumpenprose and spaghetti plotting? Who
knows? Who cares? Avoid this one, it reads like a bad parody of Stuart
Gordon's Smile On The Void.
%T Ace In The Hole (Wild Cards #6)
%A George R. R. Martin and others
Publisher Bantam/Spectra (Feb 1990)
%G 0-553-28253-0
The Wild Cards books probably share top honors with the Liavek stories
and the first few of the original Thieves' World anthologies as the
best writing to come out of the shared-worlds fad. Ace In The
Hole doesn't quite reach the heights of intensity of the
earlier books, but this may be a good thing; there had been a bit too
much slasher-movie psychopathic nastiness in the mix for my
taste. This one leaves me looking forward to #7.
%T Gryphon
%A Crawford Killian
%I Del Rey/Ballantine
%D Aug 1989
%G 0-345-35730-2
Tasty hard-SF by the author of the remarkably original novel
Eyas. I find Killian's premise that humans have altered
themselves into asocial animals just as implausible as Asimov's rather similar
Spacers, but his picture of an anarchic abundance culture based on
nanotechnology is believable and fascinating. Then, collectivist aliens
invade. Boy, are they in for a surprise!
Back to a full-length review in the next RR...
Up to Eric's Home Page | To Index | Mon Feb 12 11:13:28 EST 1990 |
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>