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<> ************************************************************** * * * R E A D I N G F O R P L E A S U R E * * * * Issue #22 * * April 1992 / May 1992 * * * * * * Editor: Cindy Bartorillo * * * * * ************************************************************** CONTACT US AT: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702; or on CompuServe leave a message to 74766,1206; or on Delphi leave mail to BARTORILLO; or call our BBS, the BAUDLINE II at 301-694-7108, 1200-9600 HST. NOTICE: Reading For Pleasure is not copyrighted. You may copy freely, but please give us credit if you extract portions to use somewhere else. This electronic edition is free, but print editions cost $2 each for printing and postage. AUTHORS of the reviews, commentaries, etc., published in RFP will be found beneath the "header" information (title, book author, publisher, price, and so on) enclosed in less-thans and greater-thans, as in <<John Doe>>. ************************** ~ HOW TO GET THE ELECTRONIC EDITION OF RFP First, call your local computer bulletin boards to see if they have the latest issue. If not, you can always get all issues by calling The Baudline II at 301-694-7108. These issues are ZIPped (compressed) for quick downloading and must be unZIPped with Phil Katz's PKUNZIP program (IBM). If you need a plain .TXT version, just leave a (C)omment telling us which issue(s) you need and when you'll be calling back to get them. (Be sure to give us at least 24 hours to get your Comment and prepare the files.) If you get the latest RFP, be sure to upload it to all the computer bulletin boards that you call. Also available on The Baudline II is an Index of RFP reviews (RFPINDEX.ZIP) and the latest catalog from Sisters in Crime (RFP-SC.ZIP). ~ HOW TO GET THE PRINT EDITION OF RFP Send $2 to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. Please specify which issue you'd like. If you send a check, be sure it's drawn on an American bank and made out to Cindy Bartorillo, otherwise send cash or a postal money order. ************************** Table of Contents Readers, Writers, and In-Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Mainstream Fiction Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Mystery Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667 Horror Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1323 Science Fiction & Fantasy Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2031 Nonfiction Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2886 ************************** ~ READERS, WRITERS, AND IN-LAWS by Cindy Bartorillo I just got a very nice thank-you note from the author of a book that I had reviewed, very favorably, in a recent issue of RFP. A fairly steady trickle of such notes come in the mail, leading me to believe that writers tend to be very polite and possibly not overly accustomed to compliments. I never know how to respond so I usually don't. The only thing I can think of is to send them a thank-you note for their thank-you, which certainly seems rather witless and might even lead to the horror of a never-ending chain of mutual appreciation that can only lead to insanity and watching daytime talk shows. So unless they have a specific question, or I do, I normally let both of us off the hook and remain silent. Seemingly the end of the subject, until I happened to notice with this last letter than it made me feel ever so slightly uncomfortable. It took me a while, but I think I've figured out why. For a reader, or at least for the kind of reader I am, authors play the same role as in-laws do in marriage. Over months of trouble and no little pain they gave birth to a creation which ultimately got released into the wide world, at which point I met up with it/him and formed a personal relationship which I subsequently went public with, in the form of a review/marriage. Now you have two people with intimate ties to a third party, but who have no particular, necessary relationship to each other. Do you see what I mean? The writer who wrote to me spoke possessively about "my book", which kind of rankles because there it is, large as life, on MY shelf, in MY memories, obviously MY book. Of course I acknowledge the author's essential role in the creation of the book, and I'm suitably grateful, but the thought of an author showing up at my house to inquire about, oh, say, how I'm getting along with THEIR books would be like waking up to find my mother-in-law making breakfast and wondering if I'm taking proper care of HER son. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I like hearing from writers, and am enormously grateful to them for writing the books that I read, but I sure wish they'd understand that the books are now MINE. I hope you can find some books in this issue that you'd like to make all your own, and don't forget that Reading For Pleasure's Third Anniversary Issue is coming in June 1992. See you then. ************************** * Preliminary figures have book sales for 1991 up 4.6% over 1990, reaching $16.1 billion. The biggest gains were noted in mass market paperbacks ($1.2 billion, up 9.2%), trade paperbacks ($4.2 billion, up 9.1%), university press books ($265 million, up 8%), and religious books ($838 million, up 6.4%). * The NPD Group for the Book Industry Study Group, the American Booksellers Association, and the Association of American Publishers surveyed 16,000 households about their book-buying habits during the period of April 30, 1990 to March 30, 1991. Of the households contacted, 6,000 (38%) had purchased a book during the period in question. Of the books bought by these people, 53% were purchased in bookstores (28% in independent bookstores, 20% in chain bookstores, and 5% in used bookstores), 16% from book clubs, 17% in food, drug, or discount stores, 4% through mail order, and 2% at price clubs. Popular fiction accounted for two-thirds of the books purchased, general nonfiction was 9%, cooking and crafts 7%. ************************** * IMPORTANT NOTICE! We at Reading For Pleasure are no longer available on the GEnie online service, but we are now available on the Delphi online service. On Delphi, address electronic mail to BARTORILLO. ************************** ~ NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNERS Fiction: A THOUSAND ACRES by Jane Smiley (Knopf) General Nonfiction: BACKLASH: THE UNDECLARED WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WOMEN by Susan Faludi (Crown) Biography/Autobiography: PATRIMONY: A TRUE STORY by Philip Roth (Simon & Schuster) Poetry: HEAVEN AND EARTH: A COSMOLOGY by Albert Goldbarth (University of Georgia Press) Criticism: HOLOCAUST TESTIMONIES: THE RUINS OF MEMORY by Lawrence L. Langer (Yale) Award for Criticism: George Scialabba ************************** ^ HOOK by Terry Brooks based on a screenplay by Jim V. Hart & Malia Scotch Marmo and screen story by Jim V. Hart & Nick Castle (Fawcett Columbine, January 1992, $15.00, ISBN 0-449-90707-4) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "How far back can you remember?" Peter swallowed. "I was cold, alone..." He stopped, angry now. "I can't remember! No one knows where I came from! You told me I was a foundling!" "I found you," Wendy cut him short. "I did." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Peter, you must listen to me now. And believe. You and I played together as children. We had wonderful adventures together. We laughed, we cried." She paused. "And we flew." Peter tried unsuccessfully to pull away. Something unpleasant was stirring inside him, something beyond the reach of his memory. Granny Wendy bent close, her face only inches from his own. "The stories are true. I swear to you. I swear it by everything I adore. Peter--don't you realize who you are?" The current answer to that question is that Peter Banning is a workaholic who carries a cellular phone under his jacket in a shoulder holster so he can make million-dollar deals anytime, and who breaks too many promises made to his long suffering family: wife Moira, son Jack, and daughter Maggie. Granny Wendy is trying to get Peter to remember his original identity, the child he once was, capable of joy and laughter and high silliness. This is important now, because Peter's old nemesis, Captain Hook, has kidnapped Jack and Maggie, and Peter must somehow return to Neverland to get them back. Many years of sober maturity, of "acting his age", of boring meaningless adulthood must be thrown off before Peter can reclaim his inner child. Taken as such, HOOK is an enchanting parable for modern adults who may find their memories richer in lost opportunities than in experiences enjoyed. At the same time, HOOK fosters the very childlike attitude it bemoans the loss of. Who can resist Uncle Tootles, down on his knees, searching for his lost marbles? Or Maggie, who draws a picture of her mind so she won't get lost in her thoughts? HOOK is a perfect example of how high fantasy can be more palpably real than the six o'clock news, how a story can tell of events that never happened yet are happening all the time. For that matter, when is the last time you've thought your happy thought? If it's been too long, maybe you need a nice big dose of HOOK, the finest fairy tale I've read since I was a Lost Child myself. Clap if you believe in fairies! ************************** ^ OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM by Jonathan Carroll (Doubleday, February 1992, $20.00, ISBN 0-385-41973-2) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "Life is best when it's surprising and you're looking forward to what's next." ---from OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM "I am not a nice man. I expect others to be nice to me, but feel no compulsion to return the favor. Luckily enough, important people have called me a genius throughout my adult life so that I've been able to get away with an inordinate amount of rudeness, indifference, and plain bad manners...Geniuses are allowed to do anything." ---Harry Radcliffe (OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM) Harry Radcliffe is one of God's favorites--he has it all. He is an award-winning architect who has appeared on the cover of TIME magazine; two beautiful and intelligent women are vying for his attention; and clients are beating a path to his door, with blank checks, begging him to design buildings for them. Everyone agrees that Harry is a Genius. But one day, Harry goes insane. Harry is saved by a shaman named Venasque and his companions: a Vietnamese pig named Connie and a bull terrier named Big Top. After his recovery, Harry decides to accept the job being offered to him by the Sultan of Saru (a oil-rich country in the middle east)--to build a Dog Museum dedicated to the dogs who have saved the Sultan's life. Before they can even leave California, the Sultan's life is saved by a dog once again, this time by Big Top. "You know what the difference between tragedy and comedy is? Tragedy keeps reminding us how limited life is. Comedy says there are no limits." ---Harry Radcliffe (OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM) In the very first sentence of the story Harry refers to the Sultan as "God", and this only begins the references, large and small, to the divine and to religion in general. Once Harry decides to build the Dog Museum for "God", life is never the same for anyone in the story. What is the Dog Museum? Will Harry actually build a structure that reaches all the way to heaven itself? Jonathan Carroll's world is just exactly like the world you and I live in, except it's full of wonder and magic. (Or is it simply that the wonder and magic in Carroll's world is more noticeable than in ours?) Carroll has a cult following around the world, but, so far, is more popular in Europe than in the U.S. As a matter of fact, his one short story collection, THE PANIC HAND, has yet to be published in English--it is available only in translation. * On a list of the 100 best books of the 1980s, the German magazine TEMPO put Carroll's THE LAND OF LAUGHS at the #4 spot. In France, THE LAND OF LAUGHS won the Prix Apollo for fantasy literature in 1987. * Carroll won the World Fantasy Award for Short Story in 1988. * A movie based on "Mr. Fiddlehead", a story-within-the-story in his novel A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY, will be made later this year. * A movie based on the novel VOICE OF OUR SHADOW is scheduled to be made in 1993. Carroll fans will recognize a number of people and animals in OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM. In addition to Venasque, Connie, and Big Top, you'll find Walker Easterling, Maris, Orlando the cat, and even Philip Strayhorn, creator of the MIDNIGHT movies. A short story sequel to DOG MUSEUM will be published "later this year" in OMNI magazine. "Everyone laughs at the way I work. I first write a book very fast by computer, then I write it by hand as fast as I can, and then I buy these rare, expensive notebooks that look like something from the old days and I get a beautiful pen--and I rewrite the novel very, very slowly. To me, 'fast,' 'less fast,' and 'very slow' are the three stages, and by the time it is finished I go back to the computer and make changes." ---Jonathan Carroll OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM is another enthralling vision from one of our most consistently fascinating writers. Below is a list of his books, which you can read more about in RFP #15. 1. The Land of Laughs (1980) 2. Voice of Our Shadow (1983) 3. Bones of the Moon (1988) 4. Sleeping in Flame (1989) 5. A Child Across the Sky (1990) 6. Black Cocktail (novella; 1991) 7. Outside the Dog Museum (1992) 8. After Silence (coming) "Wonder doesn't fit in a book, Harry. It's too big." ---Venasque (OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM) ************************** ^ A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens (Courage Books, 1992, $4.98, ISBN 1-56138-114-4) <<Howard Frye>> The "two cities" are Georgian London and Paris during the horrific and violent French Revolution. The tale is about two men who will cross paths in this lavish historical framework: the dissolute English barrister Sydney Carton and the high-born French gentleman Charles Darnay. First published as a magazine serial in 1859, A TALE OF TWO CITIES has gone on to become a landmark of English fiction. If you haven't had the pleasure yet, this is very possibly the most dramatic story you will ever read. As a matter of fact, even if you haven't read it, you might very well recognize the first and last sentences, two of literature's most famous lines: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..." "'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.'" Why am I telling you about Dickens' A TALE OF TWO CITIES now? Because there's a new edition of it that you should know about. It's from Courage Books, an imprint of Running Press, and it's only $4.98, which doesn't sound that great until you realize that we're talking about a hardcover book! That's right, an actual hardcover book, with paper dustjacket, for only $4.98. The only compromise on quality that I can detect is the cramped type--it's cramped but still very readable. Also, in the back are two essays of helpful commentary: "Charles Dickens" by George Orwell, and "A Tale of Two Cities" by Holly Hughes. This is just one of an entire line of affordable hardcover editions of classic books. Here's a list of what's available: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane The Best of O. Henry Walden by Henry David Thoreau Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Emily Dickinson: Collected Poems If the Courage Books edition of A TALE OF TWO CITIES is not available at your local bookstore, you can order it directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $2.50 postage and handling, to: Running Press, 125 South Twenty-Second St., Philadelphia, PA 19103. ************************** ^ BABY ANIMALS: Five Stories of Endangered Species by Derek Hall; illustrated by John Butler (Candlewick Press, 1992, $14.95, ISBN 1-56402-004-5) <<Janet Peters>> What an adorable book for bedtime story-time or for early readers! In each of five stories, a youngster of an endangered species is featured: an elephant, a tiger, a panda, a polar bear, and a gorilla. Each story involves the youngster in some typical youthful activity common to baby animals and children alike. This activity leads, very briefly, to some danger or insecurity, but all is put right at the end, usually with the youngster reunited with the parent. Each of the stories is charming, exciting without being scary, and ultimately very happy, warm, safe, and cozy. But Derek Hall's lovely stories are only half of BABY ANIMALS; John Butler's illustrations are a delight in themselves, carrying much of the characterization and emotion of the plot in the body language and expressions of the animals. This makes BABY ANIMALS particularly accessible to pre-readers, who can follow the story with the pictures. BABY ANIMALS is from Candlewick Press, a new publisher of children's books with an exciting catalog of items. We hope to be able to bring more of them to your attention here in RFP. All Candlewick Press titles should be readily available from your local bookstore, but just in case, you can contact them at: Candlewick Press, 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140. ************************** ^ WILD CRITTERS Verse by Tim Jones; Photography by Tom Walker (Graphic Arts Center, 1992, $15.95, ISBN 0-945397-10-0) <<Carol Sheffert>> The view forever Mama takes me up these hills but never far enough for me to see around and over every rock and bluff. So when I can't see all there is and want to see whatever, I climb a little higher and I can see forever. You couldn't ask for a more engaging collection of wildlife photography and light, sometimes cute, sometimes touching poetry. Both creative artists hail from Alaska, which has formed the subject matter of other books: Tom Walker's WE LIVE IN THE ALASKAN BUSH, BUILDING THE ALASKA LOG HOME, SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA, and ALASKAN WILDLIFE; Tim Jones' THE LAST GREAT RACE and RACE ACROSS ALASKA, both about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. They are both abundantly familiar with the wilderness and wildlife of Alaska, which has resulted in WILD CRITTERS: a charming, fascinating, and whimsical look at critters in private moments. A mallard duck waving her tail feathers in the air while feeding, a red fox yawning, a polar bear napping, a grizzly bear scratching an itch on a wooden sign--these are aspects of their lives humans are seldom allowed to see. My favorite is a set of two photographs of a willow ptarmigan (a chubby, roughly pigeon-shaped bird for us city types). One photo shows the bird in a winter setting, against a background of snow, the other a summer picture with a background of assorted ground brush. The amazing thing is that the winter ptarmigan's feathers are pure white, while the same bird's summer plumage is multi-colored brown/yellow/black/white. The bird virtually disappears in both photographs, which are appropriately labelled "Camouflage". The poetry harmonizes with the photographs beautifully, and together make a volume that will be appreciated by the whole family. If your local bookstore can't get WILD CRITTERS for you, you can contact the publisher at: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co., PO Box 10306, Portland, OR 97210. ************************** ^ A FLIGHT OF ANGELS by Sarah Aldridge (Naiad Press, 1992, $9.95, ISBN 1-56280-001-9) When Clemence and Elissa, close friends since college, meet again in Washington, D.C., their friendship flares into passion. But they love each other during an era of national paranoia: the McCarthy witch hunts for political and moral "subversives". Elissa, as a staff member for a congressional committee, is drawn ever closer to the political fray. Clemence, a clerk in the National Gallery of Art, is also caught in a crossfire--between Francis Hearn, the new director of purchases for the Gallery, and Robert Alden, intense young curator of medieval paintings. As the two men clash over the fate of A FLIGHT OF ANGELS, a great painting treasured by Clemence, she learns that Robert has a past of interest to McCarthy's committee, and a present about which rumors swirl. And clouds have emerged between Clemence and Elissa. Elissa is calling herself a lesbian--an identity Clemence refuses to claim. But if she does not claim it, she will lose Elissa. Clemence must face her conflicts. Her decisions will be fateful--and irrevocable. You can order A FLIGHT OF ANGELS directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus 15% for postage and handling, to: The Naiad Press Inc., PO Box 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302. Charge card orders can be phoned in to: 1-800-533-1973. ************************** BOOKS ON TAPE: ^ THE FIRST MAN IN ROME by Colleen McCullough, read by Donada Peters (Books On Tape, Inc.) <<Robert Pittman>> My experience in listening to the first book in Colleen McCullough's projected five-volume series of Roman historical novels was a difficult exercise and a net disappointment. The book was favorably reviewed in issue 19 of RFP and seems to have been applauded generally by other critics and reviewers. Recently the second volume, THE GRASS CROWN, has been published and it too has been greeted with good reviews. The recorded version suffers from two interrelated problems. First, the story is populated with an extensive inventory of people, places and legislative processes that are identified with lengthy Latin words. Distinguishing the two main characters, Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, is not so difficult, but there are many more characters with names such as Quintus Caecilius Metrellus Numidicus, Marcus Livius Drusus Censor or Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus who must be followed through the story. Understanding these terms and keeping track of the characters requires constant and total dedication of the ear and ultimately becomes an objectionable chore for the listener. In fact, for me, it erased the pleasure of the story line and left me irritated with the exceptional demand for attention and concentration. I do not think that there is a solution to this problem. It is just the nature of the story; some stories lend themselves to vocal renditions more than others. The second problem had to do with the reader. The book is read by Donada Peters who is an experienced professional with a long list of offerings in the Books On Tape catalog. She reads well, but with a heavy British accent which requires the listener to pay close attention and precludes a relaxed listening atmosphere. This condition, coupled with the previously described problem, yields a listening experience that is a demand rather than a pleasure. In other circumstances and with a less complex text, the accent would probably not have been an issue. Books On Tape, Inc. offers the recorded version of THE FIRST MAN IN ROME in two parts. Each part consists of 12 one and one-half hour cassettes. ************************** ^ ISHMAEL by Daniel Quinn, performance by Anthony Heald Abridged: 2 cassettes, 180 minutes (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47052-3) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> The lead character of ISHMAEL, through whose consciousness we experience the story, sees an ad in the personals column of his newspaper in which a teacher advertises for a student interested in saving the world. When he arrives at the office address mentioned in the ad he finds an almost bare room with a chair that faces a window, an interior window looking into an adjacent room. "The glass in this window was black--opaque, reflective. I continued to gaze into my own eyes for a moment, then rolled the focus forward beyond the glass--and found myself looking into another pair of eyes. I fell back, startled. The creature on the other side of the glass was a full-grown gorilla. He was terrifyingly enormous, a boulder, a sarsen of Stonehenge. His sheer mass was alarming in itself, even though he wasn't using it in any menacing way. On the contrary, he was half reclining most placidly, nibbling delicately on a slender branch he carried in his left hand like a wand. "You are...the teacher?" I sputtered. He nodded. "I am the teacher." He is the teacher, Ishmael, who will teach his student, and very possibly the reader, a great deal about what it means to be human. Using only well-known historical facts, generally-accepted truths, and logic, Ishmael tells the story of man from a fresh perspective, explaining, along the way, how we got in our current ecological mess, and why so many of us deny that there is any mess at all. The points are so simple, and so clearly expressed, that each step of the logical argument hits with enormous force. The story is clever, profound, funny, sad, emotionally engaging, and is an intellectual blockbuster. ISHMAEL, which was the first winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship (awarded for fiction providing creative and positive solutions to global problems), is one of the books that, once read (or heard), is nearly impossible to forget. Possibly a life-changing book. Highly recommended. ************************** ^ HOME FREE by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, performance by Stockard Channing Abridged: 2 cassettes, 180 minutes (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47029-9) <<Carol Sheffert>> Two life-changing events happen to Kate on Christmas Eve: her husband tells her he is leaving her for another woman, and she meets Ford, a down-on-his-luck farmer whose car breaks down in front of her home. Adrift among the shreds of the life she used to recognize, Kate at first flounders, then begins to innovate. She begins by giving Ford the Christmas presents that she had bought and wrapped for her husband, and insisting that he take the large turkey dinner she had prepared for her family to his family living in a shelter for the homeless. One act of generosity isn't enough to sustain the rest of her life, but it points Kate in the right direction. For she will discover that the best way to recover from hurt is not to retreat within herself, but to reach out to others. HOME FREE is a heartwarming story that would make an excellent entertainment for any Christmas season, full of the spirit of caring for others and the sharing of one's good fortune. Stockard Channing's rich, deep voice, poised somewhere between vulnerability and caustic irony, is just right for this story of one woman's triumph over the life's rough spots. ************************** ^ SNOW IN APRIL by Rosamunde Pilcher, performance by Lynn Redgrave (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47032-9) <<Janet Peters>> Caroline Cliburn is to be married in just a few days to a man she likes, feels grateful to, but doesn't love. Soon after that her step-parents are taking her younger brother Jody abroad to live, her future husband not wanting a child around the house so soon. But Jody doesn't want to go, Caroline doesn't want him to go, and she's not exactly sure she really wants to get married at all. Several days before the wedding Caroline and Jody take off in a borrowed car for Scotland, to reach their brother Angus, whom they haven't seen in several years. Maybe he will take care of Jody, and then Caroline can face her marriage with more enthusiasm. But along the way fate intervenes in the form of a snow storm, disabling their car and stranding them at the house of a lonely man who has just lost his brother. SNOW IN APRIL is a sentimental romance story wonderfully read by Lynn Redgrave, who has an astonishing array of completely different voices. Other Rosamunde Pilcher novels performed by Lynn Redgrave and available from Bantam Audio are: SEPTEMBER, THE SHELL SEEKERS, and ANOTHER VIEW. ************************** ~ COMING SOON! THE READING FOR PLEASURE ELECTRONIC LIBRARY Reading For Pleasure magazine is joining forces with Micro Tutor Products to produce The Reading For Pleasure Electronic Library, a collection of some of the greatest literature ever written made available on IBM-compatible computer disks. The RFP Electronic Library Reader will: * Allow you to read the books screen-by-screen on your computer * Print the book in whole or in part * Keep multiple bookmarks * Perform comprehensive search functions for text analysis Books scheduled for 1992 publication include works by such authors as: Lewis Carroll Herman Melville Charles Dickens Edgar Allan Poe Arthur Conan Doyle William Shakespeare Ben Franklin Jonathan Swift H. Rider Haggard Mark Twain Henry James H.G. Wells Walt Whitman Most titles should be priced in the $10-$15 range. Watch for more information about the Reading For Pleasure Electronic Library in RFP's Third Anniversary Issue (June 1992). If you'd like to be put on the mailing list, to be notified when our first titles are available (probably sometime in Summer 1992), write to: RFP Electronic Library 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303 Frederick, MD 21702 ************************** ~ COMING IN OUR JUNE 1992, THIRD ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Berkley) Venus Blue by Gustaf Sobin (Little, Brown) A Singular Spy by Amanda Kyle Williams (Naiad Press) The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller (Warner) Blood Red, Snow White by Diane Henry & Nicholas Horrock (Little, Brown) The Vanished Child by Sarah Smith (Ballantine) Harry and Chicken by Dyan Sheldon (Candlewick Press) Curtain by Michael Korda (Warner) and LOTS of great summer reading... #:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:# ~ # MURDER BY THE BOOK # #:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:# --------------------------------------------------------------------- Murder By The Book is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Catalogs, news releases, review copies, or donated reviews should be sent to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ SETTLED OUT OF COURT by Henry Cecil (International Polygonics, October 1991, $8.95, ISBN 1-55882-104-X) <<Tina Johnston>> Lonsdale Walsh is an otherwise fairly normal human being with one eccentricity: he doesn't tell lies, EVER. And the lies of others always put him into a rage, which explains at least part of his anger over his present predicament--he has been convicted of murder on perjured evidence. When all of his attempts to get his case reviewed fall through, he decides to handle matters his own way. Walsh has his daughter find him the best barrister and the best High Court Judge. He then escapes from jail and has the judge, defending and prosecuting counsel, and all of the witnesses kidnapped and assembled for a very unconventional re-trial. Walsh just KNOWS that somehow he will be able to convince his new judge that he was convicted on perjured evidence. But that's just the basic plot of SETTLED OUT OF COURT, which gives you no idea at all of what an absolute delight this novel is. To begin with, it's laugh-out-loud funny. The author was a barrister, and later a judge, himself, so he knows the nooks and crannies of the legal system, and he knows how hilarious barristers and witnesses can be. But that still doesn't quite tell it all, because at bottom, every chapter, every page, every sentence of SETTLED OUT OF COURT is about truth and lies: why people lie, when they lie, how they lie, how their lies can be found out, how people try to avoid both lying and telling the truth. SETTLED OUT OF COURT is funny, suspenseful, and enormously clever. Highly recommended. You can order SETTLED OUT OF COURT (as well as Cecil's DAUGHTERS IN LAW, $8.95, ISBN 1-55882-105-8) from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $1 for the first book and $.50 for each additional book, to: International Polygonics Ltd., Madison Square, PO Box 1563, New York, NY 10159-1563. Another Henry Cecil book, WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR, is due to be released by IPL very soon. ************************** ^ A FAREWELL TO YARNS: A Jane Jeffry Mystery by Jill Churchill (Avon, December 1991, $3.99, ISBN 0-380-76399-0) <<Carol Sheffert>> 'Why don't they all have nervous breakdowns before Christmas? More to the point, why don't we? Think it over, Jane. It's not a bad idea. We could stage some sort of seizure in the front yard. Foam at the mouth and chew sticks. They'd take us off to a nice sanitarium where somebody else has to wrap the gifts and stuff the clammy turkey and get hives taking the vile tree down when it's over.' Jane considered. 'Doesn't sound bad. Do we get to wear our jammies all day?' ---from A FAREWELL TO YARNS Jane is a recent widow facing a hectic Christmas season with three kids, two cats, a neurotic dog, an afghan to crochet, and a church bazaar to help organize. Into this chaos drops Phyllis Wagner, a woman Jane knew for a year or two back when both were first married. Now fabulously wealthy, Phyllis has returned to spend some time with Jane, whom she has always considered a dear friend, but, surprise!, Phyllis has shown up with a brand-new, totally obnoxious, teenage son. It seems that Phyllis had become pregnant as a young teen and put the child up for adoption. Her adoring and rich husband recently had the boy found, and the horrible child is now enjoying the benefits of a doting mother with unlimited funds. Luckily for Jane, Phyllis decides to buy a house in the immediate area, which she accomplishes within hours of her arrival (isn't money nice). Unluckily for Phyllis, she turns up dead the next day, having been stabbed to death in her bed. Her sulky son Bobby is found passed out and in the possession of a killer hangover. Did Bobby kill his new meal ticket? Who would want to kill Phyllis? Or did one of Bobby's lowlife acquaintances mistake her for Bobby, since she was in the guest bedroom, having given the adored son the master suite? Jane solves the mystery, raises reasonably decent children, finishes the afghan, and vacuums the living room in this delightful new mystery from Jill Churchill. Fellow mystery novelist Nancy Pickard has compared Churchill to Agatha Christie and it's easy to see why. A FAREWELL TO YARNS is meticulously plotted and full of wicked humor. This mystery will delight any fan of cozy, nonviolent mysteries. (Jane Jeffry's mystery-solving talents are also displayed in GRIME & PUNISHMENT.) ************************** ^ EMERGENCY MURDER by Janet McGiffin (Fawcett Gold Medal, February 1992, $3.99, ISBN 0-449-14764-9) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> After an unpleasant divorce, Maxene St. Clair, M.D., Ph.D., is taking a year's leave of absence from her research lab at Marquette University to work the 3-11 PM shift in the Emergency Room of St. Agnes, a Milwaukee inner city hospital. The St. Agnes ER gets a lot of beat-up hookers, so nobody is too surprised by the patient who arrives wearing a leather mini skirt and a lurid red wig. What DOES surprise them is that she is sick, not beaten up; and what ASTOUNDS them is that she turns out to be Nanette Myers, wife of prominent Milwaukee surgeon Hank Myers. Nanette complains of feeling sick and having trouble breathing. Within minutes she dies of heart failure, and Dr. St. Clair is puzzling over how a young healthy woman's heart could fail so suddenly. Even though an autopsy shows nothing unusual, Dr. St. Clair asks that tissue samples be sent for some extra tests. Very soon Maxene is reunited with her old friend Detective Grabowski when he arrives to tell her that Nanette had been killed with an exotic neurotoxin, a drug so difficult to acquire that it is obviously murder. And, despite Grabowski's friendship, Maxene soon becomes #1 on the suspect list when it's discovered that not only did she have an affair with Hank Myers, but she is one of the few people in the entire city to have access to the obscure and deadly drug. Now Maxene must try to solve the murder before her old friend is forced to arrest her for murder. EMERGENCY MURDER is the first mystery from Janet McGiffin, and is a spare and carefully plotted mystery centered around the medical and academic communities. The puzzle is entertaining, and the author allows the reader to be about a half-step ahead of the investigation, which makes one feel very clever. An enjoyable read. ************************** ^ DANGER FROM THE DEAD by E.X. Ferrars (Doubleday Perfect Crime, March 1992, $16.50, ISBN 0-385-41995-3) <<Tina Johnston>> Nigel is a little puzzled when his older brother Gavin invites him to spend his summer holiday in his guest cottage. After all, the two brothers have never been particularly close. But then Nigel's summer plans have fallen through at the last minute, and he finds out that Caroline will be there, so he accepts. Caroline is Gavin's wife Annabel's half-sister, and a woman that Nigel at one time thought of marrying. When Nigel arrives, he finds that Caroline is now living with Gavin and Annabel, having given up her successful acting career to care for Annabel, who had a stroke two years before. Why has Caroline given up everything for a half-sister she never really cared for? Why did Gavin want Nigel to spend the summer in the guest cottage? Why is Annabel, a highly successful romance novelist, worried about what people think of her post-stroke books? All of these mysteries reach a crescendo when Nigel walks into the main house to find Annabel dead on the floor with a gun near her hand, and Caroline slumped over a cookbook in the kitchen, shot to death. Did Annabel shoot Caroline, then have another stroke? Why would she want to kill Caroline? Who was the mysterious man Nigel saw running away from the scene? Ferrars, having written over 60 mysteries, weaves all of these puzzles together deftly, leading up to a shattering climax on a dark and stormy night. ************************** ^ THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY: The First Gervase Fen Mystery by Edmund Crispin (International Polygonics, October 1991, $8.95, ISBN 1-55882-108-2) <<Carol Sheffert>> "I'm a very good detective myself. In fact I'm the only literary critic turned detective in the whole of fiction." ---Gervase Fen There are a couple of assumptions that might be made from the above quote. One: Gervase Fen isn't terribly modest, and Two: Gervase Fen mysteries don't take themselves too seriously. Both assumptions are correct. Originally published in 1944, THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY was written by a man who loved mysteries, particularly those written by John Dickson Carr (Carr's detective Gideon Fell is mentioned in GILDED FLY as if a real person), Michael Innes, and Gladys Mitchell. Edmund Crispin (real name: Robert Bruce Montgomery) attended St. John's College, Oxford, where he was the college's organist (an organist figures prominently in GILDED FLY) and choirmaster, president of Oxford University Music Club, and pianist to the University Ballet. His professional life was divided between writing Gervase Fen mysteries and composing music (he wrote background music for more than 40 films, among other things). In THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY, the Oxford Repertory Theatre is putting on a play. A famous and very talented playwright will be directing this first production of a new play he has written, but tensions begin to mount almost immediately. Most of the conflict centers on Yseut Haskell, not a bad actress but universally disliked. She's malicious, selfish, and collects men like seashells. The playwright was a former lover, a relationship Yseut would like to renew, and his new lover (and the star of the upcoming production) Rachel isn't happy. Then there's the college organist, who is in love with Yseut, and the property mistress who is in love with the organist. And let's not forget the stage manager who was professionally injured by Yseut, Yseut's half-sister Helen who is a poor relation who will inherit Yseut's considerable wealth, and Nigel who is in love with Helen. In any case, it shouldn't surprise you when Yseut turns up dead, shot at close range in the organist's bedroom. It also shouldn't be too surprising when the circumstances surrounding the death prove that it couldn't have been suicide, it couldn't have been an accident, and nobody could possibly have murdered her (locked room, no one came or went during the appropriate time), because amateur detective Gervase Fen specializes in Impossible Crimes. Gervase Fen, possibly Oxford's most famous Professor of English Literature, solves THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY with great flair, but not before another death, a breath of scandal, and even a marriage proposal or two. Poet Philip Larkin, a good friend of Bruce Montgomery (aka Edmund Crispin), once said that "Bruce had unsuspected depths of frivolity", depths that show to superb effect in this novel. In the grand tradition of classic puzzle mysteries, THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY is literate, witty, and very, very clever. Mystery entertainment of the first rank. (You can order THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $1 postage and handling, to: International Polygonics Ltd., Madison Square, PO Box 1563, New York, NY 10159-1563. ************************** ^ CATNAP: A Midnight Louie Mystery by Carole Nelson Douglas (Tor, March 1992, $17.95, ISBN 0-312-85217-7) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "The ABA is a perfect environment for murder...Victim, suspects and perpetrator all obscured in a sea of bound galleys and free Winnie-the-Pooh posters." ---Lt. Molina, LVMPD "This is a business, Temple, it's not an experiment in the nobility of the human spirit. Sometimes the meanest bastards make the most dough." ---Lorna Fennick, director of PR for Reynolds/Chapter/Deuce First, you should meet the cast. Front and center is Midnight Louie, an 18-pound jet-black cat who is apparently real and has long been acquainted with author Carole Nelson Douglas. Next to him is standing the diminutive Temple Barr, a 29-year-old PR (public relations) freelancer who is currently working for the ABA (American Booksellers Association) at their annual convention, being held in her current home of Las Vegas. She is apparently fictional. Key featured roles are also played by two other real-life cats, Baker and Taylor, Scottish Fold cats who are the mascots of book distributor Baker and Taylor. The cast is fleshed out with more fictional people: There is the Hateful Editor, Chester Royal; the abused but colorful bestselling novelists Lanyard Hunter, Mavis Davis, and Owen Tharp; assorted other PR specialists, an ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend, and Lieutenant Molina of the LVMPD. Now let me briefly sketch the scene. Midnight Louie and Temple Barr discover the body of the Hateful Editor and decide to embark on their own investigation to discover the murderer. Of course, whenever an Editor is murdered, you always suspect an author. Who else would hate an editor enough to do him in? But it turns out that this particular Hateful Editor was especially good at making enemies, starting 40 years ago when he lost his license to practice medicine over a botched abortion that it was claimed the patient hadn't wanted in the first place. His basic attitude toward women was one of fear and loathing, which points toward former wives and girlfriends, several of whom, wouldn't you know it, turn out to be at the convention. But don't get sidetracked too long by the dead editor, because Baker and Taylor have been catnapped, and Temple Barr has received a ransom note demanding $5,000 or the pair will be turned into "kitty stew". Not only is CATNAP a pretty fine mystery in its own right, it's an absolute Must Read for anyone who either loves cats or knows the book publishing industry. Much of the nonsense and conflicts of the book world are treated satirically here, and most of it is hilarious. (I particularly liked the threat of an unauthorized Bart Simpson bio by Kitty Kelley, a "book product" package that would thrill the hearts of any marketing department.) Temple Barr and Midnight Louie finally solve the case and decide to live together to boot. CATNAP is short on violence and long on entertainment. Don't miss it. ************************** ^ BACKHAND: An Anna Lee Mystery by Liza Cody (Doubleday Perfect Crime, February 1992, $18.50, ISBN 0-385-42231-8) <<Tina Johnston>> Anna Lee is a London private detective working for a security company where she spends most of her time selling electronic security systems. Not very challenging, or very interesting. So when Lara, the sister of one of the security company's clients wants to hire Anna personally for some real investigation work, Anna says Yes. The job seems fairly simple: the liquidation of a bankrupt company is being handled oddly. What has happened to the assets of the company? Why won't the man in charge of the liquidation answer phone calls? It sure seemed simple, but Anna discovers that there is a lot more to the story than just a bankrupt company. There's a missing husband, a missing daughter, and an unscrupulous business partner. Soon Anna begins to wonder why Lara is so interested in this bankrupt company and the woman who ran it. And then there's the rest of Anna's life, equally messy. Her employers aren't happy about her working for a client personally. Her long-distance boyfriend moves in with her, and she feels crowded. To top it all off, Anna's apartment house has been sold and she has eight weeks to move out. The boyfriend and the apartment get put on a back burner while Anna solves the case, a case that takes her to the U.S. for the first time. Once in Florida Anna meets a truculent fellow investigator, plays tennis at an exclusive resort, and gets shot at by mobsters. But she gets to the bottom of it all in the end, and gives the reader a great ride too. The best part of BACKHAND are the characters. I felt that I really got to know and like Anna Lee, imperfections and all, and I definitely hope to hear more about Selwyn, Anna's slightly cracked downstairs neighbor. ************************** ^ THE DAY THE RABBI RESIGNED: A Rabbi Small Mystery by Harry Kemelman (Fawcett Columbine, February 1992, $20.00, ISBN 0-449-90681-7) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> Wouldn't you know it? I read my very first Rabbi Small mystery, and he resigns! Was it something I said? Harry Kemelman's first Rabbi Small mystery was published in 1964, and you can now get Fawcett Crest paperback editions of these previous titles: Friday the Rabbi Slept Late Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home Monday the Rabbi Took Off Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out Someday the Rabbi Will Leave One Fine Day the Rabbi Bought a Cross In THE DAY THE RABBI RESIGNED, Rabbi Small wants to leave the rabbinate to pursue a career as a teacher, but before that he solves the mystery surrounding the death of Victor Joyce, an ambitious, womanizing college professor. Joyce had married the niece of Cyrus Merton, a wealthy man who could promise him both a large inheritance and steady promotion at the college. Was Joyce's death really just an accident? Or did his estranged wife, a devout Catholic, commit murder to be free of him? Or maybe it was Mordecai Jacobs, Joyce's rival for tenure at the school where they taught? Or possibly Joyce was killed by an enraged boyfriend whose girl had received an undeserved A for extracurricular services? Despite the large cast of characters and the mass of times, locations, and other plot details, there is never any difficulty keeping track of the story and it's tough to put the book down before all 273 pages are read. Without sensational plot devices or melodrama, Kemelman weaves the kind of seemingly effortless tale that convinces other people to try their hand at writing. It just looks so EASY. But if it's that easy, how come all mysteries aren't this good? THE DAY THE RABBI RESIGNED is a quietly engrossing story that is sure to please, and Kemelman has a number of very interesting things to say about current trends in higher education. I only hope that Rabbi David Small will continue to solve crimes no matter where he's working. (And in the meantime I've got all those other Rabbi Small books to read.) A fine mystery. ************************** * Don't miss THE MUMMY CASE by Elizabeth Peters (Tor, March 1992, $4.99, ISBN 0-812-52031-9). Amelia Peabody has an archaeological adventure in Egypt, with a murder and a mysterious mummy case that keeps appearing and disappearing. ************************** ^ BLACK WIDOW: A Peter Duluth Puzzle by Patrick Quentin (International Polygonics, 1991, $8.95, ISBN 1-55882-111-2) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> Peter Duluth is a very capable and bright Broadway producer, one who knows that it's wise to be very, very careful with young women; that even an innocent remark might be taken as some kind of professional or personal promise. So why does he take young Nanny Ordway out to dinner? Having just met her at a party, and his wife being out of town, why does he allow himself to be charmed by the naive and innocent artlessness of this aspiring writer? These questions hit him particularly hard when he returns home with his wife Iris, after meeting her plane from Jamaica, to find Nanny Ordway hanging from their bedroom chandelier, quite dead. Naturally everyone assumes Peter had been having an affair with her, and that Nanny hung herself because he wouldn't leave his wife. His friends do, the police do, everyone except his wife Iris--at least for a while. Then Nanny's roommate says that Nanny told her all about the affair with Peter. And then Peter's maid tells about the time she found Nanny asleep in the Duluths' bed wearing Iris' pajamas. And then the police discover that Nanny was pregnant. And THEN it turns out that it wasn't suicide at all, but murder. Suddenly Peter finds himself in very deep trouble, and now NOBODY believes him. BLACK WIDOW becomes almost painful as the "facts" pile up against Peter Duluth. It's a classic Woolrich nightmare: you know you're innocent, but absolutely every piece of evidence points directly to your guilt. And nobody, but nobody, will believe your story. In BLACK WIDOW, Peter's dilemma races to an explosive climax highlighted by a few last-minute red herrings to add a few twists to the knot. A really superb mystery of psychological suspense and puzzling details. Other Patrick Quentin books available from IPL: PUZZLE FOR PLAYERS ($5.95, ISBN 1-55882-008-6), PUZZLE FOR PUPPETS ($7.95, ISBN 1-55882-020-5), PUZZLE FOR WANTONS ($7.95, ISBN 1-55882-063-9), and RUN TO DEATH ($7.95, ISBN 1-55882-096-5). You can order any, or all, of these titles directly from IPL by sending the list price(s), plus $1 for the first book and $.50 for each additional book, to: International Polygonics Ltd., Madison Square, PO Box 1563, New York, NY 10159-1563. ************************** ^ HOUSTON TOWN: A Hollis Carpenter Mystery by Deborah Powell (Naiad Press, 1992, $8.95, ISBN 1-56280-006-X) <<Carol Sheffert>> First seen in BAYOU CITY SECRETS (reviewed in RFP #19), Houston crime reporter Hollis Carpenter is back in another 1930s mystery adventure, along with her beautiful lover Lily and her gingersnap-eating Schnauzer, Anice. The fun begins this time when Hollis is awakened at 3 AM by a phone call from her friend Charlotte, who is a trifle upset. It seems that she was out somewhere until late (and, no, she won't say where she's been), then came home to find a strange man in her bed. Worse than that, the guy's dead. Hollis hustles right over to discover a bullet hole in the middle of the man's forehead and, wouldn't you know it, Charlotte's gun is missing. Hollis knows that Charlotte could never kill anyone, but figures that the police will probably be a lot harder to convince, so she hides Charlotte with her upstairs neighbor, Park Lane, then heads out to face the police and solve the murder. Along the way Hollis must deal with crooked cops, blackmailing politicians, and a lesbian evangelist, which isn't too bad, but when someone shoots at Anice, Hollis takes it personally. The talk is tough, the temperature is hot, and the action is nonstop. HOUSTON TOWN is a period mystery that's a lot of fun. (You can order HOUSTON TOWN directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus 15% for postage and handling, to: The Naiad Press Inc., PO Box 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302, or call 1-800-533-1973. ************************** ^ GOSPEL TRUTHS by J.G. Sandom (Doubleday Perfect Crime, March 1992, $16.50, ISBN 0-385-42233-4) <<Carol Sheffert>> A wealthy and powerful Italian banker, Salvatore Pontevecchio, is found dead in London, hanging from Blackfriars Bridge. An inquest rules the death a suicide, but a year later a judge decides to reopen the case to find more information. Inspector Nigel Lyman is assigned, an officer whose once-promising career has been all but destroyed by grief, guilty, and alcohol. Almost immediately Lyman discovers a huge clue, leading him to wonder if any real investigating had ever been done and, more ominously, just exactly why he had been chosen to handle the case now. Shortly after finding the clue--a locker key--Lyman's apartment is torn apart and his dog killed. Someone wants that key badly, but the only people who knew Lyman had it were his police superiors. The key still safe, Lyman will follow its trail to France, and the beginning of an international intrigue that will involve a secret right-wing Masonic Lodge and a Gnostic gospel of unspeakable power buried under the Chartres Cathedral. GOSPEL TRUTHS is a novel about money, power, death, and betrayal--an intricately-plotted international thriller. This is J.G. Sandom's first novel; he is now at work on a second, called THE HUNTING CLUB. ************************** THE WRONG RITE: A Madoc and Janet Rhys Mystery by Charlotte MacLeod writing as Alisa Craig (Morrow, January 1992, $19.00, ISBN 0-688-08643-8) <<Carol Sheffert>> Madoc Rhys, a detective inspector in the RCMP (the Canadian police), his wife Janet ("Jenny"), and their eight-month-old daughter Dorothy are visiting his relatives in Wales, joining a large family reunion to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of Sir Caradoc Rhys, patriarch of the Rhys clan. The celebrations will include a Beltane fire, which, according to ancient occult tradition, is to be jumped over. There is more to these pagan rituals, and the whole family hears about them from the irritating Bob Rhys and his sister Mary, distant cousins that the rest of the family would as soon disown. Both Bob and Mary avidly pursue their occult interests, which involve herbs, naked dancing, and incantations in their bid to appease and influence the spirits. Their machinations come to an explosive end when Mary jumps the Beltane fire and, well, explodes. She is found to have had about a pound of gunpowder secreted all around her clothing. Did Mary herself plant the gunpowder in a foolhardy play for attention? Did her greedy brother kill her for her money? Or did some other family member just get tired of Mary's endless boring lectures? Madoc and Jenny will work it out together, uncovering a number of family secrets along the way. THE WRONG RITE is another enjoyable light-hearted mystery from the author of the Peter Shandy series, the Sarah Kelling series, the Grub and Stakers series, as well as other books. Previous novels in the Madoc Rhys series are: A PINT OF MURDER, MURDER GOES MUMMING, A DISMAL THING TO DO, and TROUBLE IN THE BRASSES. ************************** ~BOOKS ON TAPE: ^ PRIVATE EYES by Jonathan Kellerman, performance by John Rubinstein Abridged: 2 cassettes, 180 minutes (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47000-0) <<Howard Frye>> Psychologist Alex Delaware once treated a scared 7-year-old named Melissa Dickinson. Now she's 18 years old and consults Delaware again, this time about her reclusive mother Gina. Twenty years ago Gina was a very beautiful young actress whose career, and life, were ruined when a friend inexplicably hired someone to throw acid in her face. Gina, now a very wealthy widow, has been severely agoraphobic since then, afraid to leave the house she shares with Melissa and her new husband. Melissa doesn't trust the new husband, nor does she trust Gina's new therapist, who seems to be interfering with Melissa's relationship with her mother. Melissa asks Delaware to speak to Gina and find out just how stable she is. Delaware asks his old friend detective Milo Sturgis to help out, and together they discover a few unsettling facts about Gina's situation. For one thing, her therapist apparently left her last location under something of a cloud, but no one will discuss it. And Gina's new husband turns out to have been a close friend, back twenty years ago, of both Gina and the man who paid for her disfigurement. It also appears as though Gina has given her therapist some artwork valued at about $250,000. When it is learned that Gina's old enemy has been released from prison, and Gina disappears shortly thereafter, the story rushes ever-faster to a series of shocking and sordid revelations. Other Jonathan Kellerman titles available from Bantam Audio are: WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS, performed by John Rubinstein 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $14.95, ISBN 0-553-45138-3 TIME BOMB, performed by John Rubinstein 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $15.95, ISBN 0-553-45237-1 SILENT PARTNER, performed by John Rubinstein 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $15.95, ISBN 0-553-45191-X BLOOD TEST, performed by John Rubinstein 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $14.95, ISBN 0-553-45175-8 OVER THE EDGE, performed by John Rubinstein 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $14.95, ISBN 0-553-45122-7 THE BUTCHER'S THEATRE, performed Ben Kingsley 2 cassettes, 180 minutes, $14.95, ISBN 0-553-45156-1 ************************** ^ SNIPER'S MOON by Carsten Stroud, performance by Robert Lansing (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-45269-X) Abridged, 2 cassettes, 180 minutes <<Howard Frye>> Detective Frank Keogh has a talent for killing, a talent developed in the jungles of Vietnam and transformed into a career as a sniper for the NYPD. Two bizarre and brutal murders point directly to Frank as the killer, and soon Frank is a fugitive from justice, leading the cops on a cross-country chase as he desperately searches for the man who framed him and the father who could be his best hope of survival. Edge-of-the-seat entertainment. ************************** ^ EXTREME MEASURES by Michael Palmer, performance by John Pankow Abridged, 2 cassettes, 180 minutes (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47039-6) <<Drew Bartorillo>> An elite group of medical professionals at White Memorial Hospital has formed a secret club that performs procedures that are not sanctioned by the medical profession. Dr. Eric Najarian is up for promotion to a high-ranking position at the hospital and is promised the position, by an unknown colleague, if he joins this secret club and plays by their rules. He doesn't know that he has been very closely watched and judged. At first Dr. Najarian decides to join the club but soon realizes that he has seen too much. A missing corpse. An unspeakable mutilation. A brutal abduction. And that's only the beginning. If Dr. Najarian refuses to become their colleague, he just might become their next victim. I have always liked medical thrillers and EXTREME MEASURES is a particularly good one. John Pankow's performance of the novel was excellent. (Pankow, by the way, played the lead role in AMADEUS on Broadway.) On a scale of 1 to 10, EXTREME MEASURES gets a solid 8. ************************** ^ HARD FALL by Ridley Pearson, performance by David Rasche Abridged, 2 cassettes, 180 minutes (Bantam Audio, 1992, $15.99, ISBN 0-553-47002-7) <<Drew Bartorillo>> Two years ago, FBI agent Cal Daggett's parents were killed and his son paralyzed in the terrorist bombing of a EuroTours airliner. Now, Daggett's got an explosives expert in custody, one he believes has a connection to the terrorist who shattered his family, Anthony Kort. Through the blundering of a DC police investigator, the prisoner is able to commit suicide, killing the investigator in the process, and thus depriving Daggett of the information he has been seeking. But the very fact that the explosives expert was in the DC area means that a possible terrorist bombing is in the making. Both forensic experts and psychologists join in an intensive manhunt for the terrorist mastermind, Anthony Kort. I enjoyed listening to HARD FALL very much. Of particular interest was the attention that was paid to details in the area of explosives, airplane dynamics and the compiling of clues. The terrorist, Kort, has an impacted tooth and eventually pulls the tooth himself. Along the way, he leaves clues and eventually must see a dentist for the problem. It was fascinating how all the evidence he leaves is put together and used to track him down. At another point, Kort kidnaps, and eventually kills, an airline executive and forces him to assist in the use of an airline simulator. It's fascinating to watch Daggett figure out what connection this has with a possible terrorist bombing. I also found David Rasche's reading of HARD FALL to be excellent. Different accents were needed during the reading and were done perfectly. (When listening to books on cassettes I rely on different accents and voice inflections to identify the various characters.) I can highly recommend HARD FALL, either on cassette or hard copy. ************************** ~ COMING IN OUR JUNE 1992, THIRD ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Deadly Allies edited by Robert J. Randisi & Marilyn Wallace (Doubleday) The End of April by Penny Sumner (Naiad Press) As the Sparks Fly Upward by Gloria Dank (Doubleday) Body Count by William X. Kienzle (Andrews and McMeel) Jablonski and the Erotomaniac by Perry Lafferty (Donald I. Fine) The Resurrection Man by Charlotte MacLeod (Mysterious) Bury Him Kindly by Pat Burden (Doubleday) Bloody Ten by William Love (Donald I. Fine) Deep Sleep by Frances Fyfield (Pocket Books) A Diet to Die For by Joan Hess (Ballantine) "H" Is For Homicide by Sue Grafton (Fawcett Crest) and a WHOLE lot more... *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* * * ~ * FRIGHTFUL FICTION * * * *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* --------------------------------------------------------------------- Frightful Fiction is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Catalogs, news releases, review copies, or donated reviews should be sent to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ CREED by James Herbert (New English Library, 1991) <<Robert Pittman>> James Herbert is a prominent English writer of horror stories, and his every effort seems to produce a winner. In CREED he has chosen a rather scruffy character as the protagonist--a paparazzo working as an independent photographer in London and grudgingly recognized by his fellow paparazzi as the dean of their repulsive profession. On one of his picture taking ventures Joe Creed inadvertently captures on film the antics of a "fallen angel" dancing on the new grave of a former movie star. When he develops the film, Creed realizes that he has something different and puzzling and very quickly the "fallen angel" (also a demon) is knocking on his door and lets him know with frightening and violent emphasis that the pictures must be returned. That leads to a game of hide, seek and trade as Creed struggles to protect his special pictures and learn more about the unworldly creatures who pursue him. Aggressiveness and stubbornness are primary characteristics of the paparazzi and that is what allows Creed to cope in his encounter with the underworld. His ability to reason and analyze is limited, however, and as a result he moves from one set of dangerous experiences to another without learning much along the way. His nature lends itself to a story that is scary and humorous. It is fun to read, but at the same time it has all the knuckle chewing elements of a solid horror tale. ************************** ^ INCIDENT AT POTTER'S BRIDGE by Joe Monninger (Donald I. Fine, January 1992, $21.00, ISBN 1-55611-307-2) <<Drew Bartorillo>> Drawing inspiration from such suspense masters as Thomas Harris (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), Alfred Hitchcock (PSYCHO), and Ed Gein (psycho), Joe Monninger creates a queasy shocker of high tension and graphic violence. George Denkin is a serial killer preying on the young women at a small New Hampshire college. He stalks his victim carefully, scalps her, and stores his trophies in a "wig shop" very like his dead mother's beauty parlor. Zelda Fitzgibbons is a bright and attractive coed anxious to enjoy her newly-found independence, arriving at Colbin College just after the first murder occurs in the woods near Potter's Bridge. Zelda and George will soon be locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse, a tension-filled exercise that will reach a shattering climax in a steamy dormitory shower. INCIDENT AT POTTER'S BRIDGE is a gripping thriller of nearly unbearable suspense, but reader's should be warned that the violence is graphic and disturbing. ************************** ^ POST MORTEM edited by Paul F. Olson & David B. Silva (Dell Abyss, January 1992, $4.99, ISBN 0-440-20792-4) <<Peter Quint>> "A book of ghost stories or a novel of the supernatural, if well done, can provide long evenings of surcease from the travails of this world. It can more deeply involve us--and usually it will have more of value to say about life--than an ten good movies. The art of the storyteller, expressed through the printed word, can touch the mind and the heart, establish a special intimacy between writer and reader, and allow an intensity and depth of communion seldom achieved by an other art form." ---Dean R. Koontz, "Afterword", POST MORTEM Those are words of wisdom from a guy who obviously not only writes, but reads. And within the covers of POST MORTEM you'll find 17 very fine ghost stories to entertain you for a few evenings. Some of the best are mostly about the terrible pull that our dead can have on us. Not THE dead, you understand, but our very own personal dead. In Kathryn Ptacek's "Each Night, Each Year", a woman is haunted, nearly consumed, by memories of her father and his slow death from cancer. An elderly man is living with his dead in "The Last Cowboy Song" by Charles L. Grant. And then there is the trauma of an entire generation facing the Vietnam dead, on both political sides, considered by Thomas F. Monteleone in his "The Ring of Truth". Donald R. Burleson's "Walkie-Talkie" is about unfinished childhood friendships, and dead siblings are mourned, though differently, in both "Brothers" by David B. Silva and "Getting Back" by P.W. Sinclair. Possibly the best story of all is Thomas Tessier's "Blanca", about a travel writer who wants to get away from the usual vacation tourist traps and winds up in a geographical area called, ominously, Blanca, in which he stays at the Hotel des Vacances. A territory not part of any particular country, Blanca is as much a cipher as its name implies, and the writer's vacation turns into a surreal nightmare. In more a traditional vein is Ramsey Campbell's "The Guide", in which he invokes the spirit of M.R. James to guide us to the uncanny. Another old-fashioned type story, of the time travel variety, is "Timeskip" by Charles de Lint--wonderfully atmospheric but much too short. Another good one was "Eyes of the Swordmaker" by Gordon Linzner, about a Japanese craftsman whose crime receives a terrible, but perfectly fair, punishment. Len Krager, who can't seem to establish successful relationships with the living, does much better with the dead in Gary Brandner's "Mark of the Loser". Janet Fox tells a story about a ghost who performs a service for a runaway battered wife, for which payment is expected. Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem team up for "Resettling", wherein Hannah, husband Perry, and daughter Ashely move into a haunted house. Do they possess the house, or does the house possess them? In Melissa Mia Hall's "The Brush of Soft Wings", old age is haunted, and ultimately defeated, by the spectre of youth. Slightly more light-hearted is William F. Nolan's "Major Prevue Here Tonite", about a haunted movie theater. We learn NEVER to patronize a movie house called Styx. Marion and Carey solve their marital problems by becoming innkeepers to ghosts in "Nine Gables" by James Howard Kunstler. And POST MORTEM finishes off with Robert R. McCammon's "Haunted World", about what happens when the afterworld shuts down and all the dead come back. Would there be room for us? If I were to be really picky, I'd say that POST MORTEM didn't quite hit the high notes like several stories did in Olson & Silva's DEAD END: CITY LIMITS (reviewed in RFP #21), but that it's still well above average. I think there's just something about ghost stories that has a universal appeal--they don't seem to wear out their welcome like vampire stories or psycho killer tales. As Dean Koontz says in his "Afterword" essay at the end of POST MORTEM: "Good heavens, what's WRONG with these people who don't like stories of the supernatural?" ************************** ^ MASTER OF LIES by Graham Masterton (Tor, January 1992, $19.95, ISBN 0-312-85102-2) <<Drew Bartorillo>> Graham Masterton combines the psycho killer thriller, the police procedural mystery, and the occult horror novel into a suspenseful page-turner in MASTER OF LIES. San Francisco Police Detective Larry Foggia must hunt down the serial killer known as the "Fog City Satan", but his investigation reveals that the slaughter of six families has actually been a series of demonic sacrifices to awaken Beli Ya'al, the "Master of Lies", one of the original fallen angels. After terrifying personal experiences with the occult, resulting in the death of his own mother, Foggia finds himself calling on the psychic community for help. Soon, realizing that even the San Francisco police department can't be trusted, he must face the fact that he alone stands between the safety of his family and the "Master of Lies". MASTER OF LIES makes for exciting reading but I should stress a VERY strong warning about the extremely graphic violence in the book. The book opens with "The Fog City Satan" murdering an ex-police officer and his wife by having them nail each other to the floor and then mutilating them. Their two children are nailed to the wall and set on fire. There are similar scenes sprinkled throughout the book. Graham Masterton is the author of more than 20 novels of dark suspense, including THE BURNING (reviewed in RFP #17), WALKERS, THE MANITOU, MIRROR, CHARNEL HOUSE, and NIGHT WARRIORS. ************************** * If you like weird fiction, if you like Lovecraftian stories, particularly if you're a Brian Lumley fan, you need to get the latest catalog from: W. Paul Ganley: Publisher, Box 149, Buffalo, NY 14226. ************************** ^ THE SEASON OF PASSAGE by Christopher Pike (Tor, February 1992, $18.95, ISBN 0-312-85115-4) <<Annie Wilkes>> America's bestselling author of young adult horror and suspense fiction (CHAIN LETTER, BURY ME DEAD, LAST ACT, SPELLBOUND, etc.) now produces his very first adult horror novel. THE SEASON OF PASSAGE combines the modern world of space travel with the ancient traditions of vampirism in a story of unusual depth and poetic beauty. Dr. Lauren Wagner is the Medical Officer on mankind's second manned mission to Mars in 2004. A group of Russians had made the trip earlier but all contact with them has been lost; even the one cosmonaut who remained in orbit was never heard from again. What could possibly have happened to them? An alien virus? Suspense begins to build even before the new mission leaves the ground, when Lauren has a nightmare that haunts her even when she's awake, getting worse as she gets closer to Mars. And while Lauren travels, her younger sister Jennifer is back on Earth making sinister discoveries of her own, getting telepathic messages from strange vampire-like creatures on Mars. THE SEASON OF PASSAGE is the adult debut of an fascinating writer. Recommended. ************************** * STUNTS by Charles L. Grant (reviewed in RFP #14) is now available in paperback! Tor Books, $4.99, ISBN 0-812-50698-7. ************************** ^ SHADOW TWIN by Dale Hoover (Dell Abyss, December 1991, $4.50, ISBN 0-440-21087-9) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "We don't need ghosts and goblins to scare us. We have that deadly power within our own minds." The central figure of Dale Hoover's SHADOW TWIN, Jack, is a very believable character. Living a supposedly normal life, with a loving wife and devoted son, Jack has for most of his life been teetering on the edge of sanity, fighting the inner demons of guilt and shame. After an unpleasant episode at his job, Jack quits and moves away with his family. His plans are hazy, his priorities are just to relax and enjoy his family, but, as he repeats in a litany throughout the story, you never really can escape. Especially when you're trying to run away from yourself. One day Jack's small son Jed is playing in the attic of their new house and discovers the hole. It's just a small, round, dark hole. Items dropped in just disappear, and there is no trace of the hole in the master bedroom directly beneath it. Jack's wife Rachal calls in a physicist from a nearby university, who is turn calls in his best friend, a parapsychologist. Both are fascinated and disturbed by the hole, which communicates with something very personal inside each of them. Only Jack and Jed, however, are aware of the next development--the arrival of the "dream man", a larval humanoid hungry for life. What is the relationship between Jack, the hole, and the dream man? Did Jack's mental turmoil create the manifestations, or are they separate entities capitalizing on Jack's vulnerabilities? From one direction you can read SHADOW TWIN as a supernatural bogeyman story with an unusually strong psychological foundation. From the opposite side, you can read it as a rich novel of psychological suspense with an unusual supernatural element. (For example, the dream man is obviously a Jungian shadow self, and its behavior fits both that interpretation as well as several folkloric identities.) Either way SHADOW TWIN is an unusual, disturbing novel that is intellectually very satisfying. Dell Abyss has uncovered yet another sensational first novel from an exciting new voice in horrific fiction. ************************** ~DELL ABYSS: Do you have them all? THE CIPHER by Kathe Koja NIGHTLIFE by Brian Hodge DUSK by Ron Dee PRODIGAL by Melanie Tem SPECTERS by J.M. Dillard TOPLIN by Michael McDowell MASTERY by Kelley Wilde OBSESSED by Rick R. Reed DESCENT by Ron Dee TUNNELVISION by R. Patrick Gates SHADOW TWIN by Dale Hoover POST MORTEM edited by Paul F. Olson & David B. Silva Coming Soon: THE ORPHEUS PROCESS by Daniel H. Gower WHIPPING BOY by John Byrne ************************** ~ QUICK CHILLS II QUICK CHILLS II is comprised of the best horror fiction published in the small press over the last two years. Twenty-five stories are included, from such varied sources as CEMETERY DANCE, THE HORROR SHOW, HAUNTS, REAPER'S HARVEST, NOCTULPA, WEIRD TALES, THIN ICE, and ATOPOS. QUICK CHILLS II will be published exclusively in a limited edition of 575 copies, signed by all contributors. QUICK CHILLS II is carefully crafted from top-notch materials for discerning collectors. The book is printed on archival-quality 70 lb., acid-free paper, is over-sewn for durability, and is hand-bound in genuine leather, with two-color foil stampings on both cover and spine. The release date is February 1992. QUICK CHILLS II is edited by Robert Morrish & Peter Enfantino. Contributors include: Douglas Clegg (GOAT DANCE, BREEDER, NEVERLAND), Nancy Collins (SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK, TEMPTER, IN THE BLOOD), Scott Edelman (THE GIFT), Bentley Little (THE REVELATION, THE MAILMAN), Elizabeth Massie (SINEATER), Wayne Allen Sallee (THE HOLY TERROR), David J. Schow (THE KILL RIFF, THE SHAFT, SEEING RED), David Silva (CHILD OF DARKNESS, COME 13), Brad J. Boucher, Gary Braunbeck, Mark Budz, Robert E. Cook, C.S. Fuqua, Nancy Holder, Yvonne Navarro, Norman Partridge, Jack Pavey, Dan Perez, Robert Price, Mark Rainey, Kiel Stuart, Ann K. Taylor, Jeffrey Thomas, Adam Troy-Castro, Susan Watkins, art by Augie Wiedemann. QUICK CHILLS II retails for $45, but READING FOR PLEASE readers can purchase it for the special price of $40. To take advantage of this offer, send a check or money order, payable to Deadline Press, to: Deadline Press 4884 Pepperwood Way, Dept. FP San Jose, CA 95124 ************************** ^ TABOO 5 edited by Stephen R. Bissette (SpiderBaby Grafix, 1991, $14.95, ISBN 0-922003-09-2) <<Peter Quint>> Each issue of TABOO is an eclectic collection of words, artwork, and graphic stories, most of it strongly horrific, experimental, graphically sexual, or with some other characteristic that makes it unsuitable for mainstream publishing. I do believe this issue of TABOO is the best yet. TABOO 5 opens with a hard-edged essay by Douglas Winter called "Seeing Is Not Believing"--it's about words, pictures, obscenity, and censorship. It's very good, and bits of it have been floating through my conversation ever since I first read it. By the way, I can't forget to mention the artwork that graces the front and back covers, inside and outside; full color illustrations by Jeff Jones, Melinda Gebbie, Rolf Stark, and Michael Zulli that really are eye-catching. And another feature of TABOO that I wanted to mention is the different kinds of paper used for different stories--it adds a textural element that is unique to fiction publishing, at least to my knowledge. "39th and Norton" by Tom Marnick and Dennis Ellefson is about the Black Dahlia case, an unsolved murder from the 1940s. The words and the illustrations combine for a very disturbing story. Next come the first few chapters of THROUGH THE HABITRAILS, a new graphic series by Jeff Nicholson--a very weird, yet uncomfortably accurate view of life in the modern corporate maze. After that comes an erotic story by Alan Moore illustrated in bright pastel colors by Melinda Gebbie. It's the first chapter in an apparently ongoing story that takes place in the early 1900s. "Better Things To Do" by Jeff Jones and "Akimbo" by Rick Grimes both left me on the pier wondering where they went. Both look interesting, but I was not able to follow. Matt Howarth's "Baby's On Fire" is a sad/comic story about teenage sexuality, and "Verse From A Viscera Vase II" is a crawly illustrated poem by Michael H. Price and Adrian Martinez. The single most disturbing (or should I say 'upsetting') piece in the entire issue is "This Is Dynamite..." by P.J. Kenyon and S. Clay Wilson. It's about homosexuality, and is pretty much guaranteed to bother heterosexual men. The two longest, and best, graphic stories are "Again", a Michael Zulli graphic adaptation of a Ramsey Campbell story, and Chapter Four of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's fabulous epic about Jack the Ripper, FROM HELL. It's so good that the publisher has made copies of the first and second chapters available individually, even though the issues of TABOO they appeared in are out of print. Those first two chapters are available for $4.95 plus $2 shipping and handling. TABOO 4, where you can find Chapter 3, as well as a whole lot of other good stuff, is available for $14.95 plus $2 s/h. Presumably you can also get this issue for $14.95 plus $2. Send your money to: Tundra Publishing Ltd., 320 Riverside Drive, Northampton, MA 01060. With your order you'll also get a 36-page catalog of other graphic publications. ************************** ^ THIRTEEN DOORS Door #3: What Happens to Little Boys Door #4: Wednesday's Child (Audio Oddities, 5078 South 108th St., Suite 108, Omaha, NE 68137) Cassette #1 (Doors #1 & #2): ISBN 1-879684-00-4 Cassette #2 (Doors #3 & #4): ISBN 1-879684-01-2 <<Annie Wilkes>> THIRTEEN DOORS is a connected sequence of audio dramas centered on the terrifying figure of the Carnival Man. Door #1 and #2 were on the first tape (reviewed in RFP #17), and now Door #3 and #4 are available on a second cassette. Door #3, "What Happens to Little Boys", is written by the talented author and editor David B. Silva. This story shifts the focus away from Marla Kendall and her son Willie, beginning when Matthew Barnes arrives at the nursing home where his grandfather has been living. A number of strange and unexplained deaths have caused state officials to order the facility closed until an investigation can be made. Matthew will discover how and why the deaths occurred, and the explanation is stranger than the investigators could ever guess... Door #4, "Wednesday's Child" is written by Kathleen Jurgens. This door leads, appropriately enough, to a carnival, where 11-year-old Stacy Lynn and little Willie Kendall visit the sideshow freaks, only one of the promised attractions isn't there--yet. As Door #4 closes, Marla and Willie are still separated, and the Carnival Man is still in control. These mini horror dramas are fun to listen to, and the sound effects are terrific. Doors #3 and #4 are enjoyable on their own, but you'll miss a lot of the background story about the Kendalls and the very strange basement in their new house. You can order either of the first two cassettes, or both, from the publishers by sending $9.95, plus $2.45 shipping, for each tape. Send the check to: Audio Oddities, 5078 South 108th Street, Suite 108, Omaha, NE 68137. ************************** ~PETER QUINT READS THE MAGAZINES ^ WEIRD TALES Spring 1992, #304 Special John Brunner Issue edited by Darrell Schweitzer The editorial is kind of defensive about choosing John Brunner as a featured author, apparently assuming that readers will complain about being force-fed material from a SF writer. They've even included an article by Mike Ashley, discussing Brunner's long history of fantasy stories, many being of a darkish variety and most, unfortunately, being very hard to find. All of that is unnecessary, because the three Brunner stories in this WT are all good, and one of them really shouldn't appear anywhere else: a Cthulhu mythos tale called "Concerning the Forthcoming Inexpensive Paperback Translation of the Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred". Brunner really captures that terrific archaic prose style that is so essential to the successful Lovecraftian story, and the perspective character is delightfully melodramatic, even feverish. It's a very well-done homage. The other two Brunner stories are "Dropping Ghyll", about a bottomless hole and a reality that recedes as fast as it's approached, and "Who Lies Beneath A Spell" which kept my interest despite its being a more or less straight fantasy story about spells and wizards. There is also a nice grisly piece, about a victimizer who gets victimized, called "Up to No Good" by Sue Robinson. A battered child and an evil psychiatrist with unusual powers are the stars of Robert J. Howe's "Little Boy Black and Blue". And then there's Tanith Lee's "The Lily Garden" which is nice enough, but not very filling. My favorite story in this issue is Ramsey Campbell's "Welcomeland". Thomas Wolfe said "You can't go home again"; Campbell says you shouldn't even try. What if your childhood town was turned into a theme park re-creation of your old memories? This is one of the best Ramsey Campbell stories I've read in a couple of years. The long story in this issue is a wild 9th century romp by S.P. Somtow called "Hunting the Lion". It's about a private detective called Publius Viridianus, who must unravel a knotty political mystery and avoid being thrown to the lions. It's gross, it's lusty, it's funny, it's another unusual ride from this multi-talented writer. Tying up this issue of WT are a few pieces of poetry, most notably a funny one by Brunner called "Alfred Vale: A Cautionary Tale", and very nice artwork by Jill Bauman. Oh, yes, how could I have forgotten the Gahan Wilson column? This issue he talks about vampire books, both fiction and nonfiction. I still miss his movie reviews from TWILIGHT ZONE, but this column is almost as good. You can subscribe to WEIRD TALES by sending $24/$46 for 6/12 quarterly issues to: Weird Tales, PO Box 13418, Philadelphia, PA 19101-3418. ************************** I GOOFED: The editorial credits for INIQUITIES magazine are not quite as I listed them in previous issues of RFP. Buddy Martinez takes care of most of the production, typesetting and graphics work, while J.F. Gonzalez is responsible for selecting the fiction, with the nonfiction being a collaborative effort between the two. Between Martinez and Gonzalez, they turn out one of the classiest dark fantasy magazines around. (INIQUITIES, 235 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 1346, Pasadena, CA 91101.) ************************** ^ MIDNIGHT ZOO Exciting Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy & Science Fact Vol. #2, Issue #1 Jon L. Herron, editor-in-chief Another jumbo-sized issue of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art! If you like "genre" fiction, you really should check MIDNIGHT ZOO out. (Feeling the recession and don't want to stick your neck out for a whole subscription? Just send them $6 and ask for the most recent issue.) Let's take a look at the fiction first: My favorite stories this issue were "Sort of Slipped My Mind" by Chuck Davis and "Shades of Laura Lloyd" by Richard K. Bush. The first is about a pair of ghosts with Alzheimer's; it's funny, and the author is a superb storyteller--I feel like I was actually there. The second one is about a man in love with an enigmatic woman who seems to be psychic. It reminded me very much of a Hitchcock movie, atmospheric, mysterious, and with a nice punch at the end. Space scavenger Mary Cover catches plague from a derelict spaceship in "Carrier" by Kevin J. Anderson, while "Balance Forward" by Claudia O'Keefe follows the last days of a serial killer on Death Row. Dave Smeds' "Seeing Ghosts" was a nice fragment set at a funeral; I just wish he's expand the ideas into something longer. It's us against them in "Kiddie War" by David R. Addleman, and vampires appear (or, actually, they DON'T appear) on TV in "The Talk Show" by Paul O. Williams. A Vietnam vet is the "Dark Angel" in the story by M.M. LoPiccolo, and Mandy Higa's "Stardust" is a nicely atmospheric tale about life, death, and Nat King Cole. Julia is forced, by a demon, to kill her lovers and cook their hearts in "Eyes of the Beholder" by Sonia Orin Lyris. Meanwhile, in Mike Hurley's "Xenophone in 208", a long distance phone call is logged every Friday night from motel room 208 to 555-1717. The only trouble is, each Friday the renters are different, and all involved (including the guy at 555-1717) deny making any such calls. We learn, in "Three for Tea" by Emily Jean Carroll, that there is always plenty of tea for everyone, provided at least two are dead. A killer rug stars in "Rug" by Geoffrey R. Lucier, and a real live TV monster stars in "You Can't Beat a Good Read" by Blythe Ann. In Rachel Flagg's "Cookies--A Modern Fairy Tale", modern princes want not only the fairest in the land, but good sex too. The people who visit "The Dead Room" (by Ken Wisman) find out that houses sometimes need to be fed, and a disgusting monster from Hell has a featured role in "There Goes the Neighborhood" by Michael Thomas Dillon. Robert Baldwin's "Night Fishin'" and Rick McMahan's "I Am You and You Are Me" are both short shorts; the first is humorous, the second a fairly heavy story about racial fear and hatred. The strangest story of all is "Jolly Mon" by Mark K. Coen, a survival story, the survival of a man and an ecosystem. And a pickpocket and his lawyer try a unique ploy in "The Case Against Willie Baker" by K.L. Jones. The nonfiction in this issue of MZ: Claudia O'Keefe relates a personal horror story of a "gang signing", a ritual many authors are subjected to; Delores Goodrick Beggs provides tips for new writers from small press magazines; Carol Rivkins discusses medical accuracy in fiction; Katharine Kerr talks about multi-volume novels; Katie Daniels shares her thoughts on writing young adult fiction; D. Douglas Graham tells the story of something mysterious and disgusting found is a specimen jar in Missouri; Jean Paul Sinistre relates how he almost saw what might have been a UFO; J Moretz gives research suggestions for writers; Rima Saret provides market info, also for writers; Don D'Ammassa, Barry Harrington, J Moretz, Lee Barwood, and Cynthia Ward have book reviews; Alex S. Johnson and Mark Lucas have movie reviews. The featured artist is Trevor Talbert and the featured poet is Paul O. Williams. All in all, a great issue, jam-packed with more material than you usually get in two or three magazines. To subscribe for yourself, send $29.95/$53.95 for 1/2 years (7/14 issues) to: Midnight Zoo, 544 Ygnacio Valley Road, #A273, PO Box 8040, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. ************************** ^ ABERATIONS Adult Horror Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy Issue #2 Jon L. Herron, editor-in-chief Here's another magazine from at least some of the same people who create MIDNIGHT ZOO, only this one's for adults only. Called ABERATIONS (that's not a typo, that's how they spell it), it's a tiny magazine, at least it's tiny compared to the enormous heft of MIDNIGHT ZOO. Like MZ, you'll find fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art in ABERATIONS, although the subject matter is considerably less varied. The favorite theme here is sadism, however, which will probably limit the audience for this magazine. This issue opens with a fictionalized interview with real-life mass murderer Harry F. Powers. Detailed descriptions of the torturings of his victims is spiced by his declarations of how much he has enjoyed his activities. The fiction mostly continues along the same lines. Scum-of-the earth killers are killed in turn in "The Continuing Adventures of The Kid Dynamo" by Craig Anthony; women are sliced and diced by a psycho in "Tapestry of Souls" by Brad J. Boucher; women are sliced and diced by another psycho in "Thunder of the Water" by Brian A. Hopkins; men are torn apart by a zombie (who was killed for, you guessed it, slicing and dicing on a woman) in James A. Lee's "Under the Wire"; teenage girls are being abused in "God's Country" by Sue Storm; men are sliced and diced by yet another psycho (who passes the torch to another who will be operating on women) in "The One That Got Away" by Cynthia Ward; and women are sliced and diced by ANOTHER psycho in Michael H. Brownstein's "Sociology". The course of sex and sadism (seemingly never one without the other) goes into remission only twice. Matt Ehinger's "Morlock's Revenge" is a bizarre, surreal tale about a gun-type device from a UFO that has strange effects on the people it's pointed at. And Kevin J. Anderson's "One Night Stand", easily the best story in this issue, is about, well, a one night stand. At least it's eroticism that a sane person can follow along with, and the woman is...unusual. Closing out the magazine, managing editor J Moretz says that what they're looking for in contributors is a combination of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, Clive Barker, and Anne Tyler. I wish them luck. I'd settle for more erotica and less--a LOT less--sadism. What I'd really like to see is a collection of stories of unusual sophistication, complexity, and maturity--Now THAT'S what I call Adult. Check ABERATIONS out for yourself. Send $31 for one year or $3.50 plus four 1st-class stamps for a sample copy, to: Experiences Unlimited, 544 Ygnacio Valley Road, #13, PO Box 8040, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. I'm not sure how stringent they are, but maybe you'd better send an age statement with your order, stating that you are over 18. ************************** ^ CEMETERY DANCE Winter 1992 / Volume 4, Issue 1 edited by Richard T. Chizmar Another good issue of CD, this time with an unusually rich selection of nonfiction columns and articles. Ed Gorman reminds us that fiction wasn't invented 5 years ago and that those who went before deserve (and seldom get) a big round of applause, maybe even a heartfelt Thank You. Charles L. Grant talks about how he unwinds after writing his dark fantasy stories, and invites readers to join his recreational craziness by subscribing to a newsletter called HAGGIS: The Official Newsletter of the Kent Montana Fan Club. Kent Montana is, of course, the hero of a series of comic novels Grant writes under the pseudonym Lionel Fenn. (Sample issue of HAGGIS is $3, a 5-issue subscription is $12. Send to: Charles Grant, PO Box 97, Newton, NJ 07860.) T. Liam McDonald interviews Grant elsewhere in CD, in which his background and career are discussed. Grant elaborates on what "quiet horror" means to him, and we learn what the L stands for. Monteleone has got a plan for writers to self-publish and cut the Evil Publisher out of the loop, which he talks about in his MAFIA column. Matthew J. Costello gives readers an excerpt from his latest novel, DARKBORN. It's the very beginning of the Big Ant Scene, and a real teaser. Another interview in this issue of CD has Tyson Blue talking to Clive Barker, about IMAJICA and his many current and future book and film projects. Tyson Blue also has his usual column of news about Stephen King and the other biggies. Douglas Winter gives a sneak preview of his article about Dario Argento that appears in CUT! HORROR WRITERS ON HORROR FILM. (I'll be reviewing this book for the next issue of RFP, the much-anticipated Anniversary Issue. Watch for it!) Joe R. Lansdale and David Webb provide another installment of their "Trash Theatre" column, in which they review LEATHERFACE: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 3 and EATEN ALIVE. This is becoming my favorite part of CD, and I particularly liked the part where they explain why folks properly called White Trash are always so mean: "They can understand why 'niggers,' 'kikes,' or any other minority group can be a failure, because they perceive these groups as inferiors produced by God so White Trash will have someone to hate, but can't understand why they, one of God's chosen White Folks, has the I.Q. of a brick and no Cadillac." Academic types would write an entire book about the subject, and these guys can fit the whole social phenomenon into one sentence. Awesome. But moving along, there is yet ANOTHER interview in this issue, with Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller, who publish some of the classiest books around under the name Underwood-Miller (That's Underwood-Miller Inc., 708 Westover Drive, Lancaster, PA 17601, in case you'd like to get a current catalog.) The interview's a bummer, though, because they say that the U-M book I've been really looking forward to, COLD TERROR: THE DEAN R. KOONTZ COMPANION, "has been postponed, probably for a year or two." Rats. Most Improved Column has got to be Paul Sammon's "Rough Cuts", which has lots of recommendations for mail-order videotape and laserdisc sources, as well as a handful of good horror movie magazines. I think Sammon is finally finding his voice for this column. Finishing up the nonfiction, Kathy Ptacek reviews horror anthologies, A.R. Morlan provides another interesting horror fiction quiz, and there are book reviews by Mike Baker, Roman A. Ranieri, Bob Morrish, T. Liam McDonald, and David Kuehls. The fiction takes kind of a back seat this time out, but there are still some good stories. I liked Barry Hoffman's "Trial By Fire", about small town corrupt justice, but with an unusual feminist slant. "The Transfiguration of Crazyface" by Jeffrey Osier is a surreal nightmare of a story--different and disturbing. A biker vampire shows up in Norman Partridge's "Apotropaics", an abused animal gets revenge in "Jocko" by Brian Hodge, Michael Thomas Dillon's "A Disturbing Notion" is a dog that doesn't quite seem like a dog, and Santa gets a surprise in "A Christmas Story" by James S. Dorr. Another good issue of CD with more than 100 pages of horror and dark suspense news, reviews, speculations, and stories. CEMETERY DANCE was a 1991 World Fantasy Award Winner, and it's not hard to see why. You can get a 1/2/3 year subscription of 4/8/12 issues for $15/$25/$40. Send to: Cemetery Dance, PO Box 18433, Baltimore, MD 21237. ************************** ~ BOOKS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO These are upcoming titles whose release dates are not known at this time. We'll update this information as soon as we hear more. CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT by Dan Simmons (Putnam) MASKS by Matthew Costello (Berkley) ABSOLUTE POWER by Ray Russell (MacClay & Assoc.) BURIED SCREAMS by C. Dean Anderson (Zebra) NECROVILLE by Ian McDonald (Bantam) THE DETWEILER PROJECT by F.M. Busby (Tor) ************************** ~COMING IN OUR JUNE 1992, THIRD ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Dark Channel by Ray Garton (Bantam Falcon) The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont (Tor) Wolf Flow by K.W. Jeter (St. Martin's Press) Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film edited by Christopher Golden (Berkley) plus a few surprises... <-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*-> < > ~ < LOOSEN YOUR GRIP ON REALITY > < > <-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*-> << Editor: Darryl Kenning >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Loosen Your Grip On Reality is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Contributions of information, reviews, etc. should be sent to: Darryl Kenning CompuServe: 76337,740 6331 Marshall Rd. or GEnie: D.Kenning Centerville, Ohio 45459 The Annex BBS 513-274-0821 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE KENNING QUOTIENT (KQ) is a rating applied to books read by the editor of this section, a number ranging from 0 (which means the book is an unredeemable stinker) to 5 (meaning the book is absolutely top drawer). --------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ RANDOM ACCESS This has been a good couple of months for the release of the kind of Science Fiction that I enjoy reading in contrast to the previous months which were pretty dry. I just finished reading REQUIEM: TRIBUTES TO THE GRAND MASTER--ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. Normally I'd do a review of this in the "Paperback Book Shelf" but I wanted to say a few words here. This book (TOR, February 1992, ISBN: 0-312-85168-5 $21.95) is another in the series eulogizing RAH. This one contains new works never before published in book form, an introduction by his wife, and tributes from folks as diverse as Tom Clancy, Jerry Pournelle and a host of other luminaries. Each time I read one of these I am struck again and again by how special a person he was; by how great his influence on so many of us was; and how much I'm already missing his stories. Reading this book reminded me how much I've loved his stories and started me working my way back through my collection of his books. Happily most of the books are now being reprinted and we can look for new generations of fans to arise like dragon's teeth being sown across the land. I recommend this book to one and all, and I said it before: Bob, we'll miss you. dkk ************************** From the last issue of RFP (#21): "Over the past 25 years or so I have spent an inordinate amount of time in bookstores of all kinds - not to mention the small fortune I've spent there. Stores with new books only, paperbacks only, hard covers only, used books stores and combinations, even bookstores with mini restaurants in them. Starting with this issue I'm going to share a few of the ones I've found that I like best. Just to be fair, if you have a favorite, drop me a note with some info and I'll include it in an upcoming edition of RANDOM ACCESS." The following is excerpted from a letter by Robert Pittman - Thanks for sharing this with us - darryl ..... More favorite bookstores .... I welcome the opportunity to let you know about my favorite bookstore in Louisville. Hawley-Cooke Booksellers has two outlets in the Louisville area; one at 27 Shelbyville Road Plaza and another at Gardner Lane Shopping Center, 3024 Bardstown Road. It is an independent operation whose owners clearly understand books and people who enjoy books. Their inventory is deep and up to date and is designed to meet the needs of children, students, specialists, and the general reader. In addition to books, they offer a selection of art posters and greeting cards not likely to be found elsewhere, tapes and records that lean somewhat toward jazz, blues and classical, recorded books and an almost bewildering number of newspapers, magazines and journals. The last time I counted there were Sunday papers from at least 65 major cities. Customer attention and service is superlative at Hawley-Cooke. Each outlet features a large, prominently located service desk staffed by knowledgeable people who are prompt, courteous, and reliable in their efforts to assist the customer. Thoughtful presentation and customer concern is evident everywhere in the store. Aisles are wide and allow easy movement without intrusion on other customers, benches and chairs are scattered throughout giving browsers a spot to pause, low stools are provided as a aid to searches though lower shelves and the children's section had down-sized furnishings. The Gardner Lane store even has a restaurant located right in the center of the store. You can enjoy a full meal, a snack, a desert, or maybe just a cappuccino as you browse and shop. All in all it is a bookstore that meets your reading needs and treats you like a treasured guest. Sorry to have gone on so long - I guess you can tell I like the place. Robert A. Pittman ************************** ~ 1991 PHILIP K. DICK AWARD NOMINEES Nominees for the 1991 Philip K. Dick Award for the best paperback original of the year are: MOJO AND THE PICKLE JAR by Douglas Bell (Tor) BONE DANCE by Emma Bull (Ace) THE CIPHER by Kathe Koja (Dell) KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY by Ian McDonald (Bantam Spectra) BRIDGE OF YEARS by Robert Charles Wilson (Doubleday Foundation) ************************** ~ BRITISH FANTASY AWARDS Novel: MIDNIGHT SUN by Ramsey Campbell Anthology/Collection: BEST NEW HORROR edited by Stephen Jones & Ramsey Campbell Short Fiction: "The Man Who Drew Cats" by Michael Marshall Smith Artist: Les Edwards Small Press: DARK DREAMS edited by David Cowperthwaite & Jeff Dempsey Icarus Award (best newcomer): Michael Marshall Smith Special Award (services to the genre): Dot Lumley ************************** * In the process of moving their offices, Tor Books has discovered the manuscript of an unpublished short story collection and a 20,000-word novella, "The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich", written by Fritz Leiber. They have already made a deal to publish the novella, and are considering the short story collection now. * In case you haven't heard, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) have changed their name to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA). * Davis Publications sells ANALOG, ASIMOV's SF Magazines, along with ELLERY QUEEN'S and ALFRED HITCHCOCK's, to Dell. * Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is looking for a Hugo winning author to collaborate on a SF Novel. ************************** ^ THE MEMORY OF EARTH: Homecoming Volume 1 by Orson Scott Card (Tor, March 1992, $20.95, ISBN 0-312-93036-4) <<Mike Weber>> "Like all human beings, you assume that behind the masks of their faces, other people are fundamentally like yourself. But it isn't always so. Some of them can't see other people's happiness without wanting to destroy it, can't see the bonds of love between friends or mates without wanting to break them. And many others, who aren't malicious in themselves, become their tools in the hope of some short-term gain. The people have lost their vision. And I haven't the power to restore it. All that's left, Nafai, is my memory of Earth." ---the Oversoul The Oversoul is the computer that has been playing caretaker to the human race on a planet called Harmony in THE MEMORY OF EARTH, the first of five volumes in Card's new "Homecoming" series. After turning Earth into an unlivable cinder, the survivors relocated on a planet they decided to call Harmony, in honor of their hopes for a brighter future. To help out, they set up a computer, the Oversoul, to monitor people's thoughts and keep them away from dangerous ideas--keep them from destroying themselves again. To that end, the original survivors did a little re-engineering on the brain to allow the Oversoul to communicate directly with people. As THE MEMORY OF EARTH opens, it is some forty million years later, and things are beginning to go wrong. In the city of Basilica, one man is assembling an army to fight another group from a nearby land and anyone within Basilica who refuses to cooperate with his war plans. The inhabitants of this once-peaceful city are now afraid to walk about after dark. What is happening? Where is the Oversoul? We learn that the Oversoul was never meant to be needed for this long, that the original designers had assumed that mankind would learn to live in peace by themselves much earlier. And now the Oversoul is breaking down, losing its ability to monitor everyone and keep them from doing major damage. The Oversoul's only hope lies in returning to the Keeper of Earth, but first it must find humans capable of learning space travel and taking it back to the home planet. In some way the Oversoul's future is connected to Wetchik and his four sons: Elemak, Mebbekew, Issib, and Nafai. Who will be chosen? Will they be able to save the Oversoul? Many of Card's common themes and talents can be seen THE MEMORY OF EARTH. As usual, the general picture of humanity is pretty grim. People are petty, contentious, cruel, selfish, and often violent. And families are generally more of a hindrance than a source of strength. Once again, as in other Card stories, a hero of nearly superhuman proportions is needed to save the day. Also recognizable in THE MEMORY OF EARTH is Card's talent at depicting children of all kinds and ages. It's difficult to say whether the story is a success because THE MEMORY OF EARTH is only one-fifth of it, it would be like passing judgement on a 350-page novel after having read only 70 pages. But this first installment is a very interesting start, and a writer with Card's track record is worth the gamble. ************************** ~ ORSON SCOTT CARD Card, 40, has written over 26 novels and dozens of short stories, articles and plays, and describes himself as "Kristine's husband, Geoffrey, Emily and Charlie's dad; I'm a Mormon, and I am a science fiction writer." His recent XENOCIDE was the sequel to ENDER'S GAME and SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD (all three reviewed in RFP #17), which each won the highest honors the science fiction world can bestow: The Science Fiction Achievement Award, popularly known as the "Hugo", given annually by the membership at the World Science Fiction Convention; and the "Nebula Award for Best Novel of the Year", selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America by vote of the active members. For a novel and its sequel to win both awards is unprecedented. Orson Scott Card was born in Richland, Washington, on August 24, 1951. His ancestors were New England Puritans; some later converted to Mormonism, and his grandfather built the Mormon temple in Logan, Utah, before founding Cardston, in Alberta, Canada. Card describes his birthplace as "disturbingly close to the Hanford Atomic works". Later, the family moved to California, and then to Mesa, Arizona, and Provo, Utah. He spent his last two years of secondary school at Brigham Young High School in Provo, where students worked at their own pace and he continued to enjoy science fiction classics. Card entered Brigham Young University at 16 as an archeology major; then changed courses to study theater. After a two-year hiatus to serve his Mormon mission in Brazil (an experience he drew on for SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD and other books), he graduated from BYU with "high honors with distinction", although he was on academic probation for getting an 0.0 GPA his last semester. During this time he attended a home study social dance class where he met Kristine Allen, whom he married in 1977. Scott, as he prefers to be known, worked in theater during the '70s, writing, producing, directing and acting in repertory plays. Nice work--but not enough revenue to support his family. He turned to science fiction writing, and received encouraging rejection notices, including one from Ben Bova, editor of ANALOG, asking for some revisions. After sending this story to another publisher, who also rejected it, he revised it, sent it back to Bova, and the rest, as they say, is history. ANALOG published the "novelette" version of ENDER'S GAME in August 1977; Card received the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978, and has been writing successfully and continuously ever since--26 novels and story collections, editor of four anthologies, and author of over 60 stories and 40 nonfiction and technical articles ...plus poetry, plays and works for Mormon readers and audiences. In addition to THE MEMORY OF EARTH and the first three books in the Ender Wiggins series, Card has written SONGMASTER, THE FOLK OF THE FRINGE, SAINTS (a story of a fictional family interspersed with the factual history of Mormonism), and TALES OF ALVIN MAKER, an ongoing project. Since moral imperatives that concern all human beings--from family and community relationships to explorations of "right" and "wrong"--are the core of his writing, his fans include readers of all ages, from teens to senior citizens. Significantly, his work has been honored by the American Library Association, which in June 1991 presented him with an award for "Best Book for Young Adults". Recently, Card has cut back on speaking engagements and convention appearances to spend more time with his children, Geoffrey, Emily, and Charlie, the youngest, who has cerebral palsy. Card credits his wife, Kristine, for much of his success. She handles the business end of his writing and is his first critic. He says, "She's an intelligent audience and I never leave her suggestions or problems with a story unanswered. She's part of everything I write." Orson Scott Card and his family live in North Carolina, and make frequent trips back to his Mormon roots in Salt Lake City, Utah. ************************** ~ APRIL 1992 RELEASES FROM DAW Relic of Empire (Forbidden Borders #2) by W. Michael Gear (ISBN 0-88677-492-6, $5.99) Sword and Sorceress IX edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (ISBN 0-88677-509-4, $4.50) ************************** ^ AFTER THE KING: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Tor, January 1992, $22.95, ISBN 0-312-85175-8) <<Howard Frye>> In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of high fantasy's creator, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, master anthologist Martin Greenberg has collected 19 original tales by some of the very finest fantasists writing today, tales specifically crafted to honor the inspiration of the original master. Short of bringing Tolkien back to write some more, AFTER THE KING is probably the finest tribute you could imagine, and the volume pretty much defines what is now commonly referred to as High Fantasy. The authors of these Tolkien-inspired stories are: Mike Resnick, Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Pratchett, Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Poul & Karen Anderson, John Brunner, Patricia A. McKillip, Harry Turtledove, Andre Norton, Gregory Benford, Charles de Lint, Dennis L. McKiernan, Emma Bull, Judith Tarr, Karen Haber, Peter S. Beagle, Jane Yolen, and Barry N. Malzberg. What more needs to be said? ************************** ^ THE TRIKON DECEPTION by Ben Bova & Bill Pogue (Tor, February 1992, $19.95, ISBN 0-312-85024-7) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> What a collaborative team for a techno-thriller about a space-based orbiting research laboratory! Ben Bova has written more than 65 fiction and nonfiction books (ORION IN THE DYING TIME, MILLENNIUM, ASSURED SURVIVAL, etc.), is an award-winning editor, and is President of the National Space Institute. Bill Pogue was a test pilot for both the USAF and RAF and, as a Commander of Skylab, has flown over 34 million miles during 84 days in space, which is still the U.S. record. The Trikon Station is an orbiting research lab jointly operated by United Europe, North America, and Japan. (Three continents, tri-con, get it?) It has been designed as a secure environment for genetic experiments deemed too dangerous to be performed on Earth, with the major powers working together for the betterment of all mankind. But, as it turns out, people in space are still people--often greedy, selfish, and deceitful, and industrial espionage soon endangers the future of the entire project. Human misdeeds on earth, however, are usually just immoral, illegal, and dangerous to a restricted few. In the much more inherently dangerous environment of space, they can be catastrophic... ************************** ^ REQUIEM New Collected Works by Robert A. Heinlein and Tributes to the Grand Master edited by Yoji Kondo (Tor, February 1992, $21.95, ISBN 0-312-85168-5) <<Howard Frye>> "Robert Heinlein wrote about the future because the future is where all of us will live. He made footsteps big enough for a whole country to follow. And it was our country that did it...We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. That's legacy enough for any man. He showed us where the future is." ---Tom Clancy Robert Heinlein (1907-1988) is the best-selling science fiction writer of all time, and certainly the most influential, on several generations of readers. Collected between the covers of REQUIEM the reader will find a number of new works by Heinlein, most of which have never before appeared in book form. There is also a special introduction by Virginia Heinlein, and tributes to the Grand Master by such writers as: Tom Clancy, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Spider Robinson, and Robert Silverberg. ************************** ~ ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Robert Heinlein spent his early years in Kansas City. In 1929 he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and served on several ships and aircraft carriers until he resigned from the Navy in 1934 because of ill health. For the next five years he sold real estate, became involved in politics and even silver mining speculation, and also studied physics at UCLA. In 1939 he wrote and sold "Life-Line", his first story, to John W. Campbell for ASTOUNDING. Within three years, guided and supported by Campbell, Heinlein rose from obscurity to prominence in the SF field. During this time he wrote four novels and innumerable short stories (many published under a pseudonym so his name wouldn't appear more than once in any one magazine in any one month). In 1942, however, he set writing aside to work as a civilian engineer for the Navy in Philadelphia, and it wasn't until 1947 that he returned to science fiction writing, with short stories published in the SATURDAY EVENING POST, as well as more novels and shorter works in SF magazines. During the 50s he wrote SF novels for teenagers and in 1956 published the widely acclaimed novel, DOUBLE STAR. By 1959 Heinlein had embarked on a new career direction, when he wrote the intensely political STARSHIP TROOPERS, followed in 1961 by STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, which gained a wide audience at colleges across the country. His subsequent books include GLORY ROAD (1963), THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966), I WILL FEAR NO EVIL (1970), and TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE (1974). Once again Heinlein's work was put on hold for several years while he fought a serious illness, but in 1980 he published THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, and subsequently, FRIDAY (1982) and JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE (1984). His best-selling GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE was published in 1989. Robert Heinlein was Guest of Honor at three World SF Conventions, and he won SF's prestigious Hugo award FOUR times. He married Virginia in 1948, and until his death the couple lived in Santa Cruz, California. ************************** ^ THE GRAIL OF HEARTS by Susan Shwartz (Tor, February 1992, $21.95, ISBN 0-312-85176-6) <<Carol Sheffert>> In THE GRAIL OF HEARTS, Susan Shwartz borrows from Wagner's PARSIFAL, the Bible, and Arthurian legend to bring to life this retelling of the story of the Holy Grail. Central to the tale is Kundry, a courtesan and now the "Wandering Jew", cursed to wander eternally after laughing at Christ on the Cross. She's an unforgettable character, and THE GRAIL OF HEARTS is another fine fantasy from this World Fantasy and Nebula Award nominee, who also holds a Ph.D. in Medieval English from Harvard. ************************** ~THE PAPERBACK BOOKSHELF ^ CRUSADE by David Weber & Steve White (Baen, March 1992, $4.99, ISBN 0-671-72111-9) <<Darryl Kenning>> What happens when a long lost ship infects an alien civilization with religious fanaticism? Add the fact that the lost ship was part of a war fleet, and that the war simply ground on over a long period of time and a peace of sorts emerged with the exhausted participants joint in an uneasy alliance. Now, out of the black reaches of space comes a fleet--a fleet that has outdated recognition codes, and a self-stated mission to "free Holy Mother Terra". The very possibilities are fascinating. David Weber and Steve White have taken this somewhat old but elegant story premise to new highs of adventure and space war Science Fiction. In a book that deals not only with the obvious, the authors have blended in the very real problems of personality conflict between the allies both on an individual and a cultural level--not to mention the invaders. I must say that this is one of the best books I've read this year--oh, I'd be very surprised if it won any awards, but for sheer entertainment and enjoyment it will certainly be in the top 5 on MY list for 1992. KQ = 5 ************************** ^ THE DARK BEYOND THE STARS by Frank M. Robinson (Tor, March 1992, $4.99, ISBN 0-812-51383-5) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> My review of THE DARK BEYOND THE STARS appeared in RFP #18 and finished with: "I can't recall another story so rich in surprises. Just when I would think I knew where the plot was headed, another astounding revelation would send everything off in another direction. Frank Robinson has written a story of rich detail, intellectual depth, and emotional charm. This is what entertainment should be. Do not miss THE DARK BEYOND THE STARS." It's a terrific story about the starship ASTRON and its two thousand year search for other intelligent life. My recommendation still goes, and the novel is now available in paperback, so there's no excuse for not giving it a try. ************************** ^ BLACK STEEL by Steve Perry (Ace, February 1992, $4.50, ISBN 0-441-06698-4) <<Darryl Kenning>> BLACK STEEL is another in the "MATADOR" series, number 7 as I recall. Following Steel, a character introduced in the first series book, this novel follows the same warrior/sensei/fellowship route the others have done. Interestingly enough, however, this chapter in the series is a bit better than the last one or two. I can't quite put my finger on the reason but it held my interest well and the adventure cycles of the story were fun to follow. Again, this is mostly a light reading book. The characters move through the story following a well-balanced formula and it works. You are very likely to find yourself digging back in your bookstore for the earlier adventures if you start with this one, and I for one am looking forward to the next in the series MUE. KQ = 4 ************************** ^ ALIEN BLUES by Lynn S. Hightower (Ace, January 1992, $4.50, ISBN 0-441-64460-0) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> The central plot of ALIEN BLUES involves policeman Detective David Silver's struggle to catch a serial killer, and as such might have been a police procedural--but it isn't. ALIEN BLUES is set in the future and prominently features a race of aliens called Elaki (they look like 7-foot-tall stingrays and smell like lemons), and as such might have been a BEM (bug-eyed monster) story--but it isn't. The serial killer is called Machete Man because he hacks his victims into pieces, and as such this could have been another in the recent glut of psycho killer stories--but it isn't. Instead, ALIEN BLUES is a multi-textured social novel of surprising depth. (Why surprising? Take a look at the cover. It looks like ADAM-12 MEETS STAR WARS.) In ALIEN BLUES, author Hightower uses the principle that disguising a situation encourages a fresher perspective and might even allow a few harsh truths to sneak through. For instance, Detective Silver discovers a hidden core of violence in his wife, which disturbs him greatly. By making the wife more violent, Hightower avoids the canned, unreflective "typical male aggression" reaction. Also very interesting is the complex relationship between humans and Elaki. Even when both human and Elaki have the best of intentions, basic physical and psychological differences create social minefields. Condescension comes so easily. Half-funny, half-derogatory epithets are invented by both groups--more recognizable sociology. All in all, ALIEN BLUES is quite a study in race relations for a combination police procedural, BEM, psycho killer story. ALIEN BLUES is involving, exciting, as well as emotionally and intellectually satisfying. The characters are wonderful and the dialogue sparkles. ALIEN BLUES is a rare treat you shouldn't miss, and I sure hope Lynn Hightower has another novel coming soon. ************************** ^ THE EXILE KISS by George Alec Effinger (Bantam, March 1992, $4.99, ISBN 0-553-29664-7) <<Darryl Kenning>> I was browsing through some notes in CompuServe's Science Fiction section recently and saw a comment by someone (sorry I forget who), that said if you read this book you would be instantly hooked on the short series that GAE has created. Well a challenge like that is hard to resist and I picked up this one on my weekly trek to bookstore. Sho-nuff they were right! Blending high humor with organized crime in an Arab world is something few authors could pull off with any degree of success but George has managed it very well. I suppose that part of the attraction is how little we know of the Arab culture even though it has had a deep and lasting effect on Western thought and Philosophy. Yet the differences between the Koran and the Bible (New Testament) are largely irreconcilable. Without miring the reader down in endless explanations, the society is adequately explained and the values and personalities of the characters are well defined. Even though most are not very likable by our standards I found myself getting into the story of betrayal, survival and revenge more than I usually do in this kind of novel. The interesting blend of high tech with the primitive cultures was also done in a realistic fashion in the story set in the near future. And I guess I must confess, I'm hooked, I'm off to find the first two books in the series--so beware! KQ = 4 ************************** ^ PEOPLE OF THE EARTH by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear (Tor, February 1992, $5.99, ISBN 0-812-50742-8) <<Howard Frye>> A very unusual book, PEOPLE OF THE EARTH is an illumination of life lived long ago, telling the true story of the ancestors of today's Native Americans. The Gears are both archaeologists specializing in Native American history, which they bring to vivid life in PEOPLE OF THE EARTH, capturing the culture, the lore, and the mysticism of a people for whom life was hard but rewarding, dramatic and passionate. ************************** ^ TO RIDE PEGASUS by Anne McCaffrey (Ballantine, June 1991--20th edition, ISBN 0-345-33603-8) <<Darryl Kenning>> If you are a fan of Anne McCaffrey, given that parts of this book were first published in 1969 in ANALOG and the book was first done in 1973 and given that this is the 20th edition, then you likely have read this one before. You will probably be astounded that I haven't! Just in case you haven't been reading SF/F for more than an hour, I feel obligated to note that Anne is the author of the THE DRAGON RIDERS OF PERN series and is extraordinarily popular. Not my usual cup of tea which is why I haven't read this one before. Psi talent stories have been around almost as long as Science Fiction, and a lot of very good authors (and very bad ones) have taken their turn at it. This is an example of how well the story line can be dealt with when handled by someone with this kind of writing talent, and it is a joy. I won't even start with the story but I will say the characters have nice depth and the society is well rounded and believable. The title line is one that I'd read before but long since forgotten the significance of. Again, this is nice light fare and is uncommonly enjoyable. ************************** ________ / / ~ / BOX / SCORES /_______/ Title Author KQ CRUSADE David Weber & Steve White 5 TO RIDE PEGASUS Anne McCaffrey 4 CYBERNETIC JUNGLE S. N. Lewitt 3 BLACK STEEL Steve Perry 4 THE EXILE KISS George Alec Effinger 4 AlTERNATE PRESIDENTS Mike Resnick (ed) 3 ACHILLES' CHOICE Larry Niven & Steve Barnes 3 THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE William Gibson & Bruce Sterling 2 REQUIEM Yoji Kondo (ed) 5 ************************** ~BOOKS ON TAPE: ^ THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE written & read by Douglas Adams unabridged, 4 cassettes, 6 hours (Dove Audio, $24.95, ISBN 1-55800-294-4) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> RESTAURANT picks up right where THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY left off: the passengers of the Heart of Gold--Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, and Marvin the Paranoid Android--are hungry. For most, getting fed isn't that big a deal, but this group will face no end of trouble, and adventures, in search of (and return from) a meal. Along the way they meet Pizpot Gargravarr, Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex, as well as: Hotblack Desiato, lead singer of the rock group Disaster Area, a space ark full of idiots, and, oh yes, The Man Who Rules The Universe. Also along the way the author gets to poke a bit of fun at rock groups, military intelligence, airline logic, cheesy entertainers, psychiatrists, evolution, MBAs, and about three dozen other people and things that really need laughing at. RESTAURANT is a larger story than HITCHHIKER'S, with a much larger cast of characters, and Dove Audio has added a number of vocal special effects for the nonhuman parts. But it's still Douglas Adams' voice that makes this special. If I had three wishes, one of them would be to have Douglas Adams read all my books to me; his voice is that lovely to listen to. He also projects and maintains the personalities of all the characters with the talent of a theatrical professional. You simply can't do much better than Dove Audio's RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE, wherein Arthur Dent, previously lost in space, is now lost in time as well. Highly recommended. You can order Dove Audio tapes by calling 1-800-328-DOVE (inside California call 310/273-7722 or 1-800-345-9945). Dove Audio, 301 North Canon Dr., Suite 203, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. ************************** ~ STAR TREK TERMINOLOGY (Original series--TNG--Movies--Gaming) part II, continued from RFP #21 Races ALPHA CENTAURIANS- Much like humans but more scientifically inclined ANDORIANS- Blue skinned, white hair, knobby antennae. CAITIANS- Catlike people, beautiful and agile. DELTANS- Sexually advanced, mathematically inclined. Most have no hair. EDOANS- Have 3 arms & legs. Orange skin. Yellow eyes. ELASIANS- Arrogant, strong beautiful people. EXCALBIANS*- Rock like people. Can manipulate molecular structure. FABRINI- Live in an artificial planet. Medically inclined. GORN*- Reptilian people, aggressive and at times hostile. Value honor. HORTAS- Silicon based creature. Highly intelligent. Good for Security. HUMANS- From the planet Terra in the Sol system. UFP majority species. IOTIANS- Humans influenced by Terra's 1930's "gangster era" KLINGONS*- Very Warlike Humanoids. Aggressive; prize war and treachery. MELKOTS- All head and neck, very colorful. Telepathic. ORGANIANS- Can control matter; created the Organian Peace Treaty. ORIONS*- 3 species: Grey, Ruddy, & Green. Many pirates. Untrustable. ROMULANS*- Originate from Vulcan. Warlike. Untrustworthy. TALOSIANS- Have large Braineous skulls. Can control the mind. TELLARITES- Resemble pig-like humanoids. Strong, stubborn. THOLIANS*- Mysterious, crystalline beings. Warlike. Punctual. TRISKELIONS*- Ancient disembodied race. Enslave others 4 enjoyment. VULCANS- Logical humanoids, that have shunned emotion. Telepathic. * -Hostile toward the United Federation Of Planets ************************** GOVERNMENTS KLINGON EMPIRE--A military dictatorship controlled by the alien race known as the Klingons, is the chief foe and rival of the UFP. The Klingon Empire also boarders the Romulan Star Empire. The two empires warring off and on since long before either came in contact with the UFP. Even so, the two cultures have recently completed negotiations that resulted in an exchange of technology. ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE--This empire is a rival of the UFP controlled by the Romulans, a Vulcan-like warrior race with a strong code of battle ethics. Romulan culture stresses the good of the Empire over individual accomplishment, and values a simple Spartan lifestyle. ORION COLONIES--Orion Colonies are allegedly neutral toward the Federation in external matters. They tend to encourage privateers (pirates), however, on an informal and unofficial basis, and Orion pirates and smugglers are sometimes encountered by Fed. Starships. GORN ALLIANCE--The government of the worlds controlled by the reptilian race known as the Gorn called The Alliance. The Gorn evolved on the planet S'sgarnon, a temperate, warm Class M planet with a local gravity of 1.4 G. THOLIAN ASSEMBLY--The governing organization of a small space empire controlled by the Tholian culture, since the Tholian race is of a totally non-humanoid type. The Tholians are apparently not interested in conquest but the Tholian Assembly jealously guards it's boarders. UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS--The UFP is an interstellar political alliance composed of many autonomous planetary system governments, including those of Terra, Vulcan, Cait, Tellar, Andor and Alpha Centauri. A representative democratic organization, the UFP is governed by the Federation Council, to which each member world sends delegates. The UFP governs all interstellar relations between the member worlds and non-member governments. Although member worlds have a great deal of independence with regard to their internal affairs, Federation laws and regs have precedence in interplanetary matters. ************************** STAR FLEET ORGANIZATION STARBASE HEADQUARTERS COMMAND--Federation space is divided into 17 districts. Each district has one Star Base, normally commanded by a Commodore; each is responsible for all personnel and vessels in its district. MILITARY OPERATIONS COMMAND--Protection of the UFP is one of the main tasks of Star Fleet. Although Star Fleet and the UFP have peaceful goals, there are those who have other ideas (like the Klingons). It must be remembered that the Military Operations Command, acts defensively only! Star Fleet does not exist to take over the galaxy, but to insure the peaceful coexistence of all peoples. GALAXY EXPLORATION COMMAND--Is responsible for the exploration of unknown areas of the galaxy. COLONIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND--Is responsible for settling suitable planets. First Exp. Com. ships scout new planets for colonization, then a small survey ship makes a study of the planet to make sure that no native intelligent live is threatened and to survey and map the planet thoroughly. Once the survey ship is satisfied that all is well, a medium sized ship with 200-700 permanent settlers is sent to establish one or more, small permanent colonies. A space-port and transport facilities are among the first projects, followed by living quarters, offices, and maintenance shops. This group of colonists are the advance guard, so to speak, of the larger vessels that will arrive shortly, bearing thousands of colonists. MERCHANT MARINES--Provides transportation of troops and cargo, operates ships that support Star Fleet Scientific projects and other Federation programs. Furthermore, it enforces federation criminal laws, revenue, and the rules of the spaceways. It also enforces security, including traffic and pollution control. It staffs customs offices and enforces customs regulations, immigration, and quarantines. In wartime and emergencies M.C. joins with the military command operations, providing convoy ships and escorts, troop transport and the like. Member Bureau of Space Safety. MARINE CORPS COMMAND--In addition to starships and fighting crews of the Military Operations Command, Star Fleet also fields impressive ground forces. The Ground forces are part of the Marine Corps, which functions much as the 20th century marine corps cooperated with the US Navy. Marines also are used as planetside police, as guards at large bases, and as defensive fighting units on hostile worlds. STAR FLEET ACADEMY--Under the Office of Education and Training, the Academy is responsible for the initial and advanced training of Star Fleet Officers. Academy instructors staff Branch Training Schools, Department Head School, Command School, and instructors at the Academy or its subsidiary schools. ************************** ENLISTED MEN AND NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Recruit Enlisted, First Class Officer, Second Class Petty Officer, Second Class Petty Officer, First Class Chief Petty Officer Senior Petty Officer Senior Chief Petty Officer Master Chief Petty Officer Warrant Officer Chief Warrant Officer ACADEMY Cadet Midshipman COMMISSIONED OFFICERS Ensign Ensign First Class Lieutenant, Junior Grade (JG) Lieutenant Lieutenant Commander Commander Captain Fleet Captain Commodore Rear Admiral Vice-Admiral Admiral DEPARTMENTAL POSITIONS ABOARD A STARSHIP Commanding Officer (Captain) First Officer Commmand Department Heads Chief Engineer Chief Navigator Chief Helmsman\Weaponry Officer Chief Communications\Damage Control Officer Support Department Heads Chief Science Officer Chief Medical Officer (surgeon) Security Chief Chief Supply Officer ************************** ~ COMING IN OUR JUNE 1992, THIRD ANNIVERSARY ISSUE The Night Mayor by Kim Newman (Carroll & Graf) The Chalchiuhite Dragon by Kenneth Morris (Tor) China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh (Tor) Achilles' Choice by Larry Niven & Steven Barnes (Tor) and a WHOLE lot more... __________________________ ===> <=== ~ ===> NONFICTION <=== ===>__________________________<=== ^ ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date by Robert X. Cringely (Addison-Wesley, February 1992, $19.95, ISBN 0-201-57032-7) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "There was no urge to fly, to see the world, to win a war, to cure disease, or even to get rich that explains how the personal computer business came to be or even how it runs today. Instead, the game was started to satisfy the needs of disenfranchised nerds like Bill Gates who didn't meet the macho standards of American maleness and so looked for a way to create their own adolescent alternative to the adult world and, through that creation, gain the admiration of their peers. "This is the key: they did it (and do it) to impress each other." ---from ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES Anyone who reads INFOWORLD knows Robert X. Cringely as the author of the column "Notes From the Field", which Cringely describes as "an industrial gossip column", a ongoing guide to the most delectable tidbits from the computer world. Along the way he infuriates a lot of people, which is all, of course, part of the fun. What are his qualifications for the job of gossip columnist to the high-tech world? As he explains it... "I'm a failure, of course. "It takes a failure--someone who is not quite clever enough to succeed or to be considered a threat--to gain access to the heart of any competitive, ego-driven industry. This is a business that won't brook rivals but absolutely demands an audience. I am that audience. I can program (poorly) in four computer languages, though all the computer world seems to care about anymore is a language called C. I have made hardware devices that almost worked. I qualify as the ideal informed audience for all those fragile geniuses who want their greatness to be understood and acknowledged. Cringely takes his knowledge of the field and the people in it, with his detached position within the industry, adds his long memory, keen intelligence, wicked wit, and the result is irresistible entertainment for computer groupies and novices alike. Cringely talks about hardware and software, but mostly about people, that odd group who created and fueled the personal computer industry. "Who are these ultrasmart people? We call them engineers, programmers, hackers, and techies, but mainly we call them nerds." But he also points out: "Here's the important part: they are OUR nerds." (Cringely has many priceless anecdotes about "our nerds" in the pages of ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES; some of the best concern Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.) For Cringely believes deeply in the American spirit of childish brilliance, a Peter Pan-ish refusal to grow up that makes for major mistakes, but also life-altering breakthroughs. Indeed, he predicts the eventual fall of the computer industry's last hold-out for adult portentousness: "IBM executives don't design products and write software; they MANAGE the design and writing of software. They go to meetings. So much effort, in fact, is put into managing all the managers who are managing things that hardly anyone is left over to do the real work. This means that most IBM hardware and nearly all IBM software is written or designed by the lowest level of people in the company-- trainees. Everyone else is too busy going to meetings, managing, or learning to be a manager, so there is little chance to include any of their technical expertise in IBM products." But Cringely looks forward--cautiously--to the future. He has some fascinating predictions about the next ten years of computer innovation, and some very encouraging words about the threat posed by the Japanese companies. Read ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES to learn more about computers and software, read it for the insights into high tech industries, or read it for the dirt, but read it. I officially designate ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES as Classic #2 for the computer enthusiast. (Classic #1 is Steven Levy's HACKERS.) ************************** ^ THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure by Juliet B. Schor (Basic Books, February 1992, $21.00, ISBN 0-465-05433-1) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "We have paid a price for prosperity. Capitalism has brought a dramatically increased standard of living, but at the cost of a much more demanding worklife. We are eating more, but we are burning up those calories at work. We have color televisions and compact disc players, but we need them to unwind after a stressful day at the office. We take vacations, but we work so hard throughout the year that they become indispensable to our sanity. The conventional wisdom that economic progress has given us more things AS WELL AS more leisure is difficult to sustain." ---THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN We who grew up back in the 1950s were expressly told to look forward to a future of ever-increasing leisure time, and ever-increasing supplies of consumer goods to enjoy during that time. Now that we live in a world of latch-key kids and stress-related health problems of epidemic proportions, one can't help but wonder what happened. Where did our leisure time go? In THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN, economist Schor presents the results of her studies in what is the first comprehensive calculations of worktime over the last two decades. A fascinating and troubling book, THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN deserves to be studied by government and industry leaders, sociologists, psychologists, economists, and concerned people of all occupations. Schor finds that the average employed person is now on the job 163 more hours per year, the equivalent of an extra month. Also, in the last decade workers have gotten less paid time off each year: about 3-1/2 days less. Since we're spending all this extra time on the job, we must be doing less work around the house, right? Wrong. Schor's estimates indicate that time spent on domestic labor (housework, child care, etc.) hasn't significantly changed since the 1920s. Of course now we have vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, clothes washers and dryers, dish washers, etc. "Yet with all these labor-saving innovations, no labor has been saved. Instead, housework expanded to fill the available time. Norms of cleanliness rose. Standards of mothering grew more rigorous. Cooking and baking became more complicated." If we're spending just as much time working around the house, and more time working at our job, where is this extra time coming from? Mostly from our leisure time, although studies have shown that we also are spending less time eating and sleeping. Why do we behave like this? The insidious cycle of work-and-spend keeps us on the consumer treadmill, working for more money to buy more products that satisfy our needs only temporarily so that soon we need more products, necessitating more work, etc. Schor points the finger at the capitalist system as the chief culprit. Despite the conventional wisdom that capitalism is the source of all bounty, material and temporal, Schor maintains that what leisure time we have exists IN SPITE OF capitalism, not because of it. Employers see it as being in their best interests to have fewer workers who work longer hours, rather than spreading the available work over a larger employee base. Each additional employee means a whole new set of benefits to pay, more than making up for the time-and-a-half they have to pay for overtime. This, of course, leads to greater unemployment, which is also in the employer's best interests, as it provides the stick (fear of losing one's job) to the carrot of overtime pay. Polish economist Michal Kalecki has said that "...unemployment is an integral part of the normal capitalist system." But aren't we still working less today than previously in history? According to Schor, the only time when workers worked harder than today was in the late 19th century, which was the all-time record for overworked employees. (For a better look at this time, read almost any novel by Charles Dickens.) Throughout most of recorded history, workers worked long hours, but the pace of that work was very slow, and there were many meal and rest breaks. In addition, holidays accounted for as much as a third of the year. The rise of capitalism, and that of the Puritans, resulted in our modern style of work. Despite all of this information, Schor reports that many, if not most, corporate leaders anticipate longer hours in the future, not fewer. The bogey here is the Japanese, who are the only people in the world who presently work harder than we do, and they are taking over a number of industries once controlled by Americans. But the Japanese are suffering for their hard work, as Schor documents, and they have already realized that they must lighten the burden on their employees. Besides, "Those who call for America to replicate the Japanese work culture have forgotten that the point of economic success is to make possible a good life. To impair the quality of life IN THE NAME of economic success is foolhardy." Is there an answer to this dilemma? Schor presents a number of changes that we could make to improve the quality of life for all Americans, if we would only realize where our true benefit lies. "Study after study shows that reforms that humanize the work environment, respect employees, or give them more latitude turn out to be very profitable. Yet most companies fail to institute these reforms. Inertia, myopia, fear of the unknown, and a climate of conservatism pervade many U.S. corporations." Schor does not toss around the term "profitable" lightly. She cites specific cases and figures to prove that shorter hours, and similar reforms, have IN ACTUAL PRACTICE led to increased productivity and greater corporate profits. "In an era when the connections between perpetual growth and environmental deterioration are becoming more apparent, with the quality of public life declining in many areas (public safety, decline of community, failing education system), shouldn't we at least step back and re-examine our commitment to ever-greater quantities of consumer goods?" THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN is not only fascinating, but is a very important book. Highly recommended. ************************** ^ THE 5TH WAVE: BYTE-ing Humor by Rich Tennant (Andrews and McMeel, 1992, $6.95, ISBN 0-8362-1890-6) <<Carl Ingram>> Where will you find: * A prospective customer saying: "What do you mean it sort of is and isn't compatible?" * A guy in the Software Application Testing Center who says: "We test for compatibility, performance, service, and formatting. If it fails these, then it's tested for the distance it can be sailed across the parking lot and onto the expressway." * The adventures of Bill and Irwin in The Land of Lost Files * Royal Canadian Mounted Programmers * An FBI agent saying: "These kidnappers are clever, lieutenant. Look at this ransom note, the way they got the text to wrap around the victim's photograph. And the fonts! They must be creating their own--must be over thirty-five typefaces here..." * A man who holds a printer at an angle to get italics * The executive at Thud Software who says: "Gentlemen, I say rather than fix the 'bugs,' we change the documentation and call them 'features.'" Where can you find such lunacy? Only in the world of cartoonist Rich Tennant, which you can visit in THE 5TH WAVE, possibly the funniest collection of computer cartoons ever published. You'll probably want to buy a copy just to cut apart for posting on bulletin boards around the office--there's sure to be a piece of BYTE-ing satire suitable for any situation. "In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the Repairman mistakes a room humidifier for a mid-range computer, but manages to tie it into the network anyway." ---from THE 5TH WAVE ************************** ^ WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY: Third College Edition Dr. Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief (Simon & Schuster, January 1992, $18.95, ISBN 0-13-947169-3) <<Howard Frye>> WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY is celebrating its 40th anniversary, with some 85,000,000 copies in all editions having been printed. It is one of the bestselling English language dictionaries of all time, widely used in schools, libraries, and in the home. It is used as the dictionary of first reference by every major news organization in the country, and by hundreds of daily newspapers. The first edition was published in November 1951, and was the first dictionary to emphasize the current language of America, and the first to use that language to formulate lucid, easy-to-read definitions. It was the first to identify Americanisms, those words believed to have an American origin. Americanisms account for some 11,000 entries, including such words as "persimmon", "neutron star", "flying saucer", "playmaker", "chain lightning", "ukulele", "iron horse", "bounty jumper", "free-for-all", and "hickory". WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY is still the only dictionary to identify all terms and senses that originate in the U.S. The Third Edition also set a new standard for usage notes and word histories. In 1970, the American Printing House for the Blind, in conjunction with The Library of Congress, chose WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD as the first and only dictionary of its scope to be embossed in braille in its entirety. It comprises 72 large volumes. In December 1975, THE NEW YORK TIMES announced that it was replacing its dictionary of first reference, which it had used for decades, with the Second College Edition of the NEW WORLD DICTIONARY and that this dictionary was also to be used as the basis for its forthcoming Manual of Style and Usage. In 1976, both the AP and UPI also announced their adoption of the dictionary. The principal reasons cited were the frequency and thoroughness of its updatings, the reliability of its information, and the clarity of its definitions. Now there is a new update of the Third College Edition (originally published in September 1988), so you can have an English language reference that is as up-to-date as that used by THE NEW YORK TIMES. As a matter of fact, you'll have the exact same book. For readers, writers, and crossword puzzle fans, WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY constitutes a genuine Best Buy. ************************** ^ SINUS SURVIVAL (Revised) A Self-Help Guide for Allergies, Bronchitis, Colds, and Sinusitis by Dr. Robert S. Ivker (Jeremy P. Tarcher, February 1992, $10.95, ISBN 0-87477-684-8) <<Janet Peters>> "Dr. Ivker has written SINUS SURVIVAL as if he were sitting in his exam room speaking to one of his patients. ...By reading this book, the sinus sufferer will feel--possibly for the first time--both understood and in much greater control of his or her condition." ---Gilbert W. Levitt, M.D. * 34 million people are sinus sufferers (almost 1 in 7 Americans) * The National Center for Health Statistics says chronic sinusitis is the most common chronic disease in the U.S. * According to the EPA, more than 150 million Americans live in areas in which the air is hazardous to their health. (Interestingly, SINUS SURVIVAL has sold best in areas of maximum air pollution.) Not only has Dr. Ivker treated more than 20,000 patients with sinus problems, he was a long-timer sinus sufferer himself. In SINUS SURVIVAL he takes the reader along the path he traveled personally, which, for him, resulted in a complete cure from his sinusitis: he has been free of symptoms for five years. In Part I Dr. Ivker discusses what sinuses are and what makes them sick, how to tell whether you have acute or chronic sinusitis, what disorders frequently are associated with sinus problems, what the symptoms of sinusitis are, and what standard medical treatments are available. (In this section I learned why over-the-counter drugs haven't helped my sinusitis, and I also found a no-cost homemade treatment that does help.) In Part II he outlines the holistic approach to treating sinusitis, requiring far more effort but possibly leading to a complete cure (which standard medical treatment cannot offer). Dr. Ivker talks about how to change your environment to help your sinuses, and how to change yourself, advocating a whole-system approach that combines physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health. He also includes "A Guide to Holistic Specialties" for patients who feel the need of more personal care. SINUS SURVIVAL is an absolute necessity if you, or someone you love, suffers from sinus problems. Even if you choose not to overhaul your entire life to effect a cure, you will still find enough information and helpful medical advice to enable you to take charge of your sinuses and make yourself more comfortable. (Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., 5858 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90036.) ************************** ^ MASTERING CorelDRAW 2: Third Edition by Steve Rimmer (Sybex, 1991, $29.95, ISBN 0-89588-814-9) <<Dan Ellis>> CorelDRAW is an absolutely incredible drawing program. If you add a program that specializes in handling large text files, such as Ventura Publisher, and a nice laser printer, you will have a desktop print shop more powerful than most professional printers had just a few years ago. Of course all that raw capability has a catch: you have to learn to use it. It's easy enough to figure out how to click on the icons and play around with CorelDRAW, but to really harness all of that potential to create professional-looking logos, illustrations, icons, etc., you need to dig deeper. I tried using Steve Rimmer's MASTERING CorelDRAW as an encyclopedia for a while (looking up individual topics in the Index as they came up in real life), but that really didn't do me much good. CorelDRAW is complex enough that understanding a lot of little isolated bits of trivia doesn't get you very far. It wasn't until I sat down and worked my way through Part I, "A Guide to Features and Applications"--using the book as a tutorial and performing all of the examples--that I finally started to get somewhere. Rimmer explains all of the basics: lines, text, fills, importing/exporting, tracing, special effects, and color, guiding the reader through at least one example of every technique. Once you've built up some confidence with the software, Rimmer shifts the focus to what you could be doing with CorelDRAW. Part II, "A Guide to Design", has four chapters that will give the reader a wealth of practical advice for using CorelDRAW to create useful and beautiful pictures, letterhead, logos, and such. He talks about basic principles of good design, how to integrate the graphic capabilities of CorelDRAW with a desktop publishing program (like Ventura), how to use type creatively, and specific hints and ideas about designing logos and symbols. As a helpful added feature, since CorelDRAW will only work under Microsoft Windows, the Appendices include a beginner's guide to working with Windows. MASTERING CorelDRAW is nearly a necessity with a program as complex as CorelDRAW. Now that you've spent all that money to get all those features, shouldn't you spend some time learning what to do with them? (You can contact the publisher by writing to: Sybex Inc., 2021 Challenger Drive, Alameda, CA 94501. As for a complete catalog of their computer publications.) ************************** ^ THIS OLD HOUSE KITCHENS: A Guide to Design and Renovation by Steve Thomas & Philip Langdon (Little, Brown, January 1992, $40.00, ISBN 0-316-84106-4) <<Carol Sheffert>> In most homes, the kitchen is the most-used room of all, and frequently the first to show serious wear. And few household renovations add more to the resale value of a house than an attractive and well-designed kitchen. Unfortunately, kitchen remodeling is complex and expensive, and the home owner needs to plan carefully to avoid costly mistakes and unnecessary expenses. THIS OLD HOUSE KITCHENS brings the enthusiasm, confidence, and expertise of public television's most popular series into your lap, with more than 180 full-color photographs and dozens of detailed drawings, to be consulted as needed throughout your project. Steve Thomas knows that modern families place a lot of demands on their kitchens. They must house a variety of appliances such as microwave ovens, ice-makers, boiling- and chilled-water dispensers, food processors, garbage compactors, etc. We want our kitchens to have a phone, stereo, TV, and maybe a small office space with a desk, and of course everything needs to be well-lit. THIS OLD HOUSE KITCHENS takes you step-by-step through the process of designing a kitchen that will satisfy your personal wish list and function practically in the real world. From minor renovations to starting from the ground up, THIS OLD HOUSE KITCHENS offers all the information needed to: * establish a budget * hire and work with contractors and tradespeople * choose beautiful and functional flooring, cabinets, and countertops * design the perfect lighting system * make the most of storage space * unravel the mysteries of the hidden essentials: plumbing, wiring, and ventilation * choose the small touches that make a room extraordinary The information in THIS OLD HOUSE KITCHENS is logically arranged for maximum ease of use--an indispensable volume for anyone contemplating any kitchen renovations. ************************** ^ HEALING YOUR BODY NATURALLY Alternative Treatments to Illness by Gary Null (Four Walls Eight Windows, February 1992, $16.95, ISBN 0-941423-66-2) <<Susan Ingram>> HEALING YOUR BODY NATURALLY is the latest book by Gary Null, America's leading health and nutrition advocate and the author of more than 40 books. He discusses alternative treatments for mental illness, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, back and leg ailments, allergies, diabetes, and digestive disorders, with the accent always on whole-body therapies and superior nutrition. There is also a special chapter on Chelation Therapy, one of the hottest new areas of alternative treatments. It involves the removal of excess heavy metals from the bloodstream and has been used to treat many disorders, including strokes, Alzheimer's Disease, and diabetes. HEALING YOUR BODY NATURALLY closes with an 80-page national Resource Guide, with names, addresses, and phone numbers for a variety of alternative treatment care specialists around the country: specialists in AIDS, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, digestive disorders, heart disease, and mental illness, as well as chiropractors, support groups, environmental physicians, holistic dentists, holistic veterinarians, homeopaths, naturopaths, nutrition counselors, orthomolecular psychiatrists, and professional organizations. You can order HEALING YOUR BODY NATURALLY directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $3 postage and handling to: Four Walls Eight Windows, PO Box 548, Village Station, New York, NY 10014-0548. Also be sure to ask for a copy of their catalog of books. ************************** ^ SERIAL SLAUGHTER: What's Behind America's Murder Epidemic? by Michael Newton (Loompanics Unlimited, 1992, $19.95, ISBN 1-55950-078-6) <<Howard Frye>> "Before the year 2000, federal agents estimate some 40,000 men, women, and children will be slaughtered without apparent motive--an average of 11 victims each and every day, year-round." SERIAL SLAUGHTER is a comprehensive treatment of what is known today about serial killers. Author Michael Newton has amassed a wealth of facts, figures, quotes from killers, photographs of killers, and investigative detail, fashioning it into a shocking and horrific study of human monsters. SERIAL SLAUGHTER covers: * A brief history of serial murders * What makes a killer? * Does violent pornography incite sex slayings? * What triggers a killer's deadly outburst? * How do serial killers pick their victims? * How can you avoid being selected? * What should you do if you are selected? * What do serial killers do after a kill? * How are serial killers hunted? * How does the legal system deal with serial killers? * How do serial killers behave in jail? A final chapter brings the cases covered up to date with a consideration of Jeffrey Dahmer, the man who was found with pieces of 11 bodies in his apartment. In the back of the book is a reprint of the FBI's VICAP (Violent Crime Apprehension Program) Crime Analysis Report, an 18-page form that attempts to scientifically codify man's violent of abuse of man. And, finally, there's a huge Bibliography of further reading about serial killers, enough to last you the rest of this decade. SERIAL SLAUGHTER is a fascinating book on a very grim subject. (You can order the book directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $4 shipping and handling to: Loompanics Unlimited, PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368. With your order you'll get a free copy of their incredible catalog of unusual and controversial books, which otherwise can be ordered for $5.) ************************** ^ THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND A History of Human Wonder & Discovery by Herbert C. Corben (Prometheus Books, February 1992, $29.95, ISBN 0-87975-683-7) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> As long as human beings have existed, they have wanted, and needed, to understand themselves and the universe they inhabit. Our attempts to observe and explain can be roughly divided into two disciplines: science and religion. In THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND, Herbert Corben, a retired theoretical physicist, takes the reader on an exciting journey through the entire known history of man's search for answers. Expanded from an extremely popular course he taught at the University of Toronto, Corben considers: * ancient gods and religions that predate Christianity * early developments in physics, astronomy, biology, and medicine * the growth of astrology, alchemy, and numerology * scientific beliefs and theological conflicts in the first Christian millennium * contributions made by Muslim scientists and physicians * the impact on Christian thinking when the Muslim works were translated into Latin and Hebrew * persecution of witches and the treatment of the insane * scientific development in the 18th and 19th centuries and how erroneous assumptions impeded progress * the theory of evolution and its impact on religious dogmas Corben discusses the birth and evolution of both wrong ideas and right ones. In the Preface he talks about how wrong ideas can get started: "One way is to choose from all of the writings and sayings of mankind a very small fraction and assume that bit to be absolutely true. It might be the Delphic Oracle, the Bible or the Koran, the pronouncements by the Pope, the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, or even James Ussher (who set 4004 B.C. as the date of the Creation), or maybe the words which a charismatic speaker assures us come directly from God." With the clarity and wit of a born teacher, Corben makes the history of mankind's intellectual advancement exciting, dramatic, and even funny. THE STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND is a very entertaining read and a worthwhile addition to any education. Highly recommended. (Prometheus Books, 700 East Amherst Street, Buffalo, NY 14215) ************************** ^ ATTACK OF THE DERANGED MUTANT KILLER MONSTER SNOW GOONS by Bill Watterson (Andrews and McMeel, 1992, $8.95, ISBN 0-8362-1883-3) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> What little boy... * has such an elaborate imagination that pieces of driveway gravel become fossilized fragments of a previously unknown species of carnosaur? * is terrorized by his new two-wheeler? * was voted the "most likely to be seen on the news someday"? * has a baseball field with 25 bases? * when bored, imagines himself to be: a dinosaur, a lightning bolt, fearless explorer Spaceman Spiff, an airline pilot, a volcano, superhero Stupendous Man, and Tracer Bullet, private eye? * decides to jump from the roof of his house attached to a bungie cord? * holds his friend Susie's doll for ransom, including in the ransom note a photograph of the doll tied to a chair? * has monsters living under his bed? * plays with a toy boat in the bath, and dumps a bottle of ink in the bathwater to simulate an oil spill? * defines math as a religion and calls himself a math atheist? * invokes the snow demon to make a snowman come alive, inadvertently creating Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons? Who could it be? Nobody but Calvin, the creation of a very talented cartoonist named Bill Watterson. Calvin, along with his stuffed tiger named Hobbes, faces life with the energy, creative enthusiasm, and clearsightedness that only a child could possibly manage, and along the way Watterson gets to comment the complexities, paradoxes, and conflicts of life in the 1990s. (Not to overlook the artwork, which is simply awesome; an incredible array of facial expressions that speak volumes all by themselves.) Calvin and Hobbes address such weighty problems as species conflict: Calvin: "Do you think tigers to the same heaven that people go to?...I mean, in heaven, everyone is supposed to be HAPPY, right? But people wouldn't be happy if they were always in danger of being eaten by tigers!...On the other hand, heaven wouldn't be very nice WITHOUT tigers, either. *I* wouldn't be happy if there weren't any tigers. I'd miss them...Maybe tigers just don't eat people in heaven. Hobbes: "But then WE wouldn't be happy." When Calvin cuts a TV frame out of cardboard and pretends to be on television, Watterson satirizes up TV commercials, celebrity endorsements, and child-oriented advertisements "Hi, I'm Calvin, Eminent Television Personality, here to tell you about new, improved 'Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs'! I love 'em! They're crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and they don't have a single natural ingredient or essential vitamin to get in the way of that rich, fudgy taste! Mm-mm! Yes kids, you'll like 'em so much, you won't be able to sit still! Remember! It's the cereal I get paid to recommend because I'm famous!...What do you think? Are you filled with the desire to emulate me and eat the cereal I endorse? If not, I can repeat this every 20 minutes." If you haven't met Calvin & Hobbes yet, you should be ashamed of yourself. ATTACK OF THE DERANGED MUTANT KILLER MONSTER SNOW GOONS is the funniest cartoon book of Spring 1992. Don't miss it. ************************** ^ USING VISUAL BASIC Writing Windows Applications (Disk Included) by William H. Murray & Chris H. Pappas (Addison-Wesley, January 1992, $34.95, ISBN 0-201-58145-0) <<Dan Ellis>> Microsoft Windows is the #1 operating environment, and Microsoft Visual Basic is the #1 programming language for creating Windows applications. Instead of taking weeks or months to write valuable and classy-looking programs, with Visual Basic you can whip them out in hours, sometimes minutes! USING VISUAL BASIC is a first-class guide to the hottest topic in programming, and will help you get started in no time at all. The first nine chapters constitute VB101: Foundations of Visual Basic Creating Interfaces Setting Interface Properties Writing Code Visual Basic as a Language Control Elements Information IN Information OUT Graphics Fundamentals and Drawing Primitives The remainder of the book concentrates on the more advanced concepts you need to develop really useful applications: Numeric Examples Working With Pictures and Graphics System Resources and Utilities Financial Applications Simple Databases Plotting Mathematical Equations Presentation Line, Bar, and Pie Charts An Introduction to Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) Between these chapters, and the code you'll find on the enclosed disk, you'll have a collection of templates that you can use for developing your very own custom applications. USING VISUAL BASIC is a great way to become an accomplished Windows Programmer in just the time it takes to read a book. William H. Murray and Chris H. Pappas are the authors of 15 acclaimed computer books, including WINDOWS PROGRAMMING and THE BORLAND C++ HANDBOOK. They are both professors of computer science in the SUNY system in Binghamton, New York. ************************** ^ THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN MYTH by John M. Allegro (Prometheus Books, March 1992, $18.95, ISBN 0-87975-757-4) <<Howard Frye>> In 1947 an Arab shepherd discovered a cache of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts that would become known throughout the world as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jordanian authorities appointed a team of experts to study, translate, and publish the texts, and scholars all over the world were hoping for new insights into early Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity. Unfortunately, only one of the appointed experts completed his assigned task: John Allegro, who also happened to be the only secular humanist on the team. The other experts jealously guarded their assigned sections of text, refusing to reveal anything until they had completely studied them to their own satisfaction. Allegro took the view that science is a cooperative effort and that the texts should be shared at the earliest possible date, trusting to scholarly debate to revise and refine the translation and interpretation. By 1968 Allegro had completed his translation, and his interpretation of his assigned portion shocked and angered many. Allegro declared that the Dead Sea Scrolls virtually proved that the Jesus of the Gospels never existed, that he was a fictional character from ancient religious legends. Another of the team experts claimed that Allegro's translation was seriously flawed. Allegro claimed that the rest of the team was deliberately suppressing information from the texts that contradicted Christian and Jewish dogma. When Allegro published an article in the BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW in the mid 1980s, asking why none of the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls had yet been released to the public, an groundswell of scholarly frustration arose that would lead eventually to the release of photographs of all the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Unfortunately, John Allegro didn't live to see the texts made public, but his interpretation of them is once again made available with the publication of THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN MYTH. He takes the reader on an exciting journey of intellectual discovery, and suggests that Christianity evolved out of the Messianic theology of the Essenes, the Jewish sect that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. This edition also reprints an essay in which Allegro describes the in-fighting among the scholars assigned to study the scrolls and his 30-year battle to release all of the texts to the public. ************************** ^ GENTLE CLOSINGS: How to Say Goodbye to Someone You Love by Ted Menten (Running Press, 1991, $12.95, ISBN 1-56138-004-0) <<Janet Peters>> GENTLE CLOSINGS is an unusual book. It's written by a man who spends his free time giving away teddy bears at hospitals and talking with, or just being with, people who are dying. Most of us, I think, generally try to live our lives with the attitude that death doesn't exist. We handle our fear with denial, which works reasonably well until the dying person is someone close to us. Or maybe it's us. What do you say to someone who's dying? What can you do? These are the issues that Ted Menten addresses in this small package of touching stories and gentle wisdom. I asked a group of children what they thought was going to happen when they died. Going to heaven was a popular destination. "How will you get there?" I asked. "An angel will come and get me," replied Wendy. "Beamed up like on 'Star Trek,'" said Bobby. "I want Lassie to take me," said little Sharon. "But Lassie's only a dog!" said a disapproving Bobby. "I know, but Lassie always knows how to get home." You can order GENTLE CLOSINGS directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $2.50 postage and handling, to: Running Press, 125 South Twenty-Second St., Philadelphia, PA 19103. ************************** ^ THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ORIGAMI & PAPERCRAFT TECHNIQUES by Paul Jackson (Running Press, 1991, $24.95, ISBN 1-56138-063-6) <<Carol Sheffert>> If you thought you had exhausted the artistic potential of paper in kindergarten with glued-circle chains, you should spend some time with this beautiful volume by Paul Jackson. Half how-to craft book and half art book, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ORIGAMI & PAPERCRAFT TECHNIQUES is loaded with hundreds of creative ideas for the adventurous artist, beginner or advanced. Jackson discusses tools and techniques, with photographs of everything he describes. He talks about the properties of paper and how to work with them, and the specialized vocabulary of origami folds. And throughout the book you'll find a dazzling selection of artworks that will inspire your own creative instincts. Within the ENCYCLOPEDIA Jackson covers origami (the well-known oriental art of paperfolding), pop-ups (most popular in children's books), paper sculpture, papier-mache, pulping (an alternative to papier-mache in which paper is pulped and molded into shape), papermaking (yes, you can actually MAKE paper in your home without expensive equipment), decoupage, model-making (my favorite--scale models of real-life artifacts), paper engineering (a more technical approach to paper creations), paper cuts (which covers art from cut pieces of paper to repetitive designs such as snowflakes), quilling (designs make from little rolls of paper), packaging (the engineering principles of cartons), and weaving. The last section of the ENCYCLOPEDIA covers themes for your artwork, whether it will be abstract (geometric or non-geometric), functional, or representational (figurative, natural, or constructed). THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ORIGAMI & PAPERCRAFT TECHNIQUES is a treasure trove of ideas and how-to information for the creative artist, as well as being a breathtaking art book. A real treat. (You can order the ENCYCLOPEDIA directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $2.50 postage and handling, to: Running Press, 125 South Twenty-Second St., Philadelphia, PA 19103.) ************************** ^ SIMCITY: STRATEGIES AND SECRETS by Nick Dargahi (Sybex, 1991, $12.95, ISBN 0-89588-890-4) <<Carl Ingram>> Computer users do not live by spreadsheets alone. There must also be, occasionally, a bit of recreation. And certainly one of the finest leisure time computer activities ever invented is an involving and addictive game from Maxis called SimCity. SimCity simulates an entire city in your computer, with you to act as Mayor, city planner, and city engineer. Your simulated city is as real as the designers at Maxis could make it--as Supreme Being you will have to deal with crime, unemployment, pollution, traffic, fire, floods, and earthquakes. There is no competition involved, just the management of your city--if you're successful you'll have a growing city of contented citizens, if not your city can turn into barbarous chaos or a deserted ghosttown. Running a successful city, or SimCity, is what SIMCITY: STRATEGIES AND SECRETS is all about. Nick Dargahi's book begins with an Introduction to SimCity, which duplicates a lot of information in the SimCity documentation, but expands on many of the ideas, is better illustrated and organized, and is just generally much more user-friendly. As a new City Manager you'll learn how to install the program, set up a city, use the icons, and general hints about how to begin playing this fascinating game. The second section of the book discusses how the SimCity program is designed, what the interior rules are, and how you can use those facts to your city's advantage. In this part of the book you'll find secret strategies, hints, tips, and tricks that the author has found himself and gathered from many other dedicated SimCity players. The last section is called "Winning Strategies for the Eight Model Scenarios", and it includes specific hints and helps for the eight "canned" cities that come on the SimCity disk. Every store that sells SimCity should have SIMCITY: STRATEGIES AND SECRETS shelved right next to it. SimCity is an incredibly complex simulation of reality that mixes recreation and education until they become interchangeable, and this book will help the user develop proficiency faster and get more out of every facet of "play". (You can contact the publisher, and get a complete catalog of their books, by writing to: SYBEX Inc., 2021 Challenger Drive, Alameda, CA 94501.) ************************** ~OTHER RECENT SYBEX RELEASES APPLE/MACINTOSH: Anybody's Mac Book by Tom Cuthbertson (ISBN 0-89588-866-1, $26.95) The Macintosh Hard Disk Companion by J. Russell Roberts (ISBN 0-7821-1058-4, $26.95) DESKTOP PUBLISHING: Understanding Postscript by David A. Holzgang (ISBN 0-7821-1059-2, $29.95) FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: Understanding Quicken 5 for DOS by Steve Cummings (ISBN 0-7821-1082-7, $22.95) SPREADSHEETS: Mastering Quattro Pro 4 for DOS, Fourth Edition by Gene Weisskopf (ISBN 0-7821-1019-3, $27.95) WORD PROCESSING: WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows Macro Handbook (with disk) (ISBN 0-7821-1064-9, $39.95) Up & Running with Word for Windows, Version 2.0 by Bob Campbell (ISBN 0-7821-1005-3, $10.95) ************************** ^ MONDAY TO FRIDAY COOKBOOK by Michele Urvater (Workman, 1991, $14.95, ISBN 0-89480-764-1) <<Carol Sheffert>> In fiction, lavish homemade meals are prepared quickly, with no mess, and are presented attractively to an appreciative family, all of whom are neatly seated at the table, waiting to dig in. In real life, meals don't happen quite that way. For one thing, the meal preparer is most likely to have just returned home from work and is not in the mood for "lavish". But even minimal meals require considerable effort, and make a mess in the kitchen that requires even more work later. And as for that appreciative family all ready to eat: forget it. Previous engagements and last-minute responsibilities make adults and children alike late for meals, or absent altogether. The only time everyone sits down at the same time is when the cook eats alone. Michele Urvater cooks for a family; she knows these things. Luckily for us, she's also a professional chef, and she's had some practical ideas about how to handle the workweek meal nightmare. She begins with the caution that the well-stocked pantry is the key to everything, and the entire first chapter is dedicated to showing you how to set yourself up right. The next chapter shows you how to equip your kitchen for maximum efficiency (quick cooking and even quicker cleanup), and the following chapter discusses some basic strategies, like how to plan the week's meals ahead of time, how to plan for leftovers, and how to even put together a dinner party if you absolutely have to. Then there are the Monday-to-Friday recipes: good edible food that doesn't take long to cook and leaves as little mess as possible. The first chapter of recipes is called "Pure Pantry", providing loads of good ideas for those times when you haven't had time to shop at all. Following that are chapters for Soups, Pasta, Seafood, Poultry, Meat, One-Pot Meals, Grain & Bean Dishes, Vegetable Asides, Salads, Desserts, and a chapter called Omnium Gatherum which includes such great standbys as tacos, tortillas, pizza, omelets, etc. MONDAY TO FRIDAY COOKBOOK is chock full of great ideas for anyone who must feed a family and often wishes that someone else would. There are very few frills here, just good, tasty food that is quick and easy to prepare. In the margins you'll find helpful hints about how to use leftovers of a particular recipes, how to alter it for kid-type tastes, and tips about ingredients that reluctant cooks may not be aware of. A number of the recipes were too hot for my taste, but the spicy ingredients are easily left out. I learned a lot about making quick soups, though, and got a LOT of ideas for using grains, particularly the more exotic kinds like couscous, cracked wheat, bulghur, and quinoa. MONDAY TO FRIDAY COOKBOOK is well worth a spot on your cookbook shelf--it could save a lot of time in the kitchen, a lot of money on take-out, and save you from a lot of bad frozen dinners. ************************** ^ THE COMPLETE PC UPGRADE AND MAINTENANCE GUIDE by Mark Minasi (Sybex, 1991, $27.95, ISBN 0-89588-840-8) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "I'm writing this for the needy and the curious. Some of you need to understand the machines you depend upon so much so that you can better keep them in top shape. Others might just wonder what's going on under the hood. Whoever you are, dig in and try something!" Every computer owner I know has at least one humdinger of a repair horror story. Author Mark Minasi begins with one of his own, about a repair shop that kept his machine for two months, never could find anything wrong with it, and charged him $800. I recently had a rather ugly experience myself with some computer repair people and memory chips, but I don't want to get into it. Maybe someday I'll laugh about it, but you better believe I'm replacing my own memory chips from now on. So the major reason to get Minasi's PC UPGRADE AND MAINTENANCE GUIDE is obvious: avoid expensive and incompetent repair people (repair humans?). And it's not just repairing, nowadays computers are piles of separate components, and most owners don't go too long between purchases of some kind of hardware. Who wants to be dependent upon somebody else every time they add a piece of hardware to their system? Do you want someone of unknown ability messing around with a system it's taken you months to get just right? Why not install new drives, monitors, memory boards, etc. yourself? All this leads to the next great thing about Minasi's new book. The reason you want and/or need something like this book is, as I said, obvious. But will such a book explain things adequately? Will you be able to understand and use the information? Yes, if it's written by Mark Minasi, who has an encouraging conversational style and leads you through the mysteries of hardware with clear, concise, easy-to-follow steps. He not only explains how to take your machine apart, fiddle with something, and put it back together--he convinces you that you can actually do it without lightning striking you dead on the spot. Minasi tells you what tools you'll need; what to do first, second, etc.; how to troubleshoot a problem whatever it is; how to make your equipment last; and what's liable to be wrong when something goes phhhttt! He covers circuit boards, chips, semiconductor memory, power supplies (and power protection), floppy drives, printers, printer interfaces, modems, serial interfaces, keyboards, and monitors. But the greatest amount of space is spent on hard drives, and anyone with a hard drive knows why: hard drives are more susceptible to problems than any other piece of hardware, and hard drive failures are generally the most devastating. And by the way, if you'd like to become a hard drive expert, you need Mark Minasi's THE HARD DISK SURVIVAL GUIDE (reviewed in RFP #19), also from Sybex. Together, these two books will help you get the maximum life out of your equipment, and will show you how to install and repair just about anything it's possible to install or repair without special tools or advanced training. Of course, if word gets out that you know how to do these things, don't be surprised if everyone you have ever known beats a path to your door. ************************** ^ UP & RUNNING WITH COMPUSERVE by Bob Campbell (Sybex, 1992, $10.95, ISBN 0-7821-1033-9) <<Carl Ingram>> "CompuServe, now more than twelve years old, has grown into today's premier information utility, with the largest number of services and the widest subscriber base of any public-access network. It combines a solid electronic-mail system with forums on a wide range of topics, hundreds of databases, business and financial services, news services, and more. Nonetheless, CompuServe remains surprisingly accessible and inexpensive." CompuServe can be valuable, educational, helpful, and a whole lot of fun, but only if you can use it. You have to know what's there, how to get to it, and how to use it properly. The very best way to learn your way around CompuServe in the least amount of time is Bob Campbell's UP & RUNNING WITH COMPUSERVE, a nifty 150 pages that get you through just about anything you can do with CompuServe in 20 "steps". Each "Step" covers a different skill or area of CompuServe, and is allotted a separate chapter. Helpfully, each step also comes with an estimate on how long it will take, from 15 minutes to an hour. This is a big help in planning just what you want to tackle, because UP & RUNNING WITH COMPUSERVE is so well written that advance study is not necessary. Just pick your "step" and log in--you can follow what happens on the screen of your computer with the illustrations and notes in the book. It's that easy. So what will you learn to do on CompuServe? Stuff like * Getting Started--how to join CompuServe, what hardware and software you'll need, how to call, how to log in, and how to sign off * Basic Navigation--how to get around in general, the single most important CompuServe skill * Finding a Topic--when you know what you want but you haven't a clue about where to look * Forums--the special interest groups: what they are like and how to use the three major forum areas (file libraries, message sections, and real-time conferences) * Electronic Mail--how to send it, receive it, and how to take advantage of special features to become a Power E-Mailer * Information--where to look and how to use the many sources of news, weather, travel, and financial information available on CompuServe * Reference--how to do serious research on CompuServe * The Personal File Area--your own personal disk space on CompuServe * Customizing Your Account--how to get CompuServe to work the way YOU want it to * Special CompuServe Software--learn about the three most popular communications programs especially designed for using CompuServe: AutoSIG, TapCIS, and CompuServe Information Manager. UP & RUNNING WITH COMPUSERVE is an ideal companion to every CompuServe account. You'll be winging around the service like a pro in no time. ************************** ^ MISOGYNIES: Reflections on Myths and Malice by Joan Smith (Fawcett Columbine, 1991, $16.95, ISBN 0-449-90591-8) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> "The reason why DRESSED TO KILL caused such anger was its dual implication that murder is a punishment for autonomous sexual behaviour in women, and that women actually DESIRE sexual violence-- thus legitimizing what is done to them and transferring guilt from the perpetrator to the victim." ---from "He Knows He Can Make Money Out of You" (MISOGYNIES) It would be difficult to imagine a more intellectually stimulating collection of essays than those in MISOGYNIES. Joan Smith has been paying attention to the world we live in, and she talks about what she's observed. She discusses: * the attitude of judges toward women and the effect it has on the application of law * the insidious messages of the pinup industry * violence against women in movies, or as she terms it, "the market in female fear" * PRESUMED INNOCENT, an anti-feminist retaliation * the media and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the woman Joan Smith describes as "a princess who was kissed by Fleet Street and turned into a frog" * abortion * women in the clergy ("...Christianity was conceived in sexual disgust and loathing of women...") * historical women who have been ill-served by male historians * the prevalent contempt for women among homosexuals throughout history * Marilyn Monroe's drooled-over image of female sexual passivity (in an essay titled "Gentlemen Prefer Dead Blondes") * the exploitation of tragedy for titillation in William Styron's SOPHIE'S CHOICE * the threatening nature of female sexuality for military men--both American and German * Britain's Mrs. Thatcher's inappropriateness as a role model for women * Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', and the police who sought to catch him ("It is this feature, not Sutcliffe's difference but his SIMILARITY to other men, which becomes apparent as you get deeper into the case.") In her Introduction Smith addresses the argument that our society's organizational structure is based on the natural, biological differences between men and women. She says: "...the question I would put to proponents of the anatomy-is-destiny theory is this: are you HAPPY with this state of affairs? Can you shrug off the fact that women are routinely denigrated, despised, segregated, raped, mutilated and murdered? Are you saying, in fact, that it is NATURAL for men to hate and fear women?" Also included amongst the essays is a brief dramatic scene that would be humorously surreal to me if I hadn't lived through much the same thing myself. In it, a male stranger speaks to her male companion exclusively, ignoring Smith, even though she is handling most of the conversation. It is indeed a bizarre experience to be attempting conversation with someone for whom you are invisible. And, take my word for it, IT REALLY HAPPENS. If these subjects, and the few comments that I have extracted sound provocative, controversial, and barbed, I have succeeded in giving you an accurate idea of MISOGYNIES. It is, however, important to realize that the quotes given here have been removed from their proper context. While they may sound dogmatic and merely inflammatory standing alone, the ideas behind them are scrupulously argued in the full text, backed with facts, quotes, and much logical thought. Far from being a diatribe in which oppressed women are urged to band together to hate men right back, Smith realizes that men are victims in the situation as well, and that it is only by understanding the way things are that we can hope to change what needs changing in the future. An intellectually invigorating book. ************************** ^ SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE by Harold Hough (Loompanics Unlimited, 1991, $21.95, ISBN 1-55950-077-8) <<Howard Frye>> Most of us know that there are satellites circling the globe that have picture-taking capability. If asked why such photos are taken, however, I think most would be limited to mentioning: spying, weather information, and mapping. The truth is, however, that satellite photography is used for much, much more than that, possibly for things that will affect your life. Or it's just possible that satellite imagery could be of use to you, and you don't even know it. In SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE, Harold Hough provides a comprehensive textbook on the history of overhead photography, how it works, what it's used for, what you can do to avoid it, how you can take advantage of satellite photography for your own purposes, and where the technology is headed in the near future. Along the way you'll learn about orthophotography, the science of correcting the various distortions in photographs. (What causes these distortions? You'll learn that, too.) You'll also hear about the landmark case Dow Chemical Company vs. The United States, which forms a precedent for the legality of aerial photographic surveillance. You'll find out what satellites are up there, what kinds of images they are processing, and what they can be used for. Rounding out all this information is a glossary, a bibliography, and actual addresses and phone numbers where you can acquire satellite pictures and related products. You can order SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE directly from the publisher by sending the list price, plus $3 shipping and handling, to: Loompanics Unlimited, PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Their humongous $5 catalog of unusual books is free with your order. ************************** ^ NATURE AS TEACHER AND HEALER How to Reawaken Your Connection With Nature by James A. Swan, Ph.D. (Villard, February 1992, $13.00, ISBN 0-679-73879-7) <<Susan Ingram>> Perhaps you're like me: I support environmental causes whenever I can; I love trees, flowers, mountains, oceans, rivers, and wildlife; and I am angered every time greenery loses out to asphalt in my city. The only problem is that, at least until now, I've enjoyed nature from afar, like something I saw a picture of in a magazine and decided was a good thing. Until I read NATURE AS TEACHER AND HEALER, I hadn't realized to what extent nature was just a momentary experience between indoors and the car. According to a recent government study, the average adult American spends 84% of his/her life indoors, so I'm not the only one, and according to Dr. Swan the result of living in a modern, mechanized society is alienation from the natural world. NATURE AS TEACHER AND HEALER explains the problem, and provides a "spiritual first-aid kit" for people like me who have lost contact with the planet we live on. "We have lost that primal kinship link with nature that shamans and modern psychological research both agree is the key to living a vital, full, and creative life. We continue to act in ways that disrupt the ecology because our thinking is pulled away from knowing how to turn inward and our senses are dulled in looking outward to receive guidance from the subtle rhythms and symbols that want to guide us into a symphony in celebration of wholeness. Environmental problems will be solved and prevented when people can change their inner lives to regain the primal linkage with nature that is the root of healthy action. It will require getting up out of the armchair, discovering our senses, and learning to trust voices and feelings we have been led to believe were not there." And Dr. Swan has specific recommendations about repairing the damage. Drawing on Native American healing ceremonies, as well as the writings of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Margaret Mead, he presents a system for increasing one's harmony with nature. He discusses: * how the fear of nature--of everything from natural disasters and insects to being alone--can be overcome through methods such as active imagery and desensitization. * how to assuage "ecological guilt". * how an affinity for certain plants and animals can mirror the soul, bringing about a greater sympathy and understanding of the natural world. * the importance of spirit of place: understanding why traditional cultures feel that places have special spirit and power and how one can develop environmental sensitivity to increase personal awareness, psychic harmony and physical health. NATURE AS TEACHER AND HEALER is a good and important book that will help anyone reforge their inherent bonds with the natural world. Instead of spending 10 hours a day at a desk working to pay for a vacation to a place that will be mostly a hotel room and a rented car, why not take some time off and get to know the section of the earth you occupy already? ************************** ^ CHILDHOOD by Bill Cosby (Putnam, 1991, $14.95, ISBN 0-399-13647-9) <<Howard Frye>> "It is popular today to say that we have to find the child within us. For me, this would be a short search." ---Bill Cosby Finally, Bill Cosby returns to the subject that made him famous, and the chapters of CHILDHOOD greatly resemble many of his early comedy albums (all of which I recommend). There's just something so delightfully Peter Pan about Bill Cosby--he has truly retained the spirit of a child, while so many more of us are like his father, whose continual refrain was "What's WRONG with that boy?" Cosby reminds us what it was like to fear a parent's wrath, argue with a sibling, live in a state of complete confusion about sex. Remember when winning an impromptu street game was the most important thing in life? Remember when you thought you could emulate the adults you admired, and that somehow their specialness would work for you too? All of this, and more, are to be found in CHILDHOOD. If there is any one major theme to the book, it is that children today seem to have lost the creative imagination that we had when we were young. We made games and activities up out of almost nothing, yet so often kids today require expensive professional entertainment or they're bored. But kids are still kids, and Cosby has been able to relive some of his own experiences along with his five children and their friends. In CHILDHOOD he gets to pass a little of that along to us, and we get to relive some of our own private highlight films. A fun book. Lullabye And Good Luck... My mother didn't put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by "survival of the fittest." I have always felt sorry for only children because they are deprived of the opportunity of being rolled out of bed by a relative. For me, the relative was Russell, with whom I was closer than I ever wanted to be... Do you know how your children often pick bedtime for their liveliest fights? Well, Russell and I staged Philadelphia battles as memorable as Rocky's. "This is my side of the bed," I told him one night, "and I don't want you on it." "What do you mean your side of the bed?" said Russell. "Ain't nobody owns a side." "Well, *I* do an' this is it, an' I'm telling you I don't want your body touching my body on my side of the bed." "An' I'm tellin' YOU I'll move to any side of the bed I want: the right side, the left side, or any of the others." "Any but my side. I don't want you touching anything, like me." Doesn't this scene make your own children's fights seem like happy leaps of intellect? ************************** ^ CAT-DEPENDENT NO MORE! Learning to Live Cat-Free in a Cat-Filled World by "Dr." Jeff Reid (Fawcett Columbine, January 1992, $5.99, ISBN 0-449-90668-X) <<Carol Sheffert>> "Luckily for me, cat-dependency is an amorphous concept that defies easy definition. Even within the counselling field, debates rage as to whether cat dependency is a disease or just a dis-ease. Some maintain that all cat owners are to some degree cat-dependent; in effect, any relationship with a cat is unhealthy. Others believe that healthy cohabitation, that is, cat-habitation, is possible in theory if difficult in practice. There is even a rancorous dispute in clinical circles about the movement's nomenclature, i.e., should it be referred to as "cat-dependence" or "cat-dependency"? It is, as we say in the field, "all academic." (See especially, CAT-DEPENDENCE OR CAT-DEPENDENCY: A SUBMERGING ISSUE by C. Ibid and E.G. Frinstanz et al.)" ---CAT-DEPENDENT NO MORE! This should give you just a hint of an idea of what CAT-DEPENDENT NO MORE! is like--a very funny send-up of cats, people, and, most of all, the overloaded, overwrought field of self-help books. Some chapter titles are: "Cat-Channeling for Current-Life Regression", "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Cat", "Women Who Love Cats Too Much", "Scratching Post-Modernism: Continental Litter-Area Theory Considered", "Hue and Cry: What Color Is Your Kitten?". The illustrations are terrific as well. There's a chart-like picture with two columns labelled "Normal" and "Cat Dependent". The "Normal" column has pictures of You (the word "You" in a circle) interacting (shown by arrows) with parts of your life (a pal, the newspaper, the TV, the telephone). The second column shows the exact same pictures, only with a small drawing of a cat in between You and the pal, you and the paper, etc. Anyone who lives with a cat knows exactly what the artist is saying. People without cats read newspapers; people with cats read a newspaper WITH CATS, an entirely different activity. Whether you're for cats, cat phobic, or just sick and tired of all the stupid "I'm OK, You're Screwed Up" pretentious nonsense, CAT-DEPENDENT NO MORE! will provide an hour or two of hilarious entertainment. ************************** ^ VOICES FROM A 'PROMISED LAND' Palestinian & Israeli Peace Activists Speak Their Hearts conversations with Penny Rosenwasser (Curbstone Press, February 1992, $12.95, ISBN 0-915306-57-3) <<Howard Frye>> The mainstream media has generally painted the Palestinians as terrorists, the Intifada as violent, and the Israeli government as justified in its actions. Focusing on a region commonly considered a loaded time-bomb, these interviews--done in the Occupied Territories and Israel in December 1989 and December 1990, and in the U.S. as recently as November 1991--provide a human perspective to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and reveal the complexities of the situation through the words of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. With power, insight and humor, these personal in-depth conversations allow U.S. readers to get beyond superficial headlines and feel the humanity of the Palestinian people, the excitement of the Palestinian women's movement, and various facets of the Israeli peace camp. Curbstone Press is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit literary arts organization whose operations are supported in part by private donations and by grants from the ADCO Foundation, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Plumsock Fund. You can contact the publisher by writing to: Curbstone Press, 321 Jackson Street, Willimantic, CT 06226. ************************** ^ THE LISTENER'S GUIDE TO CLASSICAL MUSIC by Kenneth McLeish & Valerie McLeish (G.K. Hall & Co., February 1992, $30.00, ISBN 0-8161-7369-9) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> Let's say your child has enjoyed Edvard Grieg's PEER GYNT SUITE, particularly "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and you're wondering if there is any similar classical music that might go down just as well. Or maybe a rather pretentious acquaintance mentioned Palestrina at lunch, and you'd like to know who he was talking about. Or maybe you've heard a lot about Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and so on, and would like to know if any music even remotely "classical" has ever been composed in the U.S. Or maybe you're tired of not understanding musical terms like fugue, concerto, atonality, and counterpoint. Or maybe you've gathered your courage and decided to actually try out an opera, but are unsure where to begin. Or maybe you're just a music lover who knows quite a bit about classical music but would like to know more. THE LISTENER'S GUIDE TO CLASSICAL MUSIC can help in all of these situations. The bulk of the book is an alphabetical reference of biographies on major composers, descriptions of their most important works, discussions of eras, instruments, and categories of music, as well as many, many listening recommendations. The McLeishes mark pieces that they consider to be masterworks with an "M" inside a circle, and right-pointing arrows guide the reader to follow-up listening in the same style as that under discussion. For instance, Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 is considered a masterwork, and, if you like that one, they recommend you try his Piano Concerto No. 1, Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2, or Britten's Piano Concerto. THE LISTENER'S GUIDE TO CLASSICAL MUSIC is an indispensable reference for any music lover, sure to be referred to over and over again. It provides information and recommendations on a very wide variety of our musical heritage, to expand the horizons of any interested listener. ************************** ^ SATISFYING SOUPS Homemade Bisques, Chowders, Gumbos, Stews & More by Phyllis Hobson (Garden Way, November 1991, $12.95, ISBN 0-88266-690-8) <<Carol Sheffert>> I read somewhere a couple of years ago that a study showed that healthy people eat more soup than the national average for soup consumption. That's easy to believe; while soups can be overly rich, most are made with clearish broths, herbs, and vegetables--nice low-calorie, low-fat, low-cholesterol ingredients. Another great recommendation for soup is that it's cheap, and if this recession lasts too much longer, that's going to become a very important characteristic. So is there a better choice than picking up cans of soup at the supermarket? Definitely: homemade soup is infinitely tastier, it's custom-tailored to your preferences, and it's probably a lot easier to come by than you think. And Phyllis Hobson's SATISFYING SOUPS is an excellent book to begin your soup-making career with. Hobson begins by devoting just a couple of pages to the basics of soup making and storage. Nothing scary, just a few fundamental principles that other cookbooks often don't bother to mention. Like how to remove fat and grease from soups, and the difference between using fresh and dried herbs, and which soups you can successfully freeze and which ones you can't. After that, it's down to business, with chapters devoted to Soup Stocks (the clearish broth that so many soups begin with), Clear Soups, Main-Dish Soups, Vegetable Soups, Dried Bean Soups, Cream Soups, Bisques, Fish & Shellfish Soups, Chowders, Gumbos, Stews, Chili, Chilled Soups, Fruit & Sweet Soups, and Garnishes. There are soups for every season and every taste. There are standards like Chicken & Rice Soup, Split Pea Soup, Irish Stew, and Minestrone, as well as varieties like Meatball & Vegetable, Peanut Butter Soup, and Catfish Soup. I can't wait to try one of the Corn Chowder recipes as soon as the fresh local corn comes in this spring. SATISFYING SOUPS offers a huge selection of healthful, appetizing recipes, and it comes in a ring binder so it lays nice and flat on the kitchen counter. A great book for anyone interested in a healthier, tastier, cheaper diet (or one lower in calories), and makes an attractive and useful gift. (You can contact the publisher by writing to: Storey Communications, Inc., Schoolhouse Road, Pownal, VT 05261.) ************************** ^ PRISONER'S DILEMMA John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb by William Poundstone (Doubleday, February 1992, $22.50, ISBN 0-385-41567-2) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> Many, many scientific papers have been written about the Prisoner's Dilemma, and it's no wonder. Basically, it's a dilemma from the realm of game theory in which a player's selfish interests conflict with the common good. Besides being a fascinating subject for mental gymnastics, the practical applications are legion: Why did the U.S. at one time seriously consider launching nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union? Why do people support public television when they don't have to? Why do all sorts of animals cooperate when it is often more advantageous for them not to? How and why are such decisions made? John von Neumann was inspired to develop the branch of mathematics known as Game Theory by watching his friend bluff when playing poker. Why is bluffing essential to the game? How often should a player bluff? From these kinds of questions, von Neumann laid the foundations of a branch of mathematics that would one day discern types of human conflict in which irrational behavior has an advantage, and in which apparently rational strategies lead to distinctly irrational results. PRISONER'S DILEMMA, like Poundstone's other scientific recreations, THE RECURSIVE UNIVERSE and LABYRINTHS OF REASON (both of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), entertains as it enlightens, giving the reader a taste of what it was like to be a leading scientist in the 1930s and 1940s. You'll read a lot about the development of the atomic bomb and the early days of the arms race as well as about Princeton during the Einstein era, the RAND Corporation, and the outspoken Bertrand Russell. Of course, you'll also find out a lot about Game Theory, and you'll learn a particularly fascinating game called the Dollar Auction, which I'm sure you'll want to try playing at your next party. Recommended. ************************** ^ HOLLYWOOD'S UNSOLVED MYSTERIES by John Austin, read by Darlene Angeles 2 cassettes, 177 minutes (Barr Audio, 1991, $15.95, ISBN 0-8043-4002-1) <<Carol Sheffert>> * Did Bobby Kennedy visit Marilyn Monroe before she died? * Why didn't anyone hear Natalie Wood cry for help? * Was William Holden an undercover intelligence agent? Few of us are immune to the lure of Hollywood scandals. Like everything else, they seem to do it bigger in Tinseltown. There's some kind of weird synergy at work, possibly, in which groups of emotionally stunted people exacerbate their own troubles. Whatever the cause, Hollywood has always had more than its fair share of scandals and mysteries and unconvincingly explained deaths. Barr Audio is a new audio book company and one of their first releases is HOLLYWOOD'S UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, a brief overview of the mysterious deaths of seven celebrities: Vicki Morgan, Marilyn Monroe, William Holden, Roy Radin, Bob Crane, Natalie Wood, and Freddie Prinze. While no new ground is broken, each case is given a share of breathless sensationalism, melodramatically rendered by Darlene Angeles. These short pieces are much more appropriate than full-length treatment, maintaining interest level with brevity and variety. HOLLYWOOD'S UNSOLVED MYSTERIES is a lot of fun, particularly good at enlivening carpool commutes. (You can contact the publisher by writing to: Barr Audio, 12801 Schabarum Avenue, Irwindale, CA 91706.) ************************** ^ MONSTER IN A BOX by Spalding Gray (Vintage, March 1992, $9.00, ISBN 0-679-73739-1) <<Cindy Bartorillo>> If you're familiar with Spalding Gray, all I have to say is that this is another of his "autobiographical monologues", like SEX AND DEATH TO THE AGE 14 and SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA. If you've never had the pleasure before, MONSTER IN A BOX is a perfect way to meet him. Trying to explain what Gray does is very easy: he just talks. Trying to convey the experience of listening to Gray is impossible--you have to be there. It'll have to suffice to say that Gray is one of a kind: he's not entirely sane, weird things happen to him, and he pays very close attention to everything that happens. To begin with, the MONSTER of the title, the one that's IN A BOX, is the manuscript of his very first novel that he's been working on for a number of years and that finally achieved a (pre-editorial) length of 1900 pages, a length that certainly deserves the label of MONSTER. (That novel, by the way, will apparently be called IMPOSSIBLE VACATION, and will be published soon. Watch RFP for further details.) The pages of MONSTER IN A BOX tell the story of how that novel was written, or rather how it was NOT written, as Gray begins one project after another, at least partially to avoid writing it. Like all of Gray's monologues, certain scenes from MONSTER IN A BOX are impossible to forget: his research trip to Nicaragua, his search for a psychiatrist in California, and then there's his trip to Moscow with other film people. He went along with the film of his monologue SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA (available on videotape--check it out), and at one showing he tried to explain Cambodia to the Russians by making the analogy of Russia and Afghanistan, which nearly caused a diplomatic crisis. Then there is the fabulous scene where a group of American tourists, visiting the world-renowned Hermitage museum, break the rules by taking photographs. But they're not taking pictures of priceless artifacts; they're taking pictures of other American tourists! These things only happen to Spalding Gray, or maybe he's just the only one who notices them. Either way, MONSTER IN A BOX is a delight. As expected. (I can't wait to read his novel.) ************************** ^ THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE by Lionel Tiger (Little Brown, January 1992, $22.95, ISBN 0-316-84543-4) <<Howard Frye>> "Governments can be callous about exploiting the vulnerabilities of smokers and lottery players, among others. So how do they justify attacking other pleasures, such as using cocaine?" THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE is, to the best of my knowledge, the first serious, full-length consideration of pleasure as an integral part of human existence. Many studies, of course, have been done on pain and misery--leading ultimately to the creation of two large branches of science: medicine and psychiatry. But surely there's more to life than the avoidance of suffering, and surely the active pursuit of pleasure deserves more attention than it has so far received. Lionel Tiger, the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, takes a serious look at what pleases humans, how they seek it out, who tries to control it, and what costs and drawbacks there are. He also finds the source of many modern pleasures back in the dim past when they favored survival. For instance, our love for the taste of sugar very likely derives from our need to tell when fruit is ripe and thus safe to eat. Tiger spends a great deal of time considering drug use, and abuse, from alcohol to cocaine, finding the use of social drugs perfectly understandable, but therefore dangerous to make legal. He also spends a good deal of time on the subject of sex, and the evolution of human attitudes about sex. The basic message of THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE is that pleasure is an evolutionary right that fully deserves to be taken seriously, and while occasionally the structure seems a bit fuzzy and unfocused--not surprising in a trail-blazing work such as this, Tiger's prose and the inherent fascinations of the subject keep the pages turning steadily. THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE is an enjoyable book with serious messages for psychologists, sociologists, economists, and politicians. Lionel Tiger is also the author of MEN IN GROUPS, OPTIMISM, and THE MANUFACTURE OF EVIL. ************************** ^ ANXIETY by Bonnie Timmons (Fawcett Columbine, January 1992, $8.00, ISBN 0-449-90547-0) <<Janet Peters>> Anxiety--we all experience it. From minor tremors to massive panic attacks, anxiety comes in a rainbow of styles, with something appropriate for absolutely ANY occasion. Bonnie Timmons has given the subject a lot of thought, and the result is a very funny and slightly uncomfortable collection of cartoons, each picture an odd combination of devastating insight into human psychology and silly artwork. The insight is the uncomfortable part, while the silly art is the funny part--together they give the subject a healthier perspective and allow us to admit to our shared anxieties that so often seem like a personal persecution. I particularly like her cartoon of the grown professional woman with a briefcase heading toward her home and parents. In the first picture she's a long way off and the parents seem very small. As she gets closer, she shrinks and her parents grow, until finally they are huge, she is once again child-size, and her briefcase has changed into a doll. An all-too-familiar Going Home experience. Like Bonnie Timmons says, ANXIETY is for "anyone who has EVER felt even the teensiest, weensiest bit of anxiety." ************************** ^ IN AN AVERAGE LIFETIME... How much the average American earns, spends, buys, eats, sleeps, works, and plays... by Tom Heymann (Fawcett Columbine, January 1992, $8.00, ISBN 0-449-90544-6) <<Howard Frye>> Sometimes statistics are boring, like when the sportscaster discusses Herman Hurler's ERA on overcast Thursdays east of the Mississippi facing left handed batters under 6-feet tall. Other times, statistics can be fun, like when Tom Heymann tells us that In an average lifetime... ...the average American buys 668 books Of those, ...248 are hardcover ...420 are softcover (Have you bought your quota this month?) Part of the fun lies in Heymann's associations of different statistics, like In an average lifetime... ...the average American spends $408 on vitamins ...the average American spends $1,157 on potato chips Oh how about In an average lifetime... ...the average American spends 49 hours seeing doctors ...the average American spends 64 hours waiting to see doctors IN AN AVERAGE LIFETIME is full of such trivia, answering dozens of questions like: How many mail order catalogues will you receive? How many sexual fantasies will the average male/female have? How many pounds of chocolate will you consume? How many pairs of sneakers will you buy? Readers will have fun comparing their own behavior to that of the mythical "average" American. Have you bought your share of Crayola crayons? ************************** ^ AGING IN GOOD HEALTH A Complete, Essential Medical Guide for Older Men and Women and Their Families by Mark H. Beers, M.D. & Stephen K. Urice, Ph.D., J.D. (Pocket Books, January 1992, $10.00, ISBN 0-671-72822-9) <<Howard Frye>> Every person reading this review is either elderly now or, with luck, will one day be elderly. And most of us fear aging, in one way or another. Most of the fears stem from either generalizing from a specific case (your grandfather had prostate trouble and you're afraid you will too), or from common-knowledge myths and misinformation about aging (old people are feeble, they forget things, they all wind up in nursing homes). AGING IN GOOD HEALTH fights these fears with over 300 pages of clearly explained information describing the normal changes of aging, as well as many of the abnormal conditions and diseases common to older people. Chapters cover Heart, Blood, Bones, Skin, Mouth and Teeth, Vision and Eyes, Hearing and Ears, Constipation and the Gastrointestinal System, Cancer, Diabetes, Stroke, Tremor and Parkinson's Disease, Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease, Urinary Incontinence, Sexuality, Gynecology and Reproductive Organs, Prevention, and Legal Issues. The authors talk about what you can do to prevent problems, the treatments you may need if you develop the problem, and give helpful advice on maintaining the quality of life no matter what happens. And that is the general theme of AGING IN GOOD HEALTH--maintaining the quality of life: preventing illness as far as is possible, and living as comfortably and productively as possible even when problems arise. AGING IN GOOD HEALTH is enormously helpful and informative for anyone concerned about the aging process. ************************** Don't miss RFP's Third Anniversary Issue Coming June 1992