Reviews by Doug Reeder

“The Algebraist” by Iain M. Banks

2026-02-24T00:00:00Z

review by P. Douglas Reeder

This new setting for Banks puts space opera in the foreground, rather than the background it usually is in his "Culture" novels. Fortunately, the characters are interesting and aren't too far removed from the real world. The scenes are usually good. The alien society is moderately interesting but can't carry a story this long. If Banks's protection from editors was revoked, this book might be split up and boiled down to something better.

The story is mostly a travelogue — that's an elementary mistake that no experienced SF authors should make. A cartoonishly-vile villain is built up as the chief danger, but a bridge is dropped on him offstage when it's time for the plot to end. The side plot involving some characters that the protagonist knows but doesn't meaningfully interact with in the present time doesn't illuminate the main plot in any way. An interstellar invasion decades in the preparation takes up a good chunk of the pages without much affecting the protagonist or having anything happen that wasn't expected to happen. It just peters out at the end. Entities of great power exist, but are not hinted at before appearing near the end. Their maneuvering is the key help the protagonist needs. A few reveals deepen the setting, but should have had more setup.

Banks leave some large plot holes:

A.I.s are banned, but nearly-intelligent chatbots are used (with huge precautions) to convey messages that could have been written in five paragraphs (and don't need their own scenes). The greatest source of angst for the protagonist is the fallout from one of these pointless complications.
The subplot is launched by police not checking the victim of a suspicious accident for evidence that it wasn't an accident. (There is no suggestion the police are incompetent or were pressured to not investigate.)
There's a mystery of galactic concern that has been discussed for billions of years, and no one thinks of the simple answer until the protagonist is forced to investigate it for a number of weeks.

These weaknesses have long been present in Banks's work, but are harder to ignore here. I can't recommend this book for anyone but diehard fans of Banks.

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

2024-08-03T00:00:00Z

For a drama, I'll allow one unlikely thing to set up or fully launch the plot. For a kishōtenketsu plot, I'll allow an unlikely twist, if needed to make it work. For a comedy, I'll allow more, if they're well used. While You Were Sleeping must set some kind of record for the number of contrived coincidences and unlikely decisions to keep the plot on track. But they are well used, and I didn't mind.

One difference I could ask for, is obscuring who the hero is until later in the story. Within fifteen seconds of him coming on-screen, it's apparent from all the indicators used — they did everything except have him sparkle — and it didn't need to be. I'm sure most fans of romances don't care, but I do.

It would also have been nice if the fiancee wasn't disposable, that is, an unlikable character quickly shuffled off camera.

The decoy hero makes an unlikely break from his past. I'll allow that under the circumstances, he might well have honestly intended to. My fanon says the change doesn't last.

The Italian Job (1969)

2024-07-30T00:00:00Z

Come for the automotive mayhem, stay for the... um... ah... solid performances by Michael Caine and Nöel Coward? The action scenes are classic, but there's not much else.

The heist plan is explained to the audience, and then goes as planned — which is repetitive. Giving the audience a few key points would have been enough.

There are too many characters, but the screenplay doesn't allow the viewer to focus on a few. The leader's girlfriend is given a lot of screen time, that could have been used to develop the rest of the gang — but then she's shuffled offstage halfway through, wasting the setup.

The gold is supposed to be important and well guarded, but the guards are unprepared and incompetent, making the heist that much less of an achievement.

The computer expert (played by Benny Hill in his usual mode) is supposed to be eccentric, but comes off as a disgusting sexual harasser to a modern audience.

The test of blowing off the doors of the bullion van would be a highlight, if it hadn't been spoiled by that clip being shown everywhere, including during the DVD startup.

The Mini Coopers driving down stairs, through pedestrian arcades and sewers, and across rooftops is wonderfully over the top.

As the audience identifies with the crew, but they are criminals, the cliffhanger ending is satisfying.

I Want to Eat your Pancreas (Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai)

2022-11-20T00:00:00Z

Manga adaption; novel by Sumino Yoru

It's about an unlikely friendship between two high school students. Haruki is a depressed total introvert and Sakura is a total extrovert — who's going to die in less than a year from pancreatic failure. He's the only one outside her family to find out. It's an excellent reconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. He becomes part of her life, but not the center of it. She has a family, other friends she spends time with, and a best friend who naturally sees Haruki as an interloper. Sakura needs something from him — a friend who won't overreact to her illness. And, it develops, she wants to learn something from him. Most of all, they share a friendship, not a romantic relationship. (Friendship-with-benefits is on the table, but they have only teenage-level maturity to handle it.) The characters acknowledge it might have become a romantic relationship, given enough time.

The Ill Girl story-line lets the characters muse on how to live, knowing that you'll die either sooner or later. More could have been said about what makes a romantic relationship different than a friendship. The Kishōtenketsu plot structure requires a twist in the third act, and the one chosen here is improbable, but nevertheless deepens the work, overall. It took me two readings to catch everything that was going on with the supporting characters.

There is also an anime - I don't know how it compares.

“Tau Zero” by Poul Anderson

2022-03-04T00:00:00Z

The Bussard ramjet engine of a colony starship is damaged, and the crew can't safely turn it off. Time dilation hurtles them ever-further into the future. (Jet engines don't work like that, but it's an acceptable break from reality.)

The crew's various reactions to the unending stress are the heart of the book, but the number of characters makes them hard to remember. Characters hook up and split up, without showing any of the problems that tends to result. One of the stressors is a ban on having children — but no gay relationships are even hinted at (as usual even in fiction from the 1970s). The captain isolates himself to improve morale, but I wasn't convinced it would work out like it does.

This would work better cut down to a novella.

“Slan” by A. E. Van Vogt

2022-01-02T00:00:00Z

Regarded as one of the best SF novels in the 1940s, it fell into well-deserved obscurity. It manages a good balance between action and preparation by the super-science mutant hero. It touches on minority rights, albeit in a fantastic way, as normal humans have legitimate concerns about the super-powered mutants. It’s easy to see how SF fans of the 1940s would have identified with the hero. At the end, though, he abandons his gadgets for a risky plan, which brings apparent success thanks to last-minute infodumps changing the situation.

The characters are one-dimensional, albeit they’re not always what you might expect. The hero is sickened by killing some guards early on, and strives to prevail without violence thereafter, though mind-control and personality alteration are fine. The hero’s father was supposedly pacifist enough to not defend himself with violence - but bequeathed him a ray gun. The hero’s sainted mother charges him with assassinating the world dictator to avenge their deaths. Mass murder is not a bar to becoming an ally of the hero, if you’re a mutant like him.

The love interest is set up as a deuteragonist and manages to free herself from captivity on her own, but is immediately murdered, because the hero dawdles in a trap, and plays no further role in the plot. (She gets better at the end - this was 1940s SF.) An antagonist ready to murder the hero on sight later does a heel-face turn because of his sophomoric speech and expects to procreate with him. A bigoted murderer is the most believable character, as he appears to be the only character not a puppet of the author’s story-line.

The novel is riddled with plot holes. The “super-intelligent” hero with piles of money spends six years hiding with the slatternly old woman who he knows intends to betray him, but never sets up another place to hide. Then another three years after she does betray him. Mutants like the hero are easy to detect, except when they’re not. It’s not clear at the end how the invasion of Earth will be stopped. (Of course there’s an invasion of Earth. 1940s SF.) In this world, evolution has a goal of producing super-powered, mind-reading humans.

Today this novel is only of historical interest into the mindset of 1940s SF fans.

“The Last Unicorn” by Peter S. Beagle

2021-12-17T00:00:00Z

Not my usual, but I can tell a good novel when I see it.

A Post-modern (the characters know they are in a fairy-tale), but not fractured, fairy-tale, but thankfully the narrative is linear.

The unicorn is the viewpoint character, until she meets Schmendrick the inept magician (a forerunner of Rincewind).

Artfully re-arranges several of the standard fairy-tale tropes, including the Hero and the Damsel in Distress.

As depressing as Donaldson, but shorter.

“The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Fowles

2021-03-30T00:00:00Z

Post-modernism is hard to do well, but Fowles juggles his intrusions from his time well. Readers are distanced from the Victorian Era, and Fowles does well to explicitly contrast the 20th century with the 19th.

Fowles’s characters are people of their time, but Fowles makes them sympathetic to us. The three possible endings don’t feel like a cop-out. His quotes from Victorian literature flesh out the time, and the reader who finds them opaque can skim them.

Unreliable narrators are fine, but fiction still requires plausibility for characters’ actions. (Nonfiction does not.). It’s never good when a character says

Do not ask me to explain what I have done. I cannot explain it. It is not to be explained.

That line broke my suspension of disbelief, leaving me with a clever text, but without a true story.

“Tea For God” for Oculus Quest [2020 pre-release]

2020-12-29T00:00:00Z

Uses non-euclidean geometry so the character traverses a huge space, while the player walks around their physical space. Excellent concept, very immersive. Manages to be both claustrophobic and spacious!

Controls and weapons need a bit more documentation, and it would be good to have more indication of progress. It’s shaping up to be a landmark game.

4/5

Meta catalog entry

Silent Running (1972)

2020-11-07T00:00:00Z

Review ©️ 2020 by P. Douglas Reeder

The sets are good (interiors are the decommissioned aircraft carrier Valley Forge LPH-8), and the modelwork would be excellent with a bit more distressing (director Douglas Trumbull received a number of Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects before and after). The storyline is ecological science fiction that deserved to be done: the last nature preserves are on space freighters near Saturn.

Sadly, that’s all that’s good about this movie. The writing and acting paint Lowell as a Hollywood hippie - mad about the lack of nature in people’s lives, but a blank beyond that. The other characters are ciphers beyond their jobs (and are quickly offstage).

The editing is incoherent — it’s not clear how much Lowell is responsible for the events that leave him alone with the last nature dome.

The later challenge of saving the dying plants is dumbed down for the audience so much that Lowell not immediately seeing the answer makes him grossly incompetent at his job and passion.

Reviewers at the time (1972) gave it as many good reviews as bad. I can only guess that Hollywood, having just discovered environmentalism, lauded the first project coming down the road.

“Glyder 2” for webOS

2011-11-05T00:00:00Z

Extremely immersive despite small screen! The interface almost disappears! A tranquil action game. Could use some FAQs such as how to land on a platform, how to unlock other areas. Worth a lot more than $3!

The improved graphics of the "HD" version for the HP Touchpad tablet make it even better.

Ported from iOS, where its predecessor Glyder is also available.

entry in the webOS App Museum

“Scratch!” for webOS review

2010-11-04T00:00:00Z

The necessary functions for a word processor are here, but the user interface could use some thought.

The initial scene is largely blank. It turns out to be a list of documents. This list really needs an emptyTemplate to explain that it’s an (empty) list of documents, and the user should create a new document, import from the file system, or import from Google Docs.

Given that there’s a command menu button to create a new document, the “Add Scratch” item at the bottom of the list is superfluous. Since you can create new documents by importing from the file system or from Google Docs, it’s also inconsistent.

Tapping the import button or selecting the Import option in the app menu gets you an import scene with drawers for importing from a local file, a URL, and Google Docs. Tapping the import button should pop up a submenu with these three choices. The app menu should have these three choices as direct subitems to Import. Selecting the “import from file” option should pop up the File Picker directly. Selecting the “import from URL” option should pop up a scene with just the “URL” section of the import scene. Selecting the “import form Google Docs” option should pop up a scene with just the “Google Docs” section of the import scene.

After you import a file, there is no indication whether import succeeded or failed. You’re just back at the import scene. The document is not displayed, as it should be.

A text file imported from the file system has no title; it should initially be set to the filename.

It’s hard to understand, when creating a new document, how “Folder” is supposed to work. It’s not a list selector, it’s not a text field. Tapping it pops up a dialog with two buttons whose purpose is opaque. If you fiddle enough, you get a text field, but it’s not clear what’s happening. Nor does Folder seem to be used anywhere else in the application.

At the bottom of the new document scene is an unlabeled text field of uncertain purpose. It turns out to be the body of the document.

The “Navigate > End” command does not appear to work.

It does not appear possible to set the style, and then type text in that style (aside from bold, italic and underline) – you must enter text, then apply styling. Styling is by default applied to “this block”. There’s no indication of what a “block” is.

If there’s a problem exporting to Google Docs, the spinner keeps spinning after the dialog goes away, so it’s difficult to know that you should type a correction in your username or password, rather than wait. After exporting is successful, you’re left at the export scene, as you might want to export again (to e-mail?) – you must use the “back” gesture to get back to your document.

entry in the webOS App Museum

“Timeline” by Michael Crichton

2003-08-20T00:00:00Z

Review ©️ 2003 by P. Douglas Reeder

Summary: A party of academics is sent back to the Hundred Years War to retrieve their missing professor. Adventures ensue.

A tech startup that has invested billions in time travel (well, not “actual time travel”, just something functionally identical) has mislaid a professor of archeology in 14th century France. Their planned team to retrieve this possible captive consists of one explorer, one ex-military man, and four graduate students. The introduction announces that two party members die, one disappears, and one suffers “serious injuries”. The two deaths occur early on, so the only real uncertainty for the last three fifths of the book is which one stays behind.

The tone is reminiscent of 1930’s science fiction – the narrative pauses to explain and justify things, rather than painting an informed portrait of a time and place, like a well written historical or science fiction novel does. The opening is cluttered with a dozen throwaway characters, hindering the reader’s identification with the main characters.

The storyline is a sequence of unconnected adventure scenes. For example, while walking down a path toward a chapel, the characters slip on the mud and slide into a stream, right above a waterfall. The chapel is defended by a crazed knight (what does he live on?), which two academics unskilled in arms defeat without injury – and none of this makes a bit of difference to the plot. The female graduate student is able to pass for a man by cutting her hair short, without even changing her clothes! The plot feels like something Crichton thought up before he knew a thing about medieval France, including a tournament, small war, a damsel (well able to take care of herself, it must be admitted) in distress, and two or three secret passages, one over a mile long! Crichton’s historical research appears to have been used solely to ornament this pre-conceived plot. He does present some interesting tidbits, like a fortified mill and monks playing the latest craze – tennis! Coincidence plays a major role, with two local movers and shakers just happening by as the party arrives. Though only one of the characters has any significant training with medieval weapons, they win a joust and several battles with knights and guards.

It’s written at something like an eighth-grade reading level. This may be the key to enjoying the book; it would make a fine present for a teen or pre-teen with an interest (but not too much knowledge) of the Middle Ages. The one sex act is off camera.

Crichton is capable of much more mature writing – in The Andromeda Strain and Congo, despite similarly iffy premises, characterization and plotting carry the novel through.

%A Michael Crichton
%T Timeline
%P Random House
%D Copyright 1999
%O ISBN 0-375-40873-8

Is Larry Niven Losing His Edge?

2001-03-06T00:00:00Z

A review of The Ringworld Throne and Rainbow Mars

The prior two novels in Niven’s Ringworld series won Hugo awards (or was it Nebula?); the prior stories in his Svetz series won none but were still entertaining.

The Ringworld novels are hard science fiction (aside from reactionless drives and a half-a-dozen unreasonably strong substances) action adventure. One of the Big Ideas dear to SF, the Ringworld is not a planet, but a ring around a sun, with the liveable area of a million planets. His characters are well delineated and memorable: the human adventurer Louis Wu, Chmee of the aggressive Kzin species, Nessus and later the Hindmost of the cowardly and crafty Puppeteers, and Ringworlders of various hominid species occupying different ecological niches.

Throne takes place ten years after Wu et al. saved the Ringworld; the inveterate wanderer Wu is wandering around, Chmee has retired to the estates he carved out, but his son Acolyte has come to learn from Wu, the Hindmost sits in his impromptu fortress.

It is really two books stapled together with the weakest of plot links. The first part involves an army of Ringworld natives of various species (led by a local acquaintance of Wu) who ally against an outbreak of vampires. The second part has Wu and his allies drawn into a gradually revealed struggle for control of the Ringworld. There are dozens of significant characters who are difficult to keep track of, despite the guide at the end, and most of the really important ones are not revealed until close to the end. Acolyte is sort of a generic Kzin, and neither do other new characters get enough space to really come alive.

The Svetz series is based on the idea that, since time-travel is illogical, travel to the past is travel into fantasy universes. The terrified Hanville Svetz attempts to retrieve a horse, but instead brings back a unicorn, and so on. As humorous, “idea” stories, characterization takes a background to plot, but Svetz, the reserved Zeera, their boss Ra Chen, and the other characters have distinct identities.

Rainbow Mars is the title of both the new short story in the Svetz series and the collection of it with the earlier Svetz short stories. The government has changed, and Svetz’s department must ally with the Space department to justify their budgets. They decide on a trip to Mars of the past, to search for Martians who died out before humans had spaceflight. Svetz, Zeera, and the astronaut Miya are off on a romp through a mosaic of classic Mars science fiction (not all of which, alas, I could identify).

Now Svetz is a bold adventurer; Zeera and Miya are too, and after the beginning it’s hard to tell them apart, other than that Miya sleeps with the now-attractive Svetz and the inhibition-shedding Zeera doesn’t.

This is the core of the similarity I see between Throne and Mars: both start out with a reasonable amount of characterization and a reasonable pace of action, but toward the end of both works it’s just event after event after event, in a dizzying crescendo of action. Fortunately the action make a logical progression and forms a plot, rather than an unrelated string. There is logic to the plotlines, and if you can keep track of what the heroes know, you can try and guess what the possible threats they will have to deal with, but I found that difficult.

It hardly matters who comes up with their strategy to deal with the latest crisis, and indeed it’s hard to remember. Svetz ends up seeming awfully similar to Wu, and the other characters similarly devoid of identity, merely filling jobs required by the plot.

A large part of Niven’s appeal has been his integral use of scientific speculation combined with memorable characters. He can still do the big ideas, but appears to have lost interest in doing the characterization. I hope these two works are an aberration, and not a sign of Niven’s decline as a writer. These books are little more than adequate SF adventure.

%A Niven, Larry
%T Rainbow Mars
%P 316
%I Tom Doherty Assoc.
%C New York NY
%D copyright 1999
%O Svetz series

%A Niven, Larry
%T The Ringworld Throne
%O Ringworld series

“Hardwired” by Walter Jon Williams

1999-06-05T00:00:00Z

Review ©️ 1995 by P. Douglas Reeder

Okay cyberpunk action-adventure, shading toward paramilitary action-adventure at the end. The characters are not terribly deep, but the two main characters, Cowboy, a smuggler pilot out of the Rockies, and Sarah, a bodyguard based in Florida, have some differences of outlook that carry some interest in the middle section of the book. Cowboy believes he is living the last free life, while Sarah has had to struggle and compromise her values to survive on the dystopian future Earth. Williams could have done more with the difference of outlook, and made the book deeper. The characters fail to come alive for me, partly because of their conventionality and the conventionality of their problems (Sarah is burdened by her brother Daud). You may find them more compelling than I. Cowboy and Sarah’s romance is predictable, but competently done.

The novel explicitly echos Zelazny’s Damnation Alley in places, and Williams acknowledges this. The happy ending with the ray of hope for Earth will come as a surprise to few.

%T Hardwired
%A Walter Jon Williams
%I Tom Doherty Associates (“A TOR Book”)
%C New York
%D copyright 1986
%N ISBN 0-812-93303-7 Lib. of Cong. CCN 85-52255
%O hardback, 343 pages
%X cyberpunk shading toward paramilitary action-adventure

“Proteus Unbound” by Charles Sheffield

1998-07-02T00:00:00Z

Proteus Unbound is a hard SF mystery-adventure in the tradition of 50’s SF, but with a modern feel and modern science. It takes place in a solar system divided into two federations and an anarchic borderland. The Inner System extends to Pluto, the Outer System exists among the Oort Cloud of cometary material extending out a light year or two, and the Kernal Ring is a fictitious intermediate area rich in small rotating black holes – kernals – from which energy is extracted.

The Cloudlanders, the inhabitants of the Outer System, have been having trouble with their “forms-change” equipment, which allows one to change one’s body shape, and so recruit an expert from the Inner System, Behrooz Wolf. He is aided by several Cloudlanders: Leo Manx is a psychologist with an interest in Wolf’s mental problems, Aybee Smith is an arrogant young polymath, Sylvia Fernald, the chief of programming, and Cinnabar Baker, the head of Outer System security.

The problems soon broadens, and the characters must prevent war and save the solar system.

The mystery involves black holes, entropy and Black Ransome, the mysterious, half-legendary leader of a Kernal Ring group with poorly understood objectives.

The writing is adequate but uninspired; while one can identify with the characters enough to follow the book, they never really come alive. There are lots of hints as to how the book will turn out, and I was able to predict the ending in general terms. The characters make some progress toward understanding the mysteries, but most of them are foolishly captured by the villains, but then turn the tables by clever use of forms-change equipment, but this clever use is a fairly obvious, and the villain and indeed all society should have safeguards against this obvious tactic.

There are lots of potentially interesting elements in Sheffield’s future, but most of them are inadequately used, leaving his cultures uninteresting. One of the better bits involves people’s reactions to the unreliability of forms-change, which has superseded all other medical skill and technology. People turn to “neo-Asclepians” with their pills of dubious value. However, this episode is dismissed in a few paragraphs and never mentioned again, and the main characters continue to use forms-change equipment without any problems. Also, I wondered why no reporters showed up for a major disaster in an apparently open society of the not-too-distant future.

Devotees of hard SF and adventure (and perhaps those unfamiliar with black holes and entropy) should find this book at least an adequate read, but others will want to pass it by.

%T Proteus Unbound
%A Charles Sheffield
%I Del Ray/Ballantine
%D copyright 1989
%O paperback $3.95
%P 262 pp
%G ISBN 0-345-34434-0

“Excession” by Iain M. Banks

1998-02-26T00:00:00Z

Excession is set in Banks’s “Culture” universe, and has the usual cast of giant intelligent starships, militaristic aliens, and troubled humans. The setting is pure space opera, with conflicting galactic civilizations and elder races with fantastic powers who almost never appear. The story, however, is not so unrealistic, being an adventure and serious love story.

The Excession is a strange artifact/phenomenon which appears to have the ability to travel between universes, escaping the heat death of our own, and is potentially the key to technologies far beyond the ultra-tech of the “Culture” universe. Rival nations vie for control of it, with the possibility of war. Dajeil Gelian and Byr Genar-Hofoen are ex-lovers caught up in the movements and plots.

Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen are interesting enough characters, though the amount of text devoted to their development is unsatisfying. Most of the text is taken up by events which are hard to organize in one’s mind and tangential to the story-line. Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen are both veterans of the Contact organization of the Culture, Genar-Hofoen being a representative to the Affronters, an aggressive new culture on the Galactic scene. Dajeil is in seclusion aboard the starship/Mind Sleeper Service, gestating a baby for forty years.

Excession suffers from an overly-large cast of characters, including a dozen difficult-to-distinguish giant intelligent starships, a half-dozen of whom have significant roles to play in the plot. The story-line jumps from one setting and group of characters to the next, making it hard to remember what any particular character was doing last, and with whom. Also, the text gives little help distinguishing characters who are important to the plot from those who are just there to give atmosphere.

The pacing is slow, to paint a broad pictures, not unlike a Mitchner novel. IMHO this is a mistake: people are interesting, raw history is not. A story should have focus. Banks could easily have cut this novel by a third, and should have cut it by a half.

For all the ultra-technology and body-changing technology, the characters seem remarkably contemporary. Readers need to be able to relate to characters, but given the exotic setting, some of the characters should appear more alien, particularly the Minds, the supposedly super- intelligent computers running starships and such. IMHO super-intelligent characters cannot be properly viewed from the inside since the author is not super-intelligent him/herself, and so need to be viewed from the perspective of someone more human.

The resolution of the adventure is adequate, but depends so heavily on the hinted-at abilities of one character that in retrospect the situation was never in doubt. I.e. it didn’t really matter in the end what most of the characters had done or not done. The resolution of the love story is more satisfying.

Alas for fans of cool gadgets, no clever tools or weapons are used, as in Consider Phlebas.

If you decide to read Excession, keep in mind that the major characters are the humans Dajeil and Genar-Hofoen and the starship Sleeper Service. The alien Fivetide Humidyear and the starship Attitude Adjuster are significant supporting characters. No one else matters, despite the space given them.

If you like anecdotes and atmospheric sides-stories, and/or space-opera- type settings, you will probably enjoy Excession. If, like me, you prefer a more focused story, give it a miss.

%T Excession
%A Iain M. Banks
%C New York
%D copyright 1996
%I Bantam Books
%O “trade” paperback, US $12.95
%G ISBN 0-553-37460-5
%P 390 pages

“Babylon-5 Wars” from Agents of Gaming

1997-09-02T00:00:00Z

Babylon-5 Wars is a game of spaceship combat for the universe of the popular TV series "Babylon-5." Fans will appreciate the close correspondence with the series. Gamers will appreciate the variety of scenarios and tactics possible. Those scientifically inclined will appreciate spaceships that move according to a close relative of Newtonian mechanics. :-)

Ship types included in the first release include 6 cruisers, 6 fighters, 2 freighters and 1 other from four species/nations: Humans, Minbari, Centauri, and Narn. Scheduled for future products are other races like the Vorlon and Shadows, and other units like the Babylon-5 station itself.

Novice wargamers will find this game challenging to learn. In addition to counters on the hex map, each with a velocity and heading, players must keep a detailed record sheet for each ship and fighter. Some decisions about how to use energy each turn must be made, though it is MUCH simpler than the energy allocation of Star Fleet Battles. It is more complex than Cosmic Conflict or the original Starfire, less complex than Star Fleet Battles, and about as complex as Star Fleet Battles was when it was first released.

The chief problem, which does not keep the game from being playable, is a proliferation of rules, which make it hard to concentrate on tactics. Calculating the chance to hit often involves summing six numbers, normally in your head. This must be done for each weapon fired, and a typical cruiser has a dozen weapons! Fighters have two weapons each, doubling the effort to resolve fighter attacks. There are extra rules to deal with Minbari movement and Earthforce defensive systems. Rules tend to be scattered about various places in the rulebook, making it hard to locate rules you have trouble remembering, such as how many thrust points it takes to make a sideslip.

Resolving damage is interesting - each system has its own armor, which allows a medium-small shot to take out a system. You can cripple a ship by a series of modest attacks, which is very different from Star Fleet Battles.

Movement is by class and then by initiative, so fighters always can close on bigger ships, and military ships can close on civilians. Winning the initiative is mostly luck and winning it for a crucial few turns can turn the game. Personally, I used to dislike initiative movement, but it works reasonably well here, and it certainly saves time over an impulse system, such as Star Fleet Battles.

Due to the complexity, games generally take about 3 hours for a simple battle between two cruisers, less if the players are experienced. Large fleet actions are unwieldy, and running an attack on the Babylon-5 station would probably take 18 hours.

Production values are generally good: the counters are printed in full color, but are difficult to identify; the rules are book bound and the map is in six sections, allowing large battles, but not requiring undue table space for small ones. The boxed set includes twelve miniatures -- 3 fighters for each race. The size and level of detail is good, but they are having problems with their molds -- it took a drill, a Dremel tool, and epoxy to assemble them. Agents of Gaming has plans to release miniatures for many more units.

The only change I would make to the rules is to allow the energy normally allocated to a weapon that has been destroyed to be used for something else. This allows ships with a moderate amount of damage to escape into hyperspace, bringing the game in line with the TV series, and making it less bloody.

Little role-playing is possible within the scope of the B-5 Wars rules, although there is provision for exceptional helmsmen, engineers and fighter pilots, and telepaths could give a bonus to initiative. RPG fans may want to investigate "Babylon Project", an RPG from Chameleon Eclectic. If you want to combine role-playing with spaceship combat, I recommend you use the GURPS Space supplement from Steve Jackson Games, which gives excellent rules to play space battles in an RPG, and allows maximum scope for individual action.

All in all, Babylon-5 Wars is a playable but complex game.

“The Peace War” by Vernor Vinge

1996-05-05T00:00:00Z

Review ©️ 1996 by P. Douglas Reeder

Vinge writes science fiction of the old school -- the main characters saving the world, new inventions produced in a matter of days, evil schemers to be thwarted. But his technology is up to date, his style is modern, and he gives plausible explanations of actions and events that don't happen in everyday life.

Forty years from now, the world population is much reduced from plagues that swept the world at the end of the '90s and beginning of the 21st century. The "Peace Authority" functions as an over-government to the nations, feudal autocracies, and the mostly-civilized anarchies that remain. It retains its power by control of bobbles -- force fields, and denying high-energy technologies to the rest of the world. The Tinkers do allowed hi-tech (mostly electronics and computers) as a cottage industry, making for an unusual blend of pre-industrial and high technology. The world is well-drawn, and provides a fair amount of the interest of this novel.

Paul Naismith, the old polymath who largely invented the bobbles forty years ago, has been hiding from the Peace Authority all this time, plotting its overthrow. He takes on Wili Wachendon, a teenage genius and escapee from forced labor, as his apprentice. Aided by the policeman Miguel Rosas, the Tinkers, and Paul's old girlfriend Allison Parker, an astronaut strangely catapulted into the future, they start their rebellion in earnest. Della Lu is the Peace Authority's most capable agent, with an uncanny ability to figure out the rebel's plans.

The plot straightforwardly follows the characters as they come together and their plans mature, and Della as she uncovers their plans. There is almost no on-camera violence. Although emotional interaction between the characters is not major element, the characters are interesting enough and believable enough that this is not a trite adventure story. One of the characters betrays the others, for a not-unreasonable reason. There is not much of a romantic sub-plot. (Though there is one episode of gratuitous sex.)

Vinge has also written a sequel (sort of) to this, entitled "Marooned in Realtime"

If this interests you, read it soon. The plagues start in 1997. :-)

%T The Peace War
%A Vernor Vinge
%I Bluejay Books, Inc.
%C New York
%D copyright 1984
%N ISBN 0-312-94342-3
%O hardback, 286 pp
%X melodramatic SF action-adventure

“The Avatar” by Poul Anderson

1995-11-05T00:00:00Z

review ©️ 1995 by P. Douglas Reeder

Humanity has started star travel by means of ‘T-machines’, loosely based on concepts by the physicist F.J. Tipler and others. The T-machines were built by a mysterious race known only as ‘the Others’, who left the (crucially important) directions to only one other star system. An alien race, the Betans, have been encountered and a ship, Emissary, has been sent to open contact. Upon its return, elements of the world government that oppose exploration and expansion imprison the crew. Dan Broderson, businessman and starship captain, learns of this by craft and gathers a crew to bring the word to Earth.

The expected action then ensues, but halfway through, the storyline takes an unexpected turn. By the end, however, Anderson brings the story to a fulfilling conclusion.

The characters are well drawn, and more three-dimensional and realistic than is usual for Anderson. The Betans are plausible and interesting, though mostly off-stage, except for one, Fidelo, who returns on the Emissary.

Much of the book is about how people in a group of a half-dozen, isolated from all others, interact with each other. Most of this is fairly well done, though at times, problems appear without prequel.

One of Anderson’s chief themes is love and sex, and how strict monogamy is unnecessary. I find it plausible that some people can have polygamous relations without anyone’s feelings getting hurt, but not that all of the polygamous relations that go on in this book could happen without more upset, or that they would all work out happily.

Expansion versus inwardness of humanity is also a major theme, and, no surprise, the people in favor of expansion are the good guys.

All in all, this is a thoughtful book that is not too artsy, nor too much concentrated on action; it stands in the classic tradition of SF. IMHO, this is Anderson’s second-best book, next to The Saga of Hrolf Kraki. I enjoyed reading it and recommend it.

%T The Avatar
%A Poul Anderson
%I Berkley Publishing Corp.
%C New York
%D copyright 1978
%N SBN: 399-12228-1
%O hardback 380pp
%X SF

“The Last Starship from Earth” by John Boyd

1995-08-08T00:00:00Z

Review by P. Douglas Reeder

This little romance was written in 1968, and it shows – it’s an SF romance in the old style, with a extraordinarily talented hero, who single-handedly (well, almost) takes on a repressive society. It’s set in an alternate history where Sociology, Psychology, and the Church rule, where professionals have their mates selected by the state.

Many readers will find the heroine (who is as sophisticated about romance as the hero is naive) dated.

The storyline is the conventional forbidden romance. The romance develops, is discovered, and the hero is exiled to the iceworld of Hell, where what you expect happens – until the very end, when the plot takes an unusual turn, but one in tune with the theme of the story.

So why did I like it, in spite of the trite plot? It’s entertainingly written, and the twist at the end brings the whole work together. It’s a fine light read.

%A John Boyd
%T The Last Starship from Earth
%I Weybright & Talley, Inc.
%C New York
%D copyright 1968
%X hardback

“Ring of Swords” by Eleanor Arnason

1995-07-11T00:00:00Z

review by P. Douglas Reeder

Two things are indisputable about Arnason’s writing: she is a writer of skill and her stories make minimal use of conventional dramatic sequences. Whether or not you like her stories depends if you like those two things, your politics, and if her writing strokes you the right way. However you felt about A Woman of the Iron People, you’ll feel about Ring.

Ring of Swords is about sexuality, gender, and society. It takes place in a future where humans and the only other known intelligent species, the hwarath, have been skirmishing for forty years since their initial contact. Now peace negotiations are under way.

Anna is a researcher, studying some possibly intelligent jellyfish, caught up in events. Nicholas Sanders was on a spying expedition into Hwarath space, captured, and turned. First Defender Ettin Gwarha is a leader of the Hwarath. The text consists of third-person narration from Anna’s point of view and numerous extended excerpts from Sanders’s journal commented upon by Gwarha.

The oldest Hwarath symbol for themselves is a hearth-fire of women and children, surrounded by a ring of warlike men. In modern Hwarath society, most men are out in space, exploring and skirmishing with aliens, and almost all women and children are on the home planet. Homosexual sex is considered normal, heterosexual sex is forbidden, and the Hwarath reproduce by artificial insemination. Naturally, Hwarath and humans are troubled by each other's existence.

Arnason’s style keeps the reader at a distance from the characters, which weakens the novel for me. Other elements that troubled me but may not trouble you are what seems to me to be a bland third-worldism to future human culture and an extremely negative view of capitalism (when Gwarha seeks an English word to translate a Hwarath concept, Anna suggests ‘capitalist’, but Nicholas corrects her with ‘cannibal’.)

The book also suffers from several logical flaws. When human military intelligence plans treachery at early negotiations, they are totally unprepared for a counterattack by the Hwarath. Later negotiations are held on a Hwarath station far from human space, with the humans at the mercy of the Hwarath. Nicholas asserts that Hwarath are far better warriors than human because of their ferocity (this might be only his opinion, but the text offers no countervailing view). Technology, industrialization, and competence are more important in modern, technological, industrial war than ferocity, and Arnason presents the Hwarath as roughly equal in technology.

So why did I like this book? It’s far more intelligent than most books published. It examines issues at the heart of our humanity and civilizations, without preaching. The characters and the Hwarath society are highly plausible (if difficult to like). The action feels like real events, not conventional story plotting.

%A Eleanor Arnason
%T Ring of Swords
%I Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. “A Tor Book”
%C New York
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-312-85518-4
%O hb

“Johnny Mnemonic” (movie)

1995-05-29T00:00:00Z

In summary: fairly good cyberpunk action adventure.

Keanu Reeves (playing Johnny) does a fine job on a character without any great depth. Jane (sorry, I can’t remember the actress’s name) is fine as a romantic interest, which is how the character in the movie is written, but is not unduly plausible as a bodyguard. Ice-T, playing the head of the Lo-Teks (which aren’t that low of tech) is fine, mostly because he doesn’t have that many lines. He has the right visual appearance to carry the character.

Costuming and sets are well done, convincing, and (where appropriate) tasteful. The sets look properly futuristic, though we all know that the future is going to look a lot like the present, only with better computer graphics. The cyberspace sequences are aesthetically pleasing and not overdone, i.e. don’t take up an excessive amount of screen time. Perhaps the most convincing scene is Johnny wearing data gloves and a VR headset, making motions that seem very plausible to manipulate things in cyberspace.

The screenplay is a good adaptation of the short story, and uses all the short story elements well, adding some elements that fit well, such as a degenerative nerve disease. There is some gore, but not overly much, especially for a current action-adventure movie. No sex, and not more than a flash of nudity, and only one kiss, not too steamy. This is good, because it wouldn’t work, not without radically changing the characters. As it is, Jane is too sentimental to be convincing as a bodyguard.

The movie doesn’t get any deeper than the action-adventure level, though I can’t think of any particularly obvious way it could. I suppose the main characters could have been a bit deeper. The supporting characters are well done, having personality. Johnny’s most revealing scene is where he says he wants his shirts pressed like they are at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. How deep! Jane, we have no idea why she is what she is now or how she got there. Okay, that’s definitely a missed opportunity.

“The Cult of Loving Kindness” by Paul Park

1995-01-02T00:00:00Z

review ©️1995 by P. Douglas Reeder

Park draws a complex, plausible picture of a society in turmoil. Unfortunately, his narrative strings out descriptions of events so that it is often difficult to discern what has happened, and the reader must struggle to put together references. This is particularly true of sister and brother Cassia and Rael's flight from their home village, a major event which Park motivates only indirectly. His characters are difficult to understand and most of them I found difficult to identify with -- reading this immediately after "The Mists of Avalon" by Bradley may have been a mistake, as my appetite for stories about religious fanatics who believe in reincarnation is limited.

The main characters are Cassia and Rael, and Deccan Blendish, a graduate student, and Cathartes, a definite villain, a professor of Theology (he and his university are far more powerful in his society than ours). There are a number of other characters, though, and it only gradually becomes clear that these four are central, a feature that is not unattractive.

Cassia's acceptance of a role that others put on her is difficult to understand, given her earlier reactions. Rael is easier to understand, and their closeness is plausible given that they were the only humans in their village (the villagers are near-humans). Blendish has a tendency to pop in and out of the narrative, and his final role was disappointing to me, given that I identified more with him than the others. Cathartes is a fairly straightforward villain, though this thankfully is not evident at the start.

More interesting to me than the characters is their society, whose nature is gradually (too gradually) revealed. It has a very third-world character, though insofar as I can tell, it is not intended as an allegory for some current country, unlike Resnick's "Paradise". I haven't read the first two books of the Starbridge trilogy, which would have made some things clear, though "The Cult of Loving Kindness" is readable by itself.

This novel has much more of art than entertainment in it, and the art failed to reach me. It is somewhat reminiscent of Gene Wolf's work.

“Virtual Girl” by Amy Thomson

1993-09-19T00:00:00Z

This novel starts out very tritely. It feels like Thomson is checking off a list: Solitary Genius; Rich, Domineering Father; Escape; Pursuit; Genius Creates Humanoid Robot; Artificial Intelligence Illegal; Flight from Minions of Evil Figure (robot plans lost); Assault; Characters Separated and Presumed Dead; Amnesia; Sheltered by Kindly Stranger…

None of the individual elements are utterly impossible, but Thomson fails to make them believable. I am willing to believe, for the purposes of a story, that a self-learning Artificial Intelligence could be created by a lone worker, in spite of it being illegal. That such an intelligence could learn to use a body in a matter of days is absurd. Humans take years to do so.

The largest problem with the book is that Maggie doesn’t act like a robot; she acts like a human in a tin suit. It is implausible that an entity who came to self-awareness by such a different route than humans would behave so much like them. So many authors have missed this point: robots are not human, they are aliens. It was a long time before aliens in science fiction were depicted as truly alien – I hope we shall not have as long to wait before robots are as well. (A short aside: Asimov’s robots followed the Three Laws of Robotics, making them convincing robots, but they were not fully developed characters. For that matter, Asimov’s humans weren’t fully developed characters, either.)

Much of the action takes place among the homeless. What Thomson does depict is believable, but she is selective – for all the characters’ wandering among the homeless, they never meet any weirdos or drug addicts.

It doesn’t bother me that this story has been done before; the problem is that there is no life, no originality, for all that Thomson uses all the latest buzzwords: Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, expert Computer Hackers. The characters act like characters in a book, not like real people.

%A Amy Thomson
%T Virtual Girl
%I Ace Books / The Berkely Publishing Group
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1993
%G ISBN 0-441-86500-3
%P 248 pp
%K SF, robot, homeless
%O paperback $4.99

“City of Truth” by James Morrow

1993-07-11T00:00:00Z

In the city of Veritas, everyone tells the truth (surprise!) because they are conditioned against saying anything untrue, or even disingenuous. Sample ad:

Channel your violent impulses in a salutary direction - become a Marine…

Jack Sperry is an art critic, a deconstructionist - he destroys old books, movies, statues and whatever else is not completely truthful. Martina Coventry writes greeting card messages and such, such as:

I find you somewhat interesting, You're not too short or tall, And if you'd be my Valentine, I wouldn't mind at all.

Given this setup, I hope you won’t be too shocked when Sperry suddenly finds that he needs to lie to his dying son to keep him happy. (This isn’t a spoiler; it comes out by page 14., or on the dust jacket if you read that first.)

Although the characters are very realistic and believable, City of Truth is more parable than fiction. Veritas is not a self-consistent future, it’s a warped take on our world. Veritas is a rather grim place and Morrow appears to have a more negative view of people and relationships than I do, but this novella is saved from grimness by Morrow’s wickedly funny honest statements, like the quotes above. It is certainly well-written, given its premise.

I should think most people already realize the point Morrow makes by the end of the work, but I suppose some don’t.

And, oh, yes, City of Truth won the 1992 Nebula for best novella.

If you decide to read this book, see if this review is not completely truthful!

%T City of Truth
%A James Morrow
%D copyright 1990
%I St. Martin’s
%C New York
%O hardback, US$14.95 [1992]
%G ISBN 0-312-07672-X
%P 104 pp
%K SF,parable,truth

“The Mind Pool” by Charles Sheffield

1993-06-20T00:00:00Z

Review ©️ 1993 by P. Douglas Reeder

The Mind Pool is an embroidered tennis shoe. I admire the work that went into the stitching, but wonder why it was employed on such a mundane object. Sheffield piles a number of subplots onto a trite main plot: an experimental cyborg device goes insane, becomes implacably hostile to life, and must be tracked down and destroyed. Despite being the nominal plot conflict, the problem of the killer “Morgan Construct” is eventually shuffled off with a one-line rabbit out of a hat. Also, at the end of the novel, there is once again a Morgan Construct on the loose, but no one feels any need to go after it.

The novel is much concerned with the three known races of aliens. However, they first appear to demand that the search teams for the Morgan Construct be composed of one member from each of the four races and the humans have no military training - an albatross-around-the-neck requirement which is not impossible, granting that aliens think differently, but one which is obviously there for literary reasons, not because it makes sense. In fact, the problem of humans and aliens learning to work together may be the main conflict of the book and the killer cyborg to be merely background. If this is what Sheffield intended, the beginning of the book badly clashes with the rest, by presenting the cyborg plot as central. Also, then, the main plot would not start until halfway through the book.

Sheffield's depictions of how the humans and aliens interact varies from believable at first to grossly implausible at the end. Small group interaction is a fertile ground for fiction; unfortunately toward the end Sheffield makes no attempt to describe anything realistic and postulates mystic alchemical results.

The characters were very stagy: I never cared about what happened to them. This is not through lack of skill or effort - it feels like Sheffield is doing some weird artsy thing. You may be able to relate to them; I couldn't.

However, after the premises are set and before the hunt begins in earnest, everybody is still gearing up and there is a fair amount of material I found enjoyable to read.

Sheffield is not a bad writer and he has put a good deal of effort into this novel, but his style is artsy and baroque. If the aforementioned problems do not bother you (they bothered me a great deal), you may enjoy reading this.

%A Charles Sheffield
%T The Mind Pool
%I Baen Publishing enterprises
%C Riverdale, NY
%D copyright 1993
%G ISBN 0-671-72165-8
%P 420
%K SF
%O paperback $4.99
%X rewrite of "The Nimrod Hunt"

“China Mountain Zhang” by Maureen F. McHugh

1993-06-14T00:00:00Z

review ©️ 1993 by P. Douglas Reeder

In the future of this novel, Communist China is the dominant world power. Zheng Zhong Shan is an American homosexual engineer whose mother is Hispanic. He struggles to find a place in a world where he must hide both his sexuality and his ancestry.

There is little in the way of a plot and the narrative switches every twenty pages or so from Zhang to other viewpoint characters who interact only peripherally with him. Each of the other characters faces some problem (unrelated to Zhang’s), which is resolved by their final sections and well before the end of the novel. Their narratives broaden the picture of the society, but fragment Zhang’s story. Zhang is a very minor character in their stories, which I found most disconcerting, as I was trying to remember who was what after hiatuses of many pages.

McHugh unfortunately leaves the explanation of how this unexpected society came about until near the end, since the background is more plausible than it may at first seem.

There are several science-fictive elements: direct brain-computer interfaces, Mars colonies, and towering latticework cities, but thematically the novel is less SF than East-meets-West, with China of a decade past projected onto America of two centuries hence.

The characters are well drawn and the events of the novel very realistic, natural, and believable, but I found it difficult to identify with them, perhaps because their problems would not occur (at least to the extent they do) in our society. They accept their society as a fact of life and don’t consider that it might be different, which is a common theme in science fiction and one which many readers will have in their minds. Economic collapse followed by revolution and the rejection of capitalism is not implausible, but that the U.S. would emulate modern-day China is much, much less so. I would find her society much more believable if it was set far in the future on some other planet, and did not require the reader to swallow a total reversal of current trends. Future societies which do not believe in our current values of freedom and tolerance can be fertile ground for fiction, but identifying one with our near future makes it very difficult to accept.

The minimal plot and storyline fragmentation will cause many readers problems. If the material was re-arranged as a collection of short stories with Zhang’s novella coming last, it might allow readers to follow it more easily. If the aforementioned elements do not throw you, you may find this an interesting read.

%A Maureen F. McHugh
%T China Mountain Zhang
%I Tom Doherty Associates
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1992
%G ISBN 0-812-50892-0
%P 312
%K SF, China
%O paperback $3.99

“Falling Free” by Lois McMaster Bujold

1993-06-06T00:00:00Z

In this 1988 Nebula Award winning novel, a group of humans genetically engineered for free fall by GalacTech, a large corporation, are legally considered “post-fetal tissue cultures”, i.e. property, not people. Invention of practical antigravity has rendered them obsolete. The ‘quaddies’ (they have extra arms instead of legs) are led to revolt by Leo Graf, a normal welding and non-destructive testing engineer.

The characters are believable and well drawn, and their problems realistic, but they divide cleanly into good guys and bad guys, save for a few GalacTech employees (who play little role) who are loyal to the company but sympathetic to the quaddies.

Bujold’s most basic theme, people obsolescent by their genes, not their skills, is an important and fresh one. It forms the background for the work, but fails to have much impact because the only resultant is the good-guys/bad-guys conflict. Women with children are ill-represented in adventure stories, and Bujold shows why. She also shows an engineer at work, instead of having his results appear from offstage.

The only problem this reader had with the novel was that it fails to develop its material. Short shrift is given to internal conflicts and disagreements of the quaddies and the divided loyalties of normal employees, to whom the quaddies are both work and friend, but who have little power to help them. (Admittedly, that’s not the theme of the novel but…)

Further commentary on this work can be found in Nebula Awards 24, in “Themes and Variations: A View on the SF and Fantasy of 1988” by Ian Watson and “Free Associating About Falling Free” by Bujold. Watson describes this novel as a juvenile. Bujold wrote it as her Analog story, writing in a style that heavily influenced her (and contests the juvenile label). I found it a pleasant read, but on the light side.

%A Lois McMaster Bujold
%T Falling Free
%I Baen Books
%C Riverdale, NY
%D copyright 1988
%G ISBN 0-671-65398-9
%P 307
%K quaddies,Nebula Award,Analog
%O paperback $4.99
%X This 1988 Nebula Award winning novel is set in the same universe as Barrayar, Borders of Infinity, and Ethan of Athos, and concerns the ‘quaddies’ - humans genetically engineered to live in free fall. It appeared as a serial from December 1987 through February 1988 in Analog.

“Ground-Ties” by Jane S. Fancher

1993-05-15T00:00:00Z

The setting of Ground-Ties combines the traditional FTL-spaceship-and-faster-FTL-communication element with a newer one: the world-wide computer network. The combination is surprising at first, but logical, given FTL communication and computers. (I dislike assumption of FTL technology; it’s so unimaginative; FTL star-faring civilizations look too much like our own.) This civilization has cut its ties with Earth, and lives in space habitats, except for various Reconstructionist movements (despised by the majority) who seek to reconstruct various cultures from Earth, usually colonizing planets to do so. The government (The Alliance) is apparently dominated by a small oligarchy who practice nepotism and prejudice against “Recons” (Reconstructionists). One the major themes is the tensions between the Recons and the rest of society; unfortunately we see almost nothing of ordinary society; all the significant non-Recon characters are in government Security. HuteNamid is the Recon planet where most of the action takes place, and the Recons there derive their cultural ideas from Native Americans.

The characters are realistic; the conflict arises because the characters have differing goals. The oligarchy remains offstage. Admiral Loren Cantrell and her people of the security force is working to blunt the influence of the oligarchy. Stephen Ridenow’s Recon heritage was hidden when he entered the academy at ten and now, ten very rough years later, is being graduated early for this mission. Dr. Wesley Smith and Dr. Paul Corlaney are non-Recon researchers on HuteNamid, each with his project to forward. Governor Sagiimagen Tyeewapi, his daughter Anevai, and Nayati Hatawa are three Recons of HuteNamid with different perspectives on how best to preserve independance of action for their planet.

The plot involves missing data and a paper by Smith that could seriously affect the Net as the characters know it, and only Ridenow recognized its importance. As Cantrell, her team, and Ridenow investigate, more strange things turn up and everything gets complicated.

It is difficult to follow all the information in the opening scenes, but persevere, it becomes clear before long. The setting seems unlikely at first, but makes sense once you get used to it.

The book ends before all the loose ends are tied up; either there is a sequel in the works or Fancher has had to cut down a larger story, presumably for the editor, this being her first novel. This didn’t bother me overmuch, as I wasn’t working too hard at following all the plot lines.

All in all, it’s quite good for a first novel and is well worth reading if you like mature, realistic characters and plots. I will be on the lookout for more of her works. [sequel: Harmonies of the ‘Net]

%A Jane S. Fancher
%T Ground-Ties
%I Warner Books, Inc.
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1991
%P 376 pages
%K network, FTL, Indian, mature characters
%O paperback $4.50

“A Woman of the Iron People” by Eleanor Arnason

1993-03-03T00:00:00Z

review free for non-commercial purposes

"A Woman of the Iron People" has almost no plot. There is a conflict, but it does not develop; it is inherent in the situation at the beginning, though the reader (and characters!) are gradually brought to realize its importance. The characters do not develop or change over the course of the novel. What, then is its interest? It shows (shows, not tells!) the reader an alien race which is human enough to identify with, but not just humans in furry suits. And it does so with a very natural storyline that is much closer to the unpatterned sequence of events of real life (as opposed to the artistic patterning of most plots). I enjoyed it very much.

The story takes place on an Earthlike planet of the star Sigma Draconis, 18.2 light years from Earth. It is inhabited by iron-age humanoids, the women of whom live in villages and the men of whom dwell alone. A 21st or 22nd century exploration ship from Earth has arrived after a 122-year journey. The ship technology is explained in an appendix, and the rest of the explorers' technology appears to be straightforward extensions of present technology. Western nations had collapsed and their inhabitants reverted to primitivism most of a century before the explorers left, but the Second and Third Worlds had progressed to form a peaceful world civilization.

The main characters are two human anthropologists, Lixia (pronounced Lee-sha) and Derek, and two natives, Nia (Nee-ah) and Voice of the Waterfall, an oracle. The text brings the characters alive, but their motivations remain opaque, as real people so often do. Most of the story is narrated by Lixia, and one gets little bits of her personality, but she is not an initiator of things and comes across as a non-memorable person.

The natural storyline is pleasantly non-predictable and almost entirely free of the trite progressions one is used to. At times this can get somewhat boring, since the "action" does not advance. I usually like a strong (but not stereotyped) plot, but I enjoyed this greatly, which is a tribute to Arnason's skill. The majority of the narrative is devoted to showing the character and attitudes of the aliens and Derek. The aliens' psychological makeup differs from humans in several important ways, but Arnason makes it interesting and easy to comprehend. Each of the four has a different attitude toward life. For much of the novel they are all in the same situation as each other; it is fascinating to watch them react differently and perceive events and people differently.

More troubling is the lecturing on the evils of capitalism and how it was responsible for all the ecological troubles of the world. The lecturing is reasonable for the characters and their background, and makes sense given the characters' situation. The problem is that there is no character to defend 20th century Western society, which I feel has many positive elements that the characters do not mention. It should be noted that Arnason is not ramming the Daoism, Buddhism, and Marxism down the reader's throat; the main characters express their reservations. I just kept wanting to reply to the charges made by other characters. Furthermore, at the end there is an interesting development which softens the impact of the lecturing.

I applaud Arnason for using a technological background that violates no laws of nature. Too many authors postulate an FTL drive or whatever else they need for convenience. Too much science fiction is unimaginative, postulating that travel around the galaxy will be about the same as travel around twentieth-century Earth.

I recommend reading this novel, particularly if you are tired of stale plots and arbitrary technology. It is very refreshing.

It has been published in hardback and as two paperbacks: "A Woman of the Iron People, part 1: In the Light of Sigma Draconis" and "A Woman of the Iron People, part 2: Changing Women".

%A Eleanor Arnason
%T A Woman of the Iron People
%I William Morrow & Co.
%D copyright 1991
%K refreshing, aliens, relativistic space travel, Daoism, Marxism
%O also pub. as 2 paperbacks: In the Light of Sigma Draconis & Changing Women

%A Eleanor Arnason
%T A Woman of the Iron People, part 1: In the Light of Sigma Draconis
%I Avon Books
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1991
%K refreshing, aliens, relativistic space travel, Daoism, Marxism
%O paperback

%A Eleanor Arnason
%T A Woman of the Iron People, part 2: Changing Women
%I Avon Books
%C New York, NY
%D copyright 1991
%G ISBN 0-380-75638-2
%P 263 pp
%K refreshing, aliens, relativistic space travel, Daoism, Marxism
%O paperback

Babylon 5: The Gathering

1993-03-01T00:00:00Z

The television series Babylon 5 has been five years in the making, five years well spent creating a universe and developing characters. Unfortunately, the producer, J. Michael Straczynski has tried to put ALL of it in the two-hour pilot. It doesn’t fit. By itself, the pilot (“The Gathering”) is confusing and has little depth, but is fine entertainment in spite of this.

I watched the film, then reviewed many background files and watched the film again the next night. This review is therefore partly based on information not in the film itself, and my assessment of it future potential is primarily based on the outside files. I will mention many problems, but I would like to emphasize here that the quality was, in general, good.

Babylon 5 is a human-built and -run space station in neutral territory between humans and four other species which maintain embassies. Its primary function is free port and cultural mixing ground. The story opens in 2257, a decade after a major war between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari Federation.

The plot of “The Gathering” is straightforward action/adventure which unfolds leisurely as the audience receives background on the characters and setting. An unknown assassin attacks the Vorlon ambassador as he arrives, and the crew must track him down.

There are nine major characters, and several more minor ones, all of whom are known by more than one name: The four major crew have first names, last names, and rank, and the ambassadors are referred to both by their own names and by their position. It is normal and natural to refer to people differently in different situations; it is the scriptwriter’s job to keep this from being confusing (especially when the audience has met none of the characters before). The writers here fail to do so.

The major characters are (barring transcription errors): Commander Jeffery Sinclair, played by Michael O’Hare, Lt. Commander Laurel Takashima, played by Tamlyn Tomita, Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, played by Jerry Doyle, Dr. Benjamin Kyle, played by Johhny Sekka, Psi-Corps telepath Lyta Alexander, played by Patricia Tallman, Ambassador G’Kar of the Narn Regime, played by Andreas Katsulas Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari Federation, played by Mira Furlan, Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic, played by Peter Jurasik and Ambassador Kosh of the Vorlon, played by his space suit :-) Other characters include the assassin and Caroline Sykes, Commander Sinclair’s girlfriend, played by Blair Baron.

The action jumps around from one scene involving two or three characters, then jumps to another with two or three others doing something unrelated. The audience gets a little information about a character, then is switched to another. Trying to build up impressions of ten characters simultaneously is all but impossible. This is particularly problematic at the beginning, where we don’t know who is a character and who is just background. The first identified character is Del Varner who the narrator says “endangered the station as never before”, but he has only two lines in the whole rest of the movie. The camera focuses in on the crewmember checking idents, including Varner’s. The next scene has uniformed people talking to a ship as it docks. The camera give just as much attention to a woman here as it did to the crewman in the previous scene. It is much later in the film before the audience can tell that she (Takashima) is important and he is not. The problem is mixing establishing/background shots with character introduction. The serve different purposes and mixing them leaves things muddy. Sinclair then gives Lyta Alexander a short tour while showing her to her quarters. The tour guide/tourist bit shows us nothing about their characters, and unfortunately showcases the alien section, the least-convincing set: it looks like a zoo, not living quarters. Right after the imminent arrival of the Vorlon ambassador is announced, the arrival of the spider-ship is shown, without explanation. The actual ambassador’s ship arrives later, after an unrelated scene, and it failed to register on me that the spider-ship must then be something ELSE.

The characters are adult and have a lot of potential. The Gathering is too much the smorgasbord and doesn’t let the viewer get into any one character, as is necessary for the deeper sort of work that Stracyzinski says he wants to do. There are a number of entertaining scenes.

Commander Sinclair faces some internal conflict when he becomes a suspect in the attempted murder, but this conflict soon evaporates and he is never a creditable suspect to the audience.

Lt. Commander Takashima, much as I like the character, is not very important to the plot. The monolog where she explains why she consents to breaking the rules by telling her history should have been dropped, as it focuses attention on a character who should be just a supporting character in this story, and to give more room to other things that need it. The other alternative would to have made her a more central character, and make her internal conflicts (when Sinclair comes under suspicion and Takashima must replace him on the council) more important. Had I written the script, I might have told the whole story from her point of view. Tomita’s acting is good in some scenes, notably when delivering the line about the fruitbasket, and poor in others, notably when she delivers the lines “Who did it? Who poisoned the ambassador?”

Garibaldi’s part is well written: we learn something of his background in a natural way, and he appears when it makes sense, plotwise, for him to appear and he doesn’t when it doesn’t. His lines are thus very natural, and do not feel pasted in as some of the others’ do.

After looking at Ambassador Kosh (having been warned of terrible consequences) Benjamin Kyle sounds like he’s stoned. Is this the effect of looking at Vorlons, which no human has before seen? No, Johnny Sekka playing Dr. Kyle just has a strange speech pattern, which the audience has not had time to recognize and adjust to before this scene.

Londo, the Centauri ambassador, is one of the more interesting characters. The Centauri republic is the remnant of a great empire and Londo is well aware of its decadence. He maneuvers to keep it (and himself) afloat. It’s too bad this has nothing to do with the main plot.

In fact, the alien characters come off as more interesting than the human ones, owing to the limited time each character receives. The three known major aliens appear to have personalities at the boundaries of human ones.

Carol Sykes should not have appeared in the pilot at all; in this story, she’s just another character cluttering up the script.

The acting varies in quality. It is occasionally unconvincing and usually adequate, but rarely outstanding.

The lighting gave the set an exotic look, but is unlikely: humans prefer light from above, not from the floor or beaming out from the walls. Chaser lights in the control room floor look cool, but when you’re dealing with an emergency, they’re distracting. There is too little of an establishing shot in some places, forcing the audience to guess where the scene is and why the characters are there. The poor lighting and rapid scene changes make it difficult to visually identify characters and keep track of who is who: it took me more than an hour to be able to tell apart Sinclair from Garibaldi and Caroline from Lyta Alexander. One pair of scenes was particularly bad: Sinclair and one of the women are in a residential-appearing area while Sinclair talks about his experience on The Line. The woman is seen primarily from the back or side back and has few lines. Both women have similar builds and hair color and both wear civilian clothes; about all one has to go on is hair length. The woman is Caroline, a minor character in this story who last appeared a number of scenes ago. The scene then jumps to the medical facility with Dr. Kyle and one of the women. I was not sure if this was the same woman (and thus this was a continuation of the previous scene) or another jump to different characters doing something unrelated.

The doors on the station are absurdly bizarre shapes, with excitingly chunky bulges. They seemed more than a bit silly. The interior decor was otherwise good.

The sound was frequently mushy: I heard Sinclair get a message from a training vessel, not a trading vessel. There was no further dialog to clarify the situation. Since a training vessel has multiple crew and is probably military, I made wrong assumptions about who Carolyn Sykes is.

The uniforms of station personnel are drab. The underlings wear an entirely different color uniform. Why?

The alien costumes and makeup were well executed. The major races are all humanoid, but present film technology doesn’t allow much else. In particular, Ambassador Delenne of the Minbari Federation and G’Kar of the Narn Regime were aesthetically pleasing and well-acted. However, when G’Kar said to Delenne, “Whatever happens now, may it be on your own head” I couldn’t help but reply “No can do! Her head’s too pointy!”

The music is interesting and good, but many times is just not cut out to be background music. It works best with the exteriors.

The exteriors themselves are good, and add much to the atmosphere. However, one Vorlon ship does make a maneuver in defiance of Newtonian physics. Computer generated scenes do not look like the model work we are used to, but if you compare it to REAL photographs of objects in space, it is no less realistic. The graphics are made using a network of Video Toasters, a microcomputer based system. Professional quality special effects can now be done on a budget that amateur can afford, which is a godsend to visual science fiction. Small producers can now do science fiction that can compete with the big studios. Hopefully, the groups with artistic talent will do well.

The plot is well-constructed, for the most part. There are a few holes: how the assassin penetrates the Vorlon ambassadors encounter suit is glossed over, for one. The Vorlons say they’d rather have their ambassador die than have his suit opened. After his suit IS opened, we never hear why they don’t protest. For that matter, it would have helped to hear someone clearly state near the beginning that there were no other Vorlons on the ambassador’s ship; I wondered why no one came out to help him. When the council vote on an important matter stands at two in favor, one against, and one abstaining it is described as a tie. This is explainable if three votes are always required for a measure to pass (out of five possible), but this does not seem entirely consistent with the character’s comments. After Commander Sinclair declares the station sealed off, there are many exterior shots of ships zipping around, apparently coming or going.

The technical background is good, and astoundingly good for tv: the station is an O’Neil cylinder which rotates to provide artificial gravity, it is solar powered, and they devote much space to raising food.

There are three non-scientific elements: FTL travel, a separate real-time FTL communication, and telepathy. These are standard SF elements, but the latter two may cause problems.

If your characters have instantaneous FTL radio, they can always call for help or call for information, and the writer must constantly explain why the characters do not have access to information they could easily obtain. There are warrants for Del Varner’s arrest on other human worlds; it is never explained why he was not arrested when his ID was checked as he entered.

Telepathy has similar problems: when Commander Sinclair becomes the major suspect in the attack on the Vorlon ambassador, it is never explained why Lyta Alexander does not scan his mind to verify or disprove this. If telepaths existed, they would be a staple of criminal investigations and trials. Even if they were erratic, they would be as common as the unreliable witnesses and circumstantial evidence that are commonly used today (and are used in the hearing on Sinclair).

Good SF accepts the implications of the postulated technology. These two items are a bad sign. I hope Babylon 5 is able to stay out of the ‘Star Trek’ mode where technology can or can’t do whatever this week’s plot demands of it, one week’s assertions are contradicted by the next’s, and miracle inventions never are followed up.

The camera robots are thus an excellent element: when commander Sinclair (a major suspect in the murder investigation, at least as far as the aliens know) goes to arrest the other major suspect, Takashima tells him to take along a camerabot. I’ve been waiting years for someone on the screen be this intelligent and take sensible precautions.

I expect the quality of the series to improve. The acting should improve as the actors settle into their roles. The audience will get to know the characters, so they can move forward, not relate history and quote regulations for the audience’s benefit. Straczynski has indicated that events will happen that will really change the characters, so we won’t just have everything back to normal at the end of every episode. He places high emphasis on the episodes being integrated parts of a whole. There will be less need to cram so much material in one episode, and thus the episodes can be integrated works.

Interestingly enough, this pilot would work better as an episode. The second time through, when I knew who people were, the action was easy to follow.

If you have any interest in quality visual science fiction (and you must, if you’ve ploughed this far through this review :-) you should see this film, more as a taste of what might come, than for intrinsic merit. If you decide you want to see more, you should write some letters - the existence of the series is up in the air.

“Assemblers of Infinity” by Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason

1992-11-17T00:00:00Z

review by P. Douglas Reeder

This novel appeared as a serial in the September to December 1992 issues of Analog.

Readers unfamiliar with nanotechnology may find this novel more exciting than I did. It describes the basics of nanotechnology in a fashion not as good as most other descriptions I have read. I failed to identify with or care about what happened to the characters. This is not a bad work, it just never came to life for me. It may come alive for you.

The conflict of the novel is a mysterious, dangerous structure that appears without warning on the lunar farside. The characters are challenged to figure out what it’s purpose is.

Besides a number (too many?) supporting characters, there are four main characters: Jason Dvorak, commander of the (nearside) moonbase, Erika Trace, nanotech researcher, Celeste McConnel, director of the “United Space Agency”, and General Simon Pritchard. The novel telegraphs that Dvorak and Trace will form a relationship long before they get together, but fails to show why they are attracted to each other. McConnel and Pritchard’s relationship came as a surprise to me and never seemed natural, either. Certainly, people are attracted to one another for reasons that don’t make sense to others, but relationships among the main characters must form some pattern with the rest of a novel, make some statement about life and/or the human condition.

[Minor spoilers follow]

There are a number of elements that don’t make sense. The moonbase launches many suborbital probes to take short looks at the artifact, instead of putting something in lunar orbit or at the L-2 point, where they have a frequently-mentioned communications relay. (something well within the demonstrated capabilities of the space agency), where it could continuously observe the artifact. At one point one of the characters even expresses the wish that the L-2 relay had a camera, yet no one thinks to put one there!

When the L-1 transfer station and the moonbase become infected, the L-1 station is blown up and the crew crowded into the moonbase. This does not improve the quarantine and makes communication and supply delivery more complicated, in addition to eliminating a base that would very expensive to replace. It seems like the authors decided that there weren’t enough explosions, and it was time for some excitement, never mind whether it makes sense.

Trace’s first attempt to modify totally alien machinery (which she states she does not understand) produces exactly what she intends.

There is no rising action as such; an event happens, another event happens, and another event happens, without any real integration into a whole. In particular, the whole scene at the nuclear bomb storage site should have been dropped, as it contributes nothing to the work. The homemade bomb sequence was very abrupt.

[End spoilers]

This is, in fact, the major problem with the whole novel: it does not form a whole. Instead of creating suspense out of the core material, the authors add in additional chunks of events and characters.

The November Biolog column is on Anderson and December on Beason. November mentions a planned sequel to Assemblers, for which there is plenty of room.

%A Kevin J. Anderson
%A Doug Beason
%T Assemblers of Infinity
%J Analog Science Fiction and Fact
%V 112
%N 11-14
%C Red Oak IA
%D Sep. to Dec. 1992
%K nanotechnology
%O magazine serial; US $2.50/issue
%X alien nanomachines assemble artifact on the Moon

Science Fiction Age: review of premier issue

1992-09-22T00:00:00Z

Science Fiction Age is a new magazine which aims to cover “ALL of science fiction.” The format is 8x11 in. on glossy paper, with eighty-four pages. The premier issue has ten articles and departments and seven works of fiction. The pieces not fiction include the editorial, letters, book review, movie news, an essay, a science article, an art article, a comic book review, a computer game review, and information on authors. The fiction includes four stories set in the future, one fantasy, one technological historical fiction, and one alternate universe. There are nineteen full page ads and seven full page equivalents of part-page ads. They cover all the bases - with a style and attitude that rarely cuts to the heart of the matter.

“Bright eyed and bushy tailed” describes the editorial by Scott Edelman. The fiction book reviews by John Kessel and Michael Bishop are in-depth, but therefore cover only three books in three pages. There is also a box on upcoming releases, plus about half a page by Scott Edelman recommending two fiction and four non-fiction books. Jim Steranko covers the status of sf movies in production, a news topic which is too light for my taste. The essay by Jerry Pournelle failed to convey any insight into its topic. The “science article” is an interview aimed at an audience that has not considered the paradoxes of time travel in depth. It has nowhere near the meat of a science article in Analog.

The three pictures of Robert McCall reproduced largest in the article on his art appear bland and naive technophilia to my eye. Three of the smaller ones: “First Men on the Moon”, a detail of an EVA, and “Apotheosis of Technology” deserved larger spreads. Bruce Sterling’s review of the twelve part miniseries “The Hacker Files” from DC Comics scripted by Lewis Shiner is excellent. Sterling incisively says “The Hacker Files also has one absolutely vital element for a successful comic book in that it’s totally unrealistic and unbelievable. This is a total power-fantasy comic for a target audience of dangerously alienated computer nerds.”

Regrettably (at least from my standpoint), the reviewer of the computer game “Star Trek - 25th Anniversary” was Ann Crispin, who has written Star Trek novels, rather than someone who understands games. Special effects and faithfulness to source material are of minor importance to the long-term success of a game - what really matters is how the game plays: are many strategies possible, or does the player always end up using the same strategy because it’s the only one that works, can you set up genuinely different scenarios, is the user interface transparent?

The stories were all together in the middle of the magazine and were not interrupted by ads, a sound design. “The Last Robot” by Adam-Troy Castro was vague of theme and had little storyline and essentially no characterization. “Undercover” by Gene O’Neill is mildly humorous - too bad humor is its only selling point. “A Dangerous Knowledge” by Arlan Andrews, the historical work, is compelling, historically accurate, and brings alive just why an industrial revolution did not spring from the sophisticated civilization of ancient Greece.

“Anne” by Paul Di Filippo is an alternate history of Anne Frank, which makes an interesting point at the end. “The Dragonslayer’s Sword” is a politically-correct (that’s NOT a complement) fantasy by Resa Nelson which left me asking “so what?”

“A Tale from the War” by Don Webb has two illustrations by the French artist Moebius. The illustrations are expressive and compelling, as are most of Moebius’s non-serial drawings. The story is artsy (that’s not a complement either) like most graphic novels illustrated by Moebius. “Is This the Presidential Palace?” is a short-short by Barry Malzberg which is unpleasant for the same reason as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” without the other qualities that make the latter a classic.

There is a lot visually appealing artwork - much of it in the ads! The (excellent) Michael Whelan cover will be familiar to many from “The Robots of Dawn”. The James Warhola cover for “Stranger in a Strange Land” which fit that novel so well appears in the movie article. Most of the art accompanying the fiction is so-so, but the pen-and-ink illustration by Mike Hill for “A Dangerous Knowledge” is good. The Morpheus International, Greenwich Workshop, Worlds of Wonder, Bill Toma, Glass Onion Graphics (showing Michael Whelan’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Summer Queen”), The Computer Lab, and Bantam ads are all worth looking at in their own right.

Many of the ads have found their proper home in this magazine. There are seven ads for Star Trek products, five for sf video, eight for sculpture or art prints, six for new book releases, nine for stores and mail-order houses, and a number for narrow market science-fiction products (such as hypertext) that are difficult to classify, but one of which is probably something you’d really like to have.

You will like some things I disliked, and vice-versa. However, my comparisons are (I hope) accurate and should give you something to work with. The level and emphasis of the magazine are abundantly clear.

My fundamental problem with almost all the material in the magazine is that it has no depth. You won’t want to read through it again a year or five or twenty from now. Given the magazine’s mission of covering all of science fiction, there have to be newsy bits to cover events and happenings. This does not prevent the rest from being hard-hitting articles, insightful reviews, and good stories. I’d like to see articles on emerging and fading sub-genres, why they might be changing, and how they relate to what audiences look for. Emerging mediums such as interactive computer works, hypertext, and robot choreography should be evaluated for artistic possibilities. I’d like to see editorials and science fact articles as good as Analog’s; essays that challenge the reader with new perspectives; critical analysis of groups of stories by an author; and, not least, fiction worth anthologizing. To cover everything happening in science fiction would take a newspaper and make dull reading. A monthly magazine can cover in depth the important things.

Science Fiction Age is light reading on many topics in science fiction. Is there an audience for this? Probably. An audience for what I would have it be? Probably smaller, I hate to admit. Most people try to avoid hard thinking.

%A Scott Edelman
%A Arlan Andrews
%A Eric T. Baker
%A Michael Bishop
%A Adam-Troy Castro
%A Doug Chezem
%A Ann Crispin
%A Ronald Anthony Cross
%A Vincent Di Fate
%A Paul Di Filippo
%A Harlan Ellison
%A Craig Shaw Gardner
%A Ron Goulart
%A Al Kamajiyan
%A John Kessel
%A Geoffrey A. Landis
%A Annie Lunsford
%A Barry Malzberg
%A Pat Morissey
%A Resa Nelson
%A Gene O’Neill
%A Jerry Pournelle
%A Bruce Sterling
%A Charles Sheffield
%A Don Webb
%A Michael Whelan
%E Scott Edelman
%T Science Fiction Age
%I Sovereign Media Company
%C Herndon, VA
%D November 1992
%G ISSN 70989-36021
%O magazine, US$2.95/issue, US$14.95/year
%V Vol 1 No 1
%P 84 pp

“The Universe Maker” by A. E. Van Vogt

1992-07-08T00:00:00Z

I was prompted to read this novel by Van Vogt’s name and the cover art of the Carrol & Graf edition: a woman in a blue jumpsuit with several technological gadgets. In retrospect, my advice is to look at the cover but don’t bother to read the book.

I am annoyed by time travel stories where the characters decide they must act to make events happen the way they did. In this story, not only does the main character do this, but it turns out it is impossible for the universe to exist unless he does. The story is full of flat statements that the physical universe has morality built in (which could, if you were being very generous, be interpreted as the opinions of the viewpoint character and not the narrator’s.)

The fifties attitudes towards women are obnoxious (the original copyright is 1953.) The attitudes of the characters from the future toward sex appears much more modern, though Captain Cargill has a soldier’s attitude that all women are at least potentially available and you have to press hard to find out (what we now call sexual harassment). “You must try to win Miss Reese to your point of view. Grannis tells us the best method would be for you to make love to her-”

The book suffers from Cargill being the only character. The other people aren’t really characters, just part of the scenery that Cargill wanders through. The plot has Cargill’s importance being inherent in the structure of the universe, and although he is an army officer, he is able to tell the naive people how to organize their air force, and how to take over the government. Apparently, in the future, they don’t study history.

The technology of the future is based on “million tubes.” The people of the future have discovered that you can make “one times one times one times one times zero equals a million”.

It is very rare that I can force myself to stop reading a book before I get to the end. The problem is not the writing, but the storyline and the theme. I found myself just gliding along, not worrying about the absurd (and dogmatic) statements piling up. Unless you’re doing an essay on Van Vogt’s work, don’t bother to read this book.

%A Van Vogt, A. E.
%T The Universe Maker
%P 192 pp
%I Carrol & Graf
%C New York
%D 1992 (Copyright 1953,1981)
%G ISBN 0-88184-841-7
%O paperback, US$3.95
%O Not worth reading