BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (08/02/85)
From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA> >Has anybody read "The Revenants"? Is it as worthwhile as the True >Game series? I didn't like it as much as the True Game books, but this may have been my mood when I read it. And there's a long way between ``not liking it as much as the True Game books'' and ``not liking it''; it's a pretty good book. It reminded me very much of the True Game books, especially the more gruesome parts. Tepper's evil creatures seem to like torturing their minions. The plot had some surprises, but fit well into the tradition of Tolkeinian fantasy. Some of the characters were very interesting. There were a lot of good ideas. I can't seem to say anything about it except damning it with faint praise, so I should explain why. Tepper's writing feels (to me) more Literary than purely for enjoyment; more like MacAvoy and LeGuin than Howard and Asprin. (I don't know that Tepper intended this.) I don't think it was very good as a work of Literature, despite its other virtues (e.g., I couldn't understand the motives of the Evil characters). I would have liked it better if I didn't think it was Literature. -------
WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA (08/02/85)
From: Craig E. Ward <cew@isi-hobgoblin.arpa>
Yet another episode had the father of a family travelling west, who
are stranded in the desert running out of water and needing medicine
for their son, somehow falling into the present and getting the
needed water and penicillin. I think the son, who survived only due
to the penicillin, eventually became someone famous.
No, he got aspirin from an isolated diner. (How many realize that aspirin was
first marketed in the nineteenth century)?