bnw@crash.UUCP (07/19/85)
From: crash!bnw@SDCSVAX
I remember a story (or novel?) in which the central character who, for
reasons I no longer remember, was able to function in each half of his brain
independently. He was, at least publicly, a concert pianist, renowned
for his ability to play a fantastically difficult concerto ("Emperor" by
Beethoven, I think) exactly the way it was written. As I recall, he was
also involved in some kind of spy or detective work.
This is all I remember. Don't know where I saw it or when, or who the
author was. Anyone?
/Bruce N. Wheelock/
arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd
uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnwchabot@miles.DEC (Sxyzyskzyik) (07/22/85)
Ah, well, Jack Vance's Anome trilogy (the first volume has also been titled _The_Faceless_Man_; _The_Brave_Free_Men_; _The_Asutra_) has a musician (and even the son of a musician) as a protagnist, and in fact, not only has his life been shaped by his career and his origins, but his survival in the third volume depends upon his musical training. [Quiz for Vance fans is in my name above.] If we expand the topic to include fantasy, there's Patricia C. Wrede's _The_ Harp_of_Imach_Thyssel_. There are also songs of significance in Pamela C. Dean's _The_Secret_Country_, and there are these cardinals singing at interesting times. (birds, not bishops) Anne McCaffrey probably has a couple of science fiction books in which music plays an important part, based upon titles. Thomas Disch's _On_the_Wings_of_Song_. L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot chabot%amber.dec@decwrl.arpa
br@cstvax.UUCP (Brian Ritchie) (07/25/85)
...then there's the short story from Norman Spinrad's `No Direction Home' anthology, titled `The Big Flash' (I think), wherein a rock group called The Four Horsemen get to be quite important. **** SPOILER **** They live out their name by giving a concert televised world-wide that psyches everyone into setting of their entire nuclear arsenals (hence the title). That they're going to do something like that is fairly obvious from the start (although their manager only sees $$$), so I don't think this is much of a spoiler; the power of the tale is in the way Spinrad tells it. I'm sure he was thinking of The Doors! **** END OF SPOILER ****