ecl@ahutb.UUCP (e.c.leeper) (04/15/85)
IN THE DRIFT by Michael Swanwick
Ace Science Fiction Special, 1985, $2.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
IN THE DRIFT is the sixth Ace Science Fiction Special. Like the first
five, it is not your run-of-the-mill SF story. Told as five episodes (each
basically a free-standing novelette or short story), it covers the time from
approximately one hundred years after "the Meltdown" to another hundred
years past that. Each story has a main character from the preceding story
as a peripheral character, forming a sort of chain reaction (not unlike a
meltdown itself would be).
"The Meltdown" is apparently a real meltdown of Three-Mile Island.
(But no date for this "real" meltdown is given.) The result is an area
called The Drift where everything and everyone dies, and the chaotic
reorganization of the remainder of the Eastern region of the U. S.
The back covers claims that this is about "two-headed monsters, dog-
faced boys, [and] mutated vampires." Don't let this deceive you--this is
not a throw-back to the 1950's giant-monster-caused-by-radiation movies.
Yes, there are mutations caused by the radiation, but they are far less
sensationally treated inside the book than on the back cover. The reader
who is expecting a novel--and the book certainly appears to be one at first
glance--may find the episodic nature somewhat choppy, but the characters and
situations are interesting enough to carry him or her through. Whether the
situations portrayed are technically accurate, I cannot say, but they are
well-written and involving. A moderate recommendation for this one.
Evelyn C. Leeper
For now, I am ...ihnp4!ahutb!ecl
But, on May 1, I become ...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl