rls@ihuxf.UUCP (Richard Schieve) (06/18/84)
Just putting in my vote foe John Varley new book DEMON. If you
enjoyed TITAN and WIZARD you won't be disappointed in DEMON.
Rick Schieverickc@iddic.UUCP (07/25/84)
Re: Demon review recently posted: > I was bothered by some of the "magic" > used, since it seemed to be rather non-scientific, and since > Gaea had never shown such abilities before. I agree! Furthermore, there were no rules apparent for the magic. Someone (Larry Niven in one of his collections, I think) wrote about the necessity of having rules for events not possible with our current knowledge. Varley did a good job with the genetic engineering - I can believe asphalt producing critters. But if one is going to bring in causality violations (time travel) all bets are off. The reader is left with a disatisfied feeling, like saying 'it was all a dream'. The defense is that ordinary mortals can not understand what is going on - but that sure makes a poor story. I would bring in more specific points, but would probably be a spoiler. Varley had some of this problem with the 'Ophiuchi (sp?) Hotline' stories. The Jovian beings were completely beyond our understanding, but it played better since they were disinterested in humans. I thought that 'Demon' was weak - but still enjoyed it. Varley has a knack (like Heinlein) of writing very readable stories, even if one doesn't agree with the politics or science involved. Rick Coates tektronix!iddic!rickc