donn@sdchema.UUCP (04/20/84)
I hate to provide evidence that I have any spare time but I had to get some more book reviews off my chest. This time the reviews come without silly ratings points -- back to the old UC Santa Cruz format. I still use an asterisk to mark collections or anthologies, though. In this episode: AGAINST INFINITY. Gregory Benford. NO ENEMY BUT TIME. Michael Bishop. *DARK COMPANIONS. Ramsey Campbell. THE UNTELEPORTED MAN. Philip K. Dick. THE SILENT GONDOLIERS. William Goldman (writing as S. Morgenstern). A STORM OF WINGS. M. John Harrison. RIDDLEY WALKER. Russell Hoban. AGAINST INFINITY. Gregory Benford. Pocket, c1983. Benford's last novel, TIMESCAPE, won an award, and this novel is a strong contender. Manuel Lopez is born at Sidon Settlement on Ganymede at a time when Ganymede is being terraformed. From the time he is a young boy, Manuel finds himself caught up in the quest for a great motile alien relic, called the Aleph. Benford does an excellent job of rendering the changing ecology and sociology of Ganymede and the chase scenes are really beautiful. The only problem with the story is that it devotes its time to Manuel's obsession with the Aleph at the expense of enlarging on its interesting ideas of the development of society in the spacefaring age. Still a very good book. (By the way, the title seems a bit dumb unless you make the connection with the Borges story, 'The Aleph'. In comparison with Borges's Aleph, Benford's Aleph is a bit clunky, but still serviceable.) NO ENEMY BUT TIME. Michael Bishop. Pocket, c1982. Despite the rave reviews on its cover, this novel leaves me feeling somewhat uncomfortable. John Monegal has dreamed of peculiar animals in a strange, African setting since he was a child. When he is an adult, he discovers that his dreams are faithful reproductions of conditions in the Pleistocene, back when humans were hominids. He is sent on a field expedition into the past (using a method reminiscent of Jack Finney's TIME AND AGAIN) where he meets and joins a band of protohumans. The tale of his gradual acceptance into this culture and eventual mating with the dominant female is intertwined with the tale of his peculiar childhood; both experiences require the overcoming of racial (species?) barriers. The narrative is graceful and occasionally charming, but it is sometimes difficult to follow because of the split into childhood flashbacks and adult experiences. Another problem is that the story is weak on science -- perhaps Bishop decided that since time-travel is unscientific anyway, it doesn't matter how silly the 'science' gets. And as long as I'm complaining, the description of the government of Bishp's mythical African nation is parody and jars with the rest of the book. Not bad but I was hoping for better. *DARK COMPANIONS. Ramsey Campbell. Macmillan, c1982. Ramsey Campbell is a British horror writer whose stories have such a thick and menacing atmosphere that the very words want to crawl off the page and choke you to death. This collection (which I bought remaindered in hardback, sigh) contains stories from 1973 to 1980, including three award winners, 'In the Bag', 'The Chimney' and 'Mackintosh Willy'. Campbell's writing style is wonderful; it reminds me of one genre of Fritz Leiber's stories (e.g. 'Black Glass', 'A Bit of the Dark World') where the horror comes as much from the way in which the story is told as in the content. All of the stories are very, very nasty and one has to be brave to read them on a dark night. 'Down There' will make you nervous about working late in a dark and empty building (which I do often); 'The Little Voice' will give you a good idea why it's not so nice to be schizophrenic; 'The Depths' explains why newspaper articles so often sound like horror stories; and 'The Companion', a great story, is about a man's last carnival ride. These stories are so well done that they've changed my opinion of the horror genre. [Why is it so hard to find Campbell's novels in this country? PS, I can't resist quoting Stephen King: '"The Companion" may be the best horror tale to be written in English in the last thirty years'...] THE UNTELEPORTED MAN. Philip K. Dick. Berkley, c1966 and c1983. This reprinting of an 18-year old Dick novel is just a part of a renaissance in Dick reprints that might have raised Dick out of poverty were he still living. In the coming year or so we should see editions of Dick novels like CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON (funny), THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH (sad), TIME OUT OF JOINT (scary) and THE MAN WHOSE TEETH WERE ALL EXACTLY ALIKE (previously unpublished). Of course not all of Dick's books are equally good, since they were frequently written in a single draft over the course of a month or two, pounded out to make a few bucks to pay alimony and buy food. THE UNTELEPORTED MAN is one of Dick's lesser novels. Apart from the fact that this edition is published from a manuscript that is missing four pages (introducing breaks in the text with 'See note on page V', one such break in a really critical part of the climax), the book suffers from being very uneven and confusing. The excess population of Earth is being teleported to a colony planet. Rachmael ben Applebaum is the bankrupt owner of the last spaceship company, and he wants to prove that teleportees are really being transmitted to nowhere; they cease to exist. What actually happens, of course, is a very disconcerting LSD trip. The book never really coheres, and the style undergoes an abrupt change in the middle which leads one to wonder about Dick's own chemical intake. You probably shouldn't buy this unless you are a real Dick collector. THE SILENT GONDOLIERS. William Goldman (writing as S. Morgenstern). Del Rey, c1983 (hardcover). According to the biography: 'Many critics of European literature in general and Florinese prose in particular rate S. Morgenstern as a modern master. He is known in this country primarily for his classic tale of true love and high adventure, THE PRINCESS BRIDE.' THE SILENT GONDOLIERS is not (alas) a sequel to THE PRINCESS BRIDE, but it is a parody of historical romances in a similar vein. Once upon a time, all Venetian gondoliers sang; they were such good singers they made Caruso embarrassed to even chirp. Along came Luigi, the kid with the goony smile who, given a boat and a canal, could beat absolutely anyone in any contest of gondola piloting. Alas, Luigi is tone deaf... Will he ever find fame and fortune as a gondolier? THE SILENT GONDOLIERS is as funny as THE PRINCESS BRIDE but it lacks the manic pace of invention that was one of the latter book's great attractions. It's still worth buying, though (and it has very nice illustrations). A STORM OF WINGS. M. John Harrison. Pocket, c1980. I bought this book on the recommendation of Algis Budrys in the F&SF book review -- I find that I often agree with him. Not this time, however. This book has to be the worst-written excuse for pseudo-literary trash I have read in years. The story, as near as I can make it out, concerns the city of Viriconium at a far future time when Earth culture has degenerated into a feudal society. So-called reborn men were preserved at a past time and have been resurrected to try and save the current world, but unfortunately the resurrection damaged their psyches in such a way that they are able to do little more than wander around mumbling incoherent bits of meaningless poetry. Two reborns, a dwarf, a ghost, an absent-minded wizard and a (well, relatively) normal man undertake to save reality from an invasion of insectile aliens from an alternate universe. Harrison's main problem is that he can't write dialogue; all his characters act like they have speech impediments. His descriptions are sometimes pretty in a poetic way, but he is so generous with bizarre metaphors and odd punctuation that his narrative often reads like extracts from a freshman creative writing class. Miss this one. RIDDLEY WALKER. Russell Hoban. Washington Square Press, c1980 (trade). This is a book in the Post-Holocaust Fable genre, with the curious distinction that it is written entirely in post-holocaust dialect. In plot and setting and mood it reminds me somewhat of John Crowley's ENGINE SUMMER. Riddley Walker is the son of the village 'connexion man' or shaman. His father dies in an accident while helping to excavate buried metal from the old times, and Riddley, at the age of 12, suddenly finds that he is the village's new connexion man. But when he is forced to go back to digging metal for the local warlord, Riddley rebels and runs off to join the Pack, a roving tribe of (apparently) telepathic dogs. He has many adventures and is involved in an effort to recreate the '1 Big 1', the explosive which destroyed the old civilization of 'Inland'. This is all hard to follow, mainly because the story is grittily realistic in that it is the first person narrative of a twelve year old who uses a language barely recognizable as English. The language is actually easier to follow than the symbolism, which is awfully heavy at times. But in general I liked it, although it is definitely not recommended for people who hate John Crowley's writing. Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn 32 52' 30"N 117 14' 25"W (619) 452-4016 sdcsvax!sdchema!donn@nosc.ARPA