OtherRealms A Fanzine for the Non-Fan Where FIJAGH Becomes a Way of Life Issue #8 September, 1986 Part 2 Pico Reviews Ratings: [*****] A classic, must read book [****] Well above average, don't miss [***] A good book, probably worth reading [**] Book has its moments, flawed [*] Not recommended [] A book to avoid COILS by Roger Zelazny [*****] COILS is an absolutely wonderful adventure story. Its main character is a psychic computer programmer who has to rescue his girlfriend from the bad guys. If you like computer consciousness and telepathy and all that nice stuff, this is one of the best. Like many other things that Zelazny has written, COILS is completely different from anything else he has written. --David Muir Sharnoff muir@ucbvax COUNT ZERO by William Gibson [***+] Arbor House hardback, 1986, $15.95, 278 pages Gibson's first book, NEUROMANCER, surprised everyone by deservingly winning the Hugo, the Nebula, that the Philip K. Dick award. He's back, and he's got another book to be proud of. COUNT ZERO is set in the same society as NEUROMANCER, but is not a sequel. It is another high velocity adventure into the inner venues of computers and their jockeys. I don't think COUNT ZERO is quite as good as NEUROMANCER, but it is still way ahead of the pack. Gibson can do no wrong, it seems. -- chuq von rospach DARKOVER LANDFALL by Marion Zimmer Bradley [****] DAW Fantasy, 1972, $2.50 The beginning of Darkover, MZB tells the story of how the planet was colonized. Good, solid SF, and a good introduction into the world of Darkover. It, and the entire series, are highly recommended! -- chuq von rospach THE GAME OF EMPIRE by Poul Anderson [*] Baen Books, 1985. Paperback, $3.50. Heinlein's Disease claims another big name. A Dominic Flandry book. Not much plot. Flandry and wife walk on, but do not advance the plot at all. Main characters: D. F., a Terran; A., a devoutly religious Wodenite; a cat-like being from a barbarian culture. (Sickeningly familiar from his Polesotechnic League stories.) Style: talking-head expositions frequently halt the "plot"; most are boring to readers of other Flandry stories. One star for the settings (that's all Anderson has left). -- Tim McDaniel mcdaniel@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU KILLASHANDRA by Anne McCaffrey [*+] Del Rey, 1986, SFBC A sequel to McCaffrey's CRYSTAL SINGER, this isn't SF. It is a Harlequin, and McCaffrey seems to have taken up writing romances. Unlike the warm and personal NERILKA'S STORY this book is plodding and predictable. Girl Meets Boy. Girl Lays Boy. Girl Loses Boy. Girl Gets Boy. This book has little to do with CRYSTAL SINGER and less to recommend it. -- chuq von rospach LYTHANDE by Marion Zimmer Bradley [****+] Daw Fantasy, August 1986, $3.50, 237 pages A collection of six stories about MZB's character Lythande, the Adept of the Blue Star. Lythande originated in THIEVES' WORLD, but after one volume Bradley dropped out and Lythande moved into her own world. Since then she has appeared in a couple of anthologies and in F&SF magazine. Lythande was my favorite character in THIEVES' WORLD and I'm happy to see her stories continue. These are all well written and occasionally tongue-in-cheek accounts of Lythande's adventures. My only gripe is with the cover. Lythande's Secret, the knowledge of which would destroy her power, is that she is a woman, travelling as a man. MZB handles this perfectly in the stories, but the person on the cover is obviously female -- if THAT is Lythande, she doesn't stand a chance. Another foobar from a sloppy artist. -- chuq von rospach THE SECRET TRADITION IN ARTHURIAN LEGEND [] by Gareth Knight Aquarian books (UK) #5 95 A hopeless hodgepodge of pseudo-paganism, occult, and every other weirdity you can think of tossed in, swirled around, and proven to be part of the mystique of Britain's Great Hero. Feh. -- chuq von rospach SHELTER by Marty Asher [*****] Arbor House hardback, 1986, $12.95 136 pages (sort of) SHELTER is a weird book. It isn't SF, and it isn't Fantasy. The only word for it is experimental. This is probably not a book you would normally buy. It is very short, especially considering that each page is only about half filled. The book, however, is like an early Vonnegut without the anger. Asher is making a point and plays with the words to help you see it. If you like Vonnegut's work, you'll love SHELTER. Buy it, read it, enjoy it. -- chuq von rospach SPECIAL DELIVERANCE by Clifford D. Simak [***+] Balantine, 1982, $2.75, 217 Pages Special Deliverance is a fun little adventure. It eventually loses its zest, but it concludes fairly soon after that. F&SF role play gamers take note: the adventure and world could be adapted into a game with very little trouble. The book is in a sense, too logical: given the major premise (you learn it at the end) you realize that the whole book had to be exactly what it was to fit the author's framework. --David Muir Sharnoff muir@ucbvax THE SPELL SWORD by Marion Zimmer Bradley [****] Daw Fantasy, 1974, $2.50 I'm finally getting around to reading the Darkover series. My only comment is "Why did I wait so long?" The people of Darkover are a lost civilization from Earth, a society that has built itself around paranormal abilities. THE SPELL SWORD tells of the battle between the Darkover people and a band of intelligent natives fighting to reclaim their planet. Strong on suspense and a solid blend of SF and Fantasy. -- chuq von rospach THE STARCROSSED by Ben Bova [***-] Jove/HJB, 1975, $1.75, 223 Pages The Starcrossed is a comedy. In fact, it is a joke. Ben Bova writes a satire of Hollywood in the future, that holds together fairly well for most of the book. But reading the book, one gets the feeling that he got bored towards the end and just tried to finish it off; he succeeded by reducing the book to a one-line cliche. The hero/heroine plot doesn't finish and neither do many other subplots. The book had the potential to be very good, but what can I say? --David Muir Sharnoff muir@ucbvax Readers Survey It's been a while since I've run a readers survey, and since the readership has grown significantly over the last few months, I thought it would be appropriate to learn a little more about you and your interests. The latest readership statistics show the subscriber base to be somewhere around 4000. I'm not sure whether to believe that number, and I hope that the surey will tie it down. Please mail this to any of the addresses in the Masthead, either E-mail or by more traditional ways. I am very interested in hearing from the people off the beaten path -- it is easy to get feedback from USENET, but much more difficult from the people with less direct access to me. The feedback I get from these surveys helps me guide the direction of the magazine. Surveys will be accepted until October 1, 1986. 1) Sex: 2) Age: 3) Profession: 4) Where did you get this copy? (e.g. USENET, ARPA, BITNET, BBS, Hard Copy. Please name the BBS) 5) How many people read this copy of OtherRealms? 6) How many SF books do you read per month? 7) How many Fantasy books do you read per month? 8) How many hardcover (not book club) books did you buy in the last year? 9) How many book club books did you buy in the last year? 10) What SF and Fantasy magazines do you read? 11) What Fanzines (other than OtherRealms) do you read? 12) What SF conventions do you attend? 13) What do you think are the best and worst features of OtherRealms? What would you like to see added? Gateway (part one of a trilogy) Frederic Pohl Del Rey books, $2.95, 313 pages [*****] Reviewed by Dave Taylor taylor@hplabs.ARPA Copyright 1986 by Dave Taylor For all you fans who've been following my complaints about not finding anything worth reading: good news! I've finally found a book not only worth reading, but worth buying to be able to read again and again! GATEWAY is the first of three books by Frederic Pohl known as the "Heechee Saga. " The premise of the series is that as we continue expanding our exploration of the galaxy we encounter mysterious artifacts from an alien race that appears to have disappeared millions of years ago. This race, for reasons unknown, are dubbed the "Heechees" and become a road for unimaginable riches and technologies. The first book opens some time after the initial discovery of the "Heechee" artifacts. A corporation has been formed by all the superpowers to exploit the artifacts and they're based in an asteroid orbiting our Sun on an orbit considerably skewed from the plane of the planets. This base is called Gateway and is a sort of Grand Central Station of Heechee ships. Unfortunately, the technology to program courses into the ships hasn't yet been worked out, so there is a group of people called prospectors who climb into the ships and press the start button. Some of them come back after having been to new planets, others go to other Heechee artifacts, and some never come back at all. The main protagonist of the story is Robin (for Robinette) Broadhead. Through his eyes and emotions we learn the terror of taking an uncontrolled flights, the alien strangeness of the Heechee and the Gateway, and the breakdown of his rationality and slow reconstruction with the aid of a computer program he calls "Sigfrid Von Shrink. " The book starts with a discussion between Robin and Sigfrid, and the chapters alternate between their discussions centered around Robin's anguish and frustration at his condition and the events that transpired. I found myself wishing for the book to be told in either vein instead of both, but really wasn't that harmful to the narrative. For those that are impressed with awards, the book has won, quite deservingly, the Hugo and Nebula awards. I'd give it a top rating and recommend it for anyone who likes SF! David Lindsay, the Arcturan Voyager Gary A. Allen, Jr. ESG7@DFVLROP1.BITNET Copyright 1986 by Gary A. Allen, Jr. David Lindsay is a unique phenomenon in Science Fiction. He was a contemporary of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. However, he was so far ahead of its time that today he is widely regarded as an author without equal. Lindsay's history as an author is both sad and interesting. Lindsay was born on 3 March 1878 in a London suburb. Until about 1916, he worked as an insurance clerk for Lloyd's of London and had not written a single book. In 1916 at age 38, he married and opted to give up his secure job as a clerk to take up writing. His first book is in the opinion of many his greatest achievement. This book was entitled A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS and was published in 1920. His second book THE HAUNTED WOMAN was published one year later. THE HAUNTED WOMAN is regarded by some commentators as being even better than A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. Both books were commercial failures and were remaindered. A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS sold only 596 copies from a press run of 1430 copies. The London Times panned the book without mercy, and it was subjected to ridicule by contemporary literary critics. It should be emphasized that these first two books represented the commercial high point of Lindsay's career as an author. His later books, which even by modern standards were inferior to the first two, fared even worse in the commercial world. By 1939 after failing to find a publisher for his last book THE WITCH, Lindsay gave up writing and turned to running a boarding house for a living. On 6 June 1945, David Lindsay, a broken and despondent man, died from a tooth infection. The writings of David Lindsay would have died a dusty death along with their author had not Victor Gollancz, a friend, republished A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS in 1946, one year after Lindsay's death. Then something truly marvelous happened: 26 years after the book had been written, it achieved a limited popularity. Even so, it was not popular with the general public. Instead it was an underground success with England's literary elite. One of Lindsay's early fans was the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote about Lindsay in a letter to Charles Brady: The real father of my planet books is David Lindsay's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS, which you will also revel in if you don't know it. I had grown up on Wells' stories of that kind, but it was Lindsay who first gave me the idea that the "scientifiction" appeal could be combined with the "supernatural" appeal. From that time on A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS was considered required reading among England's literary elite, and yet his books were once again out of print and seemed destined for obscurity. It didn't happen, as about every 15 years a reprint would turn up. His works have never had a wide popularity. Nevertheless, Lind-say's books have always maint-ained a core of devoted readers that refuses to dissipate with time. Lindsay himself realized this would occur and once commented to Gollancz: "Somewhere in the world, someone will be reading a book of mine every year. " Many books and articles have been written about Lindsay and A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. The following are the more important commentaries: The Strange Genius of David Lindsay by John Baker 1970 The Haunted Man by Colin Wilson 1979 David Lindsay by Gary K. Wolfe 1982 The story of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS has a rather mundane beginning. By page 39 (page references refer to the Gregg press edition which is a reprint of the 1920 original), one is seriously thinking of flinging the book into the trash can. In the first 39 pages all that apparently happens is that the 3 principle characters meet and are transported from the Earth to an alien planet which will be the scene of action. The reader is accosted with some rather bizarre names: The three chief characters are Maskull, Krag, and Nightspore. The alien planet is called Tormance. If the reader had pitched the book into the trash before reaching Tormance he would have made a big mistake. The boredom of the first 39 pages and the funny names are all calculated for an effect. The transition from Earth to Tormance is absolutely breathtaking. The closest analogy I can think of is from the movie THE WIZARD OF OZ where Dorothy walks from her house into the land of Oz, the film changes from black and white to color, and Dorothy announces, "You know Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." From that point on the reader is kept in a perpetual state of information overflow. I'm not talking about the overflow in a low grade Fantasy Role Playing game where the author is pouring forth zillions of proper nouns without definition. Rather, we're speaking about concepts, symbolism and fast paced action. David Lindsay did something that no one else in SF achieved in that he pushed the SF literary form to its limits and had then gone beyond. The story of A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS could not be expressed in any other medium. The chief character, Maskull has discovered himself on a world where one grows and discards new senses and awarenesses with seeming abandon. The premise upon which the novel is based is the concept of God as an immoral and unethical entity. The true God of Tormance is Surtur. Surtur is a creative deity from which all life emanates. However an anti-God, Shaping, has overthrown Surtur and dominates Tormance. Shaping feeds on life itself by giving the life force a physical form. Maskull is unwittingly thrown into the middle of this cosmic struggle between these two deities. Maskull was sent to Tormance by the personification of Surtur, Krag. However he was literally left naked and totally ignorant of the true state of affairs upon his arrival on Tormance. Shaping, the god of lies, has the first crack at Maskull. From there the story unfolds as Maskull travels through the surrealistic landscape of Tormance to his own ultimate destruction and resurrection. One can read A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS for pure entertainment. There is lots of action and interesting characters are brought in with almost wild abandon. Lindsay creates plot devices, SF concepts, and sensual imagery that I've seen no where else. The real thrill to this book, however, is in its intellectual challenge. Everything in this book has triple nested symbolism. The name Tormance can be broken down to romance, torment, dominance. Pain is associated with Surtur, while pleasure is associated with Shaping. The name Maskull leads to man and skull, which symbolizes the conflict of the spirit and the body. Everything in the story is color coded. There are five colors on Tormance based on two color systems, which in turn are based on the two stars of the Arcturan system. The first color system is from the star Branchspell and uses the colors yellow, red, and blue. The second color system is from the star Alppain and uses the colors jale, ulfire, and blue. Branchspell is the larger star and has associations with Shaping. Alppain is a small blue binary companion and is associated with Surtur. The colors red and jale are compliments and associated with feeling. The colors yellow and blue are also compliments and associated with relation. The colors blue and ulfire form the last compliments and are associated with existence. If a creature appears in the plot and it is colored red and ulfire, the reader knows that the creature has the qualities of feeling and existence and is affected by both stars and deities. By now it should be clear by what I mean by information overflow. The theme of the book is a SF presentation of the philosophies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. If you are not overwhelmed by the information or the symbolism, then the philosophy will blow you away. His works demonstrate the power of SF as a consciousness expansion aid and a medium for abstract thinking. I strongly recommend the works of David Lindsay. This issue is Copyright 1986, by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights reserved One time rights only have been acquired from the signed or credited contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. Reproduction rights: Permission is given to reproduce or duplicate OtherRealms in its entirety for non-commercial uses. Re-use, reproduction, reprinting or republication of an individual article in any way or on any media, printed or electronic, is forbidden without permission of the author.