Subject: Review: "Happy Policeman" by Patricia Anthony

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 15:46:18 GMT

"Happy Policeman" by Patricia Anthony
		A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow

In Reganite America, the world ended in a cataclysmic nuclear war.  Only the
inhabitants of Coomey, Texas struck it lucky - a mysterious alien race, the
Torku, sealed the town off from the rest of the world and now keep it
supplied with food, gasoline, even VCRs.  But the town is chafing in its
confinement, waiting to erupt.  When the local sheriff discovers a murder
and the implicated Torku respond with only cryptic answers, the situation
boils over.

Patricia Anthony won much acclaim with her previous "Cold Allies" and that
worth is reflected again in her careful depiction of every character in this
story.  The central character of Sheriff DeWitt is an example - growing away
from his wife, yet engaged in an affair for reasons he cannot articulate,
devoted to the Torku and yet fighting them, keeping the law in a town where
law is no longer relevant.  There's a care taken here and justifiably so,
for the denouement is character-driven not event driven.

And this is perhaps the problem - for not much happens in this story.
Indeed the book is barely SF, which is not a problem itself but an
indication of the fact that the Torku are really just a device to get a
group of people isolated and interacting in just the right way.  Thus when
the story ends there's the aftertaste of a shaggy-dog story where the
situation has been rigged to produce a punchline.  This is not to diminish
Anthony's easy and clear writing style but "Happy Policeman", while still an
accomplished work, is one which perhaps doesn't reach as far as it should.

One final point - the cover designers of the Ace line should be
congratulated for their work on "Happy Policeman" as they're produced an
interesting presentation that will sit well alongside the other Anthony
books in the Ace line.  [**/ok] and a candle-lit TV dinner on the Sid and
Nancy scale.

%A Patricia Anthony
%T Happy Policeman
%I Ace
%C New York
%D 1996
%G ISBN 0-441-00321-4
%P 273pp
%O paperback, Aus$12.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]