Subject: Louise Cooper

From: [email-masked] (Ian Borchardt)
Date: 23 May 91 18:19:25 GMT

For those who have not discovered them yet, I would like to unashamedly
reccommend the "Time Master" and "Chaos Gate" trilogies by Louise Cooper.

The Time Master trilogy consists of "The Initiate", "The Outcast", and
"The Master", and is a rewrite (and expansion) of an earlier novel ("The
Lord of No Time", but you would have to be VERY lucky to find a copy since
it hasn't been in print for a LONG time).  It examines the theme of the
war between the Gods of Law and the Gods of Chaos from a new and very
interesting angle.  The joy of these books, apart from the theme and
conclusion (No Spoilers Here -- Read it yourself and find out!!!), are
the characters of the major protagonists and her tight handling of their
interactions.  Very, very well handled.  Of course all of this is IMHO.
If you want to get a feel for the trilogy read the Prologue of Book One,
by the time I reached the end of it (and the line "And someday Chaos
shall return...") I was totally hooked ;-)

The Chaos Gate trilogy is set a century after the conclusion of the Time
Master trilogy.  It consists of "The Deciever", "The Pretender", and "The
Avenger".  Books 1 & 2 have been released by Bantam Spectra in America,
with Book 3 due out in December 91; I have not seen any English release yet.
I found the presence of extracts from the next book in the series very
irritating, mainly because in each case it was a number of months until the
release of the next book.  If you liked the first trilogy you will also
enjoy this one.  Although the story could probably stand alone, I heavily
reccomend that the reader starts with the Time Master trilogy, since many
of the protagonists from the first trilogy make an appearance (at least in
cameo) in the second.

BTW this reccommendation is due to just finishing the second book of Chaos
Gate.  It looks like book 3 will be very interesting (the extract in book 2
portends the gathering of all the sides at one location, and it will be very
interesting how/if the peace invoked at the end of the first trilogy will be
returned to the world...).

As for Louise Coopers other books, the Indigo series (currently "Nemesis",
"Inferno","Infanta", and "Nocturne") is much less tightly written (in a word,
the series develops slowly -- IMHO I think the series will be 8 books in
length; it's currently stopped at a natural resting point).  It is not until
book 4 that the series shows the strengths of the above two trilogies.  Her
solo novel "Mirage" is neither bad nor excellent, and compared to the Time
master trilogy (it was published just after) it was a slight disappointment.
She has also written "The Thorn Key" (a children's book) and another book
which features a journey through the Tarot (the name of which escapes me,
but it has also been out of print for a LONG time).  The latter is an 
interesting idea, but, like The Lord of No Time, lacks the skill shown in
her later books.

--
Ian Borchardt                                          And in the next world,
[email-masked]        I will kill the foe a thousand times,
Medical Physicist                                                   Laughing,
University of Adelaide/Royal Adelaide Hospital                    Undefeated.