Subject: Prograde Reviews--John DeChancie:The Kruton Interface

From: [email-masked] (Humphrey Aaron V)
Date: 12 Mar 94 02:25:49 GMT

I didn't care much for DeChancie's _Castle Perilous_ when I first read it. 
It had some neat ideas, but on the whole I thought the writing could have
been much better.  And since I had so much else to read, I left DeChancie
alone for a while.

Well, getting to know an author, even on the Net(Fidonet SF, to be precise)
makes one inclined to give him a second chance.  _The Kruton Interface_ was
the first that presented itself.  I can only hope it's not representative.

It has problems.  Okay, I know, or can guess, why it has most of them.  It
was originally a play--I presume also written by DeChancie.  It's humour,
which is also tricky to try--and the kind of humour that works well on
stage does not necessarily work well in book form.  I kept reading it and
saying, "If I saw this on stage, I'd be laughing my ass off."  But I was
not, at the time, laughing my ass off reading it on the page.  Perhaps
someone with a more vivid imagination would.

I'd love to see the play someday.  And I will continue to try DeChancie's
other stuff--I've heard his Starrigger books are good, and _Magicnet_(from
those with advance copies)...but this one just kept missing.

%A DeChancie, John
%T The Kruton Interface
%I Ace
%C New York
%D September 1993
%G ISBN 0-441-14227-3
%P 185 pp.
%O Paperback, US$5.99, Can$4.50

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