Subject: "McLendon's Syndrome" by Robert Frezza

From: [email-masked] (Rex Croft)
Date: 8 Jun 93 21:22:58 GMT

"McLendon's Syndrome" by Robert Frezza
				- reviewed by Rex Croft  [email-masked]

This is a Del Rey discovery novel.

It starts in a bar on a small world.  MacKay is one of six crew members of
the old trading ship "Rustam's Slipper" having some leave.  He soon meets
Catarina, an attractive woman who is a vampire - this comes out on page 7
so isn't a spoiler.  McLendon's syndrome is a disease that turns one into
a vampire, or something resembling one.  Those are the two main characters.
We also have an alien race called Rodents.  The Rodent ambassador acts like
a juvenille British gentleman and has a butler called Cheeves.

After their ship leaves, one of the crew members turns up dead and they
find a stowaway.  MacKay pretends to be a detective.  (Hint: the cat did it!)
After a taking some damage from a Rodent missle they turn back.

The story goes downhill from there.

The book is full of puns - the characters actually try to make puns and
discuss them.  You know the goodies are going to win, dispite all their
problems, and the badies aren't very bad.  Towards the end, the chief
enemy Rodent invites MacKay onboard their warship and does the usual
explanation of all his plans and why he is about to shoot MacKay's ship.

As someone said in the news group -- "Distractingly cute".

It reads like a parody.  A juvenille parody.
Younger readers might enjoy it, maybe.

Buy it second hand if you still want to read it.

I bought it by mail order after reading about it in the Del Rey Internet
newsletter.  Oh well, live and learn.

%A  Robert Frezza
%T  McLendon's Syndrome
%I  Del Rey
%C  New York
%D  May 1993
%O  paperback, US$4.50
%P  303 pp.
%G  ISBN 0-345-37516-5