Subject: Retrograde Reviews--Victor Kolupaev:Hermit's Swing

From: [email-masked] (Aaron V. Humphrey)
Date: 24 May 1994 08:15:33 GMT

Victor Kolupaev:Hermit's Swing

A Retrograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey

I picked up this book purely on a whim, while searching, at my wife's
behest, for the new Dean R. Koontz.  Let nobody tell you those little
"rocket-ship" stickers some libraries put on SF are good for nothing.

The collection is introduced by Theodore Sturgeon, and some of the stories
herein have a definite Sturgeonesque feel to them--"The Biggest House",
"What Funny Trees" (which calls to mind "The Man Who Lost The Sea") and "The
Newsstand" in particular.  There's also a slight reminiscence of Bester.

The first and last stories are the most straightforward SF.  "For Love of
Earth" is about the crew of a starship who find themselves back on Earth,
having lost their memories to a greater or lesser degree, and have to piece
together who they are and how they came back.  "Hermit's Swing" tells of
the planet Hermit, and of the bizarre temporal anomaly that tears a colony
apart.  (It is, however, one of those stories where the characters are much
too slow at figuring out what's happening...)

The other stories in the collection don't stick to straight SF--"The
Newsstand" is a time paradox story, and "Smile" is almost magic realism.

Collections like this give me the impression that more of the good SF than
we may realize is being written in languages other than English.  The
Quebecois science fiction I've read in translation is also ample evidence
of this fact.  Most of them no doubt deserve wider recognition than they
are getting now, and Victor Kolupaev is among them.

%A Kolupaev, Victor
%T Hermit's Swing
%I Macmillan
%C New York
%D 1980
%G ISBN 0-02-566350-X
%O Hardcover
%P 199pp
%S Best of Soviet SF

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