Subject: IBIC REVIEW #7--"Diamond Mask" by Julian May

From: [email-masked] (Internet Book Information Center)
Date: 13 Mar 1994 16:01:09 GMT

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%A May, Julian
%T Diamond Mask
%I Alfred A. Knopf
%C New York
%D March1994
%G ISBN n/a
%P 455 pp.
%O hardcover, U.S. $22.00

Julian May's works are a recurring topic of conversation for the 
estimated 84,000 people worldwide who read the Internet newsgroup 
rec.arts.sf.written.  In fact, there is so much interest in her work that 
a separate Internet mailing list, MILIEU, was formed specifically to 
discuss her works.  A subscriber to the list can expect to receive 3-4 
e-mail messages a day from fellow enthusiasts.  So it is fitting that 
this review of her latest book, DIAMOND MASK, should be the first one 
posted to the Internet Book Information Center's WWW server.  IBIC's 
mission is to use the Internet to connect book-lovers with information 
about books.

DIAMOND MASK is the second book in Julian May's "Galactic Milieu" trilogy 
which began with JACK THE BODILESS and will culminate with MAGNIFICAT.  
The "Galactic Milieu" trilogy is itself a sequel to two previous series, 
"The Saga of Pliocene Exile" and "Intervention."  All three series share 
a common setting and many of the same characters.   This book focuses on 
the early life of Dorothea Macdonald, who became Dirigent of Caledonia 
and wife of St. Jack the Bodiless.

I mean it as a high compliment to say that the Milieu metatrilogy is a 
more sophisticated successor to E.E. "Doc" Smith's much-loved 
galaxy-spanning space opera, the Lensman series.  Both series feature 
noble, repressed supertelepathic supermen (Smith's Kimball Kinnison and 
May's Marc Remillard) playing out a destiny of galactic unity heavily 
influenced by human genealogy.

May fashions characters and stories that will bear frequent, almost 
obsessive rereading.  I have read all of her previous novels several 
times, and love them all.  (Like most people, I think "The Saga of 
Pliocene Exile" is a cut above the "Intervention" series.)  

But I was worried about DIAMOND MASK.  I had been disappointed in JACK 
THE BODILESS and felt that there had been a perceptible drop-off in 
quality from the previous series.   I thought a lackluster effort in this 
second book would doom the trilogy.

I need not have worried.  The same evening I finished reading DIAMOND 
MASK, I went back and began rereading JACK THE BODILESS.  With the 
additional context, I liked JACK a lot better.  That touchstone makes it 
clear to me that DIAMOND MASK is a highly successful second book in the 
"Galactic Milieu" trilogy.  I am now confident that the projected final 
volume in the series, MAGNIFICAT, will provide a profoundly satisfactory 
resolution not just to the Galactic Milieu trilogy, but to the entire 
Milieu metatrilogy which is so well loved by so many.  I await MAGNIFICAT 
with tremendous anticipation.

--Frederick Zimmerman

[P.S.--For those of you who have been waiting to find out the identity of 
the mysterious, evil telepathic entity called Fury, I will only say that 
you will find DIAMOND MASK well worth reading.]