Subject: Review: Telzey Amberdon, by James H. Schmitz

From: Richard Horton <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 May 2000 22:00:47 -0400

_Telzey Amberdon_, by James H. Schmitz
	Edited and Compiled by Eric Flint (co-edited by Guy Gordon)
	Review Copyright 2000 by Rich Horton

James H. Schmitz was one of SF's most popular writers of the 1960s and
early 1970s.  His stories were publish between 1943 and 1974, but despite
early successes such as "The Witches of Karres" (1949), the _Agent of
Vega_ stories in the early 1950s, and "Grandpa" (1955), his most
significant work dates to the last 15 years of his career.  This period
included his five novels (I include the fairly unified "fix-up" _The Lion
Game_ along with the four unambiguous novels), short stories like
"Balanced Ecology" and "The Custodians", but most significantly, his
closely linked stories about two young women: Telzey Amberdon and Trigger
Argee.  These stories, appearing for the most part in Analog, were very
popular indeed at the time, particularly the Telzey stories.  But Schmitz'
popularity hasn't really proved enduring, except among a dedicated small
group.  He was just good enough to last in the minds of a certain cadre of
readers, but even at his peak he never attained quite the notoriety or
sales to ensure enduring print runs.  And after all the latter distinction
is rare indeed.

In 1990 the New England Science Fiction Association's publishing arm,
NESFA Press, chose to make a collection of Schmitz' work, _The Best of
James H. Schmitz_, the first book in their NESFA's Choice series,
dedicated to restoring the work of neglected SF authors to print.  This
collection has sold fairly well over the past decade.  Still, such a
collection, satisfying as it is to those dedicated to reading the best
older SF, will hardly reach a mass audience.  Schmitz' fans wanted more:
to see the novels back in print, to see more of the stories in print.
Even, perhaps, to see Schmitz read again by casual readers of SF.  Enter
publisher Jim Baen, and editor Eric Flint, a fairly new writer of SF on
his own.  With the help of long-time Schmitz devotee Guy Gordon, they have
assembled the bulk of Schmitz' "Federation of the Hub" stories into four
collections, to be published in 2000 and 2001.  These collections will
include all of the Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee stories, as well as a
number of additional Hub stories.  The only important Schmitz left out, as
I understand it, will be the fine early collection _Agent of Vega_, and
the novel version of _The Witches of Karres_, the latter probably Schmitz'
most famous work.  Perhaps those will follow if the first books are
successful enough.

Baen and Flint decided that to make such a collection more accessible to
new readers, certain presentation decisions needed to be made.  The most
obvious of these was to organize the books into what might be called
"quasi-novels," short story collections being notoriously a drug on the
market.  To this end, the book at hand, the first to appear, contains six
stories about Telzey Amberdon, arranged by internal chronology, and
covering the first year or so of her awareness of her psi powers.  Later
books will cover Telzey and Trigger working together, Trigger by herself,
and finally Niles Etland, heroine of the novel _The Demon Breed_.  This
book also includes two appended short stories, one of which -- "Blood of
Nalakia" -- is an early story which hints at the origins of the villains
of "The Lion Game," and the other -- "The Star Hyacinths" -- features
Wellan Dasinger, who is a prominent character in the Telzey story
"Undercurrents."

A more controversial decision was to edit the stories somewhat for
content.  Some of these changes are entirely to be expected: normalization
of tech references across stories written years apart, punctuation changes
such as removal of exclamation points, correction of typos, choices of
preferred readings when stories had been published in multiple editions.
The other changes were more controversial: a few stories were cut fairly
significantly, and in one case some expository paragraphs were moved from
the beginning of the story to the middle.  These editing decisions have
been hashed and rehashed incessantly in various venues, and it doesn't
seem worthwhile to reignite any controversy here.

I will say that while it is certainly impossible to know for sure what
Schmitz would have said if asked to approve the changes, a fair-minded
look at the actual changes, the context in which they were made, and what
we know of Schmitz' attitude towards editorial direction, would seem to me
to indicate that he would not have disputed the decisions that editor Eric
Flint made.  I thought that the excision of a paragraph or two at the end
of "Undercurrents" was fully justified because it implied a direction for
the series that was not fulfilled.  The cuts to "Poltergeist" were fairly
reasonable: they speeded up a slow-paced story, and removed some
repetitive exposition.  Some early cuts in "Undercurrents" seem
regrettable to me, but not wholly unreasonable.  The movement of
exposition from the beginning of "The Star Hyacinths" to the middle worked
very well, I thought.  A final set of changes, not obvious in a casual
reading, involved reducing references to things like smoking.  It's true
that those references were once ubiquitous and implied nothing much,
because our culture, at the time of the stories, regarded smoking quite
differently than we do today.  Thus it is fair to say that, to a new
reader, constant references to characters smoking might be jarring.  But I
do regret such changes, because I think that in reading older stories, one
of the minor pleasures is the immersion in the attitudes and "flavor" of
the time they were written.

I fear I've spent a long time discussing the apparatus and history of the
_Telzey Amberdon_, and not enough time discussing the stories.  The six
Telzey stories are "Novice," "Undercurrents," "Poltergeist," "Goblin
Night," "Sleep No More," and "The Lion Game."  The first two have been
published together as the novel _The Universe Against Her_, but they are
really independent stories.  The last three have been published as the
novel _The Lion Game_, and in this case I think they work together pretty
well as a novel: a problem introduced in the first story is not resolved
until the last.  "Poltergeist" has not previously been reprinted, and
serves as a bridge between the two novels, hinting at the reason for a
noticeable change in Telzey's attitude between "Undercurrents" and "Goblin
Night."

In my opinion the best of these stories is the last and longest, "The Lion
Game."  A series of unexplained murders have occurred, and Telzey, in
"Goblin Night," seems to have escaped a comparable situation.  She is sent
by the Psychology Service to help investigate the situation on Tinokti,
where four high-ranking individuals were recently murdered.  Telzey and
the Service both have postulated the existence of a secret organization of
psis, and both have identified the Elaigar, "descendants of the historical
mind masters of Nalakia," as the probable members of that organization.

Tinokti is unique for being composed primarily of a network of linked
portals (teleportation booths): thus, the planet is connected in a sort of
virtual sense as opposed to a geographical sense.  As Telzey finds, it's
fairly easy to operate a secret network of portal links, in parallel with
the ordinary network.  Soon she is trapped in such a network, battling
three different types of Elaigar, as well as several alien species.  It's
a neat story, with clever action, making good use of the portal system,
some nice twists, and a solid ending.

The other stories are mostly also pretty enjoyable, though both
"Poltergeist" and "Sleep No More" are lesser stories, working better as
bridges than as independent pieces.  "Novice", the first Telzey story, is
one of the best known, but while I liked the delayed first contact theme,
and the view of relations with intelligent aliens, I was and remain a bit
upset by Telzey's rather casual use of her powers to completely alter
another's personality.  This is treated again in "Poltergeist", with a
deeper moral look at the rights of such a change.  "Goblin Night" is a
neat adventure piece with a very cool alien menace.  "Undercurrents" is a
pleasant and enjoyable piece, but not special.

The two non-Telzey pieces are both solid middle-range efforts.  "The Star
Hyacinths" features Wellan Dasinger tracking down a pirate who stole the
incredibly valuable title jewels using an unusual weapon.  "Blood of
Nalakia," never before reprinted, is a very early story (1953) about a
woman escaping from a vampire who uses psi powers to control his cattle.
There is a twist or two along the way, and a neat, scary, hint of the
future right at the end.  It's very nice to see this rare story reprinted.

If you are a hard-core opponent of altering, in any way, a dead writer's
work, your best course is to search out the stories in used-book stores.
But if you are not such a hard-core opponent, in my opinion the editing
has on the whole been a positive thing, given the goals of the Baen
reprinting.  It certainly hasn't hurt the stories, which are fun stuff,
occasionally outstanding.  Recommended.

%A James H. Schmitz
%T Telzey Amberdon
%I Baen
%C New York, NY
%D March 2000
%P 436 pp.
%G 0-671-57851-0
%O Mass Market Paperback, US $6.99, edited and compiled by Eric Flint
%O with the help of Guy Gordon
-- 
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://[email-masked]
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