From archive (archive)
Subject: Robert Adams' BOOK OF ALTERNATE WORLDS
From: ecl@mtgzy.UUCP (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Date: 25 Jul 87 13:25:40 GMT




		    Robert Adams' BOOK OF ALTERNATE WORLDS
	edited by Robert Adams, Martin H. Greenberg, & Pamela Crippen Adams
		   Signet, 1987, ISBN 0-451-14894-0, $3.95.
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper

     When I first looked at the table of contents of this book, I noticed
that the stories were  novelettes or even novellas rather than the usual
assortment of short stories.  And the editors have managed to avoid the
usual over-anthologized stories for some less well-known ones.  In his brief
introduction, Adams says the two are connected: the better alternate-history
stories run to longer lengths and hence are usually left out of anthologies,
whose goal (it often seems) is to have the longest table of contents
possible.  The nine stories included here average fifty pages in length.

     Murray Leinster's "The Other World" is the story of what might happen
if the ancient Egyptian magicians had found a way to travel through portals
to a parallel, uninhabited world and then sustain themselves there by
looting our own world.  It's old-fashioned science fiction, and written with
such vibrant images that I couldn't help but think it would make a great
movie.

     Subtitled "The Role of the Air Force Four-Door Hardtop," George Alec
Effinger's "Target: Berlin!" is typically bizarre Effinger, applying what
Darrell Schweitzer has called the "silly factor" in alternate histories.  In
this case, the silly factor seems to be that in this alternate world, the
aircraft of World War II were all modified cars: the Americans flew
Mustangs, the Germans flew Volkswagens, and the Japanese flew Toyotas.  No,
that not an anachronism; World War II was delayed by agreement of all
concerned (maybe to give them time to develop cruise control?).  This may be
some people's cup of tea, but frankly it doesn't do it for me.

     Fritz Leiber's "Adept's Gambit" seems mostly a excuse to put Fafhrd and
the Gray Mouser into our own world.  After a few pages, I decided I didn't
care what world they were in, or what happened to them.  H. Beam Piper's
"Last Enemy" I had read before and found fairly mundane then, so did not
re-read and cannot comment in detail on.

     L. Sprague de Camp's "Aristotle and the Gun" is "Alternate History Plot
#2A":  man goes back in time and tries to change things for the better;
things don't work out the way he planned.  (For the curious, Plot #1 is
"things just happen to turn out differently," and Plot #2B is that "man goes
back in time and tries to change things for the better; things do work out
the way he planned."  Plot #2B makes for a fairly dull story and is not
often used.)  Since de Camp knows something about history--a requirement
that many alternate history authors seem to overlook--the story has a very
authentic feel to it and is one of the better ones in this anthology.

     Larry Niven's "There's a Werewolf in My Time Machine" is one of the
many stories in which Svetz goes back in time to get some historical animal
and ends up picking up some fantastical parallel in a parallel world
instead.  His time machine, like Dr. Who's Tardis, seems to have some sort
of permanent glitch.

     Robert Silverberg's "Many Mansions" has so many parallel threads that
it's almost impossible to keep track of them all.  Silverberg even uses the
old hackneyed Plot #2C: man goes back in time, kills grandfather (either his
own or someone else's, it doesn't seem to matter), and things may or may not
change.  Silverberg, as usual, makes even this old plot new.

     T. R. Fehrenbech's "Remember the Alamo!" is a combination of Plot #1
and Plot #2B.  Normally, it would be a strong story, but it has too much to
compete with here.  It does have the advantage of dealing with alternate
American histories, while most authors in the genre still seem to prefer
fooling around with European history.

     Jerome Bixby's "One Way Street" is another common plot (okay, Plot #3,
if you want a number): man has an accident and finds himself in a world
similar to, but not exactly like, our own.  Bixby is best known for his
story "It's a GOOD Life," adapted for THE TWILIGHT ZONE.  This story will
remind the reader of another TWILIGHT ZONE story, "The Parallel."

     Though not all the stories are great, the assortment provides something
for everyone and a good look at some of the better alternate history stories
that you may have missed until now.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					(201) 957-2070
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