From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Jan 3 13:42:25 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Subject: Review: OTHERWERE edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Keith R. A. DeCandido Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 31 Dec 1996 20:03:58 GMT Organization: Software Agents Group Lines: 44 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1186 rec.arts.books.reviews:2221 OTHERWERE edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Keith R. A. DeCandido A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1997 Evelyn C. Leeper What is clever once becomes tedious with repetition. In other words, somewhere between the story about the were-salmon and the were-Republican, my eyes glazed over. There are fifteen stories in this anthology and a few are actually reasonably good. Had I read them in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION or ASIMOV'S, I would have thought them worthy entries there. But here they are diluted by the lesser stories to the point where they all seem mediocre. And it's not even that I tried to read them all in one sitting -- I read them over a period of a month, and that's *still* too close together. "Stories of transformation" go back a long way, and at least one story here pays homage to that. These early stories, however, emphasized the mythic elements, and these were also carried forward into such relatively modern stories as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But most of the stories here don't have that aspect. Either the transformation is done for laughs, or it is a transformation without meaning -- a person changes into an X because that's what the plot calls for, not because X has some meaning. I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with theme anthologies. In addition to the repetitiveness, the requirement of filling a book with stories on a single topic usually means that the quality level suffers. If anthologists feel they must have a theme to their anthologies, how about something less restrictive, like stories whose fifth word is "grass" or authors born in June? %B Otherwere %E Laura Anne Gilman %E Keith R. A. DeCandido %C New York %D September 1996 %I Ace %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-441-00363-X %P 260pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 908 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." --Jorge Luis Borges From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 14:26:42 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.books.reviews Subject: URBAN NIGHTMARES edited by Josepha Sherman and Keith A. DeCandido Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 09 Apr 1998 13:40:47 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 59 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1848 alt.folklore.urban:384564 rec.arts.books.reviews:2468 URBAN NIGHTMARES edited by Josepha Sherman and Keith A. DeCandido Baen, ISBN 0-671-87851-4, 1997, 278pp, US$5.99 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1998 Evelyn C. Leeper The problem with theme anthologies is, well, the theme. I mean, if I'm reading a story in a general anthology, or in a magazine, and the point of the story is that the main character is a vampire, then the author can tell me that when s/he wants to. But if I'm reading a vampire anthology ... well, you get the idea. So here we have an anthology based on urban legends. These are all those things that you've heard somewhere that happened to "a friend of a friend." In fact, these are so common that they even have a Usenet group (alt.legends.urban) and a whole set of abbreviations (e.g., FOAF). So if you're reading a story in this anthology in which a fur coat is involved, and you know anything about urban legends, you *know* snakes will start appearing in the coat. Because of this, the authors pretty much have to tell you early on which urban legend they are working with, and then do something original with it. This is not unlike what was done with the "Fairy Tale" series of books, so it is possible. Of course the problem is exacerbated by my position as a reviewer--I need to read this book in some reasonable period of time. Marketing being what it is, mass-market books tend to disappear after a few months. If I read a story a week, this book will be long-gone before you can read the review. There are twenty-five stories, an unusually high number. The longest story is sixteen pages long. In fact, the biography section is longer than some of the stories. Even making allowances for all this, I think *four* prosthetic arm stories and *four* alligators/crocodiles-in-the-sewers in one anthology is a bit much, though I did like the literary allusions in Bill Crider's piece. If you are familiar with all the urban legends referenced here, and like bizarre twists on them, you will probably like this book. But if you don't know what "The Hook" is, or find a whole sequence of twists on them more repetitious, you should skip this book. Me, I find the psychology of the urban legend interesting, but don't see them as a great literary source. %B Urban Nightmares %E Josepha Sherman %E Keith A. DeCandido %C New York %D November 1997 %I Baen %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-671-87851-4 %P 278pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "What has the study of biology taught you about the Creator, Dr. Haldane?" "I'm not sure, but He seems to be inordinately fond of beetles."