From /tmp/sf.5173 Mon Apr 12 22:37:45 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Frezza: "McLendon's Syndrome" Message-ID: Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 03:42:04 GMT Lines: 39 The latest Del Rey Discovery, Robert Frezza's "McLendon's Syndrome", makes me glad I'm not an editor. I'd hate to be the one making the decision about so mixed a bag as this one. The book is fun to read -- but the reader does a lot of wincing along the way. The syndrome from which the book takes its title is a disease which makes its victims very pale and light-sensitive, causes their teeth to grow some, and makes them allergic to most foods. You get the picture. This isn't a vampire novel, however: The syndrome turns out to be an exceedingly minor plot element, and one of the few foods to which the 'vampires' are not allergic is chocolate chip cookies. If I had to pin a subgenre identification on this book it would be slapstick -- in both the good and bad senses. Keystone Kops versus Keystone Robbers, interspersed with a a freight of puns. There's a real story buried in there, and a competently written one. It starts as a murder mystery, in which everybody on a spaceship full of losers turns out to be a plausible suspect (except me and thee -- and where were *you* on the night of...). Once the mystery is solved, it remains to deal with the repercussions -- and for our hero to beat off an alien invasion...if he can just stay out of jail long enough. This is not Frezza's first book, but I'm not sure I'd have guessed that. His characters are completely two-dimensional, but still entertaining. The plotting is fairly tight, and the story-telling works. The puns are excessive but some of the situational humor is quite good (if not subtle). The 'surprise' near the end is telegraphed two hundred pages in advance. All told, it's an entertaining way to spend two or three hours, if you don't ask more of it than that. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:35:46 1993 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!pipex!uknet!doc.ic.ac.uk!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!rochester!news.crd.ge.com!sunblossom!knight.vf.ge.com!news.ge.com!psinntp!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: ccc_rex@waikato.ac.nz (Rex Croft) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: "McLendon's Syndrome" by Robert Frezza Message-ID: <1993Jun8.104752.17038@waikato.ac.nz> Date: 8 Jun 93 21:22:58 GMT Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Lines: 44 Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) "McLendon's Syndrome" by Robert Frezza - reviewed by Rex Croft ccc_rex@waikato.ac.nz This is a Del Rey discovery novel. It starts in a bar on a small world. MacKay is one of six crew members of the old trading ship "Rustam's Slipper" having some leave. He soon meets Catarina, an attractive woman who is a vampire - this comes out on page 7 so isn't a spoiler. McLendon's syndrome is a disease that turns one into a vampire, or something resembling one. Those are the two main characters. We also have an alien race called Rodents. The Rodent ambassador acts like a juvenille British gentleman and has a butler called Cheeves. After their ship leaves, one of the crew members turns up dead and they find a stowaway. MacKay pretends to be a detective. (Hint: the cat did it!) After a taking some damage from a Rodent missle they turn back. The story goes downhill from there. The book is full of puns - the characters actually try to make puns and discuss them. You know the goodies are going to win, dispite all their problems, and the badies aren't very bad. Towards the end, the chief enemy Rodent invites MacKay onboard their warship and does the usual explanation of all his plans and why he is about to shoot MacKay's ship. As someone said in the news group -- "Distractingly cute". It reads like a parody. A juvenille parody. Younger readers might enjoy it, maybe. Buy it second hand if you still want to read it. I bought it by mail order after reading about it in the Del Rey Internet newsletter. Oh well, live and learn. %A Robert Frezza %T McLendon's Syndrome %I Del Rey %C New York %D May 1993 %O paperback, US$4.50 %P 303 pp. %G ISBN 0-345-37516-5