From rec.arts.sf-reviews Wed Jul 24 09:52:43 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!samsung!know!mtgzy.att.com!ecl From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD edited by Martin H. Greenberg Message-ID: <31337@know.pws.bull.com> Date: 23 Jul 91 14:10:51 GMT Sender: wex@pws.bulL.com Reply-To: ecl@mtgzy.att.com Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Lines: 48 Approved: wex@pws.bull.com Original-From: mtgzy!ecl (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD edited by Martin H. Greenberg A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright (c) 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper With all the fuss about Robin Hood generated now by the release of ROBIN HOOD, PRINCE OF THIEVES, it's not surprising that an anthology of Robin Hood stories would be released. And just as the movie failed to live up to its expectations, so does the book. Part of the problem may be the cover blurb, which bills this as "Thirteen Fantastic Writers Offer Glimpses into Alternate Worlds." I guess alternate histories must be popular if that's what the blurb writers think will sell the book, but these are *not* (with one exception) alternate history stories and shouldn't be billed as such. (Not to mention the misleading cover of Robin Hood dressed in Sherwood green against the New York City skyline -- only two stories even come close to matching that cover -- and they don't.) Mostly the stories are old ideas: Robin Hood's Jewish mother complaining to her mah-jongg group about her son (frankly, I thought the complaining Jewish mother stereotype had been laid to rest a while ago, but no, it's trotted out here in a totally inappropriate context), Robin Hood comes back to teach a boy how to fight off the bullies, what appears to be a Robin Hood role-playing game as a security system on a computer (I swear I'm NOT making this up), and so on. And while the first "Muffy Birnbaum" story may have been cute, if I never see another one again it will be too soon (a shopping duel?!). There are some acceptable stories. "One-Eyed King" by Nancy A. Collins features the sex and gore that have come to be associated with her name (let's hope the parents of the teenagers who buy this don't read this one!) and is well-done, but too graphic for my taste. (I also found the ending unbelievable, but I could be wrong.) Laura Resnick's "Avant Vanguard" was a lot of fun, even if something similar was done a hundred years ago by S. C. (M. T.). (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here; if you read the story this will make sense.) On the other hand, two good stories do not an anthology make, and like the movie that inspired this, THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD is a big disappointment. %B THE FANTASTIC ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD %E Martin H. Greenberg %C New York %D June 1991 %I Signet %O paperback, US$3.99 [1991] %G ISBN 0-451-17053-9 %P 285pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Feb 28 10:28:48 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews,alt.fan.holmes Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!trane.uninett.no!eunet.no!nuug!Norway.EU.net!dkuug!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper) Subject: SHERLOCK HOLMES IN ORBIT edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg Message-ID: <9502131218.ZM11583@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@netcom21.netcom.com Organization: The Internet Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 02:08:59 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 214 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:726 rec.arts.books.reviews:343 alt.fan.holmes:3786 SHERLOCK HOLMES IN ORBIT by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg DAW, ISBN 0-88677-636-8, 1995, 374pp, US$5.50 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper In his introduction, Resnick says that Holmes is the world's most long-lived fictional character, and compares him to who Resnick says is the only other contender, Tarzan. (I don't know--I would say that Dracula--the fictional character, not the historical one--is certainly giving them some competition.) In any case, Resnick says that there has been only one non-Burroughs Tarzan story: Fritz Leiber's TARZAN AND THE VALLEY OF GOLD. Well, no. Barton Werper wrote five Tarzan novels before the Burroughs estate cracked down on him, and Philip Jose Farmer's LORD OF THE TREES and other works are certainly Tarzan stories; in fact, Farmer's ADVENTURE OF THE PEERLESS PEER has both Tarzan and Holmes, and Resnick even mentions it later! And I have a copy of TARZANI SEIKLUSED TALLINNAS (TARZAN'S ADVENTURES IN TALLINN) "by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Toomas Raudam." It's in Estonian, so I can't be sure, but I suspect that Burroughs had very little input, especially as it was written several years after his death. But this of course has little to do with Sherlock Holmes, except perhaps to illustrate his axiom, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." Resnick may have overstated some of the details, but the gist of his claim is correct: Sherlock Holmes *is* the most recognized fictional character in the world. In my various travels, I have rarely failed to find Holmes in whatever the language of the country is. It's true that there didn't seem to be a Latvian translation when I was there, but I did find him in Lithuanian, Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish. And I even found him in China in 1982 in comic-book form! So the appearance of a new Sherlock Holmes anthology, while certainly welcome, can hardly be termed a surprise. Even the combination of Sherlock Holmes and science fiction is not new, dating back to Robert C. Peterson's SCIENCE FICTIONAL SHERLOCK HOLMES and continuing through Isaac Asimov, Charles Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg's SHERLOCK HOLMES THROUGH TIME AND SPACE, as well as many individual pieces. So here we have twenty-six new Holmes stories, arranged chronologically into four sections: Holmes in the Past, Holmes in the Present, Holmes in the Future, and Holmes After Death. Reading these, I am struck by how Conan Doyle managed to write fascinating stories without dragging in any famous authors, artists, or events, while his imitators seem to insist upon it. So Holmes has dealings with Fu Manchu, H. G. Wells (twice), Lewis Carroll (twice), Charles Babbage, and even Conan Doyle himself (three times--at least two of these must be in an alternate universe where Holmes's exploits were not published by Doyle). When I first started reading this sort of story, I found it amusing, but after a while the novelty pales, and one gets tired of being able to guess the big surprise from a key phrase or two--when a character says he's sailing for New York in April of 1912, you *know* he's going to be on the Titanic. (Note: that story is not one of the ones in this book, though there is a Titanic story here.) A few of the stories are not science fiction or fantasy; they have a science fiction or fantasy element, but it is proved false by the end (much as Doyle's own "Sussex Vampire" story). By the way, if you want to read an "original" science fictional Holmes story, Doyle's "Adventure of the Creeping Man" qualifies. As for the stories themselves, they are a varied bunch. (If my comments on some seem brief or cryptic, it may be because many of the stories rely on some surprise twist that I am trying to avoid revealing.) "The Musgrave Version" by George Alec Effinger is not so much a story as a vignette, suggesting much more than it delivers. "The Case of the Detective's Smile" by Mark Bourne is a bit too predictable. On the other hand, although also somewhat predictable, "The Adventure of the Russian Grave" by William Barton and Michael Capobianco does have a nice twist to it. (It also assumes more of a knowledge of Russian calendar reform than many readers will have, I fear.) Vonda N. McIntyre's "Adventure of the Field Theorems," Brian M. Thomsen's "Mouse and the Master," and Janni Lee Simner's "Illusions" all use Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his interest in spiritualism; although they use different approaches, it may still be overkill. "The Adventure of the Missing Coffin" by Laura Resnick, combined with her stories in earlier anthologies, makes me think she has a thing about writing about Italians and Italy the way her father has about Africa. "The Adventure of the Second Scarf" by Mark Aronson is the "hardest SF" story in the first section of the book (most of the science fictional elements in the other stories are matter duplicators, time machines, and the like). "The Adventure of the Barbary Coast" by Frank M. Robinson uses Irene Adler's sister. I once noted if I never saw another story about Irene Adler, it would be too soon, and though Carole Nelson Douglas's books have made me reconsider that statement, Irene's connection to this story seems totally unnecessary to me, and she needn't have been involved at all. Dean Wesley Smith's "Two Roads, No Choices" is one of the better stories in the book, though the fact that it is an alternate history may be influencing me here. "The Richmond Enigma" by John DeChancie is another alternate history of sorts, with yet another famous character for Holmes to interact with. "A Study in Sussex" by Leah A. Zeldes refers not to "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," but to Holmes's retirement. While some stories suffer from a deus ex machina, "The Holmes Team Advantage" by Gary Alan Ruse has what might be termed a "nihil ex machina" ending. Susan Casper's "Holmes Ex Machina," on the other hand, doesn't attempt to be more than it is, and works within the boundaries Casper sets, quite nicely. (Though I think Resnick errs in placing this in the present: it seems to be the future, albeit perhaps the near future.) Lawrence Schimel's "Alimentary, My Dear Watson" ends in the title pun, takes its main idea from a well- known science fiction film, and is arguably unfair to its most historical character, whose faults are generally believed to be of a much more non-participatory nature. And "The Future Engine" by Byron Tetrick could have been a great steampunk story, but shied away from following up on its premise. Moving on to "Sherlock Holmes in the Present," "The Sherlock Solution" by Craig Shaw Gardner seems to serve mostly as an example of why science fictional Sherlock Holmes stories set in the present are hard to write--it's just not very convincing as science fiction. Similarly, "The Man Who Molded Himself" by David Gerrold is only technically set in the present, in that it is a manuscript being read by somebody in the present, but the main action takes place in the past. Not surprisingly, Kristine Kathryn Rusch turns in the best story in this section in the form of "Second Fiddle," though again I would dispute calling this the present--last time I checked we did not have time travel, though I admit that the pressures of work may have made me overlook the news. Jack Nimersheim's "Moriarty by Modem" is yet another hacker/computer virus story, with Holmes and Moriarty only secondary considerations. (What makes Casper's story present-day and this future, one wonders?) "The Greatest Detective of All Time" by Ralph Roberts was a bit convoluted to follow and I'm not sure didn't have major problems, but it *was* science fiction. "The Case of the Purloined L'Isitek" by Josepha Sherman seems like the sort of thing Isaac Asimov would have written, complete with the awful pun at the end. (I don't think I'm spoiling the surprise; when we are told in the first paragraph that the aliens have a love of puns, what else could we expect?) "The Adventure of the Illegal Alien" by Anthony R. Lewis is yet another Holmes in a computer. I have yet to figure out what Barry N. Malzberg is doing in these anthologies. His stories usually blow all the others away in terms of style, literary value, and philosophical content, and "Dogs, Masques, Love, Death: Flowers" is no exception. Robert J. Sawyer's "You See But You Do Not Observe" is an original view of the idea of Schroedinger's Cat as applied to Sherlock Holmes: it may not be great literature, but it is an intriguing philosophical idea. And finally, Mike Resnick ends the anthology with his own "The Adventure of the Pearly Gate," one of the better stories, adding a touch of George Bernard Shaw to the detecting involved. I had saved up this book as a treat for a day when I had a three- hour bus trip, and even in spite of my various quibbles I found it enjoyable and varied. Sherlock Holmes fans who are not science fiction fans may find a few of the stories too science-fictional for their tastes, but on the whole this shouldn't be a problem. Science fiction fans who don't like Sherlock Holmes (if any such peculiar creatures exist) would probably be less enthralled, but for Holmes fans this is recommended. (Proof-readers are starting to add more typos than they delete: For example, I am sure that Resnick wrote that Robert L. Fish wrote parodies featuring "Schlock Homes," and then some proof-reader decided to "fix" this to say that Fish's parodies featured "Sherlock Holmes," and likewise that Frank M. Robinson typed "Semiramide," not "Semirande." For this and other typos blame a very tight schedule, which resulted in the editors not actually receiving the galleys until after the deadline for changes. I'm all for faster publication, but I'd rather wait an extra couple of weeks for a book that's more accurate. Publishers, take note.) %E Resnick, Mike %E Greenberg, Martin H. %B Sherlock Holmes in Orbit %T "The Musgrave Version" by George Alec Effinger %T "The Case of the Detective's Smile" by Mark Bourne %T "The Adventure of the Russian Grave" by W. Barton and M. Capobianco %T "The Adventure of the Field Theorems" by Vonda N. McIntyre %T "The Adventure of the Missing Coffin" by Laura Resnick %T "The Adventure of the Second Scarf" by Mark Aronson %T "The Adventure of the Barbary Coast" by Frank M. Robinson %T "Mouse and the Master" by Brian M. Thomsen %T "Two Roads, No Choices" by Dean Wesley Smith %T "The Richmond Enigma" by John DeChancie %T "A Study in Sussex" by Leah A. Zeldes %T "The Holmes Team Advantage" by Gary Alan Ruse %T "Alimentary, My Dear Watson" by Lawrence Schimel %T "The Future Engine" by Byron Tetrick %T "Holmes Ex Machina" by Susan Casper %T "The Sherlock Solution" by Craig Shaw Gardner %T "The Man Who Molded Himself" by David Gerrold %T "Second Fiddle" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch %T "Moriarty by Modem" by Jack Nimersheim %T "The Greatest Detective of All Time" by Ralph Roberts %T "The Case of the Purloined L'Isitek" by Josepha Sherman %T "The Adventure of the Illegal Alien" by Anthony R. Lewis %T "Dogs, Masques, Love, Death: Flowers" by Barry N.$Malzberg %T "You See But You Do Not Observe" by Robert J. Sawyer %T "Illusions" by Janni Lee Simner %T "The Adventure of the Pearly Gate" by Mike Resnick %I DAW %C New York %D February 1995 %G ISBN 0-88677-636-8 %P 374pp %O paperback, US$5.50 %S Sherlock Holmes -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "No one is ever fanatically devoted to something they have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They *know* it is. Whenever someone is fanatically devoted to a set of beliefs or dogmas or goals, it is only because those beliefs or goals are in doubt." --Robert M. Pirsig From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 8 14:34:12 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!news.kth.se!nac.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!gatech!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: VAMPIRE DETECTIVES edited by Martin H. Greenberg Message-ID: <9505041033.ZM1006@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 23:42:46 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 56 VAMPIRE DETECTIVES by Martin H. Greenberg DAW, ISBN 0-88677-626-0, 1995, 316pp, US$4.99 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper How, one might ask, can you have nineteen stories about vampire detectives without having them get a bit repetitious? The answer is that you can't and so what you have here are nineteen stories, SOME of which are about vampire detectives and some of which are about regular detectives hunting vampires. (Well, I suppose the English language allows the latter to be called "vampire detectives," much as Ace Ventura was a "pet detective." Still, this is a little like having an anthology called NURSE STORIES which is half stories about nurses and half stories about bull-fighting written by nurses.) For that matter, a couple are not about detectives or detection at all. Reading these, I have to say that perhaps the specialized anthology has gotten too specialized. Or perhaps Greenberg really does need a co-editor to oversee the artistic end of things. (Okay, so some may quibble about the juxtaposition of the word "artistic" and the concept "vampire detectives.") But I found these stories basically boring, and this time I cannot attribute that to having read too many at one sitting, since I spread this out over a couple of weeks. Not surprisingly, the best of the batch is Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg's "Girl's Night Out." I hope someone publishes a collection of Malzberg's recent short fiction, much of which has been scattered around in anthologies of wildly varying quality. A few, notably William Sanders's "The Count's Mailbox" and Gary Alan Ruse's "Night Tidings," are extremely derivative. (I can't believe that Ruse used such an obvious gimmick from Conan Doyle.) But even the rest are pretty much your basic modern vampire story, with maybe one twist here or one unusual updating there, but on the whole uninteresting. Maybe dyed-in-the-wool (died-in-the-blood?) vampire fans might like them, but the average reader can safely give this collection a miss. %B Vampire Detectives %E Martin H. Greenberg %C New York %D April 1995 %I DAW %O paperback, US$4.99 %G ISBN 0-88677-626-0 %P 316pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "I don't care what may be his politics. I don't care what may be his religion. I don't care what may be his color. I don't care who he is. So long as he is honest, he shall be served by me." --Theodore Roosevelt -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group finger(1) for PGP key Voice: 617-253-9833 Pager: 617-945-1842 wex@media.mit.edu http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/ "Are we fugitives from the law?" "Yes." "Idiocy is our only option." From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:27:49 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Aug 4 22:27:30 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.kth.se!admin.kth.se!celsiustech.se!seunet!news2.swip.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!newsfeed.internetmci.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news!nobody From: beckers@bga.com (Roberta and Craig Becker) Subject: _New Legends_, edited by Greg Bear with Martin H. Greenberg Message-ID: <3vs3h0$5to@giga.bga.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Real/Time Communications - Bob Gustwick and Associates Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 16:13:25 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 111 _New Legends_, edited by Greg Bear with Martin H. Greenberg Tor, ISBN 0-312-85930-9, 1995, 379pp A book review by Craig Becker Copyright 1995 Craig Becker It's a bit difficult to tell just what _New Legends_ is all about. In the introduction, Greg Bear says that he wanted to put together a collection of SF stories with "great soul" and "...whatever we do, we won't call it _hard science fiction_." Yet the back cover of the book says "Original hard science fiction stories by..." And then there's the title itself: _New Legends_ implies new stories by new, up-and-coming writers in the field. So what are Ursula K. LeGuin, Robert Sheckley, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, and George Effinger doing here? Not much, I'm sad to say. Surprisingly, the stories by the Big Name authors are some of the weakest in the book. They're not quite pages ripped from the New York telephone directory, but if they had been penned by Joe Newwriter, I doubt they would have made the cut. For me, _New Legends_ worked best if I ignored the established writers and concentrated on the new talent. There's some exciting stuff here: Paul J. McAuley's "Recording Angel" is a dark, haunting tale of the far future. Dreadful title aside, I'm looking forward to reading more of his work. I'll also be reading anything I can find by Geoffrey A. Landis. His "Rorvik's War" is a gripping look at near-future battle technology, and a reminder that it takes more than weaponry to win a war. You probably think First Contact has been done to death, but you're wrong: Greg Egan comes up with an entirely new wrinkle in "Wang's Carpets". No mean feat, and it's easily the best story in the book. Carter Scholz's "Radiance" follows in the footsteps of Benford's _Timescape_ with an adroitly written story of science (and humanity) within a bureaucracy. "When Strangers Meet", by Sonia Orin Lyris, is a nasty-but-nice little story told from an alien viewpoint. There is also, unfortunately, some not-so-exciting stuff in _New Legends_: Gregory Benford's "High Abyss" gets an A for science and an F for punchline. His non-fiction article "Old Legends" is much better, a fascinating look at how SF has influenced some of the Great Scientists of our time. Contrawise, Sterling Blake's "A Desperate Calculus" gets an A for punchline (I was reminded of National Lampoon's "The War Between the Blacks and the Jews") and an F for technology, with people sending and receiving email via portable satellite rigs, yet they haven't a clue about modern encryption. My Suspension of Disbelief was Unwilling. Sheckley's "The Day The Aliens Came" is light and amusing, but seems out of place here amidst all of the science and technology. Poul Anderson's "Scarecrow" is a minor effort from the Old School of SF. Interestingly enough, it's paired with Egan's "Wang's Carpets", and the difference is like that between vacuum tubes and VLSI circuitry. On the whole, I found _New Legends_ to be of uneven quality. It contains sixteen titles, a few of which are excellent stories that do indeed possess "great soul", but most fall short and have only mediocre, rather worn soul. Given the cost of hardback books these days, I'd recommend borrowing _New Legends_ from the library before deciding whether or not to buy it for your collection. %B New Legends %E Greg Bear %E Martin H. Greenberg %T Elegy %A Mary Rosenblum %T A Desperate Calculus %A Sterling Blake %T Scenes From A Future Marriage %A James Stevens-Arce %T Coming Of Age In Karhide %A Ursula K. LeGuin %T High Abyss %A Gregory Benford %T Recording Angel %A Paul J. McAuley %T When Strangers Meet %A Sonia Orin Lyris %T The Day The Aliens Came %A Robert Sheckley %T Gnota %A Greg Abraham %T Rorvik's War %A Geoffrey A. Landis %T Radiance %A Carter Scholz %T Old Legends %A Gregory Benford %T The Red Blaze Is The Morning %A Robert Silverberg %T One %A George Alec Effinger %T Scarecrow %A Poul Anderson %T Wang's Carpets %A Greg Egan %C New York %D 1995 %I Tor %G ISBN 0-312-85930-9 %P 379pp From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:29:02 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Sep 19 17:26:23 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,soc.history.what-if Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!tott.powertech.no!nntp-oslo.UNINETT.no!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!gatech!swrinde!sgigate.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: jacob@plasma1.ssl.berkeley.edu (Fungi from Berkeley) Subject: Review: Hitler Victorious ed. by Benford and Greenberg Message-ID: <4255tg$o2s@agate.berkeley.edu> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: U. C. Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 23:46:32 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 94 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:835 soc.history.what-if:3299 Hitler Victorious ed. by Gregory Benford & Martin H. Greenberg Garland, New York, 1986 ISBN 0-8240-8658-9, pp. 278 Adolf Hitler is perhaps the most important person in shaping the history of the 20th century; certainly one of the most influential. It has been argued that there would have been no WWII without this man. It would have definitely had some other form, maybe better, probably not much worse. This possibility is not considered, however, in _Hitler Victorious: 11 Stories of the German Victory in World War II_. It focuses instead (as should be readily apparent from the title) on the possibility of a history in which Adolf Hitler had success, in one way or another, in his military endeavors. Norman Spinrad, author of "The Iron Dream", provides the introduction. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, being Spinrad), the introduction is one of the best reads of this book. Though short, it is informative in the historical sense and thought provoking in the alternate historical sense. Since this is *just* an introduction, however, I'll leave it out of an in depth review. Sadly, the introduction gives the book more promise than it actually delivers. As a general rule for this book, the shorter the story the better. For some reason, the longer tales tend to be rambling adventures more reminiscent of poorly thought out role-playing games than thought provoking stories focusing on what might have actually been. Most notably are C. M. Kornbluth's "Two Dooms" and Brad Linaweaver's "Moon of Ice". Benford explains away the first by stating that Kornbluth died before finishing the tale, but he also says that "it is arguably Kornbluth's best work." Not having read any other Kornbluth, I can't comment, but I won't hold this one against him. I don't see an excuse for Linaweaver's work, however. While it begins as a promising tale of excerpts from Goebbels' diaries after the war, focusing on some of the pseudo-scientific beliefs of the Aryan cosmos, it quickly descends into a goofy B movie romp. If it weren't for the hopeful start, I might not have disliked this one, so I shall attribute this to the author masticating more than what is digestable. Three other tales that suffer less from this are Hilary Bailey's "The Fall of Frenchy Steiner", Keith Roberts' "Weihnachtsabend", and Sheila-Finch's "Reichs-Peace". Of these three, I enjoyed Bailey's tale the most, which gives a textured feel to a London controlled by the Empire across the channel. Though I found the ending satisfying, the transition from the harsh reality of daily life in England to Nazi mysticism was too abrupt for me and damaged the story as a whole. Finch's tale, however, suffered from a hastened ending as well as more "magical" Nazi technological. Weihnachtsabend was an enjoying story to read, but also suffered from an overdose of ill-placed Nazi mysticism. After further thinking, all of the above tales were spoiled for me because they asked me to believe in something I didn't. They failed to convince me of their stories' realities. This is a particular problem in alternate history stories, where the reader is presumably familiar with the history being altered. In the above tales, "magic" (used loosely here, as either occultism or future technology) was presented as an important part of the story. And I just didn't buy it, for one reason or another. On the opposite side of the spectrum is "Thor Meets Captain America" by David Brin, wherein the Norse gods return to help the Nazis to victory. Here is a magic that is so overboard that it is believable, and the story worked on several levels for me because of this, though I found the title a little off-putting at first. Two tales that worked high technology into the story well were Tom Shippey's "Enemy Transmissions" and "Valhalla" by co-editor Gregory Benford. Shippey's was probably my second favorite tale, with vivid imagery *and* an interesting reality. Any description of "Valhalla" other than this is about what actually happened to Uncle Adolf would spoil the story, whose placement in the book as the final tale is a good climax. Greg Bear also has a nice short short, under the guise of "Through Road No Whither", whose prose reads as the title suggests, with typical poetic justice for the tale's antagonists. Algis Budrys and Howard Goldsmith ("Never Meet Again" and "Do You Hear the Children Weeping?", respectively) also have stories, with Budrys' being a traditional time travel yarn and Goldsmith's a typical tale of "karma never forgets." Being a history buff, I would have originally said that my enjoyment of the stories would have been based on how much they focused on altered historical details. Upon retrospect, I found that not to be the case, however. The stories I enjoyed most were those that made me believe whatever they were trying to sell. Unfortunately, this was only about 50% of the stories therein by number, and much less than that based on word count. Thus, I can only recommend this book to the true alternate history fan. (But honestly, who else would buy it?) %B Hitler Victorious: 11 Tales of German Victory in World War II %E Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg %C New York City %D 1986 %I Garland %O clothbound %G ISBN 0-8240-8658-9 %P 278pp jdjacob@euler.berkeley.edu "Nam et ipsa scienta http://www.me.berkeley.edu/~jdjacob/ potestas est." From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Sep 27 18:12:39 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!news.stealth.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!usenet From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Subject: Review: WHITE HOUSE HORRORS edited by Martin H. Greenberg Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 26 Sep 1996 14:52:55 -0400 Organization: Intelligent Agents Group Lines: 58 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Keywords: author= Evelyn C Leeper X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1095 rec.arts.books.reviews:2006 WHITE HOUSE HORRORS edited by Martin H. Greenberg A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper Four years ago, during the 1992 Presidential campaign, I saw Mike Resnick's ALTERNATE PRESIDENTS in a window display along with the books by and about the various candidates. So I fully expect to see this in a similar display. Certainly the picture of the "President" on the cover, with a grinning half-face, half-skull, fits in with the image people are starting to have of politicians. Unlike ALTERNATE PRESIDENTS --of which this seems to be, if not the child, then perhaps the niece -- many of the Presidents here are future Presidents rather than real or imaginary past ones. Perhaps it's that my tastes don't normally run to horror that makes me say that this collection is not as good overall. There are, however, some very good stories here. "Healing the Body Politic" by Brian Hodge is a strong lead-off, Gary A. Braunbeck's "And Somewhere I Shall Wake" is a memorable idea well-executed, and "The Cabinet of William Henry Harrison" by Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins also makes an impression. "The Ghost and Mr. Truman" by Bill Crider, while perhaps not as historically accurate (I don't think the Truman renovations of the White House gutted it quite that much) does have some very strong images. But many stories are sabotaged by anachronisms. For example, were doughnuts really purchased in bags 150 years ago, rather than just being wrapped with paper and string? Minor, perhaps, but I am of the opinion that a story set in 1860 should feel like 1860, unless there is some conscious stylistic reason to do otherwise. Some stories were a bit too predictable from the very beginning, and some stories which I think were supposed to be humorous just didn't tickle my funny bone. One didn't even seem to have anything to do with the White House. Do I recommend this book? Well, if you like horror stories in general you may like this more than I did. And there were four good stories that even I liked. Still, when one considers some of the Presidential candidates we've had in my lifetime, one can't help but think that the authors could have come up with more convincing horror stories than these. Not surprisingly, assassinated Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy show up either as characters or references fairly often. Even Garfield gets a story. But poor William McKinley seems to be completely ignored. People interested in pursuing the assassination theme should seek out Stephen Sondheim's musical, ASSASSINS. %B White House Horrors %E Martin H. Greenberg %C New York %D September 1996 %I DAW %O paperback, US$5.99 %G ISBN 0-88677-659-7 %P 316pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 908 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "El sueno de la razon produce monstruos." --caption to plate 43 of Goya's "Caprichios"