From archive (archive) Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT by Barbara Hambly Message-ID: <1990May10.004757.5222@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 10 May 90 00:47:57 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 18 THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT by Barbara Hambly Del Rey, 1989 (1988c), ISBN 0-345-36132-6, $4.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper This was billed as somehow related to Sherlock Holmes, so of course I had to read it. Other than being a mystery set in Victorian (or possibly Edwardian--the blurb bills it as "the period of Sherlock Holmes") London, it has little connection. It is all told from the main detective's point of view; his "assistant" (in this case his wife) is not his biographer. As a vampire novel, it makes a pleasant enough diversion, but Harry Turtledove's "Gentlemen of the Shade," with vampires stalking Jack the Ripper, who is one of their own, makes this look thin-blooded (if you'll permit the pun) by comparison. If you're looking for a book to take to the beach or to read on the plane, this is acceptable, but I can't really recommend it beyond that. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From archive (archive) From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. Subject: Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly (slight SPOILERS) Date: 5 Jan 89 11:53:04 GMT Barbara Hambly (author of that truly *stupid* book, _The Silicon Mage_) has written a pseudo-mystery book, set in London, 1907ish. It seems someone is murdering the vampires, and the vampires want to know who. So, a Spanish vampire (several hundred years old; one of the oldest in London) blackmails Professor James Asher into finding who the killer is. On the Infamous Modified Mark Leeper Scale of -5 to +5 (IMMLSoMFtPF), I'd give the book a +2.3 or so (good story, easy reading, but having some flaws). If you like Anne Rice's books, I'd say this would probably be some light reading, but you will probably want to wait until it comes out in paperback. There are quite a few similarities to Rice's vampires, the most notable (at 3:48AM) being how one becomes a vampire, and the effect of sunlight on a vampire as time passes. The ending was of a _dues ex machina_ type (that is, it seemed contrived, not really fitting in with the rest of the story), which is why it got a 2.3. However, the main vampire character in the story is almost believable as a 300+ year old hunter, which is why it got a 2.3... -- Sean Eric Fagan seanf@sco.UUCP (408) 458-1422 From rec.arts.sf.written Wed Jan 13 13:41:37 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!gatech!destroyer!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!The-Star.honeywell.com!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Barbara Hambly: Dog Wizard Message-ID: <1993Jan10.032804.29669@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 03:28:04 GMT Lines: 31 "Dog Wizard" is a sequel to Barbara Hambly's "The Silent Tower" and "The Silicon Mage" -- which didn't really need a sequel. That said, it's the best of the three. The book is a whodunnit. Windrose has been dragged back to his home universe because a dangerous magic is out of control, and he's the expert. Of course, his expertise makes people suspect him of being behind it, besides which there's already a death sentence out on him from the last book, so he's strongly motivated to find the real culprit. Oh yes, that culprit, whoever it is, is probably the person who kidnapped his girlfriend and is holding her somewhere. Most readers will guess both the identity of the culprit and the nature of the surprise ending about a quarter of the way through the book. That comes with the territory: If you're writing in a subgenre in which it's not fair to make a character with almost no exposure the villain, and it's not done to make the obvious suspect the villain, you're badly constrained. I've always considered the Windrose books to represent Hambly's worst writing. From my perspective, this was a competently written book about characters I neither liked nor cared about -- Not a bad way to spend an airplane ride, but not a good use for half of a regular afternoon. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com 'T is with our judgements as our watches, none Go alike, yet each believes his own --Alexander Pope Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!pipex!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: dani@telerama.lm.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Barbara Hambly: Bride of the Rat God Message-ID: <3a8pcv$lta@asia.lm.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA Date: Thu, 17 Nov 1994 03:28:38 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.written:81341 rec.arts.sf.reviews:676 In "Bride of the Rat God", Barbara Hambly allows herself to be a bit silly. The story, which takes place in the Hollywood of 1923, is a fairly straight handling of a premise which could have been taken from a bad Hollywood film: A movie star wears a gem which originally served, in China, to identify the sacrifices of a demon known as the Rat God, and now it's hunting her. All she has to defend her are some friends, some Pekingese dogs (posited, for the sake of the story, to have originally been bred to hunt demons), some Chinese wizards, and some fortunate plot devices. It's an enjoyable bit of fluff. Hambly doesn't make the mistake of indulging in bad parody: Once the pieces are in place she just tells her story, embellished by an interesting picture of what Hollywood may have been like in its early days. (I'll note in passing that the back cover blurb gets some of its facts wrong and misrepresents others, while still managing to get across some idea of what the book is about.) Overall, it's not a bad turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy novel. %A Hambly, Barbara %T Bride of the Rat God %I Del Rey %C New York %D December 1994 %G ISBN 0-345-38101-7 %P 336pp %O $5.99 ----- Dani Zweig dani@telerama.lm.com Roses red and violets blew and all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew -- Edmund Spenser Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!solace!nntp.uio.no!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: Alayne McGregor Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: MOTHER OF WINTER by Barbara Hambly Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 04 Feb 1997 23:41:24 GMT Organization: Software Agents Group Lines: 47 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1209 Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly reviewed by Alayne McGregor As in real life, happily ever after isn't guaranteed in fantasy novels, at least not this one. Five years after the defeat of the Dark, as chronicled in Hambly's Darwath trilogy, the mages and people of the Kingdom of Darwath are faced with an even more difficult and murky adversary. Slunch, a wrinkled white fungus, is taking over the fields and destroying the crops desperately needed for subsistence. Bizarre and ferocious monsters are hiding in the wild and attacking without notice. Devastating ice storms are scouring the land clear of houses or crops. And strange white gaboogoos, humanoid in form but utterly alien, are stalking humans. Ingold Inglorion, the archmage of the wizards of the west, is convinced that the answer lies in a high mountain called The Mother of Winter, deep inside the barbaric and war-torn Kingdom of Alketch. He and his scholar-warrior companion, Gil Patterson, journey there to confront the causes of the freeze, their only help rumours gleaned from old books and the uncertain assistance of a ruthless princess. At the same time, Rudy Solis, Ingold's pupil, must protect the Keep of Dare from invasion by the enemies outside, and discover how to feed the starving inhabitants. At the same time, he must save his lover, Lady Minalde, the last High Queen of Darwath and Lady of the Keep, from treacherous attacks. Hambly cannot write a bad book. She has a real talent for plotting, excitement, and believable characters who you care about. Despite that, I found this book too bleak. By the middle, I started feeling as though she was piling misfortune on misfortune with little humour or happiness as leavening. (Rudy's discoveries were fascinating, but not exactly cheerful.) The book reminded me (in a number of senses) of the nuclear winter visualizations we saw in the 1980s: everything gets cold and dies. While Hambly does not produce quite so depressing an outcome, this is hardly a feel-good book. %T Mother of Winter %A Barbara Hambly %C New York %D 1996 %I Del Rey (Ballantine) %O hardback, US$23, CDN$29 %G ISBN 0-345-39722-3 %P 323pp Alayne McGregor aa692@freenet.carleton.ca alayne@ve3pak.ocunix.on.ca mcgregoa@cognos.com