From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Sep 3 17:00:05 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-chi-13.sprintlink.net!nntp.coast.net!chi-news.cic.net!newspump.sol.net!news.inc.net!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.erols.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news!news From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Subject: Review: "Dancing Vac" by SN Lewitt Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= p-m agapow Lines: 42 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 17:18:21 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 42 "Dancing Vac" by SN Lewitt A Postview, copyright p-m agapow 1996 In this largely independent sequel to "Cyberstealth", the crack fighter pilot Cargo is on the loose. Betrayed by his alien partner he sees only one solution - go after his former sidekick, even if it means slipping through enemy lines. There's a peculiar faultline that separates military SF/F from the remainder of the genre. It would be simplistic to describe it as rightwing vs. leftwing, but militaristic fiction does tends to be authoritarian, mono-cultural, extravagant and divide people into two groups: important ones and others. So does much commodity fantasy. There are exceptions - perhaps Glen Cook and Lois McMaster Bujold. Shariann Lewitt is another. Lewitt deals more in personal narratives and little details, reflected in her multicultural worlds and loner characters. This in itself served to raise "Cyberstealth" above the pack, although some the plot twists were telegraphed. Unfortunately "Dancing Vac" suffers a little from this same flaw and in addition has to show the same world and lead character in a new and interesting light. And here it stumbles: there's just not that much more to say. The world is convincing, the writing effective, the plot moves along, but it never carves out the territory that would make the story more distinct form the others, unlike the author's other works "Blind Justice" and "Cybernetic Jungle." On the positive side, the action scenes are tightly controlled and evocative without losing sight of our protagonist's part in the battle or reducing the enemy to a mere target. A lesser effort for Lewitt. Not bad but she's done better. [**/ok] and old westerns on the Sid and Nancy scale. %A SN Lewitt %B Dancing Vac %I Ace %C New York %D 1990 %G ISBN 0-441-13668-0 %P 236pp %O paperback, Aus$12.95 paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse [archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/] From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 25 14:29:07 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!news-ge.switch.ch!news.grnet.gr!news-feed1.eu.concert.net!infeed1.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!192.88.144.6!news.kei.com!eecs-usenet-02.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: "Memento Mori" by Shariann Lewitt Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 24 Aug 1997 19:47:43 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 67 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1505 "Momento Mori" by Shariann Lewitt A Postview, copyright 1997 p-m agapow A mysterious plague breaks out on a distant colonial world. Self-imposed quarantine and the machinations of an adolescent AI leads to social breakdown, hedonism and an outburst of "terminal art." If you've seen Shariann (S.N.) Lewitt's books before, you probably have an impression of them as B-grade militaristic SF, a la Claremont or Drake. If you've gotten past the drearily stereotypical covers and blurbs (a friend described their appearance - alas accurately - as "cyberfluff") you'll know this is an underestimation. Lewitt has a keen skill for intense characterisation and plots set in non Anglo-saxon cultures. There is a sense that her characters belong in their world - the woefully titled "Cybernetic Jungle" has a memorable image of two Brazilian streethoods cheering on their favourite soccer teams while living in a an apartment with one's mother where pirated biochips are growing in several jam jars stuck in the back of the closet. Perhaps not always entirely successful, Lewitt is at least interesting. "Momento Mori" is a progression from her previous work, further away from military and even criminal scenarios. Although the immediate comparison is Camus' "The Plague," a better point to reference would be "On the Beach" with a dash of Pat Murphy's "The City Not Long After." However "Memento Mori" is much blacker. There can be no graceful fading of the colony's life, as the inhabitants turn to theft, partying or even just carrying out their rituals as usual. They do not even have the assurance that they are completely doomed - a cure for the virus may be found but it will be more due to luck than persistence or hope. Even the art at the edge of death is moribund and empty. Forced to confront meaning and death, the protagonists struggle to maintain normality, rebel and burnout. The story does sag briefly between the setup and the exploration of the characters. One character - a chess savant in the spasms of adolescence - seems after much "screen time" to just disappear from the story. However the people of the story are again well-drawn and their mental turmoil nicely sketched. Unfortunately the progression to "Memento Mori" has also flattened some of the richness in Lewitt's previous work. The culture of the colony Reis is a touch vanilla. Although very European (as opposed to English/American) and richly filled in, it is not as diverse or as interesting as some of her previous worlds. Also if all mention of AIs or virtual reality were stripped out then the technology would look very 1990. Admittedly the AI/VR threads form a significant part of the story, but still in many ways "Memento Mori" is barely an SF novel. Although the focus is on the characters and not the technology, the setting is somewhat problematic. At one point we are told the death rate is so high that the electronic newspapers find it physically impossible to list the dead. This seems quite implausible. Not one for those who like action-packed stories, this is still a worthwhile book. Perhaps not as good or as different as it could have been, it is still a worthy addition to the canon of Lewitt, whose work I will continue to follow with interest. [***/interesting] and the later films of Hal Hartley on the Sid and Nancy scale. %A Shariann Lewitt %T Memento Mori %I Tor %C New York %D 1997 %G ISBN 0-312-86294-6 %P 286pp %O paperback, Aus$16.95 paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Postviews SF/F reviews site: