From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Sep 3 15:49:11 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!sun-barr!ames!ig!dont-reply-to-paths From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: "Starfarers" series by Vonda N. McIntyre Message-ID: <9208311940.AA14904@presto.ig.com> Date: 2 Sep 92 23:47:10 GMT Sender: mcb@presto.ig.com Lines: 94 Approved: mcb@presto.ig.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) STARFARERS by Vonda N. McIntyre TRANSITION by Vonda N. McIntyre METAPHASE by Vonda N. McIntyre Book reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper Ursula K. LeGuin describes this as "the most important series in science fiction." It's not that good, but the series does have a lot to offer. It's a mix of old-time space opera/alien contact with modern-day politics and futuristic sensibilities thrown in. (It is similar to some of Michael Kube-McDowell's works in this regard.) This is a mixed blessing. While I think it's a good thing to have alternate family structures in a novel set in the future (the Republican Convention notwithstanding!), I found the picture here overly optimistic in their acceptance. And would ALL the main characters be bisexual? In spite of my reservations about the total believability of this, I found the characters to be complex and fleshed out enough to be involving rather than just vehicles for the alien contact plot. And the ship and its adventures bring back some of that sense of wonder from the old space operas. In STARFARERS we meet the crew of the Starfarer, Earth's first interstellar craft (and biosphere). Earth politicians are trying to convert the craft to military use, so the crew decides to leave by jumping into another star system by following cosmic thread before this can happen. In the process, they take along a few unwilling "crew members" who happened to be there when the ship had to leave. Oh, and Earth has fired an atomic warhead at them and their artificial intelligence net has been sabotaged.... It's not spoiler to say that they solve these problems--if they hadn't there wouldn't be TRANSITION and METAPHASE. In TRANSITION the Starfarer meets aliens (sort of) and *again* has its net sabotaged, and ends by having to jump to yet another star system or be stranded.... In METAPHASE there are yet more adventures, the alien squidmoth, and a jump to ANOTHER star system at the end.... If by now you see a certain cyclic nature to the series, you're right. To call this a series is, to my mind, inaccurate. It's a single story of as yet indeterminate length, with each book picking up where the previous one has left off. So unlike some other series (such as Bujold's "Barrayar" or McCaffrey's "Dragon" series), you cannot read individual books or read the books out of order. (Well, you can, but it would be like reading the chapters in a novel in random order, and the story would not be the better for it.) Strangely enough, it also reads like something that would show up on television, though television tends to stay away from series in which the order matters--it's harder to syndicate them after their first run. Still, the limited set of main characters, the episodic nature of their adventures (combined with the on-going theme of exploration), and so on make me wonder if this isn't at least influenced by the structure of television series. (McIntyre is no stranger to television-related material, having written several "Star Trek" novels.) So my recommendation on this has to be somewhat tempered by the fact that this is an open-ended series. If you like your stories to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, this is probably not for you. The "Starfarers" has a beginning, a lot of middle, and no end in sight. If you can accept that structure, I would recommend the series. %A Vonda N. McIntyre %T Starfarers %I Ace %C New York %D April 1989 %O paperback, US$3.95 %G ISBN 0-441-78053-9 %P 280pp %S Starfarers %V 1 %A Vonda N. McIntyre %T Transition %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D January 1991 %O paperback, US$4.95 %G ISBN 0-553-28850-4 %P 290pp %S Starfarers %V 2 %A Vonda N. McIntyre %T Metaphase %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D September 1992 %O paperback, US$4.99 %G ISBN 0-553-29223-4 %P 353pp %S Starfarers %V 3 Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Dec 6 10:42:09 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: ingram@u.washington.edu (Doug Ingram) Subject: Review of _The_Crystal_Star_ by Vonda McIntyre Message-ID: <49oudm$u9@nntp4.u.washington.edu> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 17:54:23 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 121 The Crystal Star by Vonda McIntyre Review copyright (c) 1995 by Doug Ingram _The_Crystal_Star (_TCS_) is a chapter in Bantam Spectra's continuing history of the Star Wars Universe after the movie trilogy. _TCS_ takes place 10 years after the end of _Return_of_the_Jedi, and after all the other books in the entire Bantam Spectra series that have been published to date (December 1995) except for Roger MacBride Allen's "Correlian Trilogy". In this review, I will take the luxury of assuming the reader is familiar with the major characters in the Star Wars universe. Spoilers will be kept to a minimum. _TCS_ opens with Han and Luke on a brief "vacation" of sorts that also doubles as part of Luke's continuing mission to find new potential Jedi to continue the tradition. The two are visiting a strange trading station situation on a small planetoid very near to a black hole that is quite close to engulfing a nearby white dwarf star that is spiraling in. Meanwhile, Princess Leia opens _TCS_ by discovering that her three children (the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and Anakin, the youngest) have been kidnapped. Leia and Chewie eventually find the trail of the kidnappers and take off after them, eventually stumbling upon a few surprises left over from the remnants of the old Empire and finding some additional help along the way. The children, as it turns out, have been kidnapped and interned in a "boot camp" of sorts for young children with Jedi potential, run by an evil faction left over from the Empire. They try a variety of ways to escape, but before they can hope to have any success, the head of the camp, an evil man with some Jedi powers named Hethrir, spirits Anakin away for some kind of "purification ritual." On their "vacation", Han and Luke (and Threepio) meet one of Han's old flames (Xaverri) and a strange creature named Waru who seems to hold both great power to heal and some hidden purpose that seems all too sinister to Han. To make matters worse, Luke feels his Jedi abilities and his connection to the Force slowly fading away, and he grows more and more desperate to find the source of the problem, even to the point of seeking out the "healer" Waru for some sort of help. The two main plots threads eventually coincide with Waru, Hethrir and the rest of the main characters playing a major role in Hethrir's attempt to "purify" Anakin (and trying to stop it). The obvious measuring stick for _TCS_ is the overall quality of the rest of the books in the Star Wars series. Like it or not, McIntyre is writing in the Star Wars universe and so she must "play by its rules" in some sense to have success and to satisfy her audience. I don't think she completely succeeded. The one quality of _TCS_ that really stands out in comparison to the rest of the books in the Star Wars series is a lack of an "epic" feel. McIntyre never really succeeds in making any characters threatening (with the clear exception of Waru), and there really only seems to be real danger for Luke in this book and not the other characters, despite the kidnapping plot (a creative disappointment due to its inevitability in any novel involving a powerful family with small children) and various other threats. The problem with Luke's danger is that it only develops thanks to Luke's behaving very much out of character (more on this later). I think McIntyre made a deliberate effort here to make this installment in Star Wars have a somewhat lighter tone, often referring to Han and Luke's travails in a rather casual light (which is fine in some places and not in others) and referring to Leia's rescue attempts and the twins' escape attempts in a very whimsical tone, enticing the reader to take the threats somewhat lightly. For some novels this might work, but it just doesn't feel right in the Star Wars universe. George Lucas made Star Wars great by making it an epic, not a romp (many fans, myself included, felt that the emphasis of _Return_of_the_Jedi_ on the Ewoks was a bit of a disappointment...a very MINOR disappointment, of course). With one exception, however, McIntyre's characterization is right on target and a joy to read. Han, Threepio and Leia are all very strongly written, and one can easily recall mental images from the movie series virtually any time one of these three characters is in a scene. Luke, on the other hand, seems to have regressed in this book, and McIntyre tosses out all of the character development we've seen of Luke in both the movie series and the novels that preceded _TCS_. Upon the fading of his Jedi powers, Luke's self-confidence vanishes and he resorts to nearly attacking Han and making himself a burden to everyone rather than an asset. I think the same threat to Luke's well-being could've been accomplished without this and could have generated a little more surprise and excitement. Of the villains, Waru is clearly the best drawn. Xaverri, as Waru's assistant and Han's old flame (it's not really clear what "side" she's on in the novel), is an interesting new character that I hope to see again in future novels. Hethrir and the minor villains at the Jedi "boot camp" just don't come off as being all that sinister, despite their foul deeds. In the final confrontation, in fact, one might expect the main villain, Hethrir, to have a stature similar to that of Vader or even the Emperor. Unfortunately, he compares more favorably to a televangelist. Of the three main plot threads, Han and Luke's is the best, mainly because of the presence of four of the best-written characters in the book (Waru, Xaverri, Han and Threepio) and the fact that Waru is really the only ominous potential threat in the book. Leia's search is a bit contrived, to say the least, but it doesn't detract at all from the book. The twins' experience in boot camp is clearly the weakest of the three. Anyone who has had the pleasure of reading Orson Scott Card's _Ender's_Game_ (another "children's boot camp" sort of novel, but it's GREAT) will cringe at some of the passages. The fairest way to judge _TCS_ is to ask: Without the backing of the Star Wars universe, does _TCS_ stand out on its own as a particularly strong story or particularly good novel? The answer is a qualified "no". There are parts of this book to enjoy, and the truly devoted Star Wars fan will probably never be disappointed by any new material in this genre. If you're following the Star Wars series (there is a timeline in the back of _TCS_), I don't think it would do you much harm to skip this installment. The other books tend to refer back to earlier stories enough to make this possible. I only hope that future books keep a somewhat higher standard, closer to that set by the first five post-_Jedi_ books by Tyers, Wolverton and Zahn. Doug Ingram -- ingram@u.washington.edu // "Carpe Datum." More SF reviews: http://www.astro.washington.edu/ingram/books.html %A McIntyre, Vonda %T The Crystal Star %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1994 %G ISBN 0-553-57174-5 %S Star Wars From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun Jun 20 12:21:32 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!arclight.uoregon.edu!gatech!18.181.0.27.MISMATCH!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 11 Jun 1999 14:19:28 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 68 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu 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:2370 The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre Review Copyright 1999 Aaron Renn Conclusion: Highly Recommended for Genre Fans Only The book won the 1997 Nebula Award for best novel. After reading it, I can only scratch my head as to how it even got nominated. This is clearly NOT science fiction. It's not even fantasy. It's not - as several blurbs suggest - an alternate history (unless you consider Pride and Prejudice an alternate history too). Instead, it's a historical romance novel with a few fanciful elements thrown in. As such, it deserves to be shelved in the romance section along with such works as Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. If that's a genre you like, then you will love this book. If not, you should probably give The Moon and the Sun a pass. The story takes place in the court of Louis XIV of France in the late 17th century. The protagonist - Marie-Joseph - is a young woman who left a convent prior to taking the vows in order to become a lady in waiting to the daughter of a powerful duke. Her brother Yves is a Jesuit priest and scientist commissioned by the king to capture a sea monster, one of the creatures who are rumored to possess the power of immortality. The story opens with Yves returning to Paris with his sea monster in tow. This is just about the sum total of all the fantasy in the book. Unfortunately, the story rapidly grinds to a halt as McIntyre spends about 150 pages developing her characters and trying to convince us how boring and banal life among the courtiers at Versailles is. Unfortunately, she manages to bore the reader in the process. If you make it through this, you'll be rewarded with a somewhat predictable but extremely enchanting and entertaining love story. The first 200 page of the book I was hard pressed to keep reading. The last 250 I could not put it down. Any conventionalties in the plot are overcome by McIntyre's extremely well conceived and implemented characters. She clearly put a lot of thought and work into even the most minor characters in the story. She uses actual historical characters to great effect. The period details and description of King Louis' court were nothing short of spectacular. This book left me wanting to hike down to the local library to do some reading up on the era and the historical people in the story. For those SF and McIntyre fans who are new to this sort of work but enjoyed it, I do suggest checking out Diana Gabalon's Outlander series, which I personally liked better than The Moon and the Sun. It is another historical romance with some fantasy elements. However it is largely set in Scotland (though interestingly also spends time in the French royal court) and is a lot steamier. %A McIntyre, Vonda N. %T The Moon and the Sun %I Pocket Books %D 1997 (original publication date) %G ISBN 0-671-56766-7 %P 464 pp. %O mass market paperback, US$6.99 C$8.99 For those interested, here is the info on Gabaldon's Outlander. %A Gabalon, Diana %T Outlander %I Dell %D 1991 %G 0-440-212561-X %P 850 pp. %0 mass market paperback, US$7.50 -- Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/