Subject: Janissaries III -- _Storms of Victory_

From: [email-masked] (Eric Green)
Date: 2 Dec 87 06:23:49 GMT

First, there was the book _Janissaries_, by Jerry Pournelle. Which strengthens
my contention that Pournelle or Niven alone are much better than when
together. It was altogether a quite interesting action-adventure yarn. The
premise was a bit forced, but who cares... we got to see fairly well drawn
characters, lots of action, all that wonderful medieval warfare that Pournelle
so much loves, and consideration of the connections needed to build modern
society (e.g., not being able to build an industrial base without figuring out
some way to raise more food). The latter two are a couple of Pournelle's pet
topics, and probably are the reason for the clumsy premise. ANYHOW, not artsy
or anything, but still a good read for the kind of person who gets into that
kind of thing.

BUT, then, we get a string of sequels. And guess what? The characters turned
to pure cardboard and spend all their time walking around talking to each
other as if they were in downtown Poughkeepsie, they keep fighting innumerble
battls on and on and on with no relief in sight for the poor reader, and
things simply get downright BOR-ING. If you've ever read Ursula Le Guin's
essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", you might know what I mean... sorry, the
magic gone, it just ain't there no more.
  The main problem, I think, is that Jerry Pournelle did not actually write
these sequels. He provided a plot outline and character summary to Roland
Green, who then filled it all in with his wordy prose that might work well in
a psychological novel but certainly not in an action-adventure flick. And no
matter how good of a character summary that Jerry gave Roland, Roland still
doesn't know near as much about the characters as Jerry did... for example, in
one of my stories I have a character named "Jeanne", ask me a question, like
what did she do at 4pm on January 4 of two years ago, and I can tell you.
After all, I made her, I know how she thinks, I know how she lives, I know
what she'd be doing then. No matter how good the summary, you can't really
give an outsider a clear picture of this person's hopes and wishes and dreams,
short of writing a novel (which was the whole point in the first place!).
  Anyhow, it's beginning to look like this series is going to drag on forever
(although Jerry brought in things that imply that the next one is going to be
the last), and if you was thinking of buying it, forget it. I'm glad I didn't
-- I checked it out of the library.

Note: I haven't the foggiest idea where this book would rank on Chuq's ratings
scale, but I'm positive it's in the lower half -- no "above average" here!

--
     Eric Green   [email-masked]      Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191       
     {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg       Lafayette, LA 70509