From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Oct 16 12:26:04 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!news.xinit.se!nntp.se.dataphone.net!newsfeed.online.no!uninett.no!news.maxwell.syr.edu!netnews.com!ai-lab!news.media.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: aus.sf,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Postview: "Splashdance Silver" by Tansy Rayner Roberts Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 15 Oct 1998 10:16:13 -0400 Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 93 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 aus.sf:1416 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2132 "Splashdance Silver" by Tansy Rayner Roberts A Postview, copyright 1998 P-M Agapow "Book One of the Mocklore Chronicles": The daughter of a notorious pirate searchs for her father's (inevitably) fabulous treasure, while putting up a token resistance to her destiny as a great pirate and witch. A bunch of other characters (or caricatures) run noisily about, engaging in sub-Pratchetarian hijinks. This book was given to me as a gift, and before I move on to consider the clashing demands of market forces and editorial expertise, as well as the role of genre fiction in literature, I'd like to just quickly pass on a message to the gift-givers. My wrath will be terrible. I will track you down and extract revenge for every minute spent reading this book. You cannot hide. But I digress. Let's first consider the small silver sticker on the cover of this book: "Winner of the George Turner Prize". It is not inconceivable that the name of Turner - probably Australia's most literate and serious SF writer, author of "The Sea and Summer," "Beloved Son" and "The Destiny Makers" - should appear on the cover of a fantasy novel. It is outrageous that Turner be used to promote a the first installment of a derivative, giggly sword-and-sorcery pap. This won a prize? What did they do, slip the judges LSD? Are the editors even now dancing on Turner's grave shouting, "Spin old man, spin!" "Splashdance Silver" attempts to occupy that territory blazed by Terry Pratchett and Tom Holt, the tongue-in-cheek fantasy. Despite a congratulatory blurb on the back cover, the mix is hardly "original." As Pratchett himself has shown, it's not as easy as it looks. "Splashdance Silver" carries itself like a drunk party guest intent on telling you bad joke they know, while sniggering loudly at their own humour. A very early warning is given by the author's bio in the front of the book: [the author] was born in Hobart in 1978 and has been writing since she could hold a pencil. She is a Classics/English student at the University of Tasmania and aspires to have a library larger than the Tower of London. She has several part-time cats, spends most weekends in the Middle Ages and has romantic designs on a physicist ... "The Mocklore Chronicles" began life in 1991 as the first installment in a twelve-book epic fantasy series, but died a long and painful death after the author took a deep dislike to half of her characters, most of her plot and all of her then cliche-ridden style. The manuscript was eventually revived early in 1996 when the author chopped it into little bits, extracted a small amount of 'good stuff' and put it into the blender along with a lot of new ideas and a healthy dose of treacle, lemon pepper and chopped chives. This is the the result: not quite a salad and hardly dessert, but a strange kettle of fish nonetheless ... What a coincidence - I also grew sick of her characters, plot and cliche- ridden style. Imagine an entire book as relentlessly smug as this for nearly 400 pages. The plot offers little diversion, the characters being dragged from joke opportunity to opportunity guided by suddenly discovered powers, previously unmentioned forces, and actions that just make no sense. A more subtle point worries me. Orson Scott Card once remarked that Turner was never evangelical about Australian settings and Australian characters - they were simply there, just as US authors set their stories in America, English authors in England and so on. On that basis, Turner was a very Australian author. "Splashdance Silver" cannot be identified as the work of an Australian at all. There is not a single reference that betrays the origins of the author, only words purloined from English culture - hedgehogs, treacle, potato "crisps," mummers. It is one things for a novel to be culture-neutral. It is another for it hide its identity. Again, was this an appropriate winner? ("Spin George, spin!") I am reluctant to slam a book so harshly when its intentions are at worst misguided. To be sure, there are some funny moments within. For instance, the palace is guarded by actors due to an emperor's decree, which leads to a flow of guards into the suddenly available acting jobs. For these points to shine out however, it requires a much shorter book with a more structured plot that doesn't play out like a loosely connected series of sketches. Heavy editing might have produced this shorter book, and provided the author with valuable guidance for future work. Of this, there is no sign. Ghastly wish-fulfillment, guffawing dross that will stain the George Turner Prize for years to come. Consider the horrible idea that we might have to get the other 11 volumes. [0/bomb] %A Tansy Rayner Roberts %T Splashdance Silver %I Tor %C Bantam %D 1998 %P 386pp %G ISBN 0-73380-184-6 %O paperback, Aus$14.95 Paul-Michael Agapow (p.agapow@ic.ac.uk), Dept. Biology, Imperial College "We were too young, we lived too fast and had too much technology ..."