From archive (archive) Xref: sssab.se rec.arts.sf-lovers:13691 rec.arts.books:4456 Path: sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Subject: STEAM BIRD by Hilbert Schenck Message-ID: <1990Jul20.204355.28835@cbnewsj.att.com> Date: 20 Jul 90 20:43:55 GMT Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 53 STEAM BIRD by Hilbert Schenck Tor, 1988, ISBN 0-812-55400-0, $3.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1990 Evelyn C. Leeper First of all, "Steam Bird" is only 148 pages of this book, with "Hurricane Claude" filling in the rest of the 213-page total. Still, that is novel length, so I suppose I can't complain too much about deceptive packaging. And after all, "Hurricane Claude" is the same whiz-bang-old- technology-brought-up-to-date sort of story, though steam-powered airplanes do not appear. That out of the way, what about the stories? Well, I haven't decided. (Okay, you're asking, why is she reviewing a book that she hasn't made up her mind on? Well, maybe my comments will help you decide whether you think *you'd* like it.) "Steam Bird" is about a nuclear-powered steam attack bomber. Were I a fan of steam locomotives, I'm sure I would have enjoyed this more. As it is, however, the concept of a steam attack bomber wasn't enough to carry the story for me. In addition, the characters all seemed as if they had been lifted from DR. STRANGELOVE, complete with National Security Advisor Andrezoti Bzggnartsky (whose dialect Schenck renders impossible to read without reading it aloud) and a general who says things like, "The wing is ready, sir. We will not fail the country, Mr. President. Nor the world of steam!" "Hurricane Claude" also has "old-fashioned" science, this time an ionized column of air used to break up hurricanes, and the usual plucky people who have a dream of doing this against all that the bureaucrats can throw at them. One of the strangest things--to me, anyway--about these stories is Schenck's unusual--one might almost say bizarre--way of introducing homosexuality and/or gay characters. In "Steam Bird" there are no gay characters (that I noticed) but there is an emphatically homophobic President; in "Hurricane Claude" there is two gay characters, a plane named "Gay Enola," and a raving homophobe who, it turns out, is really repressing his own homosexual urges and comes around to right-thinking by the end of the story. While this is all very fascinating as something not often seen in science fiction, I'm not sure that it really works in the context of telling a story with real characters. Then again, maybe Schenck isn't trying to do that. Schenck's characters are so extreme that I can't help but feel he is aiming for something other than realism. I might almost call it a "cult book," much as DR. STRANGELOVE, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and REPO MAN are "cult films." While I'm not sure I enjoy this sort of humor in a literary form as much as in a film, you might want to give it a try. I suppose on the whole this constitutes a recommendation. (And if you're a steam locomotive fan, I suspect you'd appreciate "Steam Bird" considerably more than I did--at least the technical parts.) Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf-reviews Wed Oct 2 13:28:08 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!ugle.unit.no!nuug!ifi.uio.no!kth.se!eru!bloom-beacon!gatech!asuvax!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!pacbell.com!pacbell!pbhyc!djdaneh From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: REVIEW: CHRONOSEQUENCE by Hilbert Schenck Message-ID: <6821@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Date: 30 Sep 91 22:13:34 GMT Sender: djdaneh@PacBell.COM Lines: 42 Approved: djdaneh@pacbell.com [Moderator's Note: Bibliographic data are at the end of this review --djdo] CHRONOSEQUENCE by Hilbert Schenck A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper Hilbert Schenck writes about New England and the ocean. Most of his novels deal with these two connected topics. There is usually an off-shore island, some mysterious happenings, and an explanation for all of it that goes back to some strange force present for the last two hundred years or so. The only problem is that all these stories seem to be alike after a while. In CHRONOSEQUENCE, we have the main character (a woman scientist-- Schenck also uses female protagonists a lot) buying an old New England diary at an auction in London. The diary recounts strange events that happened during a storm off Massachusetts in the 19th Century. (Oh, yes, Schenck also likes storms.) Then someone tries to steal the book, other people try to finagle it from her, and a lot of other secret-agent-type stuff goes on. This part seemed to me largely unnecessary--there was a perfectly good story without it. But that story would have been about two hundred pages instead of three hundred, and rumor has it that publishers want longer books. (Most of Schenck's earlier novels are in the two-hundred-page neighborhood.) Schenck does a reasonably good job of incorporating this material, but I think the novel would have been better, and more affecting, without it. Schenck is not an author for everyone, but his approaches to love and humanity make his books stand out from the plethora of hardware/military science fiction. And if New england and the ocean are Schenck's medium, then love and humanity are his message. Give CHRONOSEQUENCE a try. (Also recommended are such earlier works as AT THE EYE OF THE OCEAN.) %T CHRONOSEQUENCE %A Hilbert Schenck %C New York %D December 1990 %I Tor %O paperback, US$3.95 [copyright 1988] %G ISBN 0-812-50320-1 %P 314pp