From archive (archive)
From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ
Subject: THE RAINBOW CADENZA by J. Neil Schulman
Date: 13 Feb 89 18:08:51 GMT




		   THE RAINBOW CADENZA by J. Neil Schulman
		Avon, 1986 (c1983), ISBN 0-380-75123-2, $3.50
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper

     THE RAINBOW CADENZA won the Prometheus Award in 1984 for best
libertarian science fiction of the year.  That may be so, but considered
just as science fiction, it doesn't succeed as well.  The premise is that
much of humanity lives in various space habitats.  Those who remain on Earth
have eliminated war by drafting all women into government brothels.
Schulman has some speechifying by characters to explain why this works--it's
not very convincing.  Certainly the question of why the habitats which don't
have this rule aren't constantly at war is never addressed.  In case you
can't figure out what the book is trying to say, Schulman provides sixty
pages of afterword of his and other people's comments about the book and the
Libertarian philosophy.

     This would all be marginally acceptable were it not for the amount of
explicit sex Schulman puts in THE RAINBOW CADENZA.  (Brief pause here while
half my readers run out to buy the book. :-) )  Were the sex being described
the sex in the brothels at least Schulman could claim it was to portray the
inhumanity of such a draft.  But it is the sex during the hunts of the
Touchables or other occasions that is being described and so Schulman
appears to be pandering to his readership to boost his sales through
titillation rather than to remain faithful to his story.

     I will admit that if I had a better knowledge of music and musical
theory this book might have been more interesting or enjoyable, since much
of it deals with the characters' writing of "musical" pieces using lights
(as in a laser light show) rather than sounds.  However, since I DON'T have
this musical expertise, that part did nothing for me either.

     It may be that libertarian proselytizing does not make good science
fiction.  (Certainly the film about space habitats shown at a recent World
Science Fiction Convention produced by the Libertarian Party was extremely
dull and preachy.)  But then it takes a great author--on the level of Swift
or Orwell perhaps--to write a novel that entertains and preaches at the same
time.

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +01 201-957-2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com
					Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper