From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Dec 11 15:13:50 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!cph-2.news.DK.net!dkuug!dknet!cph-1.news.DK.net!dkuug!dknet!icl.icl.dk!sw0198!seunet!news2.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: Review: FANTASTIC ALICE edited by Margaret Weis Message-ID: <9512071720.ZM11375@mtgppc04> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Evelyn C Leeper Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 22:29:55 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 60 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:875 rec.arts.books:140003 FANTASTIC ALICE edited by Margaret Weis A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper This is an anthology of seventeen stories based in some way on Lewis Carroll's ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. Well, I suppose it sounded promising. I was not encouraged by the fact that the introduction refers to the original work both as ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and ALICE IN WONDERLAND. It also describes Lewis Carroll as "the epitome of the proper Victorian gentleman," a description which I do not believe squares with his penchant for photographing nude girls. But the real test, of course, is the stories themselves. While it would be expecting too much for the stories to equal Carroll's, I had hoped they would at least capture some of the spirit (as did Gilbert Adair's ALICE THROUGH THE NEEDLE'S EYE a few years ago). Unfortunately, for the most part they don't. A couple have as their only connection the fact that they have a talking Cheshire cat. (In this they are similar to Thomas Disch and John Sladek's BLACK ALICE, which had a Tenniel illustration on the cover, but no connection with the Carroll stories.) Others postulate that Wonderland is some sort of fantasy world bearing little resemblance to how Carroll described it, or even the afterlife. And the stories are so downbeat, filled with child abuse, death, drugs, and so on. I know that's real life, but Wonderland was supposed to be an escape from real life. Even the stories that do seem to be set in the "real" Wonderland are mostly unsatisfying, their jokes and paradoxes taken straight from Carroll himself. The one exception to this is Connie Hirsch's "Wonderland Express," in which Hirsch seems to have come up with NEW wordplay of the type Carroll used. One other story that did work was "A Common Night" by Bruce Holland Rogers, mostly because Rogers did a good job imitating Carroll's poetry. But on the whole, FANTASTIC ALICE is a disappointment, and I cannot recommended it even (or perhaps especially) for fans of the Carroll works. I also have a complaint separate from the contents of the book. For the reader, a trade paperback should offer some advantage over a mass-market paperback, and should certainly not be worse. Yet when I left this book in the car for only four hours, the cover looked like someone had taken a curling iron to it. Other companies manage to make trade paperbacks that avoid this; I would hope Ace would too. %B Fantastic Alice %E Margaret Weis %C New York %D December 1995 %I Ace %O trade paperback, US$12 %G ISBN 0-441-00253-6 %P 291pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Samson's time." --Richard Nixon From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Feb 16 15:27:15 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: ingram@u.washington.edu (Doug Ingram) Subject: Review of _The_Death_Gate_Cycle_ by Weis & Hickman Message-ID: Keywords: author=Doug Ingram Lines: 190 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Organization: University of Washington, Seattle X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 21:28:19 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 190 The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Review copyright (c) 1996 by Doug Ingram [Bibliographic information at the end of the article.] My last experience with the Very Long Fantasy genre, Jennifer Roberson's _Chronicles_of_the_Cheysuli_ (see my previous review on the Web at the URL http://www.astro.washington.edu/ingram/books.html), left me wondering if any author might be capable of holding a reader's interest over 7 or 8 books. That series, while it had an extremely promising beginning, really started to tail off after the initial trilogy and didn't really pick up the pace even with the final book. Nevertheless, it was certainly readable...just not something I'd recommend with enthusiasm. That pretty much sums up my feelings about _The_Death_ _Gate_Cycle_ (_DGC_) by Weis and Hickman. _DGC_ is not so much intended to be a seven-book series as it is to be a four-plus-three-book series. The universe of _DGC_ is split into seven worlds. First is the Vortex, which is essentially a null world whose only exit leads to the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is a terrible world in which a race of magicians (the Patryns) were imprisoned long ago by their rivals, the Sartan. Originally intended as a "reform school" of sorts for Patryns, requiring them to overcome physical tasks and suffer great hardship as they passed closer and closer through a series of "gates" to the final gate. The Labyrinth, however, seems to feed off of negative emotions and grow more powerful, leaving the bitter Patryns in a vicious cycle of fear and hatred in an ever more dangerous world for them. Outside the Labyrinth is the Nexus, a Sartan-built city where a group of Patryns who have escaped the Labyrinth have settled. The four other worlds (each the setting for one of the first four books of the series) are founded upon the four basic "elements". First is Arianus, a world of air, where islands of lighter-than-air coralite house cities of "mensch" (lesser races to Patryns and Sartans but still capable of minor magics, these are elves, dwarves and humans). Second is Pryan, a world of fire that is actually just a huge, hot, steamy jungle planet constantly lit by a fiery set of suns. Third is Abarrach, a world of stone, consisting of a series of interconnected caverns laced with rivers and seas of hot lava. Fourth is Chelestra, world of water, with habitable "islands" sprinkled throughout inside of air bubbles. The series begins as the de facto ruler of the Patryns, Xar, the first escapee from the Labyrinth, sends one of his most talented Patryn servants, Haplo, on a mission to learn more about each of the four worlds in turn. Haplo is to learn about the worlds, instill a little chaos into their politics if possible, and return to help his Lord plan to conquer them all with an army of Patryns. As Haplo travels through each of the worlds, we are introduced to several subplots involving the mensch, the vast majority of which are unfortunately not only trivial to the storyline but also fairly uninteresting. As Haplo experiences what each of these worlds has to offer, his character, easily the best written of the series, evolves and matures, coming to accept (with no small conflict, external and internal) his place in the grand scheme of things. In fact, all of the major characters show some growth throughout the series, and it is to the credit of the authors that, while there is certainly clear-cut evil in these worlds, the "good" characters are rarely quite so undeniably good as you might find in less subtle fantasy (pardon the slam, but _The_Belgariad_ leaps to mind). By the end of the fourth book, the situation is clear to both Haplo and Xar, and the plot proceeds to throw the Patryns' ancient enemy, the Sartan, into the mix with gusto as well as an evil race of dragon snakes bent on throwing every world into turmoil. While Haplo and his erstwhile traveling companion, Alfred (not to mention the most entertaining character in the series by a mile, Haplo's dog, aptly named "Dog"), try to find a way to stop the snakes, Haplo's Lord Xar begins to seek out the legendary Seventh Gate (not to be confused with any of the "gates" in the Labyrinth), which he believes will bring him the ultimate victory and power over the rest of the worlds Probably the biggest strength of this series is the imagination behind the four elemental worlds. Even though the first two books start the series off fairly slowly plot-wise, the worlds they describe are certainly unusual and entertaining to learn about. My favorite was definitely Abarrach, the world of stone, probably because the storytelling here was the most powerful. The highlight of the series is definitely the first hundred pages or so of the third book, which would serve very well as a short story on its own. Not that each of the other worlds had something interesting and unexpected about it. One of my two major problems with this book shouldn't be all that surprising given the seven-book length: The plot was entirely too thin. Much of the story that didn't revolve around Haplo and Alfred involved mensch characters who, while important to the story (Limbeck the dwarf on Arianus, for example) just weren't that interesting to read about. Among them, Limbeck's story and the story of Balthazar (not really a mensch but of similar stature) on Abarrach are the most engaging. But for every Hugh the Hand (arguably the most well-drawn mensch character and the most interesting), there were two or three mensch subplots that led nowhere. I got the feeling there was some serious padding going on in order to sell a series of extraordinary length, especially since the majority of the mensch plots amounted to nothing, dwindled out without resolution or just plain vanished. The other major problem I had was the presence of a completely unnecessary character, the eccentric yet powerful (stop me if you've heard this) wizard, Zifnab. Now I appreciate good comic relief as much as the next reader, but the Zifnab character was the equivalent of seeing a Jim Carrey cameo in "Julius Caesar". Not only that, Zifnab regularly made references to both the Real World (we eventually are led to believe that this universe is sometime in our future after most of humanity dies out and magic returns against triumphant over science) and other milieus such as Tolkien and Ian Fleming as if he were personally familiar with characters from those works. It was so awkward at times I was simply embarrassed for the authors. The ultimate insult was the discovery Zifnab really didn't even have an important role to play in the grand scheme of things other than to act as little more than a gossip. But I don't want to end this review on such a negative note. After all, I am perfectly capable of reading over (what I think are) flaws in a fantasy work to enjoy it on some other level, and there was much to enjoy about this series. If you're a fan of authors who construct brand new worlds and tell you all about them in loving detail, then this series is definitely for you. I should mention here the very detailed appendices at the end of each book, describing aspects of each world in more depth, which some readers will certainly appreciate. The main thread of the plot was very interesting as well, albeit uneven. So while I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend this work to anyone, I would argue that it is very readable. If you can find this at a used bookstore (I see parts of it all over the place), then it is certainly worth picking up. On my scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 6. Doug Ingram -- ingram@u.washington.edu // "Carpe Datum." More reviews: http://www.astro.washington.edu/ingram/books.html %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T Dragon Wing %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1990 %G ISBN 0-553-28639-0 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T Elven Star %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1991 %G ISBN 0-553-29098-3 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T Fire Sea %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1992 %G ISBN 0-553-29541-1 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T Serpent Mage %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1993 %G ISBN 0-553-56140-5 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T The Hand of Chaos %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1993 %G ISBN 0-553-56369-6 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T Into the Labyrinth %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1994 %G ISBN 0-553-56771-3 %S The Death Gate Cycle %A Weis, Margaret %A Hickman, Tracy %T The Seventh Gate %I Bantam Spectra %C New York %D 1995 %G ISBN 0-553-57235-X %S The Death Gate Cycle