From uucp Tue May 2 03:36 SST 1989 >From matoh Tue May 2 03:36:22 1989 remote from majestix.ida.liu.se Received: by sssab.se (smail2.5) id AA05912; 2 May 89 03:36:22 SST (Tue) Received: from majestix.ida.liu.se by sunic.sunet.se (5.61+IDA/KTH/LTH/1.44) id AAsunic26985; Mon, 1 May 89 03:54:51 +0200 Received: by majestix.ida.liu.se; Mon, 1 May 89 03:53:41 +0200 Date: Mon, 1 May 89 03:53:41 +0200 From: Mats Ohrman Message-Id: <8905010153.AA22786@majestix.ida.liu.se> To: matoh@sssab.se Status: RO Path: liuida!sunic!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.books Subject: FULL SPECTRUM edited by Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy Keywords: review Message-ID: <140@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> Date: 30 Apr 89 14:12:31 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 84 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf-lovers:20539 rec.arts.books:1137 FULL SPECTRUM edited by Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy Bantam Spectra, 1988, ISBN 0-553-27482-1, $4.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Well, this is certainly the most talked about anthology of 1988, and of quite a while before that. It contains one Nebula winner and three Hugo nominees, so it will obviously be a best-seller (as anthologies go). Yet I was less than entirely satisfied with it. First, the good points. There were several good-to-excellent stories, including Jack McDevitt's "The Fort Moxie Branch" (with the book's now- famous typo of labeling it "The Fourth Moxie Branch"), Thomas M. Disch's "Voices of the Kill," Walton Simons's "Ghost Ship" (yet another Titanic story, but a more evocative one than most), Lisa Goldstein's "My Year with the Aliens" (though it was somewhat predictable), and Pat Murphy's "Dead Men on TV." There were the usual set of mid-range (average) stories. Jack Massa's "Prayerware" is of interest to computer types, but not outstanding. Nancy Kress's "Philippa's Hands" and Charles Oberndorf's "Mannequins" reminded me of a "Twilight Zone" story (or maybe a "Tales from the Darkside"--at any rate, a television anthology type of story). (This seems to be true of a lot of stories these days.) Elissa Malcohn's "Moments of Clarity" was an interesting idea, but nowhere near the bombshell that the editors claimed. Most of the other stories I don't mention here are okay--nothing great, but worth a read. Countering this are such disappointments as Andrew Weiner's "This Is the Year Zero." Whether intentionally or not, this is basically the story of the Pol Pot takeover in Kampuchea presented as science fiction. Rewriting a historical event as science fiction rarely results in good science fiction, no matter how tragic the event. Lewis Shiner's "Oz" is of no value that I can determine. (Fred Bals's "Once in a Lullaby" was equally bizarre, but at least had the virtue of charm.) Gregory Benford's "Proselytes" strikes me as racist, and while I know it's a mistake to try to assign a character's beliefs or words to the author, it seems to me that Benford must take at least some of the blame for identifying all of Islam with its more violent proponents. This is particularly disturbing in that it promotes the currently popular view that Islam is a religion of violence and all its adherents want to convert the world by the sword. As the current joke goes, the Ayatollah has decided to deal with Salman Rushdie in a more Christian manner, and is just looking for where he can put the stake without starting a fire in an oil well. People who live in glass houses.... Norman Spinrad's "Journals of the Plague Years" has been analyzed by far better reviewers than myself already, so I can merely concur with most of their criticisms. Bigelow, the main character, having found a cure/inoculation for the AIDS virus(es) which are sweeping the country (which he does in about a month working on his own, while whole teams of researchers working for years have found nothing), inoculates himself against the disease. This cure is designed to be transmitted in the same way as the disease. He then decides to protect his wife and son. But he concludes the only way to pass the protection to his wife is by raping her, and the reader is supposed to sympathize with how bad he feels about having to do this. To protect his son, he goes to even more baroque lengths--he hires a prostitute to have sex with him and then a couple of days later, with his son. Now first of all, the cure is transmitted in the same way as the disease. But the primary method of transmission of AIDS now is through infected blood (mostly between intravenous drug users). Even assuming some sudden needle shortage that Spinrad fails to mention, Bigelow should be able to pass it through infected blood somehow. (It certainly seems to be transmissible enough that one session guarantees its passage.) Secondly, Spinrad seems determined to show us that a plague requires drastic means to contain it--Bigelow is willing to rape his wife (he doesn't tell her that he has the cure for reasons too flimsy to stand up) and this is "necessary." But Bigelow's (adult) son KNOWS his father has the cure, so one would imagine Spinrad would have Bigelow use the same method, minus the force. But no, that would be incest and homosexuality and even to save his son's life those are evil--rape is okay, but homosexuality between consenting adults is not, according to Spinrad. I find this moral structure odd, and Spinrad doesn't convince me of its necessity. And without its necessity, the force of the novella is lost. By making his "unpleasant choices" too easy to refute, he destroys the message he seems to intend--that sometimes unpleasant choices ARE necessary. On the whole, I almost have to recommend the book--it contains many of the major stories of 1988. But it also contains some of the major disappointments. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper