From archive (archive) Subject: THE LILLIPUT LEGION by Simon Hawke From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Date: 10 Aug 89 17:04:37 GMT THE LILLIPUT LEGION by Simon Hawke Ace, 1989, ISBN 0-441-50395-0, $3.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper This is the ninth of a series of time travel adventures entitled, collectively, "Time Wars." (The first eight are, in order, THE IVANHOE GAMBIT, THE TIMEKEEPER CONSPIRACY, THE PIMPERNEL PLOT, THE ZENDA VENDETTA, THE NAUTILUS SANCTION, THE KHYBER CONNECTION, THE ARGONAUT AFFAIR, and THE DRACULA CAPER.) Throughout the series, the U. S. Army Temporal Corps is busy trying to prevent people from going back and disturbing history, because to do so might cause a "temporal split" that would destroy the universe. (Actually it would destroy more than just the universe, because we find out in book seven or so that there are parallel universes, the temporal bombs we set off in ours are ricocheting into the others, and the inhabitants there aren't very happy about this.) The basic idea is not very original, but Hawke (a pen name for Nicholas Yermakov, I believe) does add a couple of new twists: the parallel universes and the fact that the history that people go back to centers around fictional characters and events. (If a roman a clef is a novel in which real characters appear, thinly disguised, then what is the term for a novel in which someone else's literary creations appear as real characters? My friendly literary reference person says she knows of no such term, but certainly there have been many such novels; I suspect the most prolific are those involving Sherlock Holmes.) So we have seen characters from Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Baroness Orczy, Anthony Hope, Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling, Greek mythology, Bram Stoker, and now Jonathan Swift. In fact, Swift himself is a character in this latest entry in the series. Hawke has also added a mad scientist and an evil villain (is that redundant?) along the way and this, coupled with the parallel universes, tends to make the story more difficult to follow. Characters seem to pop in and out, and given that characters can travel between universes, even death may not be permanent. The "Time Wars" books certainly aren't great literature, and the parallel universes aspect has been downplayed (at least so far), but they each do provide an enjoyable evening's reading. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.written Wed Oct 13 10:53:57 1993 Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!wogg0743 From: wogg0743@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Shakespeare) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: BATHROOM REVIEWS #2: _The Wizard of Camelot_ Date: 12 Oct 1993 06:39:51 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 54 Message-ID: <29djfn$8gq@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.cso.uiuc.edu BATHROOM REVIEWS #2 Book Reviewed: The Wizard of Camelot Book Author: Simon Hawke This is the second in a series of reviews of individual books which I have read or reread. The title of the review series, not to put too fine a point on it, comes from my habit of reading in the john, a habit I understand to be rather wide-spread. Please note that this is not intended as a parody of the truly fine Belated Reviews series, of which I am fond. The only parody going on here is self-parody. --- Simon Hawke is a hack writer. Hack hack hack. However, he is a very competent hack writer. _The Wizard of Camelot_ is Hawke's prequel to his successful _Wizard of NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2435 The Wizard of... Series, Simon Hawke. Review Copyright 1999 Edward McArdle [contains conceptual spoilers --AW] This series of ten books is not actually science fiction, since it takes place in a future where science has collapsed. So it is fantasy. Way back in history the Dark Ones were confined by the Old Ones, and later magic was forgotten after the disappearance of Merlin. When science collapsed, when all the fuels ran out, and so on, Merlin was found imprisoned in a tree. He reintroduced magic, and then one of his acolytes freed the Dark Ones... The first of the books was The Wizard of 4th Street. An adept named Wyrdrune and a cat burglar named Kira are led to steal some stones which magically bind them. The stones contain the spirits of the Old Ones, and they lead our heroes against one of the Dark Ones, who is using necromancy... This book is interesting, because it is all new. Some of the characters from the days of Camelot, apart from Merlin, prove to be still around. Then follow the Wizard of Whitechapel, The Wizard of Sunset Strip, The Wizard of Rue Morgue, The Samurai Wizard, and The Wizard of Santa Fe. All of these books are readable, and things do advance, insofar as some of the characters absorb other characters - it's hard to explain - but my main complaint is that basically they are all the same story. A new Old One appears, or sometimes three, and starts training acolytes, they track him or her, and destroy him/her. Just to make matters worse, even plot points are repeated. In nearly every book a plain policeperson (as opposed to a magical one) gets a lead, follows the villain, and is torn to pieces. In the Santa Fe story the idea is introduced of Thaumaturgical pets, animals or things magically animated. One of them is instrumental in destroying the villain. The next book, the Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez, is about that animal. It is an attempt at a hardboiled detective story in the Sam Spade tradition, and I don't think it works. One of Simon Hawke's weaknesses is exposition. In every story he feels a compulsion to give the complete history of all that has gone before, usually at great length. In the Time Wars series this was a minor annoyance, but it is too much in most of this series. It may be necessary for new readers in the other books, but is not necessary, in this book especially. Just a brief background of why there are thaumaturgical pets would have been enough. Another weakness is prolixity (a word I have long yearned to use). Conversations often go on for no good reason, either to advance the plot, or reveal character. The next book, however, was The Wizard of Camelot. This went back to describe the coming of Merlin to modern times. It is, in fact, the prologue to the series. And it is quite well done. There is minimal exposition, because nothing else has happened yet, and he resists the temptation to tell history which is not relevant. One reason for this is that the story is written in the first person by the person who found Merlin, unfortunately called Thomas Malory (by an amazing coincidence the same name as the man who wrote about Camelot). The last two books in the series are really a single story. The Wizard of Lovecraft's Cafe goes more into the history of one of the series' hitherto peripheral characters, and introduces three more Dark Ones, then one of them escapes and leads into the last book, The Last Wizard. In each book I found the denoument somewhat cursory, with the villains wiped out pretty quickly, and characters have a habit of being killed off casually after being around for several books, but overall I enjoyed the series. Hawke is not as easy to read as, say Dick Francis, since his dialogue occasionally seems a bit forced, but I got through all the books pretty easily. If you would like to try the attenuated version of the series, I would suggest read The Wizard of Camelot first, then The Wizard of 4th Street, perhaps The Wizard of Santa Fe, and finish with Lovecraft's Cafe and The Last Wizard. If you really enjoy them, read the lot. Unlike the Time Wars series, all of the books in this series seem to be available. Simon Hawke has written about sixty books, including some about Star Trek, Batman, and a few series I have not yet looked at. %A Hawke, Simon %T Wizard of Camelot, etc. %I Questar, Warner Brothers. %D July 1993 %G ISBN 0-446-36242-5-00499-2 Edward McArdle. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle -me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos... and http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3479/ where you may learn of my Alaskan Cruise with the Stars (and get a glimpse of Vancouver). Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!logbridge.uoregon.edu!cyclone.bc.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!gatech!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: mcardle@ozemail.com.au (Edward McArdle) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: The Time Wars series, Simon Hawke. Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 22 Aug 1999 18:46:35 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 139 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu 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 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2436 THE TIME WARS, a series by Simon Hawke. [contains major spoilers --AW] I'm one of those lacking-a-life people who collect and read Star Trek books. But I do find new authors I like by doing so. Among the books I liked were three by Simon Hawke: The Romulan Prize, The Patrian Transgression and Blaze of Glory. I discovered he was really Nicholas Yermatov, a University professor, and he has written a lot of books. They tend to be in series, although a recent book, The Whims of Creation, is a stand-alone. It is a book set on a giant space ark, and I enjoyed it. He has also written a Batman book, To Stalk a Spectre, which I bought but haven't read yet, and four Friday the Thirteenth novels, which I am unlikely to read. A short series, beginning with The Reluctant Sorcerer, was farce. I read only the last, the Ambivalent Magician, which features a magician so all-knowing that he realises he is a character in a book, and... You'll have to read it. Another series began with The Wizard of 4th Street. When technology failed, Merlin reappeared, and the world began to run on magic. But demons were released, and threatened human life. Three gems gave powers to humans to fight them. I have not read many, but they appear to be the same story about nine times. However, that is an unfair criticism, as I have read so few. The series has just ended with The Last Wizard. There are other series, but the one I have now finished is The Time Wars. This has twelve volumes, most of the early ones available widely, but the last few very hard to find. The first was The Ivanhoe Gambit. My impression is that this was intended to be a stand-alone story. The basis of the stories begins in the future, where war is avoided because of its unpleasant side-effects. Instead, soldiers are sent back in time to fight in the wars of the past. Then there is scorekeeping to see which side wins. But a referee goes rogue, and threatens to change history, so the heoes have to go back and stop him. The gimmick of the series is that the incidents in history which are imperiled are all from fiction, except for the last couple. In The Ivanhoe Gambit, the story is from Sir Walter Scott's novel. A rogue Timekeeper has taken the identity of King Richard. The two main characters who will be the focus of the series are part of the team sent to stop him. The Timekeeper Conspiracy takes the team back into the Story of the Three Musketeers, and a third character joins the main team. The Pimpernel Plot begins with the accidental death of Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, at the hands of a time soldier. The team has to go back and make sure the adventures of the Pimpernel still occur. I thought this was one of the least successful of the books. A major reason is that Hawke is to some extent setting up a comparison with the authors of the original stories. And Baroness Orczy was a very good writer. There are stories which are character-driven, and stories which are plot driven. The Indiana Jones movies are all plot. I would say that the stories of Jules Verne, Well's Time Machine (and The Time Ships, its continuation) are 100% plot, 0% character. Hawke's series is about 95% plot, 5% characterisation. Orczy's stories are very strong plots, but very much character driven, and full of passion. But in the other cases, perhaps apart from the Prisoner of Zenda story, Hawke is free of odious comparisons. The Zenda Vendetta expands the cast, with the introduction, among others, of a major villain, who is the dominant bad guy for the rest of the series. This story also alienates the reader a little, as the hero of the original story is killed in the prologue, and must be replaced. A slight alteration to the focus of the series takes place in The Nautilus Sanction. The story features Jules Verne, and greatly parallels the story which he will later write, about the giant submarine. There is another shift. A weapon had been invented, a warp grenade which is capable of focusing its power in a preset area, with the rest of the explosion shunted off to another part of the universe. It turns out later that that was not happeningat all. Much of the destruction was being sent into a parallel universe, which assumed we were declaring war on it - so they would clock into our universe and try to destroy our timeline! A new character, Doctor Darkness, who had inadvertently turned himself into tachyons, is introduced, and becomes something of a deus ex machina over the rest of the stories. The Khyber Connection takes us more into real history, though the story is that of Ghunga Din. The villains are mainly the alternate universe push. Now Hawke begins to stretch his boundaries. The Argonaut Affair takes our crew back to sail with Jason and the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece, something which actually happened in the alternate universe. Then, when Sir Athur Conan Doyle and H G Wells become involved, (giving Wells ideas about time travel) they become involved with the monstrous creations of a Doctor Moreau, from the other universe. The villain manages to improve Moreau's techniques, creating Dracula and werewolves, in The Dracula Caper, and tiny people in The Lilliput Caper (where a Lemuel Gulliver is involved, and tells his story to a group involving Dean Swift). The Hellfire Club was the only one of the series I have never seen, and I have no idea what it was about. The Cleopatra Crisis brings us back to real history (with a couple of Shakespearean references) when the team have to go back and make sure that Caesar's assassination does take place. And the last in the series, The Six-gun Solution, takes us to Tombstone, and the fight at (or near) the OK Corral. I thought the last two were among the best in the series. They involved mysteries, where it was not clear who were villains, and what was going on. The series also improved in other ways. In the early novels the lead characters had a callous attitude to the lives of innocent bystanders in the past (they've really been dead for centuries, so what does it matter?). In all the stories the author shows off an erudite knowledge. But in some it doesn't work. A person from the past, in the middle of action, might ask, "What's a light year?" and someone will answer at length, instead of just sayin, "Shut up!" In the later stories it is much better fitted in. A group of time travelers slowly riding towards Rome discuss how the city is now, was, and will be, and it is interesting. Some might find the constant flow of historical information irritating, but it does at least make the stories educational! On the other hand, reading a number of novels in sequence can be a bit mind-numbing with all the recapitulation of what has gone before. So, I liked the series. Interestingly, missing the Hellfire Club novel made no difference. It is not referred to in the two subsequent stories. But it is a series you should read in order. Characters are introduced, killed, sometimes unkilled in the best Marvel Comics tradition, and some even have mild cliffhanger endings. %A Hawke, Simon %T The Ivanhoe Gambit, etc. %I Ace Science Fiction, The Berkeley Group %D January 1984 %G ISBN 0-441-37764-5 Edward McArdle. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mcardle -me, my tennis club, golf, verses, novel, a crostic puzzle, random photos... and http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Paradise/3479/ where you may learn of my Alaskan Cruise with the Stars (and get a glimpse of Vancouver).