From rec.arts.sf-reviews Sun Aug 11 11:27:50 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!know!vax.oxford.ac.uk!WALLEY From: WALLEY@vax.oxford.ac.uk Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-reviews Subject: Review of "Face of the Waters" by Robert Silverberg Message-ID: <31425@know.pws.bull.com> Date: 5 Aug 91 14:26:00 GMT Sender: news@pws.bulL.com Reply-To: WALLEY@vax.oxford.ac.uk Followup-To: rec.arts.sf-lovers Organization: Oxford University VAXcluster Lines: 37 Approved: wex@pws.bull.com The Face Of The Waters by Robert Silverberg Review Copyright (c) 1991 Andrew J. Walley With humanity spread through the galaxy on hundreds of worlds, there is still no world quite like Hydros. It is totally devoid of land and its seas are filled with life, much of it seemingly intelligent. The dominant life-form, called "Gillies" by the humans, build massive floating rafts large enough for small communities to live on, safe from the largely inimical sea-life. Man is barely tolerated by the Gillies, who refuse to allow all advanced technology which means that it is a one-way trip for anyone wishing to descend to the planet's surface. Humans are forced to live a simple existence, communicating by radio and their small fleet of trading ships. The story follows Lawler, the doctor on the island of Sorve as he is forced to leave his quiet little life behind to voyage across Hydros' colourful seas in search of somewhere new to live. Like "Lord Valentine's Castle" this is a colourful adventure on a weird and wonderful planet and Silverberg's inventive mind creates enough strange sea creatures to satisfy the reader's curiosity. The character of Lawler is reasonably well drawn but some of the other characters are inconsistent in their opinions and actions. The finale is not unexpected and something of an anti-climax but on the whole this is a reasonable read. (7/10) N.B. The publisher's synopsis on the cover tends to spoil one of the intended surprises in the book. %A Robert Silverberg %T The Face Of The Waters %D 1991 %P 348 pages %I Grafton Books, Hammersmith, London %O Hardback, 13 pounds 99p %G ISBN 0-246-13718-5 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 6 09:15:15 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!ugle.unit.no!nuug!nn.no!ifi.uio.no!kth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!news.u.washington.edu!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: mwp@iconix.oz.au (Michael Paddon) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Resubmitted Review -- Thebes of the Hundred Gates Message-ID: <1992Apr2.042053.22187@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 2 Apr 92 04:20:53 GMT Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Organization: Iconix Pty Ltd (World Headquarters) Lines: 59 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu _Thebes of the Hundred Gates_ is the story of Edward Davis, a operative for the 22nd century Time Service. This organisation is only incidentally sketched during the narrative, but its primary purpose is to drop scientific observers for first hand research in interesting eras of history. Davis is landed in 18th Dynasty Thebes (around 1300 B.C.). His mission is a little out of the ordinary, despite the fact that he is a trained egyptologist. Along with tourism of the distant and hard to reach past, he also is charged with rescuing two other Time Service operatives. Sandberg and Lehman, the stranded operatives, intended to visit Rome around the time of Christ. A technical problem of some sort, however, saw them overshoot both time and place by a large margin. Although only 18 months has gone by up the line, the rescue mission arrives in Thebes 15 years after their own time drop due to unavoidable inaccuracies of the Service's probabilistic tracking. Of course, what should have be a simple rescue ends up being far more complex than originally evisaged... _Thebes of the Hundred Gates_ doesn't have any grand message to deliver or any high philosophy to espouse. It is well written and entertaining; Silverberg should be applauded for writing with discipline in an age when stories with less content are published as trilogical tree killers. The major weakness I noticed was patchy research -- isolated facets of life in ancient Thebes are minutely described (ie. embalming processes) whilst other details are scant. Compared with, say, Wolfe's _Soldier of the Mist_ this work certainly suffers. To be fair, Silverberg did not have historical verismilitude as his prime goal, but rather to entertain for short while. In this, he has succeeded admirably. Michael %A Silverberg, Robert %T Thebes of the Hundred Gates %I Axolotl Press, Pulphouse Publishing %C Eugene, OR, USA %D 1991 %G ISBN unknown %P 110 pp. %O trade paperback, perfect bound ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II IIII IIIII IIIII Michael Paddon IIIIII IIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIII Iconix Pty Ltd Email: mwp@iconix.oz.au IIII IIIII 851 Dandenong Road, IIIII IIIII East Malvern, IIIII IIIII Victoria, 3145, Telephone: +61 3 571 4244 IIIII IIIII Australia. Facsimile: +61 3 571 5346 IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII Baldrick! Eternity with Beelzebub, and all his hellish III III fiends, will be as nothing as five minutes with me ... IIIIIIIIIIIIII ...and this pencil. --- Black Adder III From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 13 11:47:16 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!bionet!raven.alaska.edu!never-reply-to-path-lines From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: THE FACE OF THE WATERS by Robert Silverberg Message-ID: <1992Apr8.203512.2755@raven.alaska.edu> Date: 8 Apr 92 20:35:12 GMT Sender: wisner@raven.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) Organization: University of Alaska Computer Network Lines: 74 Approved: wisner@ims.alaska.edu THE FACE OF THE WATERS by Robert Silverberg A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper THE FACE OF THE WATERS seems to be an attempt to combine an introspective character study with an adventure story focusing on the weird biology of a strange planet. Even with Silverberg's not inconsiderable talent, it's not entirely successful. The planet is Hydros, a world that is almost entirely water. The small human population lives (by sufferance) on the floating islands built by the native intelligent species, the "Gillies." But the Gillies allow no spaceport to be built, so traveling to Hydros is a one-way trip in a drop- capsule. (One wonders how humans found out that Hyros was livable, or how they negotiated with the Gillies for permission to settle humans there, since the implication is that no spaceport means that NO ship can ever take off if it lands, plus of course there's no place to land anyway.) The original humans were criminals sent into permanent exile; now the new arrivals are mostly misfits who choose this particular permanent exile. (The social structure in which descendents of the original convict settlers becomes the elite, proud of their ancestry, is reminiscent of Australia, reinforced here by the image of islands, though Australia is a MUCH bigger island than any of these.) One community of 78 humans lives on Sorve Island, but when one of the members offends the Gillies, they are all evicted. (This week I've also seen MISSISSIPPI MASALA and COME SEE THE PARADISE, so stories of people getting evicted from their homes are getting repetitious- -I wonder if the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Moors and Jews from Spain is one reason for this seeming trend.) Anyway, Valben Lawler, the community's doctor and descendent of one of the original settlers, wants to keep the group together instead of scattering it to several of the other islands. This leads to difficulties and eventually an epic voyage to Hydros's one land mass, called the Face of the Waters. When I say "epic voyage," I have this on good authority--one of the characters is writing an epic about it even as it is going on, and another keeps quoting Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Yet all their adventures have a certain sameness to them: they encounter a weird life-form which either 1) they know to be dangerous, or 2) looks harmless, but in either case IS dangerous. They fight it, possibly suffering some losses, and then go on to the next. With all this adventure, the character study of Lawler gets somewhat lost in the shuffle, reserved mostly for scenes between Lawler and Sundira Thane, a woman who intrigues Lawler because she has traveled widely on Hydros, as contrasted with his having lived only on Sorve (his entire experience off Sorve was a single day spent on another island as it drifted close by). At the end, however, the book switches to a more philosophical tone, not effectively (in my opinion). The switch is too abrupt and the message- -of casting aside the past and embracing the future--is not so much demonstrated as announced. In both this book and RAFT (by Stephen Baxter), artifacts are used as powerful symbols of the past, but here Silverberg doesn't carry through with the metaphor. THE FACE OF THE WATERS isn't a bad book, but it is a dissatisfying one. I can see the necessity of conveying the impersonal hostility of the world, but by using the "weird alien biology" motif, Silverberg undercuts the mood the reader needs for the philosophy. And to be honest, the fact that I was not comfortable with what Silverberg seems to be saying in his ending no doubt affected my opinion--but that you would have to decide for yourself if you read the book. %T The Face of the Waters %A Robert Silverberg %C New York %D November 1991 %I Bantam Spectra %O hardback, US$20 %G ISBN 0-553-07592-6 %P 368pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Jul 6 16:35:00 1992 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic2!mcsun!uunet!wupost!sdd.hp.com!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!ig!mtgzy.att.com From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: UNIVERSE 2 edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber Message-ID: Date: 2 Jul 92 22:35:26 GMT Sender: mcb@presto.ig.com Lines: 54 Approved: mcb@presto.ig.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) UNIVERSE 2 edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper As Silverberg says in his introduction, "This is the second of a new series of anthologies of previously unpublished science fiction stories, carrying on the name and spirit of the distinguished UNIVERSE series that the late Terry Carr produced between 1971 and 1987." (Of course, he then goes on to explain how that's not entirely accurate, but you get the idea.) UNIVERSE 2 contains twenty-two stories, ranging from the memorable to the unremarkable to the incoherent. The best is "The Passing of the Eclipse" by Donna Farley, about a future society in which people all wear masks and, by extension, about the (figurative) masks we all wear in our society. It's a moving story, and a thought-provoking one, worthy of consideration come Hugo time next year. Almost as good is Kathe Koja's "By the Mirror of My Youth," about the consequences to one family when cloning humans becomes a real possibility. It did remind me a lot of Faye Weldon's "The Cloning of Joanna May" (I hope I have the title right there), though I suspect coincidence rather than influence. (For reasons surpassing MY understanding, Silverberg and Haber follow this story with a protagonist named Rachel with another story with a protagonist named Rachel. This is as bad as FULL SPECTRUM 2's placement of David Brin's "The Giving Plague" immediately following Karen Haber's "A Plague of Strangers"--and there's an irony that one of the "victims" of the latter is one of the "perpetrators" here. Part of editing is sequencing, and alas, this sometimes seems random.) Sean McMullen's "Souls in the Great Machine" is a must-read for people interested in the history of technology, alternate technologies, and what it really means to become "cogs in the machine." (If this story seems unlikely, I suggest you read Kevin Anderson and Doug Beason's TRINITY PARADOX for a demonstration of how the idea here was actually applied in our world.) Other stories worth reading include "Bruning Bush" by Carolyn Gilman and "Lost in Transmission" by Tony Daniel. I found this anthology spotty, but with five very-good-to-excellent stories (including one of Hugo caliber), I feel I can recommend it. %B Universe 2 %E Robert Silverberg %E Karen Haber %C New York %D April 1992 %I Bantam %O hardback, US$21.50 %G ISBN 0-553-08038-5 %P 397pp %S Universe %V 2 Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From /tmp/sf.15692 Tue Mar 30 18:15:39 1993 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!news.netmbx.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!math.fu-berlin.de!ira.uka.de!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!olivea!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!nobody From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: KINGDOMS OF THE WALL by Robert Silverberg Message-ID: <9302241658.AA24221@presto.ig.com> Date: 24 Feb 93 18:51:51 GMT Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Organization: Lines: 44 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) KINGDOMS OF THE WALL by Robert Silverberg A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper If it seems as if this is a reworking of Silverberg's own THE FACE OF THE WATERS--a journey across an alien world to seek God--that's because to a large extent it is. In THE FACE OF THE WATERS, it's humans traveling across an ocean world; in KINGDOMS OF THE WALL it's aliens climbing the Wall, an enormous mountain set atop a series of cliffs. It's true that in THE FACE OF THE WATERS the pilgrims are pilgrims by necessity, while in KINGDOMS OF THE WALL they are pilgrims by choice. And this distinction does change the main focus of the story from survival to the quest for ... what? Is it a quest for knowledge or a quest for something greater than oneself? The pilgrims of KINGDOMS OF THE WALL are climbing to meet the gods, who live at the top of the Wall. But some go merely as worshippers, while others see themselves in more Promethean terms. The question being examined is not just the purpose of the climb, but of life itself. Silverberg has chosen to make his pilgrims aliens--not a primitive people who are supposedly alien, but who are, nonetheless, human in their biology and motivation--but a race who are *not* human, whose biology is very different than our own. I was happy to see this change from the usual approach, but disappointed in what Silverberg used it for. Or, more precisely, I was disappointed that it wasn't this way purely for its own sake. I was also disappointed that Silverberg felt it necessary to spell out the "lesson of the Wall" rather than allow the reader to derive it him- or herself from the story. If you've already read THE FACE OF THE WATERS, this will probably seem just a reworking of that in a different setting with a few changes (somewhat like SOMMERSBY is to THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE). Of the two, I would say KINGDOMS OF THE WALL is marginally better. %T Kingdoms of the Wall %A Robert Silverberg %C New York %D March 1993 %I Bantam Spectra %O hardback, US$22.95 %G ISBN 0-553-09309-6 %P 309pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgzy.att.com From /tmp/sf.15692 Tue Mar 30 18:22:47 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu.!wex From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Subject: THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ROBERT SILVERBERG, VOLUME 1: SECRET SHARERS Message-ID: <9212012155.AA07249@presto.ig.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.misc Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 22:31:19 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 41 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ROBERT SILVERBERG, VOLUME 1: SECRET SHARERS A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper The title of this volume would lead the reader to expect stories from Silverberg's early period, but in fact they are from between November 1981 and September 1988. Even the previous collection, THE CONGLOMEROID COCKTAIL PARTY (1984), consists entirely of post-1980 works. So I have no idea why this is labeled "Volume 1." (The fact that the introduction is dated over two years ago, and the page headers are incorrect for a few pages around page 330 make me wonder even more about the history of this book.) Still, it has twenty-four pieces of Robert Silverberg's short fiction (short stories, novelettes, and novellas), including several award winners and nominees. Though it omits "Gilgamesh in the Outback" (already included in TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING), it includes "Sailing to Byzantium"; "Enter a Soldier, Later: Enter Another"; and "A Sleep and a Forgetting." I see no point in giving a detailed review of each story--they're by Silverberg and Silverberg hasn't written a bad story in years--certainly not since he was turning them out two a week, and possibly not even then. Here you have two dozen previously uncollected Silverberg stories for fifty cents each--what more could you ask for? Highly recommended. %B The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg: Secret Sharers %A Robert Silverberg %C New York %D November 1992 %I Bantam Spectra %O trade paperback, US$12.50 %G ISBN 0-553-37068-5 %P 546pp %S The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg %V 1 Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgzy.att.com -- --Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker and Cyberspace Bard Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group wex@media.mit.edu Voice: 617-258-9168, Pager: 617-945-1842 wexelblat.chi@xerox.com The world may not be plaid, but that doesn't stop me painting stripes. From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 01:38:37 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:474 rec.arts.books:75787 alt.books.reviews:2284 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.intercon.com!udel!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: Evelyn.Chimelis.Leeper@att.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books,alt.books.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT by Robert Silverberg Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9402010946.ZM7179@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 02 Feb 94 02:16:46 GMT Lines: 56 HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT by Robert Silverberg Bantam Spectra, ISBN 0-553-09248-0, 1994, US$22.95. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper Robert Silverberg's last two solo novels (THE FACE OF THE WATERS and KINGDOMS OF THE WALL) take place on alien worlds. HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT takes place on Earth (and an orbiting space habitat) and is definitely a return to the more familiar setting--Silverberg even has a large part of the action taking place in the San Francisco Bay area, his current home. But the world of HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT is not completely familiar--we are thrust into a future in which many of the ecological disasters which have been predicted have come to pass. The ozone layer is destroyed, the air is unbreathable without masks and filters, there are deserts where now there is fertile land, and vice versa, and San Francisco and Los Angeles are reduced to towing in icebergs for their water supply. In this world, Paul Carpenter is a "salaryman" for a multi-national corporation who takes on any job assigned with the help of advanced learning techniques. His friend Nick Rhodes is a genetic engineer who is on the verge of developing new techniques to modify humanity to survive in this new environment. Also a major character is Farkas, a man who had been genetically engineered as a fetus by a renegade scientist: he has no eyes but has instead some other sense corresponding to sight which could prove valuable in space travel. Silverberg is too careful a craftsman for the names "Carpenter" and "Nick" to be accidental. Unlike the Biblical view of their predecessors, both these characters have their good sides and their evil sides. Carpenter is taken into the desert (symbolically) and tested--he doesn't do so well this time around. Nick is not giving humanity a huge change in their mental state, but rather in their physical state. I'm not sure all the futuristic elements--space stations, multi- nationals with lifetime employment, environmental disasters, and so on--fit together entirely consistently, but Silverberg makes it at least plausible for the duration of the story. HOT SKY AT MIDNIGHT has a lot of ideas, not the least of which is "if we modify ourselves to live in a very different environment, are we still human?" The spy plot seems at times overdone, but on the whole this book is worth a read. %T Hot Sky at Midnight %A Robert Silverberg %C New York %D February 1994 %I Bantam Spectra %O hardback, US$22.95 %G ISBN 0-553-09248-0 %P 336pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "Remember, high-tech means breaks down next week, while cutting edge means breaks down this afternoon. -Bruce Sterling From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 29 12:42:25 1994 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees) Subject: Silverberg: two alien odysseys (THE FACE OF THE WATERS and KINGDOMS OF THE WALL) Message-ID: <33kctg$g9d@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 23:22:06 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 139 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:602 rec.arts.sf.written:70440 The Face of the Waters by Robert Silverberg A book review by Gareth Rees Copyright (c) 1992 by Gareth Rees There is a long tradition in sf of the 'humans versus intractable hostile alien world' plot, in which a small group of humans try valiantly to survive and eke out a living in the face of repeated and ferocious attacks from all manner of deadly, poisonous, malevolent and sometimes downright improbable fauna and flora. The heart of darkness of the hostile jungle (or desert, or ocean) becomes an exteriorisation of the shadow self, and thus you cannot destroy it without destroying yourself; rather, you have to achieve an understanding and co-existence. It is therefore appropriate and inevitable that the hero's odyssey through the alien landscape becomes an journey of self-discovery. "Hothouse" (Brian Aldiss), "The Ultimate Jungle" (Michael Coney) and "A Splendid Chaos" (John Shirley) are good examples of the genre, and "Deathworld" (Harry Harrison), "Midworld" and "Sentenced to Prism" (both Alan Dean Foster) are bad examples. But enough pop psychology, what of the example at hand? In the future of "The Face of the Waters", Earth was destroyed when the Sun went nova, but not before humans had a chance to settle a few hundred habitable planets, some of them at the sufferance of alien races, some in their own right. Hydros, a water-world with no land to speak of, is one of the former, populated with a veritable cornucopia of sentient and (of course) highly deadly alien races. The least hostile are known as the Dwellers (or Gillies behind their backs), bipedal amphibians who permit humans to settle on their raft-islands, but do not permit the building of a space-port to let people get away. Hydros is thus a dead-end planet, first a penal colony, and then a destination for misfits and fugitives. "The Face of the Waters" focuses on Val Lawler, doctor to the island community of Sorve, until the Dwellers lose their patience and throw all the humans off the island, and the owner of their fleet of ships takes it into his head to go looking for the semi-mythical island known as 'the Face of the Waters'. Silverberg lets us know early on what we're in for: in the first ten pages, Lawler's ship is attacked by Drakkens (plesiosaur-like fish), a giant creature covered with several hundred mouths, a shoal of poisonous jellyfish and a creature something like an animated spider's web (which kills the captain). After that, The Face of the Waters settles down to filling in the story with flashback and some fairly pedestrian description of the voyage. There are good passages of Lawler's nostalgia for a lost Earth and his feeling of not having a proper home on Hydros, and some tentative development of his character, but the book doesn't come together until the last couple of pages, when we get not only the expected (and largely foreshadowed) revelations about the Face of the Waters and about Hydros, but an unexpected (and rather good) epiphany of understanding experienced by the central character, which convincingly ties up the themes of the book (and exemplifies my remark above about the 'humans against hostile world' tale being an odyssey of self-discovery). In summary: a slight tale (and a bit over-long), but none the less enjoyable for it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kingdoms of the Wall by Robert Silverberg A book review by Gareth Rees Copyright (c) 1993 by Gareth Rees [Warning: SPOILER (last 2 paragraphs of review) -moderator] A long time ago, Robert Silverberg wrote some excellent novels - "To Live Forever", "A Time of Changes", "Dying Inside", "Thorns" - novels with tight plots, sharp morals, evocative settings and crisply-observed characters. But mere artistic success was not good enough for him - perhaps he had a family to feed or a mortgage to pay - and he announced that there was no gain to be made from writing good books that no-one would appreciate, and that in the future he would write nothing but mass-market trash. Hence the bloated "Majipoor" and "New Springtime" trilogies; hence the glossy space operas like "Star of Gypsies"; hence the humiliation of playing ghost-writer to Asimov in "Nightfall" and "Child of Time"; hence, as we shall see, "Kingdoms of the Wall". They are all slick, readable, fast-moving, exotic, and Silverberg cannot, of course, prevent the occasional spark of inspiration showing through, but they are undeniably trash. But they're not exactly best-selling trash, are they? How galling it must be for Silverberg to have prostituted his not inconsiderable talent in such a public manner, and yet see his books trampled into the remaindered bookstalls by the likes of Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Pies Anthony and by the merest literary burps of Isaac Asimov. And this is because Silverberg, for all his skill, doesn't know how to write sf/fantasy trash properly. His characters are generally adult and often alien, not the familiar middle-class adolescents that the readership like to empathise with; his characters are flawed, not universally competent; he doesn't allow a bunch of familiar, wise-cracking and loveable characters to accumulate across several books and doesn't concern himself with the soap-opera exposition required to maintain the relationship of the characters; the sex in his books tends to be casual and matter-of-fact, not prudish and titillating; his characters often face more complex situations than the simple good versus evil polarisation that is all that the mass-market sf/fantasy readership seems able to cope with. So Silverberg falls somewhere in the middle: too trashy for the literati; too literate for the mass-market. And so to "Kingdoms of the Wall", which is a rehash of material we are familiar with from "Lord Valentine's Castle" and "The Face of the Waters". Shape-changing aliens live at the foot of a gargantuan mountain they call the Wall. Every year, each city sends forty pilgrims up the Wall to visit the gods at the top. Most never return; the few that do return insane. Young Poilar Crookleg dreams that he will make it to the summit and return, and does. It is as if Silverberg's imagination had failed him completely. The subgenre in which a small party of heroes and heroines travel across a trackless alien wilderness populated by myriad of hostile and deadly creatures while searching for an epiphany of understanding about the nature of the planet is a familiar one, and Silverberg offers us nothing new here. The nasties are half-hearted push-overs for Poilar and his pilgrims. There is not even the satisfaction of a surprising revelation about what lies on top of the Wall. This ending, in which Poilar returns to his city to reveal to his people that there are no gods on top of the Wall and that if they want to progress in the world they are going to have to do it on their own, begs the question that the Silverberg of twenty years ago would not have hesitated to ask, and answer: how will his people react when Poilar tells them that the entire basis of their religion is false? %A Silverberg, Robert %T The Face of the Waters %I Grafton %C London UK %D 1991 %A Silverberg, Robert %T Kingdoms of the Wall %I HarperCollins %C New York %D 1992 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 27 01:09:42 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.books.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!news From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: Review: STARBORNE by Robert Silverberg Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author=Evelyn C Leeper Lines: 50 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu (Graystreak) Organization: Intelligent Agents Group X-Newsreader: (ding) Gnus v0.94 Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 18:21:56 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Lines: 50 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:963 rec.arts.books.reviews:1674 STARBORNE by Robert Silverberg A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1996 Evelyn C. Leeper Robert Silverberg's latest novel takes a lot of familiar science fiction ideas and combines them in a story that keeps promising to go somewhere, but manages to make even the transformation of mankind unexciting. The spaceship WOTAN has been launched with its crew of fifty by an Earth so bored with Paradise that this is the only excitement they can think of. While it travels through hyperspace to discover a planet that can be colonized, the ship stays in touch with Earth through telepathic twins. The crew explores a couple of planets, with somewhat familiar perils, learns that the twins' link seems to be weakening, and moves on to a climax that rings remarkably flat. While I was reading this I kept feeling that just a few pages more and it would catch fire, that it was on the verge of something. But it never quite delivered on that, and looking back over it, it seems to have been a book about petty squabbles and personality conflicts more than about exploring the universe. Given that society as a whole is filled with boredom and ennui, I suppose it isn't too surprising that the characters often seem to display these characteristics. For example, there is supposed to be a new captain every year. But after the first year, no one else will take the job, so the same person continues in that position. (This sounds like a lot of organizations I've been in.) The problem is that reading about bored characters is, well, boring. Trying to keep track of who's sleeping with whom doesn't really provide much interest. As in several of Silverberg's recent books (in particular THE FACE ON THE WATERS and THE KINGDOMS OF THE WALL), the framework is a quest- like journey in which the diversity of characters is really what is supposed to hold your interest. Like many books with such a journey, the arrival is a bit of a let-down, and the problem here is that the characters are not interesting along the way either. %T Starborne %A Robert Silverberg %C New York %D June 1996 %I Bantam Spectra %O hardback, US$22.95 %G ISBN 0-553-10264-8 %P 304pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | eleeper@lucent.com "There isn't a limited amount of love in Iowa. It isn't a non-renewable resource. If Amy and Barbara or Mike or Steve love each other, it doesn't mean that John and Mary can't." -Rep. Ed Fallon, Iowa From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Sep 21 21:50:37 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!news.xinit.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!chicago-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: tillman@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: "The Alien Years" by Robert Silverberg Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 21 Sep 1998 13:03:23 -0400 Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (USA) Lines: 67 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: tillman@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2110 The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg Review Copyright 1998 Peter D. Tillman Rating: Strong "A" -- best Silverberg novel in years. Highly recommended. "The Alien Years" has been long in gestation - regular Silverberg readers will recognize parts of at least 5 previously-published stories [1], dating back to 1987. It's his best SF novel in many years; maybe his best yet? Silverberg dedicates the book to HG Wells - this is the centennial year of "War of the Worlds" - and, in this 10th year after Heinlein's death, it can hardly be coincidence that the patriarchal protagonist is named "Anson" [2]. The Aliens land "seven years from now," touching off massive brush fires in the LA basin and, shortly thereafter, seismic changes in humanity's place on our home planet. The alien Entities pay little attention to humans, but any attack on them triggers massive retaliation. Human institutions simply fall apart after the Conquest. This is a long way from ID4 or the optimistic Campbellian invasions of yore. Silverberg is working in terrain similar to Wm. Barton's "When Heaven Fell", but with a more elegaic tone, something like "Earth Abides" -- or "Nightwings." "The Alien Years" is told thru the viewpoints of the Carmichaels, an old California clan headed by a patriarchal Vietnam-era Colonel. Thru 50 years of Entity rule, the Carmichaels never quite give up hope or the memory of freedom. They are active in a nominal Resistance, but real resistance is almost unthinkable - the last, futile military attack on the Entities resulted in the death of half of humanity. We see the gradual passing of people who grew up free, and new generations coming of age who have known nothing but the unpredictable rule and irresistible whims of the Entities and their quisling government. Silverberg weaves a rich tapestry of life and love, birth and death, hope and despair. Highly recommended. Look for it on the award ballots. Silverberg's best work in this decade has been short-form [3] - in particular the spectacular novellas "Letters from Atlantis" (1990), "Lion Time in Timbuctoo" (1990), and "Thebes of the Hundred Gates" (1992) -- historical fantasies all. He has written that he doesn't really want to keep up with sci/tech to write cutting-edge sf, but he's zigged before. I'm pleased to see him return to the heart of his home genre. %D 1998 %I HarperPrism %O $24 %P 428 pp %T The Alien Years %A Robert Silverberg ---------------- [1] The stories I recognized include: The Pardoner's Tale (1987) Chip Runner (1989) --the opening chapter, fighting the brushfire, Title?? Beauty in the Night (1997) On the Inside (1997) The Colonel in Autumn (1998) As might be expected of an artist of Silverberg's stature, these stories are seamlessly integrated into the novel. This is not a "fixup" in the usual sense. [2] the "A" in "RAH" - as if you didn't know. [3] Indeed, I could argue that all of his best work is novella-length or shorter. My current all-time Silverberg favorite is the brilliant novelette "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" (1989). From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Aug 31 23:31:29 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gctr.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!gatech!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lord Prestimion by Robert Silverberg Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 31 Aug 1999 16:13:06 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 66 Sender: wex@basil.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: basil.media.mit.edu To: wex@media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2444 Lord Prestimion by Robert Silverberg Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Worth Reading, but non-Majipoor fans should wait for the paperback [ Warning: Major SPOILERS for "Sorcerers of Majipoor", the previous book in this series ] Silverberg does an amazing thing in this book. He manages to keep me interested for over 400 pages in which remarkably little actually happens. I read the Lord Valentine books many years ago, but basically forgot everything about them except that I thought they were ok. Other than that I'd never read any Silverberg works, but I had heard many people complain that his recent books were basically junk. But I decided I'd take a chance on Lord Prestimion anyway. This is volume two of a trilogy, but functions well as a standalone. All of the events from the previous Sorcerers of Majipoor (which I haven't read) are reviewed in sufficient detail to fill you in on the background. Prestimion was destinted to be Coronal of Majipoor. But when the old Lord Confalume was elevated to Pontifex on the death of the emperor Prankipin, Confalume's son Korsibar usurped the throne. After a bloody civil war, Prestimion finally triumphed. To heal the scars of war, he had his mages invoke a spell of forgetfulness that obliterated the war from the minds of the populace. This volume basically covers the aftermath of that conflict. Pretimion has to deal with an outbreak of madness among the people that appears to be a result of the forgetfulness spell. He also has to deal with a couple of troublesome leftover villians from the war. But that's about it. There is remarkably little action. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn in. Silverberg uses this book to show off many of the wonders of Majipoor. Perhaps a bit too many of the wonders in some places. Occasionally his prose sounds like one of those lists of ancestors from the Old Testament. But there's no denying that Majipoor is a fascinating place. I can't even begin to describe it here, so I won't even try. I'll just say that I think it is one of the better SF worlds out there. There's so much I want to learn about it - particularly the exact types of technology they possess, a topic on which Silverberg is deliberately vague. I think that's one reason I keep reading. I'm waiting for Silverberg to whip out a spaceport on me or something. Those who enjoy exploring vast, grand, imaginary worlds will definitely enjoy this book. People who are looking for lots of action will probably want to take a pass. Also, Silverberg writes in a somewhat stiff, formal manner that echos the way a great king like Prestimion might speak. If that is not to your liking, you should also take a pass. In any case, except for hard core Silverberg or Majipoor fans, I recommend waiting for the paperback as this one isn't really up the hardcover price tag in my opinion. %A Silverberg, Robert %T Lord Prestimion %S The Prestimion Trilogy %V Book Two %I HarperPrism %D 1999-08 %G ISBN 0-06-105028-8 %P 416 pp. %0 hardcover, US$25.00 Reviewed on 1999-08-25 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 10 23:40:27 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: tillman@aztec.asu.edu (P.D. TILLMAN) Newsgroups: alt.books.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Short Review: Lord Prestimion by Robert Silverberg Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 08 Nov 1999 14:16:40 -0500 Organization: none Lines: 61 Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: Reply-To: tillman@aztec.asu.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se alt.books.reviews:54523 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2491 Lord Prestimion by Robert Silverberg (Majipoor #6, Prestimion #2) Review copyright 1999 Peter D. Tillman Rating: B+. Colorful, beautifully-written but thin planetary romance. This is Silverberg's sixth Majipoor book, and it's a bit thin. I've read and liked the previous five -- this is Jack Vance "Big Planet" country: big, colorful landscapes, strange flora & fauna, teeming cities, richly-caparisoned nobility, exotic aliens, bits of higher-tech in a metal-poor, basically nineteenth-century civilisation. Good thick light escape-reading, which is just what I was in the mood for. I noticed the Vancian rodomontade more this time, because there's very little plot here, maybe a novella's worth: Prestimion is crowned as Coronal after winning a disastrous civil war in "Sorcerors of Majipoor." He's decided to heal the scars of war by removing -- by sorcery, offstage -- all memories of the war. Naturally, this has unforeseen consequences, not the least of which is one of the rebel leaders trying to start a new civil war. And he meets a girl and makes her his Queen. Well, that's about it until Prestimion #3. Mind you, this is by no means a bad book, but, thinking back, I found Sorcerers to be the weakest Majipoor book up until now, so I suspect the well is running dry. Unless you're a diehard Majipoor fan, I'd wait for the paperback or a library copy. And I believe I'll let someone else be the guinea-pig for Prestimion #3. %T Lord Prestimion %A Robert Silverberg %D 2-99 %I Harper %O $25 %P 416 pp. %G ISBN 0-06-105028-8 Links: Here's a more positive review by Victoria Strauss (with more links): http://secure.cyberus.ca/sfsite/07b/lp61.htm She liked "Sorcerors" more than I did, too. Silverberg has a brief autobiography posted at: http://www.galegroup.com/library/resrcs/lit_cent/meetauth.htm Highly recommended. Excerpted from Something About the Author, Volume 104 (Gale, 1999), which I've just added to my "to-read" list [note 1]. Silverberg writes a monthly column for Asimov's. http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_9908/reflect_wheel.html is a particularly good one. Many more are collected in his recent Reflections and Refractions (Underwood-Miller, 1997): http://www.hycyber.com/SF/reflect_refract.html __________ 1) Memo to Gale Group: I just wasted 15 minutes searching your website for this book, which, remarkably, isn't linked to this excerpt *or* listed in your online catalog! And, when I went to Asimov's to get the URL for Silverberg's column, I was greeted with a completely blank screen. (Just at www.asimovs.com -- internal pages are fine.) Ah, the wonders of e-commerce & the Web... Read more of my reviews: http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Mar 27 12:26:25 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: "The Alien Years", Robert Silverberg Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 26 Mar 2000 16:00:10 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Lines: 82 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 954104411 2957 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2671 The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg Review Copyright 2000 Robert M. Slade Silverberg is an experienced novelist. He has some fairly complex characterization in this book, although the attempt to make this a multigenerational work strains the personae a bit. Despite an early disparaging of H. G. Wells' cop out in "War of the Worlds," Silverberg's deus recidivus machina is every bit as forced. The titular aliens come among us with a highly advanced technology, about which little is said. Even though almost nothing can be inferred from the information given, there are still a number of contradictions in the book. Some of the contradictions seem to be simple carelessness. One section of the book, having given numbers for the population of a specific area, thereafter asserts a number of vehicles that means there are more cars running around than there are people to drive them. Having said that the world's population has been cut in half, with minor local variations, another section has the number down to about one percent. In regard to the population drop, the book outlines a collapse of government, communications, commerce, and transport which even the book finds strangely extreme, and yet only a relative handful of people die in the kind of disruption an event like that would create. Technology and production plummet, with car parts and even cloth becoming impossible to obtain, yet intermittent times in the book find advanced weaponry, advanced computers, and advanced car models suddenly appearing. Let us start with some fairly basic technical problems. The alien technology is said to be able to stop electrical devices, including generators, batteries, and even simple light bulbs, from working. In regard to our own technology, this interference with electrical circuitry is said to stop any kind of transport. Diesel engines, as only one example, have electrical systems but do not require electricity to run: the ignition part of the diesel cycle relies on compressed air, and not an electric spark. However, the aliens are also able to be selective about this electrical impediment. Modems are specifically said to be forbidden, while telephones still work. Mind you, later in the book everyone seems to be communicating via email, so this is yet another careless contradiction. Since almost all telephone switches are digital, this means that codecs (coder/decoders) work while modems don't. A. C. Clarke and his comments about a sufficiently advanced technology to the contrary, this kind of "magic" still has to obey the laws of logic. The kind of differentiation required here strains the limits of the ability to determine intent in technical devices, which the work of Fred Cohen indicates is not reliably possible. Finally, we have a cracker breaking into the aliens' computer system. Given the ability to control electricity remotely for an entire planet, we have to figure that these guys know enough about TEMPEST technology to shield their computers from transmitting through the sewer pipes. Our lone cracker is also able to succeed where thousands of others, working in concert, with access to more technology, and knowing that it is possible, fail to follow in more than fifty years of trying. But that is probably to be expected. The computer technology in this book is Tekwars technology, Lawnmower Man technology, Sneakers technology: all graphics, flashes, and feeling. No function. The description of being able to "see" over a serial link, "feel" unknown systems at a distance, and "get behind" access controls that guard the only connection demonstrate a rather wilful ignorance of the realities and necessities of computer and communications technology, regardless of who builds it. %A Robert Silverberg %C 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299 %D 1998 %G 0-06-105111-X %I HarperCollins/Basic Books %O 212-207-7000 fax: 212-207-7433 information@harpercollins.com %P 488 p. %T "The Alien Years" ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! - Amos 5:21-24 http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed May 3 15:36:59 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!uio.no!uninett.no!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu Organization: none From: alex@arcfan.demon.co.uk (Alex McLintock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: POSTREVIEW: "Majipoor Chronicles" - Robert Silverberg. Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Date: 02 May 2000 16:37:08 -0400 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Lines: 57 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 957299829 10881 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2694 Majipoor Chronicles, by Robert Silverberg. Review Copyright 2000 Alex McLintock this review will be republished on www.DiverseBooks.com The Majipoor Chronicles is being re-published by Voyager Books in the UK on 2 May 2000. This is a reissue of an old collection of stories. This confused me quite a bit since the cover didn't tell me that. The setting: Majipoor, A lost colony from Earth. Humans have taken over the planet and have forced the indiginous aliens off the best land and into the desert. Why they did that I don't know because there is so much land that they can give it away to other alien races to farm. Also Majipoor is quite a peaceful planet since almost everyone finds the idea of killing abhorent. They also dislike change and progress which kind of puts a downer on any really interesting hard sf. Thankfully they have the odd thing left over from either the previous inhabitants of Majipoor, or from old Earth. The little technology they have on Majipoor is particlarly good at sending out dreams and related tasks (like recording memories). These are stored in an official library. It is this library which forms the premise of the short story collection. Hissune is a young scholar in the civil service under Lord Valentine. Hissune forges documents to get into the Library and illegally "experiences" these memory recordings of people throughout Majipoor's long history. It is but a framework to hold these stories together but it works quite well. I have avoided Silverberg's fantasy up till now but since this is "lost colony" fiction I can be safely describe it as science fiction instead of fantasy. I don't mean "Lost Colony" in the Anne MacCaffrey "Pern" sense with "bio-engineered" fire-breathing dragons! The only two things I have trouble believing in is that human beings could live together without killing each other, and also that there is no desire for technological progress through the thousands of years that these stories are set over. Each story is fundamentally about individual inhabitants of Majipoor going through some life changing experience which all happen to be on the same planet. The characters are interesting though cannot be developed to the same extent as a novel would take them. The stories were interesting though, without one dull or uninteresting one between them. I have another Majipoor book "Lord Valentine's Castle" on the unread shelf. I shall now read it sooner rather than later. %A Robert Silverberg %T Majipoor Chronicles %G 0-00-648379-8 %I Harper Collins, Voyager Books %C London %O paperback, UKP 5.99 Alex McLintock use http://www.sflink.net/ to advertise your SF website