From /tmp/sf.4258 Tue Feb 1 03:42:08 1994 Xref: liuida rec.arts.sf.reviews:457 rec.arts.books:73094 alt.books.reviews:1927 Path: liuida!sunic!pipex!uunet!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: PASSION PLAY by Sean Stewart Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <9312280943.ZM5450@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Date: 03 Jan 94 05:38:39 GMT Lines: 53 PASSION PLAY by Sean Stewart Ace, ISBN 0-441-65241-7, 1993, US$4.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper I find science fictional looks at religion intriguing, and in that category I would include future theocracies. PASSION PLAY is about a near- future America that is a theocracy, having been taken over by the Redemptionists. The "reds" (as they are somewhat confusingly called) have taken over the entertainment media as well, and everything is now instructive or uplifting. The Reds seem to have some idea of art--though movies and such financed by religious groups now don't seem to show much evidence of this--and it is during the production of a version of FAUST that the murder which forms the core of the book's plot occurs. The story is told in the first person by an independent investigator (who has some semi- psychic powers which are never explained). Reading the book, I felt like a stone skipping over the surface of a lake. There's too much "stuff" in this short book to have any of it examined in depth. The Redemptionist government, the religious structure (what happened to all the non-Christians in the new United States?), new uses of the media (along with a distrust in technology approaching the neo- Luddite level--how do these contradictory ideas get resolved?), puritanism (along with drugs and sex)--all these are touched on, but never examined or even made consistent. And wrapping all this around a murder mystery confuses the issue. There's too much the reader is trying to figure out about the background to give him or her a fair chance at figuring out the crime. (Yes, I know a murder mystery is not necessarily a puzzle. Still, it does seem as though the science fiction nature of this merely mystifies the reader further.) PASSION PLAY suffers from a super-abundance of aspects. I rarely find myself complaining that a book is too short, but Stewart needed either to lengthen the book or cut back on the various changes introduced. (It's also possible that an "expository lump" explaining some of what was going on might have made the rest less confusing.) PASSION PLAY is an intriguing novel, but ultimately disappointing. (In fairness, I show note that many people have liked it more than I, and it did win the Aurora Award for Best Canadian Science Fiction Novel in English. But my reaction was that it showed a lot of promise, but didn't deliver on it.) %T Passion Play %A Sean Stewart %C New York %D December 1993 %I Ace %O paperback, US$4.50. %G ISBN 0-441-65241-7 %P 194pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | ecl@mtgpfs1.att.com / Evelyn.Leeper@att.com From /tmp/sf.4146 Tue Aug 9 01:53:43 1994 Path: liuida!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!udel!news.sprintlink.net!dg-rtp!sheol!dont-reply-to-paths From: aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca (Aaron V. Humphrey) Organization: The Anna Amabiaca Fan Club Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Prograde Reviews--Sean Stewart:Nobody's Son Approved: sfr%sheol@concert.net (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Message-ID: <2nvshf$2j0@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> Date: Thu, 07 Apr 1994 06:54:25 GMT Lines: 60 Sean Stewart: Nobody's Son A Prograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey Sean Stewart's a great writer. If you haven't checked out his first novel _Passion Play_, which should be available in the States by now, then do so. This novel is totally different, but still good. In the first chapter, the protagonist, Shielder's Mark, removes the ancient curse from the Ghostwood, for which the King has promised great reward. Mark is utterly lowborn, by the way, and not anyone's idea of a hero, but he succeeds where others have failed perhaps _because_ of this. In the second chapter, he goes to court to claim his reward--which, by this point, he expects to be substantial. He is smitten with the King's youngest daughter, and asks for her hand, which is granted. Sound like a fairy-tale so far? Not a chance. The King's youngest daughter, Gail, is about as far from a fairy-tale princess as you can get and still be the daughter of a King. And Mark would be totally lost in the intrigues of court, without the aid of Gail, her maid and confidante Lissa, and the scholar Valerian(who is smitten with Lissa and sees Mark as a possible in). As Mark goes to take possession of his new Duchy of Borders, on the edge of the former Ghostwood, he begins to realize all is not right. So he sets forth into the wood to finish what he started... But a summary of the plot can't convey the deftness with which Stewart handles all this. The characters are all living, breathing and real, especially Mark and Gail. And Ghostwood seems to bring forth the darker things everyone had thought were lost in the past...especially Mark's unresolved feelings towards the father he never knew. I saw Stewart at a convention, giving a talk about "Big 'A' Art and SF", wherein he concluded that while mainstream literature is going more towards the tiny incident, and the everyday occurrence, SF remains a haven for huge, sweeping plots and clashes of archetype--and Star Wars, for instance, a striking example of this strength. In both this novel and _Passion Play_, Stewart has shown he can reconcile this with a touch of realism and still pull off a hell of a story. Stewart's my choice for the John W. Campbell this year. No question about it. %A Stewart, Sean %T Nobody's Son %I Maxwell Macmillan %C Don Mills, Ontario %D Copyright 1993 %G ISBN 0-02-954160-3 %P 233 pp. %O Hardcover -- --Alfvaen(Editor of Communique) Current Album--Thomas Dolby:Aliens Ate My Buick Current Read--Antony Swithin:The Nine Gods of Safaddne "pretend the needle thickens." --lstewart From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:27:09 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 25 10:55:14 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!trane.uninett.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news!nobody From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Subject: NOBODY'S SON by Sean Stewart Message-ID: <9507201454.ZM872@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books.reviews Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 21:01:41 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 40 NOBODY'S SON by Sean Stewart Ace, ISBN 0-441-00128-9, 1995, 273pp, US$5.50 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper The blurb on this says, "'Happily ever after' is only the beginning," and that is a reasonable summary of the book. The eponymous main character, also known as Shielder's Mark, goes into a haunted forest to break the enchantment around the Red Keep. When he comes out with the singing sword Sweetness, he claims as his prize the king's daughter. But nothing after that goes the way the old fairy tales would have it. His wife, though she likes him, doesn't worship him. The king, though he had to grant the request, doesn't much like him either. And the rest of the court thinks that he's "Nobody's Son" and treats him accordingly. There are parts of this book that are hard to get through because of the thick dialect (including the first chapter). And everything seems to get wrapped up a bit too quickly and neatly at the end. A bit ironic, given the premise, wouldn't you say? There is also a somewhat incongruous discussion of God and religion stuck in the middle. I get the impression that Stewart finds the subject of religion interesting, since he visits it in all his novels, but in this case it seems grafted on rather than an integral part of the plot. In spite of these drawbacks, however, I would recommend this as an interesting variation on the classic fairy tale pattern. %T Nobody's Son %A Sean Stewart %C New York %D May 1995 %I Ace %O paperback, US$5.50 %G ISBN 0-441-00128-9 %P 273pp -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com "If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein From /home/matoh/tmp/sf-rev Fri Aug 22 16:15:15 1997 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 15 23:06:38 1997 From: throopw@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: "Nobody's Son" by Sean Stewart Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 23 Jun 1997 21:05:57 GMT Organization: sheol Lines: 43 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!hk-r!genius!seunet!news2.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!nntp.uio.no!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!ai-lab!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1365 Nobody's Son, Sean Stewart Review Copyright 1997 Wayne Throop I read Sean Stewart's first published book a while back. It was "Passion Play," a deceptively simple premise of a mystery set in a "moral majority"/"religious right" future. But it was interesting. "Mental note to self: watch for more by this author" was my reaction. I recently saw two more books by Sean Stewart on the shelves, and got them both for airplane trip books. I suppose they do fine as airplane books... but they aren't the usual potboiler selected for that niche: I read each cover-to-cover, rather than in little snippets when airline boredome gets too heavy. Nobody's Son is the quest story, but rather than ending with the happy ever after of quest completed and grateful nation, it begins there. The protagonist Nobody finds that the nation's nobility isn't so grateful, his life of west and wewaxation in wetiwement works out about as well as Elmer Fudd's always do. Touch of humor but not a farce, touch of politics but not a thriller or deeply convoluted suspense work, touch of magic but not a normal fantasy, it's sort of the earthy working out of that happy-ever-after, with some deep-ish psychological overtones as the hero comes to terms with the shreds of his motives, and his unresolved "childhood issues" as the psychobabble goes. But far from trite psychobabble, the book has the characters come to some very nicely portrayed self-realization. But drat, I'm making it sound too dry. It's not. It's positively moist with clever bits of dialogue and scene-setting. %T Nobody's Son %A Sean Stewart %I Ace Berkley %D May 1995 %P 273 pp. %G ISBN 0-441-00128-9 Wayne Throop throopw@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw See also http://www.isc.rit.edu/~twp3647/ns.html