From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Dec 9 00:37:22 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!seunet!mcsun!uunet!indetech!pacbell!pbhyc!djdaneh From: schmunk@vega.rice.edu (Robert Schmunk) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Costello's HOUR OF THE SCORPION Message-ID: <1991Dec3.181209.19538@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Date: 3 Dec 91 18:12:09 GMT Sender: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Reply-To: schmunk@vega.rice.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sfwritten Organization: Pacific * Bell Lines: 109 Approved: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com HOUR OF THE SCORPION By Matthew J. Costello A book review by R.B. Schmunk (Copyright 1991) Before I get into this review, I should mention that HOUR OF THE SCORPION is the second book in Matthew J. Costello's "Time Warrior" series (not to be confused with the "Time Warriors" books also currently appearing on book racks). If you haven't read the preceding novel, TIME OF THE FOX, you may want to give this review a miss and instead read Evelyn Leeper's review of the earlier book, posted to rec.arts.sf.reviews about two weeks ago. Anyway, the reason I read this book is not because TIME OF THE FOX was such a great book (it wasn't) but because I'm an alternate history nut. TIME OF THE FOX and HOUR OF THE SCORPION are the kind of alternate history in which somebody travels back into time and makes changes, sometimes serious enough to re-write the history books. The premise is something akin to what's used in the television series QUANTUM LEAP, in that the time traveler does not physically move but instead occupies the mind of someone who lived in the time and place the he wishes to visit. Unlike that TV show, however, who he "replaces" is controllable by the folks back at home at the Time Lab on the Columbia University campus, somewhere in the early to mid 21st century, and the only way for the lab to communicate with him is to send someone back with a message. The main quirk of what's happening is that this Time Lab is shielded from all forms of external radiation and its existence is never affected by any changes which a time traveler may effect. Additionally, it is connected by computer cable to (unspecified) external databases so that the people inside the building can measure the change in history without being changed themselves. Oh, and of course, there are bad guys with their own similar apparatus; they're unreconstructed neo-Stalinist hardliners hiding out in Soviet Georgia, still angry about perestroika and still aching to destroy America. HOUR OF THE SCORPION moves the scene of battle (or change war, if you will) to 1968 Vietnam, days before the beginning of the Tet offensive, a battle which the US won militarily but which told the folks back at home that this wasn't just another police action. One-time Columbia grad student and now unwitting time warrior Jim Tiber finds himself inside the mind of a US infantry lieutenant with absolutely no idea why he's there (he got yanked out of his previous mission without time for de-briefing or re- briefing). His apparent job would be to stay alive and wait for a message from the future. The folks back at Columbia send back his girlfriend Ali, but in order to get a feel for what's really going on, they send her via Hanoi, where she takes over the mind of a North Vietnamese general's mistress. The general, by the way, has been taken over by an agent of the Soviet time travel group. Right after they send her back, the scientists back at Columbia find themselves evicted from their labs by New York City cops in a world where the US has gotten a bit fascistic since they last looked out the window. That's enough of the set-up to give you a feel for the basic story. Now it's time to discuss the merits of the book, and I'm sad to report that there aren't many. I found the characters generally unengaging, and Costello jumps back and forth between them fairly rapidly, usually within a half- dozen pages. I suppose that this is to lend an air of tension to the novel, but I found it only made it difficult to keep track of what the characters were up to. No sooner had I settled into what one was doing before the book would move to another. At least one unnecessary subplot takes up a major portion of the book when Jim's lieutenant suddenly gets compassionate leave to visit his family in San Francisco. As the events of the trip do nothing to further the plot I can only assume that Costello included this to either a) contrast the danger of the Vietnamese jungles to the Haight-Ashbury flower children, or b) take up space. If it was the former, then it was very ineffective. And of course, I had major problems with the inviolability of the Columbia Time Lab. There would seem to be any number of paradoxes possible with Costello's description of the set-up. Some sf writers would acknowledge these problems and either find a logical way around them or else admit their existence and give them a literary shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, "What can you do about it?" (e.g., Anderson' Time Patrol stories). If Costello has done anything to explain these paradoxes away, it comes in the form of meaningless quantum physics jargon. Given that special tiles are supposed to protect the existence of the Time Lab, I couldn't help but wonder what if a historical re-write resulted in the Columbia campus getting nuked before the lab was supposedly built. Would it sit suspended over a glass crater, its mystery cable leading nowhere? When reading an alternate history, I require that a story either be very well-written and do nothing that overly strains my credulity (e.g., Waldrop's "Ike at the Mike") or that it be halfway well-written and teach me a little something about history that might have been (e.g., Steele's "Goddard's People"). Unfortunately, HOUR OF THE SCORPION is neither a good story nor did it tell me much about the Vietnam war. In her earlier review, Evelyn Leeper recommended that only a Rommel fan would find much of interest in TIME OF THE FOX. This novel does not even have that sort of limited appeal, and though I'll read virtually any alternate history I can find, I'll probably give Time Warrior #3 a skip should it ever hit the book racks. I recommend that you don't even give #2 a try. %T HOUR OF THE SCORPION %A Matthew J. Costello %I NAL ROC Science Fiction %O paperback, US$4.99 %P 335 pp. %D December 1991 %G ISBN 0-451-45128-7 %S Time Warrior %V 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robert B. Schmunk SPAC, Rice Univ, Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251 -- (713) 527-4939 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~