Electronic OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Part 6 Northshore The Awakeners, Volume 1 Sheri S. Tepper St. Martin's Press, March, 1987 Reviewed by Barbara Jernigan Copyright 1988 by Barbara Jernigan A favorite Russian toy is a palm-sized, brightly painted, babushka (old woman). The better examples have intricate detailing, almost concealing the seam around the waist. What? She comes apart! The toy opens to reveal another babushka, as brightly-painted as the first. She, too, has a seam; she, too, conceals another babushka, who conceals another babushka, who conceals.... Sheri Tepper's Northshore is like that Russian toy. Each chapter is carefully wrought, full of detail describing the land, then the peoples, then the cultures, then the reasons behind the cultures, then the reasons behind the reasons... of a place called Northshore. But more, each chapter opens another layer, revealing a new complexity underneath. Like the Russian toy, the reader thinks, "Ha. This must be the innermost layer, there can't possibly be more." Yet each succeeding chapter shows that there is more. And more. And more. Until -- But that would be cheating. For me, however, there aren't many books that I would recommend without hesitation that you purchase in hardbound. This is one of those few -- though I should admit one minor drawback: this is Volume I of a duology. If you can't stand lengthy suspense -- though Northshore ends, while leaving a sense of impending action, is not a cliffhanger -- wait for Volume II (Southshore: The Awakeners), which the coverslip of Northshore promises is "soon to be released." Northshore is a complex read. Nearly every word, and certainly every image and concept, seems to matter, every brushstroke counts. It is a well thought out book, from the landscape to the food chain, to the inhabitants' cultures and beyond, and all fascinating. The world turns under three moons, which are physical manefestations of the three reigning gods. It is equatorially split by "the World River," almost a deity in its own right, an ocean-wide tidal current that follows the moons. The events of Northshore, unsurprisingly, take place on the northern shore of the River; "Southshore" is a mythical place, none in memory have attempted to traverse the River. Two known sentient species dwell on Northshore (there is much to Northshore that does not meet the eye): humans, and the birdlike Thraish. Each species' culture is highly stratified, particularly the humans', which ranges from the Rivermen, tradesmen whose tide propelled boats ply the seven-year world circuit, to the Noor, darkskinned clans that inhabit the steppes to the north. And then there is Northshore itself, with its Awakeners and frag powder merchants, its oracular Jarb Mendicants and blue-faced priests of Potipur, glittering with sacred mirrors. Northshore, with its processions of black Melancholics, flailing away at the citizens with their fishskin whips and given good metal coin to do it. Northshore, with its puncon orchards and frag groves and wide fields of white-podded pamet and blue-tasseled grain. And Northshore's River edge, where lean forms of stalking Laughers, tight-helmed in black, announce their approach with cries of scornful laughter, ha-ha, ha-ha, making the heretics run for cover. Echoing the Laughers, stilt-lizards hoot through their horny lips, scattering the song-fish from around their reedlike legs only to snatch them up one by one to gulp them down headfirst. Ha-ha ha-ha. Northshore is a mood piece, and the mood is a dark one. The land-dwellers live in enforced ignorance, praying to be "Sorted Out" at their deaths. Those not sorted become workers, zombies who slave under the piercing gazes and mirrored staves of the Awakeners, until their bodies no longer hold together, and they become meals for the Thraish. This you discover within the first chapter. The rest of the book progresses from this, moving deeper into the reasons that make Northshore what it is -- and into the currents of change that are building, even as the tides surge at the Conjunction of the three moons. Although there is quite a lot of action, Northshore, in retrospect, has the feel of a setting-up for the events of the next book, much akin to the first third of a Masters' chess game. Like the the nested babushkas, Northshore is an intriguing puzzle of uncovering. Tepper's images are so evocative and so carefully crafted, it matters little that it is only a first piece. Only! This is a book that may well aspire to the literary heights of this and any genre. Northshore is a book to be savored; to quote the Independent Press blurb on the slipcover, "Step into Tepper's world...then try stepping out of it." What lies at the center of Tepper's babushka puzzle may be the ultimate emptiness, or it may be a wondrous revelation yet unguessed. It will be an impatient wait for the second and concluding volume. Behind the Scenes Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future African Genesis by Mike Resnick Copyright 1988 by Mike Resnick Chuq has sent out a call for some Where-Do-You-Get-Those-Crazy-Ideas articles, and since the genesis of my forthcoming novel, Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future, is still fresh and clear in my mind, I thought I would take him up on it. Back in 1983 or 1984, while I was researching something quite different about Africa, I came across a mention of an animal known only as the Kilimanjaro Elephant. It was an evocative name that seemed to have a mythic quality to it, so I began finding out what I could about this elephant -- and what I found fascinated me. In the Roland Ward Book of Big Game Records, the top 200 trophy animals of every African species are listed. Usually the difference between the Number One and Number Twenty animal is half an inch, or a quarter of a pound. Not so with the Kilimanjaro Elephant: his tusks weighed 237 and 225 pounds, and no other tusk in history ever went over 190 pounds. He was a monster among his own kind. There was more, too -- or, rather, curiously less. With almost every other animal in the book, they know the date it was killed, who shot it, what kind of bullet was used, where it was shot, who the guide or white hunter was, what the animal's measurements were. Not so the Kilimanjaro Elephant: they think, but do not know, that he was killed on the northern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro; they suspect, but do not know, that he was killed in 1898; they surmise, but do not know, that he was killed by an escaped slave. And that constitutes everything that is known about him. Well, everything prior to his death, anyway. His ivory turned up for auction at Zanzinbar in 1898. One tusk, the larger one, was bought by an American, who was to pick it up at Cairo. It was shipped north with a slave caravan, but the caravan was raided, and the tusk disappeared for 12 years, finally turning up in Brussels. The other tusk went to Belgium, then India, and ultimately England. Finally the British Museum of Natural History bought the pair of them in 1932, and after an attempt was made to steal them in 1937, they were taken off exhibit and stored away in a vault beneath the museum, where they still reside. I wrote to the curator for permission to examine them, and finally got to see them in May of 1985. They are magnificent, each going more than ten feet long and two feet in circumference at the base. I began tracing every reference I could find in my voluminous African collection, and finally plotted out a mainstream novel, which would follow the Kilimanjaro Elephant for the last month of his life, and then follow the ivory on an entirely fictitious journey until it wound up in the British Museum. I called Eleanor Wood, my agent, bubbling with enthusiasm about the story. She listened politely, then told me that if I did a bang-up job on it, she might be able to get me as much as I could get for a short story from Omni. Whereas, she continued, if I would remember that I am supposed to be a science fiction writer and that that's where my audience is, and if I would follow the ivory not just to England but into space, and not just for a period of 34 years but of five or six millennia, she could get me 30 or 40 times as much as a short story for Omni. A word to the wise was sufficient, and I began expanding the scope of the book -- and suddenly realized that I could tell a much more powerful tale with this approach. I created two framing devices, a future researcher for the 65th-Century equivalent of Rowland Ward, and the spirit of the Kilimanjaro Elephant himself, and each told alternating sections of the book. The main novel, about 60,000 words, was a straight-line narrative by the researcher. But as he keeps searching for the ivory, the story segues into about a dozen incidents, perhaps 90,000 words total, in which the tusks appear at various times and places -- as stakes in a poker game, as objects of alien religious rites, as pawns in a scholarly battle between paleontologists, and so forth. I told these tales of the ivory non-sequentially for reasons that I hope are clear to the reader. This approach allowed me to write about the foibles and nobilities of Man, which is the business of every writer, rather than some silly hide-and-seek adventure about a pair of elephant tusks, and the main continuing story allowed me to enlist the metaphysical as well as the factual in assessing the human condition. Since a couple of the stories occurred during the elephant's lifetime, all that remained was to take a safari to Kenya in 1986 and retrace his steps on his last journey from the Tana River to the slopes of Kilimanjaro, which I did -- and which I also wrote up and sold as a factual article for Swara, the journal of the East African Wildlife Society. Then it was just a matter of sitting down and writing Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future, which took about 5 months. I think the hardest part was creating differing technologies and backgrounds -- none of them important to the plot, but all important to the versimillitude of the story -- for a dozen different future eras. The two pre-publication reviews it has received thus far claim that it is my best novel to date, and I have no argument with that assessment. When it is published by Tor this summer, it will not only have a jacket by Michael Whelan, but will also feature the only known photograph of the Kilimanjaro Elephant's tusks -- quite possibly the first time in history that a fiction book featured a frontspiece displaying its non-fictional source. Voice of the Whirlwind Walter Jon Williams Tor Books, $16.95 [***] Reviewed by Danny Low Copyright 1988 by Danny Low The story begins after the death of the hero, Etienne Njagi Stewart. Fifteen years ago, Stewart bought clone insurance, so when he died, he was resurrected. The problem is that Stewart never updated his memory wire during the intervening 15 years and the new Stewart has no idea what he did during those 15 years. What little he discovers about his old self all indicated that the old Stewart was engaged in questionable activities and died under suspicious circumstances. The old Stewart was also clearly rather psychotic. The 15 year lapse gives Stewart a chance to start anew but certain events makes him believe that what he does not know about those missing years could result in his death again and it could permanent this time. What follows next cannot be told. The book is a well enough crafted mystery that it is very difficult to tell much about what happens without giving away clues. Williams has written a proper mystery. There are clues throughout the book at the appropriate places so the reader can figure out the mystery. The only flaw in the mystery is that an experienced mystery reader can figure out exactly what is going on about 2/3 of the way into the story if not sooner. There is no real attempt to disguise the fact that the plot is a rather old and well used one. The book could be best described as cyberpunk as it might have been written by Keith Laumer. Williams style is very similar to that of Roger Zelazny but Williams' heros, while they appear to be typical Zelazny style heros, have a heroic quality about them that is reminiscent of a Keith Laumer super hero. Both Laumer and Zelazny create very similar super heros. Laumer's heros are basically pure (often to the point of being rather stupid) and are heroic as a consequence whereas Zelazny's heros have a veneer of fake cynicism that make them unheroic. Laumer's heros do right because that's what a man gotta do whereas Zelazny's heros do right because of sentiment. Williams blends the two styles creating heros that have a fake layer of cynicism but do right both because they are sentimental and because they are heroic. It is an interesting blend that Williams has been developing in his previous books and has perfected in this book. It is a sufficiently different style that it can now be called the Williams style. The whole book is very derivative. This is not necessarily bad. Originality sometimes mean you have found something new that you do not like. The book is well crafted and is good basic entertainment. It is a very well done example of action escapist SF. Songmaster Orson Scott Card Dell books, 1980, 338pp, $2.875 [Also re-issued by Tor books] Reviewed by Kevin Anderson kanders@lll-ncis.ARPA Copyright 1988 by Kevin Anderson This review was written seven years ago when Songmaster first came out in paperback. As you will be able to tell, I loved the book, and was annoyed at the publishing vagaries that have kept it out of print for so long. Now the novel is once again available and worth looking for. How can anyone describe the feeling a reader gets the first time he reads Dune, or The Lord of the Rings, or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant -- and knows, with certainty, that this is one of the best books he has ever read. And then you read countless other books, searching for the same feeling. And then, finally, you stumble upon Songmaster by Orson Scott Card. This novel grew from Card's novelette "Mikal's Songbird," which was the runner-up for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and winner of the Analog Reader's Poll for "Best Novelette of the Year." The novel has terrifying potential (which is fully realized) and a fascinating idea -- the author has a damn good story to tell, and he knows it, and so does the reader as soon as he starts to read. Ansset is a singer, a special singer with a phenomenal power in his voice that can make people helpless before the naked emotion in his songs. But then he changed his song. Still without words, he began telling them of the sweating cooks in the kitchen, of the loaders, of the dentist, of the shabbiness behind the buildings. He made them understand the ache of weariness, the pain of serving the ungrateful. And at last he sang of the old woman, sang her laugh, sang her loneliness and her trust, and sang her death, the cold embalming on the shining table. It was agony, and the audience wept and screamed and fled the hall, those who could control themselves enough to stand. And then Ansset becomes the special Songbird to Mikal, the Emperor of the Galaxy; and they learn to love each other. It was a soft song, and it was short, but at the end of it Mikal was lying on his back looking at the ceiling. Tears streamed out from his eyes. "I didn't mean the song to be sad. I was rejoicing," Ansset said. "So am I." But an Emperor has many enemies, and Ansset loses almost all of the people he loves...before he learns to use his voice as a weapon. This is a book you'll want to read slowly, merely to enjoy. Words don't make up this novel -- they are quanta of sheer joy, pure horror, rending sorrow, absolute ecstasy in reading with an intensity I have felt only one or two times before. I could quote paragraphs and pages of writing brilliance, hoping to convince others to rejoice as I have done. Songmaster is the best I've yet seen from the best new author I've yet seen. Card should win every award in every field of literature for this masterpiece. Orson Scott Card is a Wordmaster. I still recall this book as one of the best I've ever read. Without having reread it, I cannot say whether it is better than the magnificent Speaker for the Dead, but it is certainly something that should be on your Must Read list. I believe poor distribution and poor publicity was, in part, at fault for Songmaster not winning any awards in 1980. But the book deserves your attention now. Soldiers of Paradise Paul Park Arbor House, 1987, 280pp, $17.95 0-87795-861-0 Reviewed by Neal Wilgus Copyright 1988 by Neal Wilgus If War and Peace had been written by Aldous Huxley, Frank Herbert and Conan the Barbarian the result might have been Soldiers of Paradise. Paul Park's new novel of the far future resembles Tolstoy's masterpiece in that it paints a broad picture of human behavior during times of drastic change, and in the use of maverick aristocrats as main characters. But Park's ironic satire is closer to Huxley than Tolstoy, while his bizarre landscapes and weird cults are comparable to Herbert -- and only Conan could truly comprehend Park's unique creatures called Antinomials. The times that are a-changin' in Paradise are seasonal -- for on this much changed future Earth the months are thousands of days long and a full turn of the seasons will cover a generation or more. The story opens in the last phases of winter and progresses, slowly, into early spring -- a time of upheaval, fire and flood, and the dreaded but life-giving sugar rain. The war that has been raging for the past year (i.e., generation) is not going well and the strange religion of the land -- worship of a phallic dog-like god name Angkhdt -- is also caught in revolution. The aristocrats of Paradise are the Starbridges -- a family of the rich, the royal and the righteous which has dominated the rest of the population for so long that even when the Starbridges fight each other the masses only shrug and go along. (Sound familiar?) But it's the maverick Starbridges -- Abu and Thanakar -- who are the most interesting and who are the main characters in this complex social comedy and haunting fantasy. Both of these Starbridges are misfits who have escaped the responsibilities that accompany their names -- Abu because he's a fool and a drunk and a poet, Thanakar because of his crippled leg which disqualifies him for any of the serious roles the Starbridges must perform. And then there are the Antinomials -- a bizarre subset of the human race (maybe) that has grown so disgusted with civilization that they have abandoned all thought and "normal" communication, living only from moment to moment, substituting their music for speech, moving further and further from Starbridge culture with each generation. Justifiably, perhaps, since that culture is our own unjust and straightjacketed culture taken to even more ridiculous lengths -- with super rich and super poor, each restricted and distorted by cruel and unusual behavior codes carried to illogical extremes. And it is with the super poor and the Antinomials that Abu and Thanakar hobnob from time to time, adding spice and dimension to a story already rich in invention, insights and madness. Paul Park is described on the dustjacket as a resident of Manhattan who cast off his corporate chains and took a trip around the world -- ad who still has no fixed address. Be warned that Soldiers of Paradise is the first volume of the Starbridge Chronicles and that the sequel, Sugar Rain, has already been completed. For that reason Paradise ends with many loose ends dangling, but in this case I didn't mind at all. OtherRealms #20 Spring, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No individual article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author. OtherRealms is published quarterly (March, June, September and December) by: Chuq Von Rospach 35111-F Newark Blvd. Suite 255 Newark, CA 94560. Usenet: chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ CompuServe: 73317,635 GENie: C.VONROSPAC