Cover-Up Story

Marian Babson
Fiction, Mystery

This is one of Babson's first novels, and the one in which we are introduced to Perkins & Tate, the publicity firm of Murder At the Cat Show. Their job this time is to handle publicity for a hillbilly country group, a job that seems easy until we actually meet the group. The head of the group is Black Bart - a nickname that is all too apt. He's tyrannical, cruel, narcissistic, and oh, did we mention the paedophilia? As if that wasn't bad enough, he treats his sister and his wife like dirt, there's a stage mom involved, and the illiterate backup band members have a nasty sense of humor.

It's bad enough keeping the bad news - the statutory news - out of the papers while trying to up the positive profile, but then the stage mom is hit by a car and claims she was pushed before she dies. Now Doug Perkins has to figure out who might be a murderer... though he's got a pretty good idea... and stop the killing before somebody else dies.

Like many of Babson's novels, you know that the crooks will get their comeuppance in the end. As an earlier novel, however, this lacks the polish that makes her later efforts truly shine.

***/*****

Dragon Prince Trilogy

Dragon Prince
Melanie Rawn
Fiction, Fantasy

This is the perfect antidote to the myriad Tolkien clones running around the fantasy section. Yes, there are dragons, but understandable large creatures with identifiable habits, not forces of nature. Yes, there is magic, but not incantation-laden mysticism. And while there are villains, they are real people with a yen for power, fully realized and intelligent.

The story begins in the Desert, a kingdom set amidst sand and heat. Anyone who has lived in the Southwest understands the climate. The mindset it engenders is even more important, because anyone who has lived in a desert understands how important certain resources are, and how they must be cultivated. The mindset of Prince Rohan of the Desert it at direct odds of that of the High Prince, Roelstra, who comes from a princedom so rich in resources that his conspicuous consumption - and mind games to promote strife - hardly have an impact. The power-hungry nature of Roelstra is the stumbling block to Rohan's grand dreams - dreams he is going to perform subterfuge to get underway.

To make matters more complicated, Roelstra has no male heir, only eighteen daughters. His obvious strategy is to marry one to Rohan, a strategy that might work except for the stumbling block of Sioned, a Sunrunner who is Rohan's true love. In order to get the dreams of peace underway, however, they pretend disinterest so as to make Roelstra think Rohan will marry one of his daughters.

If only it was so simple. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and the subterfuge of a slightly dim prince that Rohan has to maintain starts to strain under the events that take place at the Rialla, the thrice-yearly convocation of princes. The intelligence of Roelstra and the desperate plots of his daughters and mistress make for danger at the celebration, a Rialla that ends in fire.

And that's just the first half.

This book is not for the faint of heart, as it is the typical bricklike size of the fantasy novels that come out these days. If that's your style, however, this is a superb example of the best that modern fantasy has to offer - a unique foray into a fully realized world.

*****/*****

The Star Scroll

This second entry into Rawn's world displays the same level of writing ability that made Dragon Prince so good. It is set roughly eleven years after the events in Dragon Prince, and Prince Pol is being fostered on the island of Graypearl. His seasick reaction to crossing water only confirmed what his parents already knew: Pol is a Sunrunner, and destined to be a ruler with both political and quasi-magical power.

At least, if he comes to power. The plots and machinations of the Rialla from the last book have lasting effects, as a pretender to the High Prince's crown is rumored. Worse, the discovery of an ancient scroll in the ruins of an old Sunrunner temple hint at another kind of power, and the potential for an ancient enemy to emerge. Still worse than that is the fact that Roelstra's three eldest grandsons have that power, and have been trained by those ancient enemies in its ways... and all they want is power for its own sake, even if they have to destroy the continent to get it.

*****/*****

Sunrunner's Fire

This culmination of the Dragon Prince series is on a par with the first two. The sorcerous challenge is underway, as the grandsons of Roelstra make their claim to power. As typical with schemers of high intelligence, they set their plans in motion when they cannot be ignored. And all to soon it is time for Rohan and Sioned to tell their son the truth about his heritage... the truth that makes it possible to go into battle with his full strength.

*****/*****

The Princess Tales

Gail Carson Levine
Fiction, Fantasy, Children's

This book is a compilation of three familiar fairytales told with a typical Levine twist. In "The Fairy's Mistake," a typical gift of jewels falling from the lips of a kind-hearted girl proves to be far more problematic than the punishment of bugs and snakes for the snide girl. Naturally, it all comes down to greed, and Levine's theory that a "quick and easy" solution has more problems than not.

The second story concerns a very picky girl (who is sweet but necessarily fussy) and a prince whose parents are just as particular. Naturally, they wish to get their son a perfect princess, and set up a number of tests, the last of which, of course, is the pea under thirty mattresses.

The final story, a Sleeping Beauty retelling, has another instance of misplaced fairy gifts. Princess Sonora (Princess Snore?) is gifted with ten times the intelligence of everyone else, which means that not only is she a most startling baby, but she loves to come up with theories - except no one likes to listen to her. "Princess Sonora knows - but don't ask her," becomes a catchphrase in the kingdom. So when the sleep of one hundred years comes upon her, who better to wake her than a prince who always asks "Why?"

***.5/*****

The Fuzzy Saga

Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, Fuzzies and Other People
H. Beam Piper
Fiction, SF

Zarathustra is a Class III planet, inhabitable by human life but unihabited by any native sapient species. At least, it is presumed to be so until a sunstone prospector named Jack Holloway finds a little yeeking biped in his shower and calls him Little Fuzzy. The first of Piper's novels deals with the necessary complications of such a discovery, primarily because of the Chartered Zarathustra Company, which owns the planet outright - unless the status of the planet is changed.

The path to sapience is not quite what you'd expect; it comes in the form of a legal challenge, a murder trial when one of the company researchers kills one of the little bipeds. The pre-trial antics of both sides are fairly typical and have far-reaching side effects; before the trial even begins, the colonial governor is deposed, the police department is in turmoil, and martial law is declared. And of prominence in the story is the definiton of sapience: can one define a being as sapient if one cannot determine that the being talks, or that it does any of those actions previously accepted as rule-of-thumb indicators?

The outcome of the trial is obvious; the path toward it is less so. This is a book which would work very well for the young adult crowd, but adults can enjoy it as well, as the characters are well-drawn and distinct.

-+-

The second book in the series begins shortly after the momentous Pendarvis Decision, the court case that declared that Fuzzies were a sapient species. Now the protagonists have to deal with the ramifications of that, with a new Native Affairs group, with protecting the Fuzzies, and with families who want to adopt the adorable (and well-behaved) little bipeds. (Not to mention the hospitals and mental wards that want Fuzzy visitors.)

And then the head of the Charter(less) Zarathustra Company, Victor Grego, finds a Fuzzy curled up on his bed. Not only is this a huge problem - the only way that the Fuzzy could have gotten in is through human intervention - but the little guy indicates that there were five others with him. Those Fuzzies were taken for purposes unknonwn, and probably nefarious, but the best efforts of the police and internal security can find no sign of them.

This book illustrates the problem of unintended consequences. The people who fought to have the Fuzzies' sapience recognized are now having to deal with the questions raised by their win, and also discovering that a principled enemy can become a good friend if the circumstances are right. And the Fuzzies themselves are what the Ewoks should have been; sweet without being cloying, and smart without being unrealistically able to defeat an opponent many times stronger than them.

-+-

The third book was discovered long after Piper's death, but was rumored long before then. (Some of his friends had read parts of it, and others had heard the plot outlined.) The novel itself shows few problems for the lack of editorial give-and-take; there are a few concepts and phrases repeated from previous novels, but they feel more like typical conversations (where cool catchphrases are used multiple times) than mistakes.

This novel deals with a legal problem: the veridicator, a standard appliance mandated in all court trials, detects falsification - the substitution of one statement for another. For certain people to be brought to justice, Fuzzies must testify... but they have never been known to lie. Unless the prosecution can prove that a Fuzzy lying will red-light the veridicator, the defense may get the testimony revoked on technical grounds, and the defendants go free.

Worse, there are certain practices in Terran-alien relations that require the use of a veridicator, and without the ability to show that it works on Fuzzies, certain practices such as adoption, and the mining of sunstones on Fuzzy land for Fuzzy benefit, go out the window. (Which would be bad for the Fuzzies as well, since their birthrate is well below replacement, and medicine therapy is needed in the form of food supplements. Which they love.)

And in the midst of this, a tragedy strikes. Little Fuzzy (you remember him) goes missing, and is presumed dead, which nearly incapacitates Jack Holloway (Pappy Jack.) Of course, it all works itself out in the end, and works as a fitting conclusion to Piper's Fuzzy novels. (I have been warned away from one of the sequels penned by another author; I suppose the lack of continuity would keep me away from the other, which is considered far superior.)

*****/*****

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

H. Beam Piper
Fiction, SF

This is the classic culmination of the Paratime stories, composed of three short stories that Piper had published in the 60s dealing with Coporal Calvin Morrison, a Pennsylvania policeman who was accidentally transported from his own Earth (basically ours) to one where the Aryan migration went east from India instead of west. His love of military history and his knack for strategy and tactics propel his meteoric rise in the new Earth; the doomed kingdom he fell into becomes a conquerer instead, in a war against a theocracy based on the magic of gunpowder.

Naturally, he knows the secret formula, and quickly gains the trust of the ruling family. This becomes a bit of a headache to the Paratime Police, because they not only have to cover his disappearance on his own time-line, but have to figure out if he's a threat to the Paratime Secret. And they don't want to kill him... unless they have to, of course. Moreover, the university researchers are fascinated, because they can study the massive impact that one person can have on a time-line, using nearby lines as controls.

And as for Calvin, he's having a blast. He gets to be a hero, he gets to put his beloved military theories into practice, he gets to toss off great lines like "And there was the great god Status, whose symbols were many, and who rode in the chariot Cadillac, which was almost a god in itself," and, of course, there's a beautiful princess in it for him as well, and it doesn't hurt that she can outfight half the kingdom.

This is the ultimate book of wish fulfillment. A somewhat ordinary guy from our world gets transported to the one place where he can be truly great. Despite the clichéd premise, though, this is truly a fun read.

*****/*****

(Note; currently this is published with the Paratime stories below as The Complete Paratime. I preferred the Whelan cover, though.)

Paratime

H. Beam Piper
Fiction, SF

In this collection of short stories set in a world where First Level inhabitants exploit the resources of four other Levels, each with numerous subsections, Piper constructs police narratives in an otherworldly format. In "He Walked Around the Horses," we find out a possible fate for that Charles Fort favorite, Benjamin Bathurst, a man who disappeared in broad daylight from the knowledge of anyone in this world. The story is told through official correspondence on another Earth, a world where the American Revolution failed, affecting events all over Europe. Naturally, the inhabitants of that world think of the sudden appearance of a British diplomat - and one who has a very strange view of current events - as exceptionally distrubing.

The next story deals with trying to clean up after a careless First Level inhabitant, one who brought an alien pet to a lower-level timeline, which escaped after the owner died. In this story, we are introduced to Verkan Vall, future head of the Paratime Police, an organization which keeps track of activity in the other levels, and which is dedicated to preserving the Paratime Secret. In this case, that means tracking down and removing the vicious alien pet before it is seen and killed. In other cases, it means discrediting flying saucers (observation discs) and explaining inexplicable disappearances (such as the unfortunate Benjamin Bathurst.)

There is then a story set on the Second Level, in a culture in which reincarnation is a proven fact of life, and "voluntary disincarnation" is common. The trouble starts with a First Level infiltrator who is innocently carrying out research that has huge sociological implications. Her life is, of course, threatened, and Vall must extract her before her involuntary discarnation takes place... because her reincarnation, along with memory recovery, could give the Paratime Secret away.

The story "Time Crime" is the longest in the book, and the slowest as well, as it is mostly procedural. However, readers will sympathize with the all-too-modern fact of having to deal with the media and with politicians while trying to do your job; these passages with attacks from all sides seem all to familiar in an age where every last bit of information is over-analyzed.

I would recommend this book for people looking for classic science fiction in small doses. These stories are well-written and still hold true, even with the anachronisms.

****/*****

Spin Sisters

How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness --- and Liberalism --- to the Women of America
Myrna Blyth
Nonfiction, Media

There are a number of people who will be put off by the insertion of the word "liberalism" in the title of this book. There are also a number of people who become more interested in the contents of such a book because of what such a word implies.

Such is the power of language.

Blyth's book deals primarily with the insular nature of the world of women's magazines, and how the cycle of reinforcement means that those within that world never truly realize that there are other opinions out there. This is the kind of insularity that leads to comments about the author being invited to a party 'in spite of' the fact that she has occasionally voted for a Republican; this is also the sort of world that led to the infamous comment "I don't know how Nixon won; nobody I know voted for him," after Nixon won 49 states.

Far more important than the political leanings, however, is the drive to be first and most, which has led to extremely fuzzy journalism and an excess of "the fear factor", as Blyth puts it. In order to keep their readers hooked, a columnist can take an isolated incident or scary anecdote and telegraph it into a story about how "it could happen to you." For an example, take the story of those people who blamed vaccination for causing their children's autism. Any decent science major or statistician can tell you that correlation does not equal causation, and recent studies have shown no links between the two, but not before a large anti-vaccine movement got underway. (I think they need to do a "fear factor story" on The Tragedy of the Commons: How Someone Else's Decisions Can Affect Your Child's Health.)

More to the point, in a society where women are freer, healthier, and have more opportunities and free time than any previous generation, these stories are designed to keep women stressed and guilty - not through any ulterior motive to keep women unhappy, mind you, but through the ulterior motive of getting women's attention in a field supersaturated with similar stories. And the reason that they don't do stories in an area that is new and different is twofold: these are the stories that they are interested in, so they can't imagine being interested in something different, and tried and true is the working formula that they don't dare to change.

The book is written in an open style, with endnotes rather than footnotes so as not to break up the flow. Each chapter leads into the next with a little teaser - no doubt learned by the author as she worked for and managed various magazines. There will invariably be a bit of idealogical breakdown between who will read and who won't read this book, but if you are interested in the way that women's magazines present material, and the reasons why, for example, the race to stickdom for models is taking place in their pages, you might give it a try.

Even if you disagree with her, Blyth raises some interesting points.

****/*****