Zoran Živković finds the meaning of life seven times in this collection of ’speculation fiction.’ Too bad it was not seven multiplied by six times. Billed in the marketing material as a ‘story suite,’ Seven Touches of Music is a seven-story examination of the fantastic via the interventions, images, and impacts of music. It is a book of expectations and hopes, about being blind to what arrives when it is not what we expect. It is about being fixated upon a single, specific result, and unsatisfied with the results that truly transpire. It is a book that aspires to creating literary fantasy.

“The Whisperer” is a very well-written, very engrossing, opening story. It was easy to live the events detailed across its pages – and easy to become incensed and disgusted by the defeatism and disbelief of the doctor at its conclusion.

“The Fire” built upon my frustration by delivering a librarian dissatisfied with her incomplete, disconsolate life, who remains unfinished, incapable of more, by story’s end. It left me with a very disturbing image of incompleteness, of a wasted life.

“The Cat” continued to play my emotions by being a very sweet and touching read. The extremely powerful prose of the first half of the tale read so smoothly and irresistibly, I felt as if I were read it, eyes closed, similar to a Garrison Keillor radio story only delivered in person. A lovely experience.

“The Waiting Room” is a series of vignettes, snippets in the lives of others seen through the eyes of another. While simultaneously damning our narrator, music and visions freed her. Not as touching as the previous tales, yet somehow offering something deeper.

“The Puzzle” read like a breeze, a swift, short, fresh breath, despite its length. It was an exploration of purpose and contentment…and the lack of faith.

“The Violinist”…Oh, so much painfulness here, so much unnecessary futility. So much ‘what-could-be-if-only’ – and all of it, all of it!, sundered, stolen away.

“The Violin-Maker” is the longest, most thorough tale – yet it left the most unanswered. I thought it led a certain way, only to be led another: nowhere and incomplete, leaving me cheated and disappointed.

(An unusual characteristic common to all the tales and one I am not sure I understand, is the forced formality of Mr./Mrs. preceding the first name of most all the characters. Nor am I clever enough to distinguish what, outside age possibly, precisely sets apart the very few who are not so painstakingly codified.)

Seven Touches of Music is a book about music and the hopes it creates, the futilities it delivers. It tells a melancholy tale. It is, perhaps, a glimpse into the reasons Beethoven slammed his head upon the piano and his fingers upon the keys. Filled with so much that is senseless, even pointless, it is a book of sadness which, often not, is the ingredient that makes literary possible. A thought voiced on page 96 offers possible explanation for it all: This at least gave a semblance of meaning to everything. And one could not live without some meaning, however illusory.

Yet this too is untrue. As a book of individual hope and short-sightedness coupled with universal ignorance and futility, it is ultimately depressing. It offers no escapism, no illusion; nothing but a slap in the face and a forced facing of reality rather than idealism, viewed via a fixated blindness rather than boundless vision. As an attempt at ‘literary fantasy’ it fails miserably, for there is little of the speculatively fantastical beyond its trappings. An often breathtakingly admirable attempt it most certainly is, but each story removes itself further and further from the realm of fiction until the whole is nothing more than a series of incomplete speculations upon the nature of music and what it triggers in the human psyche. Such speculations are more clinical analysis than exploratory contemplation; more fact-finding than fun-filled. Inspired it may be, but it is more about the fiction than the fantasy of speculation. Why is it that what is literary is so often so bleak? Would I recommend Seven Touches of Music by Zoran Živković to my friends? No, I cannot recommend it for the enjoyment of my friends. At least, not my kind of friends. On a scale of 1-10, I shall grade it a 9.5 in terms of the quality of writing and storytelling, a 2.5 in terms of the speculative.

You can also find this review on the SFReader.com.

Confession: I hadn’t read a single one of the Flashing Swords anthologies edited by Lin Carter until this one. I am now proud to say I own all five books, three of them in dust-jacketed hardcover. However, my first foray into the series ended in dismay.

So it is in somewhat of a similar state I now find myself, as I finally type the words of my appreciation (or lack thereof) of four of the larger names in sword and sorcery history: Fritz Leiber. Poul Anderson. Lin Carter. Jack Vance. I’ve read works by Vance and Carter before, and I own several unread words of Anderson and Leiber. So more firsts for me.

Carter’s dedication to Robert E. Howard – “without whom we would all probably be writing nothing but science fiction stories” – sums of the purpose and pursuit of these anthologies - themselves the result of the loose confederation of heroic fantasy writers named SAGA, the Swordsmen and Sorcerers’ Guild of America. Carter pens an inviting introduction that covers the origin of both sword and sorcery (S&S) the genre and the term. His intro further provides a somewhat timeline of S&S events and authors, tells of the creation of SAGA, and brings us to the state of events in 1970’s speculative fiction writing and publishing. It was a pleasurable read, as was getting into the first of the stories.

“The Sadness of the Executioner” by Fritz Leiber is by far the most enjoyable tale in the book. The first Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story I’ve read, it definitely made me desire to read more. This is a fun tongue-in-cheek appreciation of true warriors under spur-of-the-moment dire circumstances and their ability to calmly handle said events. Oh, and it’s an interesting take on the figure of Death. Mired as I have been in the novels of today and the slush of tomorrow, it was definitely a sweet thing to read classic writing such as this again. Such pleasurable use of language! If this tale is indicative of the remaining F&GM tales, I will be reading them in rather short order. Speaking of short, while I believe it was written in the perfect amount of words, when comparing this particular tale to the others in the anthology it was much too short.

“Morreion” by Jack Vance apparently comes from his Dying Earth series. I’ve read Vance, but not that series, and I am aware how much both author and series are referred to and imitated. I haven’t felt the urge to read the series before and this story does nothing to change that. Actually, that is unfair of me. It encourages me not to read it at all. Not quite halfway through it already was much too long. In a nutshell: numerous silly and sad magic-users float around the universe in a magic castle trying to one-up each other. There is a completly B.S. ending that left me dissatisfied and disgusted. A very long story that truly accomplishes nothing.

I turned to Poul Anderson’s “The Merman’s Children” with hope, eager to rid my memory of vestiges of its last read. Hope only somewhat met by a thorough drama, yet a drama minus its dramatic flair. A better written story somewhat unfeelingly told and frustrating beyond belief for never delivering upon the anticipation it built. Despite being about the spectacular no where near spectacular, ultimately as far removed from “The Sadness of the Executioner” as “Morreion” is from this.

Finally comes Lin Carter’s turn, and he takes full advantage of the stage Vance and Anderson have left him. After all, it shouldn’t take much to top either of their efforts. And so we meet Amalric in “The Higher Heresies of Oolimar,” the first of the Immortal’s tales. All who read S&S know of Carter’s love of the colorful, the exaggerated, the romantic. Amalric and this tale do not disappoint! While this does provide some entertainment, after a bit it becomes too much. Too many over-the-top names both colorful and crazy at first distract, then defy, then simply deter (as in the case of Vance’s story). Unlike “Morreion,” however, “The Higher Heresies of Oolimar” maintained its amusing quality. Carter provides the most apt description of his tale within the tale itself:

The index, or digest, proved impenetrable. The Oolimarine theology seemed to be half abstract philosophy and half higher mathematics, and employed a bewildering and cloudy terminology uniquely it own. Every other word seemed to be capitalized, and every term seemed to have half-a-hundred synonyms, and it was almost impossible, on any given page, to figure out what the author was talking about.

I would read further of Amalric’s life.

In conclusion, while the concept is sound and the results from almost 35 years later spectacular; while the authors and Carter’s introductions of them are illuminating and inspiring; while Leiber’s tale is simply outstanding and totally addicting, the rest . . . . hmmm. Using my simple memorable-regrettable-average (won-loss-tie) calculation to rate the stories, the anthology garners but a single win. At 1 - 1 – 2 (50%), I am forced to do the unbelievable. Would I recommend Flashing Swords #1 edited by Lin Carter to my friends? Surprising even myself, no.

‘If it don’t rhyme, it ain’t poetry’ should have told me in glaring neon lights not to buy or read this collection of verse. Sadly, I knew in advance author Mario Del Rosso’s stance on poetry as I long attended a writing critique group with him. But in the nature of supporting my fellow writer, I spent the green on this ‘chapbook’ consisting of eight poems on three folded pieces of 8.5″x11″ pages bound in light green cardstock. A retired science teacher with a matter-of-fact approach to life, Del Rosso vehemently protested all non-rhyming verse. He cites his credo above as the reason he self-published this chapbook.

Topics range from 9-11 to lawn mowing, driving in snow to voting; rhyming schemes range from aabb to abcb to aabba presented mostly in 2-line and 4-line stanzas; inspiration ranges from simplistic thoughts on small aspects of life to tongue-in-cheek twists on common nursery rhymes and popular old ballads (ala, “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” and “The Streets of Laredo”). In pursuit of the requisite rhyme, patterns are forced, some rhymes don’t, and adherence to sentence structure too often overrides, well, poetry. Overall, Verse, or Worse is a collection of the poems we all had to write in grade school – a collection only a grandfather should read to his family.

Would I recommend Verse, or Worse by Mario Del Rosso to my friends? Unfortunately, no.

My first miss of 2007. Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian wins awards for:

• Longest Setup Ever to be Found in a Novel
  (553 pages(!) out of 642(!) with the first hint
  of even getting anywhere 85 pages(!) in);
• Most Aptly Worded Title Forewarning
  Readers of What to Expect
  (if Only They Knew to Expect it!)
• Best Fictional Travelogue of All Time

Lord Almighty, what a long read! And I’m not talking about the page count; shoot, I can read a Steven Erikson 775-pager in a week. This one I started back in February. Of 2006. Just kidding! It was 2007. Sure feels like ‘06, though.

Regular readers of this blog know my reviews do not reveal much of the story, plot or content. I only speak of the nature of the beasts, and my reactions to them. No particulars. This is the first story I’ve commented upon where that policy is a bit hard to follow. I cannot list for you all of my disappointments, but I will do my best to convey to you my true sorrow that this novel is not as much as it could have been, not the delight that I believe it should have been. I do not know from where the fervor it seemed to have sparked originated.

If you wish to read a terrific travel monologue, buy this book. Oh, begging your pardon. This is not a monologue. It’s a virtual nightmare of voices:

• The narrator (protagonist’s voice . . . I think. She never really does anything but tell us her story about reliving her father’s story vicariously . . . no, not that either. She does not relive his story, simply relays it. That’s it. With only a wee little bit of action herself (like taking a train ride or reading a book in the library), so that I get the impression she’s but sitting in her easy chair come evening, wrapped in her shawl beside the fire and reading us this tale. Reading us to sleep. Which she successfully did several nights). Back to the voices . . .
• her father’s letters (father’s written voice)
• her father’s reminisces and recounting of certain events delivered in person (father’s oral voice)
• her father’s college mentor’s letters (both mentor and letters actually the root of the whole novel)
• several different people in both versions of her father’s voice relaying their own and other people’s thoughts, beliefs, writings, travels, and on and on and on . . . reading these parts was the written equivalent of standing in one of those hallways of mirrors where you can see yourself reflected endlessly forever and forever and forever . . .
• her mother’s letters
• and – FINALLY! – our protagonist’s own truly active voice in the last 2 chapters (still relaying past events though) and then finally a return to the present in the epilogue where she cannot help but be active

Through all of this ran complete descriptions of everywhere! Not through it – over it! The story had to wend its way through the scenery and often got lost in the labyrinth. Tom Clancy and Zane Grey have nothing on Elizabeth Kostova! Like I said though, if you enjoy reading a good travel book and are interested in or planning to visit the European or Western Asia countries, this may be just the book for you. If you can ignore the references to vampires that is. Shouldn’t actually be that hard though, as it comprises less than 20% of the book. In fact, skipping the last 2 chapters and epilogue probably reduces that to 5% or less and there’s nothing really in those parts you’ll need anyway.

So no wonder it took so long to slog through! It was like trying to hear a public speaker who chose to deliver her message in a crowded saloon, and when the drone of conversation finally allowed me to hear more than every few words all I heard was how long it took her to reach this point and what the scenery along her trip looked like.

A few specifics: The story is about the possibility that Dracula still lives. People and events would like you to believe he does. Father’s mentor, father, mother, and daughter all search for him in varying degrees of success throughout this long retelling of a telling. They may or may not find him. That was the premise. Powerful, full of potential; disappointingly weak, potential never even approached. The protagonist (is she is it) doesn’t change a whit from beginning to end. Her father is the strongest character in the novel, has the largest part, and does somewhat change, but we get to hear about it, not go through it with him.

In stating a few complaints, revelations must occur. Dracula does still live. Yet, despite heavy hints and even blatant indications of his prodigious power, he never – never! never! never! – uses it! Very aggravating! And at his apparent defeat at the almost end, this group of investigators who have never not doubted something, have never taken anything for its face value, fall for an easy victory! I was so shocked at this decision by the author, I couldn’t believe it. I reread this section to make sure I wasn’t missing something, but, nope, this group of people who had traveled the European and Asian continents on an historical hunt, felt betrayal and hurt and death and fear, found very little support (but always just the right amount of help when needed) from any quarter, and even doubted themselves; nope, they just accepted an easy victory and went home. Unbelievably irritating payoff for such a long read, especially as my suspicions were reinforced by the weak conclusion!

Like I’ve said, great historical travel book. Great insights into multiple cultures and glimpses at differences between the Eastern and Western (and American) perspectives and histories. Definitely a book written by an historian, I’ll even admit an historian with a neat idea. She did a superb job of incorporating all the senses into her travelogue, using smell and taste as well as I’ve ever experienced any author use sight.

Kostova did write those ending chapters well, maintaining a great escalating tenseness until the final conflict . . . then brought both the conflict and the novel to weak, unsatisfactory closures. Would I recommend The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova to my friends? Forever and ever NO!

Dragonlance. Conan. WarCraft. Shattered Light. Diablo. All formidable names (Well, except for Shattered Light). Richard owes his career to the first, but by continuously writing within this universe of media tie-ins he has eternally chained himself to them. He does have his own works — four stand-alone novels and a ten-book series called The Dragonrealm — but they get nowhere near the amount of press these other works do. Even with the exposure he’s received by associating with such media giants, I know no one else who reads him let alone recognizes his name when I mention it. By writing in these other worlds and within other author’s guidelines, Richard Knaak has deprived himself of developing his own brand. I have read enough decent books by him that he should be a larger draw than he currently is, and there seems to be no other explanation for this.

Which is rather sad, as Knaak does provide an excellent story — on occasion. I discovered Richard in the Dragonlance series in his terrific books The Legend of Huma and Kaz the Minotaur and followed him into his own world, The Dragonrealm. I enjoyed the first six books of this series, but the stories steadily decreased in creativity and sustainability after that. I’ve read two of his stand-alones, rather enjoying Frostwing but finding King of the Grey to be simply okay. For me, his best work by far has been within the Dragonlance collection. Despite the hit-or-miss quality of Knaak’s books and the narrow spectrum within which he allows himself to write, I really haven’t read a ‘bad’ book by him. Until this one.

Knaak should have swapped his Birthright for a bowl of porridge. He would have been better served.

There is not much good to say about this book. Every single character but the protagonist is interesting. Yet only one of these secondary characters is worth further reading — and my curiosity has not been aroused enough for me to read any further in this proposed trilogy.

The novel tells the story of Sanctuary (the name the devils and angels know earth by) and the eternal war between what passes for heaven and hell in Diablo. It is the story of one man, hunted for heinous crimes he did not — could not — commit and the path to justice and redemption he is forced to follow, first as an unwitting pawn of the combatants, then as an unwitting pawn of his own boringly dull lack of intelligence and his sheer dumb luck. We are also forced to follow along, not with our character and his obligatory sidekicks, but as detached observers. Something separates us from Knaak’s characters; there is no empathy, no collaboration, no living vicariously through any one of them.

Every step our trepid ‘hero’ takes in the right direction is through the inadvertent guidance of his friends or plain old luck — the kind he considers bad luck and is too dumb to realize it’s saved his backside yet again. And no, sadly this novel is neither spoof nor humor piece.

Our hero is arrested, duped, ambushed, injured, defeated, victorious. He kills, he loves, he tries to think, he tries to be a friend, he sees friends die and grotesqueries abound. He faces demons and devils, warriors and women, worship and wonder. He overly-discusses every single one of these occurrences with himself and without learning a thing from any of them. I weary of his thoughts long before the end of the book draws near. From first word to last, Knaak elicits within me a tearless ennui.

The book is loaded with blundering prose. There is a heavy attachment to -ly words, childish phrasing, and extraneous unnecessary and convoluted wording. There is lots of very poor, redundant, and often ridiculous word usage. There are even numerous mistaken identities, naming a character on one page and then, on the ensuing page, having a different character (sometimes not even present in the scene) continuing the action in question. This book is a prime example of careless writing in my opinion. These weren’t errors caused by typesetters and printers. These are definitely author errors and possibly editor errors, depending upon whether or not the editor’s job description still mentions story continuity.

“I will say this succinctly and clearly only one more time!” (p. 47)

This is a bad book, filled with hokey writing. Please don’t waste time reading this! Would I recommend Birthright (Diablo: The Sin War, Book I) by Richard A. Knaak to my friends? Absolutely not – NO!

You can also find this review on the SFReader.com Speculative Fiction Book Reviews and More.

Stories were originally passed along generation to generation via lore masters, bards, elders — storytellers gathered in the dark around their campfires, their audiences drawn close, spellbound at their feet. The words were cherished, memorized and embellished until their tellers became masters of performance.

Changelings: Dragons & Demons would be perfect delivered like this, by one such as this, over several nights around a campfire. To ten year olds.

In print it loses much of its appeal.

Author James A. McVean self-published through lulu.com in 2005 and the copy I read plainly evidenced this. In an enclosed letter, McVean advised that some errors were rectified in a second edition that would also include illustrations (At the time of this review, Amazon.com still carried the first edition, but the second edition is available through lulu.com or the author’s website. This also isn’t really the book cover but the first edition I read had a cover that only appears black in online photos and the cover on the second version is pretty bad, so I went with this picture from inside the jacket and on the author’s website). There actually weren’t too many cosmetic corrections that needed to be made; I could find no fault in the presentation or quality of the book. It’s the contents that desperately need editing. Even one pass through a critique group could have worked wonders with the prose. At the very least, it would have addressed the largest problem present:

A smothering of overly dramatic and essentially unnecessary extraneous descriptive material such as an overabundance of adverbs often led to confusing sentence structures and paragraphs of sundry sizes that were continuous strings of run-on sentences and often forced me to reread them in order to comprehend their meaning and full import.

However, it would have taken several critique sessions to repair the far too many inconsistencies in plot coherence and character logic that plague much of the story. Again, oral presentation would serve this story so much better, the art of the orator suspending the disbelief that cannot be avoided here in its visual form.

There are too many stretches, too many pieces or steps or timeframes the author knows but the reader does not. Too many implausible situations and too much contradictory information; ineffective metaphors; weak thees, thys and thous; and a jumble of far too many fantasy concepts for a 112-page book.

‘Wonder and confusion troubled Jack in equal measure . . .’ (p.44) neatly sums it up.

McVean touches upon practically every staple of high fantasy there is, and attempts to weave them together regardless of congruity or logical placement. There just isn’t enough space in this size of a book to establish such relationships or to do these standards justice.

The story is about Jack the orphan, discoveries, and responsibilities. Jack discovers his destiny, his inherent magical abilities, his magical family, his brave friends, his courage, his dreams and himself. All while racing through fantastical events and doing (and becoming) new things without missing a beat. It’’s ironic that it’s the fantasy of the story that is most unrealistic.

So unbelievable as to become too unbelievable, disallowing the reader the chance to suspend doubt. A wizard who, in one chapter, can sink an entire island-like metropolis with one word and no apparent fatigue or loss of power, in another chapter must transform into a bear to face a horde of demons in hand-to-hand combat. A boy who discovers he can turn into a dragon immediately flies without mishap and faces a far older and more experienced real dragon in combat at no apparent disadvantage.

Despite what it may sound like, I found this story premise to be interesting and entertaining and I liked the obvious enthusiasm of the author. But out of respect to all the writers out there who labor to make sure their stories are polished, are consistent, and, especially, are believable, I cannot endorse it. Perform this story orally, and I’ll applaud, possibly even be enthralled; make me read it, and I’ll write another review like this. Would I recommend Changelings Book 1: Dragons & Demons by James A. McVean to my friends? No, not until it’s prose problems have been addressed. I will start to read Changelings Book 2 if I happen to see it, and I will immediately put it down if these same problems exist.

You can also find this review on the SFReader.com Speculative Fiction Book Reviews and More.

Charles Swindoll is a household name in many Bible-believing families. He has written several studies of Biblical characters and numerous other books offering advice on the Christian walk; his Insight for Living program has a worldwide following via radio broadcast and webcast. All in all, there are many people who look to Chuck Swindoll for guidance and many who would eagerly take any words of encouragement and comfort he may offer. Especially in dangerous times; especially when they are hurt and scared and looking for hope, or at least reasons.

It’s disheartening to say they won’t find it here. The comfort that is. At least not presented in a way they were expecting or looking for . . . or needing. Oh, they’ll find reasons; they’ll find causes and effects; they’ll find strong advice. But comfort?

The subtitle of this short book is its downfall. Calming Words for Chaotic Times. It does not live up to them. It can’t live up to them, since Chuck spends the first half of the book telling us to be calm because everything is in God’s control and then uses the second half of the book to direct us in combat against Satan, our real enemy. Anyone who opens this book expecting to be calmed is in for a shock.

Swindoll sets a tone I like right away (p. 2) when he says, “In my mind, there isn’t a hell hot enough for the cowards who perpetrated these vicious and brutal crimes against innocent victims. May the pain of their everlasting punishment know no bounds and find no relief.” Wow! Not words I expected to hear from a preacher’s lips. At least one not played by Clint Eastwood. Amen! Preach it, Brother!

This chapter is all about the shock and pain; the anger and desire for vengeance; the unity and patriotism that resulted from 9-11. Its tone doesn’t last long, though. In fact, reading it now is rather sad, as he assumes too much about America’s renewal of faith, our unity and our patriotism.

Chapters Two through Seven remove any idea this book is presented to calm anyone. In these chapters, Swindoll repeatedly tells us that God is in control; God is not surprised. “All events of this earth . . . occur exactly as He has planned or permitted them” (p.29). That’s reassuring? God rightly has no obligation to explain a single thing to us, His creation and the result of His imagination. But is telling us - Hey! Don’t worry guys. This may have hurt like the dickens but that’s okay, I let it happen. Could have prevented it; didn’t. Just let it go; let’s move along now – exactly at the height of our pain and sorrow calming to anyone? The people who absolutely trust God aren’t even looking for ‘calming words in chaotic times’ and don’t need to read this; the people who are unsure and worried can’t find confidence in this (God planned or permitted these terrorist attacks?); the people who don’t believe in God and need His love the most won’t find belief in this (God planned or permitted these terrorist attacks?).

Chapters Eight through Ten take a different tack. Swindoll spends them identifying the true enemy of all people of all nations; indeed, all humanity — Satan. He writes most strongly in these chapters, leading me to think the book should have been subtitled Identifying the True Enemy. He broaches a scary concept many people refuse to consider, though, when he says (p.57) “[God] hasn’t lost His grip on our times. . . . In the end, God wins.” Doesn’t that mean we’re expendable until then?

The most galling aspect of this book for me, however, is the fact that the best calming words in it don’t even come from Charles Swindoll or the Bible. They come from the anonymous penner of “Let’s Talk about Love”:

“We are dealing with people who will die in order to kill, so great is their hate. But they are dealing with a people who will give their lives to save the lives of people they don’t even know, so great is our love. In the end, how can they possibly stand against that?” (p.80)

The book does close with some very interesting positive statistics about the failure rate of the attacks. I especially am impressed that, of all possible victims at The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and aboard the four airplanes, 93% survived or avoided the attacks!

As soon as I saw the title of this book and discovered it had been written and produced beneath the immediate stress and national unity of the attacks of 11 September 2001 (it was published 17 December 2001), I was very curious to know what Chuck’s spin would be. While it ends powerfully, its very weak beginning and lack of living up to its stated promise doom it. Would I recommend Why, God? Calming Words for Chaotic Times by Charles Swindoll to my friends? No

Hard science fiction always comes across as personal platform writing to me. It gives the author the opportunity — in between the possible adventure, the usual exploration, and the extrapolated science — to postulate his own answers to questions about the meanings of all the aspects of humanity: life, death, gender, gender roles, politics, war, survival of the fittest, love, race, class, bias, property possession, myth, government, sex, religion, philosophy, business, crime; the list goes on and on. The problem with this is, the author is the same one posing the questions. It’s like pitching to yourself. This is fine when it’s nonfiction and your readers expect thinly veiled opinion or even seek your advertised knowledge, believing in its expertise. But in fiction? I can’t stand being duped into reading someone else’s doctoral thesis.

Stranger in a Strange Land is billed as “The Most Famous Science Fiction Novel Ever Written.” As Robert A. Heinlein’s “masterpiece.” As the “mega-long, boring-est piece of self-serving literature as has ever graced this planet.” Two out of these three blurbs grace the book cover.

The book is broken into 5 parts covering the life of one Valentine Michael Smith (Mike), the son of humans born and raised on Mars by Martians sans human contact. After minimal background and introduction, the story begins with his arrival on Earth. I did find Parts I and II interesting as they tell the story of an adult human being introduced to human concepts in a human environment totally alien to him. These parts do provide a good and dramatic read on relationships, language and humanity. Smith must learn everything as a newborn babe would, yet with an adult consciousness and with extra abilities learned from his Martian upbringing he ‘groks’ things quickly. Heinlein describes this developing well, guiding Smith and the reader through what this meant with a beguiling ease and sense of wonder. Once the protagonist grasps what humanity is — and is not — and we readers comprehend what ‘groking’ is — basically, the complete understanding of something by becoming one with it — well, once we’ve all reached this stage, Heinlein has us where he wants us.

The vast majority of the rest of the book is his pontificating swings at all those slowly self-pitched balls of meaning that he manages to knock out of the park via pages (and pages) of pedantic diatribe. And more pages. Many are the foul balls, however. With an appropriate summation, the first 226 pages of this book could have made a quite decent novel on their own. It’s the remaining 212 pages (the majority of Heinlein’s thesis) that should have been shelved in the local public library as a separate nonfiction, op-ed piece containing Robert A. Heinlein’s personal outlook on life. He spends a long time exploring concepts such as sex, religion, politics, death, marriage, communal property, crime and punishment, business, class distinction — all without progressing the story one iota. I began skimming, ultimately skipping, long sections of this, searching for the story. Which, when I could find it, was interesting and entertaining throughout much of the book.

Part III started out rather disappointingly but picked up after a bit, fluctuating from the storyline to Heinlein’s exploration of humanity, love, humor, religion, science, and philosophy. It were almost as if he forgot he was writing a novel and simply expressed himself most personally this way. Either that, or it’s all wild speculation as his mind wandered and he simply wrote what he thought as he thought it. This is the section where he progressed the story less and less. Part IV delivers his ideas on sex, religion, philosophy and psychology throughout history; Part V is his study of personal freedom, anti-imprisonment — and religion and love again.

Heinlein did give us Jubal Harshaw, though, author extraordinaire and masterful jack of many trades and much knowledge. Nothing is funnier than Jubal’s version of ‘writing’ novels and short stories and I love the descriptions of his writing life scattered throughout the book. This is the one redeeming quality of the novel in my opinion: the rather good information offered about being an author. His advise regarding editors:

“You have to give an editor something to change, or he gets frustrated. After he pees on it, he likes the flavor better, so he buys it.” (pp. 376-77)

Perhaps this was Heinlein’s version of On Writing.

I did learn a new word from the book: odalisques, meaning “female slaves or concubines in a harem.” As Mike says (p. 191), “Kissing girls is a goodness. It beats the hell out of card games.”

Overall, despite these last few pieces of fun advice, I found the book quite unsatisfactory. It leaves me wondering which begat which: the 1960’s and 70’s or this book. Would I recommend Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein to my friends? Nope.

Tracy Hickman minus Margaret Weis does not work so well. Tracy Hickman plus Laura Hickman does not work so well. . . . Go find Margaret, Tracy; get down on your knees and beg her to join forces with you once again. Both of you are better together.

Tracy is obviously the world-builder of the famous Dragonlance duo, and he has done a superb job in this trilogy(?) thus far. This is/was the final book detailing the colliding paths of three worlds that had originally been one, are currently separate but overlapping through dreams & magic, and are now on a collision course of reunification. Each world is fully realized and populated by one of each primary race: Human, Fairy, Goblin. There are completely different sets of world outlook, religions, vernacular. No ifs, ands, or buts about it – Tracy provides a good setting.

On the other hand, he and wife Laura don’t bring much depth to most of their characters; even build a few characters across the trilogy(?) arc on the same template; and several times force characters to make leaps in logic. I also found a few contradictions in information in this book.

The Hickmans do write dragons very well. Excellent descriptions of dragons in action and appearance are found throughout the book. And I liked the newly discovered race of humans introduced in this book. The Hickmans are, however, rather blase with their dwarves, over-extravagant with their goblins, and predictable with their fairies.

One of the things I disliked about this trilogy(?) is the unusual decision to not utilize the same characters throughout. Book Two takes place a generation after Book One; this book eighty years after Book Two. That is, in the human world. It seems to be roughly the same in the goblin world, but characters in the fairy world stay fairly constant. There are features of all three worlds I like; components I don’t. Book One, Mystic Warrior, was a decent read, one that, though I felt it below the efforts of a Weis & Hickman work, did entice me to read more. The characters of all three worlds in this book are the most developed in the entire trilogy(?). Book Two, Mystic Quest, lived up to its name by creating quests for characters in each of the three worlds – and the reader. While the goblin’s was actually the most interesting, the reader’s was the most unsavory: finding meaning to the tale. Not one to stop a trilogy(?) after getting two-thirds of the way through it, I waited for Book Three.

I almost regret doing so. The little bit of spark Hickman did create and the fact I know I would always wonder what happened helped me persevere. Yet the ending provided in this book is quite unfulfilling. The beginning of the book — actually, the whole series to this point — leads a reader to believe several specific points will be addressed upon its climax. Sadly, they are not; in fact, even worse, the ending is so vague it leaves one with the feeling there is no climax but more to come. Hence, my (?) after every trilogy throughout this review.

To build a series upon setting seems to be what the Hickmans are trying to do. It worked (for the most part) when readers thought this was a trilogy, but utilizing their sundered worlds and story ideas as the primary recurring ‘characters’ over a longer story arc falls far short of addictive reading. A setting and idea driven plot such as this would have worked much better as a single overly-large novel. This weak ending has put my curiosity to rest, so I’m not sure I will read any future books in this series. Would I recommend Mystic Empire: Book Three of the Bronze Canticles by Tracy & Laura Hickman to my friends? I have to say No – only diehard fans should waste their time in such a manner.

I haven’t seen the movie and I haven’t read the actual book. I doubt I’ll see the movie and I should have read the book. What I did do was listen to the abridged version of this story read by Edward Asner. Yes, good ol’ Ed. Problem was, there’s nothing good about this.

It did start out promising but quickly dissolved into a poorly edited, poorly read, poor attempt at a psychological thriller. While I did like the final answer to the puzzle Crichton poses throughout the story, I was not satisfied with his ending. It seemed too unreal; too untrue to the characters he’d made us get to know.

I hope the book was better. Based upon the reviews on Amazon it appears to be at least somewhat decent. I enjoyed Crichton’s Jurassic Park years ago and his Timeline wasn’t too bad either. I only hope I can quickly forget this one. Would I recommend Sphere by Michael Crichton to my friends? No.