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Reviews by Larry D. Woods
Certain SF themes are so potent that they may shape and frame a community of ideas beyond the genre itself: cyberpunk, virtual reality, Asimov's laws of robotics and time travel. These ideas are not required to be accurate or authentic so long as they are powerful -- which is just what these three books are.
In "A Mind for Trade," Andre Norton, one of the grand SF masters, and Sherwood Smith, her collaborator, return to Norton's "Solar Queen" space opera series and update it for the 1990s. Rip Shannon, pilot of the Solar Queen, and his colleagues Dane, Jasper and Ali have become mysteriously linked by psychic power and now seem to live each other's dreams and know each other's location.
The Solar Queen, which captured the spaceship Ariadne and renamed her the North Star, now uses the North Star as a supply vessel. Under a charter from the Trade Commission, the Solar Queen lands on a strange planet to mine a valuable ore only to encounter continent-shattering storms and an indigenous race of strange creatures who warn of a coming apocalypse. The crew's struggle to survive and prosper accentuates the reader's sense of wonder.
Struggle is inherent in Tim Powers' "Earthquake Weather." Powers includes characters from his last two novels, World Fantasy Award-winning "Last Call" (Morrow 1992) and "Expiration Date" (Tor 1995). Scott Crane, the Fisher King of the West, the hero of "Last Call," has been ritually slain in the dead of winter. According to the myth of the Fisher King, he should have been slain by his successor so as to insure continuity, but the ritual murder of Scott Crane was not by his successor, leaving the country without a King and subject to the natural calamities of storm, fire, flood, earthquake, famine, disease and pestilence.
Now the only hope is Koot Hoomi, the hero from "Expiration Date." If he can learn the proper ceremonies, then perhaps Scott Crane can be restored to life or Kootie can assume the role of the Fisher King himself.
Powers is a past master at blending mythology, fantasy and history in a complex maze that entertains and enthralls.
In "The Gift" by Patrick O'Leary, the Teller aboard a stalled ship weaves the "fearful tale" of the Song of Mother Death -- a tale that parallels the current tension mounting in the ship as a boy matures to be the Usher of the Night; a king named Simon confronts the Usher of the Night and the evil rook Tomen; an orphaned child of a woodcarver must become the Tamer of Winds; and a marsupial Waterman deals with his fate. These stories explore the meaning of existence and the fantastical nature of our lives.
Larry D. Woods has a huge collection of science fiction and fantasy. He is an attorney in Nashville.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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