Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8857
Posted: Wed Oct 20 07:07:36 1982
Received: Wed Oct 20 12:34:37 1982

>From SFL@SRI-CSL Wed Oct 20 06:52:09 1982

SF-LOVERS Digest          20-Oct-82	       Volume 6 : Issue 64

Today's Topics:

    APRICON V, E.E. Smith's Family D'Alembert, Hogan getting better?,
    Reviews of Niven/Barnes' DESCENT OF ANANSI, Stallman's THE BEAST,
    Murphy's THE SHADOW HUNTER

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Date: 17 Oct 1982 2033-EDT
From: Kenneth H Lee 
Subject: APRICON V

APRICON V will be held on November 6, 1982.  GoHs will be Joan D.
Vinge and Jim Frenkel.  Noon Til Midnight.  Ferris Booth Hall at
Columbia University at 115th and Broadway.

/Ken

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Date: 19 Oct 1982 0953-EDT
From: Joseph M. Newcomer 
Subject: Family D'Alembert

I have in my collection the following:

Imperial Stars (#1)
Stranglers' Moon (#2)
The Clockwork Traitor (#3)
Getaway World (#4)
Appointment at Bloodstar (#5)
The Purity Plot (#6)
Planet of Treachery (#7)

The series is not yet complete as far as plot line.
				joe

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Date: 19 Oct 1982 1027-EDT
From: David Dyer-Bennet 

Rick Schofield -- I think that Hogan has been getting better as a
writer with each book.  Stylistically, Voyage is probably his best
book.  However, I enjoyed even his very first one, and some of the
details you mention (such as his eye for human detail) have always
been present to some extent.  I think you should probably read some
more Hogan.

Tim Shimeall -- Speaking of Dream Park, I recently read Descent of
Anansi, also by Niven and Barnes.  I was very disappointed with Dream
Park.  It wasn't a bad D&D story, but it was a lousy Niven book.
Descent, however, was quite good.  Like Oath of Fealty (Niven &
Pournelle), it deals somewhat with the interaction between high-tech
people (space colony, arcology) versus the
unfortunately-still-existing real world.  However, Anansi is more a
personal story and less a political/philosophical story.  In fact, I
could almost call it relatively light, but enjoyable, space adventure
with tinges of high politics thrown in.

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Date: 19 Oct 82 16:30-PDT
From: mclure at SRI-UNIX
Subject: landmark list location

A couple years ago, there was a poll for landmark SF works which resulted
in an excellent reading list. The list is again available, this time on
SRI-CSL in SF.LANDMARK. To get a copy, connect to SRI-CSL via FTP,
login ANONYMOUSly, and grab the file. If you don't have access, send
a note to sf-lovers-request@sri-csl and a copy will be sent to you.

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Date: 19 Oct 1982 2157-EDT
From: HEDRICK at RUTGERS (Mgr DEC-20s/Dir LCSR Comp Facility)
Subject: a couple of new books that are worth reading

microreviews:  

Robert Stallman, The Beast.  One of the few truly original books I have
read in the last few years.  An excellent exploration of an alien being
and humanity.

Pat Murphy, The Shadow Hunter.  Another of this small crop of really
original books.  Juxtaposes a young Neaderthal shaman with modern
society.  The plot sounds corny, but is very impressively executed.

reviews:

I strongly endorse Roland Green's favorable review of Robert Stallman's
trilogy (The Orphan, The Captive, and The Beast).  He manages to break
new ground with each of the books.  If you are going to read all of
them, you should read the third one last.  Each of them is satisfying
when taken separately, but there is an element of mystery that the third
book resolves.  The basic idea is quite intriguing.  We have a sort of
werebeast whose human form has a separate personality.  This is one of
the most successful portrayals of an alien race that I have seen.  The
beast is clearly intelligent, at least as much so as a human.  But it
thinks differently.  It is trapped in the human world, and has to
come to grips with these rather puzzling human creatures.  But its most
complex problem is how to handle the human personalities that it takes
on when in human form.  In the first two books much of the drama comes
from its struggle to deal fairly with these personalities but meet its
own needs as well.  (Only at the end of the third book do we find out
what is really going on.  I certainly would never have guessed what the
real situation was, but it is quite convincing.)  The Beast also spends
a significant amount of time with a group of American Indians. It is
interesting to compare this book with "Altered States".  Both of them
reach a high point reached in an Indian ceremony using drugs.  To a
certain extent the book can also be viewed as an exploration of "altered
states".  However The Beast is more humane, more realistic and more
imaginative.


The Shadow Hunter is a book whose basic plot sounds corny, but which
in fact is quite impressive.  A scientist experimenting with a time
machine accidentally brings a young Neanderthal into the 20th Century.
(Fortunately he happens to have an appropriate wilderness environment
around for him to live in.)  There is no way I can say with any authority
that the portrayal of the Neanderthal way of life is accurate.  How can
anyone know?  But it is certainly convincing.  One feels that this is
really what it would be like to live in a world where the bear is a
powerful spirit which can either strengthen the hunter who kills it, or
destroy him.  To a large extent this is Rousseau's "noble savage", and
no doubt suffers to a certain extent from rose colored glasses.  Like
The Beast, it shows someone trying to live in a puzzling environment,
doing his duty to the people he comes to love and to his own nature.  It
is sufficiently realistic that Sam doesn't really succeed at this.  He
never really comes to grips with the 20th Century, and he is powerless
to help his closest friend.  But he does live "authentically", as the
existentialists would say.


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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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