Raymond's Reviews #137

%T The Nanotech Chronicles
%A Michael Flynn
%I Baen
%D August 1991
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 339
%G ISBN 0-671-72080-5

This is a fix-up novel assembled from six short stories by the author of The Country of the Blind (RR#72), five of which have previously appeared in Analog and the sixth in New Destinies. They are loosely connected by being set in the same future, one dominated by the applications of nanotechnology in which the U.S. has turned inward and the frontiers are dominated by Brazilians and Japanese. All are competent, craftsmanlike work in the traditional Analog vein --- meat and potatoes for the hard-SF fan.

%T The New Hugo Winners
%E Isaac Asimov
%I Baen
%D August 1991
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 319
%G ISBN 0-671-72081-3

Nine fine works -- the winners in the short story, novelette and novella category --- for the years 1983, 1984 and 1985. High points include Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants, the short original version of Greg Bear's Blood Music, and David Brin's The Crystal Spheres. Strongly recommended!

%T Man-Kzin Wars IV
%A Donald Kingsbury
%A Greg Bear
%A S. M. Stirling
%I Baen
%D August 1991
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 311
%G ISBN 0-671-72079

Two more tales of Niven's favorite felinoids. Donald Kingsbury's The Survivor is a weird reverse-English on Dean Ing's Cathouse; this time it's a stranded Kzin who finds himself attracted to a human woman. Kingsbury manages to lend the hoary old lecherous-BEM theme a horrifying new plausibility, because our villain is a bioengineer who can put the lady through some real changes. The Stirling/Bear collaboration, dissapointingly slight, tells the tale of a human who became Kzin --- thus laying the marketing psychology of this series bare for all to see. Neither is up to the remarkably high standard set by Ing in Cathouse. Better luck next time.

%T Bloodstone
%A Karl Edward Wagner
%I Baen
%D August 1991
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 308
%G ISBN 0-671-72082-1

This reprint from 1975 is one of those books that will really wow you if you like the weird central character; otherwise it's likely to seem just a trite piece of generic sword and sorcery, cover by Frazetta.