Raymond's Reviews #154

%T Lunar Descent
%A Allen Steele
%I Ace
%D October 1991
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 325
%G ISBN 0-441-50485-X

Allen Steele gives us yet another ho-hum novel of the High Frontier, stuffed with much the same truck-horse prose and gung-ho attitude that informed Clarke County, Space (RR#100), and featuring a cast of obnoxious losers dolled up to look like heroic nonconformists much like those in his first novel Orbital Decay. Add in a contrived, deus-ex-mechanistic ending that I saw coming from about page 35, and you've got nothing much. I am really getting offended by all the hype comparing this guy to Heinlein; he ain't within light-years of the old master. And yet...there's some ability here; I found Steele's description of Yuri the mad artist and his unique techno-sculpture creations vivid and haunting. If he ever manages to stop sounding like a cross between Norman Spinrad and a NASA press release, maybe he'll write something really interesting.

%T Mutineer's Moon
%A David Weber
%I Baen
%D October 1991
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 315
%G ISBN 0-671-72085-6

The coauthor of Insurrection (RR#101) gives us another grand galumphing space opera. See the gigantic alien battleship hidden within Earth's moon! See its sentient command computer recruit a plucky young NASA hotshot to be its new captain, point man in a attempt to undo the damage done by a fifty-thousand-year-old mutiny! See the megalomaniacal bad guy leader plotting sheerest eee-vil with international terrorists from his base in the Antarctic! See hardware blowing up in all directions as the good guys and bad guys face off, with (natch!) the Fate Of Humanity Hanging In The Balance. As I've said before of similar books, this is great stuff if you can take it without bicarbonate; utter, unmitigated trash, but fun trash. Warning: the ending smells like a set-up for sequel.

%T Barrayar
%A Lois McMaster Bujold
%I Baen
%D October 1991
%O paperback, US$4.99
%P 389
%G ISBN 0-671-72083-X

Really, all that needs to be said about this is that it's probably Lois Bujold's best work yet. If that doesn't convince you to immediately run out and buy a copy, you have probably somehow missed discovering one of the best writers to come down the SF pike since John Varley. This book's viewpoint character is Cordelia Naismith; it immediately follows Shards Of Honor and deals with Vordarian's Pretendership and events surrounding Miles Vorkosigan's birth. A tense, funny, wise, and utterly wonderful novel. Enjoy!