Raymond's Reviews #160

%T The Other Sindbad
%A Craig Shaw Gardner
%I Ace
%D November 1991
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 248
%G ISBN 0-441-76720-6

More fantasy slapstick from the author of the Ebenezum books and the Cineverse cycle. This one spoofs the Arabian Nights tales; if you have the special fondness for those that I do, you'll ebjoy seeing them sent up as thoroughly and wickedly as Gardner does it.

%T Power
%E S.M. Stirling
%I Baen
%D November 1991
%O paperback, US$$4.50
%P 323
%G ISBN 0-671-72092-9

This is ostensibly an anthology of stories about the effects of new power-generation methods. And most of it fits that description, but there are a few pieces wedged in apparently just to grind Stirling and Jerry Pournelle's right-wing/militarist axes. The worst of these, naturally, is by David Drake. You may want to buy the anthology anyway; Stirling's opening essay "Fusion Energy and Civilization" is nearly worth the price of admission by itself.

%T Shadow
%A Ann Lodgston
%I Ace
%D November 1991
%O paperback, US$3.99
%P 185
%G ISBN 0-441-75989-0

This light, slight fantasy reads like an episode out of somebody's D&D campaign. If you can stomach the idea of an adventure fantasy about a cute female elven thief at all, you'll probably enjoy it. Enough said.

%S Chung Kuo
%T The Broken Wheel
%V II
%A David Wingrove
%I Dell
%D November 1991
%O paperback, US$5.99
%P 566
%G 0-440-20928-5     

This reviewer called "The Middle Kingdom," the first volume in this series "[a] gaudy, imaginative fake." (RR#114). "The Broken Wheel" is the same sort of fake for the same reasons. If you can ignore Wingrove's inadequacies as a world- builder, however, there is much to enjoy in these novels. Wingrove writes well, and shows an easy mastery in evoking character and setting. Among the most salient examples of his talent in "The Broken Wheel" are the sex scenes, which manage an easy naturalness while retaining their erotic charge. [CCO]