Raymond's Reviews #179

%T Unicorn U.
%A Esther Friesner
%I Ace
%D January 1992
%O paperback, US$4.50
%P 265
%G ISBN 0-441-37844-7

Move over, Craig Shaw Gardner. Terry Pratchett, look behind you. This book, third of a trilogy or not, is Esther Friesner's funniest yet and the sharpest-eyed fantasy farce to come down the pike since Pratchett's early Discworld novels. From the opening sequence (the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as a failing garage-rock band) onward, this tale of hapless college freshman Tim Desmond and the magical entities that complicate his life is fast-paced, hilarious, and wickedly intelligent. The demolition of cutesy kiddie fantasy during the Underworld sequences is worth the price of admission by itself. Highly recommended.

%T Two-bit heroes
%A Doris Egan
%I DAW
%D January 1992
%O paperback, US$4.99
%P 319
%G ISBN 0-88677-500-0

Here's an unusual book -- a sequel set on a Darkover-oid world that's good enough to make me want to find the prequel, Gate Of Ivory. What would otherwise be fairly humdrum adventure and intrigue is lifted a bit out of the ruck by the directness, humor, and occasional wry wisdom of the first-person narrative voice. A fun read-once.

%T Bright Angel
%A John Blair
%I DelRey
%D January 1992
%O paperback, US$4.99
%P 290
%G ISBN 0-345-37058-9

In my review of John Blair's first novel, A Landscape of Darkness (RR#77), I expressed the hope that he'd find something more original to write about. Unfortunately, he seems preoccupied with inscrutable godlike aliens. Bright Angel seems to want to be a psychological study of human reactions to the Totally Other, but it stumbles over the same problem most such stories do --- where there's no contact, there's no story, just an unfocused series of vignettes in which the human characters can only react rather than acting. The results here are disappointing.