Raymond's Reviews #197 (short takes)

(These were never posted to USENET.)

%T High Moon
%A Dian Duane
%A Peter Morwood
%I Avon
%D May 1992
%O paperback
%P 248
%G ISBN 0-380-75855-5

Once again Duane and Morwood demonstate a knack for elevating what ought to have been a revolting piece of genre hack-work into an endearing, fun read. How can you hate a cop-buddy novel in which the two protagonists start their long-deferred vacation by going to a full-dress banquet at the best Szechuan restaurant on Mars? Naturally their meal and their vacation are violently interrupted, and just as naturally they shortly find themselves in exceedingly violent trouble in a little town on the Martian badlands. The wit and chemistry between the characters is what makes these books work. Don't miss.

%T Cats In Space (and other places)
%E Bill Fawcett
%I Baen
%D May 1992
%O paperback
%P 407
%G ISBN 0-671-72118-6

Sigh. Yet another cutely-packaged anthology of golden oldies plus a few blatant novel-teasers from Baen's editorial slops-chest. Some of these stories are damn fine stuff; it's almost worth buying this thing to have Fritz Leiber's hard-to-find classic Spacetime For Springers, and there are other gems here; Heinlein's Ordeal In Space, Cordwainer Smith's incomparable Game of Rat and Dragon and The Ballad of Lost C'Mell; Leiber again with Ship of Shadows. Unfortunately, these are interspersed with sludge like Anne McCaffrey's Duty Calls (from the execrable The Fleet series), Jody Lynne Nye's Well Worth The Money and Todd Hamilton/P.J. Beese's The Pride (the latter two appear to be the only originals). Overall, the effect is cheesy and unfortunate, as if somebody at Baen stood up at a planning meeting and said Hey! Let's coattail on those cute-animal-fantasy anthologoies That Other Publisher has been churning out!. Caveat emptor.

%T The Warlords of Nin
%A Stephen R. Lawhead
%I Avon
%D May 1992
%O paperback, 403 pp, US$4.99
%G ISBN 0-380-71630-5

"The Warlords of Nin," is the second volume of Lawhead's Dragon King trilogy. (See RR# ). In it, Lawhead finds yet another evil villain for his protagonist, Quentin, to defeat. As with the first volume of the trilogy, "In the Hall of the Dragon King," this book is remarkable only for the mediocrity of the writing and the banality of the cliches upon which the book turns. Save this volume for airport reading, if you bother at all. [CCO]

RECEIVED BUT NOT REVIEWED:

_Relic_of_Empire_ (Forbidden Borders #2) by W. Michael Gear. Mega-turkey of the "Star Wars"-clone kind.
_The_Disinherited_ by Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, and Robert Greenberger. Yet another lump of generic trekfic sludge.
_The_Seeress_Of_Kell_ by David Eddings
_The_Making_Of_Star_Trek_ by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry.
_The_Run_To_Chaos_Keep_ (Quintara Marathon, Book II) by Jack Chalker.