"Here, read this, it won't hurt you..." [a brief recommendation of some science fiction books] "Star Driver" by 'Lee Correy' (G. Harry Stine) This is, in my opinion, the best thing Harry Stine ever wrote. I'm sad to say I never got around to telling him that. We chatted with each other on Byte Magazine's BIX conferencing system in the pro writers' area. Harry was doing something called "Warbots" at the time, and then some kind of submarine thing, both of which, in my opinion, sucked reeking road kill. Harry mostly wanted to talk about the stuff he was working on, not old stuff, and since he was a nice guy I didn't want to rain on his parade. He could also be a sarcastic old bastard, and I didn't want to set him off... He died shortly after finishing up the submarine series, greatly inconveniencing his family, friends, and fans. Anyway, "Star Driver" is about a little company that manages to invent a "skyhook"; a reactionless drive. It's a decent story with good characters, plausible plotting, and it's well-written. I've only seen one printing, early '80s; it's not real easy to find, and it's not a great classic, but it's a good, workmanlike job of storytelling and worth your time to track down. "Memory Blank" "Redshift Rendezvous" by John Stith Stith is another of those uneven writers. The worst of his books is still readable, with a beginning, a middle, and end, and a discernable plot. Some of them are even okay. But Blank and Redshift kick ass; they should have made Stith a first-tier writing star, but the publishing industry doesn't work that way any more. It's all "product" now, and the publishers (and to a large degree, the purchasers) can't seem to differentiate between good stuff and schlock any more. Memory Blank is an amnesia story. Those are considered a hackneyed subgenre by those who are paid to have opinions on such things. Stith rings in some very interesting twists, in a fast-moving, easy-to-read style that will encourage you to bore right through to the end. I gave a copy to a friend who hadn't read a book since high school; he stayed up all night to finish it, and realized there could be entertainment without a remote control. Redshift Rendezvous is a more complex story. The plot is simple enough - I won't give it away here - but the spaceship (the Redshift) is the kind of technological toy that would have had John W. Campbell dancing on his desk and yelling, "All *RIGHT!* YEAH!" Stith had to work hard to keep the Redshift from overpowering the book. Here's a hint - imagine what your environment would be like if the speed of light was three meters per second, and relativistic effects were apparent in your daily life... "The Probability Broach" "The Venus Belt" "The Nagasaki Vector" by L. Neil Smith Smith is an SF geek, a gunhead, *and* has a fine sense of humor. Well, in these three, anyway. The Broach and the Belt are good stuff and more of the same, though the Belt doesn't quite match the Broach. The Vector is a tie-in book about a different character. Smith is in tune with *my* sense of humor with the Vector; if I had a weak heart I'd've been dead halfway through. These are the first three in what became an extended series, loosely described as the "Confederacy" stories. Don't bother with any of the others in the series; the best of them is mediocre, and most of them just plain suck. Smith has another series and a bunch of singletons which all suck. He shot his wad on the Vector. It's happened to most writers who've stayed with it long enough. Unfortunately, after the Vector most of them read like NRA "they're going to get your guns!" propaganda. "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers The 'Gates is... dense. It's one of those books you can read, flip back to the beginning, and start over and catch a bunch of stuff you missed the first time. It alternates between contemporary America, Victorian England, medieval England, and Victorian Egypt, following half a dozen major characters and a handful of minor ones. Powers piles plot complications and just plain *weird stuff* on with a lavish hand; if you wind up thinking you might need to make some notes as to what's going on, don't feel alone. The sheer complexity of the interwoven plotlines puts a lot of people off; frankly, I liked it better the second time around, when it was easier to follow. Something is always going on; there's very little slack or filler in here, but you always wonder, "How the *hell* is he going to straighten all this out by the end?" Strangely enough, he *does*. And without a "butler did it" or deus ex machina; as the book comes to a close the multitudinous plot threads converge, and you're going, "yes, yes" and "aha!" as it winds down into an ending that's probably very different from what you expected. The 'Gates is a *great* book, but it's never been popular, though it's seen a few reprints. There are several reasons - one, Powers has written a lot of just plain crap, and anyone who's been burned by one or two of those would probably shy away from this one. It's in the science fiction category, but only by default - it fits even less well in the fantasy, gothic, or horror categories. It's hard to tell people what it's about - a whole lot of stuff happens, but it's hard to explain it out of context. And finally, it's... heavy. Powers doesn't send you off to the thesaurus every few minutes or show off deep his literary erudition, but you have to spend some effort to follow what's going on, and you have to remember what happened before; all those seemingly-unrelated, disconnected vignettes eventually tie into the whole. posted on bix sf/only.books 05/24/92 Books friends steal: Someone once mentioned, "Only your friends steal books." Whoever it was, they were right. I keep extras of several titles: The Probability Broach, by L. Neil Smith Star Driver, by gharry as Lee Correy Memory Blank, by John Stith Reflex, by Dick Francis In Gravest Extreme, by Massad Ayoob Oddly, Stith lives in Colorado Springs, Smith lives just outside of Colorado Springs, and Stine used to live in Colorado Springs. Only the Illuminati know why...