Jonathan Palfrey

I tried this book with some scepticism. There seem to be so many sf novels out there in which Americans, either military or at least armed, boldly go where no man has gone before, and shoot the baddies. To an American, this may seem a very natural kind of book to write or read; but I'm not an American, and it starts to feel a bit samey.Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story well enough; it's competently written and at least different in detail from all the other vaguely similar ones. The situation and the personality of the ship's captain reminded me vaguely of [b:The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream 1258132 The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream G.C. Edmondson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328310249s/1258132.jpg 1246947], but the details are certainly different.This is not a time-travel story but an alternative-world story, and rather unusually it's to an alternative world that split from ours a very long time ago, so that evolution has populated the world with a somewhat different set of species. I rather like the lemur-descended creatures who make friends with the marooned humans in their battered old destroyer; although they're not an imaginative fictional creation. They're physically rather short and equipped with fur and tails, but their mentality seems human.The baddies here are the all-devouring merciless lizards, who again seem mentally human, though single-mindedly evil. I suppose it simplifies a story to have baddies that are just bad through and through, but it's unsubtle. In principle I prefer baddies who seem more like normal people.

This book occasionally shows vague traces of promise, but overall it's a dud, a failed attempt, and not worth reading unless you're a Douglas Adams addict with a compulsion to read everything he ever wrote. Be warned that it's mostly dreary, depressing, and pointless.

I don't know what had gone wrong with his life at the time, but it must have been something pretty awful. Instead of writing this dud, he should have taken a nice holiday, or a bunch of happy pills, or something.

I read it a second time after almost 32 years only because I'd forgotten all about it. It is best forgotten.

This second book in the series is perhaps slightly better than the first, although characterization remains weak. I have a vague sense of the personalities of Susan, Merlin, and perhaps Vivien; but the other characters remain names with little or no personality attached.

On first reading, I'm not quite sure what to make of this. It's a fairly congenial novel that reads quite well as a story, but it's also a wild fantasy in which all kinds of powerful magical effects are deployed casually with minimal explanation. I don't approve of wild fantasy, I prefer magic to operate rather like a branch of science, following laws akin to the laws of science.

The characterization is rather sketchy: I don't feel I get to know any of the characters well.

This is an implausible love story between two implausible people behaving implausibly in an implausible situation. It's quite elegantly written, and I didn't dislike it, but I didn't become engaged in it, because I couldn't believe in any of it.

The two protagonists fight on opposite sides of a seemingly endless and ruthless time war; they come from very different societies. They begin a sort of correspondence, very much at arm's length and without meeting each other, and despite their differences and their remoteness from each other, they somehow fall in love with each other. Could this really happen? Maybe, but I'm sceptical; and the authors failed to convince me.

At the time of reading this collection, I noted in my diary that I liked it, but I no longer have the book, and I remember nothing about it, so my approval of it doesn't seem to have lasted.

It's very readable and a lively tale, although Albert Campion seems distinctly barmy at times. This is only the second book in which he appears, and I suppose the author hadn't fully decided what kind of character he should be.

This is a long, complex, exciting story written with some skill and a good deal of work. It kept me interested.

On the other hand, it's also a thoroughly depressing experience, and I don't read fiction because I want to be depressed. I don't hate it enough to give it one star, so I'll give it two.

This novel is a tale of endless misery, people suffering in numerous ways, having bad lives, being attacked, being killed quickly or slowly, and even in some cases being transformed into half-alien monsters. That's how it starts, right from the first page, and that's how it goes on. This first novel is followed by a whole string of sequels, and I presume they go on depressing readers indefinitely. But I stop here.

This is a random assortment of 12 stories of varying lengths by Larry Niven (occasionally in collaboration with other writers). Five of them belong to his series of Draco Tavern stories; the others are unrelated to each other.

The first story, “The Lion in his Attic”, is a fantasy story involving magic, and not an exceptionally good one in terms of plot, but I'm fond of the incidental details, and I'd give it 4 stars.

I'd give 3 stars to another fantasy story, “Talisman”.

The other 10 stories are all science fiction, but not among his best. I'd give them all 2 or 2.5 stars, except for two of the Draco Tavern stories, “The Green Marauder” and “War Movie”, which are interesting/amusing enough for 3 stars.

Nothing here is really bad, the stories are all readable enough, but I don't feel a need to own most of them.

This story is similar in some ways to [b:The Orphans of Raspay 51193044 The Orphans of Raspay (Penric and Desdemona, #7) Lois McMaster Bujold https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562951434l/51193044.SX50_SY75.jpg 71836769], in that Penric and Desdemona are travelling abroad without other company; they meet someone in need of help; and they also meet people who are armed and hostile. However, the two stories differ in many details.This one makes a good story, I enjoy it. But it's rather lacking in congenial characters, apart from Penric and Desdemona. There are none of the characters we know from previous stories, and most of the new characters that appear in it are either unpleasant or unmemorable.Penric is glad to get home after his travels. I wonder what adventure awaits him next.

I've read all the rest of this series (apart from the comic strips), and this story is an odd one out. Most obviously, it's set in New York City in the 1920s, whereas most of the series is set in London in the 21st century. Of course it features none of the regular characters, except the unnaturally long-lived Thomas Nightingale, who appears here in his 20s. (Molly, also long-lived, is mentioned but remains in London throughout.)

The protagonist, Augustus ‘Gussie' Berrycloth-Young, is completely new to the series. He's clearly an imitation of Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, and he's quite a good imitation, who makes an entertaining first-person narrator of the story.

The story is quite unlike the other stories in the series. Usually there is some magical villain whom our heroes set out to thwart and perhaps arrest. But in this case Nightingale arrives in New York on a private mission to rescue a somewhat magical lady and her young child, who are being held captive by non-magical New York gangsters.

It's not a bad story. But it's basically a writing exercise for the author, who can have fun (a) imitating Wodehouse and (b) exploring New York in the 1920s. It's almost irrelevant to the Rivers of London series as a whole. Although it does make me wonder afresh exactly what is the relationship between Nightingale and Molly: because he goes on his mission to New York, risking his life at some points, at her request.

The story features Nightingale younger than we've seen him before, and I expected this to be (a) enjoyable and (b) somewhat illuminating; but it isn't, really. The Nightingale we see here is a rather bland young man, lacking most of his usual charisma and character. I suppose it's plausible that he acquired charisma and character with age, but it's a bit disappointing.

Gussie I find rather confusing. Because he's a good imitation of Bertie Wooster, I expect him to be basically Bertie Wooster under an assumed name, but there are differences.

1. Gussie can do magic. This is quite natural and acceptable because he attended Casterbrook School; Bertie would also have been able to do magic if he'd passed through that school.

2. Gussie has a black American boyfriend. Bertie seemed to have little interest in sex, but flirted occasionally with women (rather than men). Thus, this is a bit jarring and strikes me as out of character.

3. Gussie enjoys dressing up in women's clothing, and goes to a masquerade ball in drag to compete for a prize. This strikes me as very out of character. Bertie didn't enjoy appearing in front of an audience, and I can't imagine him appearing in drag unless somehow forced into it (in which case he'd do it badly).

It's true, of course, that Gussie is not Bertie, and the author is entitled to differentiate between the two. However, I nevertheless find it mentally jarring that Gussie resembles Bertie while doing things that would be out of character for Bertie.

One odd incident: In the middle of a stressful situation, Nightingale asks Gussie to cast a werelight (a simple spell that beginners learn first). It would surely be quicker and easier to do it himself than to ask someone else to do it.

When I read it in 1980, I commented that it was readable enough and the writing style quite good in its way, but I disliked Lee Mellon and the lack of a normal plot.

I didn't actively dislike this book, but I might well have done, as it's a pretty miserable story.The protagonist, Tom, has a lousy time for most of the story, and almost all of the characters we meet die during the course of it (do not volunteer to be a character in a book written by this author!).Nor do the few survivors get a really happy ending.The scenario is a world in which moving cities roam around, trying to capture and break each other up for parts. I read plenty of sf and fantasy, but this seems far-fetched to me. I don't think moving cities would be economical, the costs of moving them around would be excessive, and the people don't seem to have access to futuristic technology that might lower the costs.I was intrigued to encounter in this story the name Shrike, which I had seen before only in [b:Hyperion 77566 Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1) Dan Simmons https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405546838l/77566.SY75.jpg 1383900]. However, Wikipedia tells me it's been used in quite a variety of fiction, going back at least as far as a play in 1952; and it's also the name of an ordinary bird.

This is a work of high-quality fiction, well imagined in considerable detail and well written.

I give it only two stars because it leaves me feeling sad and depressed. It's about the early life of a royal bastard, whose life is persistently difficult and perilous; and he lives in a kingdom in crisis. We know he'll survive, because there are more books about him; but that doesn't guarantee him happiness, and he finds little of it.

It's realistic, I suppose: this is probably what life in that kind of world would be like. Although I think strict realism would require his death at one of the various points where it could easily have happened.

But I read fiction for my own enjoyment, I want some positive result out of it. What good does it do me to become sad and depressed? Almost any work of fiction must surely contain some conflict or struggle or problem to be solved, and there will be probably be moments of unhappiness. But I want moments of happiness and humour as well, and above all I want it to end on an upbeat note. I don't insist that every book should end with everyone ecstatic and living happily every after, but I want to come away from the book feeling good about it.

I don't think I'll read the other books set in this world, because they seem likely to be about as depressing as this one. It's a pity, because the author is talented, but from my point of view her talent is wasted on books like these. However, fortunately for her, plenty of other people apparently manage to enjoy them. Taste in fiction varies so much from person to person.

This is a collection of 26 short stories by the wonderfully prolific Robert Sheckley. I bought it because I expected it to be a collection of his best; in fact, it seems to be on the whole a collection of his darker stories. I tend to be partial to his lighter-hearted, amusing stories.Thus, I'm disappointed not to find here such classic stories as “Bad Medicine”, “A Ticket to Tranai”, and “Ghost V”—all present in [b:The Robert Sheckley Omnibus 2570167 The Robert Sheckley Omnibus Robert Sheckley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1319291259l/2570167.SY75.jpg 189841], which I have on paper, but unfortunately it's not available for Kindle.The average first publication date of these stories is 1958, so they are all dated in style, attitudes, etc. But they remain worth reading for the endless variety of imaginative concepts that went into them.

This is an unexpected kind of novel to come across in the 21st century: it reminds me more than anything else of Hal Clement's novels from the 1950s. There's the same childlike enthusiasm for an endless series of scientific and engineering problems, and the assumption that the reader will be as fascinated by them as the author.

This author certainly displays plenty of scientific understanding and imagination, though I have to take it all on trust because I'm not qualified to check it.

The story has a fairly simple plot and few significant characters. I found it quite congenial and entertaining, although I often skimmed through the scientific details. But so far I've read it only once, and I don't whether or how often I'll reread it in future.

I thought it rather a pity that the story focused on the adventures of Ryland Grace to the exclusion of the rest of humanity, which was simultaneously going through its own adventures. However, Grace had scientific problems while humanity had political problems, and the author's expertise is clearly scientific rather than political.

This is a fantasy novel from 1961, based on a novella from 1953. I think it was well received at the time—the novella was nominated for a Retro-Hugo Award—and it's not a bad story for its age; but six decades have gone by since then. Probably I'd think better of it if I'd read it in the 1960s, which I could have done; but as it happens I didn't read it until 2024.

I don't have any major complaints about it, it's readable enough, and most of it is quite a pleasant tale—although it becomes rather grim towards the end. But the characters didn't grab me, the situation didn't grab me, the writing style is adequate but dated; and I was tempted to abandon it unfinished because I had so little interest in reading on. However, I plodded on and finished it.

I like some of Poul Anderson's sf stories, and reread them periodically; but this is an old-fashioned kind of fantasy, and it doesn't seem to suit me.

Having read everything else in the Rivers of London series, I decided to try this as a random sample of the series in comic format. These are sometimes described as ‘graphic novels’, although they’re much shorter than novels, and might be more accurately described as illustrated short stories.

I’m not a big reader of comics, but I have read some in the past, and I find that I can cope with Rivers of London in comic format. The illustrations of the characters are mostly tolerable, although some are better than others. Molly is a difficult one to draw; I’m not sure exactly what she should look like, but I don’t think the attempt here is a success.

My main criticism is of the story itself, which strikes me as different in kind and below the usual standard of stories in this series. It reminds me vaguely of the old Avengers TV series from the 1960s (which I’m old enough to remember), but without the light-heartedness that was the main attraction of that series.

Of course it would be difficult to cram a good story into this abbreviated format; but stories of any length can be made to work if you have the knack of it. This story seems to me too formulaic, it’s story-writing by numbers, it lacks inspiration. The villain and his dastardly plot are corny.

I wouldn’t say this was a particularly bad experience, but I don’t feel encouraged to read more of these comics.

Although Peters had written at least seven unrelated novels before this one, it was here that she finally struck gold. This American author made the mildly audacious decision to write a novel from the viewpoint of a 19th-century Englishwoman, set it mostly in Egypt, and mix in elements of archæology, crime, comedy, and romance. The mixture works remarkably well.

Peters was already an Egyptologist and knew her stuff in that respect. She was accustomed to writing crime stories with a dash of humour. But here she reached a higher level of characterization and humour than she'd achieved before. This story of a resourceful feminist let loose in Egypt in 1884 is truly hilarious and most entertaining, especially from being told in the first person.

It was followed in due course by numerous sequels giving the further adventures of Amelia Peabody and her expanding circle of family, friends, and enemies. The sequels are in general more serious than this first book, giving more emphasis to crime and adventure. However, outbreaks of hilarity continue to occur from time to time. I haven't read the whole series; my mother has, and reports some decline in quality in the later ones.

The Peters imitation of a Victorian-English writing style is quite effective in the first book, but later on she grows less careful and more Americanisms creep in. It must be hard for an American to weed out all of these without using the services of a British editor. For instance, I've noticed that Americans commonly assume the expression freshen up (used about oneself) to be generic English, whereas in fact it's an Americanism, and a relatively recent one: the earliest usage example in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1961.

Elizabeth Peters is a pseudonym for Barbara Mertz (1927–2013).

It's taken me almost four months to get through this volume, a few stories at a time, and reading other books concurrently; but I've now read every story. I can report that the stories are readable, amiable, and imaginative in terms of science and technology.

As fiction, however, they're mostly unmemorable; and of course I'd already read the more memorable of them elsewhere. I think my favourite is “Second Dawn” (1951), which is an old friend: I first read it long ago.

Clarke generally seemed more interested and more skilled in the future of science and technology than in fiction. However, these stories are old: as he says himself in the foreword, a third of them were written “when most people believed talk of space flight was complete lunacy”. So they often seem rather quaint now that we're well into the 21st century.

For me, this collection wasn't really worth buying; except that, if I ever want a Clarke story, I now know where to find them all.

It's amazing to think that Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein were once regarded as the Big Three of science fiction. They all produced some memorable work, but on the whole their writings have dated badly by now. Science fiction does tend to age more rapidly than other kinds of fiction; especially science fiction about the future.

At some unspecified date in the not-near future, Abigail Gentian is a young woman who inherits a rich family business, specializing in human cloning.

She decides on an ambitious project, creating a thousand clones of herself, each imprinted with her own memories in full, to travel out and explore the galaxy in a thousand spaceships. Heedless of the family business that gave her the money to do this, she merges herself among the clones so that it's impossible to tell which one is really her, and goes out voyaging with them.

She's not the only one to take this route, but it's an exercise available only to the very rich, so there are relatively few groups of shatterlings (as they're known) venturing out into the galaxy.

They all have techniques of personal immortality, and also various methods of achieving suspended animation during long journeys. Reynolds respects the laws of physics, and so the spaceships in this book travel at sublight speeds, and journeys around the galaxy are very long indeed.

The shatterlings of Gentian Line travel around the galaxy (once around the galaxy is referred to as a circuit), stopping here and there to sample what's going on. Once per circuit, they all meet at a prearranged time and place, have a party, and exchange memories. I don't just mean that they chat: they have techniques for downloading memories, uploading memories, and managing memories spanning greater lengths of time than we can imagine. So they can all share each other's memories in a literal sense.

The plot of the story is that, for some reason initially unknown, some organization decides to exterminate Gentian Line. The traditional reunion party is ambushed and most of them are killed. The shocked survivors have to determine what happened and how to respond. It turns out that the ambush was not irrational: one of the Gentian shatterlings has unwittingly uncovered a potentially deadly secret, and their attackers believe themselves justified in their action, for reasons of galactic security (no less!).

Good points

Scenario: strong. I haven't seen this one before (extra points for originality), but in the context of the far future it's well imagined and plausible.

Characters: good. British sf authors are often better than American at characterization, if nothing else, and here we have some engaging and sometimes likeable characters. (Reynolds is a Welshman born in 1966.) I particularly like Purslane, the main female character. Note: Gentian shatterlings are of both sexes. Abigail wasn't inclined to limit herself to one, when two were available.

Writing style: good. These days sf is aspiring to higher literary standards than in the old days, and this one seems fully competitive to me.

Plot: perhaps not perfect, but it's interesting and exciting. Up to the standard of the book as a whole.

Not-so-good points

Anachronisms: most of the significant characters in this book are shatterlings of Gentian Line. Some six million years have passed since the birth of Abigail Gentian (who may or may not still be alive: as far as the book is concerned, this is unknowable). But the characters still talk and behave very much like the people we know today: they seem completely normal human beings. I doubt that this would really be the case. Six million years or more in the future, they still eat and drink things that would be completely familiar to us today: wine, coffee, croissants. Perhaps this is poetic licence, but I don't really buy it.

Privileged elite: is what the Gentian shatterlings are. Far richer individually than any normal being, their mode of existence is to joy-ride around the galaxy. They occasionally do good turns to civilizations they find on their way, whose whole lifespans are far less than theirs. Now and then they do some real work: they've somehow become experts on stardams, which are a way of enclosing stars that have gone nova, so that they don't destroy the surrounding area of space. The Gentians can't make stardams, which are relics of a long-dead but superior alien civilization; but they're experts in handling them. Because one stardam can preserve the existence of a whole civilization spanning many solar systems, I suppose they can make a lot of money this way. In whatever form money takes, that far in the future. Now, I'm not inclined to hate rich people: I'd like to be one of them, if I could. Nevertheless, a novel most of whose characters are filthy rich dilettantes leaves me feeling slightly uneasy, slightly alienated.

Replacement strategy: Despite their well-protected existences, every now and then a shatterling dies. About a hundred have gone by the start of the story (before the ambush). Why aren't they replaced? Surely Gentian Line wouldn't have lost the technology that started it off? Why not just make a new clone and download the stored memories into it? The shatterling is dead, long live the shatterling!

Subplot: the chapters of the book are interleaved with smaller flashback chapters in which Abigail Gentian, six million years in the past, gets addicted to a virtual reality game called Palatial, and almost loses her mind as she becomes entangled in it. Well, OK, but this seems to have no relevance to the main story, and I don't understand why it was included.

The rich get richer: is a sub-theme of the book. Gentian Line goes on and on and remains richer than most other groups, except the other similar Lines and a few abnormally persistent civilizations. I don't really buy this. Wealth is made to be squandered. Given sufficient time (six million years!), any family will run into a period of incompetence, be out-competed by upstarts, and sink into the general mass of humanity. Why not the Gentians?

Sentimentality: is a minor failing of an author who gets too fond of his pet characters. It's a rather endearing fault: there are many worse things that an author could be guilty of. It makes the ending of this book more agreeable but less plausible than it might have been. Take your choice.

Trivia

At one point in the book, the Gentians are embarrassed to encounter an ambassador from a distant civilization, because they happen to know that his entire civilization has been wiped out by an astronomical disaster. They don't like to tell him. Well, would you? (Come to think of it, it's not clear why the Gentians have the news but he hasn't. Ordinary radio waves travel at light speed.)

In the story you can find a spaceship named Fire Witch and two humanoid robots named Cadence and Cascade: clear signs that the author, born in 1966, has recently been listening to King Crimson albums released in 1969 and 1970. There are probably other amusing references that I don't happen to recognize.

In which Granny Weatherwax has to fight her evil sister, and Greebo the cat briefly becomes human. The trouble with this one is that Pratchett is trying too hard to make points and lecture, whereas I just want to read a good story and be entertained. However, it has its moments.First appearance of Casanunda (briefly mentioned in the preceding book, [b:Reaper Man 833424 Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473122828l/833424.SY75.jpg 1796454]).

The second Moist von Lipwig book, in which he's transferred against his will from the Post Office to the Royal Mint and Bank of Ankh-Morpork, which he proceeds to turn upside-down in various ways. Neither the story nor the characters are particularly memorable by Pratchett's standards, but the book is witty and entertaining and perhaps even mildly educational, and ends not merely with a flourish but with a series of flourishes. The chief baddy (Cosmo Lavish) is rather tiresome.

This is one of Pratchett's best books. Although he's thought of as a comedian, it's also one of his most serious books.

His main regular hero, Samuel Vimes, is thrown back in time about thirty years, to the darker days of his own youth, when Ankh-Morpork was ruled by a paranoid tyrant and was about to rebel. It's a dangerous, almost lawless place, and this is an edgy, absorbing story, hard to put down; it won the Prometheus Award in 2003, which must have come as a bit of a surprise.

It's interesting to fill in some of the history of Ankh-Morpork and to meet various familiar characters when they were young.

I deduct a star for Pratchett's tendency to moralize, which I find a bit intrusive, and for the business with the monks, which I think could have been handled more briefly and neatly (or perhaps even completely omitted).

Terry Pratchett has a tendency, especially in his later books, to make points about morality and politics, which I think a novelist should try to make in a more inconspicuous manner. Furthermore, I have the impression that he has strong opinions about decency but lacks a well-defined ideology and morality. On the political front especially, he dodges the question by conveniently providing his modern Ankh-Morpork with a relatively benign dictator aided by a chief of police with a heart of gold (Samuel Vimes). This is a good solution only if such unlikely people manage to work their way to the top. When they die, what then?

The trouble with anthologies is that they tend to contain no more than one or two stories that are really worth having; and so it is here.Flynn's [b:The Forest of Time - Hugo Nominated Novella 11539011 The Forest of Time Michael Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570130951l/11539011.SY75.jpg 16478070] is a great story, one of my favourites; though I later bought it as a separate item for Kindle, so I don't need to go back to this book for it. Five stars.Turtledove's “Must and Shall” is not one of my favourites, but it's quite striking and memorable, worth reading more than once. One of his better efforts (I'm not a big Turtledove fan). Say three and half stars.The other stories here are generally competent and readable, but I could easily live without them.Something I notice as a non-American is that they're mostly about American history. The Sprague de Camp story is about ancient European history, but the narrator is a time-travelling American. The only story with no American connection at all is Silverberg's: it's one of the better stories in his [b:Roma Eterna 851384 Roma Eterna Robert Silverberg https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348262963l/851384.SY75.jpg 1965569] series (I later read the whole series but wasn't keen on it).I have no objection to American history: my favourites include various stories about it. But, when I read a whole collection of alternative-history stories and most of them are about American history, I start thinking, “What, AGAIN?” The USA has a short history, currently less than 250 years, and writers tend to concentrate on the four major wars of American history. Indeed, one of the strengths of Flynn's story is that its turning point is in an obscure and neglected part of early American history.Turtledove manages to cram the Civil War and the Second World War into the same story, without even using time travel.