Books - Reviews by ppint.

Books - Reviews by ppint.

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
ppint. 21st Aug 2018		Book Richard A. Lupoff - The Black Tower (1989)	Review philip josé farmer's the dungeon series #1: #1: "the black tower" richard a. lupoff (1988) (this novel) #2: "the dark abyss" bruce coville (1989), q.v. #3: "the valley of thunder" charles de lint (1989), q.v. #4: "the lake of fire" robin w. bailey (1989), q.v. #5: "the hidden city" charles de lint (1990), q.v. #6: "the final battle" richard a. lupoff (1990), q.v. each of the six novels has an introduction by philip josé farmer, who provided at least an outline and a jumping-off point for the setting, and the central character, nineteenth century c.e. explorer, clive folliot, who is searching for his twin brother, neville; and the nature of the world of the dungeon is elaborated, but never fully explained; nor is it necessarily internally self-consistent. the authors of succeeding books pick up from the previous books' situations and expanding dramatis personae, including aliens from hitherto unknown races; but whether the world of the dungeon is single, or multiple; whether it (or they) possess(es) multiple shells, or are separate worlds linked by portals, exists within this earth's hollow interior, or perhaps that of an asteroid - or more than one; possibilities are proposed and suggestions are made, but no definitive answer ever established, any more than the reason(s) for its construction, its population by the human or alien people brought to it; nor are reasons for the actions and intentions of its hidden masters and their agents are ever definitively established. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 13th Jun 2018		Book Allen Wold - V: The Crivit Experiment (1988)	Review "and you thought the t.v. series was bad. . ." 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 11th Jun 2018		Book Anne McCaffrey - Dragonflight (1970)	Rated 8/10 the dragons of pern series and sub-series: #1: "dragonflight" (1968) (this fix-up novel) #2: "dragonquest" (1971), q.v. #3: "the white dragon" (1978), q.v. #4: "the renegades of pern" (1989), q.v. #5: "all the weyrs of pern" (1991), q.v. #6: "the dolphins of pern" (1993), q.v. #7: "the skies of pern" (2001), q.v. (#8: "after the fall" (provisional title) was unfinished at anne's death, 21/11/2011; the intention was to complete it, but it remains unpublished and its current status is not publicly known.) overlapping the events of which, especially #2: "dragonquest", but also those of #3: "the white dragon", the events in which it materially affects, is the story in the "young adult" harper hall trilogy: #hh1: "dragonsong" (1976), q.v. #hh2: "dragonsinger" (1977), q.v. #hh3: "dragondrums", (1979), q.v. the young adult characters' stories then feeding back into the main sequence, and affecting its events. a prequel to the entire series appeared: #a: "dragonsdawn" (1988), q.v. which is best read after having read the first two or three of the main sequence, at least, as it has little - if any - of the feel of the dragonbooks. other novels set after #a, but before the start of the main sequence with #1, include: #b: "red star rising" (1996), q.v., aka "dragonseye" (us 1997 & ff.), q.v #c: "moreta, dragonlady of pern" (1983), q.v. #d: "nerilka's story" (1986), q.v. #d not published separately in the uk, but as half a ''double'', together with a crystal singer novella: ''nerilka's story & the coelura'' (1987), q.v. these are set thousands of turns (pern years) befoire the main sequence, and apart from one another; and a prequel to the main sequence: #0: "masterharper of pern (1998), q.v. again, this is better read after reading at least #1 & #2, and probably the harper hall trilogy, to give decent indication of the character's significance to the over-all story. collections of dragons of pern short stories, novelettes, novellas: (stories set at various times in the history of pern) "chronicles of pern: first fall" (1993), q.v. "a gift of dragons" (2002), q.v. dragonbooks by anne mccaffrey and todd mccaffrey, and by todd mccaffrey solo: (set about five hundred years ("turns") after landing: the time of the third pass) "dragon's kin" (2003); "dragon's fire" (set during & after "kin") (2006); "dragon harper" (follows "fire") (2007); "dragonsblood" (2005, by todd mccaffrey solo), q.v. "dragon's heart" (set during "blood") (2008, by todd mccaffrey solo); "dragongirl" (set after "blood") (& "heart") (2010, by todd mccaffrey solo); "dragon's time" (sequel to "girl") (2011); "sky dragons" (sequel to "time") (2012); . (dragons of pern listing potentially to be continued, should any further be published.) n.b. g1: "dragonharper" (1987), q.v. g2: "dragonfire" (1988), q.v. both by jody lynn nye, are not novels; they're pern-set "crossroads adventure" game books (from a series of 14) published by tor books. (advice of errors, corrections and sundry observations at least in theory welcome... :-o)(:-)) . 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 5th Jun 2018		Book Roger Zelazny - Madwand (1982)	Review short novel or novella, illustrated in b+w, sequel to the profusely-illustrated ''changeling'' (1980), q.v., in which powerfully talented wizard, raised and grown into a guitarist in this world, returns to that of his overthrown and slain enchanter-emperor father's, where his untrained abilities make him an undisciplined ''madwand'', to claim his own... again, worth chasing the larger format ace books tpb (or one of the hardcover editions) if you like this, as judy king rieniets' two dozen or so b+w interior illustrations suffer greatly from being shot down to standard merkin mmpb format; but n.b. the phantasia press limited edition hardcover has different cover (d-j) art by rowena morrill (aka "rowena"), and not the ace & sfbc editions' john berkey covers. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 5th Jun 2018		Book Roger Zelazny - Changeling (1983)	Review short novel or novella telling the story of a powerfully talented, but completely untrained wizard taken from the ruins of his enchanter-emperor father's castle and brought up on earth (as the acceptable alternative to infanticide) unaware of his ancestry or powers. he grows up to be an adept of a kind: and becomes an immensely powerful guitarist, fronting a rock band and increasingly coming into and using - not to say abusing - his mental powers... esteban maroto's fifty-odd b+w illustrations suffer greatly from being shot down to standard (~ uk a format) merkin mmpb size page: if you like this, it's prob'ly worth hunting down the larger format tpb or the merkin sf book club h/cvr edition (the limited edition de luxe h/cvr's liable to prove a little on the expensive side). ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 5th Jun 2018		Book John Norman - Blood Brothers Of Gor (1983)	Review gor series #18 don't bother: the first three are fairly good sub-burroughsian "planetary romances", with some mild sexual, and some occasional other, sillinesses; but after killing off the most interesting characters with the greatest potential for interesting and novel long-term plots - in multiple senses - the author concentrates - slowly at first, but ever more strongly - upon a simplistic male supremacist sadism & bondage anti-feminist theme, and a steady lowering of the reading age (by reducing the number of complicated words of two or more syllables, and the number of words, in each sentence) stop before book #5 or #6 unless this formula is exactly what you're looking for in your reading. #1: "tarnsman of gor" (12/1966), q.v. for series listing and links. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 25th May 2018		Book Piers Anthony - If I Pay Thee Not In Gold (1994)	Rated 1/10 a dreadfully poorly-plotted, uninspirédly-written drag of a book that both authors should've been too embarrassed to allow james baen to go ahead and publish. baen books even allowed a hardcover edition to escape and sully bookshop shelves and vict^W customers' minds the year before this mmpb slithered through the distribution system and hopefully paid off a significant part of baen books' historic debt (if any yet remained). in a feminazi utopian future°, one woman decides to fight for the rights of men - but mostly, for lurve... - i.e. his irresistible sex appeal. or something. - don't get me wrong: a feminist utopia could be a perfectly cromulent starting-point for setting your protagonists major problems that result from choices made by its founders; or a feminist dystopia, investigating how a utopia established with the best possible reasons, and with a constitution designed to ensure equal rights, might over time decay, or have decayed, into a society that gives your protagonists major problems they must overcome: cf, ursula le guin's "the dispossessed" (1974), q.v. for an anarchist example of this latter; but this farrago of idiocies piled upon stupidity is not it. alas. ° - to hide its origin, the authors - or just anthony? - cunningly named it "mazonia"; snigger away. . . avoid. 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 24th May 2018		Book Roger Elwood - Continuum 1 (1977)	Review this original anthology series was touted by roger elwood as being set to take over the mantle of frederik pohl's "star sf" (and e. j. carnell's "new writings in sf", which saw some merkin availability via bantam books' mmpbs) and to run indefinitely; the reality, as with most of elwood's mid-seventies' sf anthology "bubble", was rather different. . . ...but this quartet is still worth investigating: nearly all the authors are good, most are distinctive - they write, or wrote, in uniquely their own voice(s) - and some of these are classics - "minor gems" - more easily and cheaply obtained by picking up all four "continua", rather than searching for e.g. edgar pangborn's "still i persist in wondering" (1978), q.v. - which, though wonderful, as well as full of wonder, is getting rather rare, and consequently a little pricey.° the anne mccaffrey novellas were later rewritten into two books of her "killashandra" trilogy, mostly the first, q.v., but in substantially different form - and with a very different, and iynshs's o, far better, ending: one that is fitting to killashandra's story and her development. ° - the pangborn stories are set in the world of "davy" (1964), q.v. and "the judgement of eve" (1966), q.v., which ought to be enough to make any lover of fine sf who's not read them salivate, at least mentally. . . 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 30th Apr 2018		Book Robert Grossbach - The Frisco Kid (1979)	Rated 2/10 fiction, historical/history, western; film screenplay novelisation avram mutz is chosen to be sent from a galician yeshiva in december 1849 to be yerba buena's new rabbi, despite being universally recognised by the senior rabbis as the poorest -or, at least the second poorest - student in the yeshiva, and a pisher. or possibly because of being so recognised - yerba buena's possessed of a population of five thousand at best, can't be home to more than five to ten jews, must have to scrape together a bare minyan - but they cannot deny it a rabbi. even if it's just recently changed its name, doubtless to the confusion of everyone - to "san francisco". the set-up has possibilities - pishibilities, even - and it might make a passably (pishibly?) funny film: after all, it's got the talents of gene wilder and harrison ford to bring its script to life, and plenty of cues for puns, politically unsound prat-falls, as well as for home-spun snippets of wisdom, and fortunes to be made, and lost: when avram arrives on the east coast, the san francisco gold-rush has just got under way; but it isn't enough to be a novel, not even picaresque journey of discovery, and self-discovery, journeying across the plains. this is simply a string of isolated encounters, with nothing to distinguish them in terms of lessons learned progressively by an innocent abroad, nor knowledge gained about the new country he has reached. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 4th Apr 2018		Book Nancy Dorer - By Daybreak The Eagle (1980)	Review the first pages of the putative second first & third read sufficiently poorly, yr hmbl srppnt. felt no urge to read further, not even at 25p per book. . . ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 20th Mar 2018		Book Ursula K. Le Guin - Orsinian Tales (1978)	Review collection of eight short stories and three novelettes set in orsinia, linked to one another and to her novel, "malafrena" (1979), q.v. i think i can best represent these as historical fiction set in an alternate austro-hungarian empire's equivalent of our's nineteenth or late eighteenth centuries; well-described, frequently sumptuous settings and countrysides, and just maybe an underlying feel that the luxurious living, and the appreciation of the arts and the most intricate works of craftsmen & women, of this society's wealthy overlies a deep fundamental instability. . . 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 7th Mar 2018		Book Francis Rufus Bellamy - Atta (1954)	Review adventures of a man shrunk by being struck by lightning to just ½" high who befriends a warrior ant; "atta" is the name of the ant: "aside from the author's...relentless disregard of natural history...the principal irritant in this story is the hero's absolutely impenetrable stupidity..." ° ° - "in search of wonder" by damon knight, 1967 advent publishers, chicago (usa) 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 14th Feb 2018		Book E. R. Eddison - A Fish Dinner In Memison (1972)	Rated 8/10 by nature more of a philosophical debate in a fantasy setting than a fantasy adventure, though set in a place somehow adjacent to the - forever repeating - events of "the worm ouroboros" (q.v.), investigating by argument (with references to the many worlds) the nature of life, conflict, love and the divine, this is an absorbing and rewarding read - if one can get over its not being in any ordinary sense a story - let alone a fantasy adventure with heroes, villains, struggles for worldly power, armed conflict, displays of magical powers with which to attack, defend or to otherwise gain advantage. . . this is also an aspect of the reward bestowed upon the philosopher-soldier-statesman and, above all, servant for the life he lived dedicated to her, by the goddess: as, indeed, the whole of this world of zimiamvia and all it contains may be, in fulfilment of her promise to him. not the easiest of reads, but one that informs "mistress of mistresses" (q.v.), the start of "the worm ouroboros" and the nature of its major characters, if not the events thereof (save, the ending), and what eddison achieved of his only very partially-composed intended major work, "the mezentian gate" (q.v.). 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 10th Feb 2018		Book Peter S. Beagle - A Fine And Private Place (1973)	Rated 8/10 a beautiful fantasy novel set in a graveyard with no living human character but much humour, furnished not least by a refreshingly sarky raven... published by ballantine as an eccentric mainstream novel, there being no mass market publishing category of "fantasy" from the rise of the mmpb through easter-summer 1975°. ° - despite the existence of ballantine's excellent "unicorn head" adult fantasy series 1969-73; these were distributed - and shelved - as "science fiction" category mmpbs - and most did not sell particularly well... 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 17th Jan 2018		Book Robert Sheckley - The Game Of X (1968)	Rated 2/10 terminally silly spy/espionage spoof don't bother - not unless you're a sheckley completist. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 11th Dec 2017		Book Christopher Stasheff - The Warlock In Spite Of Himself (1969)	Rated 8/10 #1 and first-written of the "warlock of gramarye" fantasy/sf novels featuring rod gallowglass, his robot black horse, "fess", brom o'beirin (sp?) and gwendolyn, and tom, leavening the sometimes very serious problems and situations faced by the characters with a refreshing ability of the major players as well as the minor to miscalculate and even make outright mistakes, set on a somewhat anomalous planet, in a rather peculiarly-arranged world originally settled by a fairly broad assortment of excessively romantic medieval recreationalists, and told with a lightness of touch that generally does not undermine the story by forcing a mental double check during the reading. . . ("king kobold" (ace books 1971), q.v., the sequel, was later rewritten and published in considerably different form entitled "king kobold revived" (ace books 1984), q.v.; it is sufficiently different a story from the original version, to read the earlier story as a "road not taken", a variant that remains enjoyable for itself (if somewhat confusédly).) (and immediately before this, christopher stasheff wrote a prequel to the first three of the rod gallowglass/ warlock of gramarye series, "escape velocity" (1983), which is an enjoyable sf novel - but which lacks much of the magic feel of the first half dozen of the series, rather, since ''gramarye'' has yet to be founded.) 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 9th Dec 2017		Book David Eddings - Pawn Of Prophecy (1983)	Rated 4/10 immensely successful, commercially, but somewhat dissatisfying sub-tolkienian pentalogy; the story takes a pretty boring and unobservant farm-boy through perilous adventures towards a climactic battle, picking up more or less-unlikely companions as he goes. some of these companions are people he's previously known as pretty ordinary, commonplace adults, unaware of (i.e. never noticing) their extraordinary powers (did i mention his uninquisitive, unobservant nature?); one is an extremely annoying "princess" of a teenager (who actually is a princess), that's somehow managed to avoid being murdered for her whiny, totally self-absorbed selfishness, and another is "silk", a double-dealing, treacherous-but-lovable rogue. . . that they eventually reach a successful conclusion to their adventures is, of course, inevitable - despite the existence of competing prophecies, or possibly competing interpretations of the same prophecy; and that the princess will prove to be a peach is predictable, if her survival unmurdered by any one of her companions - or the people they meet - was less so; but garion the stableboy - ok, farm boy - is so unimaginably boringly uninterested in the world, his companions, an enchanted sword... - not even his discovery that he's been raised by, and guarded by, two of the most powerful beings in creation suffices to raise a spark of suspicion that there might just possibly be something special about himself. . . and it's such a waste. the five books are at least competently well written, and there was a brilliant story just waiting to be told: lester del rey° shouldn't have accepted and published this first novel at all; he should've paid the minimum acceptable advance for the rights, and sent it back to the author saying "you're telling the wrong story; it isn't garion's story of unimaginative and unimagined inevitable success against all the odds at all - it's the amoral, inventive, larcenous and entirely self-interested rogue silk's story about how, despite his best intentions, he got lured into taking dangerous, all-but suicidal risks - to achieve something good, okay, but a venture that held no possible profit for him whatsoever - and he still can't work out how they conned him into doing anything so foolhardy..." ° - eddings' editor 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 1st Dec 2017		Book Richard A. Lupoff - Space War Blues (1979)	Rated 8/10 a worthy companion to adolf hitler's hugo award-winning novel, "lord of the swastika", q.v. - - and one which some appropriate authorities° rate even more highly°°. ° - extreme right-wing, xenophobic, sexist, racist and generally hate-filled, mostly. . . °° - for inventiveness in the reproduction of the nonstandard forms of english employed by the protagonists, and for general literacy, for the most part; else, see above° - if you're in precisely the right (? wrong ?) mood, very funny indeed - especially in measured doses... 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 1st Dec 2017		Book Larry Niven - Neutron Star (1972)	Rated 8/10 good introduction to the loose, over-all fictional universe: a story cycle of beowulf shaeffer stories set in known space, alternating with unconnected stories set against the same background telling salient parts of the known space history and introducing the major (and some minor) intelligent (sometimes doubtfully so) civilised (ditto) alien species, including the ferocious kzin, seemingly incapable of resisting any opportunity to attack (and kill) where they have a tactical advantage, even where there is naught to be gained strategically; the puppeteers, who are devout cowards to the extent that any individuals prepared to interact or even associate at close quarters with other species are at least technically mad; the grog, who don't seem to do anything - so who cannot have a use for intelligence (or can they?); and members of different colonies established by that most unreliable of species, humanity. later revised with a new beowulf shaeffer story, "ghost", presented as interconnecting and framing material, and one further, previously uncollected, story ("procrustes"), as "crashlander" (1994), q.v. beowulf shaeffer meets louis wu for the first time in one of these stories, so "ringworld" (1970) is set after the stories featuring them in this collection. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 29th Nov 2017		Book John Brunner - The Squares Of The City (1969)	Review the sfnal nature of "squares" is largely based upon an extrapolation of the research into and claims made for the effectiveness of subliminal advertisements and propaganda, that have proved to be far less effective in reality than was claimed for them at the time. this aside, the novel is a sociological story of political "class warfare" struggle and of the relationships between the characters cutting across their political beliefs, complicating their lives both socially, and corrupting their effectiveness as political reformers, radicals and revolutionaries (or otherwise) - themes john was to return to and develop further over the following decades in his major novels. it is most famous now for john's having based its plot structure upon the 7/2/1892 world championship rematch, steinitz-chigorin chess game in havana, cuba, recorded (notated) & replayed step-by-step at chessgames.com. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 29th Nov 2017		Book John Brunner - Telepathist (1968)	Rated 9/10 fix-up novel revised from three linked novellas featuring gerald howson, a frighteningly powerful, physically handicapped telepath fortunate enough to get picked up as a young kid by the u.n. from chaotic insurrectionary/terrorist circumstances, and trained - first, and essentially, to control his mental "voice" - and then, to use it to make a living, perhaps by going into and helping mend others' damaged minds, to make others' broken lives whole again. - but eventually the young man is faced with trying to bring back someone who is *not* ill, has apparently as good and as happy a family life, as he has satisfying a professional career - and who is as strong a telepath as howson, powerful enough to drag others with him as he withdrew into his fantasy world - which will kill all of them through dehydration or starvation, as well as himself, if his grip is not broken; and howson is faced with the appalling prospect that he could do as easily do the same, withdrawing from his personally actually painful reality into a much more enjoyable fantasy world that he could create within his own mind - and why should he not: after all, he would be far happier there, than in reality - wouldn't he ? sort-of aka "the whole man" (1964), q.v. (which differs quite a bit from "telepathist", as john revised the text for the uk fix-up novel). 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 24th Nov 2017		Book Henry N. Beard - Bored Of The Rings	Rated 1/10 the concept was a good one, arguably; at least, the initial idea - and the opening passage, as it were - are funny, in their own, horrible and horrific way. almost poetic. but the execution of the rest - and by far the greater part - is woefully poor. it presents the reader with an inadequate travelogue pretty much bereft of ideas, no further vignettes of incidents riffing off climactic scenes and/or perhaps overpowerfully-penned vistas of the original, *and* it fails to tell a story that makes sense even in its own, twisted terms: overall, it is what it implicitly (and falsely) accuses its inspiration of being - "bored of the rings" is an over-extended single gag, and - worst of all - it is itself a bore. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 21st Nov 2017		Book Robert Sheckley - Dramocles (1985)	Rated 2/10 an interesting theoretical idea, that of introducing and partially developing multiple plots and plot devices one upon another in ever-more intensively recomplicating succession, but resolving none - until the final moment/final paragraphs of the final chapter, where all of the climaxes occur one after another in rapid succession, hopefully leaving the reader - if any have stuck it out this far - and, doubtless, the author, weak from the breakneck speed of the ultimate arrival of the long-delayed multiple climaxes. (yes, the symbolism is obvious, and was equally doubtlessly intended.) unfortunately, it doesn't work: the absence of even minor plot resolutions along the way make for a deeply unsatisfying slog of a read, which the pyrotechnical piling-atop-one-another of the multiple climaxes doesn't adequately reward.° it arouses some interest to begin with, but it's too boring, for far too long, so that one's lost interest even in the plot lines one can remember, by the time the niagara of denouements commences, and continues, and continues. . . . . ° - and probably inherently never could have, unless it were possible to reward readers synaesthesiastically along the way, with interwoven sensory evocations of the equivalents of polyphonic melodies moving through chords and passing dissonances by means of written descriptions of smell, touch, hearing, and sight - which yr hmbl srppnt. suspects might well potentially constitute the ultimate in sensual (and probably erotic) writing. which this most decidedly is not, alas. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 21st Nov 2017		Book Philip José Farmer - Venus On The Half-Shell (1975)	Rated 7/10 mildly humorous, mildly erotic (yr hmbl srppnt. supposes) account of the sexual odyssey of a pretty strictly hetero male human spaceman amongst an assortment of mildly modified humano-form, mildly alien, also pretty strictly heterosexual societies. it incorporates vonnegut's short piece in "god bless you, mr. rosewater", q.v., quoting from a then-unwritten novel by his fictional best-selling but permanently bread-lined sf author. he undergoes occasional body modifications, mostly/more-or-less voluntarily, to fit in with his hostesses (as it were), the most interesting (?) - at least memorable - of which is the extension by a couple of more-or-less consciously-controllédly steerable yards (or metres) of his penis, after the body pattern of all (undisfigured) men on the particular planet. the cover of the 12/1974 issue of the magazine of fantasy & science fiction, q.v. featuring the first half of the two-part serialisation of "venus" is a (rather more interesting than that by gadino on the star uk p/b and the dell merkin mmpb original book publication) painting by ron walotsky quoting the boticelli painting. part two was in f&sf 1/1975, q.v.. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 21st Nov 2017		Book J. F. Rivkin - Silverglass (1987)	Rated 8/10 #1 of the four silverglass series novels featuring the adventures and sometimes smooth, sometimes strained relationship of a talented, if somewhat wilful student of magic escaping the stultifyingly boring future her wealthy family have planned for her, and a mercenary who initially regards her as a spoilt brat and something of a liability. they're a lot better-written adventures than the laughable impracticality of the swordswoman's attire on the cover might suggest; and whilst the outcomes of the various incidents certainly matter to the characters, neither they nor the books' authors take themselves too seriously - and they're are good fun adventure reading with some thought behind them. first published in ace paperbacks in the states; the series runs: #1: "silverglass" (1986); this novel. #2: "web of wind" (1987), q.v. #3: "witch of rhostshyl" (1989), q.v. #4: "mistress of ambiguities" (1991), q.v. iirc, only the first two or three of the four were published by futura in the uk, in orbit p/b. "j. f. rivkin" is/was a collaborative pseudonym, though the third was written solo by one, and the fourth by the other. the two live(d?) on opposite sides (?coasts?) of merkia, which cannot have made their collaboration any the easier (though it may've helped reduce serious arguments!). 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 20th Nov 2017		Book John Norman - Players Of Gor (1984)	Review long past the point of diminishing returns - and any time you waste upon this will not be refunded. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 20th Nov 2017		Book John Norman - Imaginative Sex (1974)	Review a book of bondage scenarios for lovers of the latter eighty per cent of professor john lange's s+m/bondage fantasy "gor" series. nor particularly especially imaginative, neither. . . ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 17th Nov 2017		Book John Norman - Tarnsman Of Gor (1966)	Rated 7/10 #1 of far too many; they start off as competent sub-burroughsian, with a little idiocy, rapidly start filtering in heavier stupidity along the lines of "all modern women need for true happiness is to be enslaved by a powerful man, so they can be fucked sufficiently hard and often they can forget all the nonsense of trying to use their brains" - and they manage to go *downhill* from there! the first three are worth the time taken to read them, but do not continue very much further. yhbw! 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 17th Nov 2017		Book H. Beam Piper - The Other Human Race (1964)	Rated 8/10 aka "fuzzy sapiens", q.v. sequel to "little fuzzy", q.v. the now charterless mining company can only regain its monopoly of the starstone trade, and its immense former profitability, by one of two routes: proving the fuzzies are not in fact an intelligent, self-aware native species, after all - or by demonstrating that, though they may have been, they're now extinct. and safest course would be to pursue a "belt and braces" policy - after all, the lives of a couple of hundred furry animals cannot be allowed to get in the way of saving the company, and the thousands of jobs in the colony that depend on it, no matter how charming they are as pets. . . there are three sequels to this novel, two "by another hand" as piper's own third fuzzynovel was lost, believed destroyed after being rejected by publishers following the dreadful sales figures for "the other human race" and, upon ace books doing rather well with their revival of the first and second, two further fuzzynovels were commissioned with the approval of h. beam piper's estate. these two were "fuzzy bones" by william tuning (q.v.), and "golden dream: a fuzzy odyssey" by ardath mayhar (q.v.). then the manuscript of h. beam piper's original third fuzzynovel was discovered, and it in turn was published, entitled "fuzzies and other people" (q.v.). all are well worth reading, though a little mental juggling is necessary to explain some inconsistency in the development of the legal and commercial background against which the fascinating story of the fuzzies and their friends have to fight: but all in all, they make up a delightful story of first contact, and what then transpires. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 16th Nov 2017		Book Andre Norton - Merlin's Mirror (1975)	Rated 4/10 retelling the arthurian legends and inventing new stories has been a growth industry for nigh-on a millennium, whether as courtly tales, historical novels or romances; but this tale steps across the line into von danniken territory, positing merlin as an "ancient astronaut" . . . not one of the author's better-conceived novels, nor one of her better-written. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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