[ Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | 1997 | Review Home ]
Retief Unbound, Keith Laumer (reread)
Retief At Large, Keith Laumer (reread) (incomplete)
My buddy with the gun named Fluffy (because, being a large caliber handgun, that's what it makes whatever it shoots at) asked me what I thought of the wonderful Jame Retief in the course of a discussion about characters one might fall for in a really big way. Not having reread these in a while, and feeling particularly braindead, I thought I might do so once again. I didn't fall for Retief then or now, altho I've always had a soft spot for him. But one of my buddy's criteria for fictional characters to be attractive is availability at the end of the work. And Retief always is.
Retief's War, Keith Laumer (reread)
Retief: Emissary to the Stars, Keith Laumer (reread)
Retief and the Warlords, Keith Laumer (reread)
So You Want to Be a Wizard, Diane Duane (reread)
The Man Who Never Missed, Steve Perry (reread)
Matadora, Steve Perry (reread)
The Machiavelli Interface, Steve Perry (reread)
What wonderful trash I am rereading! Steve Perry writes such fun novels. I recently reread "Willie of the Jungle" in the Pulphouse anthology, and Scott reminded me of a scene or two in the novels, so I thought I'd at least read the base trilogy. The prequel is next on my list, and I'll probably call a halt after that, as I believe the rest of the sequels are pretty darn bad. I drew the line at Black Steel, altho I think there was at least one more after that. Mind you, I have no objections to Mr. Perry raking it in, but I don't have to sit still and read the stuff, now do I?
Emile Khadaji is a soldier involved in one of those nasty little wars in which a lot of unarmed fanatics coms at a lot of really well-armed realists, having the ultimate effect of a lot of dead fanatics, and some really burned-out, depressed realists. Khadaji, in the middle of this mess, has a mystical experience: he finds himself in contact with the All, the Godhead, the Self, however you want to call it, and he walks right out into that battlefield trying to figure out what to do with it. A few days later, he runs into a member of a religious sect in search of a student, and it basically works out from there. Khadaji has concluded that anything evil enough to field people like him against unarmed fanatics like those has Got To Go and he's just the man to hurry it along. Pen, his new-found teacher, has the martial art to end all martial arts to start him on his newfound Path, which somehow also involves tending bar, and learning what it means to love someone. As the title character, he starts a legend, that is instrumental in the next couple of books, in which more people are taught sumito (that ur-martial art) and roped into helping bring down the evil Confed. It all comes to an ugly head in the third book.
Perry presents an interesting mix of people, various races and social classes, men and women, straight and otherwise. He's pleasant in that he portrays a variety of loving partnerships in a very positive light. He's unpleasant in that he uses certain sexual practices as a short-cut way to represent the Evilness of the Bad Guys. In the base trilogy, it works all right, but by the later books, it's something of a crutch, and more than a little obnoxious.
Apocalypse Wow, James Finn Gardner
The man who brought us three, count them three entertaining if small collections of folk and fairy tale spoofs, thus enriching himself and amusing many, has now brought us an anecdotal look at prophecies of the end times. Xtian fundamentalists, fans of Nostradamus and Cayce, and New Agers of all stripes get their few pages of fame. Like the earlier collections, Gardner maintains a tone of gentle mockery which I find appealing -- not mean-spirited like more Swiftian satirists. The photo on the back cover really says it all: the author holding an umbrella, speculatively looking up and holding his hand out to check for actual raindrops.
I didn't read much else in the way of books this month -- I went to New Orleans, and caught up on three months of Nature. My head hurts.
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This file recreated from The Internet Wayback Machine in January 2002. Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Created April 2, 1997 Updated: January 10, 2002