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************************************************************** * * * R E A D I N G F O R P L E A S U R E * * * * Issue #14 * * * * * * * * Editor: Cindy Bartorillo * * * * HAPPY HOLIDAYS * * * * Featured Authors: Robert A. Heinlein / Ellis Peters * * * ************************************************************** CONTACT US AT: Reading For Pleasure, c/o Cindy Bartorillo, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702; or on CompuServe leave a message to 74766,1206; or on GEnie leave mail to C.BARTORILLO; or call our BBS, the BAUDLINE II at 301-694-7108, 1200-9600 HST. NOTICE: Reading For Pleasure is not copyrighted. You may copy freely, but please give us credit if you extract portions to use somewhere else. Sample copies of our print edition are available upon request. We ask for a donation of $1.50 each to cover the printing and mailing costs. ************************ DISTRIBUTION DIRECTORY Here are a few bulletin boards where you should be able to pick up the latest issue of READING FOR PLEASURE. See masthead for where to send additions and corrections to this list. ????? Omaha, NE Pete Hartman 402-498-9723 Academia Pomono, NJ Ken Tompkins 609-652-4914 Accolade! BBS Round Rock,TX Jack Moore 512-388-1445 Ad Lib Monroeville,PA John Williams 412-327-9209 The Annex Dayton,OH John Cooper 513-274-0821 Beginnings BBS Levittown,NY Mike Coticchio 516-796-7296 S Billboard Bartlett,IL Gary Watson 708-289-9808 P Blcksbg Info Serv Blacksburg,VA Fred Drake 703-951-2920 Boot Strap OnLine Yuma, AZ Daryl Stogner 602-343-0878 S Byrd's Nest Arlington,VA Debbie&Alan Byrd 703-671-8923 P Checkpoint El Cajon,CA 619-442-3595 P Chevy Chase Board Alexandria,VA Larkins/Carlson 703-549-5574 P Computer Co-Op Voorhees,NJ Ted Hare 609-784-9404 Daily Planet Owosso,MI Jay Stark 517-723-4613 Death Star Oxon Hill,MD Lee Pollard 301-839-0705 P Del Ches Systems Exton,PA Peter Rucci 215-363-6625 Diversified Prog PacPalisadesCA Jean-Pierre Denis 213-459-6053 P Dorsai Diplomatic Mission NYC Jack Brooks 212-431-1944 P Farmington Valley Hartford,CT John Walko 203-676-8920 P Future Tech Boston,MA Napier & Moran 617-720-3600 P Futzer Avenue Issaquah,WA Stan Symms 206-391-2339 P IBMNew CompuServe Library #0 Inn on the Park Scottsdale,AZ Jim Jusko 602-957-0631 P Invention Factory New York,NY Mike Sussell 212-431-1273 P Ivory Tower Manchester,CT Karl Hakmiller 203-649-5611 PS KCSS BBS Seattle,WA Bob Neddo 206-296-5277 P Litforum CompuServe Library #12 Lost Paradise Mike King 703-370-7795 P Magnetic Bottle Pennsylvania Bill Mertens 814-231-1345 Magpie HQ New York,NY Steve Manes 212-420-0527 P MoonDog BBS Brooklyn,NY Don Barba 718-692-2498 P MSU Library BBS St. Paul,MN Dana Noonan 612-722-9257 P Oak Lawn Oak Lawn,IL Vince & Chris 708-599-8089 P Poverty Rock PCB Mercer Is.,WA Rick Kunz 206-232-1763 PS Round Table BBS Chicago,IL Kevin Keyser 312-777-9480 P Sabaline Don Saba 619-692-1961 P Science Fiction GEnie Library #3 SF & Fantasy CIS Hom-9 Library #5 SoftServ Long Beach,CA J. Neil Schulman 213-957-1176 Suburban Software Chicago,IL Chuck Valecek 312-636-6694 P Sunwise Sun City W.,AZ Keith Slater 602-584-7395 Technoids Anon. Chandler,AZ David Cantere 602-899-4876 P Writers Happy Hr Seattle,WA Walter Scott 206-364-2139 P Writers' RT GEnie Library #1 Xevious Framingham,MA Nels Anderson 508-875-3618 P Your Place Fairfax,VA Ken Goosens 703-978-6360 P RFP Home Board (all issues available all the time): Baudline II Frederick,MD the Bartorillo's 301-694-7108 (RFPs downloadable on first call; 9600 HST) Any board that participates in the RelayNet (tm) email system can request RFPs from BAUDLINE. P = PC Pursuit-able S = StarLink-able NOTE: Back issues on CompuServe may have been moved to a different library. ************************ TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 What's News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Gauntlet #2 Coming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Postcards From the Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 A Good Old-Fashioned Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Lost In a Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424 Making the Most of Medicare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 The Dame in the Kimono . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 Trust Me On This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 The Cuckoo's Egg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618 Best Western Nonfiction Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698 Passages To Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740 SoftServ Paperless Bookstore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771 How To Read Paperless Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998 Genre Sections: ............................................................. Loosen Your Grip On Reality 1025 Murder By The Book 2631 Frightful Fiction 3495 The Laugh's On Us 4148 ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Back Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4215 ************************ EDITORIAL The subject this time is Naming Names. To begin with, there is a controversy right now about uncredited book reviews. Several powerful review periodicals, including Publishers Weekly, don't put any byline on the reviews they publish, and a growing group of authors are steamed about it. Despite the fact that Reading For Pleasure is neither powerful nor controversial, we understand the position of authors against uncredited reviews, and we will try very hard to remember to put a byline on any review that we publish. Up to now the rule of thumb is that any review not credited to someone else was written by me. That's what we're doing--now for what you should be doing. First of all, it would help everyone out if you would mention RFP whenever appropriate. If publishers and retailers hear our name, they might be a bit more inclined to keep us up-to-date with catalogs and book announcements. And if they keep US informed, we'll keep YOU informed. Also, let us mention again that if you have a BBS and you carry RFP regularly, *please* let us know your information so we can list you in our Distribution Directory. We know for a fact that there are a bunch of you out there who aren't 'fessin' up. Lastly, sprinkled around this issue are a few mini biographies of some of the people involved with RFP. Sort of a Parade of the Guilty, I guess you could call it. Have the very best Holiday you've ever had, and be sure to buy lots of books for gift-giving. There are lots of great ideas in this issue, and there are even more at your local bookstore. See you again in issue #15 (available February 1, 1991), when our Featured Authors will be Jonathan Carroll and Chet Williamson. Cindy ************************ WHAT'S NEWS * Are you a writer who can't seem to get published? Why not join The Society of Rejected Writers, a support group for unpublished writers. Membership will cost you $10 and 30 rejection slips. For more information, write to: Bonnie Kaufman, SRW, 225 Central Park West, #11-17, New York NY 10024. * Writers frequently complain that their publishers don't publicize their books sufficiently. William L. Shirer, author of the 1960 National Book Award winner THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH, has put his money where his mouth is. Little, Brown took out some advertisements when his book, A NATIVE'S RETURN 1945-1988, first came out in January 1990, but failed to publish further ads after all the book reviews had come in. Shirer filled the gap by taking out ads in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times at his own expense. Nice idea if you can afford it. Unfortunately, most authors can't. * Jerry Biederman went on "a scavenger hunt for strangers' secrets". In a city he won't name (even his publishers don't know where it is) he approached people for their secrets; and got legal releases from them to put these secrets in a book as long as they, and the town, remain anonymous. A mailman confesses that he subscribes to Time simply for show, that he can't really read that well. A trash collector has a recurring dream of being a superhero's sidekick. And so on. If you'd like to see if other people's secrets are as weird and depraved as your own, watch for Biederman's book, SECRETS OF A SMALL TOWN: THE EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSIONS OF ORDINARY PEOPLE, coming in March 1991 from Pharos Books. * Just in case you thought evolution was finally working, I'll repeat a story I read in Publishers Weekly. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist H.G. Bissinger has been forced to cancel a promotional tour to Odessa, Texas, because he has received "bodily threats" from some of local citizens. He would have gone to promote his new book, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, which is about Odessa's obsession with high school football. OK, granted the book is a tad critical of Odessa, but "bodily threats"? * As I type this, more than 200,000 paperback books are being sent to U.S. military personnel serving in the Persian Gulf. Eleven paperback publishers, under the guise of the Paperback Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers, have donated books which should have begun reaching the troops in early November. Some 100,000 of the books will be distributed by the USO in "Oasis Packages", which will also include M&Ms, toothpaste, toothbrush, razor and blades, writing paper, audio cassettes, and sunglasses. The eleven publishers contributing books are: Avon, Ballantine, Bantam, Berkley, Dell, HarperCollins, Penguin USA, Pocket Books, St. Martin's Press, Warner, and Zebra Books. * What do you do if you enjoy Kevin Costner's movie, DANCES WITH WOLVES, but missed the book's publication in paperback back in 1988? Newmarket Press comes to the rescue with a new hardcover edition of the original novel, with an introduction by Costner and an afterword by author Michael Blake (who also wrote the screenplay). The same publisher also has DANCES WITH WOLVES: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY OF AN EPIC FILM by Kevin Costner, Michael Blake, and Jim Wilson (he's the producer of the movie). This is a $14.95 trade paperback with 170 photos and drawings, portions of the screenplay, articles about the film's costumes and sets, and bits of relevant history, legend, and literature. * Jay McInerney's THE STORY OF MY LIFE (about a character named Alison Poole), is being made into a one-woman play and will open in London with Ally Sheedy. * There's a new British magazine starting this month. It's called MILLION: THE MAGAZINE OF POPULAR FICTION, the brainchild of David Pringle (best known for his science fiction magazine, INTERZONE). MILLION will have 68 pages of articles about popular writers, interviews with them, book reviews, short stories, novel excerpts, news, etc. For more information, write to: Popular Fictions, 124 Osbourne Rd., Brighton BN1 6LU, UK. ************************ COMING SOON! GAUNTLET #2! GAUNTLET: Exploring the Limits of Free Expression The only general-interest magazine about censorship has its second issue coming out in March 1991. There's a new format this time--it's a trade paperback (6 x 9), perfectbound; and it's not too soon to reserve your copy. Issue #2 is a Stephen King special and will include: * Stephen King commentary by Michael Collings, Stephen Spignesi, George Beahm and Howard Wornom; the latest news on King projects; and an index of work by King censored in 1990. * TWO stories by Ray Bradbury plus: Graham Masterton Karl Wagner Nancy Collins Piers Anthony 2 Live Crew Kathryn Ptacek Kelley Wilde Ray Garton Dan Simmons Skipp & Spector Rex Miller Andrew Vachss and much more. Make a check out for $8.95 to Gauntlet, Inc. (make it $15 if you want #1 and #2; make it $21 if you want #1, #2, and the following year's #3; add $15 if you want a Gauntlet T-shirt and specify Adult L or Adult XL). Mail your check to: Gauntlet, Inc., Dept. O, 309 Powell Rd., Springfield, PA 19064. Tell them RFP sent you. (Late breaking news: There is now a special $75 limited edition version of GAUNTLET, signed by many of the contributors--including Stephen King, Graham Masterton, and Andrew Vachss. Send your check (plus $3 shipping & handling) to: Borderlands Press, PO Box 32333, Baltimore, MD 21208. ************************ POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE by Carrie Fisher (1987) review by Cindy Bartorillo Actress Carrie Fisher (best know as Princess Leia of STAR WARS) apparently had a good-sized drug problem at one time, and POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE is where she put a lot of the insights she gained from the related experiences (being on drugs, being around people who are on drugs, being in a rehab clinic, being off drugs, etc.). I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, the characters are all drawn from a limited section of our population--they're all rich, self-involved southern Californians who make their living in the movie industry. They're psychologically screwed up, but very, very sophisticated about it. I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody like this, and I'm damn glad about that. Here's a sample of First Date dinner conversation from someone our heroine has an almost-relationship with (this is all said dead-serious): "I envy people meeting me for the first time," he said. "That first meeting is everything, because I can watch their eyes and see it all happen, and I want to BE them. *I* want to meet somebody like me." Would you sit around listening to this kind of person? Would you voluntarily spend time with this person? So, what I'm saying is that the characters are difficult to sympathize with---because they're alien, and because they're so obnoxious. On the other hand, though, there's the writing, which is devastatingly perceptive and enormously funny. Early in the book there's the interior monologue of a cocaine user who decides to give it up and then, within minutes, is consuming enough cocaine (and other drugs) to wind up in the hospital. How he talks himself into his behavior is the funniest and saddest few pages I've ever read. Also, once we get away from the early emphasis on drugs, POSTCARDS becomes more cheerful and more interesting. We see Suzanne Vale, our heroine, on the job making a movie, shopping with a girlfriend, and facing the terrifying possibility that, just maybe, she's actually having an honest-to-God relationship. It's a fun trip. On the whole, I give POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE a thumbs-up. I'm still suspicious of Californians, but at least they're funny. NOTES: As I'm sure you noticed, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE was a major motion picture of Fall 1990, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid. Carrie Fisher wrote the screenplay herself, which she will also do for her second novel, SURRENDER THE PINK, the film to be co-produced by Ms. Fisher and Steven Spielberg. Her third novel, DELUSIONS OF GRANDMA, is due to be released in early 1992. MORE NOTES: While I've got you here, I might as well pass along the rumor that Carrie Fisher did not actually write POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (the novel, that is). I have NO knowledge about this issue at all, and mention this only as an interesting bit of trivia. ************************ CINDY BARTORILLO was given a copy of THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett at a very young and impressionable age, which explains her fascination for secret doors. Another favorite volume of her early years was EDWARD LEAR'S BOOK OF NONSENSE, a large collection of limericks, which explains her interest in poetry. These first volumes led inevitably to Nancy Drew mysteries, which led to Perry Mason mysteries, and before long she was hooked on the hard stuff: Fredric Brown and Cornell Woolrich. In school she learned that of all the ways to waste your time, school is the most boring. One day she found herself reading Theodore Dreiser for fun, and immediately quit going to school and eating meat. Before long, Cindy had discovered the Victorians, which soon led to gothic fiction and ultimately to modern horror. Today, when asked what she "does", she replies "I read", which satisfies her and tends to puzzle everyone else. ************************ A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS by Robert Benchley (1981, Ipswich Press) review Cindy Bartorillo What better way to celebrate Christmas than with a collection of Robert Benchley's yuletide essays? This volume makes a great Christmas gift and a very nice introduction to Benchley's humor. The essays range from 1921 to 1949, and deal with such standard Christmas issues as boredom, the tyranny of tradition, social obligations, and children: "One of the problems of child education which is not generally included in books on the subject is the Visiting Schoolmate. By this is meant the little friend whom your child brings home for the holidays. What is to be done with him, the Law reading as it does?" ---from "The Stranger Within Our Gates" (1930) Indeed, Benchley manages to put his finger on the true value of children at Christmas: "For, after all, we must keep in touch with the children, because some day they will get all of Grandma's money." ---from "Here Come the Children" (1925) If your bookstore doesn't carry A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS, you can get it the same place I did--from A Common Reader, a terrific catalog source of unusual reading material, or as they say, "A selection of books for readers with imagination". You can reach them at: A Common Reader, 175 Tompkins Avenue, Pleasantville, NY 10570; 914-747-3388. By the way, they have other Robert Benchley books too. ************************ WHO IS ROBERT PITTMAN AND WHY DOES HE WRITE FOR RFP? He lives in Glenview, Kentucky and for the past five years has enjoyed the state and status of retirement. His work career spanned 36 years with a single company, B.A.T. Industries, where he specialized in marketing, public relations and political relations. Other than the United States, interesting tours of duty included Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama. He is a native of North Carolina but departed that delightful area immediately following graduation from North Carolina State College and now considers himself a fully-qualified Kentuckian. He is married and has four children, all young adults. Reading has always been a favorite pastime and his range of interests is wide with a slight leaning toward science fiction. Contributions to Reading For Pleasure came about because of his son Bill. Bill is a Macintosh maven and through his contacts in the computer networks, found an early issue of RFP and formed a communication with the editor. It was not long before Bill was saying, "Pop, why don't YOU write something and contribute it to Reading For Pleasure?" He wrote something, Cindy said, "Thanks", Bill said, "More", and so it goes. ************************ LOST IN A BOOK The Psychology of Reading For Pleasure by Victor Nell (1988, Yale University Press) review by Howard Frye Remember Masters & Johnson, the pair who published the huge study of human sexuality? That was when we all found out for the first time that everyone else is just as much of a pervert as we are. Well, LOST IN A BOOK does the exact same thing for readers. The prose is on the dry side, but it's a fascinating study of who reads, how they read, what they read, and why they read. You'll particularly like the discussions of "reading trance", a phenomenon that I bet you thought nobody else knew about. Finally, someone who brings the literary focus back where it belongs, with the reader. "Traditional methods of criticism are fine if you're preparing a museum exhibit, with the author, or his book, carefully pinned to black velvet and positioned under glass, but what meaning can it possibly have to readers?" --from LOST IN A BOOK by Victor Nell "Reading is creative...what any reader derives from the printed page, therefore, is not exactly what some other reader would get or even what the author had in mind, but to a certain degree at least a personal recreation on the part of the reader." --from BASES FOR EFFECTIVE READING by M.A. Tinker (1965) and quoted in LOST IN A BOOK by Victor Nell "When we hold a book in our hands, all we hold is paper. The book is elsewhere." --from THE BOOK REVOLUTION by R. Escarpit (1966) and quoted in LOST IN A BOOK by Victor Nell LOST IN A BOOK is now available in an economical ($14.95) trade paperback from Yale University Press. ************************ ANNIE WILKES is a retired nurse who first discovered books while working the 11pm to 7am shift. At first she preferred romance novels, but she's since gone on to suspense and horror stories. Annie spends her time doing volunteer work at the local Retirement Center, and in the evenings she reads and avoids housework. ************************ MAKING THE MOST OF MEDICARE by Arthur R. Pell, Ph.D. (1990, DCI Publishing) review by Cindy Bartorillo Yeah, I know, Medicare is that idea they came up with for your grandparents. Well, don't look now, but you're one year closer to Medicare than you were this time last year, and next year you'll be even closer. If you or your parents are within shoutin' distance of 65, you'll want to have a copy of this book. You can't win the medical insurance game if you don't know the rules. Dr. Pell starts with a thorough description of who's covered by Medicare, how to apply, and generally what Medicare will do for you once you've got it. An entire chapter is devoted to explaining what Medicare will pay for if you receive medical care in a hospital, a skilled-nursing facility, a hospice, or at home (and how to make informed decisions if you have a choice about where to be sick). Another chapter covers the bills you receive from your doctor, along with many recommendations for managing your medical care for economical efficiency. Perhaps the most useful parts of this guide are the practical chapters. Let's say you've determined that Medicare should pay you $100, but *they* say they should pay you only $15. What do you do now? Dr. Pell includes many pages of real-life examples with concrete solutions. Let's face it, rules aren't much good if you can't enforce them in your own behalf. MAKING THE MOST OF MEDICARE also covers groups with specific perspectives. Those with coverage from another company will find out how to use both to their best advantage. Medicaid, veteran's benefits, and HMO's also are covered at length. And for those with chronic medical problems, there is an entire chapter discussing the insurance aspects of nursing homes, hospices, and home care. Rounding out the book with a more human element, Dr. Pell discusses general strategies and common sense advice for dealing with medical care professionals and hospitals. This is important and encouraging material that will help in the empowering of patients. The idea is to participate actively and aggressively in your own medical care, improving the quality of your own life (and possibly improving the quality of medical care in general). MAKING THE MOST OF MEDICARE is an absolutely essential guide to the maze that is medical insurance for the elderly, and I can't imagine the subject being handled more lucidly. All the information is presented clearly and arranged usefully. At $11.95, this is a Best Buy. ************************ THE DAME IN THE KIMONO Hollywood, Censorship, & the Production Code From the 1920s to the 1960s by Leonard J. Leff & Jerold L. Simmons (1990, Grove Weidenfeld) comment by Howard Frye A good, if somewhat dry, account of movie censorship, and the eleven movies that shaped the Production Code: DEAD END, GONE WITH THE WIND, THE OUTLAW, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, THE BICYCLE THIEF, DETECTIVE STORY, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, THE MOON IS BLUE, THE FRENCH LINE, LOLITA, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? ************************ TRUST ME ON THIS by Donald E. Westlake (1988, Mysterious) review by Cindy Bartorillo JOGGING CAUSES NYMPHOMANIA Have you ever wondered where those great headlines you see at the supermarket checkout come from? "11-Yr-Old Gives Birth To Siamese Twins During Gym Class" "Enraged Wife Feeds Husband To Dogs" "I Had Bigfoot's Baby" How do these newspapers find all those crazies? How do they generate so much nonsense week after week? Well, here's Donald Westlake to the rescue, to tell us all about the inner workings of the Weekly Galaxy. TRUST ME ON THIS does, however, bear the following notice in the front: A WORD IN YOUR EAR Although there is no newspaper anywhere in the United States like the WEEKLY GALAXY, as any alert reader will quickly realize, were there such a newspaper in actual real-life existence its activities would be stranger, harsher and more outrageous than those described herein. The fictioneer labors under the restraint of plausibility; his inventions must stay within the capacity of the audience to accept and believe. God, of course, working with facts, faces no such limitation. Were there a factual equivalent to the WEEKLY GALAXY, it would be much worse than the paper I have invented, its staff and ownership even more lost to all considerations of truth, taste, proportion, honor, morality or any shred of common humanity. Trust me. That has got to be the most eloquent preface I have ever read, as well as being an incredibly clever twist of logic to tweak the nose of the scandal sheets. If a supposed real newspaper's activities are going to be "stranger, harsher and more outrageous" than those of the WEEKLY GALAXY, they've really got to work at it. Hilarious from first page to last, TRUST ME ON THIS is a romp through the big issues of our day: morality, the First Amendment, the power of the press, and the sex lives of celebrities. On the way we meet some of the wackiest characters on this side of the nuthouse. But let me get back to the beginning. We begin with Sara Joslyn on her way to her first day of work as a reporter for the WEEKLY GALAXY. On her way to the office she comes upon a car on the side of the road with a dead body falling out of it. The dead body has a bullet hole in the forehead. Like a good reporter, Sara's main thought is what a great first day this will be; she will arrive with her first story ready to be written up. She reports the dead body to the guard at the gate, then rushes to meet her new bosses. At the top there's Bruno DeMassi (appropriately called "Massa" by his employees). He's the editor, publisher, and owner of the WEEKLY GALAXY, and his office is in a large elevator so that he can pop up amongst his employees unexpectedly, the better to instill terror in the troops. Sara is assigned to work for editor Jack Ingersoll, a ruthless, ambitious man who just might (or might not) have the remnants of what used to be a conscience. Sara joyfully presents him with her story about the dead body and receives the response, "On what series is he a regular?" Which is Sara's first lesson in WEEKLY GALAXY journalism, a lesson that shocks and appalls her, but which she learns well, and soon Sara shows promise of becoming a first-rate WEEKLY GALAXY reporter. (Westlake makes it very clear that working for such a "newspaper" is two things above all: tacky and terrifically fun.) Her dead body, however, refuses to go away. First, the guard she reported it to is never seen again. Then the paper on which she took notes about the body, including the license plate number of the car, disappears. Even though Sara is busy with her important assignments as a reporter: the beer-and-potato chip diet, the 100-year-old twins, the marriage of a Don Johnson-like TV star--still, the insignificant murder of one unknown man continues to intrude on her life. A typical bravura performance by Donald Westlake, and a particular delight for the reader. Highly recommended. ************************ THE CUCKOO'S EGG Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll (Doubleday, 1989) review by Cindy Bartorillo Clifford Stoll is an astronomer by training, who, through the capricious whim of fortune became an expert on computer security. The loss of his grant at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories found him accepting a job in the computer department, and on his second day on the job he was given a busywork assignment: find out why the two arms of the accounting software disagreed by 75 cents. You see, computer time costs (at that time the cost was $300 an hour), so accounting and billing are important parts of the computer department's life. Cliff Stoll studied the computer log and discovered a user named Hunter who didn't have a valid billing address, so no one was paying for his time. And he had used exactly 75 cents worth of time. The ominous fact that Cliff Stoll discovered was that 75 cents worth of computer time was all that it took for "Hunter" to break into the LBL computer and steal several legitimate accounts for use later. With one brief call, someone had seriously compromised security at LBL. More ominously, this same person had used the phone connection to LBL to continue on out over a computer network, calling and breaking in to computers all over the U.S., military computers mostly. On each computer he'd take the password file, scan electronic mail for interesting bits of information, and read any text files that seemed to contain high-tech military information. And only Cliff Stoll realized this computer thief was around. When Cliff notified the systems managers at the various installations the hacker visited, he invariably got one of two reactions. Either the head computer person didn't realize there was a problem, and either refused to believe it or didn't really care; or Cliff got total rejection--the "Not here, buddy, we run a SECURE computer" song and dance. Which, as Stoll proved, is entirely an illusion. Any computer that is connected to the outside world is vulnerable and CAN be infiltrated. If the good guys can get in, so can the bad guys. In the course of this fascinating story, Cliff Stoll demonstrates that ignorance can be very damaging. By ignoring or minimizing the problems of computer security, systems managers insure that the problems will continue. As we see in THE CUCKOO'S EGG, hackers are not the bored overachieving computer geniuses that the media has painted them. They are simply disaffected people with access to computers, and we are at the mercy of their malevolence, or the motivations of the foreign government that pays them. Among the many rewards of reading THE CUCKOO'S EGG is the glimpse we get of our government organizations at work, or not at work. Organizations who appear to be using secrecy to hide the fact that they essentially do nothing at all. And organizations that are avid collectors of software loopholes, but won't tell anyone about them. As Stoll shows, the bad guys are good at finding loopholes; the only people who don't know about them are the good guys. Wisely, Cliff Stoll doesn't make his book simply a high-tech thriller. THE CUCKOO'S EGG is very much the personal story of a distinctive, and charming individual. He bakes cookies, and gives us his recipe. He dresses up like the Pope. He cooks sneakers in the microwave. No one else could have told this story exactly like Cliff, and he has done an excellent job of weaving his themes together. It's partly a detective story, partly a personal odyssey, and partly a political statement. And all of it makes great reading. NOTE: THE CUCKOO'S EGG is now available in a mass market paperback edition for $5.95 from Pocket Books. ************************ Reading for pleasure is often light reading, but not always: one of pleasure reading's paradoxes is that for many sophisticated readers, a wide range of materials, from the trashiest to the most literate and demanding works, may induce reading trance, and such readers are intrigued by the pleasure they derive from material they know to be culturally worthless. --Victor Nell (LOST IN A BOOK) ************************ BEST WESTERN NONFICTION BOOKS (according to members of the Western Writers of America) Abbey, Edward Desert Solitaire Abbott, E.C. We Pointed Them North Adams, Andy Log of a Cowboy Bourke, John G. On the Border with Crook Brown, Dee Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (biggest vote-getter) Cunningham, Eugene Triggernometry Dary, David The Buffalo Book DeVoto, Bernard Across the Wide Missouri DeVoto, Bernard Year of Decision, 1876 Dobie, J. Frank Coronado's Children Dobie, J. Frank The Longhorns Dobie, J. Frank The Mustangs Fehrenbach, T.R. The Comanches Fehrenbach, T.R. Lone Star Graves, John Goodbye to a River Gregg, Josiah Commerce on the Prairies Grinnell, George Bird The Fighting Cheyennes Haley, J. Evetts Charles Goodnight Horgan, Paul The Great River Lake, Stuart N. Wyatt Earp Lavender, David Bent's Fort Metz, Leon C. Pat Garrett: The Story of a Lawman Parkman, Francis The Oregon Trail Rollins, Philip A. The Cowboy Rosa, Joseph G. They Called Him Wild Bill Sandoz, Mari The Buffalo Hunters Sandoz, Mari Cheyenne Autumn Sandoz, Mari Crazy Horse Sandoz, Mari Old Jules Sonnichsen, C.L. Law West of the Pecos Stone, Irving Men to Match My Mountains Thrapp, Dan The Conquest of Apacheria Twain, Mark Roughing It Ward, Fay The Cowboy at Work Webb, Walter Prescott The Great Plains Webb, Walter Prescott The Texas Rangers ************************ PASSAGES TO FREEDOM: A Story of Capture and Escape by Joseph S. Frelinghuysen The honest, unpretentious story of a captain in the U.S. Army, ambushed and imprisoned in Nazi German-occupied North Africa, and taken to Italian POW camps. On 23 September 1943 Joe Frelinghuysen escaped from the camp at Fonte d'Amore and spent the next seven weeks in the Italian mountains, running and hiding from the Germans. PASSAGES TO FREEDOM is a suspenseful, touching story of a gentle, compassionate American, set in a brutal epoch. 303 pages, illustrated, $17.95, from Sunflower University Press, 1531 Yuma (Box 1009), Manhattan, Kansas 66502-4228. Phone 913-539-1888. ************************ If you're handy around the house, or would like to be, you need to get a catalog from The Taunton Press, 63 South Main Street, Box 5506, Newtown, CN 06470-5506. They have beautiful, profusely illustrated how-to guides and a comprehensive line of helpful videotapes too. Ask for their Fine Homebuilding Books & Videos catalog for help with flooring, stairbuilding, tilesetting, cabinets, trim, and architecture. Ask for their Fine Woodworking catalog for help with tools, methods, wood, furniture, and design. The books look great and the prices are very reasonable. ************************ SOFTSERV PAPERLESS BOOKSTORE If you're interested in books-on-disk, be sure to fire up your modem and call The SoftServ Paperless Bookstore BBS (213-957-1176 or 213-957-0874, 9600 baud HST Dual Standard). You can have the books mailed to you on disk, or you can download them right while you're online. Here's a list of what's available there, and what's on the way. CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ON SOFTSERV AGBERG, LTD. [available only on SoftServ] Capricorn Games, stories--Robert Silverberg Parsecs and Parables, stories--Robert Silverberg The Shores of Tomorrow, stories--Robert Silverberg BANKS & LAMBE, PUBLISHERS The Odysseus Solution, a novel--Michael Banks and Dean R. Lambe CADENZA COMMUNICATIONS, INC. [available only on SoftServ] The Rainbow Cadenza, a novel--J. Neil Schulman The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana--J. Neil Schulman CONNECTED EDITIONS [Originals/available only on SoftServ & Connect Ed] The Birdhouse Cathedral, poetry--William Dubie Fellow Travellers--Sharon Lerch Security, a Novel--Sharon Lerch Essays on Cyberspace--Paul Levinson Deuce of a Time, a novel--Paul Levinson Onlines: Chronicles--Paul Levinson Decisions--Donald B. Straus The Loom & The Keyboard--Gail S. Thomas The Age of Choice: Commentaries on Public and International Affairs, 1987-1990--Harlan Cleveland DISTANT EAGLE PUBLISHING COMPANY [Originals/available only on SoftServ] Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume I The Voice of Day--James David Audlin Volume II The Wings of the Morning--James David Audlin Volume III The Productions of Time--James David Audlin HEWW [available only on SoftServ and HEWW BBS] The Harbinger Trilogy Book 1: Not Against Flesh and Blood--J.H. Kent Lyons Book 2: What Shall Be the Sign?--J.H. Kent Lyons Book 3: The TIme of the End--J.H. Kent Lyons The Jesus Case--J.H. Kent Lyons Canadiana--J.H. Kent Lyons The Short Form Bible--J.H. Kent Lyons THE KILIMANJARO CORPORATION [available only on SoftServ] The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World--Harlan Ellison Paingod and Other Delusions--Harlan Ellison The Glass Teat: essays of opinion on television--Harlan Ellison KOPUBCO The Jehovah Contract, a novel--Victor Koman Solomon's Knife, a novel--Victor Koman New Libertarian Manifesto--Samuel Edward Konkin III LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED Natural Law or Don't Put A Rubber On Your Willy--Robert Anton Wilson SYNAPSE BOOKS [Originals/available only on SoftServ] The Hawk Trilogy Volume 1 Hawk's Last Case--Red Greene Volume 2 Hawk Gets Liberated--Red Greene Volume 3 Hawk Goes Hollywood--Red Greene The Devil's Drainpipe--Keith Kirts Space Sex, or Tricks For Goldfish--Keith Kirts Trysts--William T.R. Mellon Aids Inc--Jon Rappoport ROBERT RODI, PUBLISHER [Original/available only on SoftServ] The World in a Hurry Again, a novel--Robert St. Onge Rodi COMING SOON FROM SOFTSERV BENARES & CARR, PUBLISHERS [Original/available only on SoftServ] The Crying Clown Celebration--Camden Benares and John F. Carr BERKLEY PUBLISHING CORPORATION [available only on SoftServ] The Rape of the A*P*E, humor--Allan Sherman CADENZA COMMUNICATIONS, INC. [Originals/available only on SoftServ] Alongside Night, a novel--J. Neil Schulman The Second Remove and Other Departures--J. Neil Schulman The Musician and Other Musings--J. Neil Schulman No Strings Attached: A Screenplay--J. Neil Schulman All The King's Horses and other Screen Treatments--J. Neil Schulman Profile In Silver and other Teleplays--J. Neil Schulman Alongside Night: The Screenplay--J. Neil Schulman CONNECTED EDITIONS [Original/available only on SoftServ & Connect Ed] Understanding In-Flight Radiation--Robert Barish The Visual Plough, poetry--Ron Buck Snapshots, poetry--Ron Buck DISTANT EAGLE PUBLISHING Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume IV A Mirror Filled With Light--James David Audlin Volume V A Stitch in Time--James David Audlin Moths That Seek The Moon and Other Dreams--James David Audlin After Creation and Other Poems--James David Audlin GPG PUBLICATIONS [Original/available only on SoftServ] Lines of Fire, a novel--Guy Giovanello HEWW [available only on SoftServ & HEWW BBS] The Adventures of Harbinger--J.H. Kent Lyons Plain Upon Tables, autobiography--J.H. Kent Lyons The Elders' Cookbook--grandmothers in Vancouver, Canada Compuflu: Five Tales--H E W W writers Northern Light Verse... Eh?--HEWW poets THE KILAMANJARO CORPORATION [available only on SoftServ] Approaching Oblivion--Harlan Ellison The Web of the City--Harlan Ellison The Other Glass Teat--Harlan Ellison Memos from Purgatory--Harlan Ellison Ellison Wonderland--Harlan Ellison KOPUBCO An Agorist Primer--Samuel Edward Konkin III LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED Native American Anarchism--E. M. Schuster (ed.) The Eden Seeker's Guide--edited by William L. Seavey ROBERT RODI, PUBLISHER [Original/available only on SoftServ] Baleford House, a novel--Robert St. Onge Rodi IN PROCESS OF CONVERSION TO ELECTRONIC TEXT AGBERG, LTD. [available only on SoftServ] Valley Beyond Time--Robert Silverberg The Science-Fictional Dinosaur--Robert Silverberg (ed.) Men and Machines--Robert Silverberg (ed.) CONNECTED EDITIONS [available only on SoftServ & Connected Education] Provocations-- Walter Orr Roberts: non-fiction essays by co-author of the nuclear winter book. DISTANT EAGLE PUBLISHING Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume VI The Stars Blindly Run--James David Audlin Volume VII The Silence--James David Audlin THE KILIMANJARO CORPORATION [available only on SoftServ] Deathbird Stories--Harlan Ellison I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream--Harlan Ellison No Doors, No Windows--Harlan Ellison Stalking the Nightmare--Harlan Ellison KOPUBCO [available only on SoftServ] Death's Dimensions--Victor Koman [Original/available only on SoftServ] Saucer Sluts--Victor Koman [available only on SoftServ] LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED Free-Lance Writer's Handbook--James Wilson The Complete Guide to Science Fiction Conventions--Erwin S. Strauss How to Publish a Fanzine--Mike Gunderloy How to Make Cash Money Selling at Swap Meets, Flea Markets, Etc. --Jordan Coopers How to Find Missing Persons--Ronald George Eriksen 2 The Resurrection of Aristocracy--Rudolph Carlyle Evans Lucifer's Lexicon--L.A. Rollins The Myth of Natural Rights--L. A. Rollins How to Buy Land Cheap--Edward Preston How to Survive a Nuclear Accident--Duncan Long Surviving Major Chemical Accidents--Duncan Long Survival Bartering--Duncan Long Uninhabited and Desert Islands--Jon Fisher The Last Frontiers on Earth--Jon Fisher OFF-THE-WALL ENTERPRISES Off The Wall, edited by Brad Linaweaver [Original/available only on SoftServ] UNDER CONTRACT BUT NOT YET IN CONVERSION AGBERG, LTD. [available only on SoftServ] The Aliens--edited by Robert Silverberg The Best of New Dimensions--edited by Robert Silverberg Car Sinister--edited by Robert Silverberg Dawn of Time edited--by Robert Silverberg Mutants--edited by Robert Silverberg Lost Worlds, Unknown Horizons--edited by Robert Silverberg Strange Gifts edited by Robert Silverberg BLUE MOON PRODUCTIONS [Original/available only on SoftServ] Stretch Marks, a novel--Christine Conlin THE KILAMANJARO CORPORATION [available only on SoftServ] The Deadly Streets--Harlan Ellison An Edge in My Voice--Harlan Ellison Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung Up Generation--Ellison Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled--Harlan Ellison Medea: Harlan's World--Harlan Ellison Partners in Wonder: sf collaborations with 14 other wild talents--Ellison Shatterday--Harlan Ellison Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed--Harlan Ellison Spider Kiss--Harlan Ellison (edited by Marty Clark) The Starlost #1: Phoenix Without Ashes--Ellison (with Edward Bryant) Strange Wine--Harlan Ellison KOPUBCO [available only on SoftServ] Firescar: The Screenplay--Victor Koman [available only on SoftServ] Untitled New Novel--Victor Koman Agent For Anarchy: The Rann Gold Stories--Samuel Edward Konkin III [available only on SoftServ] Perspective Inversion: Collected Essays of Samuel Edward Konkin III [available only on SoftServ] An Essay on Trial By Jury--Lysander Spooner No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority--Lysander Spooner The Best of New Libertarian Notes, 1971-1975 [available only on SoftServ] The Best of New Libertarian Weekly, 1975-1977 [available only on SoftServ] The Best of New Libertarian, 1977-1988 [available only on SoftServ] ************************ HOW TO READ PAPERLESS BOOKS The best program I know of for reading long text files on your IBM computer is David R. Grigg's Autoread. With Autoread you can set chapter stops so that you can go directory to any chapter. You can set bookmarks to return to any particular place in the file. And you can search on keywords to find just the right paragraph. When a character's name is mentioned, and you can't remember who it is, just tell Autoread to search out all previous references to that name. Shazam! Instant memory. On top of all that, every time you start Autoread with a particular text file, it automatically goes to where you were when you left the program the last time. I also like the fact that screen colors are easily changeable on the fly, and the author has some other good features planned for future updates (like mouse support, 43- and 50-line screens, and shortened forms of the menu commands). Autoread is a $15 shareware program for IBM's and compatibles. Look for it on BBSs near you, or you can download it from RFP's home board (The Baudline II BBS 301-694-7108. At the moment the latest version for download is called AUTOREAD.ZIP). Best idea of all: for $25 you can get the very latest version sent to you from the author himself (David R. Grigg, 1556 Main Road, Research, Victoria 3095, Australia). ************************ <-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*-> < > < LOOSEN YOUR GRIP ON REALITY > < > <-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*->:<-*-> << Editor: Darryl Kenning >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Loosen Your Grip On Reality is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Contributions of information, reviews, etc. should be sent to: Darryl Kenning CompuServe: 76337,740 6331 Marshall Rd. or GEnie: D.Kenning Centerville, Ohio 45459 HeavenSoft BBS 513-836-4288 The Annex BBS 513-274-0821 --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- RANDOM ACCESS ---------------------------------------------- Instead of my usual editorial, for this issue I am including remarks made by Robert A. Heinlein. In some ways the style marks the speech as older; it has not been particularly fashionable to be unabashedly patriotic in recent years; and few people will profess to duty and country. But every time I read this, from the very first time, I confess to a lump in my throat and a stiffening of shoulders - because I also believe - Thank You for saying it so well Bob. Darryl Kenning Centerville, Ohio ********************** THIS I BELIEVE Robert A. Heinlein [This was originally broadcast on the Edward R. Murrow show, and read by Mrs. Virginia Heinlein on the occasion of NASA's posthumous award of the Distinguished Public Service Medal to Robert Heinlein, October, 1988.] I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. Take Father Michael down the road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee -- no prospect of a fee -- I believe in Doc. I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town saying "I'm hungry," and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says "To heck with you -- I got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand who will say "Sure pal, sit down." I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say "Climb in Mac -- how far are you going?" I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones. I believe that almost all politicians are honest ... there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13 Colonies. I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in--I am proud to belong to--the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history. And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability and GOODNESS of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we ALWAYS make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will ENDURE. Will ENDURE longer than his home planet--will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart. ********************** As always, your comments, questions, or observations about RANDOM ACCESS or anything else in LYGOR are welcome, get them to me at any of the addresses listed on the masthead. darryl ------- News 'N Notes ------------------------------------------------ * If there was a medical process that could take your aging, sick body and transform it into a healthy, young body, and this process could be repeated every 10-12 years, would you go through it? What if the process cost one million pounds sterling? This is the basic idea behind Joe Haldeman's novel, BUYING TIME, and it is on its way to being made into a feature film right now. Joe Haldeman will create the first step: a screenplay outline. * In the beginning there was ENDER'S GAME. Then SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD. And soon there will be XENOCIDE. (All by Orson Scott Card.) * There's a new Elric novel on the way from Michael Moorcock: THE REVENGE OF THE ROSE. Currently, Moorcock is working on JERUSALEM COMMANDS, the third Pyat novel. * Have you seen the special 25th Anniversary paperback reprint of DUNE from Berkley Publishing? Did you know that there was a $1 refund offer on it (and the other Dune novels)? You had to send in your cash register receipt, the title page of each book purchased, and a filled-in coupon. First problem with this deal: you've got to mutilate your book to get one lousy dollar back. Second problem with this deal: there were never any coupons printed, NONE. Nice trick, Berkley. To placate the unamused masses, Berkley is extending the deal to December 30, 1990, and instead of a coupon you can use a 3x5 card or plain paper (put you name, address, and the store name and address where you bought the books). * THE DISNEY/HEINLEIN CONNECTION: Disney has bought two Robert A. Heinlein novels for production. FARMER IN THE SKY will be a TV-movie and PUPPET MASTERS will be a theatrical release. * AMAZING STORIES, in its present incarnation, will come to an end with the March 1991 issue. If your subscription ends with the November 1990 or January 1991 issue, TSR (the new owner) will extend your subscription through this March 1991 issue free of charge. The new AMAZING STORIES will be a monthly of at least 96 pages, full size not digest, and will begin with the May 1991 issue. * The phantom printer that eats fiction at St. Martin's Press has struck again! This time it was the last two paragraphs of Brian Stableford's short story "The Magic Bullet" in THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION edited by Gardner Dozois. The ending was missing from both the hardcover and trade paperback editions, but they *promise* that the UK, Book-of-the-Month Club, and Quality Paperback Book Club editions will be complete. The missing text is as follows: "They also began an intensive search for Lisa Friemann, but by the time they found her, it was too late. "By then, far too many people had seen the map, and the world was already embarked upon its new era." * Don't miss PACIFIC EDGE by Kim Stanley Robinson, a December 1990 release. It's not out yet as I write this, but I hear it's every bit as good as the other two volumes of in the Orange Count, CA, trilogy (THE WILD SHORE and THE GOLD COAST). * If your interest in SF is on the scholarly side, you might want to know about the Science Fiction Research Association, an organization of academics, teachers, and anyone interested in the study of SF. Membership starts at $45 a year and includes quarterly issues of EXTRAPOLATION, 3 issues of SF STUDIES, 10 issues of the SFRA NEWSLETTER. For information write: Tom Remington, English Dept., Univ. of No. Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614. * Confusingly, Donald Hassler, of Kent State, edits an academic (but not boring) journal that is also called EXTRAPOLATION. It has articles, reviews, letters, and news in the SF field. Four quarterly issues will run you $15. Write to: Kent State Univ. Press, Journals Dept., Kent, OH 44242. * William Shatner has written a sequel to his novel TEKWAR. The new one is called TEKLORDS. * The Sci-Fi Channel is NOT dead yet! It has bought the rights to at least 114 episodes of DOCTOR WHO, all the episodes of MAX HEADROOM, and all 1,225 episodes of DARK SHADOWS. There are even plans for a Sci-Fi Channel Magazine. If anyone hears about an actual start date for this cable channel, please drop me a line. * Watch for it: THE WAR AGAINST SHADES, a science fantasy trilogy by Lawrence Watt-Evans....LORD KELVIN'S MACHINE, a Victorian SF novel by James P. Blaylock....STARSEED by Spider and Jeanne Robinson, a 20-years-later sequel to STARDANCE....MINING THE OORT CLOUD by Frederik Pohl....THE SILENT STARS GO BY by James White....THE CATSWOLD PORTAL, an adult fantasy by Shirley Rousseau Murphy....NIGHTSIDE THE LONG SUN by Gene Wolfe....BY THE SWORD by Mercedes Lackey. ********************** STARSTRIKE by W. Michael Gear (1990, DAW Books, Inc.) review by Robert A. Pittman At times it is good to read a Science Fiction story which merrily and enthusiastically carries one along without dwelling extensively on technical or scientific validity. That is the way STARSTRIKE is written; big, bold ideas and concepts not at all restrained by mundane practicability. This is a "first contact" story but it differs significantly from most that I have read previously. The contact occurs without any preliminary signals or alerts for the people of earth and only a few people are aware that it has taken place. As a result, the author has an adventure that moves forward on two levels. The first and principal level has to do with humans who have been conscripted by an alien group and have been carried off planet. The second level concerns the people of earth who have been affected but do not realize that a contact has occurred. The off-planet group is made up of highly qualified military specialists (men and women) from Russia, Israel and the U.S.A. They must deal with the shock of the alien encounter and cope with the problems of space travel. An even greater problem is the trauma they undergo in adjusting from an historically hostile and competitive relationship among themselves to one of cooperation and trust. The aliens put their human captors into a conflict which not only risks their lives but also puts all of earth at risk. A good story develops as human guile and ingenuity is pitted against the alien technical superiority and their historical experience in space. At the same time, earth is dealing with a perplexing problem. Nuclear weapons and most other aggressive tools of war have been rendered inactive by an unknown force. Major powers such as the U.S., Russia and China are thrown into a state of confusion as they struggle to cope with the loss of defensive and aggressive abilities. W. Michael Gear moves both levels of the story along at a nice pace and brings it to a logical and satisfactory conclusion. You will enjoy reading STARSTRIKE. ********************** EARTH by David Brin (1990, Bantam Spectra Books) review by Robert A. Pittman The novel EARTH left me tired--a reader's workout--and feeling somewhat deceived by "packaging and brand identity" more alluring and offering more promise than the contents delivered. EARTH is constructed around the central issue of a billionaire industrial leader and a young, dedicated scientist as they jointly seek to control the effects of a microscopic black hole lodged deep inside the earth. If this Beta singularity, as it is termed by the author, is not dislodged, it will, over a span of about two years, create a geophysical nightmare and ultimately consume the planet. The story takes place about fifty years in the future on an earth that is overpopulated and exhausted from overuse. The atmosphere no longer effectively acts as a filter and as a result, we find a temperate climate in Siberia, the tropical areas of the world turned into deserts, and people wearing special glasses and body shields to protect themselves. Animals no longer exist in a wild state but are housed, fed and bred in massive "land arks". Humankind struggles constantly to produce the food needed to meet its minimal requirement. While the natural dimensions of life have deteriorated, the technological side of life has improved. Communication and information is available to all citizens through public networks, medical advances have resolved many human ills with service available to all and measures are in place for reduced crime and misbehavior. Out of the conditions and concerns that arise from this environment, the author has created some new and different social and political groups. There are sun worshipers who deny the radiation, expose themselves and die early. Others want strict birth controls and still others look for solutions in the extension of humanity into outer space. The message in this narrative is that the planet is a mess and the human race is at fault! When the story sticks to that central issue it is good reading and intense adventure. It also develops some novel conjectures about natural forces that can be harnessed and directed to fight the effects of the ravaging singularity. The story unfolds with a level of suspense that under other conditions would produce the anticipation and the sustained interest that is expected in good reading. The novel becomes tiresome as a result of extraneous material that the author inserts throughout the book. These "inserts" are located at the end of most chapters, are a half-page to one page in length and are presented as quotations from history texts or other reference sources including computer data base references. Maybe it is somewhat inaccurate to call the material extraneous as it has been included as a way to amplify understanding and provide background to what has been read in the preceding chapter or to what will be read in the forthcoming chapter. Even though we can understand the author's intent, too often the content has no clear relationship to the main story. The simple fact that these "inserts" exist is testimony to weak construction and an erratic flow of thought that contaminates the principal narrative. At one point while reading EARTH, I was jolted and somewhat irritated to run into a full chapter that was a verbatim repeat of a short story that I had read in a Science Fiction magazine more than a year ago! It was just dropped in the book with no prior rationale for its inclusion--completely out of context! To be fair, later in the book a somewhat vague link was provided, but not enough to erase the insult of finding such blatant filler material. David Brin is a renowned and reputable writer. He has been honored with multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and has written the bestsellers, STARTIDE RISING and THE UPLIFT WAR. EARTH therefore is not the result of inexperience or a shortage of talent. I have to believe that the book is constructed as the author intended and that it says what he wanted to say as a contribution to Earth Day and his statement of environmental concern. For this reader, it just did not succeed. In summary, EARTH is a disappointment. The main theme of the novel is exciting and unique. The "inserts" standing alone are at least intriguing. The book, though, does not hang together. It reads as if a good theme has been quickly written, extra material collected and forced into a relationship with the central theme, the mechanical assembly of both and the publication in time to take advantage of the Earth Day movement. The publisher and the author owe more to the reader. ------- BOX Scores --------------------------------------------------- BOX SCORES ..................................... /: : : : MAN-KZIN WARS III, Niven +......4 : : : FIRE ON THE BORDER,.............. : : : Kevin O'Donnell Jr.......3 : : : SPQR, John Maddox Roberts.......4 : : : CHALLENGE MET, C Ingrid.........2 : : : SINGULARITIES, W.T. Quick.......3 : : : FUTURE CRIME, Ben Bova..........3 : : : STARFIRE, P. Pruess.............3 : : : INSURRECTION, Weber & White.....4 : : : VOYAGE OF THE STAR WOLF : : : D. Gerrold............4 : : : : : : by darryl kenning : : :...................................: :..................................../ 0 = ugh! to 5 worth rereading! ********************** WORLD FANTASY AWARD NOMINATIONS Best Novel: A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY by Jonathan Carroll (Doubleday) IN A DARK DREAM by Charles L. Grant (Tor) THE STRESS OF HER REGARD by Tim Powers (Ace) CARRION COMFORT by Dan Simmons (Dark Harvest/Warner) LYONESSE: MADOUC by Jack Vance (Underwood-Miller/Ace) SOLDIER OF ARETE by Gene Wolfe (Tor) Best Novella: "Apartheid, Superstrings and Mordecai Thubana" by Michael Bishop (Axolotl) "Great Work of Time" by John Crowley (NOVELTY) "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks" by Joe R. Lansdale (BOOK OF THE DEAD, Bantam) "The Father of Stones" by Lucius Shepard (Asimov's 9/89) "A Dozen Tough Jobs" by Howard Waldrop (Ziesing) Best Short Fiction: "Varicose Worms" by Scott Baker (BLOOD IS NOT ENOUGH, Morrow) "A Last Sad Love at the Diner of the Damned" by Ed Bryant (BOOK OF THE DEAD, Bantam) "Mr. Fiddlehead" by Jonathan Carroll (Omni 2/89) "The Illusionist" by Stephen Millhauser (Esquire 12/89) "Edge of the World" by Michael Swanwick (Full Spectrum 2, Bantam Spectra) "Yore Skin's Jes's Soft 'N Purty...He Said" by Chet Williamson (RAZORED SADDLES, Dark Harvest/Avon) Best Anthology: BLOOD IS NOT ENOUGH edited by Ellen Datlow (Morrow/Berkley) THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY: SECOND ANNUAL COLLECTION edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (St. Martin's) RAZORED SADDLES edited by Joe R. Lansdale & Pat LoBrutto (Dark Harvest/Avon) BOOK OF THE DEAD edited by John Skipp & Craig Spector (Bantam) Best Collection: NOVELTY by John Crowley (Doubleday Foundation) HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING by Harlan Ellison (Underwood-Miller) BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R. Lansdale (Ziesing) BLUE WORLD & OTHER STORIES by Robert R. McCammon (Grafton/Pocket) RICHARD MATHESON: COLLECTED STORIES (Scream/Press) Best Artist: Thomas Canty James Christiansen Don Maitz J.K. Potter Special Award--Professional: Dark Harvest (Paul Mikol & Scott Stadolsky) Ellen Datlow Underwood-Miller Mark V. Ziesing Special Award--Non-Professional: Richard Chizmar (Cemetery Dance) Peggy Nadramia (Grue) David B. Silva (The Horror Show) Joe Stefko & Tracy Kokoman (Charnel House) ------- FEATURED AUTHOR Robert A Heinlein --------------------------- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was not the most prolific writer in the Science Fiction genre, but there is no doubt that he was one of the most, if not THE most influential writer for the past several generations of SF readers and hopefully for the next several as well. I won't repeat my RANDOM ACCESS notes from RFP #12 but I will say that his writing influenced my life in many ways. If you are a fan of RAH you will want to read a copy of GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE, a collection of letters and commentary edited by Virginia Heinlein, that is one of the two best pieces to provide insight into RAH's life, times, and thoughts (see my review below). First, here's a copy of the message posted on CompuServe when Mr. Heinlein's death was announced. 09-May-88 11:08:08 Sb: #R.A.H. obit Fm: SysOp Wilma Meier 76701,274 To: ALL Friends - Robert A. Heinlein has passed away. Word was passed through the network that he died on Sunday morning - the 8th of May. Mr. Heinlein was one of the biggest names in the Science Fiction genre. Born in 1907, his writing career began when he was 32 (1939) with the publication of "Life-Line" in Astounding magazine. His first published book was _Rocket Ship Galileo_, a juvenile issued by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1947. Heinlein married Virginia ("Ginny") in 1948; they had no children. He is the only man ever to win four Hugo Awards for best science fiction novel of the year (for _Double Star_, _Starship Troopers_, _Stranger In a Strange Land_, and _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_); he has also received the Nebula Award for over-all achievement as a science fiction writer. In the mid/late 70's Mr. Heinlein had an operation called a "shunt" to relieve pressure building up against his brain. After surgery and recovery, he published his last works: _Friday_, _The Cat Who Walked Through Walls_, _Job: A Comedy of Justice_ and _To Sail Beyond The Sunset_. _Cat_ and _Sunset_ appeared to be the beginnings of a series of which we will now never see the end. His papers, correspondence, and memorabilia have been collected by the University of California, Santa Cruz. We have lost a true Master, friends. My grief knows no bounds. In sadness, SysOp Wilma BIBLIOGRAPHY Heinlein, Robert Anson (July 7, 1907 - May 8, 1988) Assignment In Eternity (1953). (2) Reprinted in abridged form as: Lost Legacy (1960). (10) (contains: "Gulf", "Elsewhen", "Lost Legacy", and "Jerry Was A Man".) Best Of Robert A. Heinlein, The (1973). (13) (contents unknown) Between Planets (1951). (1) Beyond This Horizon (1948). (2) Cat Who Walks Through Walls, The: A Comedy of Manners (1985). (11) Citizen Of The Galaxy (1957). (1) Day After Tomorrow, The (1951) (4) Door Into Summer, The (1957). (5) Double Star (1956). (5) Expanded Universe: More Worlds Of Robert A. Heinlein (1980) (14) (contains: Foreword by Robert A. Heinlein, "Life-Line", "Successful Operation", "Blowups Happen", "Solution Unsatisfactory", "The Last Days of the United States", "How to Be a Survivor", "Pie From the Sky", "They Do It With Mirrors", "Free Men", "No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying--", "A Bathroom of Her Own", "On The Slopes of Vesuvius", "Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon", "Pandora's Box", "Where To?", "Cliff and the Calories", "Ray Guns and Rocket Ships", "The Third Millennium Opens", "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?", "'Pravda' Means 'Truth'", "Inside Intourist", "Searchlight", "The Pragmatics of Patriotism", "Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You", "Larger Than Life", "Spinoff", and "The Happy Days Ahead".) Farmer In The Sky (1950). (1) Farnham's Freehold (1964). (11) Friday (1982). (16) Glory Road (1963). (11) Green Hills Of Earth, The (1951). (7) (contains: "Delilah and the Space-Rigger", "Space Jockey", "The Long Watch", "Gentlemen, Be Seated", "The Black Pits of Luna", "It's Great to Be Back", "'--We Also Walk Dogs'", "Ordeal In Space", "The Green Hills of Earth", and "Logic of Empire".) Have Spacesuit - Will Travel (1958). (1) Heinlein's Works by C. K. Hillegass (1975). (18) I Will Fear No Evil (1970). (11) Job: A Comedy Of Justice (1984). (17) Man Who Sold The Moon, The (1950). (7) (contains: "Let There Be Light", "The Roads Must Roll", "The Man Who Sold the Moon", "Requiem", "Life Line" and "Blowups Happen" in the original publication. Current publications eliminate the last two stories and an intro. by John W. Campbell, Jr.) Menace From Earth, The (1959) (contains: "The Year of the Jackpot", "By His Bootstraps", "Columbus Was a Dope", "The Menace From Earth", "Sky Lift", "Goldfish Bowl", "Project Nightmare", and "Water Is for Washing".) Methuselah's Children (1958). (3) Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, The (1966). (11) Notebooks Of Lazarus Long, The (1973). (11) Number Of The Beast, The (1980). (15) Orphans Of The Sky (1963). (8) /Expanded from: Universe (1951). (9)/ Past Through Tomorrow, The (1967). (11) (contains: "Introduction" by Damon Knight, "Life-Line", "The Roads Must Roll", "Blowups Happen". "The Man Who Sold The Moon", "Delilah and the Space-Rigger", "Space Jockey", "Requiem", "The Long Watch", "Gentlemen, Be Seated", "The Black Pits of Luna", "'It's Great to Be Back'", "'--We Also Walk Dogs'", "Searchlight", "Ordeal in Space", "The Green Hills of Earth", "Logic of Empire", "The Menace from Earth", "'If This Goes On--'", "Coventry", "Misfit", and "Methuselah's Children".) Podkayne Of Mars (Her Life and Times) (1963). (11) Puppet Masters, The (1951). (5) Red Planet, The (1949). (2) Revolt In 2100 (1953). (7) (contains: "The Innocent Eye: an Introduction" by Henry Kuttner, "'If This Goes On--'", "Coventry", "Misfit", and "Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript".) Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger In His Own Land by George Edgar Slusser (1976). (19) Robert Heinlein Omnibus, A (1966). (13) (contents unknown) Rocket Ship Galileo (1947). (1) Rolling Stones, The (1952). (1) Reprinted as: Space Family Stone (1969). (8) 6 x H (1961). (12) Sixth Column (1949). (3) Reprinted as: The Day After Tomorrow Space Cadet (1948). (1) Star Beast, The (1954). (1) Starman Jones (1953). (1) Starship Troopers (1959). (11> Stranger In A Strange Land (1961). (11) Three by Heinlein (1965). (5) Reprinted as: A Heinlein Triad (1966) (8) (Contains: The Puppet Masters, Waldo, and Magic, Inc.) Time Enough For Love (1973). (11) Time For The Stars (1956). (1) To Sail Beyond The Sunset (1987). (14/11) Tomorrow, The Stars (1952). (5) (contains: "I'm Scared" by Jack Finney, "The Silly Season" by C. M. Kornbluth, "The Report On The Barnhouse Effect" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "The Tourist Trade" by Bob Tucker, "Rainmaker" by John Reese, "Absalom" by Henry Kuttner, "The Monster" by Lester del Rey, "Jay Score" by Eric Frank Russell, "Betelgeuse Bridge" by William Tenn, "Survival Ship" by Judith Merrill, "Keyhole" by Murray Leinster, "Misbegotten Missionary" by Isaac Asimov, "The Sack" by William Morrison, and "Poor Superman" by Fritz Leiber.) Tunnel In The Sky (1955). (1) Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, The (1959). (3) Reprinted as: 6 x H (1961). (12) (contains: "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag", "The Man Who Traveled In Elephants", "'All You Zombies'", "They", "Our Fair City", and "'And He Built A Crooked House'".) Waldo And Magic, Inc. (1950). (5) Reprinted as: Waldo: Genius in Orbit (1958). (6) Worlds Of Robert A. Heinlein, The (1966). (14) (contains: "Introduction: Pandora's Box", "Free Men", "Blowups Happen", "Searchlight", "Life-Line", and "Solution Unsatisfactory".) UNCOLLECTED WORKS: Beyond Doubt (collaboration w/ Elma Wentz) (1941). Destination Moon (1950). 'My Object All Sublime' (1942). Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon (1949). Pied Piper (1942). Tenderfoot in Space (1958). SHORT WORKS PUBLICATION DATES: A Bathroom of Her Own (1960) "All You Zombies" (1959) "And He Built A Crooked House" (1941) Black Pits of Luna, The (1948) Blowups Happen (1940) By His Bootstraps (1941) Cliff and the Calories (1977) Columbus Was a Dope (1947) Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript (1953) Common Sense (1941) Coventry (1940) Delilah and the Space-Rigger (1949) Elsewhen (1941) Free Men (1966) Gentlemen, Be Seated (1948) Goldfish Bowl (1942) Green Hills of Earth, The (1947) Gulf (1949) Happy Days Ahead, The (1979) How to Be a Survivor (1979) "If This Goes On--" (1940) Inside Intourist (1960) "It's Great to Be Back" (1947) Jerry Is A Man (1947) Larger Than Life (1974) Last Days of the United States, The (1979) Let There Be Light (1940) Life-Line (1939) Logic of Empire (1941) Long Watch, The (1949) Lost Legacy (1941) Man Who Sold The Moon, The (1950) Man Who Traveled In Elephants, The (1957) Menace from Earth, The (1957) Methuselah's Children (1941) Misfit (1939) No Bands Playing, No Flags Flying-- (1967) Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon (1949) On The Slopes of Vesuvius (1977) Ordeal In Space (1948) Our Fair City (1949) Pandora's Box (also as: Where To?) (1952) Paul Dirac, Antimatter, and You (1975) Pie From the Sky (1979) Pragmatics of Patriotism, The (1973) "Pravda" Means "Truth" (1960) Project Nightmare (1953) Ray Guns and Rocket Ships (1952) Requiem (1940) Roads Must Roll, The (1940) Searchlight (1962) Sky Lift (1953) Solution Unsatisfactory (1941) Space Jockey (1947) Spinoff (1979) Successful Operation (1940) They (1941) They Do It With Mirrors (1974) Third Millennium Opens, The (1956) Universe (1941) Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, The (1942) Water Is for Washing (1947) "--We Also Walk Dogs" (1941) Where To? (1952) Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry? (1958) Year of the Jackpot, The (1952) PUBLISHERS: (1) Charles Scribner's Sons, New York (2) Fantasy Press, Reading (3) Gnome Press, New York (4) Signet Books, New York (5) Doubleday & Co., Garden City (6) Avon Books, New York (7) Shasta Publishers, Chicago (8) Victor Gollancz, London (9) Dells Books, New York (10) Digit Books, London (11) G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York (12) Pyramid Books, New York (13) Sidgwick & Jackson, London (14) Ace Books, New York (15) Fawcett Columbine Books, New York (16) Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York (17) Ballantine Books, New York (18) Cliff Notes, Lincoln (19) The Borgo Press, San Bernardino THE ROBERT HEINLEIN INTERVIEW AND OTHER HEINLEINIANA by J. Neil Schulman (SoftServe Books) review by Darryl Kenning It is no great secret I suppose, that I really like the writings of Robert Anson Heinlein, and consider him to be one of the all time great Science Fiction authors of our times. THE ROBERT HEINLEIN INTERVIEW AND OTHER HEINLEINIANA is a series of letters, book reviews and the text of an interview that Mr. Schulman did with Mr. Heinlein in 1973. Once in a while you find a writer who says with almost perfect clarity the things you have been thinking about and the things you would like to say if you only had the skill and artistry. This series of writings by and about RAH by J. Neil Schulman have done that for me. A very articulate proponent of the libertarian philosophy in his own right (read ALONGSIDE NIGHT by J.N.S. and of course anything by Ann Rand), he sheds light on RAH's libertarian feelings and beliefs. I particularly enjoyed the introduction to this book simply because in JRN's description of the effect of the Heinlein writings on him, I saw a mirror image of me, and I suspect from the ongoing popularity of RAH's books and stories, a bit of most of the readers who were at an impressionable age when we first had the incredible good luck to stumble across his books. Often I am put off by books about favorite authors - either they don't do them justice at all, or they put every bit of imagery under a microscope and in doing so destroy the beauty and soul of the story and author. None of that is true when Mr. Schulman puts his considerable talents to work in this book. The series of letters and reviews have a powerful impact - more so when you realize the time span that the material covers 1972-1988. The interview with RAH is the crown jewel of the book. By now you have no doubt, gotten the idea (I'm not often accused of being overly subtle) that I am recommending this book. On my scale of 0 to 5, this is a 5. Worth reading, worth rereading, and worth keeping to read again. --------- Quotes 'n Stuff -------------------------------------------- Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can pick up a rock! One should forgive one's enemies, but not until after they are hanged. Experience teaches you to recognize a mistake when you've made it again. If the phone doesn't ring...it's me (a song title by Jimmy Buffett) ---------- ASK UNCLE HAL 9001 ---------------------------------------- Test the enormous RAM database of UNCLE HAL, the new and improved model 9001. Q. What was the the REAL name of the author of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND? A. Best known by his pen name Lewis Carroll was really The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a noted mathematician who wrote extensively on symbolic logic. Q. SF art is a little known field to most readers. I heard that a husband and wife team once won a Hugo for SF art---do you know who they were? A. In 1972 Leo and Diane Dillon won a Hugo as a team. They are best known for the original Ace special covers and several Harlan Ellison book covers. ---------- THE HUGO's ------------------------------------------------ The HUGO AWARDS were first presented in 1953 at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention held in Philadelphia, PA. The HUGO was not presented in 1954 at the 12th World SF Convention (San Francisco, CA). Only literary works are listed, at least until the brand new 1990 awards. 1953 - Philadelphia Novel: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester 1955 - Cleveland Novel: They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley Novelette: "The Darfsteller" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Short Story: "Allamagoosa" by Eric Frank Russell 1956 - New York Novel: Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein Novellette: "Exploration Team" by Murray Leinster Short Story: "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke 1957 - London No literary works awarded. 1958 - Los Angeles Novel: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber Short Story: "Or All the Seas with Oysters" by Avram Davidson 1959 - Detroit Novel: A Case of Conscience by James Blish Novelette: "The Big Front Yard" by Clifford D. Simak Short Story: "The Hell-Bound Train" by Robert Bloch 1960 - Pittsburgh Novel: Starship Trooper by Robert A. Heinlein Short Fiction: "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes 1961 - Seattle Novel: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Short Story: "The Longest Voyage" by Poul Anderson 1962 - Chicago Novel: Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein Short Fiction: the "Hothouse" series by Brian Aldiss 1963 - Washington, D.C. Novel: The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick Short Fiction: "The Dragon Masters" by Jack Vance 1964 - Oakland Novel: Way Station by Clifford Simak Short Fiction: "No Truce With Kings" by Poul Anderson 1965 - London Novel: The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber Short Fiction: "Soldier, Ask Not" by Gordon R. Dickson 1966 - Cleveland Novel: (tie) ...And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny Dune by Frank Herbert Short Fiction: "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman" by Harlan Ellison 1967 - New York Novel: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein Novelette: "The Last Castle" by Jack Vance Short Story: "Neutron Star" by Larry Niven 1968 - Oakland Novel: Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny Novella: (tie) "Weyr Search" by Anne McCaffrey "Riders of the Purple Wage" by Philip Jose Farmer Novelette: "Gonna Roll the Bones" by Fritz Leiber Short Story: "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison 1969 - St. Louis Novel: Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner Novella: "Nightwings" by Robert Silverberg Novelette: "The Sharing of Flesh" by Poul Anderson Short Story: "The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World" by Harlan Ellison 1970 - Heidelberg Novel: Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Novella: "Ship of Shadows" by Fritz Leiber Short Story: "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel R. Delany 1971 - Boston Novel: Ringworld by Larry Niven Novella: "Ill Met in Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber Short Story: "Slow Sculpture" by Theodore Sturgeon 1972 - Los Angeles Novel: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer Novella: "The Queen of Air and Darkness" by Poul Anderson Short Story: "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven 1973 - Toronto Novel: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov Novella: "The Word for World Is Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin Novelette: "Goat Song" by Poul Anderson Short Story: (tie) "The Meeting" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth "Eurema's Dam" by R.A. Lafferty 1974 - Washington, D.C. Novel: Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke Novella: "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" by James Tiptree, Jr. Novelette: "The Deathbird" by Harlan Ellison Short Story: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin 1975 - Melbourne Novel: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin Novella: "A Song for Lya" by George R.R. Martin Novelette: "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38 Degrees 54' N, Longitude 77 Degrees 00' 13" W" by Harlan Ellison Short Story: "The Hole Man" by Larry Niven 1976 - Kansas City Novel: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman Novella: "Home Is the Hangman" by Roger Zelazny Novelette: "The Borderland of Sol" by Larry Niven Short Story: "Catch That Zeppelin!" by Fritz Leiber 1977 - Miami Beach Novel: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm Novella: (tie) "By Any Other Name" by Spider Robinson "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr. Novelette: "The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov Short Story: "Tricentennial" by Joe Haldeman 1978 - Phoenix Novel: Gateway by Frederik Pohl Novella: "Stardance" by Spider and Jeanne Robinson Novelette: "Eyes of Amber" by Joan D. Vinge Short Story: "Jeffty Is Five" by Harlan Ellison 1979 - Brighton, England Novel: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre Novella: "The Persistence of Vision" by John Varley Novelette: "Hunter's Moon" by Poul Anderson Short Story: "Cassandra" by C.J. Cherryh 1980 - Boston Novel: The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke Novella: "Enemy Mine" by Barry Longyear Novelette: "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin Short Story: "The Way of Cross and Dragon" by George R.R. Martin 1981 - Denver Novel: The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge Novella: "Lost Dorsai" by Gordon R. Dickson Novelette: "The Cloak and the Staff" by Gordon R. Dickson Short Story: "Grotto of the Dancing Deer" by Clifford D. Simak 1982 - Chicago Novel: Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh Novella: "The Saturn Game" by Poul Anderson Novelette: "Unicorn Variations" by Roger Zelazny Short Story: "The Pusher" by John Varley 1983 - Baltimore Novel: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Novella: "Souls" by Joanna Russ Novelette: "Fire Watch" by Connie Willis Short Story: "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson 1984 - Anaheim Novel: Startide Rising by David Brin Novella: "Cascade Point" by Timothy Zahn Novelette: "Blood Music" by Greg Bear Short Story: "Speech Sounds" by Octavia butler 1985 - Melbourne Novel: Neuromancer by William Gibson Novella: "Press Enter []" by John Varley Novelette: "Bloodchild" by Octavia E. Butler Short Story: "The Crystal Spheres" by David Brin 1986 - Atlanta Novel: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card Novella: "24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai" by Roger Zelazny Novelette: "Paladin of the Lost Hour" by Harlan Ellison Short Story: "Fermi and Frost" by Frederik Pohl 1987 - Brighton, England Novel: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card Novella: "Gilgamesh in the Outback" by Robert Silverberg Novelette: "Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny Short Story: "Tangents" by Greg Bear 1988 - New Orleans Novel: The Uplift War by David Brin Novella: "Eye for Eye" by Orson Scott Card Novelette: "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight" by Ursula K. LeGuin Short Story: "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers" by Lawrence Watt-Evans 1989 - Boston Novel: Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh Novella: "The Last of the Winnebagos" by Connie Willis Novelette: "Schrodinger's Kitten" by George Alec Effinger Short Story: "Kirinyaga" by Mike Resnick 1990 - The Hague, Holland Best Novel: Hyperion by Dan Simmons (Foundation/Spectra) Best Novella: "The Mountains of Mourning" by Lois McMaster Bujold (May Analog/Border of Infinity, Baen) Best Novelette: "Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another" by Robert Silverberg (June Asimov/Time Gate, Baen) Best Short Story: "Boobs" by Suzy McKee Charnas (July Asimov) Best Nonfiction Book: The World Beyond the Hill by Alexei & Cory Panshin (Tarcher/Elephant Press) Best Dramatic Presentation: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Best Professional Editor: Gardner Dozois Best Professional Artist: Don Maitz Best Semi-Prozine: Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown Best Fanzine: The Mad 3 Party, edited by Leslie Turek Best Fan Writer: Dave Langford Best Fan Artist: Stu Shiffman ------- Trekology ---------------------------------------------------- STAR TREK'S FUTURE HISTORY -- A GUIDE by Jim Lyon (Based on additional material by Joe Sewell) The historical dates presented within this document are based upon the history of the USS Enterprise. For further reference please see the Starfleet Spaceflight Chronology, an earlier publication from Pocket Books. The dates presented within have been adjusted precisely 64 years positive from dates printed in such references as the Chronology, FASA's ST RPG, the Best of Trek and other sources due to the revelation in the episode "The Neutral Zone" that the missions of NCC-1701-D take place in 2364. (Since the date of the aforementioned sources presents ST-IV in 2222 and ST:TNG following 78 years later, the adjusted date for ST-IV is now 2286, fitting in nicely with movie references.) Where those dates have been adjusted, the original has been provided in parentheses. 2252 The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is the second Constitution-class starship commissioned -- under Captain Robert April. (2188) 2254 The Enterprise finishes a shakedown cruise. April's ship embarks on its first five-year exploratory mission. (2190) 2259 After the first five-year mission's completion, April steps down and Captain Christopher Pike assumes captaincy. First and only official contact with the planet Talos IV. (2195) 2271 Christopher Pike is promoted to Fleet Captain; James T. Kirk, fresh from the USS Lydia Sutherland, is given command. (2207) 2272 First face to face contact with the Romulan Empire since the Romulan War of 2170-2173 (2106-2109). Enterprise involved in only suspension of General Order Seven, requiring zero contact with Talos Four. Organian peace treaty is forced upon the Federation and the Klingon Empire. (2208) 2275 USS Enterprise is the sole survivor of the original 13 Constitution class ships. Enterprise returns to Earth for refit. James T. Kirk is promoted to Commodore. (2211) 2277 James Kirk promoted to Admiral following the highly successful Corinth negotiations which bring the Gorn Alliance to the negotiating tables. Internal problems begin in the Klingon Empire when the human- and Romulan fusion races are looked upon by the Imperial Klingon society as sub-Klingon. (2213) 2278 Enterprise is assigned to Captain Will Decker. (2214) 2279 The V'Ger Incident. The Enterprise deals with the alien invader and is granted another five-year mission. Kirk accepts temporary reduction to Captain to accept command. (2215) 2281 Records discovered on the colony planet Sumarik IX lead to the conclusion that the Romulans migrated from Vulcan. This decision does not settle well on Vulcan. (2217) 2282 An internal Klingon war begins against the fusion races, which were originally created by genetic manipulation as a better way to deal with the Federation (who look upon humans as BEING the Federation) and the Romulans. Enterprise rescues a group of fusion fugitives. (2218) 2283 The First Vulcan Secession affair becomes a major UFP concern when the planet considers withdrawing from the Federation. All is resolved during talks, but many Vulcans believe that their world should take a lesser role in the politics of the Federation. (2219) 2284 Following the political crisis on Akkadia, the Enterprise is returned to Earth on orders of Admiral James Kirk. The Enterprise is given to Starfleet training command, where it becomes a cadet vessel. (2220) 2285 The Warrantors kidnapping crisis, where several Warrantors of Peace are kidnapped on Vulcan. Enterprise is temporarily commandeered in order to lead a rescue mission. (2221) 2286 The Genesis Incident. The USS Enterprise is destroyed in related circumstances. Earth is attacked by an extragalactic probe during the Cetacean Incident. USS Ti-Ho is rechristened Enterprise, NCC-1701-A. (2222) -----CURRENT Star Trek Time Frame----- 2292 The Kinshaya, the so-called "demon race" which has plagued the Klingon Empire for centuries, stage their second major attack against that civilization. The Kinshaya begin a frontal assault which soon pervades the Triangle, the wedge of space between the three major space powers. 2294 A temporary pact, later known as "Pax Unificatum," unites the Federation, Romulan Star Empire and Klingon Empire for the only time in recorded history, from which the Kinshaya Realm is dealt with. Troubles behind, the Romulans subsequently turn on the others, severing communication. 2296 Captain James T. Kirk is killed on the Enterprise. Commander Spock retires from Starfleet and Dr. Leonard McCoy is promoted to Commodore and offered post at Starfleet Medical. Hikaru Sulu becomes the ship's fifth Captain. (He serves with First Officer Nyota Uhura, Captain of Engineering Montgomery Scott and Security Chief/Second Officer Pavel Chekov.) 2298 The principles of Superwarp technology are discovered at the Deneva Warp Research Facility but scientists realize the application will take many years. 2301 One of the only known outposts from the long-dead Vegan Tyranny is discovered on Selene GF-184, a dead planetoid in the Atarsis region, by the Enterprise under Captain Sulu. The Vegan Tyranny died out many years before the Federation was formed (indeed, the last race to encounter them was the Andorians, in their first days of interstellar exploration) and was believed to be cybernetic in origin. Records indicate this correct, and the Enterprise is publicly commended for its advances in the scientific community -- Vegan scripts answer a good many questions concerning the galactic governments before the Federation in this region, and indicate the planet Rigel has been a trading colony for at least a million years. 2303 Outcries at Rigel over their little-known history eventually reaches the seat of the Orion Colonies government. Many scholars demand that the Rigellians open their planet to exploration -- the surface of Rigel IV is largely paved over but its cities extend many miles deep into its crust on almost the entire world. Rigel holds steady, but two years later a group of Federation scholars is led many miles down in one part of the planet to a vault where records answer a great many questions about the early recorded history of our Galaxy. 2306 Enterprise-A is retired from service and is installed at the Starfleet Museum at Memory Alpha. 2308 USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-B, is commissioned. The latest Enterprise is of the Destiny class, the newest stage of the now-popular Excelsior-class design. First contact with the Zhaunnir Dominion occurs when the starship USS Carolina is ambushed. 2309 The Zhaunnir War with the Federation begins after this newly-contact race of insectoids attack and destroy Outpost 41 without warning and level the Beta Gamelus IV colony. Starfleet mobilizes its fleet cautiously, insuring both Klingon and Romulan empires that it will still protect its borders. 2310 Date recorded as the official year the Zhaunnir War ended, but with no specific conclusion. Following numerous Federation victories, the insectoids seemed to break off and flee to their homeworlds, as if mobilizing for another threat. Clues as to the existence of the Ferengi Alliance are left behind the only captured Zhaunnir marauder ship. 2311 The existence of the Ferengi Alliance is proven when military experts examine the ruins at Castenzarus, a Federation colony planet attacked by Zhaunnir marauders. It is discovered that the Zhaunnir fled to defend themselves against this race, which they refer to as the 'dread pirates'. The Tomid Incident occurs when the Neutral Zone treaty is violated in the Tomid system, located inside that section's borders, where Romulan forces attack a Federation freighter. Following this act, all contact is again lost with the Empire and ships flee from the Zone borders. (It is discovered later that the Romulans had been attacked by the Zhaunnir, who were fleeing Ferengi borders in a last-ditch effort. The Federation freighter attacked was presumed to be a Zhaunnir scout cruiser.) Superwarp is tested on the vessel USS Swifteagle, a small scout ship. Tests are positive, and small scale refits are ordered by Starfleet Command. 2312 The planet Betazed first contacted by USS Melbourne. Betazed wishes to remain neutral with sister worlds Zamoyed and Saxxirr. Dr. Noonian Sung, a scientist whose work with artificial intelligence has been ridiculed to date, mysteriously disappears. 2314 The Great Warp Disaster; the USS Enterprise-B discovers a network of planets in the galactic core responsible for creating the Galactic Energy Barrier, is crippled by automatic defenses and crashes, destroying the barrier mechanisms. The subsequent EM wave overload causes almost every ship in the Klingon Empire and Federation to stop abruptly, halting standard warp technology. Superwarp ships, constructed upon a different principle, still functions, but is limited to only about a hundred ships. Subspace radio is not affected. Scientists determine that the pulse of the destruction of the barrier will last for two years. Afraid of the huge terror this will cause, plans for superwarp technology is broadcasted to all Federation worlds, and is picked up by the Klingon Empire. The "Great Galactic Dark Age" begins, as it is called in UFP media. Starfleet orders an incredible amount of energy be put into refit and construction of superwarp -- thankfully not a heavy refit operation in space vessels. The Romulans, who have already stumbled onto the principle of superwarp, begin their own refits. The Zhaunnir Dominion retreats once again for the time being, their own starships useless. 2315 Over 1000 Federation ships now have superwarp technology due to incredibly good luck. Superwarp technology assists the Federation's rescue of a Klingon delegate party in the Triangle. The delegates, which include many members of the Klingon Emperor's senate, are brought home. 2316 The interference from the Great Warp Disaster dissipates and warp technology becomes functional. Damage from the GWD is extensive -- many planets have fallen into incredible decay and some have attained considerable death due to lack of supplies. Aarda Dzorn, an Andorian Starfleet consultant, is awarded both the Nobel and Z'Magnees peace prizes, the only time both prizes are awarded to the same person in Federation history, for her exhaustive work in overseeing the effort to supply needy Federation worlds. 2317 The term "Great Galactic Dark Ages" is lifted when supply and lifelines are completely restored, but the effects will linger on for decades. During the next few years, exploration of the Federation frontiers is very limited, but soon it is back in full swing. 2320 Project Gamma, a special Federation espionage operation concentrating on deciphering Klingon political information, is formed. Gamma's concentrated information is eventually used during the Great War in determining the validity of intelligence. For now, it concentrates on learning the impact of the Great Warp Disaster upon Klingon forces. A similar operation, Project Theta-7, is also launched to determine the impact upon the Romulan Star Empire, but this produces extremely little information. 2324 The Betazed Concordat signed; Beta worlds join the Federation Internal strife begins on Mordan IV; Starfleet Ambassador Mark Jameson departs after talks break down. The war will last forty years. 2325 The Urselrope Wars involve a good number of planets in the Lorenze Cluster on the Federation border, spearheaded by a colony of refugees on Urselrope Seven. The wars come about due to colonial disagreements and is supplied by Minos, "the Arsenal of Freedom", which is destroyed by its own technology. The wars end when the factions heed the Minos example and decide that enough killing is enough. 2327 USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-C, an Ambassador class cruiser, is commissioned with superwarp drive, and begins a ten-year mission. 2328 (It is discovered later that the Romulan Empire, which was affected by the Great Warp Disaster about as much as the Federation, defeated the Zhaunnir Dominion in this year. The Zhaunnir were caught between the encroaching Ferengi Alliance and the forces of the Empire. The Dominion is completely wiped out, the final remaining forces choosing mass suicide. The destruction of their frontier brings the Ferengi Alliance closer, yet the Ferengi fail to see the importance in dealing with the Romulans.) 2329 The Alveda III disaster; medical supplies and food runs out and the colony is saved by its own occupants. Jenette Crusher, a botanist, saves many lives, including her own granddaughter Beverly's, with her knowledge of local flora. 2330 The involvement of the Organians is seen to wane when the Klingon outpost Khitomer, in Treaty territory, is neutralized. It is subsequently discovered that Romulan pirates were responsible. The Romulan Empire begins a massive reconstruction project, including full development on superwarp battlecruisers. 2331 Although there are increased Klingon/Federation relations due to the rescue and cooperation during the Great Warp Disaster, a quarrel between ships of the two factions at Rigel soon turns into a bloodbath -- and no Organian warnings arise. It is discovered by the Federation Council that rival factions in the Klingon Empire calling for all-out war with the UFP are slowly becoming a dominant force there. 2332 Though Federation President Daniel McQuinn and Klingon Emperor Khetas epetai-Subaiesh are negotiating, skirmish after skirmish takes place. Graham Attenborough and T'Mariak, the Federation Ambassadors to the Empire, are recalled due to hostilities taking place on Klinzhai. The Federation embassy is closed. Starfleet issues a mobilization alert to all forces. Shortly after Federation personnel leave Klinzhai, Emperor Khetas is deposed. "Marak the Berserker" usurps the throne. The Klingon-Federation joint outposts at Gibraltar and Sheliak II are closed and Klingon forces withdraw from the border K-stations. Marak the Berserker declares war against the Federation by having three D-7 cruisers destroy Federation Outpost Seventeen. The Great War begins. 2333 The Calstry Prime disaster -- six Federation ships are crippled over that planet when a Klingon L-13 battlecruiser explodes after its weapons overload. The Orion Colonies declare themselves off limits to both Klingon and Federation forces. Rigel sends out a declaration of neutrality. Sherman's Planet razed by massive fires. 2334 The Battle of Rigel -- USS Enterprise and IKV Battlequeen II combat each other over Rigel following the Enterprise's attempts at sending a peace agreement. Though Battlequeen II is destroyed, a message does get through to Klingon border defense posts -- though it is ignored. The "Day of Reckoning" occurs in the late part of the year -- Federation scientists universally determine that the combat will eventually destroy the Klingon Empire but will cripple the Federation seriously. President McQuinn killed when an anti-Federation terrorist unit assassinates him on Alpha Centauri. 2335 Marak begins to lose many of his forces when he orders his soldiers into useless deaths. Kazak epetai-Subaiesh, the nephew of Khetas, begins a personal challenge to destroy Marak. The Subaiesh clan, using government-stolen systems, contact Outpost 81 on the Federation Border in order to solidify peace talks. Kazak is behind the attempt, though uses it as an excuse to order the death of an anti-peace leader and gain Marak's respect. Kazak assumes the Klingon throne after assassinating Marak the Berserker and calls for an end to the war. Shortly thereafter, attacks against the Federation cease, and internal strife overcomes the Empire. Ambassadors Attenborough and T'Mariak journey under Kazak's protection to Klinzhai, territorial seat of the Empire, aboard the Enterprise to conduct talks directly. Kazak's loyalist forces overcome the rebel units of the Empire and war is halted. Kazak pronounces the change of the name of the Empire and the new name, the Free Worlds of Klinzhai, is adopted. Enterprise ferries Attenborough and T'Mariak along with the Klingon ambassador, Koritarg, and a Klingon delegation to Babel, where the Babel Peace Accord is signed. 2337 The Enterprise vanishes when its superwarp technology is sabotaged by remnants of the rebel Klingon forces and speeds away out of the galaxy. 2338 Six Federation worlds and fourteen Klingon planets, all along remote frontiers, are subjugated by terrorists now known as Ferengi. 2339 Emperor Kazak proposes unity against the Ferengi invaders, which is met with much skepticism. The Briolis Hearings begin between Federation and Klingon representatives. The Romulan Empire, which up until now has watched the Federation/Klingon war with great interest, is suddenly caught up in its own civil war begun by Romulans who believe their Empire has taken a turn for the worse into barbarism. All set to deal with the Klingons, the Romulans must turn unto themselves. Their civil war will last 21 years and the preservationists, as they are called, will lose to the warmonger Praetor. 2340 The Great Treaty of Unity is signed at the Briolis affair and the Federation Grand Alliance begins. The United Federation of Planets and the Free Worlds of Klinzhai will act as the United Nations sought to act on Earth, only stronger. Historians and scientists generally agree that the disappearance of the planet Organia three days following the signing of the Great Treaty and the earlier disappearance of the Organians themselves from their their world were linked to their prediction of Federation/Klingon peace, and indeed their disinvolvement with relations a means to an end in the cause of peace. 2342 USS Tripoli discovers the deserted Omicron Theta IV colony and a single occupant -- an android that comes alive to the Tripoli scout party. The android, code named DATA, has no memory of the colony occupants. (It is later determined that Data, who becomes part of Starfleet, was created by Dr. Noonian Soong, and the colonists were all destroyed by the Crystal Entity.) 2344 The Second Vulcan Secession Crisis. After reviewing the facts concerning the Zhaunnir War, the Kinshaya affair and the Great War, Vulcan's leaders decide that it would be more beneficial to withdraw from political structures within the Federation. The disaster is barely averted; Vulcan is convinced to remain a member, though acting on an associate status, while fully retaining its scientific and cultural prosperity and position. Many Vulcans choose to return home during the affair, some to their own colony worlds. Starfleet sees a radical drop in the number of Vulcan officers it retains. 2345 First contact with the planet Bynaus. The Bynars will make radical improvements in Grand Alliance computer systems over the next 20 years. Contact is finally established with the Tholian Assembly for the first time since the days of the original Enterprise. The Tholians, who have long rejected any sort of contact with the Federation because they wished to keep all forms of barbarism away from their scientifically minded citizens, have come to realize the Federation's true intent in their long-distance study of the Great War. Negotiations begin. 2347 The Tholian Assembly joins the Grand Alliance in an associate status, preferring to retain their own defense and political structure yet open to all forms of trade and communication. Tholian advances with dilithium improve superwarp capabilities beyond belief, and within a few years all forms of original warp travel (of the kind rendered inoperative during the Great Warp Disaster) have dwindled to almost nonexistence. 2348 Federation and Free Worlds borders reorganized in a fashion to please both parties. Exploration zones are set up for both governments for equal development. Problems with the setup will result in the Altarian Conference nine years later. 2349 USS Stargazer is commissioned under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It becomes the first vessel to contact the Benzites, who will later revolutionize superwarp science on practical application yet reject (until 2364, when the first Benzite, Mordok, tests in the Academy) any affiliation with Starfleet. The Triangle Unification Affair -- the major governments of the Triangle band together (excluding the Imperial Klingon States, a segregated group of Klingons who severed ties with their home Empire at least a century before) to decide exactly what their position will be when dealing with the Grand Alliance. 2350 The Triangle Unification Affair ends with the declaration of the participating worlds as territories. The Baker's Dozen, the thirteen allied worlds that have withstood outside pressure for nearly 150 years, becomes a protectorate with the full security of Starfleet. 2351 A join Federation-Free Worlds force reseeds Sherman's Planet, which was all but destroyed during the Great War. Sherman's Planet becomes a symbol of unity between the two governments, and becomes not only an agricultural planet but a territorial seat. Its single moon, long an independent meeting point, is reconstructed as a neutral conference site on the order of Babel and is christened "Parliament". 2353 A lost freighter, the SS Firesprite, returns to Starbase 84 after visiting a planet in the Texorith Cluster that Federation probes have as yet not found. It is the fourth sighting of the mystical planet of "Aldea", where the Firesprite held orbit for three hours before departing. Aldea is later found (in 2364) in the Epsilon Minos system by the Enterprise. 2355 The Stargazer is destroyed when it combats an unidentified ship in the Maxia Zeta system. It is discovered nine years later that the ship was a Ferengi scout cruiser. 2356 The Alcyones are presumed to have destroyed the last of the plague-ridden Tarellians. In actuality, a single ship did survive and made its way to the planet Haven eight years later. Rear Admiral Savar is promoted to Starfleet Commander. Once he begins his post, he promises to endorse more scientific and exploratory duties for Starfleet rather than military. His groundwork for an exploration-based Fleet eventually leads to Vulcan's decision to reverse its political "hands-off" within the Federation. Savar is killed in 2364; his policy continues, though Vulcan's "re-entry" is slow. 2357 The Altairian Conference takes place to ground out differences between the Federation and the Free Worlds of Klinzhai. It involves many ship captains and delegates on both sides. All differences are resolved. 2358 Operation Hawkeye is launched by Starfleet Intelligence. Its purpose is to send reconnaisance missions to the Alliance borders in an attempt to encounter Ferengi traders or other representatives of this increasingly active new threat. 2360 The Romulan Civil War ends with the destruction of the preservationist factions. Four years of reconstruction will see the development of a number of capital warships and expansion toward the Federation. 2361 The Velara terraforming endeavor, known as the "Gardeners of Eden" project, is established. 2362 The Starfleet facility at Altair III, where the Altarian Conference was a huge success five years before, is overcome by the People's Abolitionist Front, which seeks to rid the Federation of the "Klingon scourge". Lt. Commander William Riker prohibits Captain Frank DeSoto of the USS Hood to beam down to talk to the PAF leaders, who are waiting to kill him as a sign of their seriousness, saving his life. Instead, security teams from the Hood, Potemkin and Alliance take the leaders into custody. The planet Haven becomes the 1500th member world of the Federation. The Micromius disaster -- colonists settled here unaware that they were destroying the indigenous population, a creature whose natural form is in liquid state. When she becomes head of Starfleet Medical, Dr. Beverly Crusher, along with Dr. Terence Epstein, presents a practical solution that will prevent the problem happening elsewhere. 2363 Benzite principles applied to superwarp, greatly increasing their power capacity. Second-generation superwarp drive is set for the next Enterprise ship. The principles of holodeck technology are perfected at the Deneva Test Facilities. Installation of the newest advances will also come on the next Enterprise. The Bandi of Deneb IV open up their rapidly-created spaceport to Federation ships. Christened "Farpoint", the new station will allow the current exploration zone to be expanded by its use as a way station. Operation Hawkeye's first success comes on Zeta Reticuli V, where a scout party encounters a Ferengi patrol cruiser. Though no actual face to face confrontation is recorded, it is the first real proof that the Ferengi have penetrated Federation borders. Rumors from the Alliance Alpha Exploration Zone intelligence section say that Ferengi cruisers may even have penetrated as far as within 200 parsecs of the Terra-Vulcan-Alpha Centauri home cluster. 2364 USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, commissioned and departs Earth. It is the first ship equipped with second-generation superwarp drive and the "continuous loop" phaser banks. It is commanded by Jean-Luc Picard. First contact with the "Q". First official contact with the Ferengi Alliance in the Zendi Sabu system within the Alliance Alpha Exploration zone by the Enterprise. The encounter also clears up mysteries surrounding the long-dead Tkon Empire. USS Stargazer returned after being discovered by the Ferengi, Bok. Starfleet Code One Emergency, as it is later called, is quelched and Fleet admirals, including Grand Admiral Savar, are killed after being possessed by strange parasitic life forms. Contact reestablished with Romulan Star Empire on the border of the Neutral Zone after several Romulan and Federation outposts are destroyed. Enterprise arranges a temporary information treaty with a Romulan ship. * * * * This timeline was written by Jim Lyon (72571,3002) based on material by Joe Sewell as presented in ENTHIS.TXT. This document may be reproduced so long as FULL text remains intact. Other sources for this document include SPOCK'S WORLD by Diane Duane, DEEP DOMAIN by Howard Weinstein, MEMORY PRIME by Gar and Judith Reeves-Stephens, THE FINAL REFLECTION by John M. Ford, DWELLERS IN THE CRUCIBLE by Margaret Wander Bonanno, the ST:TNG OFFICERS MANUAL and many other products from the FASA Corporation (the creators of Star Trek: The Role Playing Game), the four ST movies and of course the series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Also adapted from presentations in the BEST OF TREK series from Signet. ************************ #:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:# # MURDER BY THE BOOK # #:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:#:# editor: Cindy Bartorillo --------------------------------------------------------------------- Murder By The Book is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Catalogs, news releases, review copies, or donated reviews should be sent to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED AUTHOR: ELLIS PETERS Sue Feder's name is familiar to anyone who pays attention to the bylines on book reviews, and she is also the woman behind the Ellis Peters Appreciation Society, as well as the editor and publisher of the Society's official journal, MOST LOVING MERE FOLLY. To get a copy, write to: Ellis Peters Appreciation Society, c/o Sue Feder, 7815 Daniels Avenue, Parkville, MD 21234. (She doesn't insist on being paid, but it would be polite to include a couple of dollars to pay for repro and mailing costs. Make any checks payable to Sue Feder.) Watch for the third edition of 20TH CENTURY CRIME AND MYSTERY WRITERS. It includes a completely new essay about Ellis Peters written by Sue, and to show that she does read other authors from time to time, Sue has articles on Richard Barth and Les Roberts in the book too. ELLIS PETERS SAYS by Sue Feder Luckily for us, Ellis Peters graciously consented to take some time out of her busy schedule to give us an interview. She once said, "I do love talking to people, but it takes up so much time. I've had to tell my publishers not to arrange much for me in case I start enjoying it more than writing!" Some quotes were taken (with the permission of EP and her agent) from ELLIS PETERS WRITES, an article which has appeared elsewhere. Edith May Pargeter was born the youngest of three in the village of Horsehay, Shropshire, on September 23, 1913. Her father was the head clerk at the local ironworks. Her elder brother, Edmund Ellis, had become an engineer, and her middle sister married--both are now deceased. There's a nephew, and some cousins locally and in Cornwall with whom she remains close. She recalls a very happy childhood. "We were all bright at school and had no difficulties holding our own, plenty of friends, the company of dogs, all the things country children enjoy, miles of countryside in which to roam." Her little village is now part of Telford and "a lot of the meadows I used to know are now built up with housing estates and industrial enclaves. But go west an hour into Wales, and it's pure hill country. Eastward you move into the flatter and more industrial midlands." Educated at Dawley Church of England Elementary School, and then on a scholarship at Coalbrookdale High School for Girls, she always knew she wanted to write. "You might say that was settled from the start." Deeply influenced by her mother, who had written poetry but gave it up to raise three children, and further encouraged by Miss Harvey, a fondly-remembered English teacher, she adds "In my time I have also sung in a choir, acted in school plays, danced as a solo act in local concerts, and painted quite well while I was at school. But writing was always my aim." Her mother's experience may have had other influences--she has never married, believing that she's better at friendship, and felt she couldn't properly run a marriage and a career at the same time--and for her the writing came first. Although she obtained an Oxford Higher School Certificate and first class honors in English, Edith didn't want to remain in school or continue on to a university. Instead, at age 20, she took up on an offer to become a chemist's assistant at a shop in Dawley--"both serving...and dispensing, experience which has sometimes been useful! I learned about medicinal drugs, including those of botanic origin." Over the next seven years she began to write seriously--in longhand!--selling short stories and a short novel. "My first earnings were actually in newsprint. Back before the war there were many regional newspapers which carried serial stories, and agencies commissioned such stories on the strength of a full synopsis and one first installment. Length was laid down, thirteen installments, the introductory one longer than the rest, and the stories were syndicated round the regions, so might appear in four or five different newspapers. Nothing like it exists now. Quite independently, some of these were taken up by popular publishers, and lengthened--by me, the copyright after serial publication was mine--into full-scale novels and published under another name. Odd copies turn up occasionally." She now looks at these early efforts at mysteries as "rather juvenile". Just before the war she published her first full-length novel, THE CITY LIES FOURSQUARE (1939). When the war began she attempted to join the Women's Air Force. Rejected because she was in a reserved occupation, she resigned from her job with the chemist and applied to the Women's Royal Naval Service--this time listing her occupation as author. "Authors were clearly expendable, because I was accepted without question, and drafted off to Plymouth to joining the staff at Western Approaches Command. A year later the command moved to Liverpool, to be better placed as covering the convoy route across the Atlantic." Working in the service didn't deter her writing, and SHE GOES TO WAR, about the WRNS, was published in 1942. It is due to be reissued in England, for the first time in 47 years. The first volume of a trilogy about a common soldiers war, THE EIGHTH CHAMPION OF CHRISTENDOM, also came out while she was still in uniform (1945), with the second book arriving just after (RELUCTANT ODYSSEY, 1946). On VE Day in 1944 Edith received the British Empire Medal, "recommended probably by the naval signals officer we worked under. For zeal and whole-hearted devotion to duty, the citation says. It was usual each year on the honours list for some such service awards to be recommended and awarded. I was a teleprinter operator, and after about a year and the move to Liverpool had a watch of perhaps nine girls under me. We had probably about thirteen printers in the room, plus telex, cable and wireless, and a direct transatlantic line to the other end of the convoy route in Newfoundland." Timing continuing to be everything, Edith was demobilized as Petty Officer on VJ Day, 1945. But the war years were important for another reason. Her lifelong connection with Czechoslovakian people, language and culture began as a direct result of her outrage at the 1938 Munich Agreement, that infamous agreement amongst Britain, France and Germany, in which the two former agreed to parcel Czechoslovakia out to Germany in the vain hope of avoiding war. Calling the agreement "shameful", she "personally regarded our declaration of war as a relief and a reparation. So when the war was over I took the first opportunity of visiting the country. I had a few wartime contacts with Czechs fighting with us, and had the greatest respect and liking for them. I went with my brother in the summer of 1947 to an international summer school held at a resort about 30 miles from Prague. Many such schools were held that year in other European countries. We took a party of students, with university lecturers on British institutions and history, and they brought Czech students and lecturers to meet us. Thus we made a considerable number of friends at one go, and have kept many of them lifelong. I continued my visits whenever I could, grew closer to one family in particular, but also made professional contacts among writers there, and became very interested in the language, and especially in the classics in the language, the books all my friends had on their shelves, many of them 19th century works, when the language was being studied and revived. Some had no translations. I began to read them with the help of dictionaries and written grammars, and finding that inadequate, started making my own translations as I went along. Translations from both poetry and prose have been published, and in time I began to be asked to translate works such as a life of Comenius, during his celebratory year among educationalists, and even modern novels. I go to Prague every year if I can, value my relationships there like gold, and feel myself in a sense Czech, with all their hopes and needs. They are a people I not only love, but admire. THE COAST OF BOHEMIA (1950) was an account of three months spent in Czechoslovakia in 1948, a light travel book. "It was through diplomatic personnel in Prague that I got to know India, and finally went there for a prolonged visit which later provided the background to two Felse novels [MOURNING RAGA, 1969, and DEATH TO THE LANDLORDS!, 1972]. I loved and hated India; the pressures of class division and riches and poverty there are devastating, but love predominates. I have two families and scattered friends there, mainly in Delhi, but south also, and wish I had the stamina to tackle it again. Maybe I'll make it some day yet, but it does take stamina." It wasn't until 1951 that she tried her first thriller, FALLEN INTO THE PIT, which introduced the Felse family. In 1959 she developed her `nom-de-crime' upon completion of her second thriller, the non-Felse DEATH MASK, in order to keep these works separate from her mainstream work. The Felse family finally reappeared in 1961, in the Edgar-winning DEATH AND THE JOYFUL WOMAN. From here on out, Detective Sergeant George Felse (later promoted to Detective Chief Inspector), his wife Bunty, and teenage son Dominic, cheerfully took turns solving a dozen mysteries from their hometown of Comerford to such exotic--but hardly unexpected, given the predilections of their creator--locals as Czechoslovakia and India. Another of Edith's loves, music, featured in several non-Felse thrillers. In the meantime, she continued to write historical novels. "The book which came nearest to what I wanted it to be is undoubtedly the HEAVEN TREE TRILOGY. It set out as an attempt to create a really great artist and set him in his own society, whenever that might be. For me it was the period of Early English known to us as `stiff leaf', in church building, which the heaven tree itself illustrates--the braced leaves that hold up the vault, as of the church, so of the heavens." Indeed, it had to be that period--1200 AD and the early English Gothic cathedrals, her favorite in art and what she calls the peak of English achievement. "I found that the artist's eye, his sense of balance and proportion, had a bearing on his view of his world and its justice, and must bring about a conflict only resolvable by his victory or death. Once created, the people of these books took over and acted for themselves in a way which has never happened to me before or since. "On the other hand confined by historical fact, I think my quartet of novels on the life of Prince Llewelyn ap Griffith, the first true prince of all Wales [grandson of Llewelyn the Great, who had appeared in the trilogy], the BROTHERS OF GWYNEDD QUARTET, never published in America, is possibly the most important thing I have done, in recording actual history very little studied or appreciated elsewhere. It was written to do justice to a very attractive and I think a great man." By 1977 the idea for a story based on a true historical incident had been germinating for a while. The time had come to join her passionate love of the history of the region with the pleasure of writing a well-crafted thriller. "The story of the Shrewsbury Abbey's expedition to obtain the bones of St. Winifred, in the 12th century, presented a wonderful way to dispose of a body." So A MORBID TASTE FOR BONES came to be. "At the time I had no intention of starting a series. But there, only a few months after the St. Winifred affair, came the siege and capture of Shrewsbury by King Stephen, and the massacre of the castle garrison, 94 men hanged and thrown over the battlements into the ditch. A private murderer might well take advantage of this opportunity to toss a 95th among them. So there was the germ of ONE CORPSE TOO MANY. By that time Brother Cadfael had taken me over, apparently for good. The writing of these books has given me more pure pleasure than anything else I have done. So the line continues, each book based on some aspect of the recorded monastic life of Shrewsbury and fitted into the history of the time. Each books carries the history of the time a step forward, as accurately as possible, and into that framework my own characters and stories have to be fitted. There is a foreground and a background, in both of which sacred and secular move in counterbalance." Having lived her life in the Church of England, Edith believes her writing is bound to reflect some of these teachings. Cadfael's optimism, tolerance, and occasionally necessary unorthodoxy are all characteristics he shares with his creator. Although she maintains that there isn't much of her in him, she will concede that he could be `her better self'. His wisdom and experience in the world outside makes him passionate about the cause of (here's that word again!) justice. Edith has said elsewhere, "I don't believe I could ever have conceived him when I was forty." Edith's roots in Shropshire remained firm and true. She has lived in the same early 1800's house for about 35 years, having shared it with her brother until his death a few years ago. She has memorialized him by taking his first name for her most famous pen name. Ellis, the maiden name of her Welsh grandmother, was given to Edmund as a second Christian name and became the name the whole family called him. (The last name, Peters, is a nod to a young friend named Petra, who was still a child when the name was chosen.) She has even placed his picture as Cadfael on the back cover of four of the books, from THE DEVIL'S NOVICE to AN EXCELLENT MYSTERY in the British editions. Surrounded by her records and books and writing--now with an old portable typewriter--she still doesn't really feel happy unless she's working on a book. Although Cadfael gardens, she does not. She was a late convert to television, but now enjoys it--and, of course, waits with the rest of us for the day when Cadfael makes his screen debut, courtesy of Cadfael Productions Ltd. One of the most important aspects of Cadfael's success is "the books have been the means of drawing me close to the Abbey church itself, which then, as now, was also the parish church of Holy Cross, and as such survived the Dissolution, while the monastic buildings are almost all lost. Nine hundred years old, considerably changed over the years but still basically Norman, and still beautiful." She goes on to say, "I loved and enjoyed the Felse family, but Cadfael has been more demanding. He opens channels for me to say, through him, things it would be difficult to say through a modern protagonist. He has also opened wonderful prospects of actual current usefulness, a practical application of literary communication. All his readers are helping Shrewsbury Abbey to keep its fabric upright against the pressures of modern traffic and modern exploitation and pollution, and bringing friends and prosperity into Shrewsbury town. It wasn't planned, but it is happening. And I am enjoying it!" BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EDITH PARGETER/ELLIS PETERS The following bibliography has been assembled from a variety of sources, and the frayed edges may be showing. If you find a major error here, I'd appreciate it if you let me know about it. ---Cindy Hortensius, Friend of Nero (The Greystone Press, 1937) The City Lies Four-Square (Reynall & Hitchcock, 1939) People of My Own (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1942) Ordinary People (W. Heinemann Ltd, 1942) The Eighth Champion of Christendom (W. Heinemann Ltd, 1945) By This Strange Fire (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1948) The Coast of Bohemia (Heinemann, 1950) Lost Children (Heinemann, 1951) Fallen Into the Pit (Heinemann, 1951) Felse Holiday With Violence (Heinemann, 1952) This Rough Magic (Heinemann, 1953) Most Loving Mere Folly (Heinemann, 1953) The Soldier at the Door (Heinemann, 1954) A Means of Grace (Heinemann, 1956) The Heaven Tree (Doubleday, 1960) Death Mask (Doubleday, 1960) Where There's a Will (Doubleday, 1960) Felse British title: The Will and the Deed Death and the Joyful Woman (Doubleday, 1961) Felse (won Edgar Award) The Linden Tree; an anthology of Czech and Slovak literature, 1890-1960 (Artia, 1962) Funeral of Figaro (Morrow, 1964) Flight of a Witch (Doubleday, 1965) Felse The Lily Hand, and Other Stories (Heinemann, 1965) Who Lies Here? (Morrow, 1965) Felse British title: A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs The Piper on the Mountain (Morrow, 1966) Felse Black is the Colour of My True-Love's Heart (Morrow, 1967) Felse Ivos Weihnachtsgeschenk; eine Erzahlung (Die Arche, 1968) The Grass-Widow's Tale (Morrow, 1968) Felse The House of Green Turf (Morrow, 1969) Felse Mourning Raga (Morrow, 1970) Felse The Knocker on Death's Door (Morrow, 1971) Felse Death to the Landlords! (Morrow, 1972) Felse The Bloody Field (Viking, 1973) British title: A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury Sunrise in the West (Macmillan, 1974) Part 1 of the quartet The Brothers of Gwynedd City of Gold and Shadows (Morrow, 1974) Felse The Horn of Roland (Morrow, 1974) Never Pick Up Hitch-Hikers! (Morrow, 1976) The Hounds of Sunset (Macmillan, 1976) Part 3 of The Brothers of Gwynedd A Morbid Taste for Bones (Morrow, 1978) Brother Cadfael The Marriage of Meggotta (Viking, 1979) Rainbow's End (Morrow, 1979) Felse One Corpse Too Many (Morrow, 1980) Brother Cadfael Monk's-Hood (Morrow, 1981) Brother Cadfael (won Silver Dagger) Saint Peter's Fair (Morrow, 1981) Brother Cadfael The Leper of Saint Giles (Morrow, 1982) Brother Cadfael The Virgin in the Ice (Morrow, 1983) Brother Cadfael The Sanctuary Sparrow (Morrow, 1983) Brother Cadfael The Devil's Novice (Morrow, 1984) Brother Cadfael The Pilgrim of Hate (Morrow, 1984) Brother Cadfael Dead Man's Ransom (Morrow, 1985) Brother Cadfael An Excellent Mystery (Morrow, 1985) Brother Cadfael The Raven in the Foregate (Morrow, 1986) Brother Cadfael The Rose Rent (Morrow, 1986) Brother Cadfael The Scarlet Seed (Macdonald, 1987) The Hermit of Eyton Forest (Mysterious, 1988) Brother Cadfael The Confession of Brother Haluin (Mysterious, 1989) Brother Cadfael A Rare Benedictine (Mysterious, 1989) Brother Cadfael The Heretic's Apprentice (Mysterious, 1990) Brother Cadfael The Potter's Field (Mysterious, December 1990) Brother Cadfael *********************** THE LINE UP FROM MYSTERIOUS PRESS THE POTTER'S FIELD by Ellis Peters When the Benedictine monks' plows turn up a long-dead corpse in a newly-acquired field, Brother Cadfael delves into the intricate mysteries surrounding the discovery. December $16.95 THE ICIEST SIN by H.R.F. Keating Inspector Ghote is dispatched to get the goods on Bombay's most notorious blackmailer, but uncovers murder instead. The latest Ghote novel from the celebrated author. December $18.95 MISTLETOE MYSTERIES edited by Charlotte MacLeod A collection of new mystery tales set around a Yuletide theme, by such masters of the cozy style as Mary Higgins Clark, Peter Lovesey, and Aaron Elkins. December $4.50 THE NEW YORK DETECTIVE by William Marshall The author of the celebrated Yellowthread Street series now turns to the most bizarre island nation of all--Manhattan, circa 1883--proving that all the action wasn't in the wild west. December $4.95 DEAD ON TIME by H.R.F. Keating The death of a wealthy young landowner takes Inspector Ghote from the relative safety of Bombay into the rustic--and deadly--backwaters of rural India. December $4.95 THOSE IN PERIL by Nicolas Freeling Inspector Castang, in disgrace, is reassigned to a drab Parisian suburb--but a pillar of the community who moonlights as a child molester inspires him to new heights of unorthodox police procedure. January $18.95 A TIME WITHOUT SHADOWS by Ted Allbeury Did Winston Churchill betray a French underground espionage network to appease Stalin during WWII? MI6 officer Harry Chapman investigates...and the spies who survived the war begin to be murdered. January $19.95 SAND CASTLES by Nicolas Freeling A major mystery event--the return of Inspector Piet van der Valk, after a hiatus of nearly twenty years. Freeling's popular detective hero investigates murder among the vacation communities of the north Holland coast. January $4.95 BERTIE AND THE SEVEN BODIES by Peter Lovesey Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, enters into his second case as an amateur detective. A witty foray through Victorian manners, mores, and murder by the master of the period mystery. January $4.95 WHO SHOT LONGSHOT SAM? by Paul Engleman New York P.I. Mark Renzler is enticed into entering a handicapping contest, and murder visits the racetrack. Engleman's latest, and zaniest. January $4.95 *********************** MYSTERIOUS AFFAIRS * Early reviews are very good for both THE GIFT HORSE'S MOUTH by Robert Campbell and THE POTTER'S FIELD by Ellis Peters. The Campbell book, another Jimmy Flannery story, is supposed to be as good as the previous six. And I've heard that Peters' tale is as brilliant as usual, but a bit gloomier. * Three books reviewed in RFP #13 are now available in paperback editions: THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY by Kingsley Amis ($4.95, Mysterious Press); A MOUTHFUL OF SAND by M.R.D. Meek ($3.50, Worldwide Library); and A SERIES OF MURDERS by Simon Brett ($3.95, Warner Books). * If your interest in detection extends to nonfiction, be sure to get yourself a copy of The Crime-Busters P.I. & Security Mail-Order Catalog--you'll find hundreds of books on "the secrets and techniques used by private investigation and security professionals". They don't say so, but you should probably send them a dollar or two to defray the printing and mailing costs (don't bother with an SASE, the catalog is too big). You can place your orders on CompuServe too. For your catalog, write to: Crime-Busters, PO Box 887, Stn B, Ottawa, Ont. K1P 5P9, Canada. * Two Jack Early (pseudonym of Sandra Scoppettone, see RFP #12) novels are on their way to the big screen. RAZZAMATAZZ has been acquired by Warner Bros. and DONATO AND DAUGHTER was bought by Marion Brayton Productions. Look for Charles Bronson to play the father, at least in the DONATO AND DAUGHTER film. * Don't miss it! Harlan Ellison has finally sold a story to the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine after, according to H.E. himself, 35 years of trying. Whatever it is, it will be in the December issue. * Lawrence Block's latest is A TICKET TO THE BONEYARD, a Matthew Scudder story from Morrow just this past September. His next book will be a short story collection scheduled by Morrow for April or May 1991. It will be probably be called either THE BURGLAR WHO DROPPED IN ON ELVIS or BATMAN'S HELPERS. After that we'll get another Matthew Scudder novel, DOWN ON THE KILLING FLOOR, probably in September 1991, also from Morrow. * Ridley Pearson has become the first recipient of a new fellowship given by the U.S.-United Kingdom Fulbright Commission in cooperation with the Estate of Raymond Chandler and with Oxford University. The award is given in the field of detective and spy fiction, to "a yet-to-be-fully established writer who has an emerging reputation and has published several significant works but has not yet gained major national or international reputation." Pearson's most recent novel was PROBABLE CAUSE and you can see a review of his UNDERCURRENTS in RFP #5. Pearson is also a composer and rock musician. * NO FOOLIN': One of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine contests of yesteryear gave Second Prize to a story called "An Error in Chemistry". It was written by William Faulkner. * Did you know that Leslie Charteris, author of the mysteries about "The Saint", was born in Singapore with the name Leslie Yin? He was half-Chinese, half-English. * Did you know that John Creasey wrote using as many as 28 pseudonyms? Among his "stable of writers" was: J.J. Marric, Elise Fecamps, Henry St. John Cooper, Tex Riley, and Anthony Morton. * If you like short mystery fiction, you might like to give HARDBOILED DETECTIVE a try. It's a quarterly, and it combines and replaces two previous magazines, DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE and HARDBOILED. According to the publishers, each issue will be "packed with original stories by well-known pros AND talented newcomers, fine articles, classic reprints, hard-hitting reviews, as well as Marv Lachman's fine column from DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. If you like the work of Vachss, Randisi, Gault, Prather, Nolan, Fischer, and the rest of the best--we've got the magazine you've been looking for!" Send $20 for 6 issues ($24 outside USA) to: Gryphon Publications, PO Box 209, Brooklyn NY 11228-0209. *********************** TOO LATE TO DIE by Bill Crider review by Joan Panichella Bill Crider is a new mystery writer and one to watch. In his debut, TOO LATE TO DIE, he creates some interesting characters and a memorable sheriff. Dan Rhodes isn't your typical cowboy-hat-wearing, boots-shined lawman. Instead he's a rather average older man with a school teaching daughter. He enjoys baloney sandwiches and Dr. Pepper in old fashioned glass bottles instead of beer. A young wife is beaten to death on his "beat". Was it her much older husband or one of the flock of clandestine visitors? Or was it possibly someone from her "wild" past? Thurston, the town in which the murder took place, seems very real. Mr. Crider knows how to craft vivid images. From Barrett's country store to the chickens scratching in the bereaved's yard, the pictures seem sharp. Dan Rhodes postulates and tests several solutions to his dilemma before he solves this mystery. In the meantime he jeopardizes not only his upcoming reelection campaign but his life as well to discover what went on. I guessed part of the solution but watching Dan reach it was quit enjoyable. I would eagerly read more about Rhodes and his locale. *********************** HAWK'S LAST CASE by Red Greene (Synapse Books) review by Cindy Bartorillo Cable Hawkins, Hawk to his friends, is a former policeman who now works as a private investigator. His office is a pit and his love life stinks. When ex-jockey Wayne Teagueworthy wants to hire him to help with a personal problem, Hawk isn't exactly happy, but he could use the money. It seems that Teagueworthy has decided to stay married to Bobbie, which is causing girlfriend Cybil Rogers to resort to violence. The night before she had actually fired arrows at him, arrows which missed and became embedded in his car. Teagueworthy would like Hawk to smooth things with Cybil before her aim improves. Hawk sees Cybil and she promises to stop harassing Teagueworthy, but you never know with women, you know? Next thing WE know, the little guy has been stabbed in the chest and is in critical condition in Intensive Care. Did Cybil rethink her promise, or does Teagueworthy have other enemies? Hawk is on the case, and we get a great ride as he digs into the horse racing scene past and present, with a little police corruption thrown in as a bonus. And did I mention that an unknown sniper is out to kill Hawk? He had had several close calls before he ever heard about Teagueworthy's problem so the two situations can't be related, or can they? You won't know until Hawk does. Red Greene handles the story with a very sure touch, and I particularly enjoyed the way he let a lot of his characterization of Hawk come from the other characters; we see a number of slightly-different Hawks reflected in the other points of view. The only complaint I can come up with is the understated finale--I wish Hawk had discovered the last piece of the puzzle with more of a bang. HAWK'S LAST CASE is classic American hardboiled detective fiction, and it's only available from SoftServ, the Paperless Bookstore. If you have a computer and modem you can call them at 213-957-1176 or 213-957-0874. Otherwise you can get a disk of HAWK'S LAST CASE in the mail (IBM, Macintosh, or CP/M) by sending $4.95 plus $3 shipping and handling to: SoftServ Publishing Services, Inc., PO Box 94, Long Beach, CA 90801-0094. By the way, HAWK'S LAST CASE is the first of a trilogy, and I'll bet you'll want all of them. The other two are HAWK GOES HOLLYWOOD and HAWK GETS LIBERATED, and I can't wait to see how Hawk's screwed up private life turns out. *********************** CHERIE JUNG was born at the usual early age, and by the age of five had learned to read... This proved to be a handy skill since she will read practically anything, including cereal box labels! When arthritis and injuries cut short her career in teaching martial arts, she turned her attention to writing, full-time. Along with her husband, who is also a writer, they created a mystery BBS named Over My Dead Body! about one year ago. Along with their six cats (who love to help input data!) they operate the BBS 24 hours a day at (415) 465-7739. Mystery readers, writers and fans get on-line information about mystery events, conven- tions and author signings as well as book reviews, articles, interviews and author profiles. There are numerous readers and writers conferences on-going at this time but the Twin Peaks conference is currently the most active with fingers flying furiously over the keyboards as upwards of 100 messages a day were written during the "Who Killed Laura" frenzy! *********************** DEADLY SAFARI by Karin McQuillan (St. Martin's Press, 1990, $17.95 ISBN: 0-312-03808-9) review by Cherie Jung Format: Hardcover Character: Jazz Jasper, 1st appearance Locale: Kenya, Africa Status: Amateur, safari leader Setting: Someone is killing members of the safari Reading the quotes from praising authors regarding Ms. McQuillan's first novel is like paging through a list of who's who in the mystery genre. Tony Hillerman loved it. So did Linda Barnes, Kinky Friedman, Patricia Moyes, Aaron Elkins, Dorothy Simpson, Nancy Pickard, Carolyn Hart, Sheila Radley, Jeremiah Healy and Robert B. Parker. Other authors have written glowing reviews, including Dorothy Uhnak. I haven't heard a discouraging word about this book. I was skeptical. It couldn't be THAT good, could it? Well, it IS that good! Try as I might to remain aloof, I was quickly drawn into the sensuous and exciting world of Jazz Jasper. The Kenyan wilderness comes alive with Ms. McQuillan's description of its majestic beauty - its inhabitants, both human and non-human. The oppressive heat, the complaining and disgruntled members of the group, and the bickering create an atmosphere ripe for trouble. Boyce Darnell, a rich and easily dislikeable man, well used to having his way or making life miserable for those who oppose him is the first to die. Not everyone is saddened by that fact. Before his body can be removed from the encampment, someone else is killed, necessitating a call to the Nairobi police. I think you will find the characters engaging and the plot well developed. I also don't think you will be able to figure out "who dunnit". Long after you have finished reading this novel you will find yourself imagining the Kenyan wilderness, vividly, as Ms. McQuillan has described it. Her writing seems to capture the essence of being on safari in the untamed Africa many people can only dream about or recall from nature documentaries. The only two criticisms I have are that I was a bit disappointed in the final resolution of Ms. Jasper's relationship with Striker (I was personally rooting for Inspector Omondi!) and that there isn't a second Jazz Jasper book available right now, this very minute, to read! According to the author's bio at the end of the book, Ms. McQuillan is working on a new novel. I hope it is a second appearance for Jazz Jasper (what a name!) and Inspector Omondi, although I suspect the clientele may not be so eager to go on safari if each outing brings death to one or more of the group! ______________________________________________________________________ You can talk to Cherie anytime, and get loads and loads of mystery news and reviews, by having your modem call Over My Dead Body! Mystery BBS at 415-465-7739. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *********************** HOT TODDY by Andy Edmonds (1989, Morrow) review by Howard Frye Thelma Todd was a beautiful blonde film comedienne during the first years of talkies. She is best remembered for two series' of movies for Hal Roach, the first paired with ZaSu Pitts, the second with Patsy Kelly. The last big joke of her life was when she was discovered by her maid in a garage in her 1934 Lincoln Phaeton with the motor running, dead. She had bruises around her neck, a broken nose, two cracked ribs, and assorted other bruises and swellings. The final punch line was that the verdict at the inquest was "accidental death". Thelma (called "Toddy", or, by the press, "Hot Toddy") Todd died just before Christmas of 1935, and as with most strange cases that far back, there's a definite lack of hard evidence to go on for solving the crime now. The trail is *cold*. You'll find in Andy Edmonds' narration of events that the official handling of this case was anything but professional. This is due partly to the fact that 1935 was before the scientific age of detection, but is also the result of the corruption in government that was common in those days of Al "Scarface" Capone and "Lucky" Luciano. In explaining his version of what happened, Andy Edmonds backtracks to tell the story of gangsterism in Chicago in the 1920's and 1930's, and he does a fine job of it, making it into a fascinating narrative. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the structure of HOT TODDY as a whole. Edmonds gets a lot of good reading out of a smallish story. His handling of the early years of Hollywood is good too---he manages to be candid about the personalities without being condemning. Ultimately he makes his case very well, even if his major evidence is from anonymous sources. HOT TODDY is an enjoyable True Crime story of 1930's Hollywood, and would make great accompaniment to the rash of gangster movies that are making yet another comeback. (HOT TODDY is available now in an Avon paperback for $4.95) *********************** [About A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM:] "Except that the movie is relocated from Jolly Old to good-old US of A; the children, mother-in-law, sister-in-law dropped; another murder added, one omitted, the first murder switched, the house burned down and the ending altered, the movie is just like the book." --Don Sandstrom [NOTE: The book is by Simon Brett and the movie stars Michael Caine.] *********************** A FATAL ADVENT by Isabelle Holland (Doubleday, 1989) review by Cindy Bartorillo It's just before Christmas at St. Anselm's and the rector has a very important guest from England: Alec Maitland, former dean of St. Paul's. The Reverend Claire Aldington, St. Anselm's pastoral counselor, thinks no more about the matter after the rector's announcement, at least not until her husband, who turns out to be an old acquaintance of the dean's, brings the dean home to stay in their apartment. When the dean winds up dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs, the police discover that he's been murdered, and the plot begins to thicken. Who was the murderer? Was it the husband of one of Claire's patients who is known to have a violent temper? Was it Claire's husband, who had a mysterious relationship with the dean and was seen arguing with him shortly before he died? Was it the rector himself? Or was it the Reverend Joseph Martinez, a political activist and St. Anselm's resident Angry Young Man? To be honest, I had a tough time caring who murdered the dean. The dean had a walk-on role in the story, as did everyone else except for Claire, so it was difficult to get involved with personalities. The most riveting situation involved Claire's home life, where her husband and her son both behave badly and refuse to trust her. When she finally has a small temper tantrum, after having been pushed beyond all reasonable limits, her husband leaves her in anger and she berates herself for her loss of control. Anyone else would have blown up about a hundred pages earlier, and the resolution left me thinking poorly of all three--Claire, husband, and son. I thought the very best parts of A FATAL ADVENT were the descriptions of an Episcopal parish. *********************** A DEATH IN A TOWN by Hillary Waugh (Carroll & Graf, 1989) review by Howard Frye When the Parkers return home one evening, they find the house dark, their children asleep, and their babysitter missing. The police finally discover Sally Anders' body in back of the Parker's house where she'd been left after being raped and brutally beaten to death. The shock felt by everyone in the small New England town turns to rage when they learn that a mysterious stranger had been seen by several women the day Sally was murdered. Unfortunately for the town, the stranger turns out to have an iron-clad alibi for the time of the murder, and now the investigation grinds to a halt. Someone they have been living with for years is a rapist and a murderer. Soon the whispers and suspicions are out of control. A DEATH IN A TOWN is not only a fascinating murder mystery--it is also inventively told from multiple perspectives and in varying styles. The focus, through most of the book, is on what a murder does to everyone around it, not just the immediate participants. About two-thirds of the way through the story I began to fear that the murder itself was going to be forgotten, but I shouldn't have worried. The murder is most definitely NOT forgotten, and the final pages come with a twist and a surprise that will make any mystery fan happy. Hillary Waugh has won numerous awards before, but this just might be his best book to date. (A DEATH IN A TOWN is now available as a mass-market paperback from Carroll & Graf for $3.95.) *********************** By Sharon McCrumb: (in alphabetical order) Bimbos of the Death Sun Highland Laddie Gone If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O Lovely in Her Bones Paying the Piper Sick of Shadows The Windsor Knot (There's a review of Bimbos of the Death Sun by Darryl Kenning in RFP #5.) *********************** POODLE SPRINGS by Raymond Chandler & Robert B. Parker (Putnam, 1989) review by Howard Frye "I don't have money. I don't have prospects. All I have is who I am. All I have is a few private rules I've laid down for myself." Poodle Springs is a wealthy residential community in the California desert, into which private detective Philip Marlowe has just moved with his very rich new wife. He's now 42, and is still (despite all of his wife's money) plying his trade. In fact, he meets his next client when he goes into town to look for office space. It seems that Manny Lipshultz runs a gambling establishment outside of town, and he has unwisely accepted the marker of one Les Valentine. Now Valentine has flown the coop, leaving Manny in a vulnerable position with his boss, a guy named Blackstone. It doesn't take long for Marlowe to discover that Les Valentine lives in Poodle Springs, not far from the Marlowe house. In fact, there are a number of similarities between the two men: both are poor men married to rich wives, and both are having marital problems. In the course of finding Valentine, Marlowe meets the usual assortment of sleazy characters: the powerful Clayton Blackstone, the dissipated Muffy Valentine, the loving Angel Victor, and the aging model Sondra Lee. Typically for Raymond Chandler, POODLE SPRINGS takes place on the cutting edge of money--that thin area where those with it meet those who want it. At the time of his death, Chandler had only written four chapters of this story, but Robert Parker has finished it with a talent for mimicry that I had never known he had. From start to finish, POODLE SPRINGS is faithful in tone and subject to the rest of the Chandler output. I am very seldom in favor of the current publishing fad of squeezing a few more dollars out of a dead author's good name by releasing books that "continue in the tradition of", but I must admit that this time it certainly worked out marvelously well. If you like Raymond Chandler's novels, you'll love this "collaboration". NOTE: POODLE SPRINGS is now available in a mass market paperback edition for $4.95 from Berkley. ANOTHER NOTE: If you like POODLE SPRINGS, don't miss PERCHANCE TO DREAM: Robert B. Parker's Sequel to Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. It's due to be a $18.95 hardcover from Putnam in January 1991. *********************** SISTERS IN CRIME Sisters in Crime is an organization of mystery readers, writers, publishers, and booksellers. It is devoted to furthering the careers of women in the mystery field, correcting imbalances in the treatment of women, and promoting recognition of women's contributions to mystery fiction. It now numbers more than 900 members on three continents. When Sisters in Crime was formed in May 1987, its founders addressed three major concerns: (1) that books by women writers were reviewed less frequently than those by men, (2) that books on the so-called softer side of the genre were taken less seriously than those involving graphically portrayed violence, and (3) that the sadistic victimization of women was a growing and disturbing trend in contemporary crime fiction. A survey of mystery reviews in the New York Times for the year of 1985 revealed that while 40% of the mystery novels published that year were authored by women, they received only 16% of the reviews in the Times. This imbalance was pointed out to the Times. In 1989 reviews there more accurately reflected gender percentages. SinC is now analyzing reviews in other major publications. (Figures for 1989 are available on request.) The issue of violence toward women is a far more difficult one to address since it raises the specter of censorship. In order to better understand this complex issue, SinC is cooperating with the University of New Hampshire's nationally respected Family Research Laboratory on a study of violence against women in crime fiction. Contact Sisters in Crime at PO Box 9563, Berkeley, CA 94709. Carolyn G. Hart, currently vice president of Sisters in Crime, has compiled a Books-In-Print list of the members of the group. This list is available on the RFP home BBS (The Baudline II, 301-694-7108) for downloading any time (file name RFP-SC.ZIP). ************************ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* * * * FRIGHTFUL FICTION * * * *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Editor: Annie Wilkes --------------------------------------------------------------------- Frightful Fiction is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Catalogs, news releases, review copies, or donated reviews should be sent to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. --------------------------------------------------------------------- STUNTS by Charles L. Grant (1990, Tor) review by Cindy Bartorillo It's 2 AM in a smallish New England town. It's autumn and the first chill of winter has your hands thrust in the pockets of your coat. You're alone, at least you hope you are, and the wind is whistling around the corners of houses and blowing dead leaves down the middle of the street. There's a streetlamp, but it's all the way down at the end of the block, much too far away to do you any good. Know where you are? You're in Charles Grant country, made famous with a string of books like THE HOUR OF THE OXRUN DEAD, THE PET, IN A DARK DREAM, FOR FEAR OF THE NIGHT. In case you're new in town, Charles Grant is considered by many to be the very best practitioner of what has come to be called "quiet" horror. STUNTS would make a superb introduction to Grant-style horror, with a very good chance of sending you to the used-book store looking for more. STUNTS begins in England, with our central character Evan Kendal, a teacher from Port Richmond, New Jersey, now doing freelance lecture work in England. We don't find out why Evan left Port Richmond for many pages, by which time he's returned home. It all starts when his best friend, Englishman Paul Burwin, disappears. Paul's wife Addie, a doctor, suspects that her husband is very ill and is avoiding her, and Evan and Addie provide emotional support for each other as they wait for Paul to return. He finally does, during a nasty road accident while Addie is busy attending to the wounded. Evan is the only one who sees the sickly-looking Paul, and Paul tells him to come to London for a meeting, and not to tell Addie. All Paul will say by way of explanation is "Remember New York". Mr. Grant has a talent for the chilling phrase, which he sets up and pulls off like a well-told joke. That "Remember New York" resonates with the reader for several chapters, replaced in London by the even more horrible, "I wasn't alone." Before we've resolved Paul's trouble, Evan and Addie have gone to New Jersey and have found more trouble there. Evan's uncle, John Naze, has also disappeared, and many personal plotlines locally are all coming to a head. The high school's hated principal has forbidden the traditional Halloween pranks, called stunts, so of course various groups of kids are planning something extra-special in defiance. The reader can sense that this is not the time for tempting fate, that powerful forces are about that have no tolerance for foolishness. The suspense is palpable. Have you ever seen one of those movies where something horrid happens immediately, only to have the camera pull back and reveal that it was only in a movie that the characters were watching? STUNTS is exact opposite. Charles Grant distracts us with a puppet show, fascinates us with vague supernatural mythology, enthralls us with concern for the characters as we turn pages wondering to what magical realm he's taking us---only to find, when the house lights go up and we're ready to get our hat and coat and go home, that we never left home at all. Which, of course, is what makes STUNTS one of the most terrifying stories published this year: the horror jumps off the page and sits in your living room refusing to leave. This is Charles Grant's best yet. ********************** HAUNTED HOUSES by Annie Wilkes Have you ever considered what you would do if you had a supernatural experience? What if you were in your house looking for the TV remote control, and suddenly, it pops up from behind the chair where it had fallen and flies through the air right into your hand across the room? What would you do? What would you think? Would you immediately doubt that you had seen it happen? Would you tell anyone? Would they, like so many characters in fiction, assume you were crazy? Would YOU assume you were crazy? Let's take a look at two stories about people in confrontation with the supernatural. Both were written by masters, and both were made into movies (one classic, one at least above average). Both tales illustrate the difficulty of dealing successfully with the unknown when you insist upon forcing your own preconceived interpretations on everything that happens. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson (1959) "It was Shirley Jackson's achievement to write THE great modern novel of supernatural horror. ... This book is a work of art. And it is still one of the scariest stories I've ever read." --Lisa Tuttle (HORROR: 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman, 1988) "Shirley Jackson's HILL HOUSE is as nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read..." --Anne Rivers Siddons (author of THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, another fantastic haunted house story) "By common consent, the single best contemporary ghostly novel is Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE." --Keith Neilson (HORROR LITERATURE edited by Neil Barron, 1990) Dr. Montague has rented Hill House in order to investigate the supernatural phenomena that are supposedly what has kept anyone from living there for many years. Two women will be joining him, both chosen for their association with the paranormal: Eleanor Vance was involved in an episode of possible telekinesis as a child (it rained stones), and Theodora has scored high in formal ESP testing. Filling out the party is Luke, future heir of Hill House, ostensibly there to keep an eye on his inheritance, but also encouraged by his family in order to keep him out of trouble for a brief time. We begin the story almost immediately with Eleanor, and it is through Eleanor's eyes that we will see and experience most of Hill House. She has led a sheltered, repressed life of virtual slavery to her mother and sister, and she sees this trip to Hill House as an escape from an intolerable existence. Her extensive fantasies on the way to Hill House alert us that Eleanor has lived most of her life in her head, and we will see her having difficulty throughout the story in separating what she imagines from what she sees happening around her. The moment when Eleanor meets Hill House is powerful and her litany of "journeys end with lovers meeting" foreshadows future events. The bulk of the story revolves around the disintegration of Eleanor's personality, and her inability to make meaningful contact with the others around her. By the end of the story Eleanor has decided where she really belongs, and one senses that the other characters will live out their lives unchanged, soon forgetting both Eleanor and Hill House. So was Eleanor the target of Hill House's insanity, or the source? (We must remember that she might have caused the shower of stones as a child.) One can't help but think that wherever the truth lies, Eleanor and Hill House were a perfect match. "And suddenly we understand that whatever Hill House is up to, its only victim is a volunteer." --Leonard Wolf (HORROR: A Connoisseur's Guide to Literature and Film, 1989) Shirley Jackson's novel, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, is certainly one of the classics of horror literature. In a sense, instead of putting the horrors on the page, she puts them in the reader's mind, allowing the reader to experience Hill House in his or her own way, shoulder-to-shoulder with Eleanor. In the final analysis, we find that Jackson has used the supernatural as a tool of characterization, allowing the human vs. inhuman confrontations to illuminate the personalities gathered at Hill House. Highly recommended. "The writing style, with its stark lines and queer angles, is the verbal equivalent of Hill House, making the house come intensely alive in a way that few settings do." --Jack Sullivan (THE PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL, 1986) "The ending sounds Jackson's characteristic note of ambiguity: we never know for sure how many spectral occurrences Eleanor really sees, but her deteriorating psyche is so insidiously welded to the novel's supernatural scenes that the question of her 'madness' becomes chillingly irrelevant. ... Yes, Eleanor's lonely life has been a psychological process of 'waiting for something like Hill House,' but Hill House is clearly waiting for her too." --Jack Sullivan (THE PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HORROR & THE SUPERNATURAL, 1986) The movie adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel is called simply THE HAUNTING, and is without doubt one of the classic supernatural films. Watching it always reminds me of why I was drawn to horror stories in the beginning: for the spine-tingling excitement of confronting the unknown and, just maybe, conquering fear long enough to reach an expanded understanding of reality. Here's what some other people have to say about this movie: "Although the camera could not capture all the interior undertones of Shirley Jackson's novel, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Wise nevertheless managed to conjure up one of the most effective haunted-house atmospheres in screen history, most effective when one of the heroines realizes the hand she has been holding in the dark does not belong to anybody." --Les Daniels (LIVING IN FEAR, 1975) "In a very real way, in spite of fine acting, fine direction, and the marvelous black and white photography of David Boulton, what we have in the Wise film is one of the world's few radio horror movies. Something is scratching at that ornate, paneled door, something horrible...but it is a door Wise elects never to open." --Stephen King (DANSE MACABRE, 1981) "Many of the novel's subtleties are beyond the camera's scope, but Wise offers some compensatory visuals, including a pounding door that bulges grotesquely inward. A frisson of Freudianism is provided by roommates Claire Bloom and Julie Harris, respectively a lesbian and a repressed virgin, who are tuned into each other's thoughts." --Gene Wright (HORRORSHOWS, 1986) And, finally, here's my favorite line from the film, the line that encapsulates the whole story for me. Eleanor has arrived at Hill House before the others and is trying to unpack in her room. The creepy housekeeper, who always leaves before dark, is giving Eleanor her Hill House indoctrination: "No one lives any closer than town; no one will come any closer than that. So no one will hear you if you scream. In the night. In the dark." HELL HOUSE by Richard Matheson (1971) HELL HOUSE is an obvious updating of Shirley Jackson's novel. This time out we have a much more scientific team of supernatural professionals who prepare to meet the Other Side with the best that Spiritualism and technology have to offer. In place of Doctor Montague, we have Doctor Barrett. Instead of Eleanor and Theo, with their tenuous associations with the occult, we have Florence Tanner, the finest mental medium, and Ben Fischer, possibly the greatest physical medium of our day. The fourth is made up by Barrett's wife, Edith. Barrett, Florence, and Ben have been retained by millionaire Rolf Rudolph Deutsch to either prove or disprove the theory of life after death. They will each be paid $100,000, but they are given only a week in which to investigate. A world-class haunted house has been provided for their use--the infamous Belasco House. Emeric Belasco was a sadistic murderer and Satanist, and the plumbing of the abyssal depths of his personality forms the core of HELL HOUSE. But Matheson has other topics to address here as well, such as the rarity of true objectivity, even among scientists. The hypocrisy of Doctor Barrett's "research" is made plain when he admits, "I've learned everything I wish to learn", the motto of every closed mind. Shortly thereafter he is finally forced to admit that the evidence he has demanded will not change his mind at all, nothing will, ever. We discover that Barrett's "knowledge" is no more scientific than that of the Spiritualist. While HELL HOUSE is, like THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, a truly frightening novel, it is also reflects changing attitudes toward the supernatural, and toward supernatural fiction. HELL HOUSE is a much colder book, and considerably less sympathetic to its characters. The motivations have changed, as well. No longer do we have amateurs doing research for the love of it, or for excitement. No, now we have professionals doing a job for a great deal of money. Also, people often take a backseat to machines, typical of this period of the beginning of our love affair with technology. People have had thousands of years to figure out the supernatural--it's now time to let the machines answer our questions. But, of course, machines ask mechanical questions and get mechanical answers, quite unsatisfactory for human beings. Matheson illustrates this with the clash between Florence and Doctor Barrett: she is concerned about Belasco, while Barrett keeps blathering on about electromagnetic somethingorother. Science is tested and found wanting. As you might expect, considering that Matheson also did the screenplay, the film version is remarkably faithful to the book. Names are changed for some reason, and the plot is necessarily simplified, but the major scenes are all there, and the cast does a good job of giving the characters life (without making them one whit more sympathetic). In a comparison between the two stories, I find that Shirley Jackson's story is more truly frightening in both versions than Matheson's. For one thing, we are in the position of sharing the fear of the characters at HILL HOUSE, whereas the HELL HOUSE gang aren't so much scared as they are ill-natured. At one point in the movie HELL HOUSE, Florence is subjected to some ghostly manifestations in her bedroom. When she responds only with anger, it turns the scene into comedy rather than chills. Another slight dulling effect of the second story is the insistence on explanations. In HILL HOUSE the bizarre is marveled over and taken at face value, while in HELL HOUSE the effects are treated as daily occurrences and are passed off with a handful of jargon. The reader/viewer is allowed to see that the explanations aren't satisfactory, but the humdrum attitude of the characters is off-putting. Both books are classics, and both movies are at least very good, but I call HILL HOUSE a clear winner in book and movie. What do you think? [About THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE] "The film is entertaining, sometimes conceptually daring, but its cool, scientific detective story mitigates against irrational fear." --Kim Newman (NIGHTMARE MOVIES) THE HAUNTING (1963) Director/Producer: Robert Wise Screenplay: Nelson Gidding Photographer: David Boulton (Panavision) Special Effects: Tom Howard Art Director: Elliott Scott Music: Humphrey Searle Eleanor: Julie Harris Theodora: Claire Bloom Dr. Markway: Richard Johnson Luke: Russ Tamblyn also: Rosalie Crutchley, Lois Maxwell, Fay Compton, Valentine Dyall THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) Director: John Hough Screenplay: Richard Matheson, based on his novel HELL HOUSE Photography: Alan Hume Special Effects: Roy Whybrow Music: Brian Hodgson, Delia Derbyshire Florence Tanner: Pamela Franklin Ben Fischer: Roddy McDowall Dr. Lionel Barrett: Clive Revill Mrs. Barrett: Gayle Hunnicutt A Few Haunted Houses THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne THE CASTLE OF EHRENSTEIN (1847) by G.P.R. James THE HAUNTERS AND THE HAUNTED; or THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN (1859) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton THE UNINHABITED HOUSE (1875) by Mrs. J.H. Riddell THE GHOST OF GUIR HOUSE (1897) by Charles Willing Beale BASIL NETHERBY (1926) by A.C. Benson THE HOUSE (1926) by Richmal Crompton UNEASY FREEHOLD (1941) by Peter Davies (filmed under the U.S. title, THE UNINVITED) A PLACE OF ONE'S OWN (1941) by Osbert Sitwell WITCH HOUSE (1945) by Evangeline Walton DEW AND MILDEW (1916) by P.C. Wren COLD HARBOUR (1924) by Francis Brett Young LETTERS FROM THE DEAD (1985) by Campbell Black THE WELL (1980) by Jack Cady THE MANSE (1987) by Lisa Cantrell THE KING'S GHOST (1985) by R. Chetwynd-Hayes (U.S. title, THE GRANGE) HOBGOBLIN (1981) by John Coyne GOLGOTHA FALLS: An Assault on the Fourth Dimension (1984) by Frank DeFelitta THE BROWNSTONE (1980) by Ken Eulo WILDWOOD (1987) by John Farris THE MAGIC COTTAGE (1986) by James Herbert THE WOMAN IN BLACK (1983) by Susan Hill THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (1959) by Shirley Jackson THE SHINING (1977) by Stephen King THE SENTINEL (1974) by Jeffrey Konvitz THE CELLAR (1980) by Richard Laymon BURNT OFFERINGS (1973) by Robert Marasco HELL HOUSE (1971) by Richard Matheson USHER'S PASSING (1984) by Robert R. McCammon MAYNARD'S HOUSE (1980) by Herman Raucher THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR (1978) by Anne Rivers Siddons SOULSTORM (1986) by Chet Williamson THE KEEP (1981) by F. Paul Wilson FAMILIAR SPIRIT (1983) by Lisa Tuttle Two of the above titles that I would particularly recommend are Jack Cady's THE WELL and Anne Rivers Siddons' THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR. ********************** NIGHTMARE NEWS * Has anyone seen Dark Harvest's NIGHT VISIONS 8? This annual volume should have been out by now, and I haven't even gotten the announcement that they're taking orders yet. It's supposed to have new fiction by John Farris, Joe R. Lansdale, and Stephen Gallagher, with an introduction by Robert R. McCammon. While we're wondering where NIGHT VISIONS 8 is, how about Dark Harvest's Dan Simmons collection, PRAYERS TO BROKEN STONES? Let's all send letters and telegrams to Dark Harvest and drive them nuts. [Late breaking news: I just got the announcement for the Dan Simmons book: $21.95 for the trade edition, $55 for the limited edition, $1 for insured delivery. Dark Harvest, PO Box 941, Arlington Heights, IL 60006.] * If you're a Stephen King completist, you'd better buy Santana's new album, SPIRITS IN THE FLESH, because King does some narration on it. He doesn't make things easy for you, does he? * Watch out for: DARK CHANNEL by Ray Garton; IMAJICA by Clive Barker; COLD BLOOD edited by Richard T. Chizmar (with stories by Richard Matheson, Richard C. Matheson, Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, and with an intro by Douglas Winter); COLD SHOCKS edited by Tim Sullivan (with stories by Ed Bryant, Graham Masterton, and Gary Brandner, among others); THE SHAPE UNDER THE SHEET: The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia by Stephen Spignesi (contact The Overlook Connection, PO Box 526, Woodstock, GA 30188); HOME by Matthew J. Costello, a psychological horror novel. * I hear that Tim Powers (THE STRESS OF HER REGARD) is now working on LAST CALL, a contemporary occult novel set in Las Vegas. * LIGHTS OUT!, the Robert R. McCammon Newsletter, has moved yet again. The new address is: Hunter Goatley, Editor LIGHTS OUT! PO Box 9609 Bowling Green, KY 42102-9609 * I don't know about you, but one of my favorite horror authors is David J. Schow. His first novel was THE KILL RIFF, and he's had two paperbacks full of short stories published: SEEING RED (Tor) and LOST ANGELS (NAL). You can catch more short stories in BLOOD IS NOT ENOUGH II (edited by Ellen Datlow) and PSYCHO PATHS (edited by Robert Bloch, a Tor hardcover for March 1991). His latest novel, THE SHAFT, should be available (in hardcover) in England by the time you read this. I haven't heard anything about an American edition yet. * Remember last issue, I mentioned that Richard Christian Matheson's first novel, CREATED BY, is on its way? Well, I did. And now I've got good news and bad news. The good news is the plot of CREATED BY. It's about Alan Jason, a writer who's created an exciting and controversial TV show, which happens to contain TV's most terrifying character. The horror starts when his creation goes out of control and fantasy turns into reality. Bantam, who will be publishing CREATED BY as a mass-market paperback original, is very excited about it (and we've heard that Clive Barker has given them a killer quote for the cover). OK, now for the bad news: Bantam won't be releasing it until "early 1992". What are we supposed to do until then? * KEEPING UP WITH ANDREW NEIDERMAN: His horror novel, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, is in the development stage of being made into a movie. Latest information has Larry Cohen (CARRIE, GHOST STORY, and the TV-miniseries IT) writing the screenplay. Another Neiderman book, ILLUSION (a romance/suspense novel) has been optioned by Martin Sheen's Symphony Productions for a movie of the week. Yet another Neiderman novel, SIGHT UNSEEN, is being filmed in Canada by Victor (SCANNERS) Solnecke. Look out, in 1991 I hope, for his new hardcover novel, THE NEED. It's an erotic Jekyll-Hyde story involving a female-male metamorphosis. * I hear Michael McDowell is doing a screenplay of THINNER by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King). * The latest novel by John Skipp & Craig Spector, THE BRIDGE, is supposed to be released "late this year". That's as specific as I can get so far. * I just heard that Tor is dropping their horror line as of January 1991. After I breathed in a bag for a few minutes and the dizziness went away, I heard the rest of the story: The books won't really change, they will just be marketed as General Fiction instead of Horror. Thank goodness. I don't care if they market them as cookbooks as long as they keep publishing them. Most bookstores don't have a Horror Section anyway. * Coming soon (well, sort of) from Peter Straub: THE THROAT, a novel about trauma and violence, the last of the "Blue Rose" trilogy. ********************** THE STEPHEN KING QUIZ BOOK by Stephen Spignesi (1990, Signet) There are 107 different quizzes (not questions, you understand, 107 whole quizzes). Instead of trying to describe what they're like, here's a random sample of questions culled from all over the book. The answers are somewhere else in this issue of Frightful Fiction. 1. True or False: Jim Gardener was the first person to find the spaceship in the earth. 2. Who designed the dam in the Barrens? a. Richie Tozier b. Bill Denbrough c. Ben Hanscom 3. Who was "Arnie's first love...his only true love"? 4. What was the name of Carrie's high school? 5. What was the name of the writer who returned to Jerusalem's Lot to do a book about the Marsten House? 6. Who was the King of Delain? 7. What was the name of the woods behind Louis Creed's house? 8. What was the name of the killer flu? 9. What was the name of Thad Beaumont's "dark half"? 10. What was the name of the maniacal Presidential candidate who Johnny tried to kill in order to stop him from destroying the world? ********************** HAUNTS Tales of Unexpected Horror and the Supernatural Summer 1990 Editor: Joseph K. Cherkes review by Peter Quint Another great issue of this fiction magazine, and the look of the type has improved too. As usual, there are plenty of great stories, and on your trip through this issue you'll find: a war story, the spirit of an Egyptian prince, the Antichrist, ancient curses, a modern Burke & Hare, an old-fashioned European vampire, a touching story about early-American witchcraft, a new use for subliminal tapes, revenge--Scottish style, a M*A*S*H rerun that turns out to be VERY different from the original, and more, along with poetry in a wide variety of styles. A something-for-everyone approach that works very well. Cherkes does a fine job of walking the tightrope between the self-consciously "literary" and the boring and predictable. Send $3.50 (plus $1.25 postage/handling) for one issue, $13 (postage paid) for a subscription of 4 issues to: Nightshade Publications, PO Box 3342, Providence, RI 02906-0742. ********************** INIQUITIES The Magazine of Great Wickedness and Wonder Autumn 1990 (Premiere Issue) Editors: Buddy Martinez, Bill Furtado, J.F. Gonzalez review by Peter Quint This magazine couldn't have come along at a better time, at least as far as I'm concerned. Over the last year or so we've lost three of the best horror periodicals: Twilight Zone, The Horror Show, and Horrorstruck. I was afraid that all the big money had been scared out of the horror magazine market. But now we've got INIQUITIES, and may they have a very long life, 'cause this is one great magazine. First off, the thing is beautiful--110 of the slickest, heaviest pages I've ever seen. With a $4.95 price tag, I don't know how they manage to pay the bills--just mailing this sucker must cost major bucks. But that's their problem; all we have to do is pay up and enjoy. The philosophy behind INIQUITIES is to provide a true cross-section of the horror field, mixing all the varieties they can find (loud, quiet, contemporary, surreal). You can see what they're getting at with the fiction in the very first issue; the stories cover a lot of ground and the quality is uniformly high. The biggest of the big-name offerings is Clive Barker's "The Yattering and Jack", a humorous story from the first of the Books of Blood, which is presented along with some original artwork by Clive Barker specifically for this occasion. The only other reprint is "Witch War" by Richard Matheson, the first of a regular department called Resurrections, where they will pull classic short stories back from the brink of obscurity. Of the new fiction, my favorite is the novella "Pitt Night at the Lewistone Boneyard" by David J. Schow, both touching and funny, kind of a cross between Night of the Living Dead and Our Town. David Schow hasn't done anything yet that I haven't enjoyed. There's also a great gothic piece by Chet Williamson ("His Two Wives"), who shows greater versatility every time he tells a story. On the louder side there's "Midnight Glider" by Tim Sullivan, "Apostate In Denim" by Roberta Lannes, and "Reward And Punishment, Ha Ha" by John Shirley; polished, well-told stories that may, however, be a bit extreme for some tastes. But then that's what loud horror is all about--pushing edges. Feature articles include an essay by Lisa M. Feerick about what Splatterpunk is REALLY all about, no matter what the lunkheads will tell you. There's also an interview with John Skipp, which was a delight from start to finish. I was going to include a few quotes here, but then I figured they wouldn't play quite as well out of context, so you'll just have to get INIQUITIES and see for yourself. I thought the Skipp interview was worth the $4.95 all by itself. And we'll hear the other shoe drop in the next issue, when the interview will be with Craig Spector. In the regular departments, INIQUITIES also scores high. For their book review section they got the very best: Ed Bryant. His commentary is always engaging and illuminating. They have two pages of news, movie commentary by Bill Warren, a humor section that defies description, and S.P. Somtow has resurrected his "A Certain Slant of 'I'" column from the old Fantasy Review magazine (another great departed genre magazine). Send $19.95 right away to: Iniquities, 167 N. Sierra Bonita Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106; and be sure to tell them to start your four quarterly issues with #1 so you don't miss something wonderful. ********************** MINE by Robert R. McCammon (Pocket Books, 1990) review by Cindy Bartorillo "You know," he said quietly, "I wonder about some of those people from the sixties. You know the ones I mean: they hated everything and everybody, and they wanted to break the world apart and start it all over again in their image. They fed on hate, day and night. They breathed it, in their attics and cellars, while they burned their incense and candles. I wonder what they did with that hate when the candles went out." ---from MINE Robert R. McCammon's latest novel, MINE, got me to thinking about his books, specifically as they compare to the other horror author he's usually compared to: Stephen King. One of the serious criticisms that have been leveled at King over the years has been his lack of facility with female characters--he's obviously much more comfortable writing about men or boys. Reading MINE finally forced me to realize how well, and how often, McCammon creates strong female characters. MINE is a story of two women; the male characters are just a bit of filler and window dressing. Whenever anything really important is going to happen, the men are shoved aside and the women take action. McCammon might be our very first feminist horror writer, which might also have something to do with why he's one of my favorites. In any case, MINE is about a political radical of the 1960s, now a complete psychotic, who has this particular problem with babies. She buys babydolls at the toy store and they become real to her. She treats them just like a real baby, until her psychological tension explodes and she "kills" the doll. We find out early in the story that she has a whole closet full of these dead "babies". The other lead character is also a former radical of the 1960s, but one who has managed to integrate herself into the passing timeline. She is a full-scale yuppie now, with a workaholic executive-type husband who's having an affair, a nice house in the best of neighborhoods, and a good career going for herself. She is also pregnant. She just happens to give birth right before our psycho realizes how to get a real baby: disguise yourself as a nurse and steal one from the hospital. What follows is a chase story to end all chase stories as the two women travel towards the showdown. The trapped-in-time mentality of the psycho and the unresolved hippie-to-yuppie evolution of the mother provide depth to this page-turner of a suspense novel. Particularly recommended for all of you who left at least a small part of yourselves back in the 1960s. ********************** Answers to THE STEPHEN KING QUIZ BOOK Questions: 1. FALSE. It was Bobbi Anderson. 2. C. Ben Hanscom (IT) 3. Christine, a red 1958 Plymouth Fury. 4. Ewen High School 5. Ben Mears 6. Roland the Good. 7. The North Ludlow Woods 8. Captain Trips 9. George Stark 10. Greg Stillson ********************** HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa a H H THE LAUGH'S ON US a a H HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa Editor: Name Withheld By Request --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Laugh's On Us is a division of Reading For Pleasure, published bimonthly. This material is NOT COPYRIGHTED and may be used freely by all. Catalogs, news releases, review copies, or donated reviews should be sent to: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BIG BOOK OF NEW AMERICAN HUMOR The Best of the Past 25 Years edited by William Novak & Moshe Waldoks review by Cindy Bartorillo This is a huge trade paperback crammed full of some of the funniest material created by our funniest people over the last quarter century. And, unlike other humor collections, this is not just reprints of humorous essays, or chapters from amusing books. Novak & Waldoks have assembled material from magazines (even Mad magazine), TV scripts ("Chuckles Bites the Dust" from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), essays, quizzes, poetry, music, movie scripts (part of ANNIE HALL), and social commentary. They've provided transcripts of standup routines: George Carlin's "A Place For Your Stuff"; Steven Wright's loose weirdness; excerpts from Mel Brooks & Carl Reiner's "Two Thousand Year Old Man"; Emily Litella--aka Gilda Radner--'s "The Deaf Penalty"; Jerry Seinfeld's "No Pockets". All this is liberally sprinkled with cartoons, humorous quotes and many, many anonymous jokes. At $15.95, this is *definitely* the Best Buy in humor in a long time. A partial list of wits represented: Woody Allen, Russell Baker, Dave Barry, Sandra Bernhard, Bob & Ray, Billy Crystal, Delia Ephron, Nora Ephron, Jules Feiffer, Larry Gelbart, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, Cathy Guisewite, Rich Hall, Garrison Keillor, B. Kliban, Ann Landers (Ann Landers?!?), Gary Larson, Fran Lebowitz, Jackie Mason, Martin Mull, Philip Roth, Garry Trudeau, John Updike, Bill Watterson, (Really? Ann Landers?), Gahan Wilson. *********************** LOOSE TALK: Rumor has it that Garry Trudeau has been so impressed by the classy handling of Matt Groening's THE SIMPSONS on television that he may finally, finally allow his Doonesbury characters to come to TV. *********************** THE WISDOM OF CALVIN & HOBBES (as told to Bill Watterson): "That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse." "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want." "People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children." "What do you think is the meaning of true happiness? ... Is it money, cars and women? ... Or is it just money and cars?" *********************** BACK ISSUES ELECTRONIC EDITION: Check the BBSs in the Distribution Directory first. If what you want isn't available, you can get any (or all) issues directly from RFP. Disks you get from us will be formatted using PC/MS-DOS (for IBM clones). Specify 3-1/2" or 5-1/4" floppy, high or low density. Send $5 for one disk's worth (4 issues in low density, all issues in high density), and add $2.50 for each additional disk. PRINT EDITION: We have print copies of all issues except #1 and #2. Send $1.50 for each issue. Checks: Make checks payable to Cindy Bartorillo. Address: Reading For Pleasure, 103 Baughman's Lane, Suite 303, Frederick, MD 21702. On CompuServe leave a message to 74766,1206. On GEnie leave a message to C.BARTORILLO. Best of all, call our BBS, The Baudline II at 301-694-7108 (1200-9600 baud HST) where all RFPs are available for downloading on your first call. ISSUES AVAILABLE: #1: Premier issue: 1988 World Fantasy Awards; Books I'm Supposed to Like, But Don't; Pronunciation Guide to Author's Names; Christie Characters on Film; Featured Author: Richard Matheson; Baseball & Cricket Mysteries; Stephen King Checklist; Time Travel Books #2: Summer Reading Issue: Award Winners & Nominees; Beach Bag Books; Featured Author: Stanley Ellin; Splatterpunk; Murderous Vacations; The Psychology of Everyday Things; The Shining; SF Fan-Lingo; Pseudonyms #3: Books About Books Issue: Two-Bit Culture; Christopher Morley; 84 Charing Cross Road; Assorted References; Bibliomysteries; Deep Quarry; Featured Author: Harlan Ellison #4: Hollywood Issue: Recent Awards; About Hollywood; Silver Scream; Death of a Salesman; Joe Bob Briggs; The Hollywood Mystery; Featured Author: Fredric Brown; The Dark Fantastic; Darryl Kenning Reviews #5: Halloween Issue: Hugo Awards; Year's Best Horror Stories XVII; Tracy Kidder; Supernatural Mysteries; Thomas Harris; Falling Angel Heart; Ray Garton; New From Underwood-Miller; Featured Author: Robert R. McCammon; The Modern Halloween Shelf; Darryl Kenning Reviews; The Ultimate Stephen King Character Quiz #6: Computers & Robots Issue: 1989 World Fantasy Award Nominations; Donald M. Grant, Publisher; Cyberpunk & Neuromancer; Computer Books; Digital Delights; Nightmare On Elm Street, The Comic; Banned Books; Featured Author: Josephine Tey; Mystery Terminology; Darryl Kenning Reviews; Books On A Chip; New From Carroll & Graf; Computer Cowboy Reading; and the usual #7: Happy Holidays Issue: New From Carroll & Graf; Featured Author: Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol; Religious Reading; An Incomplete Education; Great Endings; New From Simon & Schuster; New From Underwood-Miller; Christmas Mysteries and Other Yuletide Reading; On Line With Steve Gerber; The Last Christmas Trivia Quiz; and the usual #8: True Crime Issue: New Age Books; Amazing Stories; True Crim in Paperback; Steve Gerber; Bluffers Guides; The Onion Field; Mysterious Press; Lizzie Borden; John E. Stith; Darryl Kenning; Bestselling Children's Books; Awards; Carroll & Graf; and more #9: Time Travel Issue: Bestsellers of the Christmas Season; Obscenity Ruling Reversed; The Turner Tomorrow Awards; Roc Books; Carroll & Graf; Meadowbrook; Time Passes For Baby Boomers; Darryl Kenning; Time Travel Reading List; Simon & Schuster; Featured Author: Jack Finney; Reviews; and all the usual #10: Earth Day Issue: Environmental Reading; Featured Author: Thomas Berger; reviews by Darryl Kenning, Robert A. Pittman, Fred L. Drake, Jr., Ollie McKagen; Book lists: The Civil War, India, The Middle Ages; Sharing The Wealth; My Favorite Books of 1989; and the usual. Supplemental Issue #1: Baseball Books of Spring 1990. Distributed along with #10. #11: Magazines: Special Coverage of Magazines; Featured Author: Dean R. Koontz; reviews by Darryl Kenning, Fred L. Drake, Jr., Cherie Jung; Rotten Rejections; Bram Stoker Awards Nominations; Recent Releases. #12: Featured Authors: George Alec Effinger and Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain), with bibliographies; reviews by Cherie Jung, Sue Feder, Robert A. Pittman. This is our first mini-mag issue, with separate sections devoted to Science Fiction, Mystery, Horror, and Humor. #13: Halloween 1990 Issue: Featured Author: Dan Simmons (including bibliography and interview); The Brains of Rats; SoftServ Books on Disk; Sand Castles: Step-by-Step; Self-University; Mysteries for Halloween; Loosen Your Grip on Reality (our SF&F section); and lots of news and reviews. #14: Holidays 1990 Issue: The one you're reading now. #15: Groundhog Day Issue: Available February 1, 1991 ********the**end********