April 2010

Science Fiction Book Review

 The Face

Warning: this book review contains huge spoilers.

The fourth of the Demon Princes book is my favorite. In The Face, Kirth Gersen hunts Lens Larque. Gersen first attempts to ferret him out by impounding one of his spaceships, the Ettilia Gargantyr. To do so, Gersen undertakes an enormous charade: he poses as Benchmaster Dalt, a newly appointed circuit judge. As the Benchmaster, Gersen demands that the owner of Ettilia Gargantyr appear in person to answer certain charges levied against the ship. Gersen expects that the value of the spaceship is large enough that Lens Larque will be forced to appear rather than risk losing it.

Lens Larque is not so foolish, however. In one of the jokes that Lens Larque is famous for, he blows up the Ettilia Gargantyr rather than answer the charges in court, and collects the full value of the insurance money--from a company owned by Gersen.

Having lost this lead, Gersen turns elsewhere. Using linguistic clues to the origin of the name Lens Larque, Gersen travels to the planet Dar Sai. The native Darsh people mine their world for black sand, a valuable kind of duodecimate* ore. The black sand trade is controlled by the Methlen, bankers from a nearby planet. Gersen learns that Lens Larque is Darsh, and that he is connected somehow to the Kotzash Mutual company. Kotzash is worthless; it is a failed attempt by the Darsh to wrest control of the duodecimate trade from the Methlen; Yet Lens Larque is buying up shares. Gersen decides to buy shares too, and eventually becomes majority owner of Kotzash.

Meanwhile, Gersen strikes up a romance with Jerdian Chanseth, the daughter of a Methlen banker. Through Jerdian he learns that Lens Larque once tried to buy the estate next to hers on Methlen; Jerdian's father Adario Chanseth ran him off, saying he didn't want to see Larque's "great Darsh face hanging over my garden wall." Using this lead, he tracks Lens Larque to the planet Methlen, where it turns out Kotzash Mutual has an office.

On Methlen, Gersen discovers that Kotzash Mutual is mining the moon Shanitra. There is nothing of value on Shanitra, so it is strange that Lens Larque is spending millions of SVU in a worthless endeavor. Gersen attempts to continue his relationship with Jerdian, but her father Adario Chanseth rebuffs him.

Gersen confronts Lens Larque and kills him with poison. Then Lens Larque's greatest jape is revealed: the tunnels on Shanitra have been rigged to explode. When they do, the surface of the moon Shanitra shatters. What is left is an image of Lens Larque's face. Gersen calls Chanseth and informs him that there is a "great Darsh face hanging over your garden wall."

* Duodecimate; a stable supermetal with an atomic number greater than 120. Duodecimates are valuable and rarely found in nature, but are relatively plentiful on Dar Sai.

Fantasy Book Review

 Little Wizard Stories of Oz

These six short stories are not the best that Baum has to offer, but they were mildly entertaining.

The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger
The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger realize that nobody fears them, so they resolve to commit some atrocities to regain their reputations. They set out to commit the deeds, but the Hungry Tiger's conscience prevents him from eating a fat baby and the Cowardly Lion cannot bring himself to tear a woman into pieces. The lion and tiger decide they are happy enough as they are.

Little Dorothy and Toto
Dorothy and Toto wander too far as they explore the land of Oz, and get kidnapped by the giant Crinklink. The giant forces Dorothy to wash a mountain of dishes. Toto unmasks the giant, who reveals himself as the Wizard of Oz. He pretended to be Crinklink in order to teach Dorothy a lesson about how dangerous it is to wander off by one's self in fairy country.

Tiktok and the Nome King
Tiktok approaches the Nome King to ask for replacement parts for his clockwork. The Nome King, in a foul mood, destroys Tiktok. The king's advisor Kaliko secretly puts Tiktok together again. Tiktok's reappearance frightens the Nome King, who takes him to be a ghost, and the king sends Tiktok back to Oz with replacement parts and lots of precious jewels.

Ozma and the Little Wizard
Princess Ozma deals with three bad imps--Olite, Udent, and Ertinent--who are harrassing the citizens of Oz.

Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse
Ozma sends Jack and the sawhorse to rescue two children who are lost in the woods. They find the children, but the Squirrel King has placed them under arrest for stealing nuts. Eventually they all escape, except for Jack's head, which gets smashed and must be replaced.

The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman
Nick Chopper and the Scarecrow go on a boat ride, and the woodman falls into the water and sinks. The Scarecrow attempts to rescue him with help from some mischievous jackdaws. The Wizard shows up to rescue them both from the jackdaws.

Fantasy Book Review

 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I was expecting an actual plot in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or at least a primary conflict. There is none. It's a series of disjointed adventures that make no sense whatsoever--it's Wonderland, not Realityworld.

Most of the book was dull to me. My favorite part was the Mock Turtle, because of all the word play and puns.

Science Fiction Story Review

 Poisoned Air

There's nothing to like about this old science fiction short story. A mysterious cloud of poison fog kills some soldiers at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Upon investigation, it turns out the poison gas is some kind of super-sized crystalline oxygen. When it contacts the lungs, the crystal breaks and the pure oxygen damages the lungs. Who can be behind it?

An evil Russian, of course. Who else? This Russian, Ivan Saranoff, has developed a microbe which creates the deadly oxygen crystals. We're not told who he is or why he is killing American soldiers with poison gas. But our hero, Dr. Bird, and his assistant the lovely Miss Andrews, foil Saranoff's plan and save the world. It's not a very good story.

Science Fiction Book Review

 The Palace of Love

In Jack Vance's Demon Princes series, Kirth Gersen tracks down and kills the galaxy's five most notorious and secretive criminals. The Palace of Love is the third book in the series. Kirth Gersen tracks down and kills Viole Falushe, the frustrated celibate demon prince whose famed Palace of Love is renowned throughout the galaxy.

Gersen is fantastically rich, due to having swindled Interchange out of 10 billion SVU in the previous book. So why does he haggle over a few hundred SVU in one chapter, then spend 1 million SVU on a party in the next? I can't help but wonder if Vance lost track of the plot. Or maybe it's the human inability to comprehend really large numbers: a few hundred SVU was an expensive proposition that Gersen could understand and rebel against. One million SVU is unimaginable, and once Gersen was resigned to throwing the party he ignored the cost because it literally was incomprehensible.

Science Fiction Book Review

 The Killing Machine

In Jack Vance's Demon Princes series, Kirth Gersen tracks down and kills the galaxy's five most notorious and secretive criminals. The Killing Machine is the second book in the series. Kirth Gersen tracks down and kills Kokor Hekkus, the demon prince obsessed with fantastic killing machines.