If replete with rather fussy detail, the scenario’s unusually well developed and intricately plotted: a solidly engrossing...
Another in the authors’ series of gumshoe fantasies (Point of Hopes, 1995) set in a Renaissance world where both magic and astrology work. Winter approaches; it’s the time of the ghost-tide when ghosts become visible and crowd the streets of Astreiant. Newly promoted Adjunct Point (policeman) Nico Rathe receives a request to investigate a death. City lawyer Kurin Holles found his lover dead. Now the lover’s ghost has failed to appear: it’s been magically bound, therefore with a strong suspicion that the man was murdered. Rathe has great difficulty in persuading city officials to agree to an investigation. And when they finally, reluctantly, do, the investigator assigned is Voillemin, Rathe’s subordinate. Voillemin quickly demonstrates his intention of doing nothing whatsoever to progress the case. Meanwhile, ex-soldier Lieutenant Philip Eslingen finds a new situation teaching actors how to fight, duel, drill, etc., for the midwinter masque, The Alphabet of Desire. First, however, he must qualify by combat for membership in the Masters of the Guild of Defense. There are complications: another book, also called The Alphabet of Desire, contains spells that, alarmingly, may even work; plus, there will be fraudulent copies printed and sold. The two cases may be linked: Rathe’s dead man had in his possession a copy of the magic Alphabet. More murders swiftly follow.
If replete with rather fussy detail, the scenario’s unusually well developed and intricately plotted: a solidly engrossing entry in this tolerably persuasive series.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-86782-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Scientific fiction enclosed in a frame — wanderer meets a tattooed man whose images foretell the future, leaving a space to preview the destiny of the viewer. Here is an open circuit on ideas, which range from religion, to racial questions, to the atom bomb, rocket travel (of course), literature, escape to the past, dreams and hypnotism, children and their selfish and impersonal acceptance of immediate concepts, robots, etc. Note that here the emphasis is on fiction instead of science, and that the stories — in spite of space and futurities — have some validity, even if the derivations can be traced. Sample The Veldt, or This Man, or Fire Balloons, or The Last Night In the World for the really special qualities. A book which is not limited by its special field.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1950
ISBN: 0062079972
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1950
Here's the novel that, out of 2500 submissions, won the ecological-minded Turner Tomorrow Award—and caused a mutiny among the judges when it was awarded the $500,000 first prize. Is it that good—or bad? No, but it's certainly unusual, even eccentric, enough to place Quinn (the paperback Dreamer, 1988) on the cult literary map. What's most unusual is that this novel scarcely is one: beneath a thin narrative glaze, it's really a series of Socratic dialogues between man and ape, with the ape as Socrates. The nameless man, who narrates, answers a newspaper ad (``TEACHER seeks pupil...'') that takes him to a shabby office tenanted by a giant gorilla; lo! the ape begins to talk to him telepathically (Quinn's failure to explain this ability is typical of his approach: idea supersedes story). Over several days, the ape, Ishmael, as gruff as his Greek model, drags the man into a new understanding of humanity's place in the world. In a nutshell, Ishmael argues that humanity has evolved two ways of living: There are the ``Leavers,'' or hunter-gatherers (e.g., Bushmen), who live in harmony with the rest of life; and there are the ``Takers'' (our civilization), who arose with the agricultural revolution, aim to conquer the rest of life, and are destroying it in the process. Takers, Ishmael says, have woven a ``story'' to rationalize their conquest; central to this story is the idea that humanity is flawed—e.g., as told in the Bible. But not so, Ishmael proclaims; only the Taker way is flawed: Leavers offer a method for living well in the world. After Ishmael dies of pneumonia, his newly converted pupil can only ponder the ape's parting message: ``WITH GORILLA GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR MAN?'' A washout as a story, with zero emotional punch; but of substantial intellectual appeal as the extensive Q&A passages (despite their wild generalities and smug self-assurance) invariably challenge and provoke: both Socrates and King Kong might be pleased.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1992
ISBN: 0-553-07875-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1991
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