TALES OF THE QUINTANA ROO

Three short stories, 1981-82, which, in intensity and atmosphere, approach Tiptree's best. The setting is the Quintana Roe, the Gulf coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, ancient stronghold of the Mayan people. The exotic and eerie backdrop is powerfully evoked in tales about: an androgynous embodiment of the sea, emerging in the wreck of a storm to entrap an unwary traveler and conduct him to the realm of dead souls; a pure-blooded Mayan princeling With a talent for waterskiing, who falls through a time warp into the era when Tuluum, the greatest Mayan city, flourished; and an accumulation of imperishable garbage upon a coral reef assembles itself into a weird, huge, menancing, pseudoliving monster eager to consume unsuspecting divers. Excellent work--but three stories, even padded out with large type and illustrations, don't make a satisfying book.