The Novels of Barbara Hambly
Ross TenEyck
Barbara Hambly is one of my favorite authors; I'll buy nearly any book
of hers on sight. From previous discussions on r.a.sf.w, I suspect
many people have her mentally classified as a "B-List" writer. Some
of her books are certainly in that category, but I think a lot of
hers are much better than that.
She excels at writing intelligent protagonists -- very few of her
plots depend on "and here the main character does something stupid."
This is a refreshing change from a whole lot of SF works where wide-
eyed, innocent -- read "idiotic" -- naifs continually wander into
dark basements, withold vital information from their companions for
no apparent reason, or activate ancient powerful magic just to see
what will happen. Hambly's characters usually have their hands
full dealing with real threats, without having to generate any
themselves.
THE DARWATH "TRILOGY"
The Time of the Dark
The Walls of Air
The Armies of Daylight
The original trilogy. Two people from our earth, Gil and Rudy,
are pulled into a world where magic works, where the "Dark" has
arisen from a centuries-long sleep to attack the people. Gil
becomes a warrior and Rudy becomes a wizard.
There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
executed pretty well. Hambly has a martial arts background, and
it shows in her depiction of Gil's warrior training. Hambly also
has an academic Medieval History background, which shows both in
Gil's approach to figuring out where the Dark come from and what
they want, and in the general grittiness of her fantasy world.
One of the other major characters, aside from Gil and Rudy, is
the wizard Ingold Inglorion. He's cool. In fact, he's a bit
*too* cool -- he's both the greatest wizard, and the greatest
swordsman, currently alive; as well as being smart, sensitive,
wise, and just a little endearingly crotchety. I suspect that
Hambly just got a bit carried away with Ingold; Antryg Windrose,
in the Windrose Chronicles (below), strikes me as a better take
on the same general character.
All in all, solid B+ fantasy.
Mother of Winter
Icefalcon's Quest
After several years, Hambly returned to the world of the Darwath
books with these two. They're not bad, but she would probably
have been better off writing books in new settings; to me, these
sequels feel a bit like self-indulgence on her part.
Mother of Winter involves some nasty that's going to end the
world, or some such. Icefalcon's Quest concentrates on a minor
character from the previous books -- Icefalcon, of course --
who is another too-cool-for-school character. Neither book has
left much of an impression on me.
SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
The Ladies of Mandrigyn
The Witches of Wenshar
The Dark Hand of Magic
Sun Wolf is the captain of a mercenary band, and quite good at
his job -- his usual employers are any of several city-states
or merchant barons; Sun Wolf regards them all with cheerful
impartiality as sources of income. Star Hawk is his right-
hand woman. Sun Wolf is approached by a representative of the
survivors of the city of Mandrigyn, which has been conquered
by the local evil badass wizard. He turns them down, since
fighting wizards is bad news. They kidnap him, and force him
to train the women of the city -- all the men have been killed
or hauled off to the mines -- as soldiers, so they can rescue
their menfolk and oust the evil badass wizard. In the course
of doing this, Sun Wolf discovers that he himself is a wizard.
The problem with being a wizard is that the evil badass wizard
from the first book killed all the other wizards he could find;
and since he himself got offed, there's no one left to teach
Sun Wolf how to wield magic without inadvertantly turning himself
into a toad. The second and third books follow Sun Wolf and Star
Hawk as they desparately search for books or wizards who can teach
him how to handle his magic. Unfortunately, they tend to get
kicked out of wherever they're staying at the end of each book.
There is also an ongoing theme, especially in the first book, of
both Sun Wolf and Star Hawk coming to the realization that perhaps
the wholesale slaughter of townspeople isn't just good clean fun
after all.
I like this series quite a lot, although the third book less so.
Both Sun Wolf and Star Hawk are great characters, and the magic
in the books, well, *feels* right -- it's subtle and mysterious
and powerful, but there is an underlying rational basis to it.
WINTERLANDS
Dragonsbane
Jenny, a half-trained and indifferently-gifted wizard, has shacked
up with John, the ruler (theoretically under a distant king) of a
poor and struggling province in the cold north. John is summoned
to the capital, because a dragon has appeared there, and John is
the only living Dragonsbase -- a person who has successfully killed
a dragon.
This is one of my favorite of Hambly's books -- all the characters
are wonderful: John, who is a combination of level-headed fighting
man and absent-minded scholar and tinkerer; Jenny, who is torn
between her love for John and their children, and her love for
magic; Morkeleb the Black, the dragon John has come to fight.
There are several passages where John comments on the idiocy of
the traditional ballads about dragon-killing -- knights who ride
up to the dragon's lair, challenge it to single combat, and then
charge straight at it. John goes about killing dragons the smart
way -- not at all if he can help it, and when he has to, with
poison and by surprise.
Dragonshadow
Knight of the Demon Queen
Dragonstar (forthcoming, June 2002)
This is a trilogy continuing the story of John, Jenny, and Morkeleb
(Dragonsbane was a stand-alone novel.) Be warned: Hambly was
apparently working through some personal issues here. John and
Jenny do NOT have a good time, at least in the first two books of
this trilogy; and the second book ends with a very grim cliffhanger.
On the other hand, Hambly's web site claims that she was feeling
much better when she wrote Dragonstar, so it may be that things
look up for everyone.
If you loved Dragonsbane, I would approach this trilogy with caution;
and I certainly wouldn't begin it until Dragonstar comes out.
THE WINDROSE CHRONICLES
The Silent Tower
The Silicon Mage
Another people-from-our-Earth-in-a-fantasy-world series. There are
several similarities to the Darwath books: magic works by pretty
much the same rules, the Church frowns on wizardry, and -- as
mentioned above -- the main mage character, Antryg Windrose, is
basically a toned-down Ingold. The world, however, is roughly at
the Industrial Revolution analog, instead of the medieval analog
of Darwath; and the authorial execution is generally superior
throughout.
Which is kind of unfortunate, since I didn't care for these nearly
as much. Partly this is because the main character from our world,
Joanna, is a computer programmer; and Hambly gets enough of the
computer technology wrong to set my teeth on edge. (For example,
she seems to think that the process of duplicating someone's
personality in computer code is a large and tedious, but fairly
straightforward, project.)
Dog Wizard
A sequel to the first duology. I remember very little about it.
Stranger at the Wedding
Set in the same universe as the first three; but the main character
here is a very minor character from the earlier books, and Joanna
and Antryg don't appear at all. Kyra, a wizard who was disowned by
her merchant family for studying wizardry, returns home unexpectedly
for her sister Alix's wedding. Kyra has had visions that Alix will
die if she gets married, so she sets out to forestall the wedding by
any means necessary while trying to figure out who has it in for her
sister.
This book is very different in tone from the previous ones; think of
it as Georgette Heyer with magic. I liked it much more than any of
the others in this series. It is -- for the most part -- more
lighthearted, and just more *fun,* than the others.
Another interesting aspect to this book is that, after seeing the
havoc that magic, even well-intentioned magic, can wreak upon those
without defenses against it, one begins to wonder if perhaps the Church
in this world isn't right after all about being so down on wizards and
wizardry in general. Hambly's magic generally involves a lot of what
amounts to subtle mind control; and this book shows how easily that
can be abused.
SUN-CROSS
The Rainbow Abyss
The Magicians of Night
Something of a reverse here; in this duology, it's the wizard from
a fantasy world that ends up on Earth. Unfortunately, he appears in
Nazi Germany, where some of Hitler's goons are carrying out research
in magic. Magic, it turns out, works very poorly here, because there
is much less power lying about; but it can be done, and with the help
of Rhion -- the wizard -- the Nazis begin to figure out how to do it.
Meanwhile, Rhion has gradually become clued in as to the real nature
of the Nazi regime, and is trying to figure out how to escape and get
the hell home. Throw in some Allied secret agents, who are persistently
and annoyingly skeptical about magic they see being performed right
under their noses, and hijinks ensue.
Not one of Hambly's better efforts; I found these kind of a slog to
get through.
JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
Those who Hunt the Night
Traveling with the Dead
Victorian British secret agent James Asher is "hired" by the vampire
Don Simon Ysidro to find out who or what is killing the vampires of
London -- the price being the life of James' physician wife, Lydia.
James and Lydia are forced to simultaneously attempt to solve the
mystery of the murders and protect themselves both from the vampires
and from their killer. The sequel is basically more of the same.
I liked these quite a lot. The influences of Anne Rice are visible
on Hambly's vampires, but she handles them without nearly as much
florid eroticism as Rice uses. James is, above all, that rarity of
rarities, an intelligent protagonist; in a refreshing change of pace
from typical novels like these, he doesn't even consider trying to
hide the situation from his wife.
BENJAMIN JANUARY
A Free Man of Color
Fever Season
Graveyard Dust
Sold Down the River
Die Upon a Kiss
Wet Grave
Dead Water
Benjamin January is a "free man of color" in 1830's New Orleans.
These are straight-up mystery novels, without -- so far as I know --
fantastic elements.
I haven't read these; largely because Anne Rice put me off New
Orleans in a serious way -- which is hardly fair to Hambly, but
there it is. I'm sure Rice intended New Orleans to sound all
hot-house steamily romantic, but it sounds muggy and bug-infested
to me.
STANDALONE NOVELS
Search the Seven Hills/The Quirinal Hill Affair
A mystery set in Rome in 116 A.D. Haven't read it.
Bride of the Rat God
This is my favorite Hambly book yet. Christine, a 1920's Hollywood
silent film star, is inadvertantly marked as a sacrifice for a
Manchurian demon-god when she wears an ancient Chinese necklace.
Her widowed sister-in-law Norah, the generally useful cameraman
Alec, and an elderly and disillusioned Chinese wizard known as the
Shining Crane, must figure out how to defeat the Rat God before he
comes to claim Christine.
That description, and the title, make it sound pulpy -- and it is,
in a very, very good way. The characters are delightful, and Hambly
deftly captures the frenetic pace of Prohibition-era Hollywood.
The inspiration for this book apparently came about when someone
challenged Hambly to make good on her frequently muttered threats
to write a book about her Pekinese.
MEDIA TIE-INS
(Star Wars)
Children of the Jedi
Planet of Twilight
(Star Trek)
Ishmael
Ghost-Walker
Crossroad
(Beauty and the Beast) [i.e, the TV show with Linda Hamilton]
Beauty and the Beast
Song of Orpheus
I haven't read any of these except Children of the Jedi, which
struck me as passable.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Endy9
news:a6h9tn$g...@gap.cco.caltech.edu...
-snip-
> THE DARWATH "TRILOGY"
>
> The Time of the Dark
> The Walls of Air
> The Armies of Daylight
-snip-
> All in all, solid B+ fantasy.
I agree. Very enjoyable read.
-snip-
> JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
>
> Those who Hunt the Night
> Traveling with the Dead
-snip-
I loved these! I also love Rice's treatment of vampires, but find Hambly's
similar but still uniquely different. I like both vampire universes. James
Asher and his wife are great additions and just as interesting as the vamps.
-snip-
> (Star Trek)
> Ghost-Walker
A good solid ST novel. One of the better in that category.
Bruce Baugh
ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
> I'm sure Rice intended New Orleans to sound all
> hot-house steamily romantic, but it sounds muggy and bug-infested
> to me.
For what it's worth, in the Free Man of Color series, Barbara Hambly
really wants you to be aware of the mugginess and the bugs and all.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> Writer of Fortune <*> bruce...@spiretech.com
Feb: Clan Lasombra Trilogy, volume 1: Shards
Mar: Serial Experiments Lain Ultimate Fan Guide
http://www.tkau.org/
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
>
> Those who Hunt the Night
> Traveling with the Dead
I translated the first, after bugging the editor of the line I was
working for then a lot about it. I guess he decided to buy the book
indipendently of my bugging, but I got to translate it. Hambly writes a
lot more subtly than I had realized, and it got me in trouble: it was my
second book.
I loved it to death and would really like that the second got
translated, but there's not much hope of it now.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
Gens una sumus
Justin Fang
Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
>WINTERLANDS
>
>Dragonsbane
Probably my favorite Hambly; the protagonists are smart, sensible, and
definitely not your stereotypical fantasy heroes.
>Dragonshadow
>Knight of the Demon Queen
>Dragonstar (forthcoming, June 2002)
>This is a trilogy continuing the story of John, Jenny, and Morkeleb
>(Dragonsbane was a stand-alone novel.)
And it should have stayed that way, IMHO. _Dragonsbane_ ends the story of
the main characters at exactly the right point, and in a fine and
appropriate way, with (trying to avoid spoilers here) one character making
a difficult and irrevocable choice which will shape the course of the rest
of their lives.
Now, maybe there would be another good story in the consequences of that
choice, and the regrets involved. Or maybe it's something better left as
implication in the mind of the reader. Either way, the new trilogy isn't
that story; as far as I can tell from skimming the first two books, they
go off in a completely different (and, IMHO, largely pointless) direction.
--
Justin Fang (jus...@panix.com)
Joseph Major
:
:
: Dragonshadow
: Knight of the Demon Queen
: Dragonstar (forthcoming, June 2002)
_Dragonshadow_ left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.
_Dragonsbane_ was a nice neat _novel_ with a resolution and a feeling that
everyone had changed, it was to be hoped for the better, as a result of
the experiences of the novel.
_Dragonshadow_ pitchforked in heretofore unmentioned laws against
wizardry, heretofore unmentioned royal relatives, and a heretofore
undiscovered reservoir of dragons and wizards for the Evil Overlord to use
as his puppets. Not to mention the casual way in which the characters
were tossed around. The only thing that kept Jenny from being tied to the
railroad tracks, waiting for the train to come, while the Evil Overlord
smirked and fleered and twisted the end of his long thin waxed mustasche
was that this universe lacked trains.
In short, it was a lousy melodrama tacked on as a sequel to a
splendid drama. Evidently Hambly is writing in the tradition of Asimov
and Heinlein -- which isn't necessarily a good thing! Or more precisely,
in the tradition of _Foundation's Edge_ and _The Number of the Beast_.
Joseph T Major
--
Joseph Major
: SUN-CROSS
:
: The Rainbow Abyss
: The Magicians of Night
:
: Something of a reverse here; in this duology, it's the wizard from
: a fantasy world that ends up on Earth. Unfortunately, he appears in
: Nazi Germany, where some of Hitler's goons are carrying out research
: in magic. Magic, it turns out, works very poorly here, because there
: is much less power lying about; but it can be done, and with the help
: of Rhion -- the wizard -- the Nazis begin to figure out how to do it.
: Meanwhile, Rhion has gradually become clued in as to the real nature
: of the Nazi regime, and is trying to figure out how to escape and get
: the hell home. Throw in some Allied secret agents, who are persistently
: and annoyingly skeptical about magic they see being performed right
: under their noses, and hijinks ensue.
:
: Not one of Hambly's better efforts; I found these kind of a slog to
: get through.
She made some bungles about spy works, too. For example, one of
the agents is infiltrated into the Netherlands _by submarine_. The usual
method was by airplane. Also, I think the sea around there is not the
sort of place where one would want to take a submarine.
Joseph T Major
--
Joseph Major
:
: JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
:
: Those who Hunt the Night
: Traveling with the Dead
While a lot of people made Jerry Garcia comments about the latter
title, for some reason, given the circumstances, I saw it as "Weekend at
Bernie's II" as done by Monty Python. I could just imagine John Cleese,
in his most pompous voice, saying "Traveling with the dead".
Joseph T Major
--
Joseph Major
:
: MEDIA TIE-INS
<snip>
: (Star Trek)
: Ishmael
This is an elaborate joke on the principle of "same actor,
different roles" -- I have written a bunch as humor pieces, as for example
an episode of "T. J. Hooker" where Hooker was arrested for the
kidnap-murder of a whale expert from San Francisco. (Well, she _did_
disappear without a trace . . .)
The joke involves Spock being sent back to nineteenth-century
Seattle and interacting with the characters from the series "Here Come the
Brides" -- one of whom had been played by Mark Lenard (as in Sarek).
Joseph T Major
--
Andrew Plotkin
Which I didn't find entertaining at all, but my sister watched the
show fanatically -- for a while -- and liked _Ishmael_.
> : Crossroad
I have to re-read this... it's a strange and creepy Trek novel, which
is a nice angle on the genre, and I liked it. Something about the
Enterprise crew encountering an alternate universe, or an
alternate-future universe, in which the Federation is -- not in so
many words -- dominated by Cthulhu worshippers. Sort of. :)
I mean, you go out exploring the Outer Darkness, you're bound to run
into a few Elder things...
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Mark Hanson
>
> The Rainbow Abyss
> The Magicians of Night
I actually liked these books a lot. BH has said the series is finished, but
I think she's badly mistaken; there's another book out there, waiting to be
written. _Magicians_ ended too abruptly.
>
> MEDIA TIE-INS
>
> (Star Trek)
> Ishmael
> Ghost-Walker
> Crossroad
>
Liking Star Trek is presumably a prerequisite, but if you do, as I do, then
definitely read these. Most of the ST tie-ins have been pretty bad lately,
and even back when they *were* good there weren't many that were *that*
good -- these were exceptions (along with Diane Duane's).
Mark
Tony Zbaraschuk
> (Can I play too?)
>
> Barbara Hambly is one of my favorite authors; I'll buy nearly any book
> of hers on sight. From previous discussions on r.a.sf.w, I suspect
> many people have her mentally classified as a "B-List" writer. Some
> of her books are certainly in that category, but I think a lot of
> hers are much better than that.
I've been a little less happy with her recent books, but I'll still
give anything she writes a try. She's definitely in the high-B
category, if not an A-list "buy in sight on hardback" author
like Bujold or Kay or McKillip.
> She excels at writing intelligent protagonists -- very few of her
> plots depend on "and here the main character does something stupid."
> This is a refreshing change from a whole lot of SF works
Oh, indeed. The characters may still end up in horrible messes,
but they either went in with their eyes wide open because it was
worth the cost, or they had no cause to know just how bad it was
going to be.
> THE DARWATH "TRILOGY"
>
> The Time of the Dark
> The Walls of Air
> The Armies of Daylight
>
> The original trilogy. Two people from our earth, Gil and Rudy,
> are pulled into a world where magic works, where the "Dark" has
> arisen from a centuries-long sleep to attack the people. Gil
> becomes a warrior and Rudy becomes a wizard.
>
> There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
> avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
> executed pretty well.
Just as an example, let's take Bishop Govannion. Thin, dark robes,
hates wizards, fanatical about the laws of her church -- in an EFP
you could call the rest of it right off the bat: narrow-minded,
evil, foil for cheap laughs, stupid, only an obstacle to the
characters.
Not here. She's got principles; at more than one point she ends
up helping our protagonists; she has reasons for her stand against
wizardry and her opposition to Ingold; she's different than, and
opposed to, our heroes, but she's not a cartoonish Evil Bishop by
any stretch of the imagination... and it's the Church records that
she preserves, for her own institutional interest, that eventually
give Gil the clues she needs as to what's going on.
> One of the other major characters, aside from Gil and Rudy, is
> the wizard Ingold Inglorion. He's cool. In fact, he's a bit
> *too* cool -- he's both the greatest wizard, and the greatest
> swordsman, currently alive; as well as being smart, sensitive,
> wise, and just a little endearingly crotchety. I suspect that
> Hambly just got a bit carried away with Ingold; Antryg Windrose,
> in the Windrose Chronicles (below), strikes me as a better take
> on the same general character.
More human, in many respects, but Ingold's perhaps more enjoyable to
read about; he has his share of annoying habits and weaknesses, too.
> All in all, solid B+ fantasy.
I'd rank _The Walls of Air_ as an A-, myself : it's very strong and
well-done, with paired quests (Gil's scholarship in the Keep while
Rudy and Ingold seek the Citadel of Wizards on the far side of the
continent in search of help), and comes to some good resolutions.
This definitely doesn't suffer from middle-book syndrome.
The whole thing is executed well -- politics work, medieval background
works (and having trained-medieval-historian Gil explain bits of it
to city-motorcycle-boy Rudy is a wonderful way of giving us info
without the "As you know, Bob..." syndrome), the magic works,
and given the various characters the various plot twists and turns
work well too. It's very solid stuff, and I'm not quite sure what
keeps it from being solid A-list, myself. Anyone have any thoughts?
> SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
<snip>
> I like this series quite a lot, although the third book less so.
> Both Sun Wolf and Star Hawk are great characters, and the magic
> in the books, well, *feels* right -- it's subtle and mysterious
> and powerful, but there is an underlying rational basis to it.
And, again, the politics and intrigue are very well-done and not
just an implausible backdrop to the swords-and-swashbuckling;
the scene early in _Ladies of Mandrigyn_ where Sun Wolf is negotiating
with the President and the city council is just right.
> WINTERLANDS
>
> Dragonsbane
>
> Jenny, a half-trained and indifferently-gifted wizard, has shacked
> up with John, the ruler (theoretically under a distant king) of a
> poor and struggling province in the cold north. John is summoned
> to the capital, because a dragon has appeared there, and John is
> the only living Dragonsbase -- a person who has successfully killed
> a dragon.
>
> This is one of my favorite of Hambly's books -- all the characters
> are wonderful: John, who is a combination of level-headed fighting
> man and absent-minded scholar and tinkerer; Jenny, who is torn
> between her love for John and their children, and her love for
> magic; Morkeleb the Black, the dragon John has come to fight.
> There are several passages where John comments on the idiocy of
> the traditional ballads about dragon-killing -- knights who ride
> up to the dragon's lair, challenge it to single combat, and then
> charge straight at it. John goes about killing dragons the smart
> way -- not at all if he can help it, and when he has to, with
> poison and by surprise.
What He Said -- this is a book both very funny and very serious,
almost a perfect example of G.K. Chesterton's dictum that "funny
is not the opposite of serious; it is the opposite of not funny."
The exuberance and the horror coexist almost perfectly, on many
different levels.
The so-far-very-very-inferior sequel trilogy had better have a
spectacularly good climax to make up for the first two books,
though: _Dragonshadow_ and _Knight of the Demon Queen_, despite
having the occasional good moments, are mostly about other people
who happen to have the same names as the heroes of _Dragonsbane_
but have had their wits -- both intelligence and sense of humor --
surgically excised somewhere along the way, along with any trace
of joy in life. If not for _Dragonsbane_ they might actually have
been good books, as studies in destruction... but what's being
destroyed is too precious to be treated that way.
> THE WINDROSE CHRONICLES
> Dog Wizard
>
> A sequel to the first duology. I remember very little about it.
Various strange goings-on at the Citadel of Wizards, which was all
off-stage in the previous books. Worth reading; not really as good
as the first two.
> Stranger at the Wedding
The British title, I believe, was _Sorceror's Ward_.
> Set in the same universe as the first three; but the main character
> here is a very minor character from the earlier books, and Joanna
> and Antryg don't appear at all. Kyra, a wizard who was disowned by
> her merchant family for studying wizardry, returns home unexpectedly
> for her sister Alix's wedding. Kyra has had visions that Alix will
> die if she gets married, so she sets out to forestall the wedding by
> any means necessary while trying to figure out who has it in for her
> sister.
>
> This book is very different in tone from the previous ones; think of
> it as Georgette Heyer with magic. I liked it much more than any of
> the others in this series. It is -- for the most part -- more
> lighthearted, and just more *fun,* than the others.
Definitely. Strongly recommended for anyone who likes the works
of Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemeyer; it's slightly darker than
_Mairelon the Magician_ or _Sorcery and Cecilia_, but it should
tickle the same fancy.
> Another interesting aspect to this book is that, after seeing the
> havoc that magic, even well-intentioned magic, can wreak upon those
> without defenses against it, one begins to wonder if perhaps the Church
> in this world isn't right after all about being so down on wizards and
> wizardry in general. Hambly's magic generally involves a lot of what
> amounts to subtle mind control; and this book shows how easily that
> can be abused.
One of the things that I really admire about all of Hambly's writing
is her awareness of the reality of evil, and how frail is the line of
intention that separates it from good: evil in these books is not
the black-versus-white magic one sees in so much EFP, but a keen
awareness of the dark side of power. It rises from the same root
as good, from the same ability, and is all the more terrible for that,
because the fight is not against slavering evil horrors but against
the choices one could so easily make. The heroism is all the keener
for being hung on so fragile a thread; the evil is all the worse for
being misdirected virtue. One sees the darkness that could rise
from Sun Wolf's exuberant ferocity, or Ingold's mastery of magic,
or Rudy's desire to not get involved; that does rise from Govannin's
loyalty to her faith, from Alwin's administrative skills and nobility,
from the Dark Mage Suraklin's passionate hunger for life and magic.
Few fantasies handle the moral element so _well_.
> SUN-CROSS
>
> Not one of Hambly's better efforts; I found these kind of a slog to
> get through.
They were OK, but not much more. B-.
> JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
>
> Those who Hunt the Night
> Traveling with the Dead
>
> Victorian British secret agent James Asher is "hired" by the vampire
> Don Simon Ysidro to find out who or what is killing the vampires of
> London -- the price being the life of James' physician wife, Lydia.
> James and Lydia are forced to simultaneously attempt to solve the
> mystery of the murders and protect themselves both from the vampires
> and from their killer. The sequel is basically more of the same.
I didn't find it anywhere near as good, for some reason -- good ideas,
and some interesting extrapolation of stuff seen in the first book,
but somehow it didn't quite jell for me. I seem to have that experience
a lot, when Hambly has dropped a series for a while and then come back
to it; something's missing somewhere. I can't quite escape the
suspicion, though, that she's doing something deliberately different
which I'm just not picking up on. I wonder if anyone else has
any thoughts on this?
> I liked these quite a lot. The influences of Anne Rice are visible
> on Hambly's vampires, but she handles them without nearly as much
> florid eroticism as Rice uses. James is, above all, that rarity of
> rarities, an intelligent protagonist; in a refreshing change of pace
> from typical novels like these, he doesn't even consider trying to
> hide the situation from his wife.
What He Said.
> BENJAMIN JANUARY
<snip titles>
> I haven't read these; largely because Anne Rice put me off New
> Orleans in a serious way -- which is hardly fair to Hambly, but
> there it is. I'm sure Rice intended New Orleans to sound all
> hot-house steamily romantic, but it sounds muggy and bug-infested
> to me.
Well, Hambly does do the muggy and bug-infested parts pretty well
(January is a physician in 1830's New Orleans, and an ex-slave),
but there's a lot of intelligence and good work in these. The
various cultural clashes (French and American, white and black,
men and women, slave and free) are all handled with some skill,
and the mysteries are well-done, too.
> STANDALONE NOVELS
>
> Search the Seven Hills/The Quirinal Hill Affair
>
> A mystery set in Rome in 116 A.D. Haven't read it.
Young Roman student of philosphy yearns hopelessly for childhood
friend, who is getting married off to rich Syrian merchant, but
is then kidnapped by _somebody_; signs indicate the Christians.
Student tries to help and gets rapidly in way over his head,
including some really eye-opening experiences.
Oh, and Sixtus Julianus alone is worth the price of the book.
Crotchety old Roman aristocrat, in all the best senses of all
those words, but sheer fun to be around. (I particularly like
the aftermath of Sixtus' attendance at the orgy...)
> MEDIA TIE-INS
>
> (Star Wars)
> Children of the Jedi
> Planet of Twilight
>
> (Star Trek)
> Ishmael
> Ghost-Walker
> Crossroad
>
> (Beauty and the Beast) [i.e, the TV show with Linda Hamilton]
> Beauty and the Beast
> Song of Orpheus
>
> I haven't read any of these except Children of the Jedi, which
> struck me as passable.
_Ishmael_ was fun even if I didn't know about the "Here Comes the
Brides" connection, but then I grew up in Washington state, so
seeing it in a Star Trek novel was lovely; _Planet of Twilight_
was OK but not memorable; don't recall any of the others.
Tony Zbaraschuk
Rachel Brown
>
> > THE DARWATH "TRILOGY"
> > There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
> > avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
> > executed pretty well.
The overall story isn't original, but there are twists I've never or
rarely seen anywhere else, notably a central mystery which is solved
by a scholar's research into the changing styles of women's clothing
(really!); a romantic lead who has a child; and the final solution to
the problem of the flying, acid-dripping, people-eating critters.
> Just as an example, let's take Bishop Govannion.
Also Minalde's husband Eldor, as someone else who might have been a
straight noble hero, or straight villain, but was rather more
complicated. Or the Archmage, whatsisname. Heck, take those
soul-sucking tentacled creatures. Hambly's villains always have
interesting and often reasonable motives, and sometimes are operating
out of necessity rather than villainy.
>
> > All in all, solid B+ fantasy.
> The whole thing is executed well -- politics work, medieval background
> works (and having trained-medieval-historian Gil explain bits of it
> to city-motorcycle-boy Rudy is a wonderful way of giving us info
> without the "As you know, Bob..." syndrome), the magic works,
> and given the various characters the various plot twists and turns
> work well too. It's very solid stuff, and I'm not quite sure what
> keeps it from being solid A-list, myself. Anyone have any thoughts?
See, I can't rank books like that. It's not as gorgeously written as
Patricia McKillip or as intellectually complex as Gene Wolfe or as
fiendishly plotted as George R. R. Martin, but on it's own terms, it's
damn near perfect, and own its own terms, I give it an A.
Hambly is a much more uneven writer than Lois Bujold, but they share
many of the same virtues of characterization, plotting, intelligence,
and humor, and I'd rank Hambly's best with Bujold's best. And this
trilogy is, in my opinion, among Hambly's best.
> > Dragonsbane
> What He Said -- this is a book both very funny and very serious,
> almost a perfect example of G.K. Chesterton's dictum that "funny
> is not the opposite of serious; it is the opposite of not funny."
> The exuberance and the horror coexist almost perfectly, on many
> different levels.
If I had to pick her best book in one volume, this would be it. What
you said, plus she excels at making not-so-obvious points about life
and living it and all that stuff. Jenny, the woman torn between magic
(ie, self-fulfullment, creativity, etc) and human relationships, had a
teacher who told her that the key to magic is magic. What this means
and whether it's true is the theme of the book, and it's a genuinely
difficult question.
Skip the sequels.
> > (Star Trek)
> > Crossroad
I really really like this, the world's darkest Star Trek novel, in
which she manages to smuggle in that favorite Hambly feature,
slime-dripping Cthuloid monsters. And the monsters aren't even what
make it dark...
Rachel
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> One of the things that I really admire about all of Hambly's writing
> is her awareness of the reality of evil, and how frail is the line of
> intention that separates it from good: evil in these books is not
> the black-versus-white magic one sees in so much EFP, but a keen
> awareness of the dark side of power. It rises from the same root
> as good, from the same ability, and is all the more terrible for that,
> because the fight is not against slavering evil horrors but against
> the choices one could so easily make. The heroism is all the keener
> for being hung on so fragile a thread; the evil is all the worse for
> being misdirected virtue. One sees the darkness that could rise
> from Sun Wolf's exuberant ferocity, or Ingold's mastery of magic,
> or Rudy's desire to not get involved; that does rise from Govannin's
> loyalty to her faith, from Alwin's administrative skills and nobility,
> from the Dark Mage Suraklin's passionate hunger for life and magic.
>
> Few fantasies handle the moral element so _well_.
What he said. I would also rank Hambly's best with Bujold's best. I was
particularly impressed with _Immortal Blood_ (AKA _Those who hunt the
night_), where you have all of it: insoluble moral ambiguity, a good
protagonist, a much cooler antagonists, wonderful side-characters, and
the BelivableCompetent Woman. Wonderful. The sequel I liked at moments
very much - I think Ysidro's sonnet is one of these achingly good
moments.
What I'm a bit worried about is that lately she seems to have veered
towards the Benjamin January books and away from fantasy. The January
books aren't bad but not as good as the fantasies at their best.
Magnus Olsson
> There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
> avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
> executed pretty well.
pardon my ignorance, but what is EFP?
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
Helgi Briem
wrote:
>> There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
>> avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
>> executed pretty well.
>
>pardon my ignorance, but what is EFP?
Heh. You've missed the endless boring discussions
on how to define this that have gone on here for
about six months? OT was it rec.arts.sf.composition?
Anyway, it is short for "Extruded Fantasy Product"
and is a term for long, bad, generic fantasy. Its
definition is sufficently vague that the user can
have it mean whatever he wants as long as he
dislikes it.
--
Regards, Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is
gareth.bellaby
Extruded Fantasy Product.
Gareth
Sea Wasp
>
> (Can I play too?)
>
> Barbara Hambly is one of my favorite authors; I'll buy nearly any book
> of hers on sight. From previous discussions on r.a.sf.w, I suspect
> many people have her mentally classified as a "B-List" writer. Some
> of her books are certainly in that category, but I think a lot of
> hers are much better than that.
I enjoy Hambly's books overall, but the one thing that tends to
bother me about her fantasy books is that they all follow the same
theme with respect to the Powers. Wizards all seem to (A)be inborn --
no examples of mages who develop it as a skill -- (B)have very similar
inborn powers (see in the dark, etc), (C) be hunted by a Church, which
always seems to be running itself along the lines of the Spanish
Inquisition.
There's also very often an implication or offhanded comment to
indicate that some of the universes are connected directly, but they
never go beyond that kind of minor in-joke, which always rather
bothers me. Either don't mention it, or DO something with that
connection.
> SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
>
> The Ladies of Mandrigyn
> The Witches of Wenshar
> The Dark Hand of Magic
These are my favorite Hambly books, though the Darwath trilogy has a
special place in my heart for other reasons. I mainly like these
because of a couple of twists Hambly puts into her usual mix. Firstly,
magicians cannot attain their full powers in this universe without
passing a pretty dangerous test -- something which in her other
universes is clearly not the case. Second, our main character wizard
is basically Conan the Barbarian suddenly given magical powers and
forced to deal with it. This really works very well indeed. I love the
characters of Sun Wolf and Starhawk, and some of the associated
characters are fun indeed. But there's lots of stuff left for her to
explore in this universe, and I hope she does.
> MEDIA TIE-INS
>
> (Star Wars)
> Planet of Twilight
Excellent for a Star Wars book. I found it an interesting plot, and
it tied together some ongoing threads from other authors' earlier work
in a manner I found particularly satisfying.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
John F Carr
Jon Meltzer <jmel...@pobox.com> wrote:
>On 11 Mar 2002 03:56:39 GMT, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross
>TenEyck) wrote:
>
>>(Star Trek)
>>Ishmael
>
>Major TV in-joke: the story uses the characters and settings from a
>Western that Mark Lenard was starring in at the time ST was on its
>network run.
After several people on usenet remarked on how great and funny this
book was, I read it. I thought it was readable but not worth even
a weak recommendation. Finally somebody let slip the secret and a
virtual light bulb lit over my head. Not being familiar with the
other show, the joke had gone right over my head.
--
John Carr (j...@mit.edu)
Sea Wasp
Well, I enjoyed it, and I had never heard of the show in question
until I saw one of the discussions about "Ishmael" on this group.
erilar
gareth....@ntlworld.com wrote:
Like the few Dragonlance books I unwarily bought in their early days,
which seemed to have had both characters and "plot" generated by D&D
dice rolls???
--
Mary Loomer Oliver(aka erilar)
Germanic philologist, amateur medieval historian
erilar
>
> > SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
> >
> > The Ladies of Mandrigyn
> > The Witches of Wenshar
> > The Dark Hand of Magic
>
> These are my favorite Hambly books, though the Darwath trilogy has a
> special place in my heart for other reasons. I mainly like these
> because of a couple of twists Hambly puts into her usual mix. Firstly,
> magicians cannot attain their full powers in this universe without
> passing a pretty dangerous test -- something which in her other
> universes is clearly not the case. Second, our main character wizard
> is basically Conan the Barbarian suddenly given magical powers and
> forced to deal with it. This really works very well indeed. I love the
> characters of Sun Wolf and Starhawk, and some of the associated
> characters are fun indeed. But there's lots of stuff left for her to
> explore in this universe, and I hope she does.
Much as I enjoyed the Darwath trilogy, I have to agree with this
description for exactly the reasons given. These are my favorites, too.
David T. Bilek
<erila...@SPAMchibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In article <3C8E9748...@ntlworld.com>,
>gareth....@ntlworld.com wrote:
>
>> Magnus Olsson wrote:
>> >
>> > ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote in message
>> > <a6h9tn$g...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>...
>> > > There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
>> > > avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
>> > > executed pretty well.
>> >
>> > pardon my ignorance, but what is EFP?
>> > --
>> > Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se, m...@pobox.com)
>> > ------ http://www.pobox.com/~mol ------
>>
>> Extruded Fantasy Product.
>
>Like the few Dragonlance books I unwarily bought in their early days,
>which seemed to have had both characters and "plot" generated by D&D
>dice rolls???
>
Yeah, pretty much.
I think "The Sword of Shannara" is probably archetypal.
-David
Michael S. Schiffer
<2r4q8u06a3kqu0g92...@4ax.com>:
>...
>>Ishmael
>Major TV in-joke: the story uses the characters and settings from
>a Western that Mark Lenard was starring in at the time ST was on
>ancestor of Spock.
I put off reading it till the Hallmark channel reran some episodes of
"Here Come the Brides", so that I had the context. And I have to
say, I liked it, but I'm amazed that Hambly was not only willing to
submit a novel-length piece of crossover fanfic to a publisher, but
that the publisher accepted it. It's well-written fanfic, but
*still*-- we have the hurt-comfort elements, we have McCoy and Kirk
emoting over the "loss" of Spock, we have the antagonist and a minor
character in HCTB put at center stage and reinterpreted (complete
with a positive spin and romaintic pairing not hinted at in the
original) we have cameos from yet other series... Like I said, it's
well done, but it's the sort of thing you'd expect to find in a
fanzine or on a web page, not in soft covers from Pocket Books. I'm
never sure whether to be impressed or appalled. :-)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
GSV Three Minds in a Can
person Helgi Briem <he...@decode.is> said
<snip>
>>pardon my ignorance, but what is EFP?
>Anyway, it is short for "Extruded Fantasy Product"
>and is a term for long, bad, generic fantasy. Its
>definition is sufficently vague that the user can
>have it mean whatever he wants as long as he
>dislikes it.
I object to that definition, since I regard much of Feist / Eddings etc.
as very definitely EFP, however some of it I quite like. Great
literature it ain't.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Helgi Briem
<G...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>>>pardon my ignorance, but what is EFP?
><snip>
>>Anyway, it is short for "Extruded Fantasy Product"
>>and is a term for long, bad, generic fantasy. Its
>>definition is sufficently vague that the user can
>>have it mean whatever he wants as long as he
>>dislikes it.
>
>I object to that definition, since I regard much of Feist / Eddings etc.
>as very definitely EFP, however some of it I quite like. Great
>literature it ain't.
Oh, I like lots of EFP ( as well as EMP, ETP, ESFP and
for a brief period in my youth, even EMFP and EWP*).
I have read an average of 1 book a day since I was
5. That's not even counting school textbooks,
magazines, newspapers and internet stuff. I
find bad literature relaxing and comforting on
occasion. I have even read quite a few Feists
and Eddings but I can't anymore. Too repetitive.
In this group, EFP has been used indiscriminately
to label whatever the poster dislikes for whatever
reason.
*Extruded Mystery Product
Extruded Thriller Product
Extruded Science Fiction Product
Extruded Military Fiction Product
Extruded Western Product
Randy Money
>
> On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:06:37 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Plotkin
> <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> >> The joke involves Spock being sent back to nineteenth-century
> >> Seattle and interacting with the characters from the series "Here Come the
> >> Brides" -- one of whom had been played by Mark Lenard (as in Sarek).
> >
> >Which I didn't find entertaining at all, but my sister watched the
> >show fanatically -- for a while -- and liked _Ishmael_.
>
> only because teen idol Bobby Sherman was one of the three brothers. It
> ran two or three seasons. When Bobby's popularity went away, so did
> the show.
>
> Robert Brown ("Lazarus" in ST's "The Alternative Factor") was the
> star. Did Hambly have Kirk acknowledge the "resemblance"?
Haven't read the book, but was there mention that Bridget Hanley, who
had a recurring part on Here Come the Brides was also in a Trek episode?
(Can't remember the ST episode title, but she played twins in it, I
think. Or maybe twin robots. For some reason, I'm thinking one of the
Mudd episodes, but I'm not sure.)
Randy M.
Craig Richardson
TenEyck) wrote:
>THE DARWATH "TRILOGY"
>
>The Time of the Dark
>The Walls of Air
>The Armies of Daylight
>
>The original trilogy. Two people from our earth, Gil and Rudy,
>are pulled into a world where magic works, where the "Dark" has
>arisen from a centuries-long sleep to attack the people. Gil
>becomes a warrior and Rudy becomes a wizard.
>
>There's nothing particularly original here, to be sure; but it
>avoids true EFP status -- in my opinion, of course -- by being
>executed pretty well. Hambly has a martial arts background, and
>it shows in her depiction of Gil's warrior training. Hambly also
>has an academic Medieval History background, which shows both in
>Gil's approach to figuring out where the Dark come from and what
>they want, and in the general grittiness of her fantasy world.
One thing that raises it above EFP level is that, though Hambly
includes many "classic" elements in her worldbuilding and
characterization, the consequences always follow logically from the
premises, so it has a different "feel".
>One of the other major characters, aside from Gil and Rudy, is
>the wizard Ingold Inglorion. He's cool. In fact, he's a bit
>*too* cool -- he's both the greatest wizard, and the greatest
>swordsman, currently alive; as well as being smart, sensitive,
>wise, and just a little endearingly crotchety. I suspect that
>Hambly just got a bit carried away with Ingold; Antryg Windrose,
>in the Windrose Chronicles (below), strikes me as a better take
>on the same general character.
My mental image of Ingold is the same basic model as Obi-Wan Kenobi,
only slightly less cold and distant. They have a similar way with
words, to my ear.
>All in all, solid B+ fantasy.
Agreed.
>Mother of Winter
>Icefalcon's Quest
>
>After several years, Hambly returned to the world of the Darwath
>books with these two. They're not bad, but she would probably
>have been better off writing books in new settings; to me, these
>sequels feel a bit like self-indulgence on her part.
>
>Mother of Winter involves some nasty that's going to end the
>world, or some such. Icefalcon's Quest concentrates on a minor
>character from the previous books -- Icefalcon, of course --
>who is another too-cool-for-school character. Neither book has
>left much of an impression on me.
What I liked best about _MoW_ is that time has passed and _people have
changed_. I almost gave up on it, but it was OK taken on its own
terms.
>SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
I think later editions call it "The Untutored Mage" trilogy.
>The Ladies of Mandrigyn
>The Witches of Wenshar
>The Dark Hand of Magic
>
>Sun Wolf is the captain of a mercenary band, and quite good at
>his job -- his usual employers are any of several city-states
>or merchant barons; Sun Wolf regards them all with cheerful
>impartiality as sources of income. Star Hawk is his right-
>hand woman. Sun Wolf is approached by a representative of the
>survivors of the city of Mandrigyn, which has been conquered
>by the local evil badass wizard. He turns them down, since
>fighting wizards is bad news. They kidnap him, and force him
>to train the women of the city -- all the men have been killed
>or hauled off to the mines -- as soldiers, so they can rescue
>their menfolk and oust the evil badass wizard. In the course
>of doing this, Sun Wolf discovers that he himself is a wizard.
>
>The problem with being a wizard is that the evil badass wizard
>from the first book killed all the other wizards he could find;
>and since he himself got offed, there's no one left to teach
>Sun Wolf how to wield magic without inadvertantly turning himself
>into a toad. The second and third books follow Sun Wolf and Star
>Hawk as they desparately search for books or wizards who can teach
>him how to handle his magic. Unfortunately, they tend to get
>kicked out of wherever they're staying at the end of each book.
>
>There is also an ongoing theme, especially in the first book, of
>both Sun Wolf and Star Hawk coming to the realization that perhaps
>the wholesale slaughter of townspeople isn't just good clean fun
>after all.
I might phrase it differently - "see yourself as others see you".
>I like this series quite a lot, although the third book less so.
>Both Sun Wolf and Star Hawk are great characters, and the magic
>in the books, well, *feels* right -- it's subtle and mysterious
>and powerful, but there is an underlying rational basis to it.
I like the third book better than the second, but while the others
have their dark moments, the third is dark from beginning to end, so
it's not for everyone.
>WINTERLANDS
>
>Dragonsbane
>
>Jenny, a half-trained and indifferently-gifted wizard, has shacked
>up with John, the ruler (theoretically under a distant king) of a
>poor and struggling province in the cold north. John is summoned
>to the capital, because a dragon has appeared there, and John is
>the only living Dragonsbase -- a person who has successfully killed
>a dragon.
>
>This is one of my favorite of Hambly's books -- all the characters
>are wonderful: John, who is a combination of level-headed fighting
>man and absent-minded scholar and tinkerer; Jenny, who is torn
>between her love for John and their children, and her love for
>magic; Morkeleb the Black, the dragon John has come to fight.
>There are several passages where John comments on the idiocy of
>the traditional ballads about dragon-killing -- knights who ride
>up to the dragon's lair, challenge it to single combat, and then
>charge straight at it. John goes about killing dragons the smart
>way -- not at all if he can help it, and when he has to, with
>poison and by surprise.
Agreed. I love the way the characters all fit a vague description of
their respective archetypes, while fitting few if any of the
particulars. But it all fits together, and the ending, while
inevitable, is still moving.
>Dragonshadow
>Knight of the Demon Queen
>Dragonstar (forthcoming, June 2002)
>
>This is a trilogy continuing the story of John, Jenny, and Morkeleb
>(Dragonsbane was a stand-alone novel.) Be warned: Hambly was
>apparently working through some personal issues here. John and
>Jenny do NOT have a good time, at least in the first two books of
>this trilogy; and the second book ends with a very grim cliffhanger.
Hambly has a tendency to switch tone in the middle of a series, but
this is extreme even for her.
>On the other hand, Hambly's web site claims that she was feeling
>much better when she wrote Dragonstar, so it may be that things
>look up for everyone.
>
>If you loved Dragonsbane, I would approach this trilogy with caution;
>and I certainly wouldn't begin it until Dragonstar comes out.
>THE WINDROSE CHRONICLES
>
>The Silent Tower
>The Silicon Mage
>
>Another people-from-our-Earth-in-a-fantasy-world series. There are
>several similarities to the Darwath books: magic works by pretty
>much the same rules, the Church frowns on wizardry, and -- as
>mentioned above -- the main mage character, Antryg Windrose, is
>basically a toned-down Ingold. The world, however, is roughly at
>the Industrial Revolution analog, instead of the medieval analog
>of Darwath; and the authorial execution is generally superior
>throughout.
Hmm. Antryg and Ingold might have the same description in TV Guide,
but I don't think they have the same voice at all. Antryg isn't a
hero in the way Ingold is, but then he can't afford to be...
>Which is kind of unfortunate, since I didn't care for these nearly
>as much. Partly this is because the main character from our world,
>Joanna, is a computer programmer; and Hambly gets enough of the
>computer technology wrong to set my teeth on edge. (For example,
>she seems to think that the process of duplicating someone's
>personality in computer code is a large and tedious, but fairly
>straightforward, project.)
In FORTRAN, no less! Ironically, the magic is more "realistic" than
the technology. The ending also rang a bit false.
>Dog Wizard
>
>A sequel to the first duology. I remember very little about it.
Concentrates on Antryg, with Joanna and <spoiler> from previous books
as secondary characters. Something strange is happening in the
Citadel of Wizards and prime suspect Antryg must solve the problem
while being trapped with people who know him all too well.
>Stranger at the Wedding
>
>Set in the same universe as the first three; but the main character
>here is a very minor character from the earlier books, and Joanna
>and Antryg don't appear at all. Kyra, a wizard who was disowned by
>her merchant family for studying wizardry, returns home unexpectedly
>for her sister Alix's wedding. Kyra has had visions that Alix will
>die if she gets married, so she sets out to forestall the wedding by
>any means necessary while trying to figure out who has it in for her
>sister.
>
>This book is very different in tone from the previous ones; think of
>it as Georgette Heyer with magic. I liked it much more than any of
>the others in this series. It is -- for the most part -- more
>lighthearted, and just more *fun,* than the others.
Until you look up from the road and realize that it's very dark
outside...
>Another interesting aspect to this book is that, after seeing the
>havoc that magic, even well-intentioned magic, can wreak upon those
>without defenses against it, one begins to wonder if perhaps the Church
>in this world isn't right after all about being so down on wizards and
>wizardry in general. Hambly's magic generally involves a lot of what
>amounts to subtle mind control; and this book shows how easily that
>can be abused.
>BENJAMIN JANUARY
>
>A Free Man of Color
>Fever Season
>Graveyard Dust
>Sold Down the River
>Die Upon a Kiss
>Wet Grave
>Dead Water
>
>Benjamin January is a "free man of color" in 1830's New Orleans.
>These are straight-up mystery novels, without -- so far as I know --
>fantastic elements.
>
>I haven't read these; largely because Anne Rice put me off New
>Orleans in a serious way -- which is hardly fair to Hambly, but
>there it is. I'm sure Rice intended New Orleans to sound all
>hot-house steamily romantic, but it sounds muggy and bug-infested
>to me.
Consider it. I've only read the first, but even many of the events in
the book could be rendered as steamily romantic from another POV. The
fact that we don't see it that way is part and parcel of what makes
this one different.
>STANDALONE NOVELS
>
>Search the Seven Hills/The Quirinal Hill Affair
>
>A mystery set in Rome in 116 A.D. Haven't read it.
Fun read. Almost a YA.
>(Star Trek)
>Ishmael
An homage to Mark Lenard, who played both Spock's father Sarek and
"Here Come the Brides" villain Aaron Stemple. An amnesiac Spock
travels through time, and saves the Earth of 1867 from a Klingon plot
while changing the lives of many Seattle residents for the better.
Doesn't read nearly as corny as the plot summary makes it sound. The
HCtB characters are so much better drawn than in the actual series,
they're worth the price of admission alone. Also a great source for
"Spot The References".
>Ghost-Walker
Above average, but the details don't stick with me.
>Crossroad
Wildly non-canonical, but fun. Alternate possible futures, paths not
chosen, and Lovecraftian horrors. And that's all near the
beginning...
--Craig
--
Hacking the shins is God's way of telling you to stop hogging the ball.
John Schilling
person Helgi Briem <he...@decode.is> said
<snip>
>Anyway, it is short for "Extruded Fantasy Product"
>and is a term for long, bad, generic fantasy. Its
>definition is sufficently vague that the user can
>have it mean whatever he wants as long as he
>dislikes it.
No, plenty of people use "EFP" for some of the stuff they like. Including
myself.
Extruded Fantasy Product need not be long, though it usually comes in
the form of N-tilogies so there's always more of the same. And it need
not be bad, though it rarely excells.
Generic, is the key. Any EFP work will have enough in common with any
other EFP work, even by a different author, that the audience will be
immediately at ease with the setting and concept, and even much of the
characterization and plotting. This is a selling point; EFP can be
considered a meta-franchise incorporating a broad range of authors,
publishers, and discrete series.
Like a fast-food hamburger, you can be pretty sure what you are going to
get no matter who exactly you get it from.
And, of course, there are also other sorts of Extruded Literary Product.
Including, for example, Extruded Military Science Fiction Product. Which
I also enjoy on occasion, without failing to recognize as an Extruded
Product.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
erilar
Richardson <crichar...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> My mental image of Ingold is the same basic model as Obi-Wan Kenobi,
> only slightly less cold and distant. They have a similar way with
> words, to my ear.
I never made that connection before, but you're right!
Doom & Gloom Dave
>
> Barbara Hambly is one of my favorite authors; I'll buy nearly any book
> of hers on sight. From previous discussions on r.a.sf.w, I suspect
> many people have her mentally classified as a "B-List" writer. Some
> of her books are certainly in that category, but I think a lot of
> hers are much better than that.
>
> plots depend on "and here the main character does something stupid."
> eyed, innocent -- read "idiotic" -- naifs continually wander into
> dark basements, withold vital information from their companions for
> no apparent reason, or activate ancient powerful magic just to see
> what will happen. Hambly's characters usually have their hands
> full dealing with real threats, without having to generate any
> themselves.
>
>
>>
> (Star Wars)
> Children of the Jedi
> Planet of Twilight
>
the starwars.misc group. Strong hate and strong love. I myself
think it is one of the better of that franchise's novels.
Planet of Twilight I disliked. It was basically a decent burial
for a Hambly character that Kevin J. Anderson had destroyed
in the excruciatingly bad Darksaber.
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Aaron Brezenski
Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>SUN-CROSS
>
>The Rainbow Abyss
>The Magicians of Night
>
>a fantasy world that ends up on Earth. Unfortunately, he appears in
>Nazi Germany, where some of Hitler's goons are carrying out research
>in magic. Magic, it turns out, works very poorly here, because there
>is much less power lying about; but it can be done, and with the help
>of Rhion -- the wizard -- the Nazis begin to figure out how to do it.
>Meanwhile, Rhion has gradually become clued in as to the real nature
>of the Nazi regime, and is trying to figure out how to escape and get
>the hell home. Throw in some Allied secret agents, who are persistently
>and annoyingly skeptical about magic they see being performed right
>under their noses, and hijinks ensue.
>
>get through.
Interesting. You've completely skipped any description of the first
book, which I felt was the stronger of the two-- excellent world-
building, great characterization-- and concentrated on the second,
which I didn't enjoy all that much. I don't know why Hambly chose
Nazi Germany as the setting for Book Two, but I suppose there was
some parallel between the persecution of wizards in the fantasy
world and the persecution of Jews, gypsies, and others the Nazis
hated. As well as a sort of anti-parallelism: the Nazis in the book
felt persecuted by a world that didn't appreciate what they were trying
to do, whereas the magicians in the fantasy world were *actually* being
persecuted for things they were trying to do.
--
Aaron Brezenski
Not speaking for my employer in any way.
Richard Harter
TenEyck) wrote:
>(Can I play too?)
>
>Barbara Hambly is one of my favorite authors; I'll buy nearly any book
>of hers on sight.
Likewise.
>Mother of Winter
>Icefalcon's Quest
>
>After several years, Hambly returned to the world of the Darwath
>books with these two. They're not bad, but she would probably
>have been better off writing books in new settings; to me, these
>sequels feel a bit like self-indulgence on her part.
>
>Mother of Winter involves some nasty that's going to end the
>world, or some such.
I may be in a minority here but I loved Mother of Winter, in
no small part because eating slunch seemed such a lovely metaphor for
literary criticism.
>SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
>
>The Ladies of Mandrigyn
>The Witches of Wenshar
>The Dark Hand of Magic
My feeling was that TLOM was special; the other two so-so.
>WINTERLANDS
>
>Dragonsbane
[snip comments - I've worn out a copy or two of Dragonsbane]
>Dragonshadow
>Knight of the Demon Queen
>Dragonstar (forthcoming, June 2002)
Good stories if Dragonsbane didn't exist.
[snip]
>JAMES ASHER/VAMPIRE BOOKS
>
>Those who Hunt the Night
>Traveling with the Dead
I loved "Those who Hunt the Night" and hated "Traveling with the
Dead". The original book established a definite characterization of
vampires and Ysidro in particular. The second book is a sell out to
the romantic trash vampire image.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net,
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Love, no matter how pure, is the most selfish of gifts.
For that reason it is the one gift that must be given.
Andrew Plotkin
> On 11 Mar 2002 03:56:39 GMT, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross
> TenEyck) wrote:
>>Mother of Winter
>>Icefalcon's Quest
>>
>>After several years, Hambly returned to the world of the Darwath
>>books with these two. They're not bad, but she would probably
>>have been better off writing books in new settings; to me, these
>>sequels feel a bit like self-indulgence on her part.
>>
>>Mother of Winter involves some nasty that's going to end the
>>world, or some such.
> I may be in a minority here but I loved Mother of Winter, in
> no small part because eating slunch seemed such a lovely metaphor for
> literary criticism.
I liked it as a metaphor but I thought it failed miserably as an
actual substance that was causing actual problems in the subcreated
world. It Just Plain Makes You Evil. Since the earlier Darwath books
were written in a fiercely realistic vein -- not allegorical at all --
and with a considered absence of Just Plain Evil, I was disappointed
by the swerve.
Ross TenEyck
Hmm -- right you are; I'd forgotten that Rhion doesn't make it to
Nazi Germany until the very end of the first book. The second book
was sufficiently difficult to get through that it overshadowed the
first book in my memory.
But you're right that the first book had some pretty good world-
building. For one thing, Hambly broke away from her typical
magic model, to introduce several different-but-related ways of
being a magician. I was particularly struck by the... I think
they were called Blood-Mages... who had pierced their bodies with
cords in several places; by tugging on the cords, they would get
blood to flow, which powered their spells. (One wonders how they
avoided those piercings getting nastily infected; I don't remember
if Hambly addresses the issue, although it's the kind of thing
she would mention.)
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Carl Dershem
Though she's primarily concentrating on mysteries right now, I'd like to
see her write a prequel to that series, showing how the society in the
first book came about. Of course, the second boo does much of that
itself, but the decline of magic is also of interest to me.
cd
--
Death to all Absolutists!
William December Starr
j...@mit.edu (John F Carr) said:
[ re _Ishmael_ by Barbra Hambly ]
> After several people on usenet remarked on how great and funny this
> book was, I read it. I thought it was readable but not worth even a
> weak recommendation. Finally somebody let slip the secret and a
> virtual light bulb lit over my head. Not being familiar with the
> other show, the joke had gone right over my head.
Even without the light bulb, I thought that the book was an excellent
portrait of Spock as he _really_ was, when he wasn't working so damn
hard at being Vulcan all the time (no spoiler: he spends much of novel
suffering from amnesia). He _still_ wasn't a Wild and Crazy Guy(tm),
but he did unwind just a bit around the edges.
I also liked the understated way that Hambly handled him being hit by
Just-Returned-From-Time-Traveling syndrome: the sudden realization
that the group of people that one had been intimately associating with
just a short while ago were now, and had been for centuries, dead and
dust.
-- William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
sea...@wizvax.net said:
>> SUN WOLF AND STARHAWK
>>
>> The Ladies of Mandrigyn
>> The Witches of Wenshar
>> The Dark Hand of Magic
>
> These are my favorite Hambly books, though the Darwath trilogy has a
> special place in my heart for other reasons. I mainly like these
> because of a couple of twists Hambly puts into her usual
> mix. Firstly, magicians cannot attain their full powers in this
> universe without passing a pretty dangerous test -- something which
> in her other universes is clearly not the case. Second, our main
> character wizard is basically Conan the Barbarian suddenly given
> magical powers and forced to deal with it.
More like Conan the Tactician, I'd say.
William December Starr
Randy Money <rbm...@library.syr.edu> said:
>> Robert Brown ("Lazarus" in ST's "The Alternative Factor") was
>> the star. Did Hambly have Kirk acknowledge the "resemblance"?
>> [Jon Meltzer]
I don't think that Kirk ever ran into Jason Bolt, Brown's character.
Spock did, but since Hambly made the decision -- very wisely, I think
-- to refrain from having Spock, once he'd regained his memory,
exclaiming "Hey, that Aaron Stemple looked just my father, except
human!" she couldn't very well have him comment on how Bolt looked
like Lazarus.
> Haven't read the book, but was there mention that Bridget Hanley,
> who had a recurring part on Here Come the Brides was also in a Trek
> episode? (Can't remember the ST episode title, but she played twins
> in it, I think. Or maybe twin robots. For some reason, I'm thinking
> one of the Mudd episodes, but I'm not sure.)
According to the IMDb Hanley never appeared on Star Trek, and the cast
listings at <http://epguides.com/StarTrek/guide.shtml> don't mention
her either. And she wouldn't have been in "I, Mudd" unless she had a
twin sister -- the production team used a few sets of identical twins,
along with special effects and sneaky editing tricks, to create the
illusion of several lines, each five hundred strong, of multiple,
identical "female" androids.
Randy Money
It's very possible I'm mixin''n'matchin' actresses. I'd have sworn the
one who played the twin robots was the same one who had a role on "Here
Comes the Brides", but it was -- what? 30+ years ago.
Randy M.
Sharon Goetz
says...
> What I'm a bit worried about is that lately she seems to have veered
> towards the Benjamin January books and away from fantasy. The January
> books aren't bad but not as good as the fantasies at their best.
--but the January novels are better on the whole than her *recent*
fantasy, at least....
sharon
erilar
Goetz <no...@for.you> wrote:
I don't recall any recent fantasy.
John Andrew Fairhurst
to...@eskimo.com says...
> > Stranger at the Wedding
>
> The British title, I believe, was _Sorceror's Ward_.
>
And both versions were in the local Library, which left me with a severe
sense of deja vu :-)
--
John Fairhurst
In Association with Amazon worldwide:
http://www.johnsbooks.co.uk/
THE Site for Classic SF!
Chris Dollin
John Andrew Fairhurst <johna.f...@virgin.net> writes:
> In article <b2c234cd.0203...@posting.google.com>,
> to...@eskimo.com says...
>> > Stranger at the Wedding
>>
>> The British title, I believe, was _Sorceror's Ward_.
>>
>
> And both versions were in the local Library, which left me with a severe
> sense of deja vu :-)
Library? Ha. I *bought* both, having read copy A sufficiently long ago
that the "read this before" trigger didn't, er, trigger when I found
copy B. (I can't remember which way round it happened, but I would have
bought one vaguely near Palo Alto and the other in either Forbidden Planet
or Waterstones, In B(ath|ristol).)
I won't mention buying the third _Unreason_ book twice. From the same
shop. For the same reason.
--
Unreasoning Hedgehog
Dave Roy
<erila...@SPAMchibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In article <MPG.1702e210...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, Sharon
>Goetz <no...@for.you> wrote:
>
>> In article <1f8xlqr.12388u81oxmn0gN%ada...@tin.it>, ada...@tin.it
>> says...
>> > What I'm a bit worried about is that lately she seems to have veered
>> > towards the Benjamin January books and away from fantasy. The January
>> > books aren't bad but not as good as the fantasies at their best.
>>
>> --but the January novels are better on the whole than her *recent*
>> fantasy, at least....
>
>I don't recall any recent fantasy.
Is that an editorial comment or a serious statement? :-)
Dave Roy
erilar
<hi...@shaw.ca> wrote:
No, it was a serious statement 8-) I'm not that crazy about the January
novels, actively dislike most vampire books, and may have missed
something recent.
Dave Roy
> > >I don't recall any recent fantasy.
> >
> > Is that an editorial comment or a serious statement? :-)
>
> No, it was a serious statement 8-) I'm not that crazy about the January
> novels, actively dislike most vampire books, and may have missed
> something recent.
Ah, ok. :-) She's written two sequels to her book Dragonsbane, with a
third coming out this summer.
She's got a new fantasy book coming out in August called Sisters of
the Raven. Don't know anything about it really, other than that it's
fantasy.
She also co-wrote a book with Mark Zicree called Magic Time, though it
almost seems more post-apocalyptic then fantasy.
Dave Roy
Lynn Calvin
>
>She also co-wrote a book with Mark Zicree called Magic Time, though it
>almost seems more post-apocalyptic then fantasy.
>
It is both post-apocalyptic and is a product of a TV show that never
happened, I believe.
--
Lynn Calvin
lca...@interaccess.com
erilar
davi...@ubc.ca (Dave Roy) wrote:
> Ah, ok. :-) She's written two sequels to her book Dragonsbane, with a
> third coming out this summer.
>
> She's got a new fantasy book coming out in August called Sisters of
> the Raven. Don't know anything about it really, other than that it's
> fantasy.
Thank you. Noted.
Joe Bernstein
Michael S. Schiffer <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
[<Ishmael>]
> And I have to
> say, I liked it, but I'm amazed that Hambly was not only willing to
> submit a novel-length piece of crossover fanfic to a publisher, but
> that the publisher accepted it.
I've been told that it was submitted as a joke, but the publisher
didn't catch this in time, and this led to major changes in
editorial policies and general unpleasantness towards Hambly.
How reliable this information is, I don't know.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://these-survive.postilion.org/>