SPECTREWORLD by Isadore Haiblum

[Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070]

SPECTREWORLD by Isadore Haiblum
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper

There is no evidence on the cover that this book is a sequel or part of
a series, but it certainly reads like one. Characters are introduced as if
we had met them before, and halfway through the novel a totally bizarre
invention shows up which is either a very bad example of DEUS EX MACHINA or
something from a previous novel. (I had this awful feeling it was the
former, but actually it was the latter; shortly after finishing SPECTREWORLD
and a first draft of this review I went to Chicon V and ran across
INTERWORLD at a used book dealer's table. SPECTREWORLD is the sequel to
INTERWORLD which is, naturally, out of print.)

The story itself is a hard-boiled detective yarn, though in this case
the detective is actually the head of a robotic security force. Someone is
attacking all the sites they guard and the robots turn out to be fairly
useless, being mostly cowards who seem remarkably like Marvin of THE
HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. It turns out that this is all leading to
an attack from parallel universes, but given the bizarre Balkanization of
our own into rival city-states, this twist seems superfluous by the time it
is introduced (along with the aforementioned invention allowing travel
between universes).

I really wanted to like this book. But the annoying robot portrayals,
combined with my having come into this series in the middle, prevented me.

(I would like to mention a note placed on the copyright page stating
that if you bought this book without a cover, you were purchasing stolen
property. Whether this will cut into coverless book sales remains to be
seen, but at least it is informing more people--I hesitate to say "the
average reader"--about where coverless books come from. I have since seen
at least one other publisher put in a similar notice, so this could be a new
trend.)

%T SPECTREWORLD
%A Isadore Haiblum
%C New York
%D August 1991
%I Avon
%O paperback, US$3.95
%G ISBN 0-380-75858-X
%P 215pp
%S Interworld #2

Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or e...@mtgzy.att.com