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Recommended Books

August 2001

"Building Trends"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg, POB 290, Monsey, N.Y. 10952
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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Audio Renaissance Tapes, 1995, abridged, read by Theodore Bikel 6 hours.

Destiny by Maggie Shayne, Jove Romance pb, Feb 2001

Gates of Hell by Susan Sizemore, Speculation Press pb, Jan. 2000

Hercules syndicated TV series now rerunning on sci-fi channel.

Quite by random "accident" an audio-book came into my hands. Some months ago, I wrote a review on amazon.com of A Taste of Passover which included songs by Theodore Bikel. A Bikel fan acquaintance saw that review and emailed me, and in the course of that exchange offered me a copy of Bikel's recording of The Name of the Rose

I listened to it in installments while reading Susan Sizemore's Gates of Hell and Maggie Shayne's Destiny, (which was a gift from one of my writing students, or I might never have read it) then I saw the season finale of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda which I told you about last month. During this time, the TV series Hercules was being re-run at dinner time, so I saw several episodes where the actor who plays Captain Dylan Hunt played Hercules -- two nearly identical roles. Adding a very non-historically accurate, very sf/f Hercules to the brew clarified matters.

The Name of the Rose is a mainstream historical novel originally written in Italian. It was a 1969 movie with Sean Connery, and the novel was re-published in English in 1980, and released on VHS in 1986. In 1995, it became an audio-book with Theodore Bikel reading the abridged version.

Theo Bikel played Ivanova's Russian Jewish Rabbi Uncle on Babylon 5 and Worf's Jewish human foster-father on Star Trek, and has guest-starred on most hit TV series. If you don't recognize his name check out http://www.bikel.com and you'll instantly remember him from your favorite TV series or movie or play or song. I've been a dedicated Bikel fan since the very early 1960's.

On this recording, Bikel reads an abridged version of The Name of the Rose. It's available on amazon.com as tapes, (you'll see my review of the tape there) or it is available as an internet download. Internet Download!!!!

Internet download. Well, well, well ….

The Name of the Rose is not ostensibly SF, but I think it does belong to the Historical Fantasy category, much more accurate than Hercules but still in the same genre. Stylistically the writing is more Literary Mainstream, the kind of dense style that academics love. Despite that, and the handicap of being written in a language not known for modern succinctness, it has become an influential, international best-seller and is well on its way to "timeless classic" status.

You can learn more without reading the 500 page novel, and without spending a cent, just by going to amazon.com and searching on Theodore Bikel to find the recording -- then look at the 100+ customer commentaries. You will also find a review of my own there, discussing the recording and the abridgement.

Why should you bother? To look for the direction of the breakout from this Trendlessness. Correlate The Name of the Rose's publishing history with the script elements mentioned in last month's column for Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. And remember everything you've read here about Intimate Adventure.

The Name of the Rose is a novel which tackles the issues underlying the grass-roots swelling of "Fundamentalism" that we have seen in the 1990's and which has carried a Texan to the White House. That fundamentalist trend is worldwide.

The author, Umberto Eco, writing in the 1960's seems to have made an astral-plane download with this novel. He grabbed issues which would gain in popularity over the subsequent decades.

He has discussed these issues of human psychology in exactly the way an sf author would approach them -- only instead of using the Future as the symbolic matrix for his discussion, he has used the Past. And he chose a Past when The Inquisition enforced their brand of fundamentalism with fire. The year is 1327, the place Italy, and the venue a Franciscan Abbey where BOOKS are copied and preserved, guarded and treasured even when they contain heresy.

This is about reading, about information, about freedom of speech, about the soul-deep terrors that impel certain people to impose their will on others. It's about fear of laughter becoming a motive for murder justified by Divine Decree. It's about a Group Mind gripped by fear.

In short, this novel, set in 1327 (centuries before the printing press) is about the Internet Revolution and the copyright law arguments, the tax arguments, and the right of governments (symbolizing The Church these days) to prevent people from having access to information (as in China they limit internet access to sites outside China).

The Internet copies and preserves and protects BOOKS, even heretical ones. Rose audio-book is now available as an Internet Download.

I had seen the movie, The Name of the Rose, in theaters when it was first released, but it made no impression on me.

Now, it has made an impression. Go find yourself a copy of the Bikel reading or download it.

Maggie Shayne is a best-selling Romance author. Destiny is about a race of immortals who can do ESP power functionals on a grand scale. And this is a love-story that spans four thousand years and comes complete with four thousand year-old triangle.

My notes for reviewing this novel say, "It's not every day you find a goddess in a strait-jacket in an insane asylum." If you are interested in the origins of modern magical practices in the locale of Ur of the Chaldees, in the years when camels were only just beginning to be domesticated -- you must read this novel. It's a much more accurate portrayal of pre-history than the TV series Hercules.

And it's much more than a love story. It's good, solidly constructed heroic adventure. The Immortals are just as concerned with their effect on the world as they are with their own emotions. And they face their nemesis in blood and fire, with courage and nobility. Maggie Shayne should have been invited to write Hercules scripts.

Which brings us to Gates of Hell by Susan Sizemore. I've reviewed her work in previous columns, and I expect you'll be seeing more references to her in these pages.

Gates of Hell is set in a Galactic Civilization which has all the built-in story potential of Star Trek. And we have aliens and cross-breeding species, including telempathic Healers. Only, unlike Star Trek, this Universe Premise explains the existence of cross-breeds satisfactorily.

I was so taken with this novel that I wrote the publisher asking for the author's email address. Opening Hailing Frequencies, I discovered that Sizemore expects to write more stories set in this rich, complex universe she's laid out for us. Don't miss any of them!

Two reviewers have termed this work, "Space Opera." Being a double-dyed Lensman fan from the 1950's, I have to say that Sizemore is not writing Space Opera.

Their mistake is understandable -- they probably didn't get treated to Bikel's reading of Name of the Rose, and certainly hadn't seen the Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda season finale while reading this novel.

Sizemore has picked up on the re-definition of science fiction as a field - something you've seen me discuss in these columns at considerable length. She, like Shayne, is dealing directly in what I have defined as Intimate Adventure. (go to http://www.simegen.com  and put "Intimate Adventure" into the search slot at the top of the page, and you will find all my various articles on that subject.)

To date, Intimate Adventure has rarely been seen in its undiluted form from the big Manhattan based publishing companies. The explosion of e-publishers on the Internet has provided a venue for the development of this hidden genre.

Currently, because of the dot-com boom/bust cycle reaching its first bust, we now have a massive consolidation of e-publishers. Some are just closing up shop, some are being bought, and some are frantically struggling with their overwhelming growth and success and about to collapse of the weight of that success. They're not big enough to contract with American Express for e-management services, and much too big for a few individuals to handle.

Now, Speculations Press, working out of Illinois not New York, publishing on fine, high quality paper with good, sturdy bindings, presents us with Gates of Hell a very popular, award winning romance author's SF/F novel which breaks the rules just as Intimate Adventure breaks the rules. I have several more Speculation Press novels to read before I can determine if this is the new home of Intimate Adventure and a leader in a new Trend. If you want to get the jump on me, visit http://www.speculationpress.com/ 

 

Send books for review in this column to: Jacqueline Lichtenberg,

 

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