Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

It’s finally over - “Shootout at the Nokai Corral” has come to the traditional yet satisfying conclusion of all Westerns. The stereotypical Western characters didn’t evolve much to speak of over the course of four issues of Analog, but that’s sci-fi Westerns for you. “The Monopole Affair” wasn’t bad, and I highly recommend “A Good Offense” by Don D’Ammassa, a tale about the diplomatic challenges of dealing with aliens who communicate entirely in insults.

I read the first volume of Otherland by Tad Williams, but those first 800 pages were barely even a start. I realized 300 pages from the end that the margins would not allow space for a conclusion at the author’s current pace. I’ll have to wait until Book 4 for a proper, reviewable ending.

Desperate for something that concludes, I decided to read Crossfire by Nancy Kress. I figured she could be counted on for a simple, one-novel, ends-at-the-end plot, and I was almost right. Most of the book was good - wacky characters and mysterious aliens, a little space travel, more than one moral conundrum, and a running Quaker theme. The only trouble was the end, in which a vital and somewhat vague plot point happened off-stage. In fact, for all I know it didn’t happen at all, and there will be a sequel dealing with the non-event.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2003 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Sci-Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.