Article-I.D.: lzwi.307
Posted: Wed Sep 18 22:55:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 04:38:28 EDT
Organization: AT&T-IS Enhanced Network Services
Lines: 46


  THE CONTINENT OF LIES: novel, James Morrow: Baen, 1985, $2.95.

    One of the nicest things about hanging around with SF fans is that
you get the early poop on what's good and what's bad.  You also get to
borrow books other people recommend.  That's what I'd intended to do
with THE CONTINENT OF LIES, which a friend of mine highly recommended to
me.  But I was down at the beach, where the local "book store" sold as
many video tapes as books, and at least as many magazines as tapes and
books combined.  I broke down and bought a copy.

    So it goes.

    In the far (but not drastically different) future, the single
success of genetic engineering has brought us the "cephapple" (fruit of
the "noostree", also know as "dreambean" or "brainbomb").  A specific
dream can be chemically encoded into such an apple, and the dreams can
be mass produced so that different people can eat the same dream, to
just about the same extent as you and I can walk into a theater in the
Amboy Googleplex and see the same movie.  (My friend's greatest
criticism is that genetics couldn't have produced such a wonder without
changing the world in other ways, ala Bruce Sterling's Shapers.  I
didn't have any trouble accepting this as a given.) But there's a rogue
dreamer out there, hidden by reality and other, who's apples can make a
lie of "reality".

    THE CONTINENT OF LIES has all the elements I look for in an SF
novel, and then some: a rich world, new ideas, interesting characters,
good pacing.  So why did everything seem shallow to me?  I think it was
the writing.  Morrow frequently seems to be forcing the story, with
flowery, overpowering prose breaking ranks and calling attention to
itself, distracting from the story.  I've no dislike for elegant
language in its place, but its place is not scattered within the
matter-of-fact prose of this novel.

    Aw, nuts.  I haven't been so uncomfortable about disliking a story
since TEA WITH THE BLACK DRAGON.  There's a lot here for a lot of
readers, and the friend who recommended THE CONTINENT OF LIES is as
sensitive to good writing as I am.  And I'd love to have a Baen book to
praise.  Somehow, this isn't it.
-- 
       -Paul S. R. Chisholm       The above opinions are my own,
       {pegasus,vax135}!lzwi!psc  not necessarily those of any
       {mtgzz,ihnp4}!lznv!psc     telecommunications company.
       (*sigh* ihnp4!lzwi!psc does *NOT* work!!!  Use above paths.)
"Of *course* it's the murder weapon.  Who would frame someone with a fake?"