YES, I will buy basically anything Stephen Cannell writes. And YES, I can almost guarantee that I’m going to like it.

Now some of the Monkies say that means that I’m not objective — to which I say, “HEY! *I* am in charge here! And if *I* think the writer of the ‘Rockford Files’ and ‘The A Team’ is as cool as it gets, then he is!!” WUHUHAHAHAHAHA!!! (evil monkey laugh)

But then, that is the beauty of having your own personal Web playground. *I* am always right!

In all seriousness, however, I love Cannell’s books because he has a unique creative flair that he applies to an ever-widening variety of subjects. He’s clever, he’s biting, and his stories are a hurtling and bumpy wooden rollercoaster ride plunging you to the earth so fast you’re sure you’re gonna fly out of the car! It’s ‘easy reading’ without the ‘easy’. You’re just so wrapped up from page ONE that you don’t want to put it down until you get to the end. Just in case you need me to jog your memory, think of such creative thrillers as The Plan, Final Verdict, King Con, and Riding the Snake.

The Devil’s Workshop is no different. Beautiful and fiesty microbiologist Stacy Richardson is finishing her doctorate in bio-chemistry when she learns that her new husband has just committed suicide. Unable to believe that the solid and practical USC scientist she married is capable of suicide, she travels to Ft. Detrick, Maryland where he was working on a top secret bio-weapons program known as the ‘Devil’s Workshop’. Stacy meets Adminral Zoll, the government official in charge of the program, and quickly discovers that the government’s story is a lie. She vows to find the truth.

Meanwhile, hobos Lucky Cunningham and Hollywood Mike are passing through Vanishing Lake, Texas, looking to scrape up enough for a bottle when, unbeknownst to them, Admiral Zoll is illegally testing new secret bio-weapons known as ‘Prions’.

Okay - you get the idea - something will go wrong, and we’ve got an outbreak of global proportions. Think ‘Outbreak’ with more colorful characters and settings, and you’re pretty much there. This isn’t a book that’s gonna change the world, but it’s fun, it’s fast, you’ll love the characters, and enjoy the ride.

Trust the Monkey. =)

Hardcover - 416 pages 1 Ed edition (September 1999) William Morrow & Company; ISBN: 0688166180 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.31 x 9.68 x 6.41

Reviewed By: The Goose

I didn’t want to read it. Refused to buy it. But, that cantankerous old monkey pulled a fast one and shipped me his copy. He knew I would then read it, that I wouldn’t be able to resist. For once in his benighted life he was right. Sneaky old trickster!

I have many reasons for not wanting to read this particular novel. First, I was seriously disgruntled with Card after I read that transcript on sff.com. Secondly, the early reports I had about Ender’s Shadow filled me with misgivings. Score one for intuition!

Right now, let me warn those of you monkies out there, whom-against our better advice-have not yet read Ender’s Game: DO NOT READ THIS ONE FIRST! It will ruin Ender’s Game for you on several levels.

Despite my misgivings about Card, he is still one of the most talented writers around today. So, I quickly fell into the story, which begins, innocuously enough, in the streets of Rotterdam where Bean is a very little urchin living on the streets.

However, he quickly organizes all the street kids of Rotterdam into a semblance of civilization (as Card puts it) and thus comes to the attention of the International Fleet (I.F.). So, of course, Bean is rushed off to Battle School.

This is where Card starts to fall off of his rocker, both scientifically and story-wise.

Generally speaking, Card has always grounded his theories in some sort of scientific fact. But, let me just say this: intelligence, and especially great intelligence, requires longer gestational and juvenile periods of development. This is a biological truth. It is never the other way around. And story-wise, it’s not that he deviates from the original plot, but more that he ruins or distorts some of the central assumptions and facts of that plot.

So, other than shattering the core of Ender’s Game and stepping off the scientific deep-end, this is a good story and an excellent tale of the life of Bean. If you have read E.G., you may be offended by some of the things Card has done here, but you will agree that it is still a good story.

P.S. Look up Deus ex Machinain your dictionary before you read this - see if you can pick out what Card has disguised his as!

Hardcover - 384 pages 1 Ed edition (August 31, 1999) Tor Books; ISBN: 031286860X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.28 x 9.55 x 6.45

Reviewed by: The Goose

Today, we are going to visit the works of Isaac Asimov–Father of modern Science Fiction. Most neophytes and dilettantes know him only for his Foundation series. The fact is that he was one of the most prolific writers of the modern era. I don’t have the exact numbers but it’s a lot. Dear old Isaac wrote about everything from science fiction to religion. He wrote about chemistry and biology and physics.

Asimov’s Science Fiction is not profound like Herbert or Dick. It is more driven by character interaction and plot. In a lot of cases his stories are intrigue and detective-like in style and form. Which brings us to this review. Last week BM was mouthing about another ‘Theme Week’ or whatever. This time the topic was to be international intrigue. As in Tom Clancy and the like. Well I don’t read much in that direction, but what about interstellar intrigue, and a murder mystery all wrapped into one? THAT I can do.

Some few hundred years after the first wave of Interstellar colonization Earth is the poor, red-headed, and left-handed stepchild of it’s children–The Spacers.

Earth is infested with Cities, overgrown and enclosed metroplexes. Earthborn Humans have an engrained agoraphobia from living in their encapsulated buildings.

Spacers are humans living on the 50 planets of the colonization, the most powerful of these is Aurora–the first planet colonized. The Spacers live aseptic lives. Having no naturally occurring natural disease or microorganisms they have an irrational fear of infection, especially from Earth. They live long lives, nearly 400 years. They have a city on Earth from which they control the Earth government.

Where Spacers are increasingly dependent on robots Earth is rejecting, often times violently, their electronic counterparts.

Elijah Bailey is a detective for New York City. He is long in the face and morose in character. He is a good detective whose superiors cannot see his worth.

Then it happens! There is a murder in Space Town! Someone has killed one of their most respected scientists.

Bailey is assigned the case, and a partner. The Spacers have required that the Earth-detective take on a Spacer Partner–R.

Daneel Olivaw. Elijah’s boss and his bosses have made it clear that Bailey is NOT to mess it up. If he does not find the murderer Earth will lose a whole lot to the Spacers. Daneel is the typical Spacer, well over six-foot, blond, incredibly calm and condescending.

He is also a robot. The first humaniform robot.

So, go along with Bailey and Olivaw on some wild rides on the ‘the belts’ of NYC and out into the horrifying open. Find out who killed the Spacer Scientist, and Why! Say Je-hose-e-fat (jehosephat) to yourself a hundred times so you don’t stumble over it when you read it on the page.

Paperback Reprint edition (December 1, 1991) Bantam Spectra; ISBN: 0553293400 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 6.84 x 4.16

Reviewed by: The Blind Monkey

Ender’s Back. And he’s so darn facinating that last week, after re-reading the Goose’s “Ender’s Game” review, I decided it was time to visit him again (Probably the 5th or 6th time I’ve read this book)!

So what keeps me coming back?? Well, there’s the interstellar politics. And the deftly described, magnificently executed twists of the plot. Or perhaps it’s the way he opens your mind and allows your simple little brain to conceive of other species in human terms. But I think it’s the fact that Card can address the most crucial of ethical and philosophical delimas, and still astound and entertain.

Xenocide finds our cast on the outmost colony of Lusitania. He’s saved the Hive Queen and helped the buggers begin the daunting task of rebuilding of their sentient race. And he’s helped billions to understand the pequininos by writing the Life of Human.

But Lusitania also harbors the devestating descolada virus. A virus that violently destroys the humans it infects, but that also enables the piggies to transform into the third life. Because of this threat, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to use the ‘little Doctor’ to destroy Lusitania, and with it, the only two known sentient species known to man.

Xenocide will astound. It will provoke. It will beg the question - who is Ramen, and who is Varalese?

Maybe we’re the varalese. Maybe xenocide is built into the human psyche as into no other species. In Volume 4 of the Ender Quartet, Card asks if maybe the best thing that could happen for the moral good is for the descolada to get loose, spread throughout the human universe and break us down to nothing.

I highly recommend this book. Ender’s Game gave us action, and Speaker for the Dead gave us sociological exploration. But Xenocide turns a philosophical eye towards the nature of the human race and in the process, to origins of the forces that make us what we are.

It’ll make you think - I guarantee it!

The Goose Is COOKED!! 4/8/99

Well it seems as though Blind Monkey has forgotten (AHEM) a few of the most salient points in this novel. Barring some of the very fantastical and interesting theoretical physics raised. We must keep in mind two things.

FIRST: This book is the first serious journey into the mind of Ender and what he is made of.

SECOND: There are FOUR sentient species discussed here and the three already mentioned are the least interesting in this installment. I leave it to you to find the fourth and discover if I am right or wrong.

– The Goose

Mass Market Paperback Reprint edition (August 1992) Tor Books; ISBN: 0812509250 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.34 x 6.73 x 4.24

Reviewed by: The Goose

In writing the first draft of this review I came to a realization and it was this: My interpretation of Dune is colored by the fact that I have read almost the entire body of Herbert’s work. I’ve read just about everything he ever wrote. Books and stories that most haven’t even heard of. So, the ideas and themes that are mere seeds in Dune appear to me as full-grown. At first I tried to dissociate those insights from the review and tried to look at it from the view of the first reading. Quite predictably that was impossible. So as you read this and say to yourself ‘Where the heck does The Goose get THAT from,’ remember that I am forced to draw my ideas from ALL that Herbert wrote.

Besides being concerned with society, culture, environment and science Herbert is most interested in Sentience. Where it derives from how it develops, how it is handicapped and finally what it is. At first glance (read) you might say ‘where is this dialectic or discussion?’ Dune is a story on a grand scale. An empire millennia in the future. An oppressed people. A commodity of vast value and importance. A noble family. The most nefarious villain we can imagine. A jihad on a galactic scale. Fantastic creatures of the desert called Sand Worms. But nowhere is there a theme, a concern with sentience!

And I ask you: “Are you sure?”

For all its concern with politics and revolution and culture, who are the people that drive this story? There are the Mentat. Humans trained, from infancy, to be smarter and faster than an XMP. Guild Navigators who, with their minds, drive the great highliners safely through the galaxy. Bene Gesserit, women who strive, study, and meditate to bring mind, body and soul into harmony. Finally, the mythical Kwizatz Haderach a man of such mental strength, such total consciousness that he can see the past in his mind’s eye and so doing glimpse the varied paths of the future.

And this universe created on the premise of the Butlerian Jihad. A jihad in which the old technocracy is overthrown and outlawed. A species’ epiphany when it discovers that machines (computers) are a crutch. ‘Thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of the human mind.’

So I ask again, “are you sure Herbert isn’t concerned with intelligence, with the mind, with human sentience?” It isn’t overt and it isn’t the major strand of this work, but it is the major concern of his entire body of work, and it started here.

————–

Dune is a great adventure. Follow family Atreides from Caladan, to Arrakis-Dune, Desert Planet. A planet on the edge of civilization yet more important than the Emperor’s own.

Meet the Fremen, a wild, untamed people who have great integrity and courage. Discover the Harkonnens - a most despicable and treacherous enemy.

Let’s not forget the Bene Gesserit. Working behind the scenes on their own agenda for generations. Or the Guild Navigators, dependent on Melange not only to guide the ships through space but for their lives.

In the middle of all this, a young man named Paul.

————-

Dune was first published as three novellas: “Dune”, “Muad’Dib”, and “The Prophet” in 1965. Shortly thereafter it was bound into a single volume and promptly won both the Nebula and the Hugo; Science Fiction’s most prestigious awards.

If you want to read more about this world read the rest of the series: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapter House Dune.

For those of you feeling brave enough to challenge Goose on his ideas, check out these titles: Destination Void, and The Jesus Incident. These are not easy reads and more than likely you won’t like or understand them very well the first time. These are the books where Herbert tried to tackle sentience head-on. Not an easy task.

If you took Blind Monkey’s suggestion and read The Dosadi Experiment then follow Xorj X. McKie in Whipping Star and “The Careful Saboteur” a short story in the collection The Worlds of Frank Herbert.

Hardcover (December 1965) Tor Books; ISBN: 0312850581; Dimensions (in inches): 1.15 x 9.48 x 6.43

Reviewed by: The Goose

Today we are going to take a step off the beaten Fantasy path. I think that it is time that some of my obscure favorites put their faces into the light. So far, as Blind Monkey will attest, I have reviewed Science Fiction Staples. Books and authors recognized for their creative genius.

Let’s have some fun instead.

I first read (actually had it read to me) The Blue Sword while still in Elementary School - Fifth Grade actually. I know story time is a throw back to Kindergarten but my teacher (Mrs. Froehlich) thought it was a good idea and she was probably right.

I have read it more than a score of times since.

In all the years since I have kept that story in fond memory and have a beat up and torn copy of the book.

Clearly the book is written for older children or young adults - I guess I’m just young at heart.

Based heavily on the Brittish Empire in India, McKinley takes us to Damaria, very far from The Homeland. And in Damaria she takes us to the last, furthest most fort of the Homelanders: Istan.

Harry Crewe is the protagonist of the story. Recently arrived in Daria, her brother Richard is nominally in charge of her after her Father’s death.

Oh. Did I not mention Harry is a woman? How forgetful of me. Angaharad Crewe is Richard Crewe’s younger sister. Richard is stationed at Fort Mundy in Istan. Harry goes to live with him after her father’s death. Is that clear enough? I hope so.

Now, Harry has a run in with the last, free King in Daria: Corlath, King of the Hill Folk. His people live in the mountains across the desert from Istan.

Thinking nothing of the encounter she continues on with her normal routine. Then one night she is rudely awakened by her head bouncing against a horses withers.

It is not, though a story from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Get your minds out of the gutter! Remember this book is targeted at preteens.

For some reason, this story reminds me a lot of Kipling but made for an older audience. Could just be the India - esque landscape, but it could also be the amazing animal friends that Harry makes a long the way.

The story is A LOT of fun. It has intrigue, romance, fighting, and magic. Lots of magic. There isn’t anything spectacular about this book. BUT, I guarantee that if you like a good fantasy story, and one that will involve you and take you away from whatever doldrums you are dealing with that this book will do it for a while.

The writing is clean and imaginative. The characters while purposefully stereotypical are engaging and believable. Read it and enjoy. After you are finished with that go get The Hero’s Crown. A prequel to Blue Sword.

Hardcover School & Library Binding 1st edition (February 1983) William Morrow & Company; ISBN: 0688009387 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.04 x 9.32 x 6.30