Reviews and Articles in General Publications
§ Boston Herald, December 2, 1999
John Clute tackles Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune: House Atreides (Bantam Spectra). ''Dune: House Atreides'' is indeed a game. It is the game of ''Dune.'' Play it here, if you will. But don't expect a reading experience. All you'll get is instructions.
§ Washington Post November 29
Here is Paul Di Filippo's take on Michael Crichton's Timeline (Knopf).
Like a pack of velociraptors, the novels of Michael Crichton are
evolutionarily honed to perform well in their niche. Efficient, unstoppable
literary predators, they generally consume the lesser beasts in their domain
(the bestseller lists) and outperform all their more sophisticated cousins
(genre science-fiction books). But it also follows that Crichton's creatures
are not necessarily graceful or pretty or altogether smart in their blunt
slash-and-gobble methodology. His latest, "Timeline," is no exception.
§ Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1999
Rochelle O'Gorman reviews the audiobook version of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune book, read by Tim Curry, and the audiobook of Eric Idle's The Road to Mars, read by Terry Jones.
On December 7th, Michael Harris's review of Gibson's All Tomorrows Parties is mostly plot summary, but concludes with ''The foreground story works well enough ... The background story, however ... is like the San Francisco fog:
There's less to it than meets the eye. The ending is peculiarly
unsatisfying. Little seems resolved, and what's left hanging isn't clear
enough to lead us into a sequel, even if Gibson has one in mind.''
§ CNN, December 7, 1999
L.D. Meagher reviews John Baxter's biography of George Lucas, Mythmaker (Spike).
''...full of interesting factoids but it doesn't shed a lot of light on his subject.''
§ New York Times Book Review December 5, 1999
Adam Gopnik writes an essay about Martin Gardner's new edition of his The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (Norton).
§ Washington Post December 5
A best books of 1999 issue presents various writers' selections on various themes.
George Garrett's short story picks include Kit Reed's Seven for the Apocalypse, ''aptly described as metaphysical science fiction''.
Michael Dirda's Readings column includes plugs for the new edition of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places by Manguel and Gaudalupi, and Frank M. Robinson's Science Fiction of the 20th Century. Dirda also notes:
...as a newspaper and book person, I might readily bewail the triumph of
digital technology: By the close of this year Book World's print version will
no longer be available by subscription; readers in Oregon or Florida will
have to peruse these pages on The Post's Web site.
And Kathy Sawyer reviews several coffee table astronomy books, including works by David Malin, Ken Croswell, James Trefil listed last month on Locus Online.
(Wed 8 Dec 1999)
