The Dream Walker

 

By Charlotte Armstrong

Early 1950s, in the depths of the Red Scare in the United States, what better revenge is there than to frame an upright and respected man by smearing him as a part of the Communist conspiracy? This is the idea Ray Pankerman came up with to pay back John Marcus for exposing Pankerman's financial ties to the Communist Party. He enlists three other people in the plot: Kent Shaw who is in it for the money and for the thrills, Cora Steffani, two-bit actor who is in desperate need of cash, and Darlene Hite who is under the mistaken belief that she is performing in a publicity stunt.

Cora assembles her "audience" and goes through her act, going into a trance and waking up and relating a strange dream where she is walking on a beach and encounters a famous person and they briefly talk. The person, Josephine Crain, a successful and respected performer, verifies that she was approached on the beach by a woman who looked like Cora.

Cora pulls her act several times, each time going into her trance and waking to recite her story of approaching some respectable and well known person and while at the same time being in her apartment in New York City, each incident verified, with qualifications, by the other persons.

Of course, it is a scam. The dream walker is a woman who resembles Cora, Darlene Hite. It is all orchestrated by Kent Shaw, with codes and secret signals. Cora's best friend, Olivia Hudson, can't understand why her friend is pulling what she is positive is a scam. 

Then someone turns up dead, someone connected to Darlene. And now the four plotters know they are in too deep to turn back.

This is not a tale of the supernatural. The "dream walking" is a scam to frame an innocent man. It all blows up in the plotters faces when one of them takes it too far and murders a witness. But it is quite intriguing to watch the plotters carry out their scam and fool the police and the press and, in Cora's place, her closest friends as to how they are doing it. Plus there is also a rather soapy love story included. An enjoyable read.

Genesis

 

By Poul Anderson

Computer technology has advanced to the point that people can upload their minds into machines and thus "live" forever if they so desire. Eventually most people choose to do so and humanity dies out while human/machine minds  spread throughout the galaxy. Artifical intelligence combines with the human minds and Earth is left behind, a relect of a time long past.

One artificial intelligence is left in charge of Earth called Gaia. Millions of years go past. Life on Earth adapts as the planet changes over time. The sun begins to age and enters its period of decline. 

A notion takes hold among the hybrid intelligences that span the universe. They have the power to restore the sun and protect Earth, the birthplace of humanity. Yet Gaia has done nothing to protect the Earth from the dying sun and life is fading away on the planet as it gets hotter and hotter. When asked to take steps to stop Earth's decline, Gaia refuses, claiming there is much information to be gained by watching the planet and the sun die. 

So the extraterrestrial intelligences send an emissary to examine Gaia and understand why it is refusing to preserve life on Earth. The emissary, called Wayfarer, contains, among other things, the mind of Christian Brannock, a man from back in the days when humans were first exploring the solar system. While Wayfarer examines Gaia's data, Christian will explore Gaia's studies of history through the simulations it has created. And a third aspect is a robot, Brannock, who explores the actual surface of the world. They eventually stumble upon Gaia's secret: it has recreated human beings and is trying to inspire them to save themselves from the dying Earth. 

The most interesting part of this story was that of the robot Brannock exploring the world. But that part of the story is just a very limited. The major part is the story of Christian and Laurinda who fall in love as they experience the various simulations Gaia takes them through. I wasn't particularly moved by that, though. Overall, it was just too much talk and not enough action.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

Web of the Chozen

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Bar Holliday is a scout for Seiglein Corporation. His job is to look for likely planets for humans to live on. He finds a planet but there is a large spaceship orbiting the planet. It is one of seven colony ships that set out hundreds of years ago looking for new worlds to establish new societies. Holliday enters the ship and finds it deserted and figures the people must be on the planet. 

He lands his ship on the planet but can find no sign of people although there are thousands of large, ugly, kangaroo-like herbivores everywhere. He returns to his ship only to find it encased in a hard, white shell. He tries to melt the shell with his gun but it stops working and then his clothing and equipment crumble away to nothing. He's stranded, nude and locked out of his ship.

He starts to feel really hungry and begins to gorge on the local plants. His hunger overwhelms him and he can only stop when he is gorged. Long story short, he changes into one of the ugly herbivores that infest the planet. 

These creatures are the human colonists, transformed into these strange beasts by a virus that was engineered by the artificial intelligence computer that operated the ship that brought them there. The computer, called Moses, was just doing what he thought was best for them. They are extremely healthy, long-lived, peaceful and self-sufficient. But because of their high reproduction rate, they have filled the planet to capacity. And because their lives are so easy and unchallenging, they are degenerating into the herd "cows" they appear to be.

Bar Holliday refuses to accept his fate and graze and screw and poop and sleep like the herd does. He has a plan, a plan to get back in his ship and warn the folks back home what the computer Moses has done to the humans in its care.

But as the poet says, "The best laid plans o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley." And do Holliday's plans go awry! Instead of rescue, Seiglein Corporation sends destroyers that lay waste to all life on the planet. Bar Holliday has a motto though: "Noboby beats Bar Holliday." Holliday will make Seiglein pay very dearly indeed.

This was a pretty good book. Although the author's idea of an ideal race of beings is more than a little peculiar. He makes them blind and gives them hooves instead of hands and turns them into weird cows. The most exciting part of their day is taking a poop, I'm guessing.

Anyway, this is the last Jack L. Chalker book I will ever read. His ideas just don't appeal to me. 

War of the Maelstrom

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Three of the Changewinds series. 

The book opens with Klittichorn and the Storm Princess plotting their attack against Boolean and Sam, the Storm Princess' identical twin. Sam is beginning to understand her power over the storm and is standing up successfully against the Storm Princess.

Crim/Kira is concerned about Sam's state of mind so he/she takes her to see Etanalon, a healer/shrink/sorcerer. She has Sam look into a magic mirror which helps the girl see herself clearly and she comes away more steady in her thinking and purpose. 

Klittichorn is again hunting for Charley and Boday, thinking to use them to against Sam. Halagar, the hunk Charley is smitten by, is supposed to guide them to Boolean, along with the third rank wizard, Dorion, who is in love with Charley. But Charley is with Halagar until her slaps her around one day. Halagar betrays them and joins Klittichorn's side, turning Charley into a camp whore, until Shadowcat tears his throat out, dying in the process but freeing Charley from her enslavement to Halagar. Charley escapes and is found by Dorion.

Sam gets sent to a plantation to do farm work again but then gets sent on to a penal colony to be wife to four convicts. Once again she under a spell than makes her willing and compliant. Klittichorn's agent and his gang is on her trail and Crim/Kira show up in time to warn Sam and fight off the attackers. Boolean finally makes an appearance and reveals the truth of his and Klittichorn's past. They also realize that Klittichorn's goal isn't mere conquest. What he is really after is attaining divinity and Boolean and company may have to die fighting him to prevent the madman from becoming a god.

This was an OK story. Sam and Charley both spend most of time under some kind of potion or spell that makes them meek and compliant. And naked most of the time. Really makes me wonder about the author's feelings about women. Most of the story is about the characters' struggles just to get somewhere. Anyway, happy ending. But Charley sure does get the short end of the stick. I won't say what happens to her, but in my opinion, it sucks. 

 

Vengeance of the Dancing Gods

 

By Jack L. Chalker

Book Three of the Dancing Gods series.

Macore starts out this tale by trying to steal a demon gem which results in the demon placing a spell on him that causes him to attempt to break into Ruddygore's vault and ending up trapped in the Magic Lamp. Meanwhile, Joe and Tiana are bored of being worshipped as gods and want some time off. So Ruddy enlists them and Marge, Macore, and Poquah on a mission to stop the Dark Baron and Dacaro the wizard who are causing problems on Earth. But first they must visit the oracle to receive his prophecy about their mission. Naturally they have lots of strange adventures on the trip to see the oracle and there is a lot of body switching. Joe ends up briefly as a nymph and Tiana becomes a mermaid. 

The Baron was stripped of his magic abilities by Ruddy as punishment before being exiled to Earth but Dacaro is a skilled wizard and is becoming more skilled under the Baron's tutelage. They have established themselves as leaders of a religious cult and have a large congregation of fanatical and murderous followers. 

Ruddygore will not be able to accompany Joe and Marge and the others in their quest to stop the Baron and Dacaro. Macore's task will be to get them past the guards and the guard dogs and the security equipment and into the Baron's stronghold in the forests of northern California. They will be joined on the way by two people from Earth, a New York pixie named Gimlet and a Catholic priest, Father O'Grady, who knows how to perform exorcisms but who has a serious drinking problem.

This was a more interesting story than the first two books in the series. The gang has lots of strange adventures in the first part of the book before they ever get to Earth. There are lots of body changes, so many that I lost track of who looked like what.

But the story bogs down a bit when they get to Earth. Chalker just skips over nearly all of their travels from west Texas to Northern California, a lost opportunity for some fun, in my opinion. But the story picks up again when they take on the two bad guys and their adherents. There is more body switching and Ruddygore makes a surprise entrance at the end.