Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
Her quest takes her to Nevada where Cyra meets Thomas Marrowbone, a lonely inhuman wizard. As Thomas helps Cyra learn just why she feels so different from humans, they fall in love. However, he has mission to fight the goblins in Sin City and does not want her to come. Cyra will go into hell to help her beloved win.
As with TRAVELER, the world of OUTSIDERS is filled with mythological creatures that seem so genuine that the audience will demand Melanie Jackson takes a DNA test. The story line is action -packed from the moment Cyra meets Thomas. That duo is a delightful pair who realizes that with one another they have found something rare and sacred, but duty calls first. Fans of supernatural romances will want to visit the strange world of Ms. Jackson because a visual treat awaits them.
Air Geoff Ryman St. Martin's Dec 2003, $13.95, 400 pp. ISBN: 0312261217
In 2020, impoverished Karzistan keeps the same culture that has existed in this mountains Asian country for centuries. The central government feels forcing everyone to enter the information age by bringing modern day technologically to the populace will improve things though the villagers are more interested in food and shelter. Karzistan, along with the rest of the globe, is going on line when Air, the global networking system, is launched. No one bothered to ask villagers of places like Kizuldah whether they wanted to join the international community, because individual rights mean nothing in the Information Age. The connection will reside in everyone's head regardless of feelings.
The first implementation of Air leads to some deaths amidst the villagers. Fashion expert Chung Mae, who provides cosmetics services and sells dresses to the farmers' wives of Kizuldah had been considered the link to the rest of the world before Air was launched. Since Air was fostered on everyone, Mae has the memories of a dead woman co-occupying her head. Meanwhile the government concludes that the test was a success and round two will begin next year so Mae tries to teach Internet 101 to everyone.
Geoff Ryman provides readers with an interesting look at the future with the merging of leaders, bureaucrats and technocrats to trample individual rights. The vivid description of the impacts of the Air imprint on the cerebellum is ingenious. Though the tale at times ironically fails to interconnect its cautionary theme that everyone will be part of the Information Age even if cultures die in the process of enforced adaptation, this is an engaging work of speculative fiction.