NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS
Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258
Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com
January 12, 2012
The Stellar Guild Series Continues with Reboots:
Prepare For Some Wild and Crazy SF!!
A review of
Mercedes Lackey Reboots (Phoenix Pick, and Imprint of Arc Manor, 2012)
$6.99 160 pp ISBN: 978-1-61242-049-3
[Book One: Novellette by Cody Martin: Bad Moon Rising
Book Two: Novella by Mercedes Lackey: Just The Right Bullets]
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
In The Stellar Guild Series an established science fiction author teams up with his protoge' to compose a story in which he writes a novella (which is about 2/3 of the story length) and his protoge' writes a novellete (which makes up the other third). The protoge' receives authorial credit on the title page and the cover. This new concept is the latest development in the longstanding SF tradition in which established writers help new writers. In the first book in this series, Tau Ceti (published several months ago) the protoge' write the ending of the story. In Reboots he writes the beginning.
Like most SF, Reboots is space fiction, but unlike most SF, it incorporates fantasy elements. To wit, odd as it sounds, the crews of the spaceships are zombies and werewolves and vampires! The story framework is clearly SF: the spaceships are run by technology, not by magic. And the fantasy beings, although acting as expected, do so within an SF milieu.
The story both takes these fantasy beings seriously and also ridicules them. For instance, we are told not to expect to find any "altruistic" vampires or to find zombies "sitting around discussing Kierkegaard" and we are told of the inadvisability of turning werewolves loose on a planet with multiple moons! However, though filled with humor, the book is not just a satire or a farce: there also is a serious story here, mainly having to do with locating a missing spaceship. Perhaps the best designation would be science fiction comic drama involving fantasy characters, who are the main source of the humor. The categories of these fantasy beings are also provided with humorous nicknames: Vampires are "Fangs", Werewolves are "Furs", and Zombies are "Reboots". Normal human beings are called "Norms". The style and tone of the narration of the story is also often humorous.
I am not giving away the story by discussing the rationale of these fantasy beings as astronauts because this is noted on the rear jacket. The idea is that (supposedly) they can exist without air and without protection from cosmic radiation. It is difficult to discuss how realistic this notion is because of the huge diversity of notions about fantasy beings, especially vampires: some writers speak of many classes and sub-classes which differ considerably among themselves. This is the basis for all the new vampire stories coming out now which have "good" or "decent" vampires as characters.
The idea of vampire astronauts itself is not new. It is found in "The Twilight Saga: Lunar Eclipse" and in "the Last Vampire Project" of the Behance Network and the time-warping vampires of the "Gather" story.
If you are looking for "hard" SF, do not read this book. If you would like some wild and crazy SF, ,check this one out! For more info, visit www.phoenixpick.com.
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