The IBIC Guide to Books By Alan Dean Foster
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September 1995 Featured
author: Alan Dean Foster. After a long hiatus,
Alan Dean Foster has returned to the adventures of his
red-haired young hero Flinx and his minidrag Pip. I'll say at
once that I thoroughly enjoyed an advance copy of MID-FLINX (Del Rey, in stores
in November 1995). It's Foster near the top of his form, as
Flinx visits one of Foster's early creations, MIDWORLD (also an
outstanding book, and yes, you probably should re-read it
first). MID-FLINX was good enough that it prompted me to go back
to read most of Foster's oeuvre, including all the Flinx novels,
several of the Commonwealth books, and the first volume of his
recent Amplitur/Weave trilogy. The recent MONTEZUMA STRIP (Warner
Aspect), a series of stories set in the 21st C. U.S.-Mexican
border, is an especially nice surprise--there's more depth of
feeling, tragedy more genuinely observed, than in his earlier
books. He's always been a sensitive and enjoyable author, from
his first book, THE TAR-AIYM KRANG, but he's grown.
Foster
has had an interesting career: we think more often of authors
being cursed by sequelitis and trilogyphilia (is there a better
fen word?) than by its absence, but Foster's dozen or so
Commonwealth and Flinx novels are fine achievements that would
probably stand taller among their peers if there was a more
evident overall "arc" to the novels as a whole. Foster's editor,
Steve Sterns, says that Foster's next from Del Rey will be a
"big" Commonwealth (but non-Flinx) book. That's good news in
itself--the Commonwealth is one of the more enjoyable "worlds"
any science fiction author has devised, and the friendly thranx
are simply strokes of genius. But my two cents? It's time for
Foster to blow up a couple of planets, kill off some beloved
characters, and write a few thousand pages bringing the
Commonwealth and Flinx novels to the "big series, best seller"
climax they richly deserve.
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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996
In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to
draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life
and thinking.
- When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and
Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's
classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's
descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on
the classic. What a great movie it would make!
- The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO
immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy.
I've read a number of translations over the years, but my
favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO;
PURGATORY;
PARADISE). The notes
are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading
her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE
INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
- I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY,
which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest
in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But
reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes
that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
- Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent
acquisition, the very handsome NIV
STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in
IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black
and brown
are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They
appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to
know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the
linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding
Scripture.
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