The IBIC Guide to Books By Alan Dean Foster

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Remarks from the IBIC Editor's Journal

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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