RECENTLY ARRIVED: BOOKS: SCIENCE FICTION

The House of the Stag is a sequel to an earlier episodic comic fantasy of Baker's which I enjoyed very much and, therefore, couldn't resist this one.

The title, The Empress of Mars, deliberately harks back to the interplanetary Scientific Romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs which began with A Princess of Mars. But that is all, because Baker is too wise and too well aware that times have changed and what we have here is a 'realistic' depiction of life on Mars set within the context of her Company series of novels. I'm just over a third of the way through and, as I expected, it's great fun, full of strong characters and dry humour.

I've read Norstrilia before, many years ago when it was split into two Pyramid paperbacks. Here, Nesfa Press (see the Zelazny collections in recent posts) have brought them together to form a definitive edition, along with various pieces of text which originally linked the separate editions and with an introduction. It's an excellent publication and the perfect accompaniment to the definitive complete collection of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series. 

Nesfa Press does do more publications along these lines but alas of authors in whom I have far less interest such as Poul Anderson,a competent writer from the Astounding/Analog era and a little beyond but whose time I feel has gone. Smith and Zelazny's works, however, still retain their vigour and their magic and writers like Anderson and his ilk just aren't in their league.