Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA)

January 27, 1988, Wednesday

SCIENCE FICTION SHELF

BYLINE: Frances Deutsch Louis

SECTION: Ideas; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 679 words


Soldier of the Mist, by Gene Wolfe. New York: TOR Books. 335 pp. $3.95.

Here is a challenge no writer but Wolfe could have taken up and no reader will be able to put down: A brain-damaged (or god-touched) veteran of wars in the 5th century BC. Hellas is ''Wandering between two worlds, one dead,/ The other powerless/ to be born.'' Arnold's words perfectly describe a man shuttling between the realms of gods and men. Latro is a perpetually blank page for life to write on; every third day he loses all recollection of those he has loved and fought, or those who have fought and loved him. The innocent ''Soldier of the Mist,'' whose name can mean guerrilla, bodyguard, or pawn, has to fight merely to find himself between mindwipes. At once helpless and powerful in dual realities he experiences but cannot integrate, Latro profoundly touches everyone around him - including the reader - as Wolfe involves us directly and delicately in the process by which a bicameral brain may have evolved into what it is and yet may be.
The Fish Police, created, written, and illustrated by Steve Mancuse. New York: Warner Books. No page number. $8.95.

Amid the proliferation of expensively pretentious ''graphic novels'' (fat original fantasies in glossy colorstrip wrap), this slim and funny spoof-'n-goof offers welcome comic-form relief. Uniting the first four finny installments of his ''Fish Police,'' Mancuse does an art job on inane supersleuth clones of TV and movie series infamy. Genuinely at sea between big mouths and fish eyes, the floundering Inspector Gill uncorks a bottle of Great White and leers at the sinuous niece of SQUID's Dr. Calmari. The language is salty and the characters all wet. In fact, the setup is so fishy, and the villains so slimy, that one wonders why anyone bothered to write spy sagas about punks and molls with (ugh) legs.

Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, by Isaac Asimov. New York: Doubleday. 332 pp. $18.95.

Of our science-fictional ABC's - Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke - the first has nearly reached F(aster) T(han) L(ight) speed by writing more than most of us can read. Academic American wimp A.J. Morrison is kidnapped by Russians who think he can tap the brain waves of creative thought. With a motley Soviet crew including an engineer who talks like a cross between Polonius and Charlie Chan, and a very nasty pair of state-crossed lovers, A.J. is shrunk to molecular size and shot into the brain of a comatose physicist whose crumbling gray matter may hide the secret of energy-feasible miniaturization. What is truly fantastic about a voyage in which absolutely everything is painstakingly explained is that while the ship often moves sluggishly through cellular seas, it never bogs down. This trip is for those as much in love with the adventure of science as Asimov - readers young in heart and hope, for whom the electron microscope is a portal to the bravest new world and the future the only place to be.

The Alexandrian Ring, Book One of The Gamester Wars. By William R. Forstchen. New York: A Del Rey Book from Ballantine. 295 pp. $350.

Galactic gamblers crosswire history and do a little spacetime body-snatching for jaded Gavarnians and humans who are tired of peace enforced by starfaring Overseers, and chafing to place bets on someone else's battle if they can't have one of their own. On an isolated ringworld, a cruel circus is staged: Alexander the Great is plunked down among tribal-level humans, fabled unifier Kubar Taug is set amid primitive Gavarnian ''wolfpacks,'' and wealthy watchers wage whole worlds on what the time-napped leaders can do. As the manipulated become the manipulators, battles planned to titillate bored predators are exposed for the agonies of blood and tears they are. Alexander and Kubar, instead of conducting the grisly ''entertainment'' they were translated to lead, become once again the heroes they truly are. Not only is this a mere smidgeon of the multi-level action Forstchen crams into ''The Alexandrian Ring'' - this is only Volume One.