SF Book Questions and Answers

By: Chris Wyatt
Date: Monday, March 03, 2003

We get some damn strange e-mails here at CINESCAPE. Last week I got a request from a reader who begged me to forward him the script to next week's ENTERPRISE. While I consider it a compliment that someone thinks I have that much sway with Paramount... it is, of course, a request I had no power to fulfill.

But we also get some great comments and questions. Here on the books page we get some especially good correspondence and we'd like to share some of them...

We plan on doing this regularly, so if you have any questions or comments about the SF you're reading, you can send them to us at: CWyatt@cinescape.com. (If you don't want us to use your name on the site, please ask for it to be withheld).

Alice Caman (Seattle) wrote to ask where the new Alan Dean Foster novel (DROWNING WORLD, Del Rey, $23.95) sits in the chronology of Foster's Commonwealth Universe. The short answer is that it comes right after 2001's REUNION and right before 1973's excellent BLOODHYPE.

For more detailed info, check out the Chronology on Foster's official site: alandeanfoster.com

Another reader wrote to ask about the "rumor" that SF legend James Tiptree Jr (UP THE WALLS OF THE WORLD), was actually a penname for female author. That, as many already realize, is absolutely true. Tiptree was actually travel writer Alice Bradley Sheldon... Ironically, many critics charged Tiptree's writing with being too innately masculine.


Details about Mr/Ms Tiptree's career (and the sad double euthanasia/suicide that ended her life) can be found at the following biographical site: Tiptree Bio

The last e-mail we wanted to share isn't a question, but rather a comment. Sarah from LA writes: "Robert Jordan's [WHEEL OF TIME] series is getting ridiculous. I picked it up from the beginning, when I thought it was going to be a trilogy...or five books, max. Now [recently released Volume 10 CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT] is just so rambling and purposeless. I'm still reading them, but more out of habit. These books should have ended by now."

OK...Those comments aren't necessarily condoned by CINESCAPE, but we want to know how you feel about Jordan, and everything else. Again, send us your book comments at: CWyatt@cinescape.com.

Happy reading!

Book Notes is our weekly Books column.