Product Description
The first collection of Norman Spinrad's short stories in a decade and more, written after those in the collections THE LAST HURRAH OF THE GOLDEN HORDE, NO DIRECTION HOME, THE STAR SPANGLED FUTURE and OTHER AMERCAS.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Delightful short stories from the creator of Lord Darcy
Randall Garrett (1927-1987) was a prolific SF and Fantasy writerin the 50s and 60's. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms and collaborations, including `Robert Randall".

He is most famous for his superb series about Lord Darcy, set in a great alternate universe where Richard the Lion Hearted didn't die from a crossbow bolt, and where Magic (under strict rules) has taken over much of what Technology does today. The series is set in the late 20th century. It's one of the best Fantasy Alternate History series out there.

This collection was done in 1982, edited by Randall's friend and collaborator Robert Silverberg. Each short story has a personal introduction by many of Randall's SF author friends. The intros are worth reading.

The stories are a mixed bag of course, since they include his first (showing great promise, but ...) and other selections. The collection contains two Lord Darcy stories, including one I have never seen collected before- starring Captain Darcy in an alternate WWI.

I heartily recommend the omnibus collection "Lord Darcy" (1983).
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Product Description
From the author of The Druid King—a sweeping historical novel based on the 16th-century Spanish Conquest of the Aztec empire.

1531. In a hut on the slopes of the volcano Popocateptl, scholar and poet Alvaro de Sevilla reflects on his extraordinary life. For Alvaro was one of a small army of conquistadors who, years earlier, set out to conquer an empire. Hernando Cortes is a man driven by his desire for gold and glory. Having been proclaimed the reincarnation of the god Quetzalcoatl on his arrival in the New World, Cortes capitalizes on the hatred for the central state of Mexica to force his way to the capital city. There he will meet the Aztec Emperor, Montezuma, who welcomes the conquistadors to his city, showering them with gold. But it is an encounter between two civilizations that can only end in chaos, death, and destruction…Born in New York, Norman Spinrad is the author of Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, and The Druid King. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Spinrad goes historical
There was a time when Norman Spinrad was on the cutting edge of science fiction, one of the leaders of the so-called New Wave with such works as Bug Jack Barron and The Iron Dream.Alas, those days are decades in the past and a mellower Spinrad has moved on to rather straightforward historical novels.First, there was The Druid King dealing with Julius Caesar's conquest of the Gauls under Vercingetorix.In Mexica, he once again deals with the themes of culture clash and conquest, this time with the Spanish overthrow of Montezuma.

The narrator of this tale is Alvaro de Sevilla, the alias of Avram ibn Ezra, a Jew who has fled the Spanish Inquisition and adopted a Christian guise in Cuba.Word has come to the island of people occupying what would eventually be known as the American mainland; more important than the people is the gold they seem to have lots of.Alvaro is not greedy, but has a scholarly interest in learning of this alien civilization; he plays a part in getting his friend, Hernando Cortes to launch an expedition.

Though armed with better equipment, the Spanish contingent will find itself almost hopelessly outnumbered.Cortes, however, is a canny individual and is able to coerce tribe after tribe into alliances, typically while cramming Christianity down their throats.These outlying tribes are one thing; the larger Empire of the Mexica (the term Aztec is rarely used), led by Montezuma, is another story.

Of course, history tells who will eventually win this battle, but the tale of the defeat of the Mexica still is quite interesting.Alvaro is often little more than an observer, but at times, he plays a key advisory role to Cortes.This will eventually eat at him; as a Jew, he knows all about persecution, and he will regret his role in the savagery he had helped provoke.At the heart of the tale, however, are two characters:Cortes and Montezuma, and even literarily, Cortes is the dominating figure.The general viewpoint of Cortes nowadays is not favorable, and while Spinrad does offer a humanizing depth to Cortes, the Spaniard remains a villain, albeit a charming one.

At the beginning of my review, I said Spinrad had moved on from science fiction, but really that is not completely true.Mexica is in its own way a science fiction story that really happened:a first contact story and an alien invasion story.And even if Spinrad is not the edgy writer he once was, he still is a good writer.Mexica starts off slowly but picks up in the second half (when Montezuma finally appears).If you are only vaguely aware of this story and tend to view it in black-and-white terms (typically, Cortes the evil destroyer of Indian civilizations), Mexica will offer a deeper look at the tale.
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Product Description
"Science Fiction in the Real World" revisited
an original collection a new decade's worth of Norman Spinrad's critical essays in "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"

FIRST PUBLICATION IN ANY BOOK FORM!!
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Product Description
The best stories from the first ten volumes of the anthology series. Contains Nebula Award winning stories The Secret Place, by Richard McKenna; Mother to the World, by Richard Wilson; The Planners, by Kate Wilhelm; Passengers, by Robert Silverberg; and other outstanding stories by George Alec Effinger, Carol Emshwiller, James Salles, Joanna Russ, Thom Lee Wharton, Avram Davidson, Harlan Ellison, Gardner Dozois, Gene Wolfe, RA Lafferty, Ursula K Le Guin, Carol Carr, Langdon Jones, Philip José Farmer, Joanna Russ, Ted Thomas, and Ruth Allison and Jane Rice (writing as Allison Rice). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Too bad it's out of print.
This is a 3-story anthology with nuclear war as a common theme. By far the best is Spinrad's entry, which (I think) is not available anywhere else. It's a hilarious tale of a pot-smoking Arab oil sheik bent on acquiring nukes to annihilate Israel, and an attendant power struggle between a screwball American president (a former used-car salesman) and a computer-animated corpse of the Soviet Communist Party Secretary General. All the comdey ingredients are there and Spinrad makes the best of them! ... Read more