Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle

From the freeby table. My sister says she has read Mary Gentle, but I don't think I ever have. Actually, the main reason I picked it up was that I recognized the cover. It is by Michael Whelan. Gentle may not be a big name in the SF game, but she could afford the best when it came to cover art.

Frankly, the book was not particularly memorable. It was good enough that I kept reading all the way to the end, but I feel no compelling need to go hunt down the sequel. In fact, I have been considering returning it to the table.

The heroine is sent as envoy to the planet, the natives of which are unmistakeably not human, but she has an affair with one of them. Then she is taken for a member of a hated formerly dominant group and is first condemned to death, then hounded across the world after escaping. Serious plausibility issues. If the golden witch breed has been wiped out, why are they everywhere? and since she is obviously not a native of the world, why is she mistaken for a native? Maybe I'm just missing something.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I hadn't read this in years - lots of years. Long enough that I "remembered" more of the movie than the actual book. In most respects the movie is very faithful to the book, with the exception of the whole "dream sequence" thing where the fantasy characters - the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and the Wicked Witch are just acquaintances transformed by her dream. But there is one detail - why did the make the magic slippers that take Dorothy and Toto home in the end ruby instead of silver like they were in the book? It seems like an unnecessary change.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Didn't I swear a while back that I wasn't going to fall behind again and end up having to play catch-up with myself? Well, here we go again. Ten books read and not a one written up. A few of them are rereads - including this one - but still ---

I always liked this one better than The Secret Garden, which is much better known. It's probably simply because Sara Crewe is such an engaging character - unspoiled by great wealth and not destroyed by poverty and abuse - and the Victorians did know how to abuse children. I suppose critics would say that it is saccharine and sentimental, but I really don't care. Burnett puts enough humanity into Sara to keep her interesting, a real little girl, not a saint.

The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I never guessed that Bradley had done YA. I have to say that it isn't her strength, but it was all right. It came out in 1963 and it is a bit dated, but not badly enough to make it unreadable. Oddly, they keep talking about the aliens' "warp drive." And I know that was before original Trek launched. The plot is fairly standard, I'm trying to remember the title of one that is very similar - I'm thinking it is one of the less distinguished Heinlein juvies. Citizen of the Galaxy, maybe. Anyway, boy gets dumped into intergalactic conspiracy and saves the universe and gets the girl.

AND discovers that the evil aliens aren't as bad as all that, and is the agent of a new peace. I think Bradley was trying to dumb it down just a bit much. She has created an alien race so similar to humans that with a little plastic surgery our hero is able to pass as one of them. They can even share plasma - and they come from a different galaxy. And for a bit of a reach, the aliens are color-blind and don't know that their secret fuel is an unknown color that is not in the Roy G Biv visual spectrum. She tried so hard to describe this eighth color that I began to suspect that she had written the story on some kind of bet.

Obviously, this is not a Darkover book - but for all of her fans, she put in a Darkover allusion. The alien ship with our hero is forced to put in for emergency repairs, and one of the worlds almost within range is Cottman IV. That's it. They don't go there, but it is there, because as all true Darkover fans know, Cottman IV is the Terran name for Darkover.

The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown

This is another from the freebie table. It is a little more recent than the Silverberg - 1986, the Silverberg was 1979, but I had never even heard of Ms. Brown. Do you realize how awkward it is to google someone named Mary Brown? I did manage to find her. She has written quite a number of books, none of which I had ever read.

Given the quantity of fantasy fiction that I have read over the years, I considered this a little ominous, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Again some fairly quirky characters and interesting twists on the fantasy quest.

We have a heroine this time who is trapped by a wicked witch. The girl is hunched and twisted and so ugly that she must wear a mask when the witch sends her to the village on errands. She is called Thing. She has as companions a crow, a toad, a goldfish, and a kitten. All five of them are imprisoned by the witch for reasons that become clear eventually. The witch has imbedded in each of them a "pebble" which cripples them and causes great pain. Again, no great mystery. If one has read the prologue - and no experienced reader of fantasy would dare skip the prologue - it is easy to guess that the jewels stolen from the dragon are the pebbles which torture our oddly assorted little group.

When the witch is killed, they set off together lest the villagers kill them as well as the witch. They pick up a knight with rusty armor (the result of a curse) and a unicorn who has lost his horn and together they encounter the Ancient - a Merlin/Gandalf character - who sets them on their path to return the "pebbles" to their owner and recover their lives which have literally been on hold since they were kidnapped by the witch.

I will have to find some more of her stuff.

Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg

It had been a very, very long time since I read any Silverberg. I remembered that I liked what I had read, so when this turned up on the freebie table, I grabbed it.

Fantasy quest, with a few rather nice twists. It opens with our hero, Valentine, sitting on a hillside above a great city where he is accosted by an enterprising young herdsman. We only gradually learn that he remembers nothing of his past beyond his name. They get to the city and Valentine is taken up by a troup of jugglers. They teach him the trade, for which he has a great aptitude.

There is no big mystery. Quite early on there are hints that maybe Valentine is not what he seems - if anyone could only figure out what he seems to be. Sure enough, he is really the Ruler of the World deposed and stuffed into another body to get him out of the way while the usurper takes his.

And they are off on tour to juggle before all and sundry - and incidentally to restore the rightful Lord Valentine to the throne.

Lots of time and pages of stuff that is not particularly plot related, but interesting. Strange flora and fauna and interesting aliens and lots and lots of quirky characters. They do get Valentine restored, but the series goes on. Book Two was rubberbanded with the first one. Apparently, Silverberg picks up one of the quirky characters mentioned above and Book Two is his.

I really enjoyed this, except for reading it on paper, but it seemed silly to waste a free book by buying another copy of it to make it easier to read.