Salvador, by Lucius Shepard

When I search for the stories from The Secret History of Science Fiction, I come across many reviews in little blogs like mine--someone just decided to put their reviews in a blog instead of posting them on Amazon or Library Thing or some such.  I currently use Delicious for my bookmarks and this blog for reviews--might have to switch someday, the Delicious folks may not keep this going.  We shall see.

In any case, I, like many other small bloggers, have read Salvador by Lucius Shepard, and am going to write about it.  Shepard is known as an SF writer but he is quite literary, and this one is very much in the vein of heavy reflections on the Vietnam war.  Except that is in the past, and this is set in Central America, where it looked at one point like we might go to war.  So he only got the venue wrong.  Soldiers amped on stimulants scour the rain forests for Sandinistas, finding some but doing vast damage in the process.  Including to themselves.  But the experience centers on our protagonist Dantzler, and how he feels about it from inside.  It's pretty good, in an elegiac sort of way.  I almost like it, but say in the end, 2 stars.

Radiant Green Star, by Lucius Shepard

I have spent a couple of good days reading Radiant Green Star, which got both a Hugo and Nebula nomination in 2001.  It's a great pleasure to read a story so well-constructed, with just enough twist in it to make it interesting and not confusing.  The story is set as a struggle among wealthy and powerful people, but in the modest circumstance of a traveling circus, and Shepard spends a lot of time in the inner life of our protagonist, a half-American Vietnamese boy named Phillip.

I feel a need to be mildly critical as this seems to me to be a good story that could have been really good.  It's just a bit long for what it accomplishes--might have been filled out further for a novel, or cut to a novelette.  His most striking side character is The Major, the last American POW, who has had horrible genetic experiments carried out on him that have granted long life and weird disfigurement.  And while he is carefully woven into the story and has important moments, in the end I couldn't figure out his true place.  The speculative part is a backdrop to the emotions and circumstances of the protagonist, which can make for a good tale and in this case does.  I give it 3 stars, and you would not be sorry if you spent some time reading it too.

The Jaguar Hunter, by Lucius Shepard

South America isn't a common setting for SF, but it has had its moments.  The Jaguar Hunter joins that thread of literature, and it was a fine addition.  Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominated, it's a fine story of a jaguar hunt and a man's search inside himself for what is real.  There's definite flavors of Hemingway and magical realism in the story.  The writing is simple and direct, making the story the focus.  I was very impressed, and fully enjoyed reading it.  To describe it would be to take too much away from it--no plot summary is needed.  Read it if you want to simply enjoy a fine, professional piece of work.