The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein | Worldwar: Striking the Balance | The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein

Are you there, God? It's me, Elizabeth...

• The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein
• By Theodore Roszak
• Bantam Books
• $5.99/$7.99 Canada
• Paperback, Nov. 1996

n The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein there are stories aplenty -- Elizabeth's own; the story of women in society and science; and the contrasts of female/male and freedom/responsibility. It is recounted in both the first person and the second, in the form of Elizabeth's own journal and in the notes of the historian and archivist of her papers.

A more peripheral fixture in Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein, Elizabeth is shown here as having profound influence on disastrous events. This is fully Elizabeth's story, as told by her, a person of misfortune, intelligence and nerve. In quick succession she is bastard, orphan and gypsy. Then, good fortune -- the brilliant Baroness Caroline Frankenstein espies Elizabeth's promise and adopts her to be raised as a companion and eventual mate for her son, the infamous Victor.

The Baroness and the Baron are wealthy Freethinkers, and all the suns of 18th century Europe shine at their Geneva estate: Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke and Lavosier. Elizabeth is educated by the best and brightest of the era, practically at their knees. In addition to her traditional, male-centric studies, Baroness Frankenstein strives to liberate Elizabeth's mind by initiating both her and Victor into the secret society of wise women that gather near the estate. The rites and knowledge of these women are pagan and powerful, and through them, Elizabeth and Victor have a chance at an equal partnership of love, discovery and achievement. But the ending of this novel was written 180 years ago, and the two are doomed, whether by matriarchy or patriarchy, or both.

Elizabeth is no 18th century debutante, but she is not without doubts and missteps either. It is because her enlightened, self-determining focus is paired with a dollop of passivity that readers familiarly ask, "So is she partly to blame for her own destruction?" Patterned after early feminist Mary Shelley herself, Elizabeth is a sobering lens though which modern eyes look at bygone tableaux, only to discover they gaze somehow at the present.

Memoirs is rich beyond belief. When the ancien regime falls, when the great minds expound, it feels close and real because it is all intimately woven into Elizabeth's life. She lives Rousseau's idea of the noble savage. She and the unstable Victor seek treatment from the controversial Dr. Mesmer. Women are midwives and mistrusted, women are witches and burned.

It is remarkable that the book's achievements are equal to its heady, intricate ambition. In an issue-laden novel that uses an individual's life to theorize and expound, the intimacy with that individual is neither lost, misplaced, nor subsumed. If that weren't enough, Roszak also nails the flavor of the era in the style of his prose. This is just short of miraculous, but the miracle is earthy enough to be believable.

The panache of Memoirs is historical, without being irrelevant, and it provokes fear without a bogeyman. Anyone looking for a harum-scarum pitchfork festival, you want the next village down the road. -- Tamara

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Worldwar: Striking the Balance

Can the war be stopped before Earth becomes a nuclear wasteland?

• Worldwar: Striking the Balance
• By Harry Turtledove
• Del Rey Books
• $23.00/$32.00 Canada
• Hardcover, Dec. 1996

oth the United States and Germany have learned how to make atomic bombs on their own as Worldwar: Striking the Balance, the fourth and concluding volume of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, opens. And the Soviet Union is frantically trying to develop the technology. This new development complicates the situation for the reptilian invaders who have interrupted World War II. Their colonization fleet will arrive in 20 years, and they don't want the Earth turned into a radioactive wasteland. Thus, they're reluctant to use their own nuclear weapons for more than retaliation. On the other hand, the speed of innovation among the humans frightens them. While their technology is vastly superior now, if their conquest isn't complete by the time the colonization ship arrives, they believe humans could surpass them technologically and even threaten their other worlds.

But while the humans are doing much better in the war than previously, they still are at a disadvantage. And the alliances between the formerly warring nations are strained at best, particularly in the areas where Germans and Soviets are forced to cooperate (and when the Jews in Poland and Palestine must choose between hurting the invaders and fighting their former oppressors).

Even in the United States and Germany, the rate of production of the atomic weapons proceeds very slowly. But the attacks against the invaders are frequent enough that the alien leaders begin to seriously consider another way to settle the war.

Turtledove continues to follow his large cast of characters, both human and alien, through their many adventures. On this scale, there is much of interest happening. Many characters, especially in Europe, have their loyalties tested repeatedly, despite the dangers of acting morally but in defiance of the potential retributions of their governments. The odd and interesting relationships built earlier in the series often play important roles in this final volume. And interestingly, Turtledove twists some of the characters around, turning sympathetic figures from the earlier books into villains here, and a few unlikeable ones into heroes.

From a macroscopic view, however, the final novel is less satisfying. As with Volume 2, the overall plot moves little until near the end of the novel. The resolution makes sense as the only one possible, but the world that exists at the end of the novel seems much more interesting than the war that created it. This would be less a problem if not for the massive length of this series. But while Turtledove handles the war details and the political maneuvering with intelligence, he leaves readers with unanswered questions that are much more interesting than the original premise. It's glaring enough to make readers wonder why he spent all the time reaching this point.

That's not to say the series isn't worth reading, however. Turtledove effectively and realistically deals with the questions he does start with, and it's an entertaining and thoughtful exploration.

I really hate to suggest such things, especially at the end of a long series. But I think if Turtledove followed up his closing idea, he'd have something much more significant than this. -- Clint

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The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

The Rat finally gets what he so richly deserves

• The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell
• By Harry Harrison
• Tor Books
• $21.95/$31.95 Canada
• Hardcover, Nov. 1996

lippery Jim DiGriz, a.k.a. the Stainless Steel Rat, is the universe's greatest thief, and he's also a reluctant agent of the secret Special Corps. In past adventures Jim has saved the galaxy, traveled in time, dabbled in politics and solved (and committed) numerous crimes -- including the capture and reformation of the murderess Angelina -- now his wife and mother of their sons.

In his seventh adventure, Jim is living large with Angelina on the resort planet of Lussuoso. Jim is bored with the safe and legal entertainment the planet provides and is looking for a way to get out of his extended vacation when Angelina (who has been amusing herself by investigating the apparently fraudulent Temple of Eternal Truth) unexpectedly disappears.

When it becomes clear that Angelina's disappearance has been engineered by the sinister minister Justin Slakey, Jim immediately springs into action to rescue her. Aided by Special Corps agent Sibyl and his now-grown sons James and Bolivar, Jim proves that he is literally willing to go to hell and back to rescue his beloved wife. However, he soon finds out that going to hell is not the worst fate in the universe, and that the decidedly not-nice Professor Slakey has even more nefarious plans for humankind -- plans that only the Stainless Steel Rat can foil.

When the first Stainless Steel Rat stories appeared in the 1960s and 70s, they presented a satirical view of a galactic society so law-abiding that the human spirit had virtually stifled under the weight of its own decency. Out of this dead society had emerged the Stainless Steel Rat -- the last true criminal in the universe who had the dubious and ironic honor of having been judged so expert a thief that he was coerced into practicing his criminal artistry for the Special Corps to help maintain the status quo.

But things have changed. Slippery Jim DiGriz is no longer a daring but good-hearted fringe dweller, thwarting criminals and the law alike. Now middle-aged and strangely middle-class, Jim's a married dad more concerned with keeping his family safe than pulling off the big heist or the double-double cross of the Special Corps. While these goals may be laudable in real people, the new, tamed Jim DiGriz lacks the appeal of the outlaw, and this latest book provides little else in the way of entertainment -- everything from characters to plot to setting seems thin, familiar and dated.

Lip service is paid to such "new" science fiction staples as the Internet and nanotechnology, but only in passing, and ultimately the plot hinges on some pretty old-fashioned and recognizable science-fictional tropes. And without the gentle edge of irony, even the humor -- once the series' saving grace -- simply falls flat.

Go dig out your tattered copy of Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers instead. -- LRC

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