I thought Helm was pretty good, and there's a review of Blind Waves on my web page. But then, I wasn't unhappy with Wildside, either.
All of his books have a strong element of "I will now explain the proper way to go about this task" to them. Jumper works through both how to set yourself up in high style using teleportation ability, and the revenge fantasy. Wildside has the business organization stuff you complained about elsewhere, and Helm has both the running of a city-state and a bunch of martial arts stuff. Blind Waves is the most straightforward adventure story of the lot.
I find the organizational stuff enjoyable in the same way that the craft sequences in Modesitt's Recluce books are enjoyable. If that stuff bugs you, you're not going to like those books.
Wow, Vance is not the first comparison that leapt to mind when I read The Anvil of the World. World not strange enough, characters not strange enough, prose definitely not strange enough.
I liked it without really liking it, if you know what I mean. I didn't care for how it was basically chopped into thirds, and I also didn't care for how the narrative kind of meandered for quite awhile before all of a sudden settling down and trying to get all cosmically significant in the last quarter or so. Didn't work for me. On the other hand, Baker did some nicely evocative writing with some of her settings, and, as always, she can have a nice touch with the humor.
This is off the top of my head, but I think I wrote along the same lines in my booklog review.
I think you might have seen me comparing it to Vance, which makes it not a genre of stuff that's like Vance so much as a genre of stuff that reminds me of Vance. I'm specifically thinking of his goofier stuff here, _Big Planet_ and the Cugel stories.
I liked _The Anvil of the World_ a lot; I'm a sucker for colorful, mannered, non-medievaloid science fantasy societies. Dani Zweig didn't much care for it, if you want another data point.
I also really liked _Wildside_ and _Blind Waves_; _Helm_ was weaker, but entertaining.
Woo-hoo! Good revenge fantasy is always a good thing, and terrorism revenge fantasy is awfully relevant these days.
Matthew Hughes writes witty, interesting SF (Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice from another house, and new novel Black Brillion).
_Fools Errant_ feels like a throwback to sixties/seventies Vancian SF (in a good way). The allegory gets pretty heavy-handed, though.
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Thanks for the allegory warning, I'll keep it in mind.
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All of his books have a strong element of "I will now explain the proper way to go about this task" to them. Jumper works through both how to set yourself up in high style using teleportation ability, and the revenge fantasy. Wildside has the business organization stuff you complained about elsewhere, and Helm has both the running of a city-state and a bunch of martial arts stuff. Blind Waves is the most straightforward adventure story of the lot.
I find the organizational stuff enjoyable in the same way that the craft sequences in Modesitt's Recluce books are enjoyable. If that stuff bugs you, you're not going to like those books.
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(The comment has been removed)
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--Trent
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This is off the top of my head, but I think I wrote along the same lines in my booklog review.
--Trent
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I liked _The Anvil of the World_ a lot; I'm a sucker for colorful, mannered, non-medievaloid science fantasy societies. Dani Zweig didn't much care for it, if you want another data point.
I also really liked _Wildside_ and _Blind Waves_; _Helm_ was weaker, but entertaining.
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