The Defection of A.J. Lewinter by Robert Littell

First published in 1973

A.J. Lewinter, a physicist specializing in ceramics who does military research on missile nosecones, defects to the Soviet Union (the novel was published in 1973, when the Soviet Union still existed). His knowledge of ceramics isn't likely to be helpful to the Russians, but Lewinter may have obtained accurate knowledge of missile trajectories--information that could enable the Soviet Union to develop an effective anti-missile defense. The American government isn't quite sure whether Lewinter was able to memorize the trajectory formulas during his brief time with them, while the Soviets aren't quite sure whether Lewinter is a genuine defector with useful information, a genuine defector who has been given false information to fool the Soviets, or an American agent.

Littell's novel takes a fun look at the games played by espionage services. The Americans want the Russians to believe Lewinter's information is useless. The Russians, in turn, need to figure out whether they're being played by the Americans. The novel takes us through the reasoning processes employed by both sides. The characters, on both the American and Russian side, are interesting albeit one-dimensional. This is more of a cerebral novel than an action-packed thriller, but the twists and turns taken by the Americans and Russians as each side tries to out-think and to out-deceive the other make the novel a gripping read.

RECOMMENDED

Skinner by Richard S. McEnroe

Published by Bantam Books in December 1985

Skinner is the third (and, apparently, the last) novel in Richard McEnroe's "Far Stars and Future Times" series. There is an ad in the novel's back pages for a fourth book titled Chains of Knowledge, but it isn't included in McEnroe's bibliography and I've found no evidence that it was ever published.

Skinner begins on the planet Wolkenheim, where most of the action in Flight of Honor (the second book in the series) takes place. The Earth emigrants who settled Wolkenheim (the First Wavers) have implemented a scheme to make sure their hard-won prosperity isn't supplanted by newly arriving immigrants: anyone setting foot on Wolkenheim who can't establish his financial solvency is forced into indentured servitude -- serving, of course, the First Wavers. Chavez Blackstone has been scraping by on Wolkenheim, but after engaging in a drunken brawl with a member of the power structure, he's declared insolvent. He seeks off-world passage from ship's captain Moses Callahan, a character in The Shattered Stars (the first book in the series), but before he can make his escape he's captured and taken to the planet Trollshulm where he's put to work for the powerful Santer Family. The Santers make their living by producing dragonskin, a fabric that comes from dragons that are native to Trollshulm. The dragons are docile creatures until someone tries to kill them, which is the difficult job given to skinners -- and Blackstone's new vocation.

Seamlessly merging with the main plot is a story of economic and political intrigue as Eli Santer fights to save his fabric monopoly from a competing product, from a disloyal employee, and from new flight technology that will undermine his way of doing business. Joining the two plotlines is a woman who works for (and sleeps with) Santer, who feels compassion for the skinners he economically enslaves. Political machinations run through the story, but politics and economics take a back seat to the action, making Skinner a very readable novel. It's almost as good as Flight of Honor, although it feels like it was written a bit hastily, as if McEnroe had to cut some corners to meet a deadline. Still, Skinner is a worthwhile, intelligent read for sf fans. It's unfortunate that McEnroe didn't continue the series beyond the three fine novels that he produced.

RECOMMENDED

Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

First published in 1988

Paris Trout runs a general store in Cottonwood Point, Georgia.  He's a racist but, more than that, he's violently paranoid and increasingly obsessed with his own fingernail clippings and urine. When a young black man buys a car from him on credit, supposedly purchasing insurance with it, and gets into an accident, Trout won't repair the car and won't let him off the hook for payments, telling him he didn't buy that kind of insurance. This leads to blood, but the victims are female members of the young man's family. Trout feels entirely justified in his actions and more than a few townspeople see things his way -- after all, a man has a right to collect his debts.

The novel follows Harry Seagraves, the best lawyer in town, as he prepares Trout's defense and during the trial and its aftermath. Seagraves takes a particular (not entirely professional) interest in Trout's wife, who is rather horrifically abused by Trout. Other notable characters include a young lawyer, Carl Bonner, the youngest Eagle Scout in Cottonwood Point's history, who tries to help Trout's wife; and Bonner's wife, who is frustrated that her husband has become such a stick-in-the-mud.

The dark humor in this novel alternates with a chilling depiction of southern racism and Trout's madness, and the characters are unforgettable. This isn't a simple-minded examination of contrived racism as some of the reviews at this site might suggest. The complex relationship between Trout and the townspeople -- they don't want to be associated with racism that's quite so overt, yet they don't want to upset such a wealthy and powerful (not to mention violent) citizen -- is deftly portrayed. Except for the clearly innocent victims, nobody gets off easily as Dexter examines the town's dynamic. This is a chilling and powerful work by a careful, evocative writer.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Gilpin's Space by Reginald Bretnor

Published by Ace on June 1, 1986

Part One of Gilpin's Space originally appeared as a story in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It is told from the point of view of Geoffrey Cormac, general manager of a shipyard owned by Laure Endicott. A shipyard employee, Saul Gilpin, has invented a new drive that permits travel through the universe at unlimited speeds via "Gilpin's Space," a sort of ghostly version of real space where the laws of physics don't apply. The drives are installed in three of the shipyard's submarines, turning them into spaceships. The totalitarian government would like to take control of the drive technology, a desire that Endicott and Cormac resist. In Part Two, told from the point of view of Geoffrey's wife Janet, one of the submarine spaceships travels to the far reaches of space, in search of a planet where the crew can escape from the government bad guys. The point of view returns to Geoffrey in Part Three, as he and some others return to an Earth that has grown more chaotic during their absence.

Minor gripes: No attempt is made to explain the technology that enables the drive (which apparently is rather easy to build from off-the-shelf parts) -- not that I would understand it if the attempt had been made, but some sort of explanation would have added credibility to the story. I'm not sure why Bretnor decided to change the point of view in Part Two -- all parts are written in the same voice, and it was difficult to distinguish Geoffrey from Jane as narrators. The story of space exploration and planetary colonization that comprises Part Two is nicely written but a little dull and has been done many times before, often more successfully.

Gripes aside, Gilpin's Space is an interesting story that (at least in Parts One and Three) has the pace and tension of a thriller. The characters, drawn from a variety of cultures and philosophies, display virtues of loyalty and self-sacrifice. It's easy to cheer for their success as they encounter adversity, both alien and home-grown. Gilpin's Space isn't a terribly original novel, but it's well done.

RECOMMENDED

Hostile Intent by Clive Egleton

First published in 1993

Hostile Intent is an old-fashioned spy story, Clive Egleton's first to feature SIS agent Peter Ashton. The well-paced novel begins with the assassination of Bob Whittle, a member of the British Army's Intelligence Corps, shortly after his meeting in Dresden with Galina Kutuzova, a GRU officer who reports to the KGB. Galina has been selling information to Whittle, while her partner, Yuri Rostovsky, has been peddling it to the Americans. Together they have profited by selling classified information to the French. Ashton is called in to to investigate Whittle's murder -- a task that proves difficult given the unwillingness of the Foreign Office to blame the Russians for anything in light of the Cold War's demise. The KGB kills Rostovsky and Galina flees to avoid attempts on her life while Ashton, trying to spook a GRU officer into contacting Moscow about Galina, pretends to be a double agent, risking his credibility with his own superiors. Egleton ratchets up tension as Ashton tries to find Galina before the KGB can locate and kill her.

Although Hostile Intent is carefully plotted, there are times when the story becomes difficult to believe. It was particularly hard to understand the continuing desire of the Foreign Office to ignore the true cause of Whittle's murder and to treat Galina as unimportant, given fairly obvious evidence that Galina and Rostovsky were selling highly classified material and that Galina still had information that would benefit the British. The nature of the information she finally reveals is also a bit over the top. A separate problem with Hostile Intent is that Egleton's writing style, while competent, needed improvement: Hostile Intent includes too many awkward sentences and Egleton too often resorted to cliche. Apart from those quibbles, Hostile Intent is a novel I would recommend to fans of espionage fiction. Ashton isn't quite in a league with George Smiley or Bernard Samson, but Egleton spins an entertaining story and peppers it with enough action to keep the pages turning.

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