Customer Reviews

Crystalworld

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I love most of Haiblum's work, which is mainly science fiction, although lately he's gotten into writing bad mysteries. But his science fiction is superb. He writes in a very similar style to Keith Laumer, although not quite as good. Still, his books are a lot of fun, and hard to put down. This is one of the Interworld trilogy, the second one I think (it's been a while). I would start with Interworld and if you like that, get this one.

Haiblum's style is to put the reader in the middle of the action and let him sort it out during the ride. His universes are very different from ours, yet he almost never sits and explains it to the reader. By the end of the book you can see that a lot of thought has gone into figuring out how everything goes together, but the author doesn't use exposition to proudly explain how well his universe works. By the time Haiblum explains something to us, we've been wondering about it for a while, so there are very few dull moments. Although everything makes sense, it's the personalities and the action that are most entertaining, and he seldom digresses from those.

He uses colorful characters to keep us amused, but not like some authors who create strange and borderline crazy characters in a strained attempt to be amusing or satirical. These characters are interesting and realistic, and maybe just a little strange, but never to the point of losing credibility. He mixes action and humor in just the right mix, so that the humor doesn't distract from the plot, but becomes a part of it. His writing style is so good that I've actually read his mysteries, even though they aren't as good as his SF, just because I'll read anything this guy writes.

I wish Haiblum would go back to science fiction, he writes it so much better than he does mysteries.