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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Whipcrack action, involving characters, neat ideas, December 11, 2001
One woman, once a NASA scientist working on a Mars mission, is trapped in a mental institution, desperately trying to find a reason or a cure for the terrible dreams that trouble her, and for the bouts of insanely violent feelings which possess her. Another woman faces a shootout with several men in an abandoned New Mexico town, decades after a war nuclear war destroyed civilization -- and she too faces terrible dreams which have driven her lover away. A third woman has turned to drink, amid the ruins of her SF writing career and the ravages of her own terrible nightmares. Mysteriously, these three women, from three different worlds, find themselves together, facing dangers together in each of their worlds, and facing even scarier threats from mysterious humanlike but invulnerable beings who can chase them from world to world. That's the setup for William Sanders' new novel, J. Sanders has published a number of first rate novels in several genres: SF, fantasy, mystery, men's adventure. He's never less than a wicked good adventure writer, and at his best he combines whipcrack action writing with a deadpan ironic sense of humour, fully rounded, "lived-in" characters, and real passion. J. is Sanders at close to the top of his form -- it's fast moving, intense, and fun to read. It's also as close to pure SF as he's ever come at novel length. The story follows the three women who share the same name in different forms (Jay, Mad Jack, and Ann, all short for Jacqueline Ann Younger) as they cope with the realization that in some strange way they are the same woman, in three divergent timelines. Mad Jack's is the most distant from ours, and Sanders portrays the post-Apocalyptic anarchic New Mexico with brutal realism. We see only a little bit of Ann's world -- similar to ours with slight divergences that have led, for example, to a more advanced space program. And Jay's world, as far as we can tell, is our world. The main action opens with Ann threatened (...) by a brutal worker at the mental institution she's committed herself to -- but suddenly she is rescued by the strange appearance of the heavily armed Mad Jack, who takes the rapid action which is second nature to her harsh way of life. But of course in Ann's world that's murder -- and while Ann and Jack clumsily try to escape, there really isn't any hope for them -- until somehow they find themselves again in Mad Jack's version of Santa Fe. That provides only the briefest respite, however, especially when the mysterious grey clad men show up, apparently ready to kill the women out of hand. But soon they find their way, how they don't know, in yet another world, with Jay -- but by now they know that that won't represent a long term solution, to say nothing of their short term problems dealing with Jay's drinking, and with the unavoidable problem of explaining their sudden appearance in a world with no place for them. J. careens back and forth, the action never stopping, as the three women struggle to escape their grey pursuers. Fortunately, they find a man who mysteriously has some idea of what might be happening -- and eventually they learn, to some extent, what's been going on -- and they even have a chance at finding a place where all three women can stay together. This novel features three involving and believable main characters, some fine SFnal speculation that is reminiscent of some of Poul Anderson's work, and some of H. Beam Piper's, and an always compelling plot.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Story-telling at its absolute best, August 10, 2001
I have to admit to having approached this story with considerable reservations. As a [homosexual] woman I'm always a little bit concerned about how convincingly a flaming heterosexual can write [homosexual] and bi women; but Sanders hooked me from page 1. This is a seemingly simple story: girl meets girl meets girl, and she is them. There's action and adventure, violence, nudity,... experimentation, chase scenes, post-nuclear dystopia, and quantum mechanics, not to mention a woman so butch she defines her type -- the boots, the eyepatch, the heavy artillery . . . is it just me, or is it getting warm in here? But nothing is as simple as it looks, and the structural and psychological resonances of this book only start with Sanders' provocative choice of a title that invokes some of the most famous linear narrative issues of our time. Will Sanders' ferocious technical discipline is all but invisible beneath the ease and mastery of his story-telling. This novel moves like a late model German import luxury car on a freeway in Montana -- smooth, persuasive, and when it pulls up in front of your doorstep to let you back out into your life again you'll be surprised that you're there already . . . sorry that the ride's over . . . and ready to do it all over again. I know you'll enjoy the ride. I did!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Real Surprise, August 20, 2001
This book took me by surprise. From what I had read of William Sanders' work (I admit not much, just the mysteries) I had thought of him as a very male writer. Not in any bad sense but just very male. Certainly not one likely to write a sensitive novel about women and their relationships. It's easy to see what happened. Sanders obviously fell in love with his characters, you can see that on every page. I don't blame him. I'm in love with them too. Three of the most irresistible women I've met in print in a long time. Three of the toughest, too. That part doesn't surprise me. Anybody who remembers Rita Ninekiller in the Taggert Roper mysteries knows that Sanders can create strong female characters. The story moves fast and is very hard to put down. The scenes of physical action are very well done-- no surprise either, when the guns start to go off Sanders is as good as they come-- and the sex gets very hot and kinky. In fact, readers who are uncomfortable reading explicit sex scenes probably won't like this book. I did, though. I give it five stars. I hope he writes some more books with these characters.
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