The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures [Hardcover]

R. Garcia y. Robertson (Author), R. Garcia Y. Robertson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

This book presents a series of tales about high adventure and exotic interplanetary romances that capture the exhilarating sense of wonder from SF's Golden Age.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This handsome collection from small press publisher Golden Gryphon includes eight stories from R. Garcia y Robertson, one of the most interesting short fiction writers in the science fiction field. Robertson writes fast-paced action/adventure stories reminiscent of sci-fi's golden age, but with his own characteristic touch for fine detail. Robertson, who sports a Ph.D. in the history of science technology, has a knack for making his stories come alive, giving readers enough background to make his ideas seem credible without hindering his often flamboyant plots. It's a strong combination that makes this book hard to put down. --Craig Engler

From Publishers Weekly

Few writers can match Robertson's skill at innovative historical fantasy. The eight stories collected here (previously published in F&SF and Asimov's) neatly demonstrate his tremendous range and creativity, taking readers from ancient Greece to other planets in a distant future. In "Gypsy Trade," time-traveling Gypsies scheme to get rich by buying fine art in the past and selling it in the future, until a wrong turn lands them in the middle of Nazi Germany. A Chinese girl in booming gold-rush San Francisco teams up with some unusual allies to bring down the man who tried to cheat her out of her freedom in "Four Kings and an Ace." "The Moon Maid" is a tale of Amazonian derring-do with the feel of an old-fashioned sword-and sorcery story, while "The Wagon God's Wife" follows a luckless Christian Saxon who's caught between feuding Norse gods. The final tale, "Werewolves of Luna," depicts a tourist-choked Moon where virtual adventure-game casinos lure the hopeful and the desperate with promises of big payoffs. Robertson's neatly detailed settings and adventurous characters make for entertaining reading that will appeal especially to fans of Golden Age SF.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press; 1st edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965590186
• ISBN-13: 978-0965590181
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,375,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Full of color, action, romance, August 10, 2001

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures (Hardcover)

R. Garcia y Robertson is an historian, and the benefits of his particular training shine through in his stories. Most obviously, he loves to write historical fantasies, as with his novel The Spiral Dance (set on the Scottish-English border in the 15th Century), or with several stories in the collection at hand, set in a wide range of historical milieus. He also likes time-travel storiesas with "Gypsy Trade" included here.

The title story is one of the most "Fantastic" of the historical stories included. "The Moon Maid" is an Amazon, one of an historical group of women warriors, located near the Don (or Amazon) River in what is now Russia. Her "tribe" honors lions, and when a nomad Hetman's son is killed by a lion, she must capture and destroy the animal, or risk having her whole tribe exterminated by the nomads. Her tracking of the lion is a mixture of realistic animal tracking, and rather wildly fantastic events, such as a meeting with Hercules, described in hilarious detail.

The place of women in historical societies is a recurring theme in these stories (and strong women characters occur in almost all the stories, including the futuristic ones). "The Other Magpie" features real historical figures at the Battle of Little Big Horn. The title character is a very independent Crow woman, mourning her brother's death at the hands of the Sioux. Partly as a result, she and her friend end up joining Custer's army. The Magpie and her friend are historical characters, though the specifics of the Magpie's dealings with her dead brother, and of her attempts to save Captain Reno from the coming disaster, are a bit more speculative. "Four Kings and an Ace", perhaps the best story here, features Boy Toy, a young Chinese girl, a Christian and the adopted daughter of missionaries, abandoned on the docks in San Francisco after her parents' deaths. She falls into the hands of a gang which tries to sell her into slavery, but is fortunate to encounter a clever lawyer, who sees a way to use her beauty in a battle against a crooked railroad man. The story climaxes with a suspenseful poker game, and a predictable ending which still surprises, in the best way.

Robertson is also a first-rate writer of science fiction adventure. "Cast on a Distant Shore", one of his earliest stories, is set on an ocean world, where economically marginalized humans live on floating islands and earn subsistence money by diving for seastones. This setup is rather old hat, and the plot is a bit familiar as well, involving a diver in desperate straits who agrees to help an alien scientist fish for a particularly dangerous sea animal, but the story is very engagingly told, with a nice twist or two, and the main characters are interesting people. "Gone to Glory" is also set on an alien planet, this one in the middle of terraformation. The dirty work of preparing the new planet for human colonization is being done by "retrobred" Neanderthals, and the daughter of a highly-placed human has been lost, apparently captured or killed by a tribe of escaped Neanderthals. The story is very exciting, with a colorful balloon flight across the half-terraformed planet, and a serious, believable, ecological motivation behind things.

The other stories are also fine. The most compelling feature of these stories is that they are just that: stories. Indeed, as the title of this collection reads, "Fantastic Adventures". Rife with color, full of action and romance, every story included is pure fun to read. (And Robertson has a real knack of knowing when a story ends.) Indeed, if I had a gripe, it might be that serious thematic concerns are left in the dust as the action races by. (Though it should be noted, even as his protagonists strive and (usually) succeed, the background details are often darker: slavery in late-19th Century San Francisco, ecological disaster on an alien planet, the sometimes bloody history of Christianity, are all displayed here.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Collection, January 11, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures (Hardcover)

Despite the cheezy cover, this collection of eight sci-fi/fantasy short stories are all fairly interesting, if not overwhelming. Robertson has a nice touch for detail, and many of the stories incorporate or are based upon actual events or places in history. The lead story "Gypsy Story" was optioned by a major movie studio, and it's instantly apparent why, as it concerns time-traveling gypsies captured by Nazis in WWII and other interesting adventures. "Four Kings and an Ace" is a rather weak story set in 19th-century San Francisco. "Cast On A Distant" shore is solid alien tale with a nice reversal at the end, somewhat similar in some ways to the more straightforward entertainment of "Werewolves on Luna." Perhaps the two most solid tales are "The Moon Maid" which has a Central-Asianish Amazon meet Hercules, and "The Wagon God's Wife" which is a retelling of an old Scandinavian tale. Both "Gone to Glory" and "The Other Magpie" are perhaps a little heavy-handed and less effective at entertaining the reader. Even so, this is a collection worth browsing through at the very least.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Let's Keep This Guy Writing!, September 14, 2000

By 

jim molnar - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures (Hardcover)

It would be a shame if this author ever gave up on his particular brand of historical science fiction! Although it is truly not very deep, more of the pulpy swashbuckling variety, it is loads of fun! He certainly keeps the reader surprised enough. "Gypsy Trade" did have enough emotional content to get me choked up, and that's not an easy task.