Perilous Dreams [Paperback]

Andre Norton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1987

Paperback original (1976); this is a later printing with Ken W. Kelly cover art. This collection of four connected tales contains the previously published "Toys of Tamisan" (1969), plus three original stories: "Ship of Mist," "Get Out of My Dream" and "Nightmare." Would you like to dream high adventure - and have the dream become reality? This is the novel of one who did. She was Tamisen the Dreamer - trained to explore other worlds through her genetic ability to transfer herself through dream to actualities. To a dreamer of all worlds, all items were open. Here is Andre Norton's imaginative best, taking Tamisen through a series of worlds as real as her own towards an ultimate destiny none could suspect.

Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: DAW Books (September 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886772486
• ISBN-13: 978-0886772482
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,673,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hive of dreamers, false and real, April 6, 2005

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Perilous Dreams (Paperback)

"Perilous Dreams" (1976) is a collection of four stories by Lifetime Grand Master of Fantasy, Andre Norton (Alice Mary North), who passed away on March 17, 2005 after a long and extremely fruitful career. Her first novel was published in 1934, her last in 2005. Her unusual, detailed world-building skills will be sorely missed. In "Perilous Dreams" she builds worlds within worlds, spinning through dreams that might or might not represent real events.

All four stories take place in a future where humanity had long ago reached the stars and scattered itself across thousands of planets. In the city of Ty-Kry, slender sky towers pierce the clouds, the homes of the very rich. In the same city is the Hive of dreamers, whose occupants have the talent of sharing dreams with their clients.

The first story, "Toys of Tamisan" also appears in Norton's "High Sorcery" (1970). The heroine, Tamisan is a 'true action dreamer to the tenth power' and she can share her dreams (for a certain fee) with others. Lord Starrex is a former space voyager who now lies crippled in the midst of luxury. He can afford the very best Tamisan has to offer and she wants to create a unique fantasy world for him because she senses that he has been everywhere, seen everything, and will not be satisfied with her usual fare. She hits upon the idea of creating an alternate history of their world, where certain key events can be altered by Tamisan to yield a different present.

Unfortunately, once Tamisan and Lord Starrex are plunged into her dream of an alternate history, Tamisan discovers she has lost her ability to manipulate events in her fantasy world.

Furthermore, she seems to have misplaced her client.

Magic is alive and well in Tamisan's alternate history, and she, herself is one of its practitioners!

The adventures of Tamisan and Lord Starrex are continued in the second story, "Ship of Mist." The two find themselves at yet another turning point in the history of their planet. Lord Starrex inhabits the body of the Lord of a Sea Hold. Tamisan is his wife and also a Tide-Singer--in other words a sorceress, although she only uses her talent to stay in telepathic contact with her husband, while he sails off to investigate a haunted ship. Sailors that stay aboard the haunted ship in order to salvage her inevitably disappear without a trace. When Tamisan loses contact with her husband, she calls upon the sea and two dolphin-like creatures to help her find him.

The third story, "Get Out of My Dream" takes place in the Hive of Dreamers, but with a new character, a no-nonsense Per-Search agent (private detective) named Itlothis Sb Nath. She has been sent to wake a powerful clan chief out of his dream and get him on a starship bound for Benold, where all hell is going to break loose if he doesn't return. The only way Itlothis is allowed to do this is to actually enter Oslan Sb Atto's dream and persuade him to wake up to the 'real' world.

As you might guess from the title of this story, Itlothis Sb Nath has her work cut out for her.

"Nightmare" is the fourth and final story, and involves special government agents who infiltrate the Hive of Dreamers to discover why so many clients never wake from their dreams. Burr Neklass is the bait, disguised as a wealthy roué, who wants to sample the delights of the Hive. Esper, Ludia Tanguly has penetrated the Hive, disguised as an action dreamer. She and Burr soon enter a dream, controlled not by Ludia, but by someone who wants to destroy them!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where living in a dreamworld takes on a new meaning..., February 6, 2001

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perilous Dreams (Paperback)

Each of the 4 stories in this volume are set against a common background: the city of Ty-Kry, in a world whose culture and economy are bound up in dreams - Ty-Kry's primary tourist attraction for those who travel between the stars. The Hive produces professional dreamers - women who create fantasy worlds so powerful and detailed that they can be shared with a client, hooked up to the proper machinery. Dreamers may be A dreamers (who produce action/adventure dreams) or E dreamers (who produce erotic dreams). Since dreamers care for nothing except dreams and the research needed to develop them, the Hive is always run by a non-dreamer, the Foostmam, who handles the financial side of the dream business.

The setting of Ty-Kry and its dream-based economy is not drawn out in detail; these stories are all centered around the dreamworlds woven by the dreamers. In three of the four stories, dreams are found to be a key to crosstime (a.k.a. paratime) travel, providing acces!s to alternate histories. In the Tamisan stories, Tamisan and her client are trapped in a dream, but in 'Get Out of My Dream', the client is deliberately attempting to change history, to prevent a disaster that cannot be stopped in the present.

The only quibble I have with these stories of the dreams of Ty-Kry is that I'd like more :). We don't see much of the Sea-Kings' culture, for instance; on the other hand, the protagonists have their hands full just trying to survive their dreams! (Notice, incidentally, that this book was written long before virtual reality or immersive video games came on the scene; here the creators of fantasyworlds connect directly to their clients' minds.)

If you enjoy these, you should try "Long Live Lord Kor!" in _The Book of Andre Norton_, where an organization sends agents' minds back in time on many worlds to prevent atomic wars and other disasters. Or if crosstime travel appeals to you outside this context, try Norton's _Crossroads of Time_ and _Quest Crosstime_, or H. Beam Piper's _Paratime_. If you'd like elaborate dream-like scenarios without time travel, try Larry Niven and Steven Barnes' _Dream Park_ for a different spin.

"Toys of Tamisan" - Tamisan, daughter of a space-traveller and a woman of Ty-Kry, is unique among dreamers - a dreamer who is fully aware of the waking world, and aware that she is virtually a slave, who must conceal her differences if she is ever to have a chance to be free. After being sold to Lord Starrex, whose adventurous life has been curtailed by a crippling injury, Tamisan begins to experiment with creating dream scenarios in which history took a different path, and finds unexpected results.

"Ship of Mist" - A continuation of "Toys of Tamisan." Tamisan and Starrex have exchanged one dreamworld for another - this time to become Tam-Sin and Kilwar, in a timeline where the seafolk on Ty-Kry's world were not wiped out.

"Get Out of My Dream" - Itlothis, a PerSearch agent, has come to the Hive to recall Oslan to his homeworld upon the unexpected death of his Clan Chief, only to find that she must follow him into a dream.

"Nightmare" - Five wealthy offworld men have died mysteriously while dreaming in the Hive, but no traces of foul play could be found. Now one Organization agent has been infiltrated into the Hive as an A dreamer, while another has been given a false identity to tempt the Hive into attempting to make him the 6th victim.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Toys of Tamisan and Its Sequels, April 6, 2003

By 

Sires "I enjoy mysteries, historical and proc... (Chesapeake, OH, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perilous Dreams (DAW #196) (Mass Market Paperback)

I ran into the first story in this interconnected series, Toys of Tamisan, in a 1969 issue of IF magazine. It was one of Norton's few short stories, therefore, to be highly prized. Later it appeared in a DAW collection called the Many Worlds of Andre Norton (1974). Here (1976) it appears with a sequel that ties up the loose ends left at the end of Toys.

The remaining stories appear here for the first time and are all worth reading. This isn't the best Norton has done, but even mediocre Norton is very good indeed.