Customer Reviews

TNT: Telzey Amberdon & Trigger Argee Together (Federation of the Hub, 2)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Telzey Amberdon is the scion of an ultra-rich, politically connected family on the central world of Orado. She lives an outwardly normal life as a privileged college student, studying and taking exams, or accompanying a friend to a luxurious body remodeling resort planet. She is also one of the galaxy's most powerful and versatile psi talents (especially regarding alien beings), essentially a loner but cooperating informally with the shadowy yet powerful Psychology Service. Telzey was featured in the first volume of this Baen reissue series.

Trigger Argee comes from much humbler, possibly hardscrabble, origins, and though a latent psi, as we find out in this volume, relies on quick thinking, resourcefulness, a champion level ability with her beloved Denton pistol, and a wide range of personal connections (she seems to know and work with just about every major character of Schmitz's galactic Hub universe). We'll find out more about Trigger in the third volume.

James H. Schmitz wrote a series of stories about each of these engagingly competent heroines in the 1960's and early 1970's, and brought them together in two tales included in this second volume ("Compulsion" and "Glory Day"). A third tale, "The Symbiotes," is primarily Trigger's, though Telzey does appear briefly; sadly, this was the last significant work by Schmitz, and we'll never find out the results of Trigger's decision at the very end to develop her psi powers. The rest of the seven stories (short novels, really, at over 50 pages each) are devoted to Telzey.

Baen is to be devoutly thanked for their project bringing much of Schmitz's work (the stories set in a human dominated "Hub") back into print. Devotees have for too long been forced to lurk in used book stores, waiting for the rare tattered paperback. Schmitz writes with vigor and verve, and absolute clarity. The characters are well realized, including the truly alien aliens who are among the best ever. Though there are plenty of twists and turns (one can never be too sure who the good guys and bad guys are), the reader never feels cheated.

This second reprint volume of Schmitz's Hub tales lives up to the promise of the first. It finishes up the Telzey stories and introduces Trigger Argee, an agent for the Psychology Service. Schmitz was finally hitting his stride with the Telzey stories in these tales, and this volume includes what I regard as some of the best. Resident Witch, Company Planet, Ti's Toys, and Child of the Gods are much better than most of the prior Telzey stories, with only Goblin Night being their equal. She meets Trigger in Compulsion and their relationship is developed further in Glory Day, and The Symbiotes. That is the last Telzey story Schmitz wrote, and I wonder what he might have done further with her character. Her Matri twin, Gaziel, from Ti's Toys, certainly offered opportunity for more story lines. Trigger, by contrast, is not an active psi, and relies on wit, cunning, intelligence, training, and pluck to get out of predicaments. In many ways she is a much more mature, complex, and interesting character. While Telzey is fascinating, powerful (in more ways than one) and has what Flint calls a "solitary splendor" Trigger is more humanly fallible, and humanly competent, despite her latent psi ability. The next volume will feature her, her husband (a married Sci -Fi Heroine? How unusual, human, and normal.) and various associates, and I look forward to it.

I read my parents' copies of these stories in the seventies and eighties. They have long been among my favorite short stories, and I'm definitely a James Schmitz fan. I'm glad to see that the stories are being republished. In this collection, I was also glad to see the pairing of Schmitz's "Pork Chop Tree" and "Compulsion" into the single story they are, especially because "Pork Chop Tree" is so hard to find.

This series has definitely been edited, and the more anachronistic technical elements of Schmitz's stories (microfilm, etc) have been suppressed. Other than that, the stories are as Schmitz wrote them.

My one major complaint are the covers, which are a big letdown, especially compared to the covers of the '80s editions. And T'Nt! Give me a break! These books should be packaged to attract new readers to Schmitz's work. The title of this volume strikes me as a cheesy in-joke that will attract people who already know about the stories but which will repel everyone else. These stories are truly classic SF, and they should have classier jackets!

Other than that, buy this book!

I've always enjoyed this author's book "witches of Karres" so it has been interesting to read some of his other, long out of print works. This book should be read after the first book in this series "Telzey Amberdon" to bring it into perspective.

Essentially, this is a series of linked short stories and novelettes. The writing sytle is simple and easy to read. All the main characters are polite, even the the bad guys! They would easily be suited to younger readers.

This second book introduces the readers to Trigger Argee, who doesn't have the mental "super powers" that make Telzey such a striking figure, but who is never-the-less very capable.

These books have been enjoyable so far, but really bring home how much SF has changed in recent decades. These characters are much less introspective than most modern SF characters, even in short stories, and the emphasis is definitely on action!

I also agree about the cover. "TNT" is really on the corny side - ignore it and concentrate on the contents.

An excellent book. This the second of four books that Baen Books is publishing that are compilations of the short stories my James Schmitz. While I normally am not a fan of short stories, these are some of the finest that I have read.

Others have discussed the general content of this book, so I won't repeat what they have said. Schmitz is my favorite sci-fi writer of all time. His "Agent of Vega" stories, and "Witches of Karres "novel are my two favorites in sci-fi history. That's subjective, but there are some reasons why he was and is so compelling. His books have totally stood the test of time for me. I loved them as a 15 year old boy back in 1962, and I still love them.

Around 1950, he created something we might have never seen before. He created the hero who is female, and during his career was criticized some by critics and readers (males), who tended to ask. "Why isn't the hero a male?"

Why indeed? This was in a totally male-dominated society, where women who didn't have graduate degrees were usually secretaries, and taking care of their home was their primary job, no matter what else they did.

Yet Schmitz truly looked far into the future, and knew for a fact that when brute strength is eliminated as important (which technology had amply demostrated long before 1950), then there is no reason why females can't and won't be as capable as males in virtually any position. This is totally accepted now, but was against the grain back then, especially by males, and it was a mostly male audience he was writing for.

I loved his stories and heroines. For the first time I encountered heroes I could admire and emulate, and in addition be attracted to them, since I was a boy, and they were girls and women. In his first truly successful story, "Agent of Vega" (one of four Agent of Vega stories), his hero is a male, but we meet a female in that story, who appears in three of the four Agent of Vega stories, and Schmitz never looked back. From that point on, virtually all of his heroes were females. It was incredibly refreshing. He never attempted to claim that females constituted most, or even half, of Zone Agents or other "adventure/power" roles. He simply focused on heroes who happened to be female, as a natural/ordinary role for a female in the future, if she wished it.

This was quite an extraordinary departure in fiction, and I loved it. In Witches of Karres, the main character is male, but the power figure is a 10 year old girl, and to a lesser extent, her 5 year old sister.

Most writers have a character which defines them, and Telzey was Schmitz's. Her stories didn't sell as much as the "Agent" stories, nor Witches of Karres, but he loved writing about her, and I loved reading about her. Since she was about my age, I was particularly fond of her, and attracted to her. I loved Schmitz's fascination with "psi" (Mental) powers, and Telzey was truly awesome, from the time she discovered she had these powers in her first story as perhaps a 15 year old, until her last story, where she is still not an adult. Her stories and adventures are well written, and we watch her grow up. There is no PC in her stories. She is capable of unleashing a killing mental blast without remorse, or even altering a person's mind or memories, if she decides that should happen.

At some point, Schmitz created Trigger Argee, a different (and more traditonal) type of hero(ine), who uses intelligence and technology to accomplish her objectives, rather than rare mental powers; so Trigger represents the reality that a female can compete with a male in any type of role. As the stories were written, they overlapped, but in the Baen books we read all of Telzey's stories first, and then Trigger's, and it' sn enjoyable way to present the characters. They are together in a few stories, so we see two different types of female heroines, each of which Schmitz enjoyed writing about. I prefer the Telzey stories, but I enjoy Trigger, though not as much as Nile Etland, yet another female heroine who has no abnormal powers, and who is featured in a short story and also a novel.

In his books, Schmitz totally obliterated the idea that females were at any type of logical disadvantage in a technological society, and I really enjoyed all of his stories, and this very logical "future" which in fact we have achieved in most respects in our own present society. And in fact his 1950s-60's heroines were far more believable than those we encounter in modern films. Schmitz never contended that a female could physically overpower a male. He merely demonstrated the reality that this physical factor was irrelevant.

I won't discuss the stories themselves. Suffice it to say that they are imaginative and well written, with very appealing characters, as well as some very unappealing, but very intelligent, villains. Schmitz didn't resort to the lazy plot device we see constantly in modern fiction and film, where the villain's inevitabable stupidity is a major factor for the hero's triumph. Telzey, Trigger, Nile, and his other heroines had to deal with very intelligent and ruthless villains. That makes for interesting and more realistic reading. Because these are generally short stories, Schmitz introduces us to a wide variety of stories and characters, and most of them are very good. And we also come to "know" Telzey as a person, and to have affection for her, and to a lesser extent, Trigger.

Perhaps I'm a Schmitz KAD, but I really don't think so. Most of the science fiction I read so long ago doesn't appeal to me these days, but I still love his stories and novels, as a matter of subjective pleasure, and as a matter of appreciating his imagination, his prose, his values, and his variety. In his stories I first encountered "tractor beams", many years before Star Trek, and the robot ships his Zone Agents possessed was and still is incredibly imaginative. I have no idea to what extent these were original concepts, but they were and are very compelling, as are Telzey's mental powers, Trigger's intelligence, and Nile's aggressive but thoughtful sense of adventure.

They are all brilliant young women, and of course very pretty. Despite our own technological advances which have rendered many older sci-fi novels obsolete, Schmitz's still stand the test of time. He even has a "comweb", which isn't so different from the Internet.

Most of all he tells very engaging stories, with very appealing characters, and in this book we see the end of his most endearing character, and the introduction of another one he enjoyed writing about. When you read these very entertaining stories, think about the era in which they were written, and notice how they are not that dissimilar from how we look at gender roles today.

I can't recommend any of his books highly enough.

This is the second volume of four presenting James Schmitz's Federation of the Hub. The first, "Telzey Amberdon," introduced one of his most popular characters, a powerful teen-aged psi. The second volume introduces a more mature character, Trigger Argee (and incidently reprints a series of Telzey stories that have never before seen book publication). Trigger is a married woman (although you will have to wait to volume 3 to meet her husband), and unlike Telzey, is not powerful--just competent. In "Compulsion", the pair make contact with a xenophobic alien species, and in "The Symbiotes", Trigger puts paid to a pair of nasty aliens, and incidently attracts the attention of a nemesis, a third alien. These stories are written in a 50s-60s style--almost like the "Jetsons" cartoon--that incidently makes them suitable for older children and younger teens.

Enjoy!

Starting with the afterword, Guy Gordon, the co-editor, tries to pin down the elements that make Schmitz so entertaining. If you want to know more about Schmitz, you could check the esteemed Mr. Gordon's Schmitz Encyclopedia website, it is outstanding.

This, also, is a really good collection, whether one T or two in each story, there are no bad stories to be found here, as Telzey and Trigger get into a lot of trouble, and back out of it, in their own inimitable styles.

Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 1 Company Planet [Telzey Amberdon] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 2 Resident Witch [Telzey Amberdon] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 3 The Pork Chop Tree [Trigger Argee] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 4 Compulsion [Telzey Amberdon; Trigger Argee] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 5 Glory Day [Telzey Amberdon; Trigger Argee] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 6 Child of the Gods [Telzey Amberdon] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 7 Ti's Toys [The Telzey Toy; Telzey Amberdon] - James H. Schmitz
Hub : TnT Telzey and Trigger 8 The Symbiotes [Telzey Amberdon; Trigger Argee] - James H. Schmitz


Telzey finds Mind Control useful to get you out of a surgical torture jam, when looking for information.

4 out of 5


An interstellar detective agency needs a Psi, and Telzey knows just the girl for a transfer.

3.5 out of 5


Potential worldtree addict problem.

3.5 out of 5


Trigger needs Telzey's xenotelepathy help, with a strange alien lifeform:

"That incredible species! Waiting on the three worlds they'd filled wherever they could grow, worlds transformed into deadly psi forts'waiting for the return of an enemy they'd fought, how long ago? Fifty thousand human years? A hundred thousand? They'd been convinced the Veen would be back and attempt again to enslave or destroy them. And they'd been ready to receive the Veen. What giant powers of attack and defense they'd developed in that long waiting while their minds lay deeply hidden!"

4 out of 5


"Well'" Trigger shrugged. "Let's freshen up and change our clothes before we have visitors. What do you wear on Askanam in the palace of a Regent who might be thinking of featuring you in the upcoming arena games?" "Something quietly conservative, I suppose," Telzey said. "All right. Just so it goes with my purse." The cosmetics purse didn't contain cosmetics but Trigger's favorite gun, and was equipped with an instant ejection mechanism."

Some psi havoc to be caused after this and a teleporter's panty raid.

3.5 out of 5


Picking Telzey as the psionic you try and control to use in your schemes perhaps not the wisest move.

3 out of 5


Telzey, captured again, this time by your mad scientist type for his compound of artificial creations and drugged humans - wanting a copy of Miss Amberdon for his entertainment and reserach into creating Psis.

Creating a double-team opponent? Oops.

4.5 out of 5


Trigger and Telzey have an Imskian type situation to deal with, and some body snatching villains into the bargain.

3 out of 5

The second volume of The Tales of The Hub lives up to the promise of the first volume. In these stories Trigger Argee, Schmitz's second female heroine, is introduced as the friend of Telzey Amberdon. Together, the two women find danger and adventure among the worlds of the Hub.

I look forward to the remaining two volumes in this set.