Customer Reviews

The Wizard of Karres

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

James H. Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres" has been one of my all time favorites for almost 35 years. I cannot tell you how many times I've read "Witches". It was another one of those great books set up for the sequel that never came. I've seen other favorites of mine, where sequels were finally written. Most of those I found to be mediocre to just plain bad. They damaged and diluted the original work. That was my fear when I discovered "The Wizard of Karres" had been published; however (and happily to my surprise), it was both well written and a good story.

My only complaint is that the authors/editors/publisher did not include any kind of editorial notes. I would have been very interested in the story behind this sequel. I'm sure it was fascinating.

For those who have enjoyed Schmitz's wonderful story of Captain Pausert, Goth, and the Leewit, you'll enjoy taking another ride with them onboard the good ship "Venture" in "The Wizard of Karres".

Jim Baen, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey, and Dave Freer have done a great job on this book. They are to be congratulated.

For us oldsters, those that had been hoping for a sequel to James Schmitz's WITCHES OF KARRES for more years then I want to admit (ok so I bought the first printing in paperback and it only cost me $0.50, maybe that gives you some idea how long I've been waiting), WIZARD OF KARRES has been a real dream come true. I admit I fell in love with the original, waited, and waited, waited some more, and was finally heartbroken when I realize it was never to be when I heard of Mr. Schmitz's death. Well this just shows you that dreams do come true sometimes.

This one is good, really good! It really isn't much of a surprise when you consider the quality of the three authors involved or the magnificent works they have already produced together, let alone individually. But what did surprise me was just how seamlessly WIZARD blends with and compliments WITCHES, a book written by a completely different author decades in the past! If the spirit of J. Schmitz didn't rise from the dead to help these three I'll eat my hat!

Yes its fun! I for one can't wait for the next one. God I hope it doesn't take another thirty years!

If you liked WITCHES OF KARRES then you are going to like WIZARD OF KARRES, if you didn't then what are you doing reading this review?

I wholeheartedly HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one!

As a teenager and young adult I was one of those who always looked for a new Schmitz story in the 1960's and 1970's.

Recently I discovered Baen's Bar, a group of discussion forums for fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy, paid for by Baen Books. A place where authors and Jim Baen himself actually talk to we mere mortals. I strongly recommend the Bar to all SF&F fans, and particularly BAEN FREE BOOKS and WEBSCRIPTIONS. Yep - FREE books, by top named authors such as David Drake, David Weber, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey and Dave Freer. And Webscriptions provides electronic copies of new releases BEFORE they appear in deadtree format, and at lower prices.

Well, within a week of joining the Bar, I found things called "snippets" - small parts of a new book being released for view by the "barflies" in the months prior to public release. I am now just one of thousands of snippet addicts. And you get to discuss the nsippet with other knowledgeable readers, and often the authors chip into the discussion.

In snippets did I discover "The Wizard of Karres". In wrath did I chastise the authors for their hubris in taking Schmitz's work and daring to make a Witch a Wizard.

Then, as I followed the snippets, I discovered the authors had done a GREAT JOB.

So, I bought the "Wizard of Karres" online in HTML format from Webscriptions. I'm proud to say I was the first to get to post onto the Bar, "MORE, PLEASE".

The Wizard follows directly on from the "Witches of Karres". It adheres to the spirit of Schmitz. Its a great read.

Recommended to anyone who likes their fanatasy with lots of sub-plots, lots of humour, and wishes that they, too, had psi powers (or klatha, in Schmitz's terms).

Ian Clark
Gladstone, QLD, Australia

I must admit that i approached this book with some trepidation, since i am, shall we say, not particularly impressed with Eric Flint's "editing" (for want of a better word) of the rest of the James Schmitz canon, nor with Lackey's general record of not even keeping up with her *own* series' backstories (see the reviews for "Exile's Valor"), and because i didn't have any idea who Freer was.

(I have not yet gotten hold of a copy of an un-tampered-with edition "Witches of Karres" to see how extensively Flint "edited" that volume; a quick skim of the Baen version showed nothing immediately obviously egregious there, though.}

That out of the way, if this were an original story, i'd probably give it four stars, rather than the three i have -- but if it were an original story, i doubt it would have ever been published; it's a niche story, and without Scmitz's brilliant original to follow up to, the niche wouldn't exist.

As to the story itself: it falls prey to the most common problems writers of pastiche run afoul of -- first of which is often trying to put in references to everything from the original, whether the new story needs them or not. Thus we have references to tinklewood fishing poles and TotiSystem Toys, among other things. And lots and lots of vatches.

Another problem writers of pastiche may trip over is a tendency to retcons ("RETroactive CONtinuity") of the original story, explaining at length things that need no explanation, which can be particularly annoying if the retcon involves background material that wouldn't have been available to the original writer (the explanation given here of the formal name of one character from "Witches" is one such).

But, if those are your worst problems in writing such a work, then you're doing pretty good, and Flint, Lackey and Freer have, indeed, done Pretty Good.

The story is rather complex -- to say the least -- and i wouldn't even try to summarise it, both because such a summary would of necessity be both long and confusing and becuase it would, of necessity, involve at least some amount of spoilers.

They have crested a complex political intrigue out of characters and situations which were basically throw-aways in the first book, and play it out well.

Mostly they succeed in mimicking Schmitz's almost laconic, low-key narrative style, but depart from it in having parallel plots going at various points -- i cannot remember any of Schmitz's own work that do so, unless possibly it's the story that teames Telzey and Trigger -- and in telling parts of the story from other viewpoints than Captain Pausert's.

Their handling of Pausert's continuing discovery of his own abilities at manipulating the mystical klatha energy that the Witches of Karres use nicely mimick and continue Schmitz's handling of similar material in the original, and the continuing development of Pausert and Goth's relationship rings true.

Goth's sister, the Leewit, is along to add to the fun, and old spacer(and burglar/spy) Vezzarn and former Imperial agent Hulik do Eldel, now working with Pausert, are well used, although they do tend to fade into the background when not needed stage front.

Pul, the grik dog, is just a bit too too.

The sequence in which the crew of the "Venture", fleeing Imperial Security, sinister aliens and the pirates of the Agandar (a pirate lord vanquished by Pausert & Co in the first book) take refuge aboard a circus ship is well-done, though i do question whether the plays of Shakespeare would have survived virtually unchanged in the apparent history that Schmitz set up in the first book, with Earth a virtual legend of the distant past, so far off that even the name has become "Yarthe".

In the end, all comes out well and right -- though with hints of possibly another volume in the offing, and echoes of "Prisoner of Zenda" (or perhaps Heinlein's "Double Star").

I do feel as if there are some inconsistencies in continuity -- mainly that though i have the impression that Pausert & Co were again running under the forged ship's papers and identities created for them by the Daal's document specialists on Uldune, people who shouldn't have the faintest idea that Captain Aron of the "Evening Bird" out of Mulm and his niece Dani are actually Pausert of the "Venture", out of Nikkeldepain, and Goth, a possible Karres witch, keep calling him "Pausert"...

One assertion i've noticed in a couple of reviews of this book is that Schmitz never wrote a sequel; i understand that the situation is a bit different -- that he did, indeed, write one, but that the manuscript was lost and he never got around to reconstructing it. However, the fact that H. Beam Piper's third "Little Fuzzy" novel, long thought lost, finally did materialise, gives me some faint hope.

(And, while Schmitz had a fondness for odd-ball names -- i still treasure "Gefty Rammer" -- somehow, "Vonard Kleesp" seems to me a bit over the top...)

....but it would have been hard not to be. This sequel to one of my childhood favorites, The Witches of Karres, totally lacks the charm and subtlety of Schmitz's writing style, and the characters behave in ways that don't gel with their original characterizations. The Leewit crying because the circus tent wasn't completely set up? Give me a break! There are some good plot ideas, but the execution of them just doesn't measure up.

Fans of the authors' other books or of the original tale will be very disappointed by this story. It seems to me that these authors made a huge rookie mistake: assuming that the reader knows everything about the universe their story takes place in.

There's no transition from the original story, no background information, and the plot just dives in with no real cohesive feel of the setting, characters, or events that occur. I recognized terms and names from the original, but it all lacked definition. Even the characters seemed flat and undeveloped.

They may have been living, breathing, dissecting minutiae, and agonizing over the story for weeks together, but we haven't been let in on any of it.

Oh well, even top-notch authors are allowed a stinker once in a while.

For a little taste of this story, a quote from p.262: "Pausert went through his limbering exercises as he had done so many times, although by now he was no longer nervous about that part of his role as Mercutio. His body knew every choreographed movement so thoroughly that he could have done his fight scenes blindfolded or drunk. So all that mattered was his own preparation, warming up his muscles so that he wouldn't injure himself."

Not quite the action yarns we used to get from JHS. It's more like the romance novels they sell at grocery-store checkouts. They all have the same plot, don't they? A silly misunderstanding keeps him and her apart until the end of the book. Then they marry and live happily ever after! Awww.

There is much musing here over love, longing, fidelity, and marriage. Blasters burn and bodies fall, but there is staunch determination not to allow any naughty words to be spoken. Ample bosoms heave, and "stunningly beautiful" girls run around in skimpy costumes, but there is no awareness of the disabling lust this should cause in a real man.

Another romance-novel feature is that the characters have become rather stupid. Great stroboscopic neon clues flash in Pausert's face, but he remains oblivious. The dramatic tension is not "Wonder what will happen next?" but "When is he going to realize (how much he loves her)?"

Logic is out the airlock, in general. Two small examples: JHS built his story around a guy who was competent, resourceful, and had some wild talents including a bit of luck. But in this story, Pausert can simply rely on "klatha luck" to key in a password within 30 seconds to abort a (cheesy!) self-destruct sequence. And when Goth and the Leewit reveal themselves as Karres witches, the only reaction from the Muggles is to hope that the magician's union doesn't find out they've been using real magic in the sideshow.

Finally after more than 400 pages, the ending has a "Time! Pencils down!" quality to it. You can tell the authors only narrowly avoided saying "...he woke up, and it was all just a dream!"

On the plus side, ah, hmmm... I did enjoy the story enuf to finish it. Definitely wouldn't read another from these authors, tho.

Althought they have defeated the worm world and the pirates of the Agandar, Captain Pausert and his teenage sidekick, Goth, have more problems. For one thing, a tiny vatch is causing trouble--and Pausert's hooks offer no control over this vatch. For another, the Imperial Security Service has decided Pausert and his passengers are trouble. For a third thing, an ancient nanite plague has returned after centuries of quiet. The plague takes over bodies, controls minds, and seeks to dominate the galaxy--and all life on it. Pausert suspects that the nanites have taken control of at least some senior officials in the ISS--but that doesn't mean he can see any way to escape.

Pausert, Goth, and various friends, family, agents, and their vatch-sidekick are hunted through the galaxy, attacked by both the ISS and by remnants of the Agandar pirates, forced to retreat to a circus ship, thrown into another time, and finally forced to confront the plague itself--after it had already seized control of much of the Empire. In the meantime, Pausert struggles with his klatha (magical) powers--seeking to understand the magic that the witches do, but that come so slowly to him.

In THE WIZARD OF KARRES, authors Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer combine to continue the story originally created by author James H. Schmitz in THE WITCHES OF KARRES. WITCHES is a wonderful story and WIZARD does its best to maintain the characters, pace of adventure, story-line, and world-building originally created by Schmitz.

The result falls short of perfect. WIZARD doesn't offer the same level of space-opera adventure as WITCHES, nor, because the characters know one another, does it allow the same level of discovery that added so much to the first book. Still, fans of the original WITCHES (like me) will find a lot to enjoy in this sequel. Falling short of the truly wonderful WITCHES certainly doesn't mean that WIZARDS isn't an enjoyable treat.

I was absolutely pleased when the Witches of Karres was reprinted in hardback (my paperback was getting soooo tattered.) But now Baen has managed to come up with a sequel, and it is of the same quality as the book by Schmitz. I think the three authors did a great job, and am looking forward to another Karres book. If you want to know what's in the book, you'll have to read it - anything said would be a spoiler. It's very entertaining.

Please authors - write another one. Thanks to Jim Baen, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey and Dave Freer for a wonderful read.

This book reads like it was written by three different people and it shows. Plot is poor, character development is nil. Like the authors, I've wanted a sequel to the original for years but this one was a disappointment. I was surprised at the low quality of the writing. Examples: an assassination attempt in the middle of a play - before the assassin has obtained the information he needs. Or, a sudden switch to first person point of view for a minor character two-thirds of the way through the book. What were the authors thinking?