Of Tangible Ghosts (Ghost trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Modesitt's writerly tics, so obtrusive in his Recluce fantasy series (The Magic Engineer), seem less annoying than usual in this routine SF novel set in an alternative universe in which the Dutch, not the British, controlled the American colonies. Narrator Johan Eschbach's preachy tone makes the author's frequent infodumps more palatable than in other works, for example, though no less arrhythmic. While Eschbach, a college professor, pads the narrative with his lectures and the presentation of his academic life, his former profession as a government operative comes directly into play as he uncovers a conspiracy. In this world, where unnaturally dead souls remain visible, a plot is afoot in the highest levels of government to capture these "tangible" souls using "difference engines" (i.e., computers). Meanwhile, after a music teacher named Miranda is killed, her ghost spurs Eschbach to find her murderer-though the killer's identity isn't as veiled as Modesitt probably wishes, and Eschbach's technological solutions to the novel's mysteries won't hold most readers' interest (the most engrossing moments here involve a Shakespeare-quoting shade; again there is a link to The Tempest, as in the McKillip review above). Moreover, the overly familiar plot and its complications aren't saved by the author's presenting Eschbach's personal relationship with a singer named Llysette as little more than a plot complication.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

As university professor and former government agent Johan Eshbach reluctantly returns to duty to investigate the death of a fellow teacher, he plunges into the midst of a deadly game of politics and murder. Set in an alternate world where the Dutch settlement of North America did not give way to the British, where "difference engines" handle information processing, and where the psychic energies of ghostly manifestations exert their influence over the living, Modesitt's latest novel transforms a cliched plot into a vivid exercise in historic speculation. The author of the "Recluce" fantasy series (The Towers of the Sunset, Tor Bks., 1992) excels in using subtle details to enhance the credibility of an imaginary parallel world. A good choice for sf collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (November 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812548221
• ISBN-13: 978-0812548228
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #968,819 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 2 in The Ghost Trilogy Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Tale of Spooks and Spectres, July 24, 2003

By	Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Of Tangible Ghosts (Hardcover)

Of Tangible Ghosts is the first novel in the Ghost series. In an alternate universe, the English Plymouth colony failed and the Dutch dominated Columbia. Austro-Hungary has conquered most of Europe and the French exiles under DeGaulle rule in Mexico. In this timeline, ghosts are much more visible, powerful, and responsive to technical devices.

Doktor Johan Eschbach is a former Subminister for Environment in the Natural Resources Ministry of the Columbian government. Prior to his term as a high level government official, Johan had been a flying officer in the Republic Air Corps and then an agent in the Spazi, the Sedition Prevention and Security Service. When Speaker Hartpence's Reformed Tories party won the election, they cleaned house in the Natural Resources Ministry and Johan retired to his family's old summer home in Vanderbraak Centre, accepting a position in the Natural Resources Department of the local college, Vanderbraak State University.

In this novel, Johan has a close relationship to Doktor Llysette duBoise, a concert quality soprano who also teaches at the college and who is a refugee from the conquest of France. Llysette has a concert one evening and Johan drives her to the music center to prepare for the performance, then goes to his office. Later, as he locks up to leave for the concert, Johan feels a drop in temperature. Then he hears someone sobbing and shortly thereafter he sees the ghost of Miranda Miller, a piano instructor in the Music department. Apparent Miranda has just been murdered. He starts to report the incident to Campus Security, but realizes that such a report would position him as a prime suspect. Instead, he walks to the Music department to attend Llysette's concert.

During the next few days, Johan discovers that the Spazi are interested in Miranda's murder, indicating that the homicide has more that local interest. Moreover, he starts to receive newspaper clippings from an anonymous source, which he knows must be associated with the Spazi. It would seem that he is being maneuvered into investigating the case.

This novel presents some interesting notions about the creation and persistence of ghosts and the technical manipulation of such spirits. Moreover, it speculates about the relationship of the mind to the brain and the consequences of separating them.

As is usual with Modesitt, the plot moves rather slowly as the reader views and reviews the life of the protagonist and the characteristics of his society. If the reader can tolerate the slow pace, however, the story will unfold before your eyes as if you were living it. Maybe Modesitt is an acquired taste, but so is Faulkner, and I find there is much that is common between the two. Faulkner, however, never had to create a whole timeline.

Highly recommended for Modesitt fans and anyone else who enjoys tales filled with philosophical notions, technical speculations and international intrigue.

-Arthur W. Jordin

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Work of Alternate History..., December 2, 2002

By	Tom Cowie (Chicago) - See all my reviews

I've always been a complete fan of Modesitt's SciFi works, so I decided to pick up this book. Boy, was I ever pleased. Not only does the author manage to weave a completely believable alternate history in which the North American political landscape is totally differnt (though historiclaly plausible) from today, but he manages to insert the idea of ghosts into the stiory - in a highly believable manner.

Within this complex reality Modesitt tells a great tale of political intrigue. The hero is great...an academic who is a reluctant spy who really only wants to leave his past behind and teach in his small regional university.

The bottom line is "Of Tangible Ghosts" is a superb book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-done, complex, worthwhile alt-hist political thriller, January 1, 2004

By	Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

[paired review with Ghost of the Revelator]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Johan Eschbach, retired from an eventful career in service to
Columbia as a naval aviator, Spazi agent, and cabinet minister,
now teaches environmental economics at Vanderbraak State
University in New Bruges (New Hampshire in OTL). Doktor
Eschbach lost both his wife and daughter in a political murder --
he himself was badly wounded -- and he would like nothing better
than a quiet life in this academic backwater. But that would make
for a dull book, and he is soon caught up in a murder
investigation, love affair, political intrigues, and secret military
research into "deghosting".

Doktor Eschbach's solution to the ensuing tangle is
"rather appalling and not entirely credible" [note 1].
--------
"A land of dirigibles and difference engines, Modesitt's
eerily refined world is compelling and coolly original, a place where

you still drive to work in a car--albeit steam-powered--but think
nothing of waving good morning to the zombies raking leaves off the
lawn." -- Paul Hughes, Amazon.com

Ghost of the Revelator picks up Doktor Eschbach and his new
wife Llysette Du Boise as her singing career is taking off, and
as the messy ending to "Tangible" comes back to haunt Eschbach.
The story unfolds slowly, but the same wonderful details of
everyday life that enlivened the first book -- lunch at a favorite
cafe, icy roads, dense, lazy, occasionally sharp students, petty
academic politics, politicians who can "smile and smile and be a
villain" -- make the trip worthwhile. This world is slower-paced
than ours, and Modesitt's prose has something of the heavy Dutch
feel of well-fed burghers, shining-clean windows, tidy lives. Very
human. If slow bothers you -- skim.

Modesitt still hasn't smoothed out his jarring exposition
of the differences between his alternate world and ours, here
usually dumped as interior monologues. Show, don't tell, please!

Llysette sings at a Presidential Arts Awards dinner and is
invited to perform at the prestigious Salt Palace in Deseret --
after fleeing the fall of France and an Austrian political prison.
Johan comes to the uncomfortable conclusion that he's about to be
eclipsed in fame and fortune by his glamorous wife....

....but maybe Deseret is after more than just a performance by the
new prima diva. And what about Austria-Hungary? And New
France? And the shadowy "Revealed Twelve"?

Minister Eschbach resolves the ensuing international crisis with
verve, skill, and a couple of twists that would be unfair to reveal.
Suffice it to say that the ending is most satisfactory, and leaves
plenty of room for future Eschbach/Du Boise adventures.

Both books are reasonably self-contained, but if you read one and
like it, you'll want to read the other, so it makes sense to start with #1.

Doktor Eschbach and the "Ghosts" books have parallels to Mr
Modesitt's real life: the author was a naval aviator, spent twenty
years in our "Federal District" as a political aide, EPA staffer, and
college teacher. He's married to a lyric soprano (sorceress?, who
teaches at Southern Utah University). He and his family moved
from DC to New Hampshire ("New Bruges") and then to Utah:
these are the settings for the "Ghosts" books. "Write what you
know," the old adage goes -- it certainly works for Modesitt. I
presume the spies and ghosts are from the author's imagination...
_____________
Note 1) -- not to mention *confusing*. A reader at
Amazon.com writes: "I've read the book 6 or 7 times,
and I'm *still* not sure what's happened at the end..."

Review copyright 1998 by Peter D. Tillman
http://www.sfsite.com/12a/gost46.htm