Subject: Retrograde Reviews--Barry Longyear:City of Baraboo

From: [email-masked] (Humphrey Aaron V)
Date: 01 Mar 94 13:38:43 GMT

Barry Longyear was the first author to win the SF Triple Crown--the Hugo and
the Nebula for his short story "Enemy Mine", and the John W. Campbell award
for best new writer.  (I believe William Gibson is the only one to do it
since, but I could be wrong.)

Among his other early short stories were his Circus World stories.  They've
been collected in two or three books that I know of; _City of Baraboo_ is
the first chronologically.

The circus in the book is much like circuses today, so it's educational about
what circuses are _really_ like.  The twist is that the circus decides to
leave Earth and tour other worlds, so it acquires, though quasi-legal means,
the ship of the title.  (Baraboo was apparently the name of the city where
the Barnum & Bailey circus started, or somesuch thing.)

The stories sometimes lack punch, but the last two make up for that.  The
alien race depicted in "Sweet Revenge" are quite interesting, as is how they
are outwitted at their own game.  And the final story is the first without
a happy ending, but it segues into the _Circus World_ itself...more than that
would be a spoiler.

I'd give it a 7.5/10, and someday I'll have to hunt down the other books in
the series.

%A Longyear, Barry B.
%T City of Baraboo
%I Berkley
%C New York
%D July 1980
%G ISBN 0-425-04940-X
%P 214 pp.
%S Circus World
%O Paperback, US $2.25

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