Subject: Melissa Scott: Burning Bright

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 04:29:15 GMT

Melissa Scott's writing has been somewhat uneven, but her recent "Burning
Bright" is one of her better novels -- unpretentious, but well-crafted.

The story covers a few days on Burning Bright, a free port/planet between
two spheres of influence.  Quinn Lioe is a pilot who is also a rising
star (in her spare time) among Gamers, and when her ship makes an unexpected
stop at Burning Bright for repairs, she introduces her newest game scenario.

(The Game is a cross between role sf playing games and the sort of 
cooperative theatrical in which the players work out the script and then
act it out -- as in Dean's "The Secret Country".  Scott is one of the few 
authors to use role playing games without abusing them.  We see as much of the
Game as we need to see -- and what we see is tied to the rest of the story.)

Unknown to Lioe, her ship has been used for one leg of a relatively minor
but politically important smuggling operation, so it's not quite a
coincidence that her game interacts with that operation -- to the possible
detriment of all concerned.  

I mentioned the craftsmanship; it's the best thing about the novel.  All
the pieces fit together smoothly and plausibly -- the low-stakes smuggling
operation, the high-stakes politics in which it becomes enmeshed, the
Game...and the way it reflects the reality, even the gathering storm.
It's a pleasure to see all the pieces come together.  

One very minor nit:  I consider it implausible that commercial neural
links would be manufactured that would be capable of delivering a fatal
power surge:  There are just too many ways to failsafe it, and no
apparent reason not to.

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked]

   'T is with our judgements as our watches, none
   Go alike, yet each believes his own
		--Alexander Pope