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I generally think that Spider Robinson's Callahan novels are seriously overrated. (Other than the first one, which I thought very good, especially the chapter, "The Time Traveler," which was brilliant.) I've read three of the subsequent novels and been, well, underwhelmed. And it's not that I'm not a science fiction reader generally (being more a mystery person): I love Connie Willis's work, and some of Orson Scott Card's, and I have reread C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen trilogy so much pages are falling out. I like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels, in spite of them being really uneven in quality over the series.
But, scouting around for reading material, I chanced upon Callahan's Con. I read it, and thought Dorothy Parker's classic bad novel review would be appropriate: "This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force."
It's not just the cardboard characterizations or the "let's spend insane amounts of verbiage on backstory" feel. And it's not the ending, which I have read upset some Callahan fans.
It's something far more basic than that.
The center plot of the novel revolves around a scam involving time travel. Jake and Zoey's child prodigy Erin travels back and forth in time to con a low life crook. One of the conceits set up early in the plot is that Erin cannot remember anything that happened at a later point in her life than whatever chronological age she was at the time. This is set up clearly, and reinforced after the con is over in a conversation about how she was going to ride on the Space Shuttle but hadn't yet and so could not remember it.
Except, while they are pulling the con, Erin travels back, so that she gets younger, without any loss of memory. In one or two cases, it would be possible for another character to fill her in, but in two cases, it would not be.
This sort of thing makes me want to run away screaming. For example, at the end of the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry has seen Cedric die, but can't see the thestrals pulling the carriages. But at the beginning of the fifth book, Harry can see the thestrals, which can only be seen by people who have seen others die. Nothing else important about Harry has changed. It's just incredibly sloppy. (When I discussed this with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brian1789, he wondered why Harry couldn't see the thestrals all along, since he had seen his mother die.)
All novel writing is to me about worlds other than my own. Those worlds don't have to have the same rules as mine, but they do have to play by whatever rules they set out. (The only novel I can think of where this does not apply is Catch-22, and in that case the incoherence was not only deliberate and understandable, it was the whole point of the book.) Robinson violated the rules of the universe he set up.
But, scouting around for reading material, I chanced upon Callahan's Con. I read it, and thought Dorothy Parker's classic bad novel review would be appropriate: "This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force."
It's not just the cardboard characterizations or the "let's spend insane amounts of verbiage on backstory" feel. And it's not the ending, which I have read upset some Callahan fans.
It's something far more basic than that.
The center plot of the novel revolves around a scam involving time travel. Jake and Zoey's child prodigy Erin travels back and forth in time to con a low life crook. One of the conceits set up early in the plot is that Erin cannot remember anything that happened at a later point in her life than whatever chronological age she was at the time. This is set up clearly, and reinforced after the con is over in a conversation about how she was going to ride on the Space Shuttle but hadn't yet and so could not remember it.
Except, while they are pulling the con, Erin travels back, so that she gets younger, without any loss of memory. In one or two cases, it would be possible for another character to fill her in, but in two cases, it would not be.
This sort of thing makes me want to run away screaming. For example, at the end of the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry has seen Cedric die, but can't see the thestrals pulling the carriages. But at the beginning of the fifth book, Harry can see the thestrals, which can only be seen by people who have seen others die. Nothing else important about Harry has changed. It's just incredibly sloppy. (When I discussed this with
brian1789, he wondered why Harry couldn't see the thestrals all along, since he had seen his mother die.) All novel writing is to me about worlds other than my own. Those worlds don't have to have the same rules as mine, but they do have to play by whatever rules they set out. (The only novel I can think of where this does not apply is Catch-22, and in that case the incoherence was not only deliberate and understandable, it was the whole point of the book.) Robinson violated the rules of the universe he set up.