Jim Frenkel writes about...

the Rainbow’s End reviews

With discussion by:
Jerry Wright
Danielle L. Parker
Don Webb

Just saw the BwS review of this novel. I’m not sure I agree that there are no new ideas in the book, but otherwise I thought it was a rather refreshing review. I happen to agree that it is characters — and the human qualities that still persist in humankind after the millennia of change that have passed between homo sapiens in caves and on savannahs to where we now sit, in the early stages of the information age — that make for memorable fiction, regardless the story. Yes, of course, characters without story are not going to engage our interest. But stories with limp or generic characters are far worse.

About The Baker’s Boy by J. V. Jones, I think it’s useful to remember that it was Jones’s very first novel; The most recent novels are more finely tuned and tend less toward the gruesome and super-violent. Jones’s worlds are more hard-edged and violent than Vinge’s, but Jones’s best work is very sharply observed, and doesn’t rely on the kind of shock and gruesome detail you describe in your review.

I agree that there are writers who depend on gory detail, though. I’m not sure exactly why — perhaps it had something to do with the way society in the 1980s dealt with the large-scale changes in physical reality since the start of the twentieth century — but horror in the ‘80s was soaked in splatter. At the time, I felt, and I still feel that the oft-gratuitous splatter of blood in that decade was ultimately a big part of why so many people turned away from horror. There was unquestionably simply too much being published; but more than that, too much of what was published focused on physical horror, the blood and gore, and lacked characters with whom any sane reader would like to spend time, on the page or in real life.

The best writers went beyond the physical; but there was an awful lot of horror that just did not compel; and characters with whom the reader can sympathize or empathize remain an author’s best tools.

Jim Frenkel

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Frenkel

Oddly enough, our Reviews page has Danielle’s review, but not mine. Which is in the same issue.

I disagreed with Danielle also as to the supposed lack of new ideas. Danielle was a technokid at Lucent for several years, but she now works as a county librarian due to the implosion of Lucent.

I appreciate your comments, and with your permission will forward your letter to Ms. Parker.

By the bye... Are you the Jim Frenkel?? I assume so, since your address is in Madison. (I’ve been there, teaching electrical safety seminars.)

All of a sudden it becomes clear, because you are Vernor Vinge’s editor. So I must thank you for the wonderful work you do, and the fine material you and TOR supply us. Also tell your wife we love her writing too. Which means I ought to get my (or Danielle’s) act together and write some reviews. I thoroughly enjoyed Tangled Up In Blue not too long ago. Although a bit of research tells me it was 5+ years. Sigh.

Jerry Wright
Publisher, first reader, and bottlewasher.

(A bit of a note here... This might have sounded demeaning toward Danielle, but it wasn't meant that way. Danielle worked for several technology outfits aside from Lucent, and is knowledgeable about technology, and as a librarian, she is knowledgeable about literature. And it is obvious people like her reviews... Onward! My thoughts about Lucent need no explication however. They exchanged the gold for the dross.)

A reply from Mr. Frenkel came winging back:

Hi, Jerry:
Yes, you caught me. I guess I am THE Jim Frenkel. (And I confess, I always feel slightly strange when faced with the fact that one can be THE whoever and still struggle financially, have to cook, clean, do the laundry, shopping and all that other mundane crap--and struggle to get enough hours to sleep.) I gather I'm very famous in Japan. If only they'd send money
Thank you for your kind words. I do the best I can, and I confess I do feel editing is what I do best in all the world, and the best thing I can do to make the world a little better (besides being politically active, which I've been much more lately after many years of not doing ANYTHING politcally, after being a wild-eyed (well, not as wild-eyed as some, but very active nonetheless) radical in the late sixties and early '70s when I was a student at Stony Brook, that wild place.
I'll be very glad to pass along your praise to Joan.
Nice to meet you. Geez, the internet is so huge; I'm constantly amazed how little of it I experience; too many sites,too little time. And I really should have my own website or at least a blog--one of these days gotta do that, real soon now . . .

Hi everyone,

I enjoyed reading Jim Frenkel’s response to my (and Jerry’s) review of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End.

I would love to hear Mr. Frenkel’s and Mr. Vinge’s take on my comments in the latter part of the review some day. I had two comments:

What is the impact on humanity when we as humans no longer share a common “pheonomenal consciousness”?
What is the commercial raison d’être of these myriad wired futures that so many writers — from Gibson to Mr. Vinge — have imagined?

Because if it ain’t making money, it ain’t going to happen, if you’ll pardon my slang. I’d like to see some serious thoughts given to this question -- because what I can imagine makes for a real horror scenario in my mind that we might just really see someday... Spam to the head might be the least of it.

The humanistic spirit Vinge infuses in his writing is one of the reasons I read his books and recommend them to others. Keep up the good work, Mr. Vinge!

As for the comments about so much 20th-century horror being nothing but blood and gore, which turns off many readers: 100% agree to that. What do I consider the most chilling horror stories I’ve ever read? Maybe, Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony,” Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Black Wedding,” and Gene Wolfe’s “Island of Dr. Death” series. Because all of these stories showcase the darkness inside, not the splatter outside.

Thanks again for the comments, Mr. Frenkel. I really enjoy getting feedback on my reviews -- knowing, of course, that they are my own personal opinions, and not every one is going to agree with me. I can take that, and I enjoy well-reasoned disagreements as much as praise.

Danielle L. Parker

Y’know, one of the spookiest stories I ever read was Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, especially the scene in which Kelvin sets about to rocket the Rheya simulacrum into space but she starts to batter her way out of the spacecraft. The novel is so interior that it practically has to be read rather than viewed on screen.

Don