Conference noted::sf

65.0. "Simon Hawke" by DRAGON::SPERT () Mon May 07 1984 14:17

This is a review of two books by Simon Hawke:

                   The Ivanhoe Gambit
                   The Timekeeper Conspiracy

published by Ace Books at $2.75 each.


Do you remember the Larry Maddock Agent of T.E.R.R.A. books?  Hannibal
Fortune was a "temporal adjustment" agent working for a multi-world
federation.  The plot usually concerned some villains travelling into
Earth's past to plunder treasuries or mine our resources before we did.
Hannibal's job, of course, was to stop this and preserve the "right"
past (i.e. the past that led to his present).  Much effort went into making
sure that one didn't wind up "meeting yourself".

Much of the flavor of those books is in Simon Hawke's new series, but the
background seems much better thought out.  The world of the 27th century
still has international disputes but doesn't want to use their own territory.
The solution?  Send relatively small groups of soldiers into historical
battles and use their performance to judge which nation wins the dispute.
An extra-national Referee Corps arbitrates all of this (including figuring
"point spreads"!).

In Ivanhoe Gambit, four Temporal soldiers are chosen to be an "adjustment
team".  It seems a referee has gone bad and is trying to set himself up
as Richard the Lionhearted.  The soldiers are given historical roles in
order to blend into the culture.  In the course of their adventure, they
meet King John, Friar Tuck, and indeed many of the characters from Ivanhoe
(by Sir Walter Scott).

In Timekeeper Conspiracy, we find out that the 27th century has a
grass-roots movement similar to the environmental movement only this
group wants all time-travel stopped.  This is based on the not unjustified
fear that someday someone will successfully change the past and wipe them
all out.  A violent splinter group, called the Timekeepers, has gotten
access to a "chronodisc" and threatens to change the past if time-travel
isn't banned.  Hawke does a good job showing why this isn't illogical
from the Timekeeper point of view.  In the course of this adventure,
the protagonists meet D'Artagnan, Athos, and indeed many of the characters
from The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas).

At this point you may be getting a nagging feeling that something is wrong;
hang on, I'll get to it soon...

Character development is good, if static.  That is, none of the characters
grow in the course of the plot, but they are well thought out.  Each of
the main characters is a distinct individual.  The dialog is "natural".
The author has a good sense of humor and irony.

The plots make sense.  Motivations are clear.  Things rarely happen
"by coincidence"; something that is the bane of some otherwise good
authors.  The background culture of the 27th century is delineated
in hints and off-hand references which nonetheless have given me a
good idea of what sort of place it is.

Reactions:  When I saw the covers and read the blurbs, it looked like
real hackwork; a quick read to pass the time.  I was even willing to
bet that "Simon Hawke" was a house name.  Having read them, I'll grant
that they were a quick read, but only because I couldn't put them down!
The author has a good sense of time travel and its possible uses and
consequences.  Certain of the characters live and breathe for me.
An "adventure" story, but a well done one.

I am now going to discuss some speculations I have about what is going
on in the background.  I won't give away specific plot developments,
but you may want to SINCE if you'd rather read the books first.






















Now about those "historical" figures...  When I said the protagonists
meet D'Artagnan, Friar Tuck, and company, I didn't mean that they meet
people who were the basis of the legends.  I mean that events and
dialogue occur just like in the Scott and Dumas novels.  This lead to
the conclusion that either:

a) the author gets his knowledge of history from historical romances and
   Ace's copy editor is comatose, or
b) this 27th century world is not based on our past

I incline to (b), not only because I find it hard to believe that anyone
could goof that badly but also for another reason.  At one point, a
character is thinking that Temporal Corps soldiers don't tend to bother
with things like saluting.  They call it "mickey mouse", even though no
one knows the origin of the term.  This character tried looking it up
in the public databases once and found that it is classified.  Now I can
believe that by the 27th century no one will know who Mickey Mouse was.
But I don't see why it would be classified.

It looks like the past (our past) has already been changed and that
people "in the know" in the 27th century are concerned with making
certain that the past doesn't get changed back to the way we know it.

I look forward to further revelations...

					John

I must confess that my first impression of the Simon Hawke novels was that
they were indeed "hack" stuff. If you compare them favorably to the AGENT
OF T.E.R.R.A. novels, then I may well give them a read. Of course, they
still look like hack novels, but *good* hack novels.
	According to one source, "Simon Hawke" *is* a pseudonym, but it
isn't a "house name" (ie. there is only one author, rather than a multi-
tude). My source was unable to find out who Hawke really is, though.

---jayembee (Jerry Boyajian)

If it's E.C. Tubb, I'm stopping right now.  I can picture it:

J. Random, time agent extraordinaire, searches all of time for the
perfect lunch hour.

or some such.

:-)				John

I have heard, but can't attribute any source, that Simon Hawke is Nicholas
Yermakov, who has written several other books under his own name. I have
nothing really to back this up,  but it seems to be of the right flavor as
some of his other books.

Tamzen

    Simon Hawke has a new novel called the "Reluctant Sorcerer". The is
    very funny it is about the miss adventures of a scientist who try to
    invent a time machine and ends up inventing a dimentional traveler. 
    The scientist is a classic absent minded professer with a unic able
    that all women want to mother him. The scientist in himself is a
    reasonable interesting character but the suporting characters and
    even the villian makes this book hilarious. Warning this is the first
    book in a series of books. The rest are not out and this book ends
    abruptly.
                             Jeff Peters