Conference noted::sf

1229.0. "Denise Heald's Mistwalker" by MTWAIN::KLAES (Houston, Tranquility Base here...) Wed Jul 06 1994 17:30

Article: 631
From: [email protected] (Christina Schulman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: _Mistwalker_ by Denise Lopes Heald
Date: 6 Jul 1994 00:43:32 GMT
Organization: St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed
Sender: [email protected] (Michael C. Berch)
 
_Mistwalker_ by Denise Lopes Heald
 
The planet Ver Day is a frontier world covered with jungle.  This
isn't the Tarzan-movie sort of jungle where you can run around in
nothing but a loincloth without losing your skin.  The green is a
hostile, insect- ridden wilderness full of ravening beasties, kudzu's
foul-smelling but edible twin, face-sucking flowers, and bugs, bugs,
bugs.  Bugs the size of your fist that explode into stench, bugs with
billions of legs that attach themselves to your skin when you're not
looking, and bugs that crawl under your face netting and just
generally make your life miserable.  And the constant sweltering heat
doesn't make life in the green any more pleasant. (But for the lack of
Spanish moss and palmetto scrub, it's very reminiscent of North
Florida in July.) 
 
The jungle is so pervasive that the descendants of the original human
settlers have actually turned green.  Newbie immigrants, despised by
the greenies for their destructive behavior and dependence on tech,
are posing a serious threat to the preservation of the green.  (I
suspect that Usenet veterans are likely to appreciate a vocabulary in
which the epithet "yellow-pissin' newbie" is the height of contempt.) 
 
The most dangerous inhabitants of the green are the reclusive
mistwalkers, which can fatally poison a human with the scratch of a
claw.  The human settlers learned quickly that irritating or startling
a mistwalker is a very quick route to a very ugly death.  So the
settlers are careful not to cut down indigenous trees, or drop trash
in the jungle, or use much in the way of non-biodegradable technology;
and the mistwalkers leave the humans alone.  Except for when they
don't leave the humans alone. 
 
Sal Banks is a greenie packer, a delivery person who hauls goods
through the green in a hand-powered sled.  She hires newbie Meesha
Raschad to help her haul an unusually heavy load.  The two of them
have to cope not only with the usual lethal dangers of the green, but
also with government corruption, spacer ambushes, greenie prejudice
against newbies, and the mistwalkers' inexplicable fascination with
Raschad. 
 
This is not a book that will give you a warm fuzzy.  This is a book
that will give you the creepy-crawlies, and sudden fits of scratching
at non- existent itches, and a newfound appreciation for clean beds
without bedbugs. The story is good but unremarkable, although it does
consistently improve throughout the book, and the romance is sweet
without being saccharine.  It fails to tie up quite a few dangling
threads, but not in such a way that it screams "Sequel!" 
 
It's the extroardinarily vivid picture that Heald paints--mostly in
shades of green--of a dangerous jungle world and the ways in which
humans have adapted to survive it that make _Mistwalker_ absorbing and
memorable. 
 
As long as I'm saying nice things about a Del Rey Discovery, let me
take a moment to praise the Discovery line in general.  I've read
about half of them now, and while they have a tendency to suffer from
first-novel faults--I found _Ammonite_ a bit preachy, for example, and
_Dancer of the Sixth_ tangled itself with improbable romantic
complications at the expense of a more interesting plot--on the whole,
they're interesting books with original ideas.  And it's great to see
some promotional effort being spent on new authors; I'd never have
even noticed _Mistwalker_ if it hadn't had that white "Discovery"
banner emblazoned across the front cover. 
 
%A   Heald, Denise Lopes
%T   Mistwalker
%I   Del Rey
%C   New York
%D   July 1994
%G   ISBN 0-345-38890-9
%P   332 pp
%O   paperback, US$4.99
%O   A Del Rey Discovery
 
-- 
Christina Schulman   Pittsburgh NMR Institute   [email protected]