The Wizard of Karres

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed......
Review: ....but it would have been hard not to be. This sequel to one of my childhood favorites, The Witches of Karres, totally lacks the charm and subtlety of Schmitz's writing style, and the characters behave in ways that don't gel with their original characterizations. The Leewit crying because the circus tent wasn't completely set up? Give me a break! There are some good plot ideas, but the execution of them just doesn't measure up.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable sequel to one of the top SF books of the 1960s
Review: Althought they have defeated the worm world and the pirates of the Agandar, Captain Pausert and his teenage sidekick, Goth, have more problems. For one thing, a tiny vatch is causing trouble--and Pausert's hooks offer no control over this vatch. For another, the Imperial Security Service has decided Pausert and his passengers are trouble. For a third thing, an ancient nanite plague has returned after centuries of quiet. The plague takes over bodies, controls minds, and seeks to dominate the galaxy--and all life on it. Pausert suspects that the nanites have taken control of at least some senior officials in the ISS--but that doesn't mean he can see any way to escape.

Pausert, Goth, and various friends, family, agents, and their vatch-sidekick are hunted through the galaxy, attacked by both the ISS and by remnants of the Agandar pirates, forced to retreat to a circus ship, thrown into another time, and finally forced to confront the plague itself--after it had already seized control of much of the Empire. In the meantime, Pausert struggles with his klatha (magical) powers--seeking to understand the magic that the witches do, but that come so slowly to him.

In THE WIZARD OF KARRES, authors Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer combine to continue the story originally created by author James H. Schmitz in THE WITCHES OF KARRES. WITCHES is a wonderful story and WIZARD does its best to maintain the characters, pace of adventure, story-line, and world-building originally created by Schmitz.

The result falls short of perfect. WIZARD doesn't offer the same level of space-opera adventure as WITCHES, nor, because the characters know one another, does it allow the same level of discovery that added so much to the first book. Still, fans of the original WITCHES (like me) will find a lot to enjoy in this sequel. Falling short of the truly wonderful WITCHES certainly doesn't mean that WIZARDS isn't an enjoyable treat.

Rating:
Summary: First Witches, now Wizards. Next???
Review: Anyone who enjoyed the adventures of Captain Pausert with Maleen, Goth, and the Leewit in The Witches Of Karres, published aeons ago by Schmitz will absolutely NOT be disappointed in this sequel co-authored by Lackey and Flint.
True, Maleen isn't in this novel, but Goth and the Leewit, not to mention various assassins, pirates, vatches, and assorted other scoundrels, keep the Captain stretching his newfound klatha abilities to the utmost! Hopefully Goth will be "older" soon in future novels!

Rating:
Summary: Rookie mistakes from veteran authors
Review: Fans of the authors' other books or of the original tale will be very disappointed by this story. It seems to me that these authors made a huge rookie mistake: assuming that the reader knows everything about the universe their story takes place in.

There's no transition from the original story, no background information, and the plot just dives in with no real cohesive feel of the setting, characters, or events that occur. I recognized terms and names from the original, but it all lacked definition. Even the characters seemed flat and undeveloped.

They may have been living, breathing, dissecting minutiae, and agonizing over the story for weeks together, but we haven't been let in on any of it.

Oh well, even top-notch authors are allowed a stinker once in a while.

Rating:
Summary: WOW, A REAL TREAT!
Review: For us oldsters, those that had been hoping for a sequel to James Schmitz's WITCHES OF KARRES for more years then I want to admit (ok so I bought the first printing in paperback and it only cost me $0.50, maybe that gives you some idea how long I've been waiting), WIZARD OF KARRES has been a real dream come true. I admit I fell in love with the original, waited, and waited, waited some more, and was finally heartbroken when I realize it was never to be when I heard of Mr. Schmitz's death. Well this just shows you that dreams do come true sometimes.

This one is good, really good! It really isn't much of a surprise when you consider the quality of the three authors involved or the magnificent works they have already produced together, let alone individually. But what did surprise me was just how seamlessly WIZARD blends with and compliments WITCHES, a book written by a completely different author decades in the past! If the spirit of J. Schmitz didn't rise from the dead to help these three I'll eat my hat!

Yes its fun! I for one can't wait for the next one. God I hope it doesn't take another thirty years!

If you liked WITCHES OF KARRES then you are going to like WIZARD OF KARRES, if you didn't then what are you doing reading this review?

I wholeheartedly HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one!


Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended. Read the original, first. Worthy sequel.
Review: I am a big fan of James Schmitz's "The Witches of Karres", and was pleasantly surprised to find this book on the market. After reading it, I was even more pleasantly surprised. The three authors (Lackey, Flint, and Freer) did a good job mimicing the style of the original. And, they did it with an original story that captured my attention, very good continued development of the old characters, and new characters that I felt were well constructed. They came up with some truely original ideas of their own that fit quite well in the universe created by Schmitz. There are a few details that I'd have liked to have seen covered differently. (The truth behind Sedmond of the Six Lives comes to mind.) But, these authors' choices worked. I would have thought it would be difficult, maybe impossible to carry on Schmitz's fabulous story, but these authors did a very passable job.

For parents, this book is OK for children in my opinion. Like Schmitz's original book, this one is essentially G-rated, with sex being something only vaguely inferred. The values are something most parents can live with. Only one sympathetic character (Sedmond) seems to be a bit shady. But, the character is not likely to inspire imitation. The Klatha magic resembles the Force from "Star Wars" more than any religion-oriented black magic.

You should read the original first, as there is very little re-capping of previous events. The story stands pretty well on its own, and anything essential to the new story is recounted. However, less essential but key elements of the previous book (such as the Worm World) come off as vague references, leaving you scratching your head.

Rating:
Summary: Falls Afoul of the Usual Perils of Pastichery
Review: I must admit that i approached this book with some trepidation, since i am, shall we say, not particularly impressed with Eric Flint's "editing" (for want of a better word) of the rest of the James Schmitz canon, nor with Lackey's general record of not even keeping up with her *own* series' backstories (see the reviews for "Exile's Valor"), and because i didn't have any idea who Freer was.

(I have not yet gotten hold of a copy of an un-tampered-with edition "Witches of Karres" to see how extensively Flint "edited" that volume; a quick skim of the Baen version showed nothing immediately obviously egregious there, though.}

That out of the way, if this were an original story, i'd probably give it four stars, rather than the three i have -- but if it were an original story, i doubt it would have ever been published; it's a niche story, and without Scmitz's brilliant original to follow up to, the niche wouldn't exist.

As to the story itself: it falls prey to the most common problems writers of pastiche run afoul of -- first of which is often trying to put in references to everything from the original, whether the new story needs them or not. Thus we have references to tinklewood fishing poles and TotiSystem Toys, among other things. And lots and lots of vatches.

Another problem writers of pastiche may trip over is a tendency to retcons ("RETroactive CONtinuity") of the original story, explaining at length things that need no explanation, which can be particularly annoying if the retcon involves background material that wouldn't have been available to the original writer (the explanation given here of the formal name of one character from "Witches" is one such).

But, if those are your worst problems in writing such a work, then you're doing pretty good, and Flint, Lackey and Freer have, indeed, done Pretty Good.

The story is rather complex -- to say the least -- and i wouldn't even try to summarise it, both because such a summary would of necessity be both long and confusing and becuase it would, of necessity, involve at least some amount of spoilers.

They have crested a complex political intrigue out of characters and situations which were basically throw-aways in the first book, and play it out well.

Mostly they succeed in mimicking Schmitz's almost laconic, low-key narrative style, but depart from it in having parallel plots going at various points -- i cannot remember any of Schmitz's own work that do so, unless possibly it's the story that teames Telzey and Trigger -- and in telling parts of the story from other viewpoints than Captain Pausert's.

Their handling of Pausert's continuing discovery of his own abilities at manipulating the mystical klatha energy that the Witches of Karres use nicely mimick and continue Schmitz's handling of similar material in the original, and the continuing development of Pausert and Goth's relationship rings true.

Goth's sister, the Leewit, is along to add to the fun, and old spacer(and burglar/spy) Vezzarn and former Imperial agent Hulik do Eldel, now working with Pausert, are well used, although they do tend to fade into the background when not needed stage front.

Pul, the grik dog, is just a bit too too.

The sequence in which the crew of the "Venture", fleeing Imperial Security, sinister aliens and the pirates of the Agandar (a pirate lord vanquished by Pausert & Co in the first book) take refuge aboard a circus ship is well-done, though i do question whether the plays of Shakespeare would have survived virtually unchanged in the apparent history that Schmitz set up in the first book, with Earth a virtual legend of the distant past, so far off that even the name has become "Yarthe".

In the end, all comes out well and right -- though with hints of possibly another volume in the offing, and echoes of "Prisoner of Zenda" (or perhaps Heinlein's "Double Star").

I do feel as if there are some inconsistencies in continuity -- mainly that though i have the impression that Pausert & Co were again running under the forged ship's papers and identities created for them by the Daal's document specialists on Uldune, people who shouldn't have the faintest idea that Captain Aron of the "Evening Bird" out of Mulm and his niece Dani are actually Pausert of the "Venture", out of Nikkeldepain, and Goth, a possible Karres witch, keep calling him "Pausert"...

One assertion i've noticed in a couple of reviews of this book is that Schmitz never wrote a sequel; i understand that the situation is a bit different -- that he did, indeed, write one, but that the manuscript was lost and he never got around to reconstructing it. However, the fact that H. Beam Piper's third "Little Fuzzy" novel, long thought lost, finally did materialise, gives me some faint hope.

(And, while Schmitz had a fondness for odd-ball names -- i still treasure "Gefty Rammer" -- somehow, "Vonard Kleesp" seems to me a bit over the top...)

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: Like others who have reviewed the Wizard of Karres, I am a devout fan of the original story, the Witches of Karres.

But unlike most others who have reviewed this book, I was not pleasantly surprised. Nor can I recommend this book to anyone hoping for a continuation of the magic from the original story.

While there are a few scenes in which the characters seem like themselves, mostly they come across as poor two-dimensional recreations. Similarly, while there are some passages where Schmitz's delightful writing style is fairly well recreated, mostly it is only imitated, and in many places not particularly well.

Add to that the uneven pacing, the weak and complicated plotting, and the other problems mentioned in other reviews, and Wizard comes across as an attempt to cash in on the success of the original novel, rather than any kind of homage or honest attempt to revisit the characters. I'm astonished that Jim Baen, whose publishing instincts are generally sound, put this out with his colophon.

Partway through the book I almost stopped reading it, but I went ahead and finished it, hoping that it might yet redeem itself before the end. Unfortunately, instead of getting better, it got worse.

Between the "Karres Series" parentheticals and the speculation in the reviews here, I suspect there will be more atrocities published with "Karres" in the title. I won't be reading them, and wish I hadn't read this. As soon as I had finished it, I got out my original Witches of Karres and reread it (for the umpteenth time), largely to recover the delight I had in the characters and their preposterous situations. It worked... but it also showed even more clearly how Wizard fails to live up the Karres magic.

Rating:
Summary: So so sequel to a stellar work
Review: The charm of the short story, and later, book, The Witches of Karres, was in the character development, delightful background, and author James Schmitz's humorous writing style (he was a master, for example, of the exclamation mark). Unfortunately, the group of authors who set out to write a sequel just couldn't imitate it.

That isn't to say that there is nothing to be gained by reading this book. Throwaway details from the original (Sedmon of the Six Lives turns out to be sextuplet clones a la Bova's The Multiple Man, details of Imperial and Karres society are fleshed out) are given life, there are amusing segments aboard a circus vessel where Shakespeare has survived (incongruously) almost unchanged from ancient Yarthe. (if so much time has passed that the name Earth was altered, how did Shakespeare survive unchanged?)

But try as they might, they could not recapture the magic of the original classic. The characters from the original book seem almost caricatures of themselves. And, as half the charm of the original was in the tongue in cheek style, the sequel starts out way behind the original and never comes close to catching up.

Recommended. But you might want to wait for the paperback.

Rating:
Summary: Old Friends Return In a New Adventure
Review: What a wonderful book. Obviously no one can completely recreate a great author's style, but Ms Lackey et al. come as close as possible.I've waited 30 years for a sequel to the great WITCHES OF KARRES and WIZARD OF KARRES is well worth the wait. A seamless continuation of the Schmitz classic continues the adventures of Captain Pausert and his traveling companions Goth and the Leewit. And wherever the captain goes, action, trouble and romance follows. Truth be said, the first few chapters seem forced, but, around the century page mark, things fall into place and both the characters and story grabbed me, much like the original. There's danger ahead and I hope another volume continues the adventure