Rating: 
Summary: My first science fiction
Review: The Universe Against Her it was called when my mother bought it for me in Holland. I loved it, and have loved it ever since. At the time (70's) I had some trouble visualizing some of the equipment that was described in the book, but now, years later...wow, James H. Schmitz was just amazing that he could picture and describe pagers, laptops, mobiles, before anyone had developed them...Anyway, the story is about a 15-year old girl called Telzey, who suddenly is introduced to her own psychic powers by none other than a resident intelligent alien species. The stories follow her as she continues to develop these powers and she discovers more about herself and her surroundings. I hope you enjoy it as much as I always have...
Rating: 
Summary: fun and enjoyable
Review: This book is a series of short stories about (of course) Telzey Amberdon, a young woman living in the distant future who develops powerful psychic abilities. This is not a sweeping epic or an attempt at a classic. The stories are written to entertain and stimulate the imagination, and they succeed. I think you'll find yourself idly enjoying the stories as you imagine the scenes and wonder what it would be like to employ psychic abilities of your own. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: fun and enjoyable
Review: This book is a series of short stories about (of course) Telzey Amberdon, a young woman living in the distant future who develops powerful psychic abilities. This is not a sweeping epic or an attempt at a classic. The stories are written to entertain and stimulate the imagination, and they succeed. I think you'll find yourself idly enjoying the stories as you imagine the scenes and wonder what it would be like to employ psychic abilities of your own. I recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant - Not Earthshaking
Review: This little book is suffering from rating inflation and also deflation. Since these are being issued in paper, buy them. They're worth an hour or two, and (if you are a public transit commuter) they will distract you from the morning's disasters, your train's immobility, and motion sickness. This wasn't bad. It dates itself badly, sometimes, and it's rather conventional, but the stories move right along, and there is some good fun. I had some problems with Telzey's ethics. It so happens that I view all psychic powers with a jaundiced eye, and tend not to feel as sympathetic as I should to a telepathic character. And the end of the first story had me ready to kick the little monster out a high window. Sorry, fans of the author, but it's truly amazing what the glow of nostalgia will do for a book. Things that really jump up and down? Well, this is set some 1500 years in the future, and boy, these folks are just like us. No genetic manipulation, except on the part of the bad guys in Lion Game, and the technology feels - well, weak, when you consider wheat can be done even now. People 1500 years ago - 500 A.D. if you can't do math - weren't much like us. Telzey and her milieu aren't a problem, really. Accept that Shmitz was writing to sell, and that means write adventure. I don't have a real problem, but it certainly detracts from the rating. The real problem is that, even if Telzey is a genius, as we are told in the very first few bits of Novice, a fifteen going on sixteen year old girl is hardly going to have the skills of a veteran of the shadow wars. Telzey behaves like a veteran when she isn't one. I don't care how bright she is. This kept bringing me out of the book and the mood. That makes this only a minor book, and, by the evidence so far presented, Shmitz only a minor writer. One real jolt - time passeth! - was that a positive character lit up a cigarette, and it wasn't an unfortunate weakness! It was a casual mention! Wow! That was a shocker for me, and had me marveling over it for a couple days. There's nothing wrong with this. Read it, have a good time. Then sell it. It's not really worth keeping after you're done with it.
Rating:
Summary: My first science fiction
Review: When I was growing up, I read every word James H. Schmitz wrote, and _I kept all the books_. That put me one up (maybe even several up) on younger readers, or people who missed the tales of the Hub, with Telzey Amberdon, Trigger Argee, Dr. Mantelish and the other impossible to forget characters that populated Schmitz' worlds. Now, the rest of you can enjoy what we did when they were published originally. With minimal editing, Eric Flint and Jim Baen have created a labor of love, and a whacking good read!
Rating:
Summary: Flint returns Telzey to Life!
Review: When I was growing up, I read every word James H. Schmitz wrote, and _I kept all the books_. That put me one up (maybe even several up) on younger readers, or people who missed the tales of the Hub, with Telzey Amberdon, Trigger Argee, Dr. Mantelish and the other impossible to forget characters that populated Schmitz' worlds. Now, the rest of you can enjoy what we did when they were published originally. With minimal editing, Eric Flint and Jim Baen have created a labor of love, and a whacking good read!
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