Proteus Underworld

Rating:
Summary: interesting and well-written
Review: Published in 1978, the first Proteus book, SIGHT OF PROTEUS, featured a popular seventies' idea, biofeedback, carried to bizarre and implausible extremes. In the future, "form change" machines will enable the human will to mold the human form via biofeedback processes. The hero of the novel is Bey Wolf. As an agent of the Office of Form Control, he looks for "unauthorized" and dangerous forms in the multitude of shapes humanity has taken for fashion and profit. Sheffield continued the series ten years later with PROTEUS UNBOUND, and PROTEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD is the third and latest in the series though it is not really necessary to have read the earlier books.

Wolf is now retired and developing form change technology himself. However, a distant relative, Sondra Wolf Dearborn, asks him to help her solve a crucial puzzle. All human children are given "humanity tests". If they can consciously and deliberately alter their form they avoid being sent to the organ banks. However, some defi

Rating:
Summary: Sheffield questions the assumptions of the Proteus series.
Review: Published in 1978, the first Proteus book, SIGHT OF PROTEUS, featured a popular seventies' idea, biofeedback, carried to bizarre and implausible extremes. In the future, "form change" machines will enable the human will to mold the human form via biofeedback processes. The hero of the novel is Bey Wolf. As an agent of the Office of Form Control, he looks for "unauthorized" and dangerous forms in the multitude of shapes humanity has taken for fashion and profit. Sheffield continued the series ten years later with PROTEUS UNBOUND, and PROTEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD is the third and latest in the series though it is not really necessary to have read the earlier books.

Wolf is now retired and developing form change technology himself. However, a distant relative, Sondra Wolf Dearborn, asks him to help her solve a crucial puzzle. All human children are given "humanity tests". If they can consciously and deliberately alter their form they avoid being sent to the organ banks. However, some defi

Rating:
Summary: interesting and well-written
Review: the proteus books are probably sheffield's best. great characters, compelling locations, dynamic storylines, interesting science. what's not to like? i fail to see the "implausible" aspects of these books referred to in an earlier review (after all, sf is supposed to be a little aggressive in the science department - and this series is more about the _effects_ of the science than about the science itself). they're just plain cool.