The Realms of Tartarus

Realms of Tartarus #1-3

by Brian M. Stableford

Vintage paperback

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 19, 1977

About the author

Brian Michael Stableford was a British science fiction writer who published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work.

Reviews

[Otis Doss III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I absolutely loved this book. An Awesome story about the world above the world (and below the world?)

[Steven Boswell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose I should explain my 2-star review of a book by an author that is not only far more successful than I'll ever be, but went on to write much better works. ("The Highway Code" is a great short story on A.I. that you should not miss if you're at all interested in the subject.)

I first encountered this book on my mom's bookshelf, when I was just a wee lad. It was my first grown-up sci-fi book, and reading it had a pronounced effect on me. Unfortunately, many of them were bad effects. The book's style contains a lot of...deviations from standard acceptable practice. Showing instead of telling, switching narrators frequently (sometimes between paragraphs), wildly inconsistent pacing...I could go on. Not knowing any better, I adopted a lot of them, thinking it was making my writing very grown-up. It wasn't until I was in early high school, after getting called out by a few peers, that I realized the damage it had done to my sense of writing style. It took quite a while to work my way out of it.

I bought a used copy of the 1st edition paperback recently (just like the one I read so long ago), re-read it, and marveled at how something like this could be published. There's no justice. But hey...the author acquitted himself quite well with later works, so I'll stop complaining.