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Time of the Fourth Horseman
Yarbro is now known for her genteel vampire romances and "Quinn Fawcett" Mycroft Holmes adventures; TIME OF THE FOURTH HORSEMAN predates both, being a 1976 SF vision of the then-near future.
250 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
7 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
259 books477 followersA professional writer for more than forty years, Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing - in 1961-1962 - was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet.
After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.
She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.
In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.
She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.
Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.
Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.
After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.
She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.
In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.
A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.
She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.
Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.
Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.
Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 11, 2014
Since there are so few reviews I feel I should add one.
Lets see, book published 1981 and the stage is set 1991 ish. There is no mention of internet or cellphones xD. Apparently 1991 we are suffering from serious overpopulation largely due to having no disease. We can cure almost anything. Cancer is easy and so on.
This overpopulation brings all the typical stuff, shortage of space, jobs and food.
Anyway, some branch of the CIA decides to try an experiment in population control/decrease by using placebo vaccine for the common stuff you get vaccinated for as a child.
The story is that old eradicated diseases starts to show up and since they don't want to treat them (Due to the experiment) they soon start to run rampant. Of course something mutates and everything goes horrible wrong.
The story focuses mainly on hospital care/interaction like so many tv-themed hospital shows we have today.
The ending is kind of open with a small twist.
This is quite a cheesy book. If they made a movie out of it then it would be a typical B-movie.
Its a quick and enjoyable read if you are looking to burn a few hours.
On a sidenote, the book gets a bonus point due to it being in itself an interesting case study on how probably a lot of people where thinking in the year 1981 about their now and the future. This is not connected to the story itself but concepts and views from that time are between the lines.
Lets see, book published 1981 and the stage is set 1991 ish. There is no mention of internet or cellphones xD. Apparently 1991 we are suffering from serious overpopulation largely due to having no disease. We can cure almost anything. Cancer is easy and so on.
This overpopulation brings all the typical stuff, shortage of space, jobs and food.
Anyway, some branch of the CIA decides to try an experiment in population control/decrease by using placebo vaccine for the common stuff you get vaccinated for as a child.
The story is that old eradicated diseases starts to show up and since they don't want to treat them (Due to the experiment) they soon start to run rampant. Of course something mutates and everything goes horrible wrong.
The story focuses mainly on hospital care/interaction like so many tv-themed hospital shows we have today.
The ending is kind of open with a small twist.
This is quite a cheesy book. If they made a movie out of it then it would be a typical B-movie.
Its a quick and enjoyable read if you are looking to burn a few hours.
On a sidenote, the book gets a bonus point due to it being in itself an interesting case study on how probably a lot of people where thinking in the year 1981 about their now and the future. This is not connected to the story itself but concepts and views from that time are between the lines.
June 9, 2022
Reading this (acutely) disturbing - and uncomfortably/CURRENTLY RELEVANT book (copyrighted in 1976) in the midst of the 2021 COVID pandemic was definitely NOT the best choice I've ever made. I don't recall where, or when, I acquired this book and I'm not - at all - comfortable with the fact that I read it from cover-to-cover in one sitting (am I a freakin' masochist?!?!). Stark, gripping and predictive to the point of *terrifying* . . read at your own risk. 3.5* (rounded up)
November 28, 2017
Pro-vaccination propaganda. It's not that vaccines are intrinsically evil but the main problem with the discussion is polarisation and mutual scorn and accusation, and this kind of thing doesn't help. Many of the things she suggests can be vaccinated against are not medically feasible and the onset of a pandemic due to overcrowding, while more feasible, buys into the idea that overpopulation is a threat to the world.
As an actual story, it works pretty well. You feel a lot of sympathy with the characters and their self-sacrifice and compassion, and that's a positive side of the story, but really, she should've just left well alone or come up with another scenario. It's not that it's a bad book, just exaggerated and not believable.
As an actual story, it works pretty well. You feel a lot of sympathy with the characters and their self-sacrifice and compassion, and that's a positive side of the story, but really, she should've just left well alone or come up with another scenario. It's not that it's a bad book, just exaggerated and not believable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2021
A good idea mostly well done, but let down by an abrupt and weak ending, as it the author decided she had enough and stored without properly addressing the consequences of the characters' actions.
April 5, 2024
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
A hard working hospital doctor finds patients turning up with inexplicable illnesses, including, possibly, diseases long since eradicated.
Review
I remember Chelsea Quinn Yarbro as a name from the 70s and 80s, usually attached to fantasy novels that didn’t every quite attract my interest. When I saw this book (probably for free) from Open Road, I thought I’d finally give her a try.
Unfortunately, this book is not the one to convert me. It’s science fiction, so perhaps outside what I thought of as Yarbro’s norm, but that’s fine with me. And the writing is pretty good. However, many of the plot points just didn’t seem credible, and I found my frustration mounting as the book went on and the issues were never addressed.
The base concept seemed workable – evil government decides to address resource limitation by killing people off, good doctor fights it off. However, a lot of the waypoints just seemed pulled out of thin air. The villains have the hero fired and threaten to blackball her, clearly with government support. She’s under house arrest. Yet, from early on, part of her solution is just to squat in landmark tourist attraction and provide medical services there. She and her cohort never seem to give much thought to a) maybe they can’t just take over a house by saying so, and b) since the government has arrested them all (and they goes through some contortions to escape), maybe that some government won’t be happy about them openly providing services in said house. There’s a little bit of handwaving, but mostly it works out. They even talk about trying to get the hospital that fired them to take cases from them. It just didn’t make any sense to me, and did not seem in any way credible.
I’m not a doctor, and I get the impression Yarbro isn’t either. There’s a lot of doctors ‘doing’ things that are never specified. Mostly, though, I got the impression that this whole group of rebel doctors has gone to extraordinary lengths to … provide palliative or hospice care. That is, diseases are rampant, and they have no way to treat them, so all their patients are just going to die. I don’t want to knock the value of palliative care, which clearly has an important role to play, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of solution to the crisis that the narrative prompts us to expect.
There are a host of other issues, including the role of the government, youth gangs, chiropractors (who come out well), middle aged doctors who nonetheless have experience with polio cases, etc. On the whole, though, I found the set up substantially lacking in credibility, and the problem worsening as I went along. The ending, meanwhile, felt like a rapid wrapup deserving quite a bit more development. For one thing, the doctors, having committed themselves and risked their lives to provide palliative care, very suddenly realize there’s no point, and just give up. It undercuts the already shaky premise the story was building on.
On the whole, then, I can’t recommend this due to poor credibility. And it hasn’t made me keen to try other Yarbro books.
Summary
A hard working hospital doctor finds patients turning up with inexplicable illnesses, including, possibly, diseases long since eradicated.
Review
I remember Chelsea Quinn Yarbro as a name from the 70s and 80s, usually attached to fantasy novels that didn’t every quite attract my interest. When I saw this book (probably for free) from Open Road, I thought I’d finally give her a try.
Unfortunately, this book is not the one to convert me. It’s science fiction, so perhaps outside what I thought of as Yarbro’s norm, but that’s fine with me. And the writing is pretty good. However, many of the plot points just didn’t seem credible, and I found my frustration mounting as the book went on and the issues were never addressed.
The base concept seemed workable – evil government decides to address resource limitation by killing people off, good doctor fights it off. However, a lot of the waypoints just seemed pulled out of thin air. The villains have the hero fired and threaten to blackball her, clearly with government support. She’s under house arrest. Yet, from early on, part of her solution is just to squat in landmark tourist attraction and provide medical services there. She and her cohort never seem to give much thought to a) maybe they can’t just take over a house by saying so, and b) since the government has arrested them all (and they goes through some contortions to escape), maybe that some government won’t be happy about them openly providing services in said house. There’s a little bit of handwaving, but mostly it works out. They even talk about trying to get the hospital that fired them to take cases from them. It just didn’t make any sense to me, and did not seem in any way credible.
I’m not a doctor, and I get the impression Yarbro isn’t either. There’s a lot of doctors ‘doing’ things that are never specified. Mostly, though, I got the impression that this whole group of rebel doctors has gone to extraordinary lengths to … provide palliative or hospice care. That is, diseases are rampant, and they have no way to treat them, so all their patients are just going to die. I don’t want to knock the value of palliative care, which clearly has an important role to play, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of solution to the crisis that the narrative prompts us to expect.
There are a host of other issues, including the role of the government, youth gangs, chiropractors (who come out well), middle aged doctors who nonetheless have experience with polio cases, etc. On the whole, though, I found the set up substantially lacking in credibility, and the problem worsening as I went along. The ending, meanwhile, felt like a rapid wrapup deserving quite a bit more development. For one thing, the doctors, having committed themselves and risked their lives to provide palliative care, very suddenly realize there’s no point, and just give up. It undercuts the already shaky premise the story was building on.
On the whole, then, I can’t recommend this due to poor credibility. And it hasn’t made me keen to try other Yarbro books.
August 21, 2023
3★彡 Imagine reading a story about plagues and viruses, and the paperback you're reading is dreadfully old, tattered, foxed, mildewed, and probably mold-infested lol. So it was with my copy of this book (though it wasn't even my copy because it didn't belong to anyone in the household). I had a very visceral reaction to this one; I didn't want to breathe while holding it; I wanted to burn it the whole time I was reading it, lol (*◠⛛ ◠). I can't help that I (irrationally) hate the book, but the storyline itself is a solid 3★. [updated rating from 1].
July 26, 2016
Not bad, considering the book is really short (183 pages) and it talks about what would happen if a plague that was once very common (now practically vanished) was made into a weapon that when launched would decimate the planet, what would you do? What would happen whenyou found out the person you loved--your partner in crime and fellow doctor was the one that helped create (then launch) said plague? Again not bad, but short and dated a bit.
March 31, 2015
This early dystopian novel is different from what we expect today. The descriptions are very spartan, and there is an assumption throughout that the reader knows what all the diseases entail. Still, the pacing makes this a gripping read, and offers an interesting scenario to consider.
April 21, 2007
There is such a thing as too much information, and Yarbro provides it in a rape scene in this book.
December 3, 2008
An SF book from Yarbro, I liked it a lot. About a future with an unstoppable plague and the people fighting it.
October 31, 2010
Always love Yarbro's books. This early one is scary!
May 29, 2011
I read it but I don't remember it.
November 19, 2013
Interesting idea, reasonably well-executed, but dated now, both in the information and in the writing style.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews