pub: Bantam Dell. 332 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 8.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-553-58905-4.

check out websites: www.bantamdell.com

I have to confess to some mixed feelings about this book, 'Undertow' by Elizabeth Bear. Going by the cover blurb, André Deschênes is an assassin who is trying to escape his past and he lives on a world about to have a revolution. If anything, it's a mixture of a standardised plot. I've seen a lot of assassins wandering in books lately so must be the season for them.



The main problem I found with 'Undertow' is that there the dialogue out-numbered any action to the point that when it happened, I almost missed it. Elizabeth Bear writes in such a consistent way that you can beguiled by the writing and then forget that she's also supposed to be telling a story. Consequently, I ended up reading but not with profound interest or care in the characters. A serious problem for any writer. Whether or not I'm the right kind of reader for Bear's kind of material will have to remain until I try another book by her and hope this one was a fluke. From the look of this book, I suspect she believes her strength is in writing characters but she needs to work on the plotting more to bring out the story elements that she is probably capable of achieving.

GF Willmetts