Conference noted::sf

You may be the only one writing reviews right now, but that doesn't mean the 
rest of us don't appreciate your doing them.  I'm going to write one the next 
time I read something interesting enough to write about; I can't get up the 
energy to review a dog.

Brain the size of a planet and they want me to write reviews....

					-- Roger

There was a similar-sounding book published a few years ago under the title
"The Fifth Horseman", written by Larry Collins and ?? LaPierre (authors of
"Is Paris Burning", "O Jerusalem" and "Or I'll Dress You in Mourning").

This also is not strictly science fiction, more political thriller, but it
was *excellent*. It was one of those books that I read in one day (and I'm
a painfully slow reader and this was around 500 pages...I just didn't do
anything else that weekend!).

***** (out of 5).

-- Bill

 For good intrigue, etc., in a Science-Fiction mode, I'd recommend both
"WASP" by Eric Frank Russell and "The Fifth Column" by Heinlein.  WASP
may be out of print, and I seem to remember that the title of
"The Fifth Column" was changed a few years ago.

 WASP really refers to the insect, not the ethnic group.  The book 
begins with a newspaper story: five men die in a traffic accident 
because the driver swipes at a wasp on the windshield.  Premise: one 
man, in the right place and time, can bring a whole [culture/planet/
whatever] to its knees.  If there's a war on, one man in the right 
location...

 "The Fifth Column" looks forward to the near future when the US has
been overrun by a foreign country (in this case, they are orientals:
guess how old the story is?)  The remains of a U.S. Army intelligence
R&D team happen to have discovered a secret weapon; now the question
is, how can they use it aginst the enemy?  Heinlein recognizes that 
counterinsurgency wins wars, not hardware--too bad some generals 
didn't read this book during the Vietnam era.

I really enjoyed WASP.  Russell often portrayed aliens as being so
dimwitted that the protagonist had no problem out-thinking them.
In WASP, the agent had his work cut out for him.  I also like the sparse
use of future technology.  Obviously, with enough spiffy gadgets anyone
could be a great saboteur.  Russell knew enough to avoid that trap and
thereby had a more effective story.

Fifth column (whose name change I also can't remember, and I have it under
the other title!) is another of Heinlein's nuts-and-bolts approaches to
revolution.  Another one by him concerns the overthrow of a theocracy
in the U.S. (Revolt in 2010??  My mind is going, Dave...)  Between
those two, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook
what more do I need to plan a revolution.. Ah, that is, what more would
*anyone* need to plan a revolution.. heh, heh  (*whew*, almost gave it
away)

					John

	Brunner's "Shockwave Rider" is an excellent treatment of this topic
	set in the networked world of the future - I haven't read it in
	quite some time, so I won't attempt a review at present... Just take
	my word on the bottom line and give this one a read if you haven't
	already. [ Seems unnecessary, but that's John Brunner ]

	I haven't been reading much lately (crisis mode) but I still think
	reviews are a good idea...	

				HINT HINT

						Max

"Shockwave Rider" is good. 

		bob wyman

  I think 5th Column is now printed under "the Day After Tomorrow".
I'll check the Heinlein shelf tonight.  If I remember that is.

tlh

  It says right here in my copy that I remembered to bring in (miracle of 
miracles)....

   As published by Signet books it is _The_Day_After_Tomorrow_.
   Original title:  The *sixth* column

   I should have remembered that.  I remember reading somewhere why he named it
the sixth column rather than the fifth column which is an fairly widely used 
term arising from WWII(?).

tlh

	The "Fifth Column" refers to internal dissent in a country which, in
	a time of war, coalesces as a revolt from within. In WWII, the fifth
	column was a term applied by the press to Americans of oriental descent,
	and in WWI the same term was used for Americans of German descent -
	although there is no evidence of unpatriotic acts by either group.
	American Japanese were actually imprisoned during WWII in concentration
	camps in the midwest, far from California where they had settled -
	popular hysteria at the time believed that they would aid a Japanese
	invasion (a la "1941"). The American Germans escaped internment
	by virtue of the fact that there were so many of them, all over, and
	that they'd been here for generations; and largely because they had
	no outwardly visible sign of their heritage.

	Contrast this with a recent incident in Detroit, where a young man of
	chinese ancestry was mistaken for being Japanese, and three drunken
	unemployed auto workers beat him to death. This is evidence of a strong
	feeling among some Americans of hostility against the economic enemy -
	a novel and sickening idea.

	America is a surprising country.

	Specifically, the term comes from the Ernest Hemingway story "The Fifth
	Column"  about  the  Spanish Civil War .  Madrid, or some such city was
	under  attack  with four columns of Franco's troops advancing on it and
	partisans doing their dirty work inside.

	Mariel's grandaddy refered to these guerrillas as the Fifth column.


bob

	Going back to the original story - the endorcement by Ben Bova is not 
supprising if you have read some of his editorials in Analogue.  He may even 
have been following in Campbells tradition of giving an author an idea to work 
with and promising to publish the result.  He has long postulated that the 
main payoff to terrorists is publicity of their cause and there would be 
considerable less terrorism in the world today if there were no TV coverage of 
the attrosities.

RE: .9

I think it is more appropriate to say that humans are a surprising species.
Americans don't hold a monopoly on inhuman actions.

RE: .10

I agree with this description of the term "fifth column".

	Mike