Reviews

YA-- A story in the same vein as Foster's Glory Lane (Ace, 1987), an adventure in which the protagonist is caught up in events beyond his control and ends up on a quest to save the Earth. Here, film star Jason Carter and his allies--an archeologist, a movie wardrobe mistress/computer wiz/bank robber, a supermarket-tabloid reporter, an Amazon, and a bunch of aliens that look a lot like huge carrots--become embroiled in a conflict with Incas. The Incas have transported in from another dimension and are hellbent on conquering the world as payback for the ills they suffered at the hands of the Spanish. While Foster's latest effort is mostly fluff, libraries with a readership for light science fiction may want it.

Reading Foster ( Quozl ) is like eating a meringue: it's not very filling, but it tastes just fine. Foster likes to put silly twists on old stories. In this case, he has a race of guardians (called Monitors) whose function is to guide the races of different planets through their evolution--the twist being that the Monitors take the form of cats. The plot involves a Renegadeuppercase ok?/yes/pk Monitor who tries to disrupt Earth by bringing about the return of a lost tribe of South American natives. The natives, now called Contisuyuns, live on another world, which they landed on by way of transmitters left by a group of aliens called Boojums, who look like trees and speak with British accents. The Contisuyuns plan to take long overdue revenge for the conquistadores' 15th-century ravaging by creating a TV show that broadcasts subliminal anti-Spain messages. The main characters, who encounter these variously fey creatures, include a pretty-boy actor, a wardrobe designer, their faithful Indian guide, an aspiring archeologist, a pair of Peruvian capitalists, a tabloid reporter and a large and power-hungry Peruvian woman. (July)

Actor Jason Carter travels to Peru to follow up on a stolen treasure map showing the location of the lost gold of the Incas. Instead, he locates the lost Incas themselves--in an alternate dimension from which they plan to reconquer the world--and joins with an ever-increasing and bizarre array of allies and antagonists (including a race of sentient cat-like beings) to stop them. Veteran sf author Foster ( The Last Starfighter , LJ 5/15/84; Cyber Way, LJ 5/15/90) strings together a number of conventions from his many movie novelizations in an affectionate tribute to bad sf films. Though entertaining, this is not an essential purchase.