Barton, William Books

Cthulhu by Gaslight: Horror Roleplaying in 1890s England (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, 1890s Era, #3303)

William A. Barton

List Price: $18.95 By: Chaosium Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $84.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

The "lightning" books are really poor 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The new series of reprints of Chaosium's works really are poor! The are effectively photocopies of the original, and fail to reproduce both color as well as the solidity of the originals. Comparing the new to the old, you immediately realize that this is an inferior product. These can be spotted immediately by examining the back of the book for a black logo of an open book with a lightning bolt hitting it in the spine.

Stay away!

All of the reprints of Chaosium's works are like this, including the Stars are Right!, Blood Brothers, and others.... *sigh* I am obviously a disappointed customer.

Margaret Tatcher minion of Cthulhu 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I read this many years a go and can heartily recommend it as a valuable source book.Victorian Britain with it's occult revival and Ripper murders makes a convincing back drop for the cthulhu mythos. Please note that the title should read 1880's not 1980's.If one wishes a cthulhu product concerning modern Britain pagan's Delta Green Countdown is very good.

Not original edition but a copy 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This version appears to be a copy of the original second edition. The large map is missing and there are no colored plates.

If you just want the information this is okay, but if you wanted the artwork, you'll have to look elsewhere.

When Heaven Fell

William Barton

List Price: $5.50 By: Aspect Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $0.03

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Bleak, depressing, and unforgettable 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

"Surviving the slaughter of the human race by the cybernetic Master Race, mercenary Athol Morrison and a group of desperate resistors return to an alien-occupied America in a daring attempt to overthrow the dark rulers of the universe."

Yeah, right.

Barton is one of the few (and perhaps the only) SF writer who has the nerve to write realistic and truly _adult_ SF. _When Heaven Fell_ is not happy wish-fulfillment stuff--it is a starkly realistic depiction of coping in a world without hope.

You won't like this book the first time you read it. But I guarantee you will read it more than once.

wow! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I have read six or seven of Barton's novels, and all are very good, this one is no exception. It is based in a world in which a Master Race has subdued Earth and also controls most of our galaxy. Mercenaries are hired by the Master Race, aliens and humans alike, Athol Morrison being one of them. The book centers around Athol and his adventures and personal life. I found this book simply fascinating, a rare page turner. William Barton writes with adult content and themes, so beware if you are easily offended, however, I find this writing style very refreshing and honest, in regards to true human nature and instincts that few if any other SF writers ever touch. I understand this novel is out of print, but it would be worth it to locate a used copy somewhere.

GURPS Space: Roleplaying in the Worlds of Tomorrow (GURPS: Generic Universal Role Playing System)

Steve Jackson, William A. Barton

List Price: $16.95 By: Steve Jackson Games Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $1.93

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

SUPERB !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

Ahem ...

This is one of the best roleplaying books I have ever read and certainly among the best for GURPS. If you want to create a pace-based science fiction campaign, this is the book for you whether you play GURPS or not. Everything is in here: spaceship design, alien races, solar systems, planetary governments ... all organised in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion. If something seems to techy to you - leave it out! If you want hard sci-fi with colony ships and no aliens, GURPS can oblige. If you prefer Flash Gordon to Carl Sagan, GURPS has the reactionless thrusters (scientifically divided into slow and fast) primed and ready for take off. If you are desperate for a REAL hard sci-fi setting, then GURPS Traveller maybe a better purchase but if you're itching to create your own strange new worlds, this is the book.

Generic in the best possible sense.

A good sci-fi resource for GURPS 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book does wonders for a far future GURPS campaign. The world and ship generation techniques are excellent. Lots of cool gadgets too. The weak point of Space is it's lack of detail on creating alien races. But if it were more detailed they wouldn't have needed to make GURPS Aliens right?

Cthulhu Casebook (Call of Cthulhu)

William A. Barton, William Hamblin, Mark Harmon

List Price: $20.95 By: Chaosium, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $9.98

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Fellow Traveler

William Barton

List Price: $4.99 By: Spectra Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $0.01

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Alpha Centauri H

William Barton, Michael Capobianco

List Price: $23.00 By: Eos Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $0.71

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Note: This Book Is NOT About Alpha Centauri, Publ 1997, 438 pages 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

You may have picked up this book thinking it will say a lot about the nearest star system to our solar system. However this says nothing about the star system Alpha Centauri that you may not already know: that it's a trinary star system with the stars called Alpha Centauri-A, Alpha Centauri-B, and Alpha Centauri-C. Actually the book says less than you may know. That Alpha Centauri-C, a red dwarf, is also called Proxima Centauri because it is the actual closest individual star to our star system, and I don't recall that name coming up. Although it may have, what with scanning significant parts of this dull book in the attempt to just get it done with. There are other books with titles of astronomical bodies, Titan [1997] was written in a way that you actually felt like you were on that space body, in this case a moon of Saturn. However, that is no way even close to the case here.

Oh yeah, and there's the abundance of sex in this book. I think it might be fair to say that the sexual `situations' were a bit unorthodox. And with this being science fiction, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I thought it was a bit overdone, but mostly I think that because it overwhelmed the story that the title promised: Alpha Centauri. I think it would have been better if this book was marketed as a book about sexually modified humans. As it is, be prepared to read about someone's male genitals being lopped off and landing with a thud in a pan, and that a [...] and labia are created and an internalized [...] that emerges during an [...], such as with a dog or horse, is created. Now all this was mildly amusing, although a bit overdone and graphic. There may be those that might find it interesting to read, though they would never guess it from the title. And like those that were hoping to read more about Alpha Centauri and having to wade through a lot of unorthodox graphic sex, there will be those interested in reading about unorthodox sex that have to wade through scientific talk on a planet around Alpha Centauri. The unfortunate thing is that it was not a good blend of the two. And the book was too long and quite dull at times.

The book gets some credit and an extra star for bringing up the thought that if you live alone for a million years without contact with anyone else or any other intelligent species is there any point for continuing to exist. Two stars total.

Addendum: the Amazon censors have been busy with my review. Any words above in [...] are body parts that begin with v and p and one omitted word is a body part in a state of arousal. I did mean to keep the review as G-rated as possible but as a case in point it was difficult not to use some words as the book itself is filled with such terms.

Editorial Review:

After 14 years of suspended animation, the crew of a spaceship awaken as they near their destination of Alpha Centauri A and B, where they hope to establish a colony to save humanity from extinction. But suddenly they are faced with a deadly viral infection, just as they discover remnants of an alien civilization. A thought-provoking sci-fi adventure.

When We Were Real

William Barton

List Price: $6.99 By: Aspect Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $0.02

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

More about loss than about space opera 4 out of 5 stars.
25 of 26 people found this review helpful.

I finished "When We Were Real" (WWWR) a few hours ago after several hours of non-stop reading. I am still thinking about it. Another reviewer compared WWWR to the classic "Forever War", which is indeed a book which came to mind as I read. Against a background of war and wanderings, both novels consider what happens to sentient people when they are separated by vast distances and spans of time. In WWWR, the technology and the settings are well-plotted and believable, but the book seems to me to be primarily an exploration of the implications of semi-immortality more than anything else. What happens to relationships, fights, and the development of sequential families when such events are teased out over centuries rather than months and years? And how much loss can we bear as our hurts accumulate while our blessings seemingly remain in short supply? The author thankfully does not try to rationalise his decision: it's a dirty world but love, somehow, will save us - shades of Auden's "We must love another or die". Other themes that the author brings up indirectly are what it means to (non)human and the place of corporate organisations in society. I found this to be a convincing, often moving, very human SF novel centered around a believably flawed and troubled man moving through a pan-galactic society irrevocably fragmented by time. Well worth the read.

Transmigration of Souls

William Barton

List Price: $5.99 By: Aspect Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"White Light" like, strong start/middle, confused ending 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This was the first book by Barton I ever read. Albeit some of the ideas (stargates etc...) are quite worn out by now, they are intricately rendered. Interesting depiction of a background US isolated from the rest of the decaying world, employing alien technology to create a nation of immortal but infantile shapechangers. Also interesting theme of the Universe as something of a software toolkit. I found the start and middle of this "stargate"-like story actually very good, but found the end a huge letdown. It then starts to borrow to much there from Heinlein and other "classicals" to remain original, and gets entangled to much into absurd many-world quantum theoretical stuff (which the author seems to like - a little to much, for my taste). At least the "SF author becomes god" part is somewhat funny... Overall, this story is very very similar in theme, structure, setup, ideas and execution to "White Light" from the same author, albeit not so extremely entangled in sex as that story. I'd judge "Transmigration" the better story, overall, with more "involvement" in the story than e.g "Alpha Centauri". Albeit its not as good as "Acts of Conscience" or the excellent "When We Were Real" by far, I'd still judge it as recommended.

Editorial Review:

In the twenty-first century, American explorers discover alien teleportation and time-travel equipment on the moon, which leads them into a multi-dimensional struggle with a maleficent entity who plans to obliterate the universe.

Iris

William Barton, Michael Capobianco

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Can't I give it 0 stars? 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I couldn't even make it to the hundred page mark. There are better mysterious space object books out there. There are better troubled artist books out there. There are better sex books out there. There are better unsympathetic character books out there.

Don't be fooled by the blurb comparing this to Samuel R. Delaney. Barton & Capobianco aren't even close to being in his league.

Editorial Review:

A small, disaffected group of artists, scientists, and software developers en route to Titan , the crew of Deepstar was seeking escape, isolation, and refuge when Iris wandered into the solar system. Now curiosity and wonder are drawing the star travelers to the mysterious gas giant and its hospitable moons -- for here lies their long sought dream of a new home and future. But an alien space-going vessel -- unimaginably ancient yet astonishingly still operational -- has been left behind on the surface of one of Iris's oribiting satellites by a strange and unknown culture. And the extraordinary artifact is pointing the colonist toward an even more remarkable discovery awaiting them on Iris itself; something deadly, inconceivable....and alive.

Dark Sky Legion

William Barton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Aptly-named dark vision of humanity's future 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Excellent writing and characterization, but boy, is this book a downer. A terrifyingly plausible, wrenchingly sad view of humanity's future as the controller of a true galactic empire. I haven't read this one for a while (just dropped by to see what sort of reviews it had gotten, to find none yet), and I've read many books since, but "Dark Sky Legion" still gives me chills just to think about. Barton doesn't seem a very cheery fellow, judging from other stories (authored and coauthored) of his I've read. Too bad, because he is a very fine writer. "Dark Sky Legion" has lots of explicit sex, so give it a pass if that offends you. I can't give it less than four stars--it's a compelling piece of work--but this is one vision I hope never, ever comes to pass.

Editorial Review:

Maaron Denthurion, a Televox with the mission to preserve the Human Metastable Order, journeys to Olam, where amid turmoil, enslavement, religious cults, and superstition he must determine the fate of the planet and its inhabitants.