Lewitt, Shariann Books

Interface Masque

Shariann Lewitt

List Price: $23.95 By: Tor Books Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $0.46

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

one of the most thought-invoking novels i've read 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

talk about imagination! lewitt's metaphors and intriguing ideas of a futuristic world come together in a fantastic knot of science fiction and fantasy. be drawn in to a world of masked faces and surprising revelations.

Future Venice in technology age 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Beautiful imagery in the imagined world of future Venice, parallelled with the online world created by master artisans. Everyone has a masque, or an avatar, that portrays them in the digital world. What happens when power struggles between the creators, an unknown digital presence, and a brilliant student of the digital arts?

Future of the Internet? 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Interface Masque details the adventures of Cecelie of Sept-Fortune; a computer security firm located in a future Venice. As an apprentice of Sept-Fortune, she must undergo a final test to become a full member of the firm. After the test, Cecelie's world is turned upside down. While the Septs are the de facto management of the Net, Cecelie soon discovers that the certain factions within the Sept structure are attempting to consolidate their power and not only control the Net in the de facto sense, but in the very real life sense as well.

Interface Masque presents an interest look at the possible future the modern-day Internet may take...but Ms. Lewitt attempts at composing three-dimensional characters, on the whole, was not a success. There is too much we did not know about the characters and their pasts, and Ms. Lewitt would introduce a character and then not explore that character further until too far down the line. But where Ms. Lewitt did compensate some was by building a reasonably believable world where those in charge use music to control the masses and information is controlled by an elite few (i.e. the Septs).

Interface Masque was an okay book. Would I recommend this book to a friend? Probably not. But if the mood were to strike me, I would probably give Ms. Lewitt's works another chance.

Editorial Review:

On the edge of an adult career as a specialist in data systems at Sept-Fortune, senior apprentice Cecilie finds her final test to move up both unexpected and unacceptable and sets out to discover the true nature of her world.

First And Final Right

Shariann Lewitt

List Price: $2.75 By: Ace Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The best heroic fantasy I've read. I give it a 20 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The realm of this book is a mythical kingdom. Kiernan, an Adept, falls for a young princess. The princess is being groomed to ascend the throne of the kingdom. War looms. The princess, a rebellious, willful girl, is on the altar to be consecrated as the new queen of her kingdom. By the end of the book, she's carrying Kiernan's baby.

Rebel Sutra

Shariann Lewitt

List Price: $24.95 By: Tor Books Amazon Marketplace: 97 new & used starting at $0.01

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Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Science Fiction -> Adventure

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

Editorial Review:

Maya is a world controlled by a self-perpetuating aristocracy, the Changed, who maintain their superiority by tinkering with the genes of their children. This long tradition of genetic manipulation and the brain patterning that goes with it allows the Changed to interface with the Exchange, a computer-based community of blended intelligences. Those who are merely human are denied such opportunities and are consigned to the squalor of the city of Babelion. When Arsen, a young man of Babelion, meets Della, a young Changed woman--both of whom, naturally, are strong, smart, and single-mindedly rebellious--the stage is set for a galloping SF adventure. Arsen, unfortunately, gets killed (in a series of events designed to showcase the natural evil of the Changed), though not before Della becomes pregnant. Their son is Anselm, who is destined to change the world.

Using multiple viewpoints (some of which work better than others), Lewitt (Memento Mori) shows us a young man who not only struggles to understand himself and his dual heritage but manages to lead a full-scale rebellion and discover, in passing, that Maya itself is a mere pawn in an Imperial power struggle. A healthy dose of philosophical and spiritual self-examination, spiced by a little romance and dollop of Hindu cosmology, leavens this otherwise traditional tale of the triumph of the human spirit over technological oppression. --Luc Duplessis

Memento Mori

Shariann Lewitt

List Price: $21.95 By: Tor Books Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

a disturbing and moving commentary on the human condition 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Memento Mori pays far more attention to character development and philosophy than most recent work in this genre. It approaches the concepts of aesthetics and value without carrying the baggage of the present. Though her characters clearly owe something to goth culture, Ms Lewitt does not indulge the nihilistic posturing that is so popular today; when her characters are only faking she says so, and when they truly want to express the pointlessness of it all, they shut up and kill themselves. (How nihilism can be popular is beyond me -- you can't conform to a nihilist fashion; that's an oxymoron. Goth isn't something that can be bought at the mall.)

Many other issues are woven into the story: the fine line between pleasure and pain, the addictive power of fantasy, the hubris of science, the difficulties of transitioning into adulthood...

This book provides you with much to think about. Some parts may make you uncomfortable. Others may elate you, or even just scare you. But all of it will draw you in, and keep you expecting the unexpected.

Editorial Review:

The colony world Reis had been a Mecca of art and culture, its thriving city attracting the foremost artists, philosophers, and scholars. But a plague forced the city into quarantine, and the only hope for a cure lies with RICE, the artificial intelligence that runs the colony. As RICE slowly churns through the numbers of dead and dying looking for answers, the artists of the city turn their attention to a new medium, the art of death. In their own way they are trying to give death a meaning, knowing but not believing that they could be writing their own epitaphs.