The Telzey Amberdon series |
Review Essay by |
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Annotated Story List; |
March 2002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Please first read Demigoddess of the Mind: James H. Schmitz's heroine Telzey Amberdon. The Telzey Amberdon series begins in Schmitz's Hub benchmark year of 3500 A.D., and spans only a couple of years of elapsed time. These stories comprise a subset of Schmitz's larger Federation of the Hub series. The Telzey stories should be read in order, particularly the first half-dozen; the exact sequence of the later stories is not decisively established. |
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"Novice" We meet Telzey. (The story review is best read as the first part of the thesis of my Demigoddess of the Mind: James H. Schmitz's heroine Telzey Amberdon.)"Undercurrents" Novella, a two-part serial in Analog; the second-longest Telzey Amberdon story. Chomir the arena hound is an awesome dog. (The story review is best read as the second part of the thesis of Demigoddess of the Mind.)"Poltergeist" One of the lesser stories. This deals with telekinesis — physical action at a distance via mental force."Goblin Night"
"Sleep No More" A teleporting alien beast. Dark and suspenseful, a lead-in to "The Lion Game"."The Lion Game" Novella, a two-part serial in Analog; the longest Telzey Amberdon story. "Company Planet" The Company Planet of the title is Fermilaur, a subtly dangerous place, offering beauty to the beautiful and other things as well. An excellent, suspenseful story."Resident Witch"Fermilaur was famous both as the leading body remodeling center of the Hub and as a luxurious resort world which offered relaxation and scenery along with entertainment to fit every taste, from the loftiest to the most depraved. It was only three hours from Orado, and most of Telzey's friends had been there. But she'd never happened to get around to it until one day she received a distress call from Fermilaur. "Compulsion" "Glory Day" Telzey and Trigger are captured by a group trying to take over the government of the planet Askanam (whence the dog Chomir). Good adventure: mental, physical, power politics — as they try to stay out of the deadly arena games."Child of the Gods" Telzey is coerced into helping a crooked psi discover what has gone wrong in his mining operation on a sparsely-populated planet. A rather horrific alien monster here."The Telzey Toy" (sometimes reprinted as "Ti's Toys" The climax of the Telzey Amberdon series."The Symbiotes"
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Telzey Amberdon stories have been reprinted singly and in various combinations, with nine fine stories in three early collections; read them in order:
Alternatively, the best way to read the series is in the complete sequenced set from Baen Books, collected in the following two omnibus Schmitz volumes (with some other Hub stories); read them in order:
Another omnibus collection from Baen:
A representative assortment:
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© 2002 Robert Wilfred Franson |
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Demigoddess of the Mind James H. Schmitz's heroine Telzey Amberdon |
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The Federation of the Hub |
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