cover image To Make Death Love Us

To Make Death Love Us

Sovereign Falconer. Doubleday Books, $12.95 (181pp) ISBN 978-0-385-17628-6

Although it is being marketed as SF/fantasy, the only fantasy element in this novel is the psychic abilities of one of the characters. These abilities are not crucial to the plot, however, being employed only when the author wishes to wax poetic. The story concerns a traveling carnival sideshow troupea rubber man, a fat lady, a midget, a blind woman who can read print with her fingers, a strong man and the hustler, Will Carney, who runs the show. The six are trapped in a truck that has careened off a mountain road and come to a stop, delicately balanced halfway over an abyss. Somehow they must get out of the damaged, imprisoning truck without first unbalancing it and falling to their deaths. The flimsy tale is padded out by flashbacks detailing how the hapless freaks grew up and came to join the sideshow. This meager cliche-ridden book also suffers from an overabundance of pathos but is somewhat redeemed by a few interesting, fairly original characters. (July 24)