May June, 1980
Ampersand
15
vendetta against Red, a series of attempts
to kill him when he stops overnight along
the road. This is not one of Zelazny's best
books; his fans will probably want to wait
for the inexpensive paperback. Neverthe
less, Zelazny is one of the best SF writers
going and Roadmarks is definitely worth
the read.
Neal Wiigus
Pitching Words
Every morning for five years Michigan
"State University American Thought and
Language professor, Michael Steinberg,
arose before dawn to participate in an in
formal baseball hitting clinic conducted by
MSU exercise physiology Ph.D. and Min
nesota Twins pitcher, Mike Marshall. At
first, Steinberg, who is an ardent softball
player, balked at the way his friend put his
"pupils" through a variety of simultaneous
drills. There didn't seem to be enough
time to master one skill before another
came spinning at him. Soon, however,
Steinberg began to marvel at how produc
tive his lessons were and began to look for
ways to apply Marshall's approach to a
writing program he and MSU English
professor, Clinton Burhans, were for
mulating.
Burhans, an expert in language acquis
ition and language processing, had set up
a successful six-year language arts pro
gram in two Michigan school districts
which replaces the traditional grammar-
oriented writing curriculum (the one
some of us learned to write in spite of) with
a cognitive, meaning-centered approach
They combined Burhan's holistic strategy
with Steinberg's revision and rewriting
methods into a real-world worktext which
stresses simultaneous pre-writing, draft
ing, and rewriting; and, about the time
Marshall was collecting his league-leading
thirty-second save last fall, the pair was
putting the final touches on The Writer's
Way (Spring Press, $15.95), the first writing
book ever dedicated to a Cy Young
Award-winner.
Students who follow this worktext (so
called because students read and sum
marize spirited explanations and complete
exercises right in the book's perforated
pages) are asked to adhere to a vigorous
schedule of simultaneous writing tasks de
signed to give conscious control over all
three integrated steps of the writing pro
cess. Any given week will find the student
immersed in several stages: drafting a
fable or application letter; polishing off
some existential sentences or haiku; peer
editing, revising, and rewriting exercises
encompassing techniques from sentence
structure to similes; and, at the same time,
keeping a writer's journal.
Writing instructors will be happy to find
an accompanying teacher's guide outlin
ing a suggested grading system that en
courages students to write frequently,
while freeing the instructor from
counter-productive "theme correcting.'
With all that going for it, The Writer's Way
looks like this years MVP.
' Timothy Yost
A Female James Bond
Americans love a good conspiracy. We all
want to know if the CIA did plan the assas-
sination or j t K and wny the government is
hiding the truth about flying saucers. In
Speed of Light (Simon & Schuster, $9.95)
Gwyneth Cravens describes a grand con
spiracy that links together Adolf Hitler,
EST, a Governor Brown clone, and some
sorcerers who are vintage Carlos Cas-
taneda, and also, amazingly enough, man
ages to make sense out of two recent
events: the Russian invasion of Afghanis
tan and the terrorist attack in Mecca.
Ella Speed is an unlikely heroine who
quits her job because she yearns for
something better. Her travels lead her to a
cave deep below Mexico, the holy city of
Mecca, and finally to Afghanistan. She
even learns to travel outside her body.
Cravens is able to make us believe in the
power of sorcerers. She even reveals tes
timony from the Nuremberg trials to show
that Hitler believed that whoever ruled
Central Asia would rule the world. Deep in
the hills of Afghanistan is a secret cult that
nourishes itself on human hysteria and
death.
Ella Speed is a tough woman, a survivor
who adapts whether the role is an An
thropology graduate student, a topless bar
maid, a hardboiled journalist, or a secret
agent. After two decades of James Bond
books and movies, Speed is a welcome re
lief. Cravens is able to write a female ver
sion of From Russia with Love and make us
3 sic for more
Stanley Schatt
Vidiot
Station Identification: Confessions of a Video
Kid is a 215-page post-mortem of one
man's love affair with the tube. Mark
Bowie takes us on an extended walking
tour of his life beginning with early child
hood, passing through an extended
adolescence and coming of age while
watching Edward G. Robinson on a hotel
room TV screen with a woman Bowie
picked up in a local singles bar. Along the
way Bowie plays his tour guide role to the
hilt, rather like a native hyping local his
tory for the unenlightened visitor.
As might be imagined, the scenery
leaves a good deal to be desired. After all,
most people born in the United States
within the last thirty years have spent a
great deal of time watching TV. Why
should they fork over $9.95 to read about
someone else's video addiction?
The author $eems to recognize this
contradiction and he takes steps to insure
the reader's interest. Before we are half
way through the first chapter Bowie is
playing doctor with the little girl next door
and explaining the significance of Howdy
Doody in early sexual development
This pattern of titillation is repeated
throughout the book. Whenever the going
gets a little too thick, usually after some
profound sociological point has been at
tempted, Bowie throws in something lurid
to keep our attention.
. Bowie generalizes about an entire gen
eration from his own peculiar,experience.
Thus, we are informed that the turbulent
political and social outcry of the 1960's was
nothing more than a kiddie show rerun.
The emotion and tragedy of that decade
are degraded to the level of a high school
wild oats episode.
It is as if everything is to be viewed as the
latest TV series while social and political is
sues are merely occasional variations in
programming. This superficiality per
vades the entire book. Station Identification
tries to make us laugh at this sort of spiri
tual lobotomy, but it is a little too sad, too
pathetic and too true. W.B. Reeves
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