Title: "Beyond the Burning Cross: The First Amendment and... By DIANE SCHARPER Title: "Tripoint" Author: C. J. Cherryh Publisher: Warner Books Length, price: 337 pages, $19.95 When science fiction was developing, the exploration of "inner space" was for wimps. Characterizations beyond a macho shorthand were notable and rare. C. J. Cherryh departs from this tradition in "Tripoint," the third novel in her "Merchanter" series. Having devised a genuinely plausible universe, she makes it more believable by populating it with real people. The narrator is Thomas Bowe Hawkins, the offspring of a rape 23 years earlier. His mother, Marie Hawkins, has tracked his father, Austin Bowe, across space and time until their ships meet again. Is Tom his own man, his mother's tool of revenge, his father's son? In the end, though ships have moved from wind to warp drive, Ms. Cherryh postulates that people will still be pushed by their neuroses. The result is a highly readable yarn that does a good job of keeping a sense of human scale. JAMES COX | DIANE SCHARPER Title: "Tripoint" Author: C. J. Cherryh Publisher: Warner Books Length, price: 337 pages, $19.95 When science fiction was developing, the exploration of "inner space" was for wimps. Characterizations beyond a macho shorthand were notable and rare. C. J. Cherryh departs from this tradition in "Tripoint," the third novel in her "Merchanter" series. Having devised a genuinely plausible universe, she makes it more believable by populating it with real people. The narrator is Thomas Bowe Hawkins, the offspring of a rape 23 years earlier. His mother, Marie Hawkins, has tracked his father, Austin Bowe, across space and time until their ships meet again. Is Tom his own man, his mother's tool of revenge, his father's son? In the end, though ships have moved from wind to warp drive, Ms. Cherryh postulates that people will still be pushed by their neuroses. The result is a highly readable yarn that does a good job of keeping a sense of human scale. JAMES COX,LOS ANGELES TIMES Title: "Shadow Song" Author: Terry Kay Publisher: Pocket Books Length, price: 388 pages, $20 There are several premises behind "Shadow Song," Terry Kay's latest novel. One is that a grand moment can change a life. Another is that love lasts forever. A third is that people are powerless before strong emotions. The hero, 55-year-old Madison Lee "Bobo" Murphy, believes all three. Murphy's story is set in 1993 and in 1955. The plot, told partly through flashbacks, concerns a summer romance "magically" rekindled after 38 years. The story begins when Murphy's friend, 106-year-old Avrum Feldman, dies. (Mr. Kay is the author of "To Dance With the White Dog," another story focusing on an older person.) Murphy returns to the Catskills where he had met Feldman while waiting on tables in 1955, when Murphy was seventeen and Feldman in his late sixties. He remembers how Feldman was obsessed with Italian opera singer Amalita Galli-Curci. So powerful was her voice that Feldman could never stop hearing her sing. At the funeral ceremonies for Feldman, Murphy too hears or seems to hear the opera star's song. Her music plays in his mind, setting the mood for his reunion with former girlfriend Amy Lourie. As this none-too-plausible novel unfolds, their romance, which ended for reasons that neither Murphy nor Lourie understood, picks up where it left off
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