Book Review: Perilous Dreams by Andre Norton
Tamisan’s Dreaming power isn’t unique. While uncommon, enough women of her people possess the ability to create dreams for a client that there’s a thriving business involved, even drawing in tourists from off-planet. But Tamisan is skilled and more creative than many of her peers. So when she is assigned as the personal Dreamer of Lord Starrex, she wants to prove herself worthy of the task. Little does Tamisan realize just where the dream she’s weaving will take them.
This book is actually four long stories about the Dreamers of Ty-Kry. The first, “Toys of Tamisan”, was originally published in If magazine in 1969. Lord Starrex was a space explorer before becoming disabled, and was well-educated even before then. Starrex seems dubious about the value of Dreaming, and was only talked into it by his cousin Lord Kas. So Tamisan figures Starrex won’t be won over by cheap travelogues or historical repeats. She needs something unique. And thus it is that Tamisan reinvents the field of alternate history.
She’s located some key points in Ty-Kry history that could have gone very differently, and chosen two to alter. Tamisan is pleased with her idea, but there’s a surprise when she’s finally called upon to demonstrate her talent. Lord Kas has altered the Dreaming machine to allow him to share in the dream as well. This is unusual, but not a violation of the contract, so Tamisan has to allow it.
But once inside the dream, Tamisan discovers that it’s far more realistic than she’s ever been able to make a dream before, she can’t control the events of the dream, and she can’t make the dream end. Uh-oh! She needs to find Lords Starrex and Kas wherever they are in this dream world and secure their help if there’s any hope of escaping.
“Ship of Mist” picks up where the previous story left off, with Tamisan in a new alternate world, mated to Starrex but with Kas nowhere to be found. More pressing at the moment is a mysterious ghost ship which is causing sailors to disappear. (The cover is from this second story.) Even if this world is just a dream, they still must solve this problem to survive!
“Get Out of My Dream” switches the protagonist to Itlothis Sb Nath, a Per-Search agent. The missing person she’s looking for is Oslan Sb Atto, heir to the Atto fortune. He needs to return to his homeworld to assume his duties before they are taken by an usurper. But when Itlothis arrives on Ty-Kry, she discovers that Oslan is in the middle of a dream, and cannot be awoken without his permission. There’s nothing for it but to enter the dream herself and persuade Oslan to come out.
When Itlothis does this, however, Oslan is in no mood to wake up. Turns out he’s figured out another way to deal with his homeworld’s problems, a way only the Dreamers of Ty-Kry can accomplish!
“Nightmare” stars Burr Neklass, interstellar government agent. He went a little outside the rules on his last assignment, which means the agency has leverage to assign him to a mission which almost certainly means death. Five prominent citizens have died during dreams on Ty-Kry in the last galactic year. Given that one death per year is considered high, the suspicion is that someone is somehow rigging the dreams to kill. Burr will be given a new identity as a man who’s recently come into extreme wealth and has a greedy relative. That should attract the killer, if they exist.
Burr’s not entirely alone, though. The agency has slipped their own artificial Dreamer into the Hive and maybe she can help Burr figure out what’s going on–if she doesn’t get caught and executed for blasphemy first!
These stories are more science fantasy than science fiction; while the Dreamer’s abilities are explained with “Esper abilities” and technological equipment, their actual effects are more like magic than anything that obeys the laws of physics. Since they were written some time ago, they also go with a “man fights, woman supports” style of action.
With that said, there’s plenty of exciting action, and the female characters are a vital part of that, moving the story along and thinking their way out of trouble.
Lord Starrex’s disability is a paralyzed leg (the cause is never explained) which you’d think a starfaring civilization would have the ability to fix, but there you go. He’s embittered enough by this to have retreated to his castle, and when it looks like he’ll have to spend the rest of his life in an alternate universe or maybe a dream, Starrex is okay with this as long as his leg now works.
There are two major types of Dreamers, the A dreamers who do action dreams, and the E dreamers, who handle more, um, intimate scenarios. We never see any of the latter in action, which means that junior high readers on up should be able to handle this book even though it’s written for adults.
Recommended to science fantasy fans who like a little romance in their action stories.
