Sovereign      1979 First and in some ways greatest. The death here is that of the mother, a death that causes a metaphorical death: the still-born death of a father's love for his child. This loss of love leads to a feeling of searching and insecurity throughout the book, that is conveyed not in abstract terms but in concrete action and resultant feeling. The central character, Teal Ray has much to learn, his pre-destined rightful place in his world disturbed by the lack of his father’s love, so that he must make his own way. Any tendency of the book to deal with themes too large for a single novel is counteracted by it’s singular focus on the lead character and his concave, inward focusing position and viewpoint. But it is though at times an emotional book, never a depressive or maudlin book. It is instead a book that shows how triumph is contained in all things. Try reading this book and then imagining the life of a real person in the public eye: it gives a much better sympathy than I at least could manage alone. Oh, and other strong characters do appear here, but we catch up to their development when Teal does, such that we may feel in the end that he has done so much yet has affected little, in the end. Oh? The science fiction. Basically Earth... Oh read it here Sovereign. The complex detail of the genetic changes involved in the Bay people’s genetic plan is not allowed to cloud the plot-line. Here as elsewhere whatever culture/technology is there, it is used to propel the characters into the story, not otherwise. The reader may somewhat balk at this; perhaps feeling that the situation is too focused to bring the main characters’ development out….but that is up to your taste. Wars are finished off-page. Mine is it really focuses the story on the main features, while reflecting somewhat reality…no general was ever on all battlefields in any war… All in all a good study of one of the flawed but brilliant characters of fiction. "Where is the hope and where is the faith and love"-.U2

Wind Dancers     1981 Wind Dancers: here the death early on is of a leader of a dying people. A small, flawed band of a native people who are surviving on the earth world Aeolis. More significantly what is the connection between this hiding group and the thousands of ancient human-like bodies that have been found on the planet since the arrival of people. Their very existence is a secret many of the humans on the planet Aeolis want kept that way, for this, after all was a dead world when they found it…there was no life on it.. so where has it come from…And to make sure they could build their world, they sterilised it before starting again…so much so children are born off-world in an attempt to ensure their immune systems are fully active. The sterilisation is maybe a metaphor too… many of the Aeolis humans seem cut off from their created world and unable to react to it in abny meaningful way. Only the dancers really transcend this. It is somewhat a failing of he book, but adds to the adventure feeling in the book A sound adventure, secrets unravelling on all sides, calculated searching and sheer accident (literally) combining to uncover the truth… a more tragic, human book than other secret of the world books more like Orson Scott Card’s Speaker For the Dead in it’s feeling for the natives, but lacking it’s sympathy for the settler’s. Still, a good read , with more strong characters developing on centre stage than in Sovereign.

Wind Child      1982 Death here is of the potential death of a race, pre-assayed by the death early in the book of the visible aspects of the aliens from the last book. The murder of one suggesting that the humans’ plan to kill all the Aeolis native "aliens" can really succeed.. This book is somewhat of a twin to Wind Dancers, featuring key characters from the first book, plus a son- Daniel, again in contact of Aeolis. But this is a further step in the development of characters in an adventure mode, pretty classic-like SF, like an Anderson or Pohl, no time wasted in developing the key plots, of one’s revenge and another’s voyage which twist together like a double helix. In fact a whole potential book develops in the prologue and earliest pages of the book proper. Between them can so few people prevent the complete slaughter of a race? One point of wonder with R.M. Meluch is, if you may fin d a situation contrived to suit that character’s development at least you don’t have much of a clue what it’s end will be. There is much to like in these two Wind books, in books of remarkable brevity plot is developed, characters develop and are twisted by experience, sometimes snap. At the same time there is a strong feeling of some spiralling descent into pointless destruction, such that only the hints of Indiana Jones/Poul Anderson in the style give any hope of salvation for some, and redemption for .the rest. If there is a fault with these 2 books, it is that the Aeolis humans have no likeable character, no effective voice, being cut off even from the world they created, and unable to enjoy except in perverted fashion the delights of the world. The resident humans that we could love do not impact on the crucial chapters in any positive ways, all the good guys are outsiders in one way or another. The humans are disenfranchised from their own story, and they are the creators, even if of a flawed world. Life’s like that I guess. Someone has to write the history. "are you conscious of the anger and confusion inside"- Greg Rose, "From Bullied to Bully"

Jerusalem Fire      I like this one too. Again sparsely presented , character developing SF. Here the death is of a spaceship, fleeing the oppressive nature of the Na’id empire that controls most of human space, thousands of years after the first thrusts of Earth’s exploration, a vast network of connected worlds, collapsed. It throws together a disparate group of humans, and their powerful, reputedly mythological hosts, the Itiri, and their myth above all others the Itiri’s warrior-priests. A revenging loner, a rootless rejecter of his human-ness, trained by the Itiri and lastly a born leader, penitent of victory are thrown together. The results of their interaction are uncontrollable but may spin off to destroy the equilibrium of Na’id’s resisted supremacy that has existed in the human Universe since Jerusalem, symbol of history fell to the Na’id. Retelling/ flashback is used effectively here to portray the characters’ motivations - and thus the language of their meeting becomes loaded with anticipation of revelation for us. Then of course there is the anticipation of what the priests can or will do. As ever a mix of the predictable and unusual in this deeply layered text. "Secrets and lies: everyone's in pain. Why can't we share our pain? "-Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies (a film).

Thanks to: The Web Design Resource       and The Ace of Spa ce for backgrounds