Return to Eden

Final installment of Harrison's grumpy, overblown epic about an alternate Earth where two intelligent species - the Yilane, advanced, biological-whiz, long-lived reptiles; and several races of Johnny-come-lately Stone Age humans - contend for survival in a deteriorating climate (West of Eden, 1984, Winter in Eden, 1986). Here, as before, Harrison has expended all his considerable inventive talents on background (there are extensive appendixes on language, philosophy, anthropology, flora and fauna, etc.) at the expense of plot and character development. So fans will not be surprised to learn that the dour, colorless hunter Kerrick and his band are once again wandering in search of a new home, secure from Yilane attack; nor that the similar Herilak is doing likewise; nor that the humans' archenemy, Vainte, exiled to a muddy, distant island, will make a comeback and threaten Kerrick amid much blathering and shedding of blood. Again, the only sequences with any juice involve the old, splendidly crusty Yilane scientist Ambalasei, her faithful sidekick Enge, and their dithering, argumentative troupe of religious-philosopher dissidents, as they reluctantly labor to grow a new city from wilderness and study their strange new environment. Some worthwhile passages, then, but this remains in large part a dreary, static exercise: an apt conclusion for what has turned out to be a disappointingly ponderous and drab enterprise. (Kirkus Reviews)