Fool's Run

Another popular paperback author steps into hardback, with generally encouraging results: a near/medium-future yarn involving far-out music, an orbiting high-security prison, twins, and alien influences. For seven years, insane mass-murderer Terra Viridian has been locked up in the Underworld (an orbiting space prison) while, on Earth, her twin sister Michele has been hiding out (to avoid being identified with her sister) as the Queen of Hearts, a member of a band that plays complicated visual-aural music. By a series of strange coincidences, the band is brought to the Underworld just as a team of scientists arrives to investigate poor Terra's madness, her "visions" (these apparently impelled her to murder). Michele entertains vague hopes of rescuing Terra despite the Underworld's impregnable security; but when the band's leader, the Magician, meets Terra, the two form a psychic link: the Magician sees Terra's visions, and realizes that she is not insane but involuntarily tuning in on an alien creature's mental broadcast. Finally the Magician helps Terra to escape into space where, in a prolonged, talky, and repetitive windup, the alien creature fulfills its purpose, the visions end, and Terra dies. Technically solid work, then, with above-average characters and some good ideas - McKillip just doesn't take them far enough, hence the drab and unsatisfying fade-out. (Kirkus Reviews)