Uncharted Territory - Hardcover

Willis's short novel could hardly be more different from her last, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book , which dealt with a time-travelling jaunt from the 21st-century back to Europe during the days of the Black Plague. On a rather nondescript alien planet, two hardy planetary surveyors (Findriddy and Carson), a visiting "socioexozoologist" (Evelyn Parker) and their alien guide (Bult) embark on a mapping expedition. To avoid any appearance of imperialistic insensitivity, the government has imposed strict rules on the surveyors and allows indigenous guides to fine them. Willis plays it mainly as a farce: Bult takes full advantage of the situation, coming up with creative fines and spending the proceeds on umbrellas, shower curtains, slot machines and the like. Parker prattles on about the bizarre mating habits of various species, while Fin and Carson bicker like an old married couple. It's all fairan old married couple. It's all fairly amusing, though by the end the story hasn't really gone anywhere--Willis ties up the loose ends and returns to the beginning with Fin and Carson resuming the spat over a lost pair of binoculars which they were having on page one. A pleasant diversion, but there's little for the reader to take away when she's done.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Still not far from the beginning of her career and already the winner of an impressive string of Hugo and Nebula awards, Willis, it seems, can do no wrong. Her latest and shortest novel engagingly introduces a pair of chronically bickering scientists named Finriddy and Carson in an episodic tale one hopes will spawn sequels. Relegated to a backwater world named Bhoote and accompanied by a mistrustful, multijointed Bhootian guide named Bult, the two have the task of mapping and naming the planet's topography when a new scientist, a "socioexozoologist specializing in sex," arrives from headquarters to assist. While traversing the designated territory on horseback, Carson and Finriddy contend with a stream of irksome obstacles--from their own stubborn ponies to the erratic behavior of Bult, who constantly fines them for local violations--before uncovering Bhoote's biggest geological secrets. Willis proves unsurpassed in sf in her ability to unload, within a short but thoroughly satisfying narrative space, a full literary bag of tricks ranging from wry dialogue to extraterrestrial intrigue. Highly recommended. Carl Hays