STEVE MUDD – The Planet Beyond. Popular Library/Questar, paperback original; first printing, September 1990.

   There is an elite among the population of Seelzar, and only they have access to the powers provided by the mysterious Wells. Cross them and wham! You’re in exile before you know it.

   As for me, I know I’ve read far enough when: I’ve read five chapters and suddenly realize that I haven’t come across anything of interest so far.

   I know I’m right when: I read the last page, and find that the last sentence is “It was going to be a challenge indeed to get out of this alive, let alone with the Scepter.”

— Reprinted from Nothing Accompliced #4, November 1993.


[UPDATE]   I’ve just done some online research about this book, something I couldn’t have done back in 1993. What I’ve discovered is that this book is actually a sequel to an earlier one, Tangled Webs (1989), a fact not at all indicated on either the covers or the blurbs inside this one. Not only that, but another source suggests that this book was intended to be the middle of a trilogy (as that last line indicates), but for whatever reason, the concluding volume was never published. I have come across no information on the author himself.