~Title:         The Black Throne
By:            Roger Zelazny/Fred Saberhagen
Publisher:     Baen (October 1990)
Format:        pb, 278 pp, $4.95
ISBN:          0-671-72013-9

          In "The Black Throne," Zelazny and Saberhagen have
produced a unique science fantasy featuring, as its hero, an
alternate-time version of Edgar Allen Poe.  As if that were not
tribute enough to the famous poet, all the characters and many of
the scenes are borrowed directly from Poe's stories and poems.
Readers with an encyclopedic knowledge of Poe will enjoy tracing
the references; others will appreciate the zaniness of cramming
an intelligent orangutang, a living corpse, a sorceress, the
Inquisition, and a Dutch balloonist into the same plot.  Zelazny
and Saberhagen obviously wrote "The Black Throne" for the fun of
it, and that fun makes what might otherwise have been a silly,
pretentious piece of fluff an enjoyable read. [This by guest
reviewer Cathy Olanich -- ESR]