Lucas reviewed Overlay by Barry N. Malzberg
Dark, funny—pulpy, from what I know, quite of its time (mid-1970s).
4 stars
An "overlay" is "a horse whose odds are greater than its potential to win," which is to say, a pretty good bet. (Looking up horse racing and gambling terms was quite necessary.) Guess betting on humanity's self-destructive irrationality is pretty safe too.
The text read as if it were an early draft, with many phrases and images repeated, some flabby bits; it feels near improvised, and the frame of having an alien author writing this—for his superiors? His peers in the Agency?—half excuses this. (Further, I think the Kindle edition I read was scanned and not corrected closely: there were many typos, missing punctuation, etc.)
Read it because I heard of it on SF Ultra with Sean McTiernan and Matt (from Bookpilled), for what that's worth.
An "overlay" is "a horse whose odds are greater than its potential to win," which is to say, a pretty good bet. (Looking up horse racing and gambling terms was quite necessary.) Guess betting on humanity's self-destructive irrationality is pretty safe too.
The text read as if it were an early draft, with many phrases and images repeated, some flabby bits; it feels near improvised, and the frame of having an alien author writing this—for his superiors? His peers in the Agency?—half excuses this. (Further, I think the Kindle edition I read was scanned and not corrected closely: there were many typos, missing punctuation, etc.)
Read it because I heard of it on SF Ultra with Sean McTiernan and Matt (from Bookpilled), for what that's worth.