When I met the author at Radcon, I suspected he’d spin a good yarn. When I read the back of this one, I bought it. By the time I heard him give his midnight reading of “Reservoir Gods,” I could hardly wait to get started on this book.

I was not disappointed! I scarfed the entire thing -- 370 pages’ worth -- in three hours, and I was distraught when I got to the end.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. Don is a friend of Spider Robinson, and it shows -- Timberjak concludes with a pun that made me wail out loud at work; if I meet him at a future con, I don’t know whether I’ll want to poke him in the eye or buy him a drink. Or both. But in what order?

I normally am scared off by anything with a sci-fi setting, mostly because I am in many ways still an ignorant technophobe. But after reading this one, I am going to get the prequel (Steeldriver) and be eagerly awaiting the next one.

For now, I’m going to rave about Timberjak. This one is a ten out of ten, two thumbs up, five stars, all the top rankings you can muster.

The idea -- a “cyberfolktale” loosely based on the legends of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed -- is tremendously fresh and original. The plot is fast-paced, clever, and devious. The descriptions are breathtakingly vivid while also avoiding the overabundant poetry that has colored recent Koontz books, for example. It’s crammed with tall tales, big language, and high good humor. The characters are wonderfully likable, even (and especially) the bad guys. Basically, there is not a single thing wrong with this entire book!

It opens with a chase that yanks the reader right in.

“Try to imagine a shark made of midnight wrapped in an arsenal from the tenth circle of Hell and you’ve got an idea what a Manticore looked like -- and they were worse on the inside.”

Those are the enemy ships. Delightfully evil sleek things controlled by human brains with sub-brains of scorpions, crocs, and other scary animals in charge of their various systems. They go by the charming names Blood One, Blood Two, etc. Blood Three actually turned out to be one of my favorite characters; it’s fun to be bad!

Our heroes: Hone, a Cybersassin on the rebellious run from the corporation that owned him; Mike, the hyperspatial ghost of Hone’s last victim; and Melody, Mike’s Artificial Intelligence wife.

Fleeing the Manticores, our heroes arrive at the forest planet Shinnkaria. This is the only known place where the immensely valuable, force-field generating korala trees will grow. Not even the Manticores will dare risk corporate wrath by causing trouble on Shinnkaria, so our heroes are able to take refuge there.

The man in charge of overseeing the logging operation on Shinnkaria is Paul Banyan (nope, it’s not a typo; it’s a lovely piece of symbolism that becomes clear later in the book). His faithful companion is Bob, a minotaur-like denizen of the Indigo Wild, where the trees and all the animals are varying shades of, yes, you guessed it, blue.

The book is just packed with inventive flora and fauna -- beesquitos (just what they sound like), pirhana birds, the wombtree, swarmers (big nasty winged spiders), Gumberoos (explosive seedpods) and more. There is even a mascot, Stowaway the Toolie, which is one of the niftiest critters I’ve ever encountered in book, movie, or game.

The supporting cast is terrific, from the requisite sleazy lawyer to the camp cook; the loggers all have appropriate names like Shot Gunderson and Sourdough Sam.

And then there’s Brimstone Bill. Once, a few years back, there was a PC in one of my games named Willie. Willie had a -15 point Odious Personal Habit of foul language, which meant he swore constantly, inventively, and obscenely. Brimstone Bill would make even Willie blanch and choke. I’m surprised the words didn’t smolder on the very printed page!

Paul Banyan offers to hire Hone and company, and might have need for Hone’s ‘special’ talents because the logging outfit has been plagued by problems lately. A man calling himself Johnny Rainforest is seeking to put an end to their operation before they clearcut the entire planet, and refuses to believe Paul’s insistence that they have no such intention. When Johnny finds out about the ominous-seeming Project Umbrella, he is all the more determined.

Things get even more complicated ... Johnny Rainforest is able to control the creatures of the Indigo Wild, sending them to interfere with the loggers. And to make matters worse, a cult is springing up in one of the native races, believing Rainforest to be the god Stormseed who will rise on behalf of the downtrodden.

The efforts of Banyan and Hone to stop Rainforest wind up leading deeper and deeper into the Indigo Wild, the mysterious history of Shinnkaria, and the hyperspatial blue itself. It’s the ultimate tall tale.

Timberjak is destined to become one of my favorites. And best of all, I’ve got it autographed! Boy, and I thought my signature was indecipherable ...

So. Buy this book. Read it. Love it. If you’re a writer, you will find it either depressing (“I’ll never be this good”) or inspiring (“I want to be this good!”) ... or you’ll be like me and waffle back and forth between the two!

-- reviewed by Christine Morgan, Feb. 22, 2000

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