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The Witches of Karres is an old-fashioned science-fantasy space opera, written with a light, sure touch and with Schmitz's distinctive panache. This is fizzy, sparkly entertainment -- the plot goes tripping and skipping across the Galaxy, via some rather appalling transportation devices (such as the well-named Sheewash drive and the dread Egger Route). Capt. Pausert and the lively young witch-sisters -- Maleen, the Leewit & Goth -- face pirate attacks, sneering Sirians, sneaky spies, trumped-up legal charges, a corrupt, beautifully slinky shipyard owner with a taste for torture, a mighty Sheem Assassin robot, Worm Weather, and a super-powerful (but reality-impaired) game-playing vatch, among other challenges. Slow-paced action is not a problem here. The plot is preposterous, but unfolds like a wonderfully lucid dream... suddenly, you're there, with another new klatha PSI-superpower... And the characters are so nice -- even the villains get a second, or even a third chance to redeem themselves, and most do. And by nice I don't mean sticky-sweet, but the lovely warm, fuzzy feeling you'll get as you read Witches.

The Witches of Karres is a true light classic of the genre, and if you haven't read it yet (or in awhile), you should. It's remarkably fresh for a story that's over a half-century old -- "recommended for frivolous relaxation. Abandon moral uplift, all ye who enter here." -- Dave Langford. For the young, and young-of-heart.

I have fond memories of The Witches of Karres, but it turns out I'd only read the much-reprinted 1949 novellette -- it was a real treat to discover I'd never actually read the 1966 novel (the novellette became the first two chapters of the novel).

This Gollancz edition is a handsome trade paperback, with the familiar chrome-yellow plastic-coated cover (that feels so nice when you stroke it...) and hardback-quality paper. The text is apparently photo-reproduced from an earlier edition. My copy has some rather blurry pages, so you may want to scan through the ones on the shelf at your bookstore.

There's a small boom in Schmitz reissues going on, I'm happy to say -- Baen is reprinting his excellent Telzey & Trigger stories, and plans a US paperback reissue of The Witches of Karres in 2001. NESFA has a nice one-volume Best of Schmitz collection It's good to see Schmitz's best work back in print.

Pete Tillman has been reading SF for better than 40 years now. He reviews SF -- and other books -- for Usenet, "Under the Covers", Infinity-Plus, Dark Planet, and SF Site. He's a mineral exploration geologist based in Arizona. More of his reviews are posted at www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman .