Ship of Fools

After raising some tantalizing religious issues, Philip K. Dick Award-winner Russo fails to deliver a real climax and leaves the plot unresolved in this initially suspenseful but ultimately disappointing novel. Bartolomeo Aguilera, the story's narrator, gives a haunting picture of life on the Argonos, a starship that is home to generations of humans born aboard her; no one remembers the ship's origins--its birthplace may have been Earth--but it drifts year after year ""almost at random through the galaxy,"" without apparent purpose or goal. Finally the ship lands on an unknown planet. There the crew finds a Dante-esque scene in a chamber located deep within a jungle: ""There were hundreds of bones scattered about the floor, strips of decayed flesh, pools and smears of viscous fluid. Just as it was impossible to avoid brushing against the hanging skeletons, so was it impossible to avoid stepping on bone or in thick, sticky liquid as I moved through the room."" A mutiny follows. Bartolomeo is imprisoned, but when a mysterious ship, seemingly imbued with evil, shows up, he is released and named leader of an exploration team. Here the book becomes largely static and uninvolving. The hoped-for resolution never occurs, the religious questions remain unexplored, while the ending proves an all-too-familiar shaggy-God story. Perhaps a sequel will supply some answers. (Jan. 9)