[Dusklands] includes two separate pieces of novella length—"The Vietnam Project" and "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee." The former deals with a Californian who works for a think-tank group which is developing new ways to undermine the bases of Vietnamese culture in 1973; he gradually is going mad in the course of the task. Though there are sound psychological insights on what makes an intelligence man click, I found the basic plot of the piece rather predictable fare. "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee," about [an] eighteenth-century settler, seems to merit more consideration here, for the reasons that it is directly concerned with African affairs, and, more importantly, it is an extremely well-wrought and fascinating work of fiction. The author may have intended for the two to be more integrally related. They do share the theme of outsiders failing to understand the cultures of the people they wish to dominate...