The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld, Tor, 3/03, $24.95, ISBN 0-765-30555-0

Intelligently written space operas seem to be making a comeback lately, and Scott Westerfeld has joined the trend with this, the opening volume of a series about a far future galactic empire.  The emperor is virtually immortal, and his ability to dispense a form of extended life ensures his continued reign.  Or does it?  A fanatical organization of cyborgs and artificial intelligences is seeking to undermine the government, and its latest plan involves kidnapping the emperor's sister.  What follows draws upon military SF, interstellar intrigues as complex as those in the Dune novels, rescues, chases, escapes, and battles.  Readers should be warned that it's not really a complete story, but it's the beginning of what promises to be a major new series.

The Wreck of the River of Stars by Michael Flynn, Tor, 4/03, $27.95, ISBN 0-765-30099-0

The River of Stars is an old style ship that travels around the solar system using magnetic sails for propulsion even though most traffic now makes use of a newly invented fusion drive.  When a disastrous mechanical failure cripples them in space, they decide to attempt to repair the ship rather than simply wait for rescue.  It's a little like The Poseidon Adventure in space, with the optimistic crew solving one problem after another, but always finding another one waiting around the corner.  Flynn seems to have a very firm grip on the plot at all times, and the reader is carried along by the inevitability of each new step in the plunge toward disaster.  It's nice to read a story about ordinary people who demonstrate heroism simply by doing their jobs rather than saving the world, particularly when it's as well written as we've come to expect from Michael Flynn.

The Tomorrow Log by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Meisha Merlin, 2/03, $30, ISBN 1-892065-86-X.

Lee and Miller have been writing entertaining space operas for a while now, most of them in an ongoing series while this is a standalone, at least so far.  The protagonist is a professional thief who is in hot water with a local crimelord because he refused to accept an assignment from her.  As if that wasn't trouble enough, a young woman begins to follow him, claiming to be a "cousin" from his youth among a nomadic spacegoing culture.  She insists that he has an obligation to perform his duty and return to fulfill a prophesy, which lands him squarely in the middle of interstellar politics as well as the criminal world.  The authors use a slightly formal style of dialogue that distracted me at times, but the story is exciting and the payoff appropriate to the buildup.  A trade paperback edition will also be published.

Prey by Michael Crichton, Harper Collins, 2002, $26.95, ISBN 0-06-621412-2

Crichton's latest SF thriller features nanotechnology gone wild. The protagonist is concerned that his wife, who works for a high tech firm with a remote lab in Nevada, is having an affair.  When he is given a chance to do some consulting work for the same company, he finds himself thrust into a crisis.  Swarms of nanomachines have evolved in the nearby desert after apparently escaping from the facility, and they have become more advanced and adaptive with each generation.  As they increase in numbers and deadliness, the handful of people at the installation engage in a desperate fight to destroy them before they are too powerful to destroy.  But there is another danger as well, a hidden threat that is even more frightening.  The rationale behind the evolution of the nanomachines is convincing and interesting in itself, and the story certainly accelerates quickly and steadily.  I'd be very surprised if this is NOT made into a movie in the very near future.

Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn, Tor, 2/03, $24.95, ISBN 0-765-30124-5

Zahn starts off a new series with this one, which isn't labeled as young adult but features a fourteen year old boy.  Jack Morgan is on the run in his spaceship, accompanied by the virtual personality of his uncle, a roguish con man, when he inadvertently witnesses a space battle which was supposed to be secret.  While exploring the wreckage of one ship, he meets and becomes part of a symbiotic relationship with Draycos, a dragonlike creature who can alter his body so that he effectively exists in only two dimensions and can plaster himself to the boy's body.  Together the two set out to solve two mysteries.  Why did someone go to elaborate effort to frame Jack for a theft he didn't commit, and how and why did Draycos' companions find themselves ambushed while rendezvousing with supposed friends, ambushers who were armed with the deadly weapon of an alien enemy remotely removed from this part of the universe.  It's a good lightweight adventure story, a space opera for all ages.

Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds, Golden Gryphon, 2002, $15.95, no ISBN.

Golden Gryphon initiates a new line of trade paperback limited editions with this novella, set in the same universe as Reynolds' three novels.  On a remote world which sees starships only after generation long gaps, scientists are studying the Pattern Jugglers,  form of intelligence which transmits information to those who literally swim in its oceans.  When a starship is detected approaching their world, the anticipation is a mixture of pleasure and concern, but upon arriving, the crew of the ship indicates that it is only interested in comparing notes about the Pattern Jugglers.  Unfortunately, there is at least one among their number who has a different plan entirely.  A nifty little tale presented in some very attractive packaging, and at eighty pages, it's as long as many of the early Ace Double "novels".  Apparently this is available only direct from the publisher at 3002 Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802 or through their website at www.goldengryphon.com.

Polyphony edited by Deborah Layne & Jay Lake, Wheatland Press, 2002, $16.95, ISBN 0-9720547-0-7

Here's an original anthology that falls outside the normal genre dividing lines.  The stories here are SF and fantasy and a few that don't even have a fantastic element at all.  They're just good stories.  The editors have eclectic tastes, but they run toward the literary, so there's mystery and emotion and wonder and a little bit of humor here, but no hard core horror or adventure, at least this time around.  Best of the batch are tales by Douglas Lain, James Van Pelt, Leslie What, Maureen McHugh, and a revised version of an older story by Lucius Shepard.  Close behind are Vandana Singh, Bruce Holland Rogers, Carol Emshwiller, Ray Vukcevich, and others.  Not all of the stories were to my taste, but even the ones I liked were all well written.  There's probably something here for just about every discerning reader though, and you can't say that about many anthologies.

Hour of the Gremlins by Gordon R. Dickson and Ben Bova, Baen, 12/02, $14, ISBN 0-7434-3569-9

The House of the Kzinti by Jerry Pournelle, S.M. Stirling, and Dean Ing, Baen, 12/02, $15, ISBN 0-7434-3577-X

These are both omnibus collections from Baen.  The first consists of three unrelated novels, two by Dickson alone and one in collaboration with Ben Bova.  Hour of the Horde is a 1970 novel, readable but not one of Dickson's best.  A horde of alien creatures has been rampaging through the universe despite the efforts of various races to stop them, until finally Earth's primitive ingenuity helps turn the tide.  The theme is much the same in the somewhat better Wolfling from 1969, in which a "primitive" Earthman travels to the stars to try to free humanity from an oppressive alien culture.  Gremlins Go Home, the collaboration, is the best of the lot, a humorous adventure set in a universe where gremlins, elves, and such are actually alien races.  A good buy for the money for the last novel alone.  The second title is a collection of three short novels from the Man-Kzin Wars series.  Cathouse and Briar Patch, both by Dean Ing, are both very good, and a reminder of how much I miss seeing his byline in SF.  Stirling and Pournelle collaborated on The Children's Hour, probably the best single title in the series.  This one's a steal at the price if you don't already have copies of the individual titles.

With a Little Help from My Friends by Mike Resnick, Farthest Star, 2002, $16.99, ISBN 1-57090-193-7

The Science Fiction Professional by Mike Resnick, Farthest Star, 2002, $16.99, ISBN 1-57090-199-6

Harlan Ellison was the first SF writer to produce a collection of his collaborations with others in book form, and now Mike Resnick has become the second.  This largish book contains his joint efforts with writers like Catherine Asaro, Michael Burstein, Barry Malzberg, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Joseph Sherman, Susan Shwartz, and many others.  Most of the stories are considerably lighter than Resnick's best work, but the ones with Nicholas DiChario, Susan Shwartz, and Barry Malzberg are all memorable.  There's a brief introduction to each.  The second title collects seven years of Resnick's "Ask Bwana" columns from Speculations.  They cover a broad range of toics of interest to SF professionals and fans alike, and very few of them are dated by the passage of time.  Both books are well produced, sturdy, and solid, both physically and in terms of content.

The Hundred Acre Spaceship by Ralph Roberts, Farthest Star, 2002, $14.99, ISBN 1-57090-186-4

The day when one can write a story about a lone inventor creating an interplanetary spaceship is long past, at least if you're serious about it.  Roberts has done just that, but seriousness is not a problem here.  The protagonist discovers a string of inventions, including a gun that can penetrate the Earth and hit a target on the far side, but when he turns his home into a spaceship, things really get interesting.  American and Russian astronauts are battling each other and a disaster in space until they are rescued by the flying house lot.  When the Russians start making moves to consolidate their position in space, the US government tries to seize the new technology, but they're no match for a man who knows what he's about.  At times very funny, although I think it went on for just a little bit too long.

Throne Price by Lynda Williams and Alison Sinclair, Edge, 3/03, $13.95, ISBN 1-894063-06-6

First of all, I believe that this is not the same Alison Sinclair who writes SF in England, so don't be confused.  This appears to be a first novel for both authors, and while it has some of the stiffness common to first novels, for the most part it's quite entertaining.  Humankind has spread into space, spawning a variety of cultures and societal forms.  Two of these are moving toward an interstellar conflict, and a number of outside parties are trying to avert the disaster.  Unfortunately, none of them realize the complexity of the situation, and it looks increasingly likely that they will fail.  The best parts of the novel are those dealing with the philosophical differences.  The action adventure sequences are the least interesting and sometimes a bit forced. 

Zero Hour by Benjamin E. Miller, Onyx, 1/03, $6.99, ISBN 0-451-41000-9

Various teams of military personnel and scientists are working in the Antarctic when a volcanic eruption underneath the icecap presents them with a threat to the environment.  Superheated water could generate a storm with winds so severe that no human structure could withstand it.  If the progression is not interrupted, a worldwide disaster is inevitable, and only the small, ill equipped group on the spot may be able to act in time to stop it.  An exciting first novel from a writer educated in planetary sciences.  This is more likely to be marketed as a mainstream thriller than as SF, but it's a disaster novel in the classic SF tradition, and a pretty good one at that.

Human Prehistory in Fiction by Charles De Paolo, McFarland, 4/03, $32, ISBN 0-7864-1417-0

As you might guess from the title, this is a look at how human prehistory is portrayed in fiction, and how closely it adheres to what we know, or think we know, about how it really was.  The author focuses on a relatively low number of stories.  Jean Auel is mentioned, for example, but none of her many imitators.  There's an examination of stories by H.G. Wells, Lester Del Rey, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pierre Boulle, and William Golding,  but no mention of others who have written serious works involving prehistoric humans like Michael Bishop, Stephen Baxter, Vardis Fisher, or Jack London.  The author clearly knows the subject well, but the style is a bit too academic for casual readers.

Humans by Robert Sawyer, Tor, 2/03, $24.95, ISBN 0-312-87691-2

The follow up to Hominids is, I'm sorry to say, a decidedly mixed bag.  It's good to see more of Ponter Boddit, whom I rather liked the first time around, but we've already seen enough of his world and that the new details this time really don't have the impact of the first novel.  Despite reluctance on the part of his people to reopen contact with our universe, Ponter convinces them to open a more or less permanent gateway, only to discover that humans also have mixed feelings about continuing the contact.  Ponter and his people, despite some minor failings, are just too good to be true, and their society is as implausible as that of most of those found in early Utopian novels.  If you liked the first, you'll probably enjoy this as well, but I wouldn't move it to the top of the reading stack.

Crossfire by Nancy Kress, Tor, 2/03, $24.95, ISBN 0-765-30467-8

 Jake Holman organized and led the colonization of the planet Greentrees by a disparate group including the exiled royal family of Saudi Arabia and their retainers, a group that wishes to recreate the Cheyenne nation and abandon technology, and more conventional settlers of various types and interests.  Greentrees is supposed to be uninhabited, and in fact no intelligent aliens have been encountered yet during humanity's exploration of the stars.  When a handful of villages are discovered, each inhabited by members of the same species but each genetically altered to create a different culture, the humans are puzzled, then astonished when it becomes obvious that they are not native to the planet.  Then an alien spaceship arrives, piloted by intelligent plantlike creatures, and they learn of an interstellar war that could threaten even humanity.  Kress does her usual fine job of creating a complex situation and then letting her characters play in it.  There are a few too many coincidental arrivals and encounters to make me entirely happy, but I ignored the problem and found myself enjoying the way in which the author works out the problems confronting Holman and his companions.  Some of the supporting characters – particularly the Quaker and his rebellious daughter – were frequently of more interest than the main plotline.

Warchild by Karin Lowachee, Aspect, 4/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-446-61077-1

I missed this when it first appeared quite a while back, and if I'd noticed it even then, I might have shrugged it off as another standard military SF adventure novel.  I'd have been half right.  The story does involve people caught up in an interstellar war.  But it's more than that.  Unlike most military SF that concentrates on the action and uses its characters to advance the plot, for Lowachee the characters are the plot and the military environment is just the setting.  The protagonist is a young boy, later a young man, who is orphaned and enslaved, liberated, trained as a soldier and spy, and given little chance to mature in a normal human fashion.  For a while he does what he's told, but sooner or later he's going to start thinking for himself.  Lots of interesting twists, and enough military action to keep those fans happy as well as the rest of us who like a little more substance to our entertainment.  This won Warner's first SF novel contest, and it's easy to see why.  A very promising debut.

Angelica by Sharon Shinn, Ace, 3/03, $23.95, ISBN 0-441-01013-X

Sharon Shinn returns to the lost colony world of Samaria for this, the fourth in a series about the world where a new society with strong religious underpinnings has been created on a distant world, cut off from the rest of the human race.  Not as cut off as they might wish, however, because a party of offworlders has invaded, using high tech weapons that the Samarians cannot match.  This is the backdrop rather than the central story, however.  The protagonist is Susannah, wed to the head of the religious community, a marriage of convenience rather than love.  On the other hand, the man of her own tribe for whom she feels genuine affection is no saint either.  Susannah's decisions about her own life and her role in the effort to repel the invaders are intertwined in this astute, intelligent tale of conflict between cultures, even within the planetary population.  This is the best yet in a highly regarded series.

Purity in Death by J.D. Robb, Berkley, 9/02, $7.99, ISBN 0-425-18630-X

The fifteenth in the ongoing series of Eve Dallas, a policewoman working more than fifty years in the future, is a lot more SF than many of the other volumes.  This time she's after a gang of vigilantes who have found a way to use a computer program to alter the patterns in the human brain, eventually leading to a painful death.  The device is, unfortunately, implausible,  since computers in 2057 work very much the same as computers in 2002 with no direct contact.  No combination of subliminal displays and sounds is going to make one's brain swell until it bursts.  That caveat aside, it's an entertaining story, interrupted for two episodes of explicit and almost formulaic sex.  Dallas finds the conspirators a bit too quickly this time – not one of her leads or guesses is wrong, but it's still fun watching her trap them into revealing themselves.  The subplots involving her co-workers continues to evolve as well.

Hyperthought by M.M. Buckner, Ace, 1/03, $5.99, ISBN 0-441-01023-7

Earth of the next century was already suffering from a major ecological disaster when a nuclear war rendered most of the planet uninhabitable.  Now the survivors cluster at the two poles, with the government in the Arctic repressive and that in the Antarctic relatively free.  When a young entertainer submits to experiments that are designed to enhance his thinking ability, he becomes an unwitting pawn in the ensuing power struggle not just between the poles but between rival parties in the north seeking any advantage in their increasingly violent struggle.  A tour guide is drawn unwillingly into the middle of the situation and finds herself growing to like the man she is protecting.  But with so many different people searching for them, is there any way for them to survive.  A nice, workmanlike adventure story from a new name is always a welcome event.  This is the kind of debut novel that will have you watching closely to see how Buckner develops as a writer.

Star of Erengard by Neil McIntosh, Black Library, 12/02, $6.95, ISBN 0-7434-4328-4

Straight Silver by Dan Abnett, Black Library, 12/02, $6.95, ISBN 0-7434-4325-X

Only in the Warhammer universe would it be possible to have these two novels part of the same series, one a sword and sorcery epic, the other a traditional military space opera.  The first, which I believe is also a first novel, is actually a pretty good pseudo-Conan style adventure, with the protagonist traveling to a frozen city to meet, and defeat, a series of enemies both natural and supernatural.  This one would stand quite well outside the Warhammer series, although it's not quite the same formula as most current mainstream fantasy.  The second is less interesting, another story of interstellar soldiers battling enemies who have the support of evil supernatural forces at large in the universe.  The mix works occasionally – most notably in the novels Ian Watson contributed to the series – but more often it jars.  And this one has a bit too much battling and a bit too little story for my taste.

The Fantastic Four Volume Two, Marvel, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0731-2

The second compilation of 22 separate adventures of Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, the Thing, and the Invisible Woman.  There seems to be more of the annoying squabbling among the good guys that was so common in Marvel land, but there's also a good array of villains and semi-villains this time.  The foursome battle Dr. Doom, Moleman, the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, the Thinker, the Red Ghost, Rama Tut, the Super Skrull, and the Frightful Four, and get tricked into a battle with the X-Men.  They also have guest visits from Dr. Strange, Daredevil, and the Avengers this time, as well as meeting the father of Sue and Johnny Storm.  Some of the charm is lost along with the color in this black and white rendition, but the stories bring back fond memories.

The Return of Santiago by Mike Resnick, Tor, 2/03, $25.95, ISBN 0-765-30224-1

The original Santiago is one of Mike Resnick's best known novels, the story of a man searching for a legendary outlaw in the fringe worlds of human civilization, only to discover that the name has been passed on from one person to another, and that he is the next in line.  The sequel is set about a century later.  The last Santiago was killed without providing for succession, and the repressive human government has once again begun inflicting upon the frontier worlds arbitrary justice and ready violence.  A petty thief stumbled upon a famous poem and decides to continue the poet's work, chronicling the colorful frontier characters.  But he has also decided that it is time for a new Santiago, and with a few friends he sets out to interview candidates for the job, someone who will pretend to be an outlaw but actually function as a rebel against the central government to make them more aware of the their obligations.  I'm not sure how this was really supposed to work, but it doesn't matter.  Predictably, their plans don't go smoothly.  Each candidate brings a slightly different vision to the role, and their visions aren't always productive.  It didn't take very long before I figured out what was going to happy in the end, but it didn't matter because Resnick's tale of larger than life people is a kind of fairy tale of the Old West set in outer space, and if you think that isn't a viable combination, then you haven't read Mike Resnick.  Gunfights, glory, and great storytelling in one of his best recent novels.

Little Doors by Paul Di Filippo, Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002, #24.95, ISBN 1-56858-241-2

Paul Di Filippo's latest collection is another assemblage of sparklingly written madness.  "Billy", for example, is a young boy born without a brain, whose head is invaded by a collection of small animals who transform him into a functioning human, and that's one of the more conventional stories in the collection.  Spend a day with Salvador Dali, or walking around an alternate New York City, or meet a woman who steals the moments of happiness from everyone around her.  Dally with a man who changes into a woman when the moon is full, or learn the truth about reincarnation, and follow a paranoid horror writer on a typical day of his life.  My favorites include "Moloch", "Jack Neck and the Worrybird", and "Return to Cockaigne", along with the amusing Mehitabel poem that rounds out the collection.  Give this one a read and have your world turned end over end.

Man Who Could Work Miracles by H.G. Wells, edited by Leon Stover, McFarland, 2002, $49.50, ISBN 907864-1237-2

Here's a genuine rarity for you.  Wells wrote a screen treatment for what would be the film version of his story, "The Man Who Could Work Miracles".  This book presents the entire treatment, plus the original story, along with three other stories and a bibliography.  The text is heavily annotated, much of it quite interesting.  This is part of a series of high quality volumes of annotated work by Wells which McFarland has been publishing under the editorship of Stover, and it is by far the rarest item yet, and one of the few pieces of Wells' fantastic fiction that I hadn't previously read.

Firing the Cathedral by Michael Moorcock, PS, 2002, $14, ISBN 1-902880-44-7

Riding the Rock by Stephen Baxter, PS, 2002, $14, ISBN 1-902880-59-5

VAO by Geoff Ryman, PS, 2002, $14, ISBN 1-902880-48-X

These three new novellas from PS are pretty spiffy looking with full color, dustjacket like  covers and contents even spiffier.  The first of three titles is a new story of Jerry Cornelius, the spy/Jesuit/oddball who was featured in more than half a dozen previous novels.  It's the longest of the threesome, and if you liked Cornelius before, you'll like him again as he confronts terrorism and other modern concerns in this satirical swipe at   Americanisms.  Next up is Baxter's latest story of the war with the Xeelee, an alien race confined to the galaxy's core by a human race that has subordinated everything, even basic humanity, to pursuing a war that has already lasted more than ten thousand years.  The protagonist is sent to investigate a religious movement that has sprung up near the battlefront, a belief system that is contrary to the official doctrine that dominates the human race.  A well told story but definitely not one to cheer you up on a dismal day.  Last, and best of the three, is Geoff Ryman's story of a near future in which aging hackers outwit the government and track down a gang of senile criminals whose reign of terror may endanger the welfare of an entire generation.  The story is so good it just zips past and I was disappointed on the final page only because it was the final page.  The books have introductions by Alan Moore, Gregory Benford, and Gwyneth Jones respectively, and all are available in hardcover editions as well.  The PS line of novellas has turned out a consistent string of top notch tales that deserve, and no doubt will, attract discriminating readers worldwide.

Bone Walk by Kevin Howe, Firelight Publishing, 2001, $15.50, ISBN 0-9707206-2-9

This book has languished on the to-be-read pile for unconscionably long, but frankly I was put off by the cover and the description made it sound as though it was only marginally fantasy.  Well, the cover still doesn't move me, but the description didn't really evoke the flavor of the book.  A nobleman has found a magical book which gives him great power, and wakens his thirst for more.  The protagonist is a simple man, puzzled by the strange events taking place in his village, including the disappearance of some of his neighbors.  Then he is drafted into a small party sent on a quest, designed to enhance the powers of the villain.  After a series of adventures, both pleasant and brutal, he and his companions discover the truth, and eventually undergo a form of transformation that will help them become players rather than pawns.  The novel comes to a clear ending, but there are clear hints that the story may continue in further volumes.  I'm not sure where a bookstore would shelve this, given its mundane appearance, so you might want to try ordering it online.  It's a well written quest fantasy that doesn't feel like every other quest fantasy you've read.

The Changeling Plague by Syne Mitchell, Roc, 2/03, $6.99, ISBN 0-451-45910-5

Goeffrey Allen is a very rich man with a very bad disease, one which is technically incurable.  He decides to risk everything with an experimental virus tailored to rewrite his DNA, and much to his relief, the treatment works and his health is restored.  But then things start to happen around him.  His friends and acquaintances begin to develop odd health problems, which seems coincidental at first but eventually leads to the revelation that he is the carrier of a brand new plague.  It spreads so quickly that there is an international crisis, and those infected are increasingly confined to what amounts to concentration camps.  The human race seems to be on the brink of disaster, but it's just possible that the plague might not be entirely a bad thing.  Interesting speculation and a satisfyingly exciting plot in Mitchell's best novel to date.

The Braided World by Kay Kenyon, Bantam, 2/03, $6.99, ISBN 0-553-58379-4

Kay Kenyon's previous novels have all been entertaining without making a really outstanding impression, but this one might be just the thing to bring him a wider readership.  The human race is facing extinction despite expansion to the stars, facing a terrible plague and other dangers, and apparently lacking the ability to adapt to the new conditions with which it is faced.  An expedition to another star encounters aliens that look surprisingly like us, and a second mission is launched to make contact with them, and just possibly discover the truth about their strange culture and a solution to the human problem.  A tightly written scientific thriller with an interesting alien culture and believable human characters.

Skylock by Paul Kozerski, Baen, 11/02, $7.99, ISBN 0-7434-3570-2

First novelist Kozerski has debuted with an exciting, violent, but convincing story that reminded me more than a little bit of Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley.  A solar change accelerates environmental degradation on Earth, and even the US shatters in the face of worldwide famines, climatic changes, and the resulting chaos.  A secret laboratory in Wyoming may have made a breakthrough that will ameliorate much of the damage, but someone has to travel from Washington to Wyoming and back in order to get the information to the parties with the potential to use it.  The protagonist is a complex, not entirely likable man whose mission is troubled not only by the chaos and physical dangers he faces but also by the fact that someone wants him to fail, someone who believes that the collapse is more advantageous than a recovery.  Breakneck action and a resounding resolution.

The Fifth Horseman by Richard Sherbaniuk, Tor, 11/02, $7.99, ISBN 0-812-57090-1

I missed the hardcover edition of this when it appeared a couple of years back, but I was in the mood for a contemporary thriller, preferably one with SF overtones, and that's what I got.  A very well done thriller at that.  It's the near future and widespread drought is exacerbating the tensions of the world.  A group of well equipped terrorists make things even worse by releasing genetically designed organisms into the ecosphere.  Their purpose is to disrupt the world's economy, but they may have been more sweeping in their efforts than even they had hoped, and a worldwide disaster is in the making unless the infestations can be neutralized.  An intelligently written, frighteningly plausible, and thoroughly entertaining adventure.

Star Wars Mythmaking by Jody Duncan, Del Rey, 11/02, $19.95, ISBN 0-345-45624-6

This is by far the most detailed and entertaining coverage of the mechanics of making a motion picture that I've encountered to date.  It feels as though the author has explained virtually every shot in the movie, providing information on background, special effects, the way the actors interacted with their environment, site preparation, and just about every other aspect imaginable.  It's a fairly long oversized paperback, well over two hundred pages, and there are color stills and photographs on every page, usually more than one per page in fact.  Some people say that books like this take the magic out of a film, but I found the attention to detail fascinating and understanding how some of the work was done only made by enjoyment of the film a third time around even more enjoyable.

Metropolis by Thea Von Harbou, Wildside, 2002, $32.95, ISBN 1-59224-979-5

This classic dystopian novel, originally published in 1927, has been newly translated for this edition.  I first read this when Ace did a paperback version in 1963, and I found much of it unreadable at the time, although even then it was obvious that the author had touched upon an important and compelling theme.  This new version seems more readable to me, or I've grown more tolerant, and doesn't feel nearly as archaic and even abstract as I remembered it.  Although it doesn't measure up in quality to the best of modern dystopian fiction, it's still an important early novel and one that deserves to be kept in print. 

A Gift of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey, Del Rey, 11/02, $16.95, ISBN 0-345-45635-1

Although they are not necessarily her best books, the Pern series has undoubtedly established Anne McCaffrey as a major genre writer.  Part of the appeal is probably the fact that while technically science fiction, they have much of the feeling of fantasy, including the ubiquitous dragons.  This is a collection of four tales set against that background, one of them a novella original to the book, and a very entertaining one as well.  The best is "The Girl Who Heard Dragons", previous collected, and the weakest "The Smallest Dragonboy".  I actually found the short story collection more impressive and successful than most of the much longer and more involved novels in the series.  This is a handsome looking small hardcover edition and one of the best of the author's books, recent or otherwise. 

Best of the Rest 3 edited by Brian Youmans, Suddenly Press, 2002, $14, ISBN 0-9670056-1-2

There are far too many good stories being written every year for the professional markets, and a great deal of very good fiction appears in the small press, in non-genre publications, and electronically on the internet and elsewhere.  Many of these stories are read only by a small portion of the potential readers who would enjoy them.  This anthology attempts to address the problem by collecting some of the best from these unusual and small circulations sources, and the editor has done a very good job.  Of particular interest are the stories by Ray Vukcevich, whose quirky tales have already established his reputation, James Van Pelt, Tom Ligotti, Mark McLaughlin, Mary Soon Lee, and John Shirley, and the rest aren't far behind in quality.  This might be a little difficult to locate, but it's worth taking the time to track it down.

Vectors by Michael Kube-McDowell, Bantam, 11/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-553-29824-0

It's going to be difficult to review this and explain my reaction without spoilers, but bear with me.  The protagonist is a scientist working at a Midwestern university who is recording human personality profiles, hoping to prove that since no two are alike, that personality is not just a function of chemical processes, although he stops short of claiming the existence of souls.  His work is unpopular with his peers, but he perseveres, until he is stunned to discover that two personalities are so nearly identical that they seem to contradict his theory.  But then he notices that one is from a child who was born shortly after the death of the other, and the reader will be well ahead of our hero in guessing that some form of reincarnation is involved.  When the protagonist's lover is murdered, it's pretty easy to guess that he's going to try to find her soul somehow.  All of this is beautifully written and thoroughly involves the reader despite its predictability.  Unfortunately, the story starts to go wrong just as his life starts to go wrong, and the last few chapters seem entirely out of character to me.  If you want to know why I felt that way, read the next paragraph, but it contains spoilers.

The setting of the novel is mildly depressing in itself.  The US is in the grip of some sort of right wing government, although we never know the details.  Many of the characters are either repulsive – the prominent scientist who publicly assails the protagonist – or act badly – the colleague who rejects his friendship because of her own alcoholism and personality problems.  Despite this, he remains upbeat, although he becomes obsessed with the question of reincarnation following his lover's death.  He is eventually arrested for murder on evidence so flimsy that I had trouble believing that the hard nosed detective responsible would ever have done such a thing.  He contemplates and eventually commits suicide so that he can be reunited with his lost love even though (a) there's no reason to believe that they will be geographical close, and (b) no memory survives so death is effectively the end regardless of the truth or falsehood of his reincarnation theory. Efforts to make the suicide seem like a move toward a goal fall flat.  Instead he is just running away from the problems caused by his unpopular theory, the suspicion of his complicity in the murder, and other personal problems.  But the author never established the flaws in his protagonist's character until the breaking point, so his actions didn't fit with the character I'd been reading about.  And even worse, the field is effectively abandoned to the bad guys.  The close minded scientist gets to retain his position, his self centered friends don't even seem to regret his passing, his project is effectively finished, and the suicide will likely add to the public belief that he killed his lover.  This was a definite downer to read.  Very well written, and the first half is excellent, but the rough ride at the end left a bad taste in my mouth.

Soul Drinker by Ben Counter, Black Library, 10/02, $6.95, ISBN 1-84154-260-1

Harlequin by Ian Watson, Black Library, 10/02, $6.95, ISBN 0-7434-4322-5

The wave of  new and reprinted Warhammer related novels continues with these two volumes.  The first is a new novel, which I can best describe as rationalized orcs in outer space.  Mutated soldiers have enhanced powers and aren't entirely human any longer, but they make excellent troops for the imperium.  Unfortunately, when faced with a dilemma, their actions aren't always predictable.  Since magic works after a fashion, I suppose this is fantasy, and it certainly feels that way despite the other worldly setting.  Competently written, though I've read far better military SF.  On the other hand, the Watson novel, originally published in 1994, and it's the second volume in a trilogy he wrote in this universe.  The Inquisition was designed to protect humans from falling prey to either the supernatural forces in the universe, or the rather more natural alien menaces, but trouble comes when its inner ranks are themselves corrupted.  If you think game tie in novels have to be derivative and uninteresting, it's because you haven't read Watson's Warhammer novels.

The Art of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones by Mark Cotta Vaz, Del Rey, 10/02, $19.95, ISBN 0-345-43126-X

Following in the tradition of art concept books inspired by the previous movies in the series, the latest Star Wars epic has resulted in this selection of the artist's work in developing costumes, landscapes, creatures, and devices used in the film.  Most of this is not finished drawing, so as art it's rough and unfinished.  The attraction of the volume is that it provides insight into the development of the visual effects we saw on the screen, and a few we didn't get to see.  The text is above average for this sort of thing

X-Men Volume 4, Marvel, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0775-4

The most recent in this set of black and white omnibuses brings the X-Men up to 1984, still a long way from the present.  Chris Claremont remained the main writer and the mutant superheroes moved away from the rest of the Marvel world with these, spending much of their time battling an alien race known as Sleazoids who impregnated the team with their eggs.  Their other main opponents are the Morlocks, an underground gang of mutants, and the Hellfire Club, yet another evil mutant group.   Rogue, a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – which is fairly inactive in this volume – abandons the gang to join the X-Men, despite their mistrust.  There are also several romances, a battle with a giant squid, the return of Dracula, and other minor menaces.  More thoughtfully written than many of the other Marvel series.

Explorer by C.J. Cherryh, DAW, 11/02, $23.95, ISBN 0-7564-0086-4

The sixth adventure set in the Foreigner universe opens things up and adds some new and intriguing plot elements.  A joint human and atevi expedition has been launched to find out what happened at a partially abandoned space station after a supposed attack by aliens.  What they find is another matter entirely.  The aliens are still there, but when the protagonist manages to communicate with them, he discovers that they believe the humans initiated hostilities.  Efforts to find out the truth on the station are hampered by a series of booby traps and other problems designed to keep anyone from entering.  Our hero has made a living negotiating between human and atevi.  Can he now use those skills to smooth over another rift and prevent an even greater conflict? What do you think?  Even when I can pretty much tell where the plot is going, it's almost always great fun to see how Cherryh manages to get us to our destination, and this one's no exception.

Atlantis Endgame by Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith, Tor, 1/03, $23.95, ISBN 0-312-85922-8

The first two Time Traders novels by Andre Norton made an enormous impression on me when I first read them, and I've reread both three or four times since then.  The later volumes were not as satisfying, lacking the inventiveness of their predecessors.  After a gap of many years, Norton and collaborator Sherwood Smith have decided to continue the series, and the results so far have been reasonably good.  This latest, third in the new series, is unfortunately the weakest of the new cycle.  Ross Murdock and company discover that someone has been interfering with the history of Atlantis, so they travel back to straighten things out, running into the usual run of bad humans and the alien Baldies.  There are the usual captures and escapes and they're fairly well done, but the sense of wonder about the universe that made the earlier books so good just isn't there this time.

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, Ballantine, 1/03, $23.95, ISBN 0-345-44755-7

Lou Arrendale is an autistic adult, a condition which makes it very difficult for him to interact normally with the people around him.  Scientists develop a new treatment which might improve his condition, but the procedure involves some risk and Lou has to make a difficult and potentially dangerous decision about his future.  The novel, which is only marginally science fiction, bears obvious similarities to Daniel Keyes classic Flowers for Algernon, although the story explores an entirely different aspect of character.  Moon apparently has an autistic child of her own so she knows whereof she speaks.  I liked the story very much, even if it isn't SF, and Lou Arrendale is one of those characters that seems like someone you actually met once.

Deathstalker Legacy by Simon R. Green, Roc, 1/03, $23.95, ISBN 0-451-45907-5

Owen Deathstalker died in the previous volume in this series, but that doesn't mean there can't be a sequel.  Years have passed and a new ruler has ascended to the throne, ruling the entire human interstellar empire.  He's a reluctant monarch, however, and an uncertain one.  He appoints the descendant of Owen to be his closest confidant and protector, and just in time, because an old and secretive enemy is about to launch a campaign to undermine his reign.  Green is one of the few writers still using the galactic empire as a theme, and he does it to good effect.  At times the stories have some of the feel of a fantasy epic, but they're undeniably SF, rip roaring space operas with dastardly villains, exciting battles, nefarious plots, and strong willed heroes.  Take this as an antidote after one too many serious and relevant stories about the human condition.

Engine City by Ken MacLeod, Tor, 1/03, $24.95, ISBN 0-765-30502-X

Although I enjoyed the previous two volumes in the Engines of Light series, neither struck me as the kind of story that would linger in my memory.  The third and concluding volume surpasses its predecessors and is easily the best MacLeod I've read.  Humanity has achieved a kind of immortality as it expands to the stars, but it's also about to discover that all of the achievements of its civilization pale to insignificance compared to the abilities of at least one alien sentience.  As one group attempts to alert the race as a whole to the danger of alien invasion, another suspects that it has already taken place.  But the greatest danger may come not from belligerent aliens, but from an intelligence that sees life such as our own as merely an infestation to be eradicated without a second thought.  Really good stuff.

Ulterior by Darryl Sloan, Midnight Pictures, 2002, no price listed, ISBN 0-9543116-0-4

This young adult novel is a blend of horror and SF, and it's also an old, familiar plot, although done reasonably well.  A teenager at a private school is sneaking around at night when he stumbles upon something that he's not supposed to know about.  It appears that some if not all of the faculty and staff are actually not human beings at all.  He and his friends investigate further and uncover a secret colony of aliens masquerading as human and planning the conquest of the planet.  They thwart the plot, obviously, while leaving room for a sequel.  Moderate thrills and chills but no points for originality.

The Lost Continent by C. Cutcliffe-Hyne, Bison, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-8032-7332-0

The War in the Air by H.G. Wells, Bison, 2002, $16, ISBN 0-8032-9831-5

Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bison, 2002, $13.95, ISBN 0-8032-6204-3

The University of Nebraska Press continues its line of reprint of classic SF with these three titles just out.  The first is arguably fantasy since the elemental forces commanded by the denizens of Atlantis are indistinguishable from magic.  This is probably the best Atlantean novel ever written, first appearing in 1899, and out of print since the Donald Grant limited edition in 1974.  There's a new introduction by Harry Turtledove.  Next we have one of Wells' minor SF novels, his entry in the future war cycle that was very popular in England at the time.  Also out of print for a long time, particularly as a single novel.  It was part of a Dover omnibus back in the 1960s.  A little dated and not nearly as good as his other genre work, but reasonably entertaining and certainly the best of its type.  Finally we have the second adventure of David Innes at the center of the Earth.  More of the usual stuff, but the Pellucidar books were among his best written, though admittedly that's not saying much.  Put your literary sensibilities aside for a few hours and go on a nostalgic adventure.  All three are packaged in the same style as Bison's other titles, including original illustrations and sturdy bindings.

Empire of Dreams and Miracles edited by Orson Scott Card and Keith Olexa, Phobos Books, 9/02, no price listed, ISBN 0-9720026-0-X

This is another of those anthologies designed to give a launching pad for new writers, so there's no one in this collection whose name will be familiar.  These usually have uncertain results – with no big names to attract buyers, it's hard for the stories to get read.  Like the series from Bridge publications a while back, the stories are certainly all publishable and sometimes quite clever, but as was the case with those anthologies, there are no really outstanding works here.  The stories cover a host of familiar themes, invisibility, virtual reality, time travel, computers, dystopian futures, and travel to outer space.  You'll find this, on average, as good as most other original anthologies being published today and who knows, one of the authors may turn out to be a major writer a few years from now and you'll be able to say your read his or her first story.

Orphans of Earth by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, Ace, 1/03, $7.50, ISBN 0-441-01006-7

This is the sequel to Echoes of Earth and it's an even better story than the first.  Earth has been destroyed, but human civilization continues on several colony worlds.  Or at least, it will continue if the aliens responsible for destroying the home world don't continue and complete the extermination of humanity.  The most promising defense is the secret of a handful of alien artifacts acquired under mysterious circumstances, but the problem is that activating these devices seems to be what attracts the attention of the enemy.  Is the gift actually a curse?  Can the oncoming Starfish horde be defeated or evaded?  You'll have to pick up this exciting space opera to find out.

Between Darkness and Light by Lisanne Norman, DAW, 1/03, $6.99, ISBN 0-7564-0015-5

Lisanne Norman has been chronicling the history of the planet Shola and its felinelike inhabitants for seven volumes now, and this latest is her biggest and most complex adventure.  Kusac, hero to his people, is sent on a secret mission as a representative to one of their enemies, which is interpreted by many on his home planet as an act of treason.  Not even his friends know the truth, and they're finding it difficult to understand his apparent betrayal.  But there's a new player in the game, an enemy more powerful than either side, and it may be necessary to make common cause if either is to survive.  This is a big, sprawling, convoluted novel sure to appeal to fans of C.J. Cherryh and others who have made space adventure their territory.  I found it a bit too talky from time to time, and the story really didn't need to be as long as it is, but it's still a good adventure story for those who enjoy long submersions in an imagined world.

The Essential X-Men 3, Marvel, 2001, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0661-8

Third in the series of mass reprints of the X-Men comics.  This sequence starts off with the partial reformation of several victims.  We discover that Dr. Doom has his soft side, that Caliban is just misunderstood, and that Magneto has a conscience after all.  Further adventures ensue when Storm and the evil White Queen exchange bodies for a while, and there's an epic space adventure pitting them against Deathbird and her gang.  More space adventures follow, plus a very odd encounter with Dracula during which Storm is turned into a vampire.  With guest appearances by the Fantastic Four and Doctor Strange, although the X-Men seemed to move away from the rest of the Marvel universe for the most part during this period.

Death and the Librarian and Other Stories by Esther Friesner, Five Star, 12/02, $23.95, ISBN 0-7862-4682-0

Dancers in the Dark by Jack L. Chalker, Five Star, 12/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-7862-4680-4

Star Songs and Other Stories by Timothy Zahn, Five Star, 12/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-7862-4696-0

In the Distance, and Ahead in Time by George Zebrowski, Five Star, 12/02, $23.95, ISBN 0-7862-4687-1

Five Star books has quietly but quickly become a significant player in reprint SF collections and their latest selections are likely to increase their visibility.  These four writers may have very disparate styles and thematic interests, but they have all displayed a high level of accomplishment.  Esther Friesner's collection is the lightest in mood, with several very funny stories including one original to this collection.  Jack Chalker's isn't really a collection; it consists of two unrelated short stories plus the complete early novel, Dancers in the Afterglow.  On the other hand, the novel – which pits human colonists against mind controlling aliens – is an exciting and entertaining adventure story, not as innovative as was Chalker's later work but still worth reading.  Timothy Zahn contributes a novella and five shorter pieces, predominantly action oriented, but written in his usual intelligent and convincing style.  George Zebrowski's collection is probably the most serious in tone, but no less satisfying than the others.  His selections are lumped into sections for the near, middle, and very distant future.  In an era when single author collections are largely ignored by the major publishers, it's very good news when a hardcover publisher invests in a reprint collection program of this magnitude, and hopefully readers will respond and help it prosper.

The Hard SF Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Tor, 11/02, $29.95, ISBN 0-312-87635-1

It is the contention of the editors, well supported by the contents of this collection, that hard SF had made a major comeback in recent years.  It's hard to dispute the point faced with almost one thousand pages of very good fiction from some old standbys and many new talents in the field, although in a few cases one might argue that the stories included aren't really "hard" SF.  Whatever you may call the individual entries, this is a very large and comprehensive anthology, providing a good cross section of the genre, and includes a number of stories that didn't appear in normal genre venues and which may be new to readers.  Even if the majority are not, it's a great opportunity to have them collected in hard covers.  A few of the stories were later expanded into novels because there wasn't room enough at shorter length to explore the possibilities of the plot.  A great buy for the money, whether to be read or re-reread.

Drowning World by Alan Dean Foster, Del Rey, 2/03, $23.95, ISBN 0-345-45035-3

Foster's latest novel of the Commonwealth is a particularly good one.  The planet Fluva endures almost constant rain, and has some of the most fecund and dangerous fauna and flora in the universe.  The native inhabitants are a warrior race recently introduced into the interstellar culture.  The planet is also host to an immigrant race that has grown so populous that the natives resent them and internecine conflict is always a possibility.  When a human prospector goes missing under unusual circumstances, and a mixed race search party disappears while looking for him, the local administrator suspects foul play.  But her resources are tied up in a well orchestrated wave of civil unrest, behind which lies the devious hands, or claws, of the insidious Aann.  Wonderfully rich in detail, well plotted and written, and featuring some of Foster's most interesting characters. 

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King, Scribner, 10/02, $28, ISBN 0-7432-1137-5

There has been considerable mention of Stephen King's recent announcement that he was pretty much done with his writing career and that he wanted to go out before he started rehashing old plots.  As a long standing fan of his work, and particularly after the very rewarding The Green Mile and Bag of Bones, I think he might be seeing a problem that hadn't yet arisen.  On the other hand, his most recent novel is certainly one of his weakest.  The premise is that a state police troop in western Pennsylvania has been secretly hiding a mysterious object which looks something like a Buick, but which is actually a porthole between realities.  Occasionally monstrous things some through it into our world, and occasionally animals and people from our world are sucked into it and disappear forever.  The story is told as a series of retrospective narrations to a teenager whose father died in the line of duty.  There are two significant problems with the novel.  First and most important, the wonderfully realistic characters that fill most of King's other novels are completely absent.  The police officers in this case are virtually interchangeable and I had trouble keeping track of who was whom.  The kid is a sounding board and isn't significant as a character until the final fifty pages.  The two most realistic characters are an obnoxious prisoner who gets sucked into another reality, and the troop's dog, Mister Dillon.  Secondly, there's no success.  Since the story is narrated from years after the fact, we know who lives and who dies.  The creatures that appear die, without exception, within minutes of their arrival, and none of them pose any serious threat to the characters.  There's no empathy and no suspense and even at the end no real surprises.  I'm sure King still has many fine books left to write, but this wasn't one of them.

Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams, Del Rey, 10/02, $25.95, ISBN 0-345-42850-1

Walter Jon Williams has become the latest major SF writer to contribute to the ongoing chronicles of the Star Wars universe.  His contribution is set following the fall of Coruscant to an aggressive alien force, with the Republic on the verge of collapse.  The usual gang of recurring heroes wants to fight on, using the Force as their most powerful weapon, but others in the Republic have decided on a different tactic, one which might result in an outcome just as bad as defeat.  The novel is a space opera and the emphasis is on the physical action, but Williams manages to sneak in some serious speculation about moral choices, their costs, and the way in which people can selectively choose what to believe.  This one's good enough to stand as a distinct novel as well as a chapter in an ongoing series.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, Tor, 1/03, $22.95, ISBN 0-765-30436-8

Cory Doctorow's first novel is decidedly and refreshingly different.  It's the not too distant future, but the world has radically changed.  People routinely record their personalities and, in the event of a fatal accident, upload themselves into cloned bodies in what amounts to immortality.  As you might expect, this changes the way people interact and how society works.  The protagonist has fulfilled a childhood ambition by taking up residence in Disneyland.  Although the attractions there are technically obsolete, a corps of volunteers maintains and restores them as a tribute to the past.  Unfortunately, there's another faction that wants to introduce new attractions, and since death isn't permanent, assassinating the opposition has become a viable if not entirely accepted way to slow down the opposition.  As you might expect, the novel deals with the resolution of the conflict, and even if we can pretty much guess who will be the ultimate winner, it's quite a puzzle how they're going to accomplish that feat.  Cleverly plotted, amusingly written, and always entertaining.  A very fine debut novel from a writer who has already established himself with some excellent short stories.

Circles of Displacement by Darrell Bain, Hard Shell Word Factory, 2002, $10.95, ISBN 0-7599-0575-4

I hadn't realized that Hard Shell was actually publishing its books in bound format, so it was quite a surprise when this turned up in the mail.  The plot is a familiar one, but with an interesting twist.  Several chunks of Texas have been transported into the distant past where they exist near to but separate from each other.  Eventually exploration parties begin to make connections, but unfortunately one of those circles includes a large number of brutal prisoners, who have decided to set themselves up as masters of the "new" world, enslaving the rest, particularly women and minorities.  A workmanlike story follows as the struggle moves back and forth before its ultimate resolution.

The Poison Master by Liz Williams, Bantam, 1/03, $5.99, ISBN 0-553-58498-7

The human race has been to the level of serfs by an alien race known as the Dark Lords on the planet Latent Emanation and elsewhere.  The protagonist is a young woman practicing a form of alchemy on that world when her services are requested by an offworld visitor who specializes in poisons.  Although not actively rebellious, she resents the way they treated her family and  soon finds herself manipulated into joining a secretive plot to overthrow the aliens.  The story is a fast paced adventure with a culture far more interesting and unusual than most portrayed in SF, and her likable and conflicted main character gives the book a definite advantage over its competition.  I liked this much better than her two previous novels, and they were pretty good as well.

The Duke of Uranium by John Barnes, Aspect, 9/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-446-61081-X

Jak Jinnaka is not your ordinary young man.  In a solar system that has been largely colonized, except for Pluto which is held by an intermittently hostile alien race, he's the friend of a young woman who is secretly the daughter of one of the noble families, and when she's kidnapped, he's just the right person to launch a rescue, sort of.  Barnes' new novel is a rollicking space opera with outlaws, space travel, kidnappings, rescues, chases, and the abrupt coming of age of the protagonist.  Not as meaty as his more serious efforts, but quite enjoyable for desert.

Wondrous Beginnings edited by Steven H. Silver and Martin H. Greenberg, DAW, 1/03, $6.99, ISBN 0-7564-0098-8

Damon Knight edited an anthology a few years back that consisted of the first stories of major SF writers.  Interesting ideas have a habit of recurring, and this collection takes that original idea and adds introductions by the authors and brief essays in some cases by other parties.  The authors represented here include L. Sprague de Camp, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Barry Malzberg, Lois McMaster Bujold, Stephen Baxter, Gene Wolfe, George R.R. Martin, and others.  Although the stories generally do not reflect the level of fiction their writers would eventually achieve, they are all competent and interesting and in some cases, most notably De Camp, Hal Clement, and Michael Burstein, the stories are remarkably good for debuts or otherwise. 

The Mighty Orinoco by Jules Verne, Wesleyan University Press, 2/03, $29.95, ISBN 0-8195-6511-3

This is one of the rare Verne adventure novels that never saw an English edition, at least not until now.  The reason for that is explained in the comprehensive notes section that accompanies the text, There's also an excellent bibliography.  The story is about an expedition in South America, and contains all of the adventures you'd expect – hostile natives, crocodiles, villains, troublesome weather, disorientation, and disease.  Illustrations from the French edition are reproduced as well in this longish, occasionally pedantic, but highly adventurous novel.  Fans of Verne should welcome the chance to read a previously unavailable and unknown full length novel.

Martians and Madness by Fredric Brown, NESFA, 11/02, $29, ISBN 1-887668-17-5

I had nostalgic memories of Fredric Brown's fiction for a long time, so about a year ago I re-read virtually his complete SF output, with mixed results.  His short stories, previously collected in an omnibus by NESFA Press, were as good or better than I remembered.  The five novels, collected in this new volume, were more of a mixed bag.  That said, at least four of the five novels here bear re-reading anyway.  What Mad Universe, for example, is still one of the most fascinating alternate world stories, in which a man from our reality finds himself in another where Earth is involved in an interplanetary war.  The Mind Thing is an alien invasion story, with just one alien, but one capable of controlling the minds of living things, one at a time.  Rogue in Space, presented here with the two long stories upon which it is based, is about an alien who becomes fascinated with humans, and Martians Go Home is the strangest, and funniest, alien invasion story ever written.  The one clunker is The Lights in the Sky Are Stars, in which one determined man decides to stir the space program back to life.  It has its moments, but it's not nearly as good as the other four.  An excellent volume, however, and likely to help preserve Brown's well deserved reputation.

Guardian by Joe Haldeman, Ace, 12/02, $22.95, ISBN 0-441-00977-8

I'm not exactly sure what this new novel by Joe Haldeman was intended to be.  Until the closing chapters, it's a fascinating and deftly written story of a woman growing up shortly after the Civil War, finding herself married to an abusive but powerful man, and her subsequent flight across the country with her teenaged son, aided at times by cryptic messages delivered to her by a crow.  Her story is fascinating, the prose is superb, and I was completely drawn into her world.  Eventually she ends up in Alaska and becomes acquainted with a local shaman, and the closing chapters consist of a magical tour of the universe in which shaman and human woman change their physical form magically on each world they visit.  The two portions of the novel seem to me completely mismatched, and the solution to her problems is a metaphorical cat out of the hat magic trick that I found completely unsatisfying.  I'm still going to recommend this, because the first two thirds of the book – though not really fantastic in any sense – are great, but as a fantasy novel, it just doesn't hold together.

Miles Errant by Lois McMaster Bujold, Baen, 9/02, $15, ISBN 0-7434-3558-3

Eternal Frontier by James H. Schmitz, Baen, 9/02, $16, ISBN 0-7434-3559-1

Omnibus volumes continue to be popular, and these are two very good ones.  The first consists of three Miles Vorkosigian adventures, Borders of Infinity, Brothers in Arms, and Mirror Dance.  Although they lack some of the polish of the later books, their enthusiastic and skillful storytelling more than makes up the difference.  At this price, this volume is a real bargain.  The second title combines the late James Schmitz's lesser novel, The Eternal Frontiers, with twenty one short stories, some of which are minor but many of which are just as good now as when I first read them.  With this edition, most of Schmitz's short fiction has now been collected in one form or another, and hopefully that means that his reputation will spread once more.  He was one of my favorite writers when I was first getting hooked on the field, and I'd like to think that great pleasure will be shared with a new generation of readers.  Editors Guy Gordon and Eric Flint have grouped the stories together in related sequences, but they all stand up quite well by themselves.

Seas of Venus by David Drake, Baen, 10/02, $15, ISBN 0-7434-3564-8

This is an omnibus edition of two previously published novels, Surface Action and The Jungle, both set in the world created by Henry Kuttner in his classic novel Fury.  We all know now that Venus is not a jungle planet, but that really doesn't matter.  The premise is that Earth was wiped out by a nuclear war and the only remnants of humanity live in domed cities on Venus.  Unfortunately, conflict among the cities is on the rise and a new war is threatening to break out.  The two novels are essentially about naval warfare, but Drake does a good job of evoking an otherworldly, if somewhat old fashioned, setting and as always, he does a fine job of creating believable and entertaining military SF.

Banshee Screams by Clay & Susan Griffith, Pinnacle Entertainment, 2002, $19.95, ISBN 1-930855-09-5

This very long, episodic novel is set in the world of the Deadlands computer game, which I have not seen.   The premise is a familiar one in the gaming world.  A human colony is cut off on a distant planet and menaced by the local inhabitants, some of whom can use psi powers so great that they are magical or even supernatural, which lets the game designers introduce almost any element they want, while making it difficult for writers to construct novels that follow any really consistent set of rules.  The authors in this case have done a good job of blending all of the chaos into some form of consistency, and while the adventures are necessarily somewhat comic bookish in nature, they have some success in making their characters more than two dimensional, and there are even scenes with genuine tension and suspense.

New York Blues by Eric Brown, Gollancz, 2002, £5.99, ISBN 0-57507-301-2

New York Nights introduced a future America where terrorist attacks have fragmented the infrastructure and easy retreats into virtual reality has shattered the social structure of the nation.  The protagonist is a private detective who specializes in missing persons, and this chronicles his second case.  His newest client is a movie stars whose sister is missing, but in order to find her, he has to immerse himself within a subculture that is unconscionably taking advantage of the public to enrich itself and further drive the country into a self indulgent dead end.  Although everything gets resolved, readers should be aware that this is not an optimistic, action packed adventure but rather a brooding, thoughtful warning about one possible wrong turn our society might take.  Easily as good as its predecessor, and there's a third on its way.

Ebb Tides and Other Tales by Mary Soon Lee, Dark Regions Press, 2002, $12.95, ISBN 1-888993-31-6

Mary Soon Lee has been very quietly building a substantial body of very good short fiction, with appearances everywhere from Interzone to Fantasy & Science Fiction to Pirate Writings.  This is the second collection of her work to appear, both from small presses, and is an even better selection than the first.  There are twenty stories here, four of them original to the book, ranging in quality from quietly enjoyable to quite rewarding, particularly "The Day Before They Came", "Luna Incognita", "Assembly Line", and the title story.  Her stories are more about the people in them than the science or other fantastic element that invades their lives, and their reactions are therefore more believable and more interesting, and occasionally also quite funny.  She has yet to produce a novel or a story so remarkable that it instantly makes her reputation, but the quality of the tales here promises that she's approaching that point very quickly.

The Maquisarde by Louise Marley, Ace, 12/02, $23.95, ISBN 0-441-00976-X

Ebriel Serique is a successful musician in a divided world nearly a century from now.  She lives among the privileged class, believing that those outside are evil and predatory until her family strays across the line and falls victim to terrorists.  Her initial quest for revenge changes, however, when she crosses the border herself and discovers that the reality is much different than the portrait drawn by her government.  The gradual shift in her loyalties is well handled, and the future described is plausible if rather repellent.  Dystopian novels seem to be coming back into style, perhaps a reflection of the current political atmosphere, and while they often leave the reader depressed, in this case it's ameliorated by the fresh plot and Marley's highly entertaining style.

Coyote by Allen Steele, Ace, 11/02, $23.95, ISBN 0-441-00974-3

Allen Steele's latest is very different from his previous work.  The opening section is set in a repressive future America where the extreme right has succeeded at a coup and has built the first starship as a monument to its new ideals.  The captain of that ship is part of a conspiracy that successfully hijacks the starship – shades of Jefferson Airplane – which then takes them in suspended animation to the planet Coyote, which they settle after a variety of problems are overcome.  The novel is very episodic, and there's one particularly good section in which one of the sleepers wakens in mid-voyage and must spend his entire life alone.  There is a saboteur, of course, and some members of the company are not happy with the hijacking, but eventually they realize that it doesn't matter.  For the most part, I found the story very entertaining, but the transitions were sometimes a bit abrupt and it would take me a while to get back into the flow of his narrative.   This wasn't helped by the regular switch back and forth from present tense to past tense, which I found even more distracting.  A bad Allen Steele novel is worth a good one by most other writers, and this isn't a bad one.  But it isn't his best one either.

Touched by Russell Davis, Wildside, 2002, $32.95, ISBN 1-59224-987-6

This first novel has an interesting premise.  The protagonist is an aging man whose dead wife is being held in cryogenic suspension.  As it appears that his own death is drawing near, he is offered a choice.  He can continue to wait in the hope that a method will be found by which she can be revived before his own death, or he can meet her in virtual reality for a single day, after which she will be gone forever.  His choice is complicated by the fact that an investigative reporter believes the whole thing is a hoax, which the reader knows to be the truth because we've seen the Cryogenics people plotting against both of them.  The plot is nicely done, but at times the writing isn't up to it.  I found the dialog often trite and uninteresting, and the villains are so incompetent – particularly in their arrangement of a faked audio tape – that it was hard to believe they ever had a chance to succeed.

Manta's Gift by Timothy Zahn, Tor, 12/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-312-87829-X

I try to read the books I receive more or less in the order I receive them, but there are a few writers who always get bumped to the front of the row.  Timothy Zahn is one of them because he is one of those authors who understands that no matter how sophisticated the writing might be, there has to be a good story underneath or it's all a waste of time.  His latest is set on or around the planet Jupiter.  Human researchers have encountered an intelligent species living on the planet and rightly interpret their presence as evidence that the manta like creatures can migrate from one star system to another.  Humanity is ruled by an elite group of the very rich, who have lately taken a turn toward repression, and who believe that the only way to relieve the pressure is to expand to the stars.  To this end, they contact Matt Rainey, a recent paraplegic with an unusual offer.

It is possible for Rainey to become reborn as one of the aliens, with his human memories intact but in an alien body.  Ostensibly this is to help both species understand one another, but Rainey quickly discovers that the humans want more, specifically the star drive they believe exists, and less quickly that the motives of his hosts aren't all that pure either.  Add into the mix a mini-coup among the elite, Rainey's efforts to fit into a totally alien society, and the power struggle between the original project manager and his overbearing replacement and you have the makings of a topnotch adventure story, filled with unusual characters, strange settings, a puzzling mystery, and an exciting climax.  This is one of those books that has to be on the must read list for all serious SF fans.

Heavy Planet by Hal Clement, Tor, 11/02, $15.95, ISBN 0-765-30368-X

One of the earliest SF novels I read was Mission of Gravity in a battered Pyramid paperback edition.  It was the first novel I'd read with a protagonist that wasn't a human being, and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it.  Of course I did, and the planet Mesklin is one of those so realistically described that it feels like a place I've visited, except I couldn't of course because of its high gravity.  This new omnibus edition reprints the original novel and its sequel, Star Light, plus three short stories with the same setting.  In the first novel, humans work remotely with a local native to retrieve a valuable space probe.  In the second, the inhabitants of Mesklin manipulate their human contacts in order to acquire advanced technology.  These are the kinds of stories for which SF provides a unique home, and they're a unique experience for readers as well.

Light by M. John Harrison, Gollancz, 10/02, 10.99 pounds, ISBN 0-57507-026-9

Here's a book that you'd better pay attention to, because if you're not careful, you'll get completely lost.  Harrison has filled this new work with enough ideas and memorable characters for a shelf full of books.  I'll try a very simplified summary here, but it won't give you a real picture of the depth of the book.  There are several story lines, but two are predominant.  One involves a woman four centuries from now when humanity has spread into the universe, fought an alien race to a draw, and is now fighting internally.  She runs an almost self aware starship and works for the aliens as a sometimes pirate, although she has her own goal in mind, which involves a remarkable piece of technology.  The other story line is contemporary and features a quantum physicist who has a very unique theory about time and predictability of future events, which involves visions, murder, and other bizarre events.  If you want to see how this all works, let Harrison take you on a wild ride through a future unlike any other depicted in SF.

Aces Abroad edited by George R.R. Martin, Ibooks, 2002, $14, ISBN 0-7434-5241-0

Back in the late 1980s, George Martin started a series of mosaic novels, shared world anthologies set in an alternate version of America where an alien infection led to mutations throughout the world.  Some of the results were horribly deformed, known as Jokers, but some ended up with super powers and were dubbed Aces.  Some Aces were good and, alas, some were bad.  I waited avidly for each and every volume when these were appearing, and I still mourn the end of the series.  Now Ibooks has brought the first back into print and hopefully the others will follow and enthrall a new generation of readers.  The contributors include Martin himself, Edward Bryant, Lewis Shiner, Michaell Cassutt,  Melinda Snodgrass, and others.  Although the lineup changed somewhat from book to book, the quality was almost always very very high indeed.

The Essential Howard the Duck Volume One, Marvel, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0831-9

I had a mixed reaction to the Howard the Duck comics when they first appeared, and I find upon re-reading the first couple dozen adventures from the 1970s, collected in black and white in this paperback, that the same feeling persists today.  When he was good, he was very good.  The first few issues, the Star Wars spoof, his encounters with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, even his brief sojourn as a member of the villainous Ringmaster's troupe.  And there are bits and pieces from the others that are memorable – his battles with an oversized pickle, the salt shaker with ape arms, a vampire cow, the space turnip, the gingerbread man, and the crusading intelligent bubble bath.  But other chunks of story line were either just silly or just boring.  His time in the insane asylum, his brief transformation into a human being and the entire sequence where he battles Dr. Bong go on far too long with not enough jokes and not enough story.  It was an unusual breaking of the frame for Marvel, and sometimes it worked, but sometimes it fell horribly flat.

The Plague Doctor by E. Joan Sims, Wildside, 2002, $32.95, ISBN 1-59224-963-9

This is actually a fairly conventional murder mystery, but it has science fictional overtones so it's worth a mention.  The protagonist is a mystery writer whose prospective son in law is accused of a brutal murder.  Her investigation reveals the real culprit, an unbalanced but brilliant man whose secret activities could unleash a new plague on the human race, one that could possibly make humanity extinct.  It's a pretty good murder mystery – kept me guessing until very close to the end – and well written enough to keep me turning the pages.  The SF element is pretty minor though, so read it as a break from the genre even if it technically might fall inside.

The Prisoner by Robert Fairclough, Ibooks, 10/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-7434-5256-9

The Prisoner by Thomas M. Disch, Ibooks, 10/02, $12, ISBN 0-7434-4504-X

The arrival of these two books couldn't have been better because I had just purchased and was halfway through viewing the complete run of the television show, The Prisoner, when it arrived.  The first is a companion book, first published in 1967, how augmented with a DVD that contains two episodes and some additional material.  The program, for those unfamiliar with it, is about a man who resigns from British intelligence and is spirited off to a peculiar community on a remote island where everyone has a number rather than a name.  His battles to escape, avoid telling those in charge what they want to know, and to keep them from brainwashing him was a fascinating if rather short lived series.  The most obvious SF element is the strange globular creatures/machines that are used to prevent the inmates from getting away.  The profusely illustrated guide includes detailed summaries and background information about each episode, plus pieces on the village itself, the novels, and other odds and ends.  The map of the village is particularly helpful.  Ibooks has also reprinted the best of the tie-in novels, and as good as the series was, Disch's novel was even better, and one that deserves better than the long period of unavailability it has experienced.  So here's your chance to experience one of the classic television shows of all time, in more depth than is usually possible.

The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams, Earthlight, 10/02, 17.99 pounds, ISBN 0-7434-6111-8

The Shaa are an immortal alien race whose technology is so advanced that they are able to subjugate the other intelligent races of the galaxy, including humans, and force them to live under a strict and repressive code of behavior designed to prevent any challenge to their authority.  But immortality has its drawbacks, and the Shaa begin to commit suicide, eventually wiping themselves out and leaving a power vacuum in their place.  At first it seems like a chance for freedom for their subject races, but at least one of these has decided to supplant their old masters and carry on as before.  This is the opening volume of a series, so there's not a whole lot of things resolved here, but the set up, though familiar, is well designed, and there's plenty of action.  This is a blend of military SF and political thriller and it harkens back to the old days of grand space opera, delivering the best of both worlds – an old fashioned story with strong literary qualities.

Mind Catcher by John Darnton, Dutton, 8/02, $25.95, ISBN 0-525-94662-4

I enjoyed this author's previous two SF thrillers reasonably well so I was looking forward to this one, but I have a rather ambivalent reaction to it.  On the one hand, it's a reasonably well done thriller; on the other hand, it's extraordinarily predictable, and the characters are so stereotyped that they feel flat and uninteresting except for some portions where the protagonist's grief for his comatose son seems genuine.  The forementioned boy is the subject of an unusual experiment, designed to maintain his body functions by computer management while stem cells from his brain are cultured and regrown outside the body.  But the doctor in charge has been experimenting with transferring information back and forth between human brains and computers, and you can pretty much guess where the story is going from there.  Good enough to be enjoyable if you're not demanding much from your reading, but a bit too formulaic for me to actively recommend it.

Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, NAL, 11/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-451-20717-3

I've been disappointed in the last few alternate histories from Turtledove because I had the feeling he was more interested in presenting anachronisms and working up the background than he was on telling a good story or creating believable characters.  That all changes with this new one, however, which is the author at the top of his form.  The Spanish Armada was not defeated and England is now subject to the king of Spain.  The Inquisition has come to England the people are more or less cowed with the Queen imprisoned and the army defeated.  Just as things seem hopeless, William Shakespeare stirs from his political apathy to create a new play that will stir up trouble, if he dares risk his life by doing so.  Ensuing events prove that the pen really is mightier than the sword.  This story is complete in itself, and it doesn't appear likely that sequels are planned.  But you never know.  We might yet get to see what happens with Spain under English rule.

Probability Space by Nancy Kress, Tor, 9/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-765-30170-9

Nancy Kress brings her trilogy about the war between humans and the Fallers to a close with this exciting chase adventure.  Young Amanda Capelo sees her father kidnapped by parties unknown but probably agents of the repressive human government.  She goes into hiding, attempting to reach Marbet Grant, a trained sensitive.  Unfortunately, she falls into the hands of an opposition group just as violently disposed as the government, and Marbet has in any case left the moon for a return visit to World, the alien planet where she and others found a device that can destroy worlds or even the fabric of space itself.  The machine also provided universal telepathy for the inhabitants of that planet, and their society has crumbled following its removal.  Elsewhere, an aggressive, powerful woman sets out to find her missing son, and doesn't care whose affairs she disrupts in the process.  All of these threads are drawn together for the rousing climax and the end of a fine sequence of original adventure stories.

Alice: The Girl from Earth by Kir Bulychev, translated by John H Costello, Fossicker Press, 2002, $22.94, ISBN 1-40101312-0

Several years ago, MacMillan published a series of translations of Russian SF from the Communist era, some of which were surprisingly good.  There has been little effort to continue that process, even after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Kir Bulychev has been writing through both eras and it's good to see that some of his work is finally reaching American readers.  This second volume of his fiction from Fossicker is a collection of related stories about a young girl's adventures in time travel, with robots, and on other worlds.  They're aimed at younger readers, and are highly regarded in Russia, where several have been filmed.  They're filled with quirky humor, absurd situations, grotesque creatures, and a good natured view of the universe at large.  Read them to your kids, or your neighbor's kids, or just read them for your own enjoyment and remember what it was like to be discovering SF for the first time.  You can order this through Xlibris, or even better, go to www.fossickerbooks.com.  It's also available in a hardcover edition.

Maps by John Sladek, edited by David Langford, Big Engine, 2002, 9.99 pounds, ISBN 1-903468-08-6

I don't know how well Big Engine is being distributed in the US, but it would be a shame if this collection of the late Sladek's uncollected work was to be as unavailable as are several of his previous collections on this side of the Atlantic.  Contained herein are about twenty short stories, plus a large selection of poems, short plays, essays both serious and not very, and miscellaneous writings either alone or in collaboration.  Almost every Sladek story is a small delight, and I'd only read two of these before, so I had an enormously fun time rediscovering one of the few truly genuine humorists the field has ever produced.

The Forge of Mars by Bruce Balfour, Ace, 9/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-441-00954-9

A team of explorers on the planet Mars stumbles onto the remnants of an alien civilization, but the artifacts are dangerous, resulting in the death of those who first discover them.  An unorthodox but brilliant scientist is recruited from Earth to help solve the problem, but he quickly learns that it is more complex than he expected.  Not only must he outwit the traps laid for him, but he must also protect himself from a secretive organization which has located earlier relics, and which hopes to preserve its monopoly on the technology to be found there.  Balfour provides a nice blend of technological mystery and more conventional intrigue, all within a fairly well realized version of Mars.  His protagonist is more introspective than most, which gives us deeper insight into the character and his motivation.

The Essential Marvel Team Up Volume One, Marvel, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0828-9

I always thought the Team Up series from Marvel comics was badly named.  Sure, each issue involved pairings of two superheroes against some array of villains, but it was almost always Spider-Man as one of the pair, and this seemed like a thin excuse to give him a second magazine.  He is in fact half of the team in 23 out of these first 24 issues, and he has a cameo in the other as well.  On the other hand, the combinations were frequently unusual and produced some of the most interesting situations.  So here he is, in black and white alas, paired with the Hulk, Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, the Vision, Iron Man, the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Doctor Strange, along with a handful of other major and minor Marvel characters.  They battle a variety of villains, some times in multi-issue epochs, including Mole Man, A.I.M., the Grey Gargoyle, Kang, Morbius, Sandman, and Annihilus.  There's less than usual of the egomaniacal rivalries that provided an excuse for the heroes to fight each other. 

Farscape: The Illustrated Companion by Paul Simpson and David Hughes, Tor, 9/02, $12.95, ISBN 0-765-30164-4

I have to admit up front that I've never seen an episode of this series, so I'm certainly not the best judge of this companion piece.  It seems fairly comprehensive, covering the entire first season.  There's a very detailed episode guide, a section devoted to each of the main characters, a section on special effects, and a list of unusual words or phrases and their meanings.  The whole thing is profusely illustrated with stills from the show, all in black and white, and the text is occasionally broken by boxes with special quotes.  It all seems quite well done and the series is more complex than I expected, but I wasn't inspired by anything here to actually go out and watch an episode.

Council by Greg Tobin, Forge, 8/02, $25.95, ISBN 0-312-87353-0

This marginal near future novel is the sequel to another, Enclave, which dealt with the elevation of the first American to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church.  The new Pope has some revolutionary ideas about the role of the church in society, and he calls a council of bishops in order to put forward his new agenda.  Understandably, there are powerful forces within the hierarchy that are less than tolerant of any change in the status quo.  Interesting primarily for its detailed description of how things work within the top levels of the church, and only mildly interesting to SF fans.  It's reminiscent of Frederick Rolfe's Hadrian VII.

Resurgence by Charles Sheffield, Baen, 11/02, $24, ISBN 0-7434-3567-2

Charles Sheffield returns to the Heritage Universe for his latest novel.  From various planets a group of investigators is gathered, including a condemned man and an academic, to investigate a peculiar object in space which seems to defy the known laws of physics.  It doesn't take them too long to find out that this is another artifact left over by the mysterious Builders, a race that has vanished from the universe, but the mechanics of that creation are filled with surprises that I can't tell you about here.  The characters are a little flat, probably because Sheffield devoted so much of his attention to unraveling the wonders of his created universe, and he does such a good job at the latter that it's likely you won't notice, or care, that he skimped somewhere else.

Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick, Pantheon, 11/02, $25.95, ISBN 0-375-42151-3

I imagine this new cross collection of Phil Dick's stories is designed to take advantage of the popularity of the film, Minority Report, but we shouldn't really need an excuse to bring his short fiction back into print.  The twenty one stories here include the inspiration for several movies, including Minority Report, Total Recall, and Screamers.  Several of the stories are acknowledged classics, including "The Second Variety", "The Days of Perky Pat", "Foster, You're Dead", "Beyond Lies the Wub", and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".  Dick had a unique perspective on the world that resulted in a substantial body of first rate fiction, and even his lesser stories are usually worthwhile for some oddity of thought or viewpoint.  I wouldn't call this the "best" of Dick, but it's certainly a representative cross section of his shorter work  There's a brief but interesting introducing by Jonathan Lethem as well.

Dark Passage by Junius Podrug, Forge, 10/02, $24.95, ISBN 0-312-87514-2

You really know that science fiction has entered the mainstream when you find a changewar novel that is being marketed as a thriller.  In this intriguing first novel, a window in time opens connecting contemporary New Mexico with the Mideast during the life of Jesus.  The US government doesn't move fast enough to prevent a group of terrorists from traveling back in time, intent upon assassinating Jesus and preventing the rise of Christianity.  So the government recruits an unlikely trio, an actor, an Israeli military officer, and a woman suspected of being a prostitute, and sends them back to thwart the bad guys.  What follows is sometimes predictable, sometimes not, and while some of the rationale for things that occur didn't always convince me, it was in the minor details and didn't really affect my enjoyment of the novel. 

The Mountain Cage and Other Stories by Pamela Sargent, Meisha Merlin, 4/02, $30, ISBN 1-892065-61-4

Pamela Sargent went on my list of authors to watch very early in her career, and she's been there ever since, even though she has not been particularly prolific.  This is a new collection of her work, several stories from which appeared previously in The Best of Pamela Sargent, but much of which is previously uncollected.  She deals with a wide variety of themes here including alternate history, space travel, immortality, psi powers, and other, less familiar territory.  Whatever her subject matter, the thing that is most important in Sargent's stories are the people who give it life.  The best in the collection is "Danny Goes to Mars", but the rest are so uniformly good that it's difficult to mark any as the high points of the collection.  I particularly liked the title story, "Fears", "The Summer's Dust", and "Dream of Venus", and I found the author's afterwords to her stories much more interesting than is usually the case.  There's a trade paperback edition at $16 for those on a budget, so there's no excuse for you to neglect some of the best short fiction of the past several years.

Heris Serrano by Elizabeth Moon, Baen, 8/02, $18, ISBN 0-7434-3552-4

The wave of omnibus volumes from Baen continues with this massive trade paperback collection of Hunting Party, Sporting Chance, and Winning Colors.  Serrano is a female spaceship pilot who is framed and forced to resign her military office and become a civilian spacer, in which role she encounters pirates and others dangers, escorts an aristocrat who is the object of a murder plot, and eventually raises a small, informal spaceborn army in a bid to win back her former position.  Exciting space opera adventures mixed with some military SF. 

Stone by Adam Roberts, Gollancz, 2002, 9.99 pounds, ISBN 0-575-07064-1

The protagonist of this strange space opera is the last criminal in the galaxy, recently sprung from his prison because he is needed to commit the ultimate crime, the murder of an entire world.  While preparations are being made, he goes on a mini-grand tour of the universe, designed to keep him out of trouble until it is time for the big event.  But he has questions of his own.  Who is behind the plot and what is their motivation?  In a universe where humans enjoy great longevity and good health thanks to nanotechnology, why would anyone feel the need to grasp for more?  Roberts' style takes some getting used to because he has an unusual descriptive touch, but once you've made that adjustment, you'll find yourself in a fascinatingly original universe, and following the adventures of a cleverly differentiated character.  Roberts hasn't found a US publisher yet, but I doubt that will last much longer.

Ersatz Nation by Tim Kenyon, Big Engine, 7/02, 9.99 pounds, ISBN 1-903468-07-8

Here's a rather odd first novel.  The ruler of a despotic parallel universe version of Earth has employed an agent to abduct individual from our world for arcane reasons of his own.  His latest order raises questions in his agent's mind, a man who had discovered he likes our reality better than his own.  Elsewhere, a loyal servant of the tyrant questions the order of things following the disappearance of his wife.  There were good bits in this novel, but the story never drew me in, and I didn't develop any fondness for the characters, so that ultimately I didn't care what happened to any of them.  Enough was of interest that I'd try Kenyon's next novel, but not enough to make me recommend this one.

Janus by Andre Norton, Baen, 8/02, $15, ISBN 0-7434-3553-2

I have mixed feelings about this omnibus volume of Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus, both previously published during the 1960s.  On the one hand, it's good to see novels from that period returning to print.  On the other hand, Judgment was the very first Andre Norton novel to disappoint me, and the passage of time hasn't improved my opinion.  It starts well, with a young indentured laborer seeking to fit in on a colony world dominated by religious fanatics, but then he is transformed into one of the original inhabitants of the planet, inheriting foreign memories as well, and the mix of magic and science never worked for me.  The sequel, in which the transformed shapeshifting neo-aliens team up to prevent the outsiders from dominating their planet, is only marginally better. 

The Cosmic Crusaders by John Russell Fearn, Gryphon, 2002, $15, ISBN 1-58250-046-0

Parasite Planet by John Russell Fearn, Gryphon, 2002, $15, ISBN 1-58250-047-9

Gryphon books has been slowly bringing back into print the Golden Amazon series by John Russell Fearn, of which these are the 14^th and 15^th volumes respectively.  I'll say right up front that Fearn was hardly a significant literary figure even in his time, other than by virtue of the volume of his work, but he did have an enthusiasm and sense of wonder that sometimes overcame the shortcomings of his writing and logic.  These two volumes marked a sharp turn in the series, because the protagonist abandoned Earth for a series of adventures on other planets, starting with an encounter with a planet sized brain that has turned to evil.  In the second volume, they visit another planet, one that seems pastoral and peaceful until a mysterious menace begins threatening their lives.  Suspend your disbelief and give your critical values a short vacation and you might find yourself wrapped up in these strange adventures.  Both novels were originally published in magazines during the mid-1950s.

Resurrection by William Latham, Powys Media, 2002, $15, ISBN 0-9677280-1-0

I've never understood why Space 1999 remains so popular.  The science was dreadful, the acting mediocre, the scripts banal, and the premise unbelievable.  But the story of Earth's moon careering around in interstellar space has its fans even today and now, after a gap of many years, someone is doing new novels set in that universe.  The first of these is actually a better story than ever appeared in the television series.  Someone or something is stalking and killing people in Alpha, and no one knows who the next victim will be.  A fairly entertaining mystery even if the setting does defy logic.

Med Ship by Murray Leinster, Baen, 8/02, $7.99, ISBN 0-7434-3555-9

Calhoun of the Med Service was one of my favorite characters when I was first reading SF.  He traveled from planet to planet, solving problems, curing plagues, having adventures, accompanied only by his organic diagnostic device, Murgatroyd the tormal.  This is a collection of many of those stories, including two novels previously published separately as This World Is Taboo and The Mutant Weapon.  They're old fashioned SF adventures, and to a large extent follow a formulaic plot, but it was a good formula and Leinster did a consistent job of turning out entertaining and engrossing adventure stories.  NESFA Press did a fine retrospective of Leinster's short fiction a short while back, but this mass market paperback may do an even better job of introducing Leinster to a new generation of readers.

Nightmare by Steven Harper, Roc, 10/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-451-45898-2

This is the second novel in the "Silent Empire" series, set in a familiar future interstellar society which has become disparate in nature and frequently barbaric.  Kendi Weaver is a young boy with extraordinary telepathic powers, powers which enable him to enter the dreams of others.  He is rescued from slavery by a secretive organization which takes him to a remote planet where he can be protected and raised among others of his kind, but the refuge turns out to be anything but safe.  A serial killer is on the loose, and Kendi's abilities will prove instrumental in tracking him down.  The mystery/suspense element didn't work for me, but the background society was interesting and Harper continues to do a good job with characterization. 

Cretaceous Sea by Will Hubbell, Ace, 10/02, $6.50, ISBN 0-441-00989-1

Rick Clements has been trained to study dinosaurs through examination of fossils, and he doesn't believe that time travel is possible.  That makes him skeptical when he is approached by agents of an organization that is sending people back through time to study them at first hand.  The chance is too good to miss and, despite the secrecy that shrouds the project, he agrees to be recruited for a journey back.  But their efforts to find out just what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct backfires when they find themselves trapped just as the meteor strike is about to occur, and in great danger of becoming extinct right along with the dinosaurs.  A nicely told  story with a couple sections that moved a bit slowly but nothing to seriously interfere with your enjoyment of a clever, old fashioned time travel adventure.

Time Past by Maxine McArthur, Aspect, 5/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-446-60964-1

New author McArthur's follow up to Time Future takes a very different turn.  In the first volume, which was a kind of cross between C.J. Cherryh and Babylon 5, Commander Halley of the orbiting space station Jocasta had to deal with an enigmatic alien blockade of the station.  In the sequel, Jocasta is about to become independent and totally neutral when she is caught in the backlash of a captured alien stardrive and carried back through time to the previous century.  There she is trapped unless she can find a way to return to her original time.  When a friend shows up, having followed her through time, she thinks the solution is at hand, but she has also learned things about the contact between humans and aliens that alters her appreciation of the situation in her original present.  The sequel has a totally different feel from the first book and caught me slightly off guard in my expectations, but once I'd adjusted, I found the author's portrayal of the complex human-alien situation intriguing and, more importantly, entertaining.

Memories End by James Luceno, Del Rey, 7/02, $6.99, ISBN 0-345-44471-X

The opening volume of the Web Warriors series is one of those rarities, a novel you can read through in one sitting.  The protagonists are two tech savvy brothers named Tech and Marz, and their occasional employer, a detective named Felix McTurk.  The two are orphans and experts at exploring virtual reality, but when they hack into the EPA site, they may have bitten off more than they can virtually chew.  Someone is manipulating programming behind the scenes, and the on line adventure is about to get a good deal more personal, and dangerous.  There's nothing really new here, but Luceno delivers a good if somewhat predictable adventure story.

Draco by Ian Watson, Black Library, 9/02, $6.95, ISBN 0-7434-4318-7

I'm not really fond of those novels which mix space travel and magic, but occasionally there are exceptions.  This is the opening volume of the Inquisitor War series, originally published in 1990, which was probably the best subseries in the Warhammer universe.  Humanity has spread throughout the stars, but it has discovered that supernatural powers and entities are real, and they inhabit the galaxy as well.  The protagonist is a government official of sorts who discovers an insidious plot and risks being branded a traitor in order to fight against it.  Watson imbues his story with an intricate background that almost makes the contradictions of magic and science work, and there's some nasty villainy and insidious plotting to hold the reader's interest.  I've always enjoyed Watson's mainstream SF work, and while this doesn't have its sights set quite as high, it's every bit as entertaining.

The Avengers Volume 3, Marvel, 2002, $14.95, ISBN 0-7851-0787-8

The third omnibus volume of old Avengers comics covers a period in which the membership of the group of superheroes changed almost with every issue.  Hercules is gone, Captain America is mostly on leave of absence along with the original crew, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have been lured off by Magneto and are sulking.  The Panther leaves his home in Africa to join, and the Vision – an android created by the villainous robot Ultron 5 – has changed his ways and become a member.  Goliath has a mental breakdown and becomes Yellowjacket briefly, then decides to keep that identity, but Hawkeye borrows the growth pills and becomes Goliath in his place.  There are the usual crossovers with the X-Men, the original Avengers, the new Black Knight, and an unusual one involving Doctor Strange.  They travel through time and create an alternate world in which the original Avengers are corrupted and destroy all the other superheroes, and they battle the usual assortment of villains including Ultron 6, Egghead, the Mad Thinker, the Ringmaster, Magneto, and even a pair of giants from Norse mythology.  They're a bit flat because the color hasn't been reproduced, but there's certainly plenty of action and unexpected twists in this volume.

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds, Gollancz, 2002, 17.99 pounds,  ISBN 0-575-06879-5

Reynolds' third major novel contains enough story for an entire series, but let's see if I can manage to give you an idea of the complexity without making it sound too confusing.  Humans have expanded to numerous star systems and have begun to differentiate themselves.  There is currently a war being fought between the Cojoiners, who have implants that allow them to share consciousness to a limited extent, and another group more like conventional humans.  Civilization has been dealt a heavy blow by the melding plague, which attacks humans as well as machines, and which destroyed much of the infrastructure of human civilization, particularly on the planet Yellowstone and throughout its orbiting colonies.  Resurgam is a planet with a small population, under a quarter of a million, governed rather autocratically and facing rebellion led by a man who wants to abandon the planet.

That's the general background.  Now the new elements.  Ancient alien machines have discovered the Resurgam colony, and are disassembling entire worlds to build a weapon with which to exterminate humankind as part of their ongoing campaign to cull intelligent species from the galaxy.  Elements within the government of Resurgam want to co-opt the rebel leader because evacuation seems necessary.  But they are also aware of a collection of superweapons concealed on an orbiting starship, weapons which might be able to stop the alien machines.  But there are problems because the weapons are controlled by a possibly insane man who has physically merged with the starship thanks to the melding plague.  The weapons are also sought by Skade, a member of the secretive inner circle of the Cojoiners, a woman who may have become host to yet another alien intelligence.  Her plotting alarms Nevil Clavain, a fellow Cojoiner, who defects and seeks to gain control of the weapons in order to prevent her from doing so.  Both parties have access to some revolutionary technological advances, and Skade is able to communicate to a limited extent with the distant future, which gives her some obvious advantages.

There's a whole lot more going on in this rich, epic novel, set in the same universe as Revelation Space and Chasm City and featuring some of the same characters.  Reynolds is clever and inventive and juggles his varied plots so deftly that the reader doesn't realize how complex matters have become until the book is set aside and he or she tries to mentally summarize what has just been read.  The gift of making the complex seem simple is a rare one, as it the author's talent for creating an utterly alien but entirely believable universe.  This is for fans of Vernor Vinge and Dan Simmons and for anyone who still has a sense of wonder capable of being stimulated.

The Collected Stories of Greg Bear by Greg Bear, Tor, 10/02, $29.95, ISBN 0-765-30160-1

It's probably a sign that I'm getting old, but I still think of Greg Bear as a relatively new writer, so it struck me as rather odd to see a retrospective collection.  Then I checked the copyrights and realized he'd been writing for twenty years and felt even older.  In any case, this is a topnotch selection of stories that includes the basis for the novel Blood Music plus two other short novels, and  all of his significant (to date anyway) short fiction.  Most of the stories have been previously collected, but those earlier volumes are out of print, and the stories are good enough that they should certainly remain available for the current generation of readers.  At just over six hundred pages, this is a real find for those who haven' t already read Bear's short fictions, and equally attractive to those who want to reacquaint themselves with some of the best SF of the past two decades.

Deuces Down edited by George R.R. Martin, Ibooks, 2002, $23, ISBN 0-7434-4505-8

Several years back, George R.R. Martin edited the Wild Cards series, set in an alternate universe where an alien virus causes widespread mutations on Earth.  Some of those affected became superheroes, or Aces, and some were just deformed and became known as Jokers.  In between were the Deuces, those individuals with unusual powers which weren't quite impressive enough to make them into crimefighters.  This brand new collection concentrates on the Deuces, and brings back some of the writers who made the earlier series so successful.  The stories involve the first flight to the moon, a baseball player with unusual powers, jokers as movie extras, an amusing reprise of King Kong featuring a mutant ape, and the best of the selection, two stories set in Jokertown by Daniel Abraham and Kevin Andrew Murphy.  The remaining stories are by Medlina Snodrass, Michael Cassutt, John J. Miller, Walton Simons, and Stephen Leigh, and they're all enjoyable.  My only cavil is that there are only peripheral references to the major characters from the earlier series, so it didn't quite satisfy my nostalgic yearnings.

Vossoff and Nimmitz by Adam-Troy Castro, Wildside, 2002, $32.95, ISBN 1-58715-292-4

The SF equivalent of the buddy movie is the story in which two variably competent heroes, often in a spaceship, confront a problem and either solve it or find themselves in hot water.  Adam-Troy Castro poked fun at this form with a series of short stories in the late lamented SF Age featuring Vossoff and Nimmitz, two incompetent interstellar thieves who managed to end each adventure in the hottest of hot water.  This is a collection of those stories, including some unpublished material, and it's a genuine hoot.  See what happens when they adopt an extinct species of odiferous plants, or their adventures on a planet designed to support exactly two inhabitants, or what happens when they run into a starship shaped like a bunny rabbit.  Follow them when they discover that fat is a universal constant, or into a human race, or in a campaign to stop a revolution inside a man's liver.  There's even a spoof of Babylon 5.  Take my word for it – these are very funny stories, and writing good humorous SF isn't as easy as you might think.

Conrad's Time Machine by Leo Frankowski, Baen, 9/02, $24, ISBN 0-7434-3557-5

Frankowski returns to familiar territory with a different twist this time, presenting us with a prequel to the Conrad Stargard books.  Three brilliant entrepreneurs are determined to develop their discovery into a working time machine, but they have problems – everything from differences of opinion to financing woes.  Over the course of years, they move their operation from one location to another, resolve their differences, create the time machine, and eventually use it to enrich themselves and have other adventures.  It's a sometimes amusing background piece to the main series, but as a novel it just didn't work for me.  The episodes were not sufficiently entertaining in themselves, and the overall plot didn't grip me at all.  It was probably not helped by the fact that I really didn't like the characters at all.  Their cavalier attitude toward robbing others to finance their obsession struck a raw nerve.  The overall tone is of light humor, and sometimes that works, but other times it fell flat.   In general I like Frankowski's work, but I'd have to call this one a mildly amusing failure.

The Magician by Colin Wilson, Hampton Roads, 2002, $21.95, ISBN 1-57174-280-8

This is the third volume in a series of reprints of Colin Wilson's series about an Earth conquered by a race of alien intelligent spiders.  The conquest altered when Niall, a human, proved to have mental powers sufficient to cause the conquerors to accept humans as equals.  A new society has evolved, an uneasy one in which the two species share the planet, but that equilibrium has come into question.  Someone is committing a series of murders apparently designed to undermine the stability of