New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

The shelves are overflowing with exciting new titles from Eric Van Lustbader, Alan Dean Foster, Michael Reaves, R.A. Salvatore, Michelle West, Irene Radford, Steve Aylett, Eugene Byrne, Barry Hoffman -- plus a new Elric novel from Michael Moorcock, a new Discworld novel from Terry Pratchett, and plenty more.

Books are listed alphabetically by author. Only books received are noted. Where available, links to SF Site reviews and book excerpts are provided.

New Arrivals: 15 - 30 April 2001
Part I

Andy White

Only an Alligator: Accomplice Book One
Steve Aylett
Victor Gollancz (trade, 224 pages, £9.99 UK)
Publication date: 19 April 2001
First book in a new series from the author of Slaughtermatic and Atom. "Accomplice is the Wonderland of a sick Alice. In this self-contained, less than comfortable city the surreal and the nightmarish are everyday. This is a world of casual, accepted insanity. It is a world where you might well find an alligator caught in the nerve wires of a creepchannel. Or run afoul of the demon Sweeney, bored with his diet of bland souls. You might even find yourself supporting Doomed Eddie Gallo in the eternal mayoral election race. But hey! Weirder things have happened, right?"

Chris Moore

Blood Music
Greg Bear
Gollancz, SF Masterworks #40 (trade, 270 pages, £6.99 UK)
Publication date: 12 April 2001
An obvious choice for the Masterworks series, this novel is Bear's 1985 visionary classic of genetic engineering. "Virgil Ulam is a maverick researcher working on biochips which will use DNA as a means of information processing. Ignoring guidelines for genetic research, he goes further, producing intelligent cellular matter which can outperform laboratory rats. On being found out and ordered to destroy the experiment, he injects himself with some of the culture, and walks out carrying a seed which will develop far beyond the limits of his brilliant but blinkered imagination."

Chris Moore

New York Nights
Eric Brown
Gollancz (mass market reprint, 327 pages, £6.99 UK/$9.99 Can)
Publication date: 2 April 2001
This novel is set in a gritty, near-future Manhattan. Terrorism and nuclear mishaps have rendered much of the Eastern Seaboard unfit to live in, making New York City a mecca for the indigent and the lost. At the same time, it's still a centre of money and power, and as much a party town as it ever was. In this edgy, overcrowded, vibrant environment, Hal Halliday and his partner Barney Kluger run a detective agency that specializes in missing persons.

Review by Victoria Strauss.

Things Unborn
Eugene Byrne
Earthlight (mass market original, 421 pages, £6.99 UK)
Publication date: 19 April 2001
This satiric novel is the latest from the author of the BSFA Award-nominated ThiGMOO. "Some claimed that the Atom War of 1962 had caused the dead to be reborn... Now in 2008, new plots are laid against the government and the king -- Richard of Gloucester, Shakespeare's hunchback murderer, who is building his nest egg by writing his memoirs. Inspector Scipio Africanus and his police colleagues must guard against those who would change Britain to a repressive society where they would be the only power."

Michael Whelan

Chanur's Legacy
C.J. Cherryh
DAW (mass market reprint, 416 pages, $6.99 US/$9.99 Can)
Publication date: May 2001
This is a tale of interstellar politics and adventure, first published in 1992. It follows The Pride of Chanur (1982), Chanur's Venture (1984), The Kif Strike Back (1985) and Chanur's Homecoming (1986).

Isaac Asimov's Father's Day
edited by Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams
Ace (mass market original, 246 pages, $5.99 US/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: May 2001
"From the pages of Asimov's Science Fiction -- today's most creative minds explore the fierce, fragile bond between fathers and their children..." Stories from Brian C. Coad, Thomas M. Disch, James Patrick Kelly, Jonathan Lethem, Ian R. MacLeod, Danith McPherson, Robert Reed, Pamela Sargent, and Harry Turtledove.

Judy York

The Forbidden Land: Book Four of The Witches of Eileanan
Kate Forsyth
Roc (mass market reprint, 408 pages, $6.99 US/$9.99 Can)
Publication date: May 2001
Sequel to The Witches of Eileanan (Book 1), The Pool of Two Moons (Book 2) and The Cursed Towers (Book 3).

Jerry Vanderstelt

Interlopers
Alan Dean Foster
Ace (mass market original, 316 pages, $6.99 US/$9.99 Can)
Publication date: May 2001
"Upset stomachs. The collapse of civilizations. Nervous breakdowns. Blame them on a twist of fate, but archaeologist Cody Westcott knows differently. Something is causing these random acts of badness. Something ancient, something evil, something... hungry."

Lisa Desimini

Dead Until Dark
Charlaine Harris
Ace (mass market original, 264 pages, $5.99 US/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: May 2001
Contemporary humorous fantasy/vampire mystery. "Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of 'disability.' She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill." He's perfect for her in every way -- except that he's a vampire.

Orphans of the Sky
Robert A. Heinlein
Victor Gollancz SF Collectors' Edition (trade, 187 pages, £9.99 UK)
Publication date: 19 April 2001
In 1941, Astounding Science Fiction published Heinlein's novella "Universe" and its sequel, "Common Sense." In 1963, the author modified both and published them together as Orphans of the Sky. Gollancz is making this book available once again in the classic yellow jacket; in the US, a handsome hardcover edition is currently available from Stealth Press.

Harry O. Morris

Judas Eyes
Barry Hoffman
Edge Books, Gauntlet Press (cloth hardcover, 420 pages, $24.95 US/$37.95 Can)
Publication date: April 2001
Sequel to Hungry Eyes and Eyes of Prey. In the first novel of this series, Hungry Eyes, Shara Farris "had become a bounty hunter to quell the demons that rage within her. She stalks legally with no desire to kill. In Judas Eyes Farris' prey is Mica Swann, in many ways a kindred spirit. Mica is on a killing spree and Shara accepts a private bounty to bring her to ground. A psychic connection allows Shara to peer into Mica's mind and in hunting Mica, Shara gains life-altering insight about herself."

Timeshift
Phillip Ellis Jackson
AmErica House (trade, 211 pages, $19.95 US)
Publication date: 31 December 2000
This SF novel can be read as a stand-alone book or as the first in a time-travel trilogy. "The year is 2416. Mankind is slowly coming to terms with the terrifying reality that as a race, it is moving toward extinction. 350 years earlier the country divided into two cooperative, but separate nations -- the East and West United States. A brief nuclear exchange involving remnants of the old Soviet empire gave rise to a deadly new life form -- a toxic, self-replicating, indestructible 'ash'. At first the appearance of this strange new byproduct of the nuclear war appeared harmless, but with each new mutation it grew deadlier to all forms of carbon-based life..."

The Mask and the Sorceress: Book Two of The House of Pandragore
Dennis Jones
HarperCollins EOS (hardcover, 464 pages, $25 US)
Publication date: April 2001
Second book of the trilogy that began with The Stone and the Maiden. In this installment of the epic of The House of Pandragore, "Theatana, the mad, exiled princess of the Ascendancy break[s] free from her island prison and mak[es] her way to an ancient kingdom across the sea. There, she plots revenge on her hated sister and brother-in-law, who now rule the Ascendancy in peace.... If Theatana can find a way to harness the powers of life and death of the fabled Mask of the Adversary, the kingdom and everything in it will be hers alone..."

Review by Jeri Wright of The Stone and the Maiden.

Janny Wurts & Don Maitz

The Wandering Fire: Book Two of The Fionavar Tapestry
Guy Gavriel Kay
Roc (trade reprint, 376 pages, $13.95 US)
Publication date: May 2001
Re-publication of Kay's 1986 novel, second in the Fionavar trilogy. "A mage's power has brought 5 university students from our world into a realm where an ancient evil has freed itself from captivity to wreak revenge on its enemies..."

The Eye of the Queen
Phillip Mann
Victor Gollancz SF Collectors' Edition (trade, 265 pages, £9.99 UK)
Publication date: 19 April 2001
First published in 1982. "When the Pe-Ellians came, it was the legendary founder of the Contact Linguistics Institute, Marius Thorndyke, they asked for. And Thorndyke, the foremost contact linguistic on Earth, willingly returned to Pe-Ellia at their request. He was a veteran of contacts with other alien species but they had always been technologically inferior to Earth. The Pe-Ellians were different: they clearly came from a very advanced civilization: a civilization that understood the power of thought."

The Saints of the Sword: Book Three of Tyrants and Kings
John Marco
Victor Gollancz (608 pages, hardcover £17.99 UK; trade £9.99 UK)
Publication date: 19 April 2001
This novel concludes the Tyrants and Kings saga, begun in The Jackal of Nar and continued in The Grand Design. "There was nothing Biagio, Emperor of Nar, would not do to gain power. Now he wants peace. The irony is that no one believes him. Instead, the cruellest of his minions -- Elrad Leth, Governor of Aramoor, and King Tassis Gayle of Talistan -- are massing an army to usurp his throne. But the wily Biagio has one more desperate plan..."

Review by Trent Walters of The Grand Design.

Review by Victoria Strauss of The Jackal of Nar.

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