As for my own reading lately, here are two titles I can heartily recommend...

• Effendi: The Second Arabesk by Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Earthlight, hc, 376 pages, summer 2002, UK)
     Ashraf Bey is now the Chief of Detectives in North Africa's most modern city, El Iskandryia. And this is rather ironic when you consider that he's still on the run from both the cops and the thugs back in the US. But even his new position can't protect him and the people he cares about from terrorists, spies, diplomats and ghosts from the past...
     Effendi is the second in the trilogy, and at least as good as the first book, Pashazade. Grimwood is a first class writer. He has created fascinating characters with complex histories and motivations, an intriguing alternate future and a tight story. So far, the first and second books in the series have each been fairly self-contained, although the development is such that you learn enough new information in the second book that certain things you wondered about in the first book finally click into place. Highly recommended.
  SF Site Review

• Transmetropolitan, Book 7: Spider's Thrash by Warren Ellis, Darick Robertson & Rodney Ramos (Vertigo, graphic novel, 144 pages, 2002, USA & Canada)
     Speculative fiction often operates by taking a concept or a current trend and speculating where it might go, if taken to extremes. It usually doesn't try to predict the future so much as to provide a hint of warning. Transmetropolitan is speculative satire. It operates by taking the world we live in today and showing it right back to us, but in a way we may not want to recognize. Spider Jerusalem is a sort of cyberpunk Hunter S. Thompson, living in a politically corrupt and morally bankrupt world of media-overload. And if more journalists were like Spider Jerusalem, maybe I'd read a newspaper once in a while.

(Books are listed alphabetically by author. Only books received are noted.)

Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3 by Robert Bloch, edited by David J. Schow
Subterranean Press (hc, 283 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 1 January 2003, USA
SF Site Review of Hell on Earth: The Lost Bloch, Volume 2

The Devil You Know by Poppy Z. Brite
Subterranean Press (hc, 200 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 3 February 2003, USA

Songmaster by Orson Scott Card
Orb, Tom Doherty Associates (trade, 348 pages)
Publication date: 17 December 2002, USA & Canada
   First published in 1978, and now for the first time in trade paperback.

The Bastard King: The Scepter of Mercy, Book 1 by Dan Chernenko
Roc (trade, 448 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 4 March 2003, USA & Canada

The Queen's Gambit by Deborah Chester
Ace (mm, 460 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada

Hidden Truth by Dawn Cook
Ace (mm, 359 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   Sequel to First Truth.

Beyond Flesh edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
Ace (mm, 260 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   Themed anthology with stories from Poul Anderson, Greg Egan, Pat Cadigan, Michael Swanwick, Robert Reed, Michael Cassutt, Ian R. MacLeod, Geoffrey A. Landis, Stephen Baxter, Paul J. McAuley.

A Handful of Coppers by Charles de Lint
Subterranean Press (hc, 325 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 3 February 2003, USA
   First volume of the author's early stories, "including many unpublished and uncollected stories."

Stealing the Elf-King's Roses by Diane Duane
Warner Aspect (mm, 401 pages)
Publication date: November 2002, USA & Canada

GermLine by Nelson Erlick
Forge, Tom Doherty Associates (hc, 400 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): January 2003, USA & Canada

Murder in LaMut: Legends of the Riftwar, Book 2 by Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg
Voyager, HarperCollins (trade, 324 pages)
Publication date: 2 December 2002, UK

Shadow of the Storm by Kurt R.A. Giambastiani
Roc (mm, 368 pages) 
Publication date (forthcoming): 4 March 2003, USA & Canada

Smallville: Dragon by Alan Grant
Warner Aspect (mm, 256 pages)
Publication date: November 2002, USA & Canada
   An original novel, based on the TV show, about the early days of Clark Kent.

Pharaoh Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Brittiany A. Koren
DAW (mm, 320 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   An anthology of original tales of fantasy based on ancient Egypt, from Tanya Huff, Jody Lynn Nye, Jane Lindskold, Rosemary Edghill, Josepha Sherman, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Bill McCay, Brendan DuBois, Fiona Patton, Laura Resnick, Susan Sizemore, Alan Dean Foster.

Guardian by Joe Haldeman
Ace (hc, 231 pages)
Publication date: 3 December 2002, USA & Canada

The Valdemar Companion edited by John Helfers & Denise Little
DAW (trade, 487 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   The authorized guide to Mercedes Lackey's world of Valdemar, with an original novella by Lackey.

The Marked Man Omnibus by Charles Ingrid
DAW (mm, 542 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   Includes the novels The Marked Man (1989) and The Last Recall (1991).

Crusade of Fire: Mystical Tales of the Knights Templar edited by Katherine Kurtz
Warner Aspect (mm, 286 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
   Anthology of original tales of the Knights Templar from Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris, Susan Shwartz, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, Richard Woods, Robert Reginald, Scott MacMillan, Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald.
SF Site Review of On Crusdade: More Tales of the Knights Templar

The Maquisarde by Louise Marley
Ace (hc, 387 pages)
Publication date: 3 December 2002, USA & Canada

Come Fygures, Come Shadowes by Richard Matheson
Gauntlet Press (hc, 144 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 15 February 2003, USA

Broken Angels by Richard Morgan
Gollancz (hc & trade, 400 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 20 March 2003, UK

The Truest Power by Rebecca Neason
Warner Aspect (mm, 463 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada

The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales for Grownups by Richard Parks
Obscura Press (trade, 270 pages)
Publication date: 2002, USA

Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds
Golden Gryphon Press (trade, 84 pages)
Publication date: September 2002, USA
   Signed, numbered limited edition, available directly from the publisher (www.goldengryphon.com).

The Delphinus Chronicles by R.G. Roane
Cherry Hill Publishing (hc, 280 pages)
Publication date: October 2002, USA
   The world's most powerful supercomputer learns to communicate with humans... and with dolphins.

Doom's Break: Arna, Book 3 by Christopher Rowley
Roc (mm, 442 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada

Redshift edited by Al Sarrantonio
Roc (mm, 667 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada
SF Site Review

Colonel Rutherford's Colt by Lucius Shepard
Subterranean Press (hc, 175 pages)
Publication date (forthcoming): 3 February 2003, USA

MechWarrior, Dark Age: Ghost War by Michael A. Stackpole
Roc (mm, 295 pages)
Publication date: December 2002, USA & Canada

Smallville: Strange Visitors by Roger Stern
Warner Aspect (mm, 287 pages)
Publication date: October 2002, USA & Canada
   Another original novel based on the TV show.

The Prize in the Game by Jo Walton
Tor, Tom Doherty Associates (hc, 253 pages)
Publication date: 23 December 2002, USA & Canada

To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts
Voyager, HarperCollins (hc, 483 pages)
Publication date: 2 December 2002, UK

Magazines

Analog, February 2003, USA & Canada
Contributors to this issue include: Rajnar Vajra, Stephen L. Burns, Maya Kaathryn Bonhoff, Brian Plante, Wolf Read.

Asimov's, February 2003, USA & Canada
Contributors to this issue include: Eliot Fintushel, Stephen Baxter, Jim Grimsley, Simon Ings, Michael Bateman, Karen Traviss, and poetry from Joe Haldeman and Steven Utley.

Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2003, USA & Canada
Contributors to this issue include: R. Garcia y Robertson, Laird Barron, Jack O'Connell, Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Coleman Finlay, Sheila Finch, Arthur Porges, James Sallis.