Atmosphere by Michael Laimo
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Ever glare over your shoulder at the ghostly notes leaking out of some jerk's earphones and roll your eyes at their choice of music? No matter how old you are or to what your own tastes lean, you know you've done it. And if you're among the billions who just don't get what people see in trance? Then you can really relate. Mindless, some call it. Endlessly repetitive? Maybe so (okay, definitely so), but what if there is something between those monotonous tones. What if the rest of us just can't hear it?

Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake
reviewed by Matthew Hughes
It is a defensible proposition that the job of a fiction author has two parts: first, create characters that the reader can care about; second, put those characters through hell. In this foray into the New Weird, the Campbell Award-winning author takes on the job with gusto and no small measure of fantastical invention, creating flawed yet interesting characters then giving them a prolonged and thorough roasting, with liberal bastings of irony and pity.

Rocket Science by Jay Lake
reviewed by Matthew Hughes
Set in a Kansas small town just after the end of World War II, the story has the feel of one of those Heinlein-Asimov adventures from the Golden Age. Vernon Dunham is a sensitive young man, the son of the town drunk, who was kept out of the war by the damage done during a childhood bout with polio. But his lifelong best (and only) friend -- that girl-chasing good ol' boy, flamboyant Floyd Bellamy -- has not only been to see the elephant but has come back from the Battle of the Bulge with a Nazi half-track full of radar tracking gear and what he thinks is an experimental airplane that is centuries ahead of the times.

Greetings from Lake Wu by Jay Lake
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
The danger with many collections is that, when one spends so much time exclusively with one author, one becomes aware of similar themes, frequently used tropes, sometimes obviously favorite plot devices that get repeated. Even if one is fond of the author's work, sometimes collections can be a little like eating one's way through a box of the same kind of candy. The breadth of his interests and his authorial skill avoids this pitfall, even for the reviewer who rereads the entire collection in a couple of sittings.

Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic edited by Claude Lalumière
reviewed by Kit O'Connell
From this American's perspective, Montreal has always seemed to be one of Canada's cultural hotbeds. In his introduction to the anthology, the editor explains that within that city is a dedicated group of science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors many of whom write primarily in the English language. it introduces us to twelve up and coming authors, most with only a few story publications to their name. In fact, some of the best stories come from the authors with the fewest credits on their bio.

Open Space edited by Claude Lalumière
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Canada is a vast land, comprised of ten provinces and three territories and covering nearly 10 million square kilometers, it is the second largest nation on Earth. It would be silly to assume that Canadian science fiction was any more homogenous than the science fiction of its southern neighbor. In this anthology, the editor has selected twenty-one Canadian science fiction authors and allowed them to demonstrate the breadth of Canadian science fiction.

Witpunk edited by Claude Lalumière and Marty Halpern
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
No doubt about it. No matter where you live in this world, now is not a time supplying you with big laughs. Dread, resignation, and anger, maybe, but not the chuckles you really need to take your mind off (insert relevant impending doom here). The editors couldn't help but notice and they've come to your rescue with a literary tweak. Whatever your complaint, there is something in this anthology that will make it all better -- for a time, at least.

Witpunk edited by Claude Lalumière and Marty Halpern
reviewed by Rich Horton
The editors open this book by recalling a question that came up in an online forum in 2001: "When did reading SF stop being fun?" They object to the implication that SF is no longer fun to read, and this anthology addresses one area of "fun": humourous SF, or more specifically, "sardonic" SF. The book assembles 26 stories, 15 reprints, one revision of an earlier story, and 10 brand new pieces. Are they all funny?

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
reviewed by David Soyka
This short story collection is quite inexplicably classified as juvenile fiction. Though the author is perhaps closer to Angela Carter (to whom she is often compared) than Ray Bradbury, they do share the same strange landscapes just once removed from everyday reality, frequently seen through the eyes of an adolescent narrator, or involving an adolescent protagonist. But, like Bradbury, the subject matter is hardly limited to adolescence and one suspects that those who consider this "juvenile" fiction "safe" for younger readers probably haven't read it.

White Time by Margo Lanagan
reviewed by Trent Walters
She was finalist for the Ditmar (Australia's Hugo, more or less), shortlisted for the Convenor's Award, shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Award, eight-time finalist and one-time winner of the Aurealis. Peter McNamara selected her story "White Time" as one of the ten best stories in the past decade of Australian speculative fiction for his Wonder Years collection. The University of Canterbury graduate-level course on young adult literature lists her novel, Touching Earth Lightly, as a required text alongside Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. You've heard of her, haven't you?

Impact Parameter and other Quantum Realities by Geoffrey A. Landis
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
This author is a rare breed in the world of SF, a writer with a strong background in science and an almost tragic sense of romance. The author knows his physics, but he also knows that the best way to approach the world of science is through the human heart. And he has created characters that will stay with you long after the story has finished.

We, Robots by Sue Lange
reviewed by David Soyka
Avey, the robot narrator, is built in the Asimov mold, with an appearance more in keeping with gadget-looking R2-D2 than the anthropomorphic C-3PO, but updated to the eve of the Singularity, the event when machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence. To ensure their subservient status despite their superior intellect, robots are retrofitted with a "safety feature" that provides them, for the first time, with the sensation of pain.

The End of Harry Potter? by David Langford
reviewed by Nathan Brazil
As the climax of the Harry Potter series approaches, so the twittering about what J.K. Rowling has planned gets louder. Somebody, somewhere, has probably worked it out correctly. But until readers know for sure, guessing is a lot of fun. Such has been the impact of the series that it's easy to believe people will buy any old cobblers, if it has the boy wizard's name on the front.

Up Through an Empty House of Stars by David Langford
reviewed by Martin Lewis
This book is a composite of his reviews, essays and other pieces from 1980 up to his review of China Miéville's The Scar from September 2002. The collection is predominantly made up of reviews (from publications such as Vector, Foundation, The New York Review of Science Fiction) and covers an eclectic selection of books. This is because, rather than attempting to present a Great Books theory of the last two decades of SF, it gives us the grab bag of the professional reviewer.

The Leaky Establishment by David Langford
reviewed by Rich Horton
This novel, it should be mentioned, is not strictly speaking SF, though it is fiction about science. It is more generally in the comic tradition of such writers as Kingsley Amis. The story features Roy Tappen, a cynical scientist at NUTC, a fictional British nuclear center. By mistake, he manages to smuggle a warhead out of the place, and takes it home. When he finds it he realizes he needs to take it back, but security has been tightened, and he can't just waltz back in with it.

Troll Fell by Katherine Langrish
reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer
When Peer's father died, the last thing the twelve-year-old expected was to have an uncle lay claim to him. Demanding that the boy accompany him to Troll Fell, where he runs a mill, he lets Peer know right away that he's not going to a better life. When he gets there he meets his other uncle. Both men are large, oafish and greedy, as he soon learns when he overhears them dividing up the money they got from selling everything Peer and his father owned, and making dark references to the Gaffer.

Aspects of a Psychopath by Alistair Langston
reviewed by Chris Przybyszewski
We are offered the diary of a killer, one who takes a victim, stores her in a closet, and then mutilates and kills her in graphic fashion. The killer (he goes by the name of Saul Roberts) then cuts up the body, puts it in his fridge, and then uses the meat for various meals throughout the rest of the text. Roberts is hardly done there, however. He tells of multiple victims in the course of the diary, as well as his relationship with Laura, whom Saul tolerates to live.

The God of the Razor by Joe R. Lansdale
reviewed by John Berlyne
To some horror fans, this early collection is a genre classic, and it certainly displays many of the admirable qualities and definitive traits we now associate with this most original of authors. Certainly no other writer comes to mind so capable of fusing revulsion and comedy together so effectively, often in the space of a single sentence, although The Nightrunners contains a good deal less amusement than many later Lansdale works. At the same time, the story radiates a nastiness that curiously seems to date it -- what may have been shocking for readers back in the early 80s has become, if not exactly the norm, certainly less taboo than it was back then.

Retro Pulp Tales edited by Joe R. Lansdale
reviewed by Mario Guslandi
A bit of imagination, a lot of action and a gripping narrative style: those were the ingredients of the so-called pulp fiction which has filled the pages of many old magazines, delighting more than one generation of avid readers and shaping up the creative minds of many future writers. This anthology bring back to life that beloved, although often underestimated genre, challenging a group of distinguished authors to produce new material using the atmospheres, the themes and the time-frame of the old pulp tales.

Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale
reviewed by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
He writes some damn horrific stuff, things that one wouldn't go within a hundred miles of otherwise. But the author has such a natural skill with the written word that you become enraptured by the raw elegance of his storytelling down to the sentence level. He writes with such an unabashed confidence -- treats the most hideous subjects with a reverent tenderness, shovels the most rancid cow pies with the straightest face -- that there's almost no way a reader can't fall under his spell.

Bumper Crop by Joe R. Lansdale
reviewed by Alisa McCune
This is an imaginative collection of 26 short stories each introduced by the author. It, along with High Cotton, are a definitive collection of his short stories. The author's introductions to each story alone are worth reading the book. We are advised that many of his stories are the product of his wife Karen's popcorn.

Daughters of Earth edited by Justine Larbalestier
reviewed by Alma A. Hromic
Feminism as a philosophy has travelled quite a rocky road over the time frame covered by this anthology -- it is in fact debatable if it was anything like the same animal in the era from which the first story in the book dates, and the era of the final story (which, having been published in 2002, is barely within the scope of this volume).

The Celtic Ring by Björn Larsson
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
The pure adventure novel, without fantasy or science fiction elements, has become a rare breed. But here's one that packs all the adventure, suspense, mystery -- and even a smidgen of pagan mysticism -- you can handle. It's a novel about small craft sailing in and around Scotland, something many might not associate with adventure. Notwithstanding this, if you are one of the few remaining addicts of good adventure yarns, don't miss this book.

Hurricane Moon by Alexis Glynn Latner
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
In science fiction, one of the most difficult feats to accomplish is a simultaneous appeal to both the romance of the intellect and the romance of the heart. Hard SF writers are all used to invoking a sense of wonder that thrills the imagination, it's what that particular game is all about. Fewer are able to at the same time involve the reader's emotions in a story that evokes the character's personal emotional attractions.

Talisker by Miller Lau
reviewed by John Berlyne
We meet Duncan Talisker just as he is released from an Edinburgh prison having served 15 years for a series of murders that he didn't commit. No sooner is he back on the streets than another death occurs with the very same modus operandi. We also learn that this story also takes place on Sutra, a place that very much conforms to Tolkien's definition of a secondary world. Sutra's indigenous race are The Fine -- a Celtic people who seem to be living around the time of Highlander. Sutra is also home to The Sidhe, a race of magic-wielding shape-shifters (and Lau's elaboration on the Sidhe of Celtic mythology) who interact and co-exist with The Fine, but clearly have origins and agendas all of their very own.

First Contact: The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction: Volume One edited by Dave A. Law & Darin Park
reviewed by Steven H Silver
The book is is a collection of twenty essays dealing with science fiction as a genre, ostensibly for the purpose of helping the reader write stories and get them published. Although the book does offer some useful advice, it also includes several oddities which detract from the book's overall usefulness.

Grail by Stephen Lawhead
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Lawhead has quite definitely done his research into the classic tales of King Arthur and his knights. Steven found it imbued with freshness.

Polyphony 2 edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
Polyphony seeks to establish a place between the literary mainstream and science fiction/fantasy genres. Many long-time readers who enjoy short fiction across the breadth of the literary spectrum welcomed the first anthology, full of strong stories told in distinctive voices. Would the promise hold up in the second volume?

LC-39 #3
reviewed by Steven H Silver
This issue feature stories by Mark Rich, A.R. Morlan, Laurent McAllister, Mark Siegel and Alan De Niro, whose "Crossing the View of Delft" is an existentialist story in which we are given several basic assumptions about 2 protagonists and then the author proceeds to demolish most of those assumptions, leaving us with a story completely different from the one originally presented.

Alaric Swifthand by Steve Lazarowitz
reviewed by Jonathan Fesmire
Alaric Mason, later to be called Swifthand for a battle he had not intended to fight, lives in a dangerous world and often finds himself thrust into situations more perilous than he could conceive. Almost everyone he meets has a secret, sometimes shocking, sometimes deadly. His adventures lead him to a powerful magic sword, rat people, and maidens in peril.

Dream Sequence and Other Tales from Beyond by Steve Lazarowitz
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Interested in a fiction smorgasbord? Let's start out with something light -- "Alchemy 101." Then you can move on to some SF in the form of "The Fate of the Ambrose Colony" or some horror with "Life and Death in the EDMC." How about one of the fantasy selections? "The Challenge" is recommended. A hearty menu for any reader.