New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

This past month has seen reprints of several old SF classics, including Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, and Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. We've also seen reprints of not-so-old classics, including the likes of Suzy McKee Charnas, Jack Dann and Charles de Lint. And if you're looking for something fresh and new, there's no shortage on that front either, with new works by Ben Bova, Roger Zelazny & Jane Lindskold, Robert Silverberg, Stephen L. Burns, Peter Watts, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Timothy Zahn and many more!

Books are listed alphabetically by author. Only books received are noted. Where available, links to SF Site reviews and book excerpts are provided. Click on the thumbnail image to get a closer look at the cover.

New Arrivals: July 15^th - August 15^th

Art: Peter Bollinger/
Cliff Nielsen

The Game of Worlds (David Brin's Out of Time)
Roger MacBride Allen
Avon (paperback, 256 pages, $4.99/6.99 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
Third so far in the Out of Time series is written by Roger MacBride Allen, author of several YA titles in the Star Wars series. In the year 2345, young Adam O'Connor must fight an enemy more skilled, cunning and dangerous than anyone ever imagined...

Star Wars: X-Wing #9: Starfighters of Adumar
Aaron Allston
Bantam Spectra (paperback, x pages, $5.99)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
Another Star Wars offering from Aaron Allson, F&SF novelist, computer gamer scripter, and designer of RPG supplements.

White Light
William Barton and Michael Capobianco
Avon Eos (paperback, 343 pages, $6.99/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: August 1999
"In humanity's final moments, two renegade family units rocket into the hear of a mysterious alien culture. Here an entity has been created fro the purpose of preserving all life, but to do so, it must absorb the past, present, and the future of the universe..."

Art: Jim Burns

The Demolished Man
Alfred Bester
Millennium/Victor Gollancz (trade paperback, 250 pages, £6.99 UK )
Publication date: 22 July 1999
This novel was originally published in 1953 and was the first-ever winner of the Hugo award. It's being re-printed by Millennium as part of their SF Masterworks series -- a truly commendable effort to bring some of the more worthy classics of SF back into circulation. "In a world in which the police have telepathic powers, how do you get away with murder? Ben Reich heads a huge 24th century business empire, spanning the solar system. He is also an obsessed, drive man determined to murder a rival. To avoid capture, in a society where murders can be detected even before they commit the crime, is the greatest challenge of his life."

Art: Gregory Bridges

Return to Mars
Ben Bova
Avon Eos (hardcover, 416 pages, $25/$37 Can)
Publication date: 8 June 1999
Bova revisits his most popular tale, continuing the story begun 7 years ago in his Mars. Geologist, Jamie Waterman, "returns to the red planet, this time as mission director of the second Mars expedition and with the secret hope of proving that Mars was once inhabited by intelligent beings."

Flesh and Silver
Stephen L. Burns
Roc (paperback, 352 pages, $5.99/$7.99 Can)
Publication date: August 1999
"A brilliant doctor gives up his status as a human being when he becomes a Bergmann surgeon -- healing fatal sickness and wounds with psychic powers and mechanical precision. Though a great healer, he is an outcast, and he hand his kind wander from emergency to emergency, at the beck and call of MedAm. When not working, he is drinking, lost in a fog, trying to forget the things which he has lost. But when a dying despot hijacks him, he is forced to face what his life has become, and -- with the help of a killer for hire -- reclaim what it means to be a healer."

Art: Jon Sullivan

The Slave and the Free
Suzy McKee Charnas
Orb/Tor (omnibus, trade paperback, 448 pages, $16.95/$23.95 Can)
Publication date: 7 June 1999
Together in one volume are the first two books in the Holdfast Chronicles -- Walk to the End of the World (1974) and Motherlines (1978). The series continued in The Furies (1994) and is now, at long last, completed with The Conqueror's Child. But you'll want to start at the beginning, where Alldera the Messenger is a slave among the Fems of Holdfast, in thrall to the men whose power is waning. In Motherlines, Aldera is a fugitive among the Riding Women, who live a tribal life of horse thieving and storytelling, killing the few men who approach their boundaries. High praise and awards; nice cover; need we say more?

The Silent
Jack Dann
Bantam Spectra (trade paperback, 279 pages)
Publication date: August 1999
The Silent is more a historical novel than anything else. It certainly isn't fantasy -- unless a character's occasional delusions qualify a work for that genre. Jack Dann's book is instead an after-the-fact journal written by the main character, Edmund McDowell, a teenager in 1862.

Review by Stephem M. Davis.

Art: Tom Canty

Jack of Kinrowan
Charles de Lint
Orb (trade paperback, 412 pages, $14.95/$21 Can)
Publication date: 14 July 1999
Previously published separately as Jack the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon, this is a saga of wild faerie magic on the city streets told by a true master of the modern urban folk tale. "Faceless bikers on a wild hunt through the streets of present-day Ottawa send young Jacky Rowan hurtling into the perilous land of Faerie. Here she finds herself hailed as the Jack of Kinrowan, a once-and-future trickster hero whose destiny it is to save the Elven Courts from unimaginable evil. In the sequel, Jacky and the Fair Folk are enslaved by a creature who has stolen the power of the Moon. Only Johnny Faw, a young fiddler, has the power to set them all free."

Time on My Hands
Peter Delacorte
Phoenix (trade paperback, 397 pages, £6.99 UK)
Publication date: 22 July 1999
Who could resist an offer of a ride in a time machine? Gabriel Prince, hero of this novel, jumps at the chance -- but there's a condition he must agree to first: "do whatever it takes to change the course of young Ronald Reagan's life, so he'll become something other than the 40th President of the United States."

Art: Chris Moore

Martian Time-Slip
Philip K Dick
Millennium (trade paperback, 230 pages, £6.99 UK)
Publication date: 22 July 1999
Yet another in Millennium's SF Masterworks series, this one from 1964, is one of Dick's best. It's a hard look at a hard world -- a Mars forgotten by Earth. "Isolated homesteaders huddle along the lines of the great canals, in thrall to Arnie Kott and his plumbing union, which controls the vital water supply. Kott's manipulations poison the lives of those he draws to him... even the poor native Bleekmen of Mars."

WyndMagic
Barbara Haworth-Attard
Roussan (paperback, 144 pages, $5.95 US/$7.95 Can)
Publication date: 1999
Critically-acclaimed author, Haworth-Attard, revisits Angliocch and the characters from TruthSinger. "The young sorceress Katie can harness the power of the wind to practice magic. Used wisely, WyndMagic creates harmony, but its misuse releases chaos... chaos Katie unwittingly exacerbates when she succumbs to the magic's lure. She needs magic just as her father is addicted to alcohol to appease the demons which plague him. Will Katie squander her gift and lose it forever, or can she learn that she has more to offer others than her WyndMagic?"

Art: Tim & Greg Hildebrandt

The Stone and the Maiden (Book One of the House of the Pandragore)
Dennis Jones
Avon Eos (hardcover, 432 pages, $23/$34 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
Acclaimed author of suspense novels, Dennis Jones, now tries his hand at fantasy. "The barbarian Tathars cut a scarlet swath across the lands of the Ascendancy, led by Erkai the Chain, a master of the dreaded Black Craft. However, there exists a power that dwarfs even Erkai's sorcery: the force known as Deep Magic, long ago banished from the world. But now Erkai has found a way to break the ban, and seize that terrible power for his own. Defeating Erkai and the Tathar horde falls to Mandine Dascaris, heiress to the throne of the Ascendancy, and to the young soldier Key Mec Brander, an outlander from the distant lands of the Elthame. Together they embark on a secret, desperate search for the Signata. To fail means the ruin of their world -- but the price of success may be no less than their lives."

Art: Stephen Youll

Gravity Dreams
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Tor (hardcover, 400 pages, $24.95/$34.95 Can)
Publication date: 12 July 1999
The latest offering from the prolific L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is a stand-alone SF action adventure story. "Dzin Master Tyndel's peaceful life suffers a tragic upheaval when he is infected with a strain of nanites that enhance his physical and mental abilities. These new abilities bring on new responsibility and force Tyndel to leave his native land and move to a more technologically advance space-faring civilization where e begins his new life as a space pilot. His travels take him to the far reaches of the universe -- so far, in fact, that Tyndel actually makes contact with a superior being... perhaps he has met God."

Art: Kinuko Craft

Scent of Magic
Andre Norton
Avon Eos (paperback, 378 pages, $6.50/$8.50 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
Willadene is an orphaned and captive scullery maid with "an uncanny ability to sense and understand the magical odours that pervade her world. Willadene hopes someday to become the apprentice for Dame Halwice, the owner of a nearby spice shop, whom she had befriended. Halwice is already helping Willadene to hone her strange and intriguing power. After a mysterious stranger is fond uncouncscious on the floor of Hawice's shop, Willadene is pulled into a swriling web of court intrigue, royal romance, and black magic."

A Hunger in the Soul
Mike Resnick
Tor (trade paperback, 224 pages, $12.95/$17.95 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
This Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author takes us on another exciting journey across an alien landscape. "Famed medical researcher Dr Michael Drake had chosen long ago to abandon society and disappear into the jungle world of Bushveld. But now the human-settled Galaxy needs him in its fight to dispel a new and deadly plague. Journalist and adventurer Robert Markham sees this urgent need to locate Dr Drake as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a famous and respected explorer. Despite conflicts with the native inhabitants of Bushveld and their beliefs, it is not long before Markham's desire becomes an obsession. Markham vows to bring the doctor back... whether he wants to return to civilization or not."

Review by Steven H Silver.

Art: Donato

Aramaya
Jane Routley
Avon Eos (trade paperback, 278 pages, $13.50/$19.50 Can)
Publication date: June 1999
They call this a "follow-up," presumably because the word "sequel" might scare off some less intrepid readers. But it is, nevertheless, a sequel to Mage Heart and Fire Angels. "Dion's search for her missing niece brings her to Akieva, the glorious yet corrupt capitol of Aramaya. It is there that she discovers her niece caught in a web of necromancy and deceit and finds herself battling the ruthless demon Bedazzer who has vowed to posses her. Inthe ensuing deadly conflict, Dion must confront the dark secrets of her own heart and the mighty evil concealed in those around her."

Lord Prestimion
Robert Silverberg
HarperPrism (hardcover, 415 pages)

This is the 2nd part of a complex epic, with a large cast of characters, a strong central storyline, and a multitude of subplots. The beginning is fascinating, as is the exploration of the ambiguous aftermath of Prestimion's decision to tamper with the world's memory (too often, fantasy books fail to address the human consequences of the great magics they describe).

Review by Victoria Strauss.

Starfish
Peter Watts
Tor (hardcover, 320 pages, $23.95/$34.95 Can)
Publication date: July 1999
Now this looks like the find of the summer. Not only does it have a way cool cover, but it's got gobs of praise from all quarters -- they even use full-sentence quotations from people you've heard of on the dust jacket (always a good sign). Watts is a marine biologist as well as an award-winning short story writer. This is his first novel. "A large international corporation has developed a power facility to exploit geothermal power at the bottom of he Juan de Fuca Rift in the Pacific Ocean. They have sent a bioengineered crew -- people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater -- to live and work in this strange, fertile undersea darkness. The project runs into some unexpected complications when the experimental subjects, known as the Rifters, begin to exhibit signs of psychosis... As the Rifters begin to self-destruct, a devastating danger approaches from below, a danger that spells worldwide disaster. As the crew fights for survival, one crucial question remains -- with any of them ever be allowed to return to the surface again?"

Art: Mico

Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star
Edward Willett
Roussan (trade paperback, 176 pages, $5.95 US/$6.95 Can)
Publication date: 1999
"Kit is a tough street kid from a backwater planet, living hand-to-mouth as a musician, playing in alleys and subway stations and sleeping wherever he can find shelter. He meets two people who change his life: Rain, a bright orange tentacled alien, and Qualls, a talent scout who promises to make him a star. Overnight Kit becomes Andy Nebula, interstellar rock sensation. But stars don't last forever..." Rock and roll and inter-planetary smuggling for the YA market. Hey, might as well start young.

The Icarus Hunt
Timothy Zahn
Bantam Spectra (hardcover, 362 pages, $23.95/$34.95 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
A novel of action in deep space from the author of The Blackcollar and The Conqueror's Trilogy. Jordan McKell is a renegade star-freighter pilot struggling to survive in a galaxy where trade is monopolized by the oppressive Patth. But when he takes a job flying a broken-down, antique ship and its "special cargo" to Earth, neither he nor his alien mechanic-partner Ixil has any idea of the stakes involved.

We
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Avon Eos (paperback, 232 pages, $5.99/$7.99 Can)
Publication date: 3 August 1999
Written in the early 1920s, this is a classic of dystopian literature, precursor to other such classics as Brave New World and 1984. "Set in the 26th century, We describes the city of 'One State,' a mathematically correct paradise run by the Great Benefactor, where utopianism is carried to the extreme. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. People lose all personal identity, freedom is outlawed, and socio and sexual relationships are governed by the issuing of pink coupons to those who go through the proper application procedures."

Lord Demon
Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold
Avon Eos (hardcover, x pages, $x)
Publication date: 1999
Kai Wren not only catches time, but also large chunks of real estate, mythological creatures, and retired sages and scholars in his bottles. Well, "catches" is not quite appropriate -- Kai Wren is an artisan who crafts magical bottles, which contain designer worlds.

Review by Robert Fancis.

Other Useful Stuff