Icefire by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Not all alien landscapes exist in outer space. This novel takes you to a place as foreign as the surface of Mars and as inhospitable. Welcome to the frozen desert of Antarctica. Take the chance to get to know it; someone's about to make certain it's wiped out.

July New Arrivals
compiled by John O'Neill
Another two weeks, another three pages of brand new Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. If it's new and on the shelves, it's here. Titles this time include Sheri S. Tepper's Six Moon Dance, a novel of a mysterious colony under an Inquisition; This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman, first volume of a rich space opera; and David Farland's unusual debut fantasy, The Runelords.

Lethal Exposure by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
reviewed by Kim Fawcett
This novel is more techno-thriller than SF, but if you've always wondered what a nuclear particle accelerator was like on the inside, or if you love FBI crime stories, this book might be for you.

The Shadow Eater by Adam Lee
reviewed by Robert Francis
On Irth, only a privileged few live a life which could be called comfortable. Elsewhere, dwarves, giants, squid monkeys, giant spiders, tiny spiders, wraiths, faeries (not the nice ones), and ether-devils are waiting around each corner just to make your day a short one.

Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
reviewed by Jean-Louis Trudel
This is a rousing book: reactions may vary according to your outlook, but indifference should not be one of them. It'll take you on an endlessly fascinating voyage to a little-known land. Comparable to the Mars of his Mars Trilogy in many ways, although smaller in scale, closer at hand, and not quite so sexy.

The Boxes by William Sleator
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
This is a fast-paced, vividly imagined book. Many young readers will love the fascinatingly creepy details and identify with the young heroes as they outwit the nefarious grownups.

O Pioneer! by Frederik Pohl
reviewed by Stephen M. Davis
The novel is entertaining, and breezy enough to be read in a couple of sittings. The dialogue is generally quite good, and the universal translator has a wonderful habit of making all alien speech come out worded like the dialogue in a bad Kung Fu movie.

Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, 11th Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
reviewed by Steven H Silver
The editors have done an exceptional job combing through the traditional sources along with looking for fantasy and horror in the non-traditional sources such as The Paris Review. Their desire and ability to look so far afield continues to make this series one of the most beneficial and fresh anthologies in the speculative fiction field.

Shadowrun: Technobabel by Stephen Kenson
reviewed by Alexander von Thorn
This is a striking novel of intrigue and mysticism -- a must-read for Shadowrun fans, and a very good example of the narrow sub-genre of cyber-fantasy. Babel is a techno-shaman who interacts directly with the Matrix, the global computer network, summoning the sentient spirits of the cyber-world...

Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men: Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman
reviewed by Mark Shainblum
Heroes meeting heroes across legends is a process as old as mythmaking. (The Morte d'Arthur and the entire myth of the Round Table can be viewed in one sense as a giant medieval team-up.) But this book demonstrates why no one should own the basic archetypes and myths which define a culture.

A Wizard Scorned by Patricia Lucas White
reviewed by Thomas Myer
In this vigorous tale, the mundane characters are poignant in their need for a quest, a structure for their lives in the midst of a harsh frontier where magic and nature collide. The wizards are full of frailties and pettiness, and they set into motion great big wheels of causation, wheels that crush and maim...

Jack McDevitt Reading List
compiled by Rodger Turner
Rodger compiled this page on the works of Jack McDevitt after the recent release of Moonfall. This reading list offers a profile of McDevitt's novels and a listing of his short fiction.

California Ghosting by William Hill
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
A novel with the promise of a haunted house and troublesome ghosts is just too tempting to pass up. A haunted luxury hotel, overlooking the wild Pacific, is staffed with only the best — living and dead — to cater to every whim of some rather whimsical guests. A perfect combination for murder.

The Painter Knight by Fiona Patton
reviewed by Alexander von Thorn
The author of The Stone Prince tells another tale in the chronicle of the Aristoks of Branion, set a century and a half earlier. The unpredictability and freshness of these characters brings the story to life in a way that few fantasy authors manage.

The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo
reviewed by Katharine Mills
This book is a magnificent specimen of intelligent humour. In the three novellas of this collection, Di Filippo stirs up a funky stew of puns, literature, natural history and sex, and serves it up in an elaborate Victorian dish.

Heaven's Reach by David Brin
reviewed by Mark Shainblum
David Brin is a writer of soaring imagination. In this third book in his second Uplift trilogy, however, he has spun such an elaborate tale, conceived so many characters, and cranked up the cosmic volume to such a level that the reader is just left spinning.

Accidental Creatures by Anne Harris
reviewed by Chris Donner
With frank brush strokes and heavy grey pigment, Anne Harris paints a riveting picture in this her second novel. In the decaying industrial section of a future Detroit, there is a stark line separating "haves" and "have-nots." The latter are barely considered human -- indeed some of them may not be -- as they risk their lives by day and find pleasure at night.

Six Moon Dance by Sheri S. Tepper
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
The author fills her novels with humans who are distinctly inhuman and creatures with more humanity the most Earthlings can claim. She places them all in strange and wonderful and strange and dreadful locations. And no matter how bizarre the situation, she maintains the credibility that keeps readers mesmerized.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
reviewed by Neil Walsh
This novel is a supernatural horror in a near-future urban setting. The core of Toronto has been abandoned by the wealthier citizens who fled to the 'burbs after severe rioting. The city centre is inhabited only by the formerly homeless and poor, now squatters, and is ruled by a gang known as "the posse."

Dawn Song by Michael Marano
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
It's 1990, the eve of the Gulf War. As ruler of hell, the Enfolded One is busy dealing out mass hysteria, war, bigotry and religious oppression. Meanwhile, a Succubus arrives in Boston, sent by the Unbowed One, who is rival to the Enfolded One. The Unbowed One once ruled in hell and wishes to do so again...

Artifact by Gregory Benford
reviewed by Wayne MacLaurin
What do you get if you cross a James Bond spy-thriller with an Indiana Jones action-adventure? Artifact.

Clouds End by Sean Stewart
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
The author's work is original, borrowing nothing from writers before him. He is writing for us now, what will be the stories of our own future. If folk tales survive from this era, they may well carry the name Sean Stewart.

The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch
reviewed by David Soyka
This book is as clever as its moniker in explaining (a bit hyperbolically, perhaps, but fittingly for the genre) its somewhat misleading subtitle of "How Science Fiction Conquered the World."