Eberron Campaign Setting
a gaming review by Chris Przybyszewski
The Eberron Campaign Setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role playing game is the result of a contest run by Wizards of the Coast, which allowed game fans to put together a totally new world set in the realm of AD&D. The result is a vibrant and unique realm in which gamers will happily live their alternate lives. This new campaign introduces further and welcome changes to the D20 system, and introduces "action points," an ability by the character to supplement her or his result score through the use of additional and additive die rolls.

Down and Out in the Ivy League by J.G. Eccarius
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
He is one of those rare writers who can mix real-life tragedy and horror with a shot of humour and not diminish the final product. Do yourself a favour: set your Appall-O-Meter to "off" and give Down and Out in the Ivy League a try.

Divine Intervention by Julia Ecklar
a music review by Rob Kane
This is a CD of music inspired by stories of fantasy and science fiction. Originally released in 1986, it has undergone remastering and has been recently released on CD. Additionally, three bonus tracks have been appended to the original album. Stylistically, the album a mesh of different of different styles. Primarily folk-based, it brings in elements of rock and orchestral music. The styles mix together on the album to create a texture just right for the content.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco
reviewed by William Thompson
In certain respects, this is one of those rare novels whose contents can be predicted to a degree by its cover. While the fresco's original allegorical intention is perhaps lost in the book cover's fragmentary appropriation, it captures in part the odd admixture of spirituality, ritual pomp, superstition, and martial character that made up the medieval mindset, and which plays a significant role within this novel. And, in certain other, maybe unintended respects -- the sense of parade and pageantry, features disguised and hidden, distinct yet collectively joined figures, and its restive yet static portrait -- the artwork chosen for this cover anticipates the reader's experience.

The Treasured One by David and Leigh Eddings
reviewed by Steve Lazarowitz
The Vlagh, the evil insect queen, sends her workers out from the Waste to find food. This means invading the more prosperous lands outside the Waste in the land of Dhrall, overseen by four gods, two sisters and two brothers. These brothers and sisters are part of a cycle with four other gods, who are all asleep. Dahlaine, the dominant god for this cycle, decided to wake the others up early.

The Elder Gods by David and Leigh Eddings
reviewed by Steve Lazarowitz
Imagine a set of gods ruling a land called Dhrall in shifts. One group of gods rules each territory, while a second group sleeps for eons, then there is sort of deity changing of the guard. Now imagine some of those sleeping gods return to the world as children called Dreamers, somehow set up by one of the waking gods, to fulfill an ancient prophecy in a time of great need. What might drive a god to such measures?

Polgara The Sorceress by David and Leigh Eddings
reviewed by Wayne MacLaurin
If you haven't read anything by these authors, this novel is a good introduction. For those long time fans, this novel is a worthy addition to a growing collection. A treat for all.

Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison
reviewed by William Thompson
Originally published in 1935, more than 10 years after his more well-known and popular work, The Worm Ouroboros, this book is the first part of the larger Zimiamvia sequence, though, while published first, chronologically last in the events unfolding within the trilogy. However, it possesses a narrative unity that allows it to be read on its own, even though it is an extension of events established in the other two novels completing the cycle. This is accomplished in part because time, locale and characters within the author's novels blur in identity, separated yet coexisting, almost, though in a very different fashion, as a pre-echo to Moorcock's multiverse.

The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
This is a unique masterpiece of heroic fantasy. It is like nothing published in fantasy today and few works could compare to it in its time or since. At its publication even Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was compared to the benchmark of Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, and these comparisons haven't always gone in Tolkien's favour. Besides its lush Shakespearean English, and its sources in Homeric and Norse epics, it was probably the first fantasy work to include appendices on historical time lines in the imaginary world. One reason such a work as Eddison's couldn't possibly be created today is that, as pointed out by others elsewhere, nobody today receives the broad Classical educations that the great British fantasists like William Morris, H. Rider Haggard, Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, Mervyn Peake and E.R. Eddison did.

Geosynchron by David Louis Edelman
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
As this final volume of the Jump 225 Trilogy opens, all the good guys are at a low ebb. Natch has managed to escape from Brone's murder attempt but is disoriented and immediately finds himself imprisoned by business rivals, the Patel brothers. Quell is in an orbiting prison where the inmates literally have to fight for survival and escape is impossible. And Jara finds her fiefcorp breaking apart with no worthwhile products for the public.

Multireal by David Louis Edelman
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Several hundred years in the future, there has been an historical disconnect between our time and theirs. An assumption of power by artificial intelligences and subsequent revolt led to a major catastrophe, the recovery from which has resulted in a new set of political and social institutions. Gone are the nation-states and the structures that supported them, in their place are contracts for services with local governments, and a governing body known as the Defense and Wellness Council.

Multireal by David Louis Edelman
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
It has become a cliché: the difficult middle volume in a trilogy. But it's a real problem nonetheless. The main players have been introduced in the first volume, the dramatic situation has been set up, the action has started upon its course, and in all likelihood there has been a satisfying climax because each volume has to work in its own right. In the middle volume you cannot bring in the big action-packed climax, because that has to wait for the final volume; you can't even introduce too many important new characters, because then you've got to wonder what they were doing hanging round off-stage in the first volume.

Murder by Magic edited by Rosemary Edghill
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
These stories range from historical fantasy to police procedurals with an extra fillip of otherwordly doings -- from Esther Friesner's funny "Au Purr" and Laura Resnick's wisecracker gangsters in "Doppelgangster" to Teresa Edgerton's moody, minor key tale set in her Goblin world, "Captured in Silver." Many of these tales will linger in the mind, and you'll be revisiting a number of them for pleasurable rereads. There isn't a stinker in the bunch.

The Cloak of Night and Daggers by Rosemary Edghill
reviewed by Margo MacDonald
Margo tells us why her heart leaps with glee every time a new Rosemary Edghill book appears.

Budayeen Nights by George Alec Effinger
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
This book collects all the shorter works set in and around the fictional Budayeen, itself a reflection of the author's life in New Orleans and his fascination with the inhabitants of the French Quarter. The first story, "Schroedinger's Kitten," is probably also the best known. A young woman huddles in an alley, knife in hand, waiting to discover which life she will lead, as visions of possible futures pass through her mind. "Schroedinger's Kitten" won both the Hugo and Nebula awards and deservedly so, it's a classic of contemporary SF.

Audio: Schrödinger's Kitten by George Alec Effinger
reviewed by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
At first glance, this would seem an odd choice for an audio production. True, this is of the exceedingly rare breed of short stories to win both the Hugo (1989) and Nebula (1988) awards, and he is a writer who's accumulated his share of well-deserved critical acclaim over the years. But the author, as a writer, is a stylist. It's his skill with the written word, that elusive knack for putting not just the right two words together on the page, but the exactly right two words that has always been his signature.

Crystal Nights and Other Stories by Greg Egan
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
There are hard science fiction writers, and then there is Greg Egan. No one stays truer to the precepts of hard SF to the point where several of his novels, and even a few short stories, come replete with footnotes and explanations pointing the reader towards a fuller detailing of the ideas presented in the story. In much the way that a work like John Coltrane's Giant Steps showed the limits of where jazz could go, Greg Egan's stories show just how far the concept of hard science fiction can be pushed and still retain its appeal as fiction.

Incandescence by Greg Egan
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
Why do we read hard science fiction? It could be that in a hard SF story the characters are bound by the laws of the universe, the threat they face is shaped by the immutable rule of nature. In other words, science is king, physics or chemistry or, just occasionally, biology provides the threat faced and the solution, if any. It is science fiction at its most intellectually austere, leaving little room for romance or colourful adventure.

Incandescence by Greg Egan
reviewed by Rich Horton
Greg Egan's first novel in several years is as dizzying a piece of speculation as we have come to expect from him. But, like several of his novels, it doesn't fully connect at a human level, and for that matter the speculation -- dizzying as it is, and quite fascinating -- isn't as thematically profound as in his best stories. Though that's not quite fair...

Incandescence by Greg Egan
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
There are hard science fiction writers in the world, and then there's Greg Egan. At their best, his stories and novels combine near outrageous speculation with a rigorous grounding in scientific fact. Several of Egan's novels, including his latest, come complete with lists of research papers and reference sources intended to give the reader some background and insight into the ideas that spurred him to write. At the same time, he has adopted a minimalist approach to exposition inside the stories themselves.

Incandescence by Greg Egan
reviewed by Jonathan McCalmont
If the world of SF were a stock market then Greg Egan would be a blue chip company. Hugely respected and a doyen of the Hard SF scene, he is not what you would call unpredictable. This, his first novel in six years, is as blue chip as ever in that not only does it give you what you would expect from a Greg Egan novel, it has also prompted a number of equally predictable reviews that have lavished hundreds of words upon the trite received opinion "nice ideas, shame about the characters, plot and prose." Jonathan calls this a received opinion as he does not think it is in the least bit true; Incandescence is a thought-provoking story about science as a community and as a part of the community.

Dark Integers and Other Stories by Greg Egan
reviewed by Rich Horton
The author's reputation, first and foremost, is as one of today's preeminent "idea men" of SF. His fiction is built around scientific or sociological ideas -- that is to say, on speculation. Particular areas of interest seem to be mathematics, physics, and the workings of the brain (and indeed all of these ideas are often interconnected). He eagerly uses concepts from the cutting edges of these fields, and speculates beyond the cutting edge -- sometimes, as he has admitted, a bit implausibly.

Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
A physics experiment goes unpredictably awry, creating a baby universe that steadily expands at a rate slightly greater than that of our own. The universe is being devoured from within. In a far future, some characters live entirely in computer storage, all are used to having new bodies grown for them in case of harm or death. Ii is a world where people barely recognizable as human, face with a life and death crisis, argue passionately, in dense technical language, about physics that may or may not hold the key to the basis of our reality, and may or may not save them. Now that's science fiction.

Teranesia by Greg Egan
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
A string of successful novels and stories, all overflowing with interesting and creative ideas, puts the author's name near the top of those writers who have come of age in the last decade. Now comes a near-future novel set mainly in the South Pacific, dealing with speculation in the biology of evolution. It is strongest in exactly those areas where his work has previously been the weakest.

Diaspora by Greg Egan
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Been awhile since you've read any hard science fiction? I mean, really hard sci-fi? Well, if your brain is ready for a workout, you must give Diaspora a try.

Eidolon, Volume 25/26
reviewed by Thomas Myer
Eidolon is a beefy journal, printed on good quality stock, with striking full-color cover art. This is not your father's science fiction quarterly. The stories were a literary can of whoop-ass.

Night Lives by Phyllis Eisenstein
reviewed by Steven H Silver
One of the nice things about reading a collection of short stories by a single author is the spotlight it shines on the recurrent themes and tropes they use. Reading this collection allows the reader to see these commonalities in the story, while enjoying the different things the author does with them.

Table of the Lord by Ono Ekeh
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
The author postulates the appearance on Earth, in the mid-19th century, of a benevolent alien super-culture, the Fenaarq. These loving, enlightened aliens, capable of interstellar travel, apparently have gods, and they come to the conclusion that unlike themselves in their present state, humans can evolve into gods, if they'd only learn to control their violence.

The Forest of Hours by Kerstin Ekman
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
This is a wonderful Rabelaisian romp that combines elements of fairy tale, Norse saga and historical novel, 16th century ribald literature, mysticism, alchemy, and close interpersonal relationships reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman films.