SF Site Forthcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

Here's a sampling of some of the F&SF books that are headed our way in the coming months...

Books are listed alphabetically by author. Only books received are noted. Where available, links to SF Site reviews and book excerpts are provided.

Forthcoming Books
Part II

Colony Fleet
Susan R. Matthews
Eos, HarperCollins (mass market original, 304 pages, $6.50 US/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: October 2000
From the author of Avalanche Soldier, Prisoner of Conscience and Hour of Judgment. "400 years ago, the leaders of an ecologically threatened Earth launched a great fleet of asteroid ships toward five planets that would be colonized by the first crew's descendants. Each world was to be a homogeneous mix of people, with no group more equal than another. But, over the centuries, the utopian dream has died. Now, with the first landing mere months away, there are 3 distinct levels in the social order. When Hillbrane Harkover, a member of the elite class, is betrayed by one of her own, she finds herself disgraced and exiled to the dangerous fringes of the fleet. But with a 4-century-old dream doomed by suspicion and class hatred, only an outsider like Hillbrane may be able to save the first colony from catastrophe."

Shrine of Stars: The Third Book of Confluence
Paul J. McAuley
Eos, HarperCollins (hardcover, 384 pages, $18 US/$27.50 Can)
Publication date: September 2000
Conclusion to the trilogy begun in Child of the River and continued with Ancients of Days, set on an artificial world ten million years in our future. In the final book of Confluence, "Yama falls into the clutches of his nemesis, Dr. Dismas, and finds that he has been infected with a machine intelligence, which is harnessing his powers to further Dr. Dismas's plans. While the dispossessed peoples of Confluence hope that Yama may renew their world, he must discover the strength to fight not only his enemies without, but also the enemy within. And he must take his search into the galaxy, long ago abandoned by the Preservers -- a journey that will encompass his own beginning and the end of Confluence."

Review by Neil Walsh of Ancients of Days.

Review by Lisa DuMond of Child of the River.

The Swordsman's Oath: The Second Tale of Einarinn
Juliet E. McKenna
Eos, HarperCollins (mass market original, 544 pages, $6.99 US/$9.99 Can)
Publication date: 5 September 2000
Sequel to The Thief's Gamble: The first Tale of Einarinn. Ryshad the warrior, loyal to the Empire; Livak the beautiful and dangerous thief; Shiv the crafty wizard -- 3 unlikely allies brought together by fate to unravel an ancient mystery. "Instead, though, they discovered death and worse at the hands of the Elietimm, a band of evil sorcerers who nearly destroyed them. Now, the Elietimm have infiltrated the Empire using their strange and deadly power. It is up to a reunited Ryshad and Livak, joined by Shiv, to discover the secret knowledge that can save the Empire -- a mission that will lead them far from the lands they know. It is Ryshad, though, who will journey farthest, to a distant country where nothing is what it seems, not even the magical sword that has long protected him. And if that sword should turn against him now..."

Josh Kirby

The Truth
Terry Pratchett
Doubleday, Transworld Publishers (hardcover, 320 pages, £16.99 UK) / HarperCollins (hardcover, 336 pages, $24 US)
Publication date: November 2000
This is the 25th Discworld novel, and readers are showing no sign of any diminished interest, as Pratchett continues to be the top selling author in the UK. (He doesn't do too badly in the rest of the world, either: he's sold over 18 million books worldwide in 27 languages.) "William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalist's life -- people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes. William just wants to get at the Truth. Unfortunately, everyone else wants to get at William."

Terminal Visions
Richard Paul Russo
Golden Gryphon Press (hardcover, 238 pages, $23.95 US)
Publication date: September 2000
This is the first short story collection from Philip K. Dick Award-winning author Richard Paul Russo. Previously uncollected, these 14 stories have all seen publication in one venue or another -- many in Asimov's or F&SF -- and a couple of them have been revised by the author for this edition. "Gritty alien encounters and the ultimate road story highlight this collection. In other stories we experience the hopelessness of the human condition on Earth, in space, and in an alternate reality; Russo then shows us how creativity and compassion enable the human spirit to rise above sadness and despair."

Brain Plague
Joan Slonczewski
Tor (hardcover, 384 pages, $24.95 US/$35.95 Can)
Publication date: August 2000
Another biological SF novel, set in the same universe as Slonczewski's The Children Star. "An intelligent microbe race that can live symbiotically in other intelligent beings is colonizing the human race throughout the civilized universe. And each colony of microbes has its own personality, good or bad. In some people, they are brain enhancers, and in others a fatal brain plague, a living addiction. This is the story of one woman's psychological and moral struggle to adjust to having an ambitious colony of microbes living permanently in her own head."

Review by Greg L. Johnson of The Children Star.

Rules of Conflict
Kristine Smith
Eos, HarperCollins (mass market original, 384 pages, $6.50 US/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: 5 September 2000
Sequel to her début novel, Code of Conduct. "For 18 years, Captain Jani Kilian has ben hiding from her bloody past. Now she faces trial for what she once did, what she knows now, and what she has become. In the chaos of an alien civil war, she was saved by a radical -- and illegal -- medical procedure that added alien genetic material to her own. But her hybrid body is breaking down, along with all the world. Relations between the human and alien idomeni are deteriorating, and Jani's reemergence has caused old wounds to reopen and new wounds to form. Perhaps it's time for a damaged soldier to stop fighting; to let the desperate architects of a vast and devouring conspiracy keep the truth well hidden; to let the universe and everyone in it go straight to Hell. Perhaps not..."

Review by Catherine Asaro of Code of Conduct.

Sirius
Olaf Stapledon
Victor Gollancz SF Collectors' Edition (trade, 200 pages, £9.99 UK)
Publication date: August 2000
First published in 1944 under the full title Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord is, as its subtitle hints, a profoundly moving story of unattainable love. It's also an examination of alien thoughts and feelings. And it's a story about a talking dog. "Sirius is Thomas Trelone's great experiment -- a huge, handsome dog with the brain and intelligence of a human being. Raised and educated in Trelone's own family alongside Plaxy, his youngest daughter, Sirius is a truly remarkable and gifted creature. His relationship with the Trelone family, particularly with Plaxy, is deep and close, and his inquiring mind ranges across the spectrum of human knowledge and experience. But Sirius isn't human and the conflicts and inner turmoil that torture him cannot be resolved."

Soulsaver
James Stevens-Arce
Harcourt (hardcover, 272 pages, $24 US/$36 Can)
Publication date: September 2000
This novel is the author's expanded version of his 1997 novella that shared the highly prestigious UPC Prize for Science Fiction (Barcelona). It's a clever satire set in a near future Puerto Rico. "Juan Bautista is a young man who drives a Freez Van for the Suicide Prevention Corps of America; his partner, Fabiola Muñoz, rides shotgun. Their job is to ice the bodies of the self-inflicteds and rush them, siren yowling, to the Saint Francis of Assisi Resurrection Centre. Juan Bautista is proud of his responsibilities but can't help wondering why the suicide rate is climbing. And Fabiola, why is she so sour? Could she be one of those New Christers, heretics who believe in the Twin Messiahs? No surprise that the Shepherdess has had to suspend the Bill of Rights. As the Christian-American nation and its squads of Avenging Angels hunt for the Antichrist children (Emma and Noel), who seem very sweet and apparently can work miracles, Juan Bautista begins asking questions -- and these questions lead him not only to his father, the famous televangelist Reverend Jimmy Divine, but also to the Father of Lies himself."

Roadside Picnic
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Victor Gollancz SF Collectors' Edition (trade, 160 pages, £9.99 UK)
Publication date: 24 August 2000
Translated from the Russian in 1969, this is the story that formed the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker. The picnickers are aliens who stopped on Earth for lunch, and their rubbish is of great interest to many -- and of great danger to all. "Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits who are compelled by some unknown force to venture illegally into the Zone and, in spite of the extreme danger, collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the Zone and the thriving black market in the alien products. Even the nature of his mutant daughter has been determined by the Zone. And it is for her that Red makes his last, tragic foray into the hazardous and hostile depths."

Jerry Vanderstelt

Kingdom of the Grail
Judith Tarr
Roc (trade original, 464 pages, $14.95 US/$20.99 Can)
Publication date: 11 September 2000
The Chanson de Roland is a medieval French epic, recounting the legend which grew out of the the treachery and resultant slaughter of the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, under Duke Roland, during a Spanish expedition in the year 778. It is the epitome of the medieval chivalric code. The myths of Merlin, you've no doubt encountered before. Tarr's latest novel is a melding of these two legends. "Centuries after the fall of Camelot and the disappearance of King Arthur, the wizard Merlin remained a prisoner in an enchanted forest. After years of isolation, he receives a visitor, a boy named Roland, with strong magical abilities. Roland swears to free Merlin, unaware of the consequences of such an oath... Roland has since become a knight and a mighty warrior. But his mystical powers are untested and his mentor remains imprisoned, when an old enemy of Merlin's returns, seeking the very object that tore apart the Knights of the Round Table -- the Holy Grail. Now, with the help of a beautiful Saracen healer and a magical sword, Roland must face his test, fulfill his oath -- and find his destiny..."

The Fresco
Sheri S. Tepper
Eos, HarperCollins (hardcover, 432 pages, $24 US/$36.50 Can)
Publication date: November 2000
"One day, in the midst of strange events that are occurring throughout the United States, plain-spoken 36-year-old bookstore manager Benita Alvarez-Shipton is greeted by a pair of aliens who ask her to transmit their message of peace to Washington. And so begins a fantastic adventure more perilous and important than Benita can imagine, because the envoys have come with a dire warning about another extraterrestrial race: predators with their attention focused on Earth, who may have already made their first 'visit.'"

Well of Darkness: Volume One of the Sovereign Stone Trilogy
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Eos, HarperCollins (hardcover, 464 pages, $25 US/$37.95 Can)
Publication date: September 2000
No doubt you recognize this writing duo from their bestselling Dragonlance novels. Well, they're back at it with a new series, also set in an RPG world. Another sweeping "fantasy epic of the battle between honour and the dark shadows of obsession."

| Forthcoming: Part I | | New Books |

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