Who Said Size Matters?!: an interview with Tad Williams
conducted by Sandy Auden
"Books like mine are different from standard novels, but not because of size so much as because they are several consecutive volumes that comprise one story. That means that I'm forced to commit to things very early in the story that will actually be published (and thus darn hard to edit) long before I'm actually writing the ending."

New Arrivals
compiled by Neil Walsh
The latest batch of new arrivals here at the SF Site includes new works from Ken MacLeod, Allen Steele, James Patrick Kelly, Dan Abnett, Terry McGarry, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Zoran Zivkovic, and many more.

The Dark Ascent by Walter H. Hunt
reviewed by Charlene Brusso
This unique military SF series has earned enthusiastic praise for its focus on the philosophical as well as the tactical and strategic sides of conflict. That shift in focus adds an intriguing depth, allowing the author to tell several interlocking stories simultaneously. It doesn't hurt that he's also taken the time to create alien cultures and characters that leave the Hollywood rubber suit and latex forehead crowd fairly well far behind.

Path of the Just edited by James Lowder
reviewed by Nathan Brazil
This is a small anthology of superhero fiction, short stories, based around the many heroes and villains associated with Empire City. An offshoot of the Silver Age Sentinels RPG, it falls somewhere between a comic book script aimed at older readers, and the Wild Cards novels edited by George R.R. Martin.

Babylon 5.1
TV reviews by Rick Norwood
Rick offers his thoughts on how good ("Thirst") and how bad ("Aqua") episodes of Smallville have been. But it is the only new SF that Rick recommends.

Pay the Piper by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
reviewed by Alma A. Hromic
Jane Yolen is a writing phenomenon of our time, deservedly called the Hans Christian Andersen of our age, a superb storyteller who has a staggering number of books to her credit and a house which must groan under the weight of all the awards she has won over the years. She now widens the scope of her already incredible oeuvre by embarking on a series of "rock'n'roll" fairy tales, in collaboration with co-author and professional musician Adam Stemple.

All Action Boy: an interview with James Barclay
conducted by Sandy Auden
"Age is critical in mercenary fighting because it doesn't take you very long before you start losing your edge. Even in the first volume, Dawnthief, The Raven had been going for ten years. They were just past their prime and already living on their wits, as much as their skill."

The Light-Years Beneath My Feet by Alan Dean Foster
reviewed by Jonathan Fesmire
Though comfortable and well cared for on a world named Sessrimanthe, Mark Walker and his companions -- a talking dog named George, the squid-like Sque, and gigantic Braouk -- just want to get back to their home planets. There seems little chance they ever will, until Mark takes up the complex art of galactic cuisine.

Perfect Nightmare by John Saul
an audio review by Lisa DuMond
John Saul is an author listeners can count on for a chill, but the creep factor here hits a new high. He has tapped into the current out-of-control increase in abductions and ratcheted up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. He has taken the things most of us fear the most and created a villain so sick that his audience may get the uncomfortable feeling that their skin is trying to crawl right off the top of its head.

Close To My Heart: New Worlds: An Anthology edited by Michael Moorcock
reviewed by Martin Lewis
"I'm still not entirely sure what this book was doing in my school library. That was the original 1983 edition, of course, already ten years old by the time I came to read it. Presumably it was part of some job lot of paperbacks donated to the school because I can't imagine our librarian actively acquiring it. However it got there though, it was far more attractive than the books that surrounded it."

Hidden Camera by Zoran Živković
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
It's the story of an undertaker who comes home to find a mysterious envelope stuck in his apartment door, drawing him into a sequence of increasingly bizarre adventures, which he believes for some time to be a The Truman Show-Candid Camera-like reality show. There's a death-life thing going on, a critique of modern mediatized society, and plenty of paranoia to boot.

Interzone #200
reviewed by David Soyka
The 200th issue marks a number of important milestones, not the least of which is that it has reached this many issues -- and seems positioned to exceed it -- when not too long ago it seemed teetering towards extinction. To celebrate, this issue is particularly slick, with full glossy color throughout. Moreover, editor/publisher Andy Cox seems to have hit on a formula that, in terms of both graphic presentation and content, improves on the issues that struggled through the transition from David Pringle's venerable "old" Interzone.

Jonathan Fesmire

Amber in the Over World by Jonathan Fesmire
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Amber, if we were to see her, would appear to be a perfectly normal human young woman. Don't be fooled! In her home world, she is not just a dragon, but a princess. An impetuous princess who tries to stop a murderous wizard from attacking in the Over World, only to find herself in a place she never imagined existed. Now, she must protect the "Custodian" or see everything she loves destroyed.

A Conversation With Jonathan Fesmire
An interview with Lisa DuMond
On choosing to do a YA novel:
"When I wrote Amber In The Over World, I was thinking of all the YA fantasy I've enjoyed. L. Frank Baum's Oz books, the Harry Potter series, and The Chronicles of Prydain are among my favorites. I also wanted to write a book for my daughter."

Dominion by J.Y.T. Kennedy
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Gilna is an apprentice "perfumer" -- an expert in the mixing of medicines, incense and scented oils. After studying in the plains city of Nenaril Jad, she returns to her home village of Rehinau in the foothills to continue her apprenticeship. But her studies are far from complete when the village is devastated -- first by a plague that kills the majority of her people and then by barbarians who slaughter the survivors and take their children captive.

Black Brillion by Matthew Hughes
reviewed by Peter D. Tillman
The story opens with probationary policeman Baro Harkless hot on the trail of the notorious con-man Luff Imbry. Harkless gets his man, and a promotion too, but with a surprising twist: Harkless finds himself teamed with Imbry to track yet another con-man, the even-more notorious Horslan Gebbling. Gebbling, masquerading as Father Olwyn, Sacredotal Eminence, is organizing a landship cruise across the great plain of the Swept, presumably to fleece the passengers....

Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer
reviewed by William Thompson
Set within some far distant dystopian future in which human habitation has been confined to isolated and walled city-states, and the natural environment utterly destroyed, life begins in artificial vats, conception created in the imagination of genetic bioneers, birth an expression of the Living Arts. No longer limited to creating inanimate objects with mere paint and brushes, the artists of this world fashion their work instead out of the genetic clay of flesh and bio-mechanics.