Glass Soup by Jonathan Carroll
reviewed by David Soyka
A sequel to White Apples, the author depicts karma as sort of like going to school. As you begin to grasp more about yourself, you "graduate" to higher levels of consciousness. Though without ever really getting the big picture. Indeed, the novel's title refers to a code phrase sent back from the dead that supposedly explains everything to those who can recognize it.

In Memoriam: 2005
a memorial by Steven H Silver
Science fiction fans have always had a respect and understanding for the history of the genre. Unfortunately, science fiction has achieved such an age that each year sees our ranks diminished. The science-fictional year 2005 could have been much worse for the science fiction community in sheer numbers. While there were a few tragic surprises, the mortality rate for 2005 was no higher than would normally be expected.

New Arrivals
compiled by Neil Walsh
New arrivals at the SF Site office include new and forthcoming works from Harry Turtledove, Robert Newcomb, Charles de Lint, William Browning Spencer, Bruce Sterling, and a collection from Gardner Dozois. And, of course, much more besides.

A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
reviewed by Alma A. Hromic
It's a fabulous conceit -- an alternative world where Romania (sorry, Roumania!) is a world power. If nothing else, it's ripe new territory -- it is probably doubtful if the average reader, even one who has heard of the place, could accurately point to it on a map other than helplessly waving their hand over the general region of Eastern Europe. This makes it perfect as a fantasy setting, since a good writer could do anything they damn well pleased with it, and still come out on top.

Every Inch a King by Harry Turtledove
an excerpt
"I'm Otto of Schlepsig. Ah, you've heard the name, I see. Yes, I'm that Otto of Schlepsig. Some other people claim to be, but I'm the real one, by the Two Prophets. I'm the one who was King of Shqiperi. I ruled the Land of the Eagle for five whole days.
    No, I wasn't born blueblooded. By my hope of heaven, I wasn't. As a matter of fact, I was born in a barn. Truly. Literally. It was either that or make a mess of my parents' traveling caravan, and my mother—a trouper among troupers—would never have done such a thing."

A Conversation With Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
Christopher Golden, author of The Myth Hunters, and Tim Lebbon, author of Dusk, have a few pints too many and chat about their upcoming Bantam Spectra releases...

SF Site's Readers' Choice Awards for 2005
You've waited patiently for a whole year, but at last your favourite season has rolled around again. Yes, that's right, it's time to finish reading those new books that have been stacking up on your bookshelves, your floor or bedside table, because very soon you'll need to determine which ones you feel are the best of the best. Or at least, you will if you want to have a say in the annual SF Site Readers' Choice Awards! The deadline for voting is February 11, 2006. If you've forgotten what you chose in previous years, you can find them all linked at Best Read of the Year including Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke which was the top choice last year.

Dayton Ward

The Genesis Protocol by Dayton Ward
reviewed by Kilian Melloy
Science is a method, and technology a means, and their combined application produces advanced tools for the betterment of humanity. But advances in civilized living come at a cost -- pollution, global warming, disturbed ecological systems. The hope is that science, a self-correcting discipline, will find a way to correct the abuses and imbalances we have imposed on our environment, and with the emergence of high-level biotechnology there's a glimmer of hope that we may soon have the means to fix our self-inflicted problems.

A Conversation With Dayton Ward
An interview with Kilian Melloy
On using secret government programs:
"It's definitely a time-honored component of the storyteller's toolbox, to be sure. As for how much of it has any bearing or basis on what secrets a government or military might harbor? Certainly there are technologies that are in the research and development or early prototype stage about which the public knows nothing. I seriously doubt there's anything really outlandish lying about."

Sequential Art
a column by Matthew Peckham
From the title, a chimera is "an imaginary monster made up of incongruous parts." And indeed that description fittingly characterizes what follows in Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti's Chimera, a kind of black and white narrative phantasmagoria.

Babylon 5.1
TV reviews by Rick Norwood
What's on TV in February? Rick offers a list of what to watch.

Nanny McPhee
a movie review by Rick Norwood
Emma Thompson is a rare bird -- two great talents, actress and writer. And how she writes! She won an Oscar for her script for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility and the IMDB credits her as unsung script doctor for the recent Pride and Prejudice. She wrote and stars in this first fantasy film of 2006. The script has its good points and its bad points.

Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
reviewed by Rich Horton
The story begins on two threads. One concerns Wendell Floyd, an American in Paris in 1959. But his Paris is rather altered: its technology lags our own 1959 just a bit, apparently because World War II never happened. Floyd is a sometime jazz musician who mainly works as a private detective, and he is drawn into investigating the mysterious death of an American woman. Meanwhile, three centuries in the future, Verity Auger, an expert on Paris in the 21st Century, is maneuvered into accepting a strange assignment: wormhole travel back to Paris in 1959. It seems an agent has just been murdered, and Verity must try to recover some valuable information she had gathered.