The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter
reviewed by Steven H Silver
The Cuban Missile Crisis was, of course, a major event in the United States and Soviet Union in 1962, but it also affected
other countries in the world. The book is a young adult time-travel/alternate
history novel that looks at the crisis from the point of view of a fourteen year old girl in Liverpool. Laura Mann has
newly arrived in Liverpool and must deal with the typical relocation issues, as well as an absentee father and parents
going through a divorce when her world is really turned upside down.
Vote for SF Site's Readers' Choice Awards for 2007
2007 marks the 10th anniversary of the annual SF Site Readers' Choice Best of the Year Awards. For
the past 10 years, this has been the season when we solicit you, our faithful readers for your input on what
you thought were the best books you've read in the past year. We'll grind your votes through our top-of-the-line
super-secret vote-counting software, and post the results in February or early March.
If you've forgotten what you chose in previous years,
you can find them all linked at Best Read of the Year including
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch which was the top choice last year.
The New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
Many have always regarded space opera as science fiction's guilty pleasure.
It's not the sort of stuff you'd recommend to a non-SF reading friend, because they'd just not get it. There's something
almost juvenile in it, the sort of loud, garish, wide-screen pleasures that turned us on when we were younger and busy
discovering the illicit thrills of SF.
You certainly don't turn to space opera for literary respectability, for fine honed characters, for searching insights,
for any sort of subtlety.
New Arrivals
compiled by Neil Walsh
Some of the highlights from our latest new arrivals to the SF Site include new and forthcoming works from Richard Morgan, Gregory Frost, Anne & Todd McCaffrey, stories from Greg Egan, and a new Shannara story from Terry Brooks in graphic novel format. Also, several series are continuing or concluding, with new works from Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter, S.C. Butler, David Gemmell, Terry Goodkind, Shana Abé, William Nicholson, David Zindell, and Mike Resnick. All this, and much more...
Babylon 5.1
TV reviews by Rick Norwood
Rick has some news on new episodes of Smallville and Torchwood along with reviews of
Battlestar Galactica: Razor and The Water Horse, Legend of the Deep.
Dune by Frank Herbert
Performed by Simon Vance and a full cast
an audio review podcast by AudioFile Magazine
Listening to Dune offers the opportunity to experience this classic work in a way that manages to feel comfortably familiar and surprisingly new at the same time. The story of Paul Atreides and the fulfillment of his destiny on the desert planet Arrakis is brought vividly to life in this outstanding production.
Click on cover/link to get the MP3 podcast file.
The Aftermath by Ben Bova
reviewed by Michael M Jones
In the depths of the Asteroid Belt, many years from now, the aftermath of a short but brutal war for the resources of the asteroids
leaves a number of lingering repercussions. One family is torn apart by an unprovoked attack, while an entire space habitat is
destroyed, its inhabitants slaughtered. The perpetrator, soon afterwards, undergoes traumatic changes and sets out on a new
path, one of attempted redemption.
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Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
reviewed by Sandy Auden
Once you've opened the book you'll be mesmerized by the adventures of Jakabok Botch, a
demon from the Ninth Circle of Hell. Botch lives next to one of the rubbish tips that his father patrols to keep the
trouble-makers out, when he's not beating Botch or his mother to a bleeding pulp in a drunken frenzy. When Botch is
hideously burned, it sets off a series of events that sees the young demon on a century-long journey, chasing across
the face of our earth with a companion older than time.
An Open Letter to Publishers About Series Books by Regina Lynn
Is it so hard to print a number on a book cover?
Honestly, it can't be. Children's series have had numbers on the volumes for decades, and probably long before
that. You may remember there were 54 Nancy Drew novels in your school library, and you were able to read
them in order because they were so easily sequenced.
Three Good Deeds by Vivian Vande Velde
reviewed by Rich Horton
Howard is a fairly typical boy in a small village. One day, for
what he thinks is a prank, he steals the eggs of a goose -- one of a flock of goose protected by the local "witch." The
"witch," it turns out, is a real witch, and she responds by turning Howard into a goose. He won't become a boy again until
he performs three good deeds.
The Music of Razors by Cameron Rogers
reviewed by Nathan Brazil
Seventy-two angels fell with Samael, the Son of Morning, cast out of Heaven for rebellion. Then another angel, who
had the task of assigning power and function, grasped the enormity of its own ability. So the angel sundered another
of its unkillable kind and fashioned the bones into instruments that contained its great gift of Form and Power. It
scattered these instruments across the Earth, to safeguard them in case its plan failed, then attempted to ally
with the Fallen One. But Samael rejected the angel.
The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Zines have been around almost as long as there has been fandom in science fiction. The compulsion to print your own thoughts
and throw them out into the world seems to be strong among SF fans. Occasionally a publication itself has risen out of the ranks, establishing itself
with a level of quality that equals the pros and changing its perceived status from fanzine to full-fledged magazine. Such
is the case with Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.
A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television by John Kenneth Muir
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Originally published in 1999, A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television covers the quintessential BBC television
series from before its debut on November 23, 1963 through its final airing on December 6, 1989. In addition to examining the
individual story lines that the seven incarnations of the Doctor and his companions lived through, the author
provides a context for the television series.
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