In a Time of Treason by David Keck
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Being the first born son of a Lord is a pretty good deal. You stand to one
day inherit a title, land, and loyalty of the people who go along with it. Being the second son is not nearly as good a
thing. The latter is the situation faced by a young Durand Col who has found a place as a knight in service to Lord
Lamoric. Times are uncertain, and when Lamoric and
other Lords are called by the King to journey to his court and renew their oaths of loyalty, they are forced on a harsh
voyage which ends in betrayal.
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
Space opera is all about scale, the biggest devices, the biggest bangs, the biggest distances. And no-one does
size quite like Alastair Reynolds. Here, his (human) heroes are millions of years old and regularly circumnavigate the
galaxy, they have the technology to safely enclose a sun that is about to go nova, and they are about to get involved in a
conflict whose origins lie eons before and whose resolution will extend to another galaxy.
Roman Dusk and Borne In Blood by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
reviewed by Mario Guslandi
The saga of the vampire Saint-Germain, whose adventures across the centuries (he's supposedly 4,000 year old) started with
the publication of the novel Hotel Transylvania in 1978, and has now reached its 19th and 20th installment, much to the delight
of legions of faithful readers.
The author, the prolific Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, keeps jumping across history without following a definite chronological order,
moving her creature back and forth from ancient ages to more modern times, so much so that her books have the dual character
of the historical novel and the vampiric tale.
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
an audiobook review by Nicki Gerlach
Aliens invading the bodies of humans isn't a new plot device, but who ever stops to think about the body-snatcher's point of
view? The Host gives us the chance to experience this unique switch in perspective: the book opens as the alien called
Wanderer is inserted into the body of Melanie Stryder, a renegade human recently tracked down and captured by the Seekers. When an alien Soul is
placed into a new human Host body, that's supposed to be that.
Off On A Tangent: Short Fiction Reviews
a column by Dave Truesdale
Dave has been annoyed in the past, but he is really irked by one particular story in
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow.
He was primed and ready for this all-new collection of both science fiction and fantasy stories, and hoped it would be another
worthwhile addition to a number of others appearing in the past two years.
The Fade by Chris Wooding
reviewed by David Hebblethwaite
Orna, a member of the elite Cadre, is bonded for life to the Clan Caracassa. Orna's people, the Eskarans, are at
war with the Gurta; as the novel begins, she is in battle. Tricked by the Gurta, Orna's husband is killed, and she is captured
and taken to the prison-fortress Farzala. At first despairing and aloof (which gains her the nickname of "the fade," a kind
of apparition), she gradually forms relationships with a small group of her fellow-prisoners and formulates a daring plan to escape.
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Omega Sol by Scott Mackay
reviewed by Michael M Jones
In the not-so-near future, mankind has finally established a presence on the Moon, a scientific research station called
Gettysburg. It's there, as a team of scientists perform a complicated experiment, that history is made, when a strange silver
sphere of giant proportions appears unexpectedly, leaving destruction and chaos in its wake. Utterly ignoring the humans
affected by its arrival, it sets up residence in one of the Moon's craters, before creating dozens of even stranger silver
towers, which fly off to points around the Moon.
The Oblivion Society by Marcus Alexander Hart
reviewed by Nathan Brazil
The Cold War suddenly becomes very hot, due to a series of unfortunate events. One such
being the liaison of a Slick Willie style President, taking orders
from below his waist. This time, when the nuclear buttons are pushed, there's no teenage geek hero to save the world. In
the space of a few minutes, it's whoops apocalypse and goodbye to all that we knew.
Nexus Graphica
a column by Rick Klaw and Mark London Williams
Reality plays by its own rules. This tenet, in the form of metafiction, litters the comic book
landscape. While this type of self-referential literature was quite common in comics strips,
the earliest story of this type that Rick Klaw uncovered, appeared in Captain Marvel
Adventures #22, dated March 26, 1943, some eight years after the publication of New Fun,
the first comic book of original material.
New Arrivals
compiled by Neil Walsh
Some of the most recently received new and forthcoming titles at the SF Site office include the latest from Greg Bear, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novik, Terry Brooks, Robert Scott & Jay Gordon, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Jacqueline Carey, Eric Brown, Kelley Armstrong, David Drake, and many others.
The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell
an audiobook review by Jennifer McCann
Told in alternating story lines, this is the tale of Sweeney, a father who has brought his comatose
young son, Danny, to the Peck Clinic in hopes of a miracle. Sweeney seems to just exist in his space, as his life revolves
around the care and cure of Danny. Working in the Peck's basement pharmacy, Sweeney frequently visits his son's bedside to
read from Danny's favorite comic book series, "Limbo." Sweeney floats through his day in a haze of anger and lack of
sleep. His forays out into the clinic proper and town are met with hostile and often confrontational results. He is a man lost.
The Incredible Hulk
a movie review by Rick Norwood
The Incredible Hulk is a moderately entertaining, by-the-numbers, semi-sequel to Ang Lee's Hulk, lacking the
exciting directing but also the murky storytelling of the earlier flick. It is very loosely based on the Hulk stories
in Tales to Astonish #90 and #91 (April and May 1967), "The Abomination" and "Whoever Harms the
Hulk," by Stan Lee and Gil Kane.
Babylon 5.1
TV reviews by Rick Norwood
Rick has been watching The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, now out on DVD. The quality of this series is uneven,
depending largely on how much involvement George Lucas has with a particular episode.
He also gives us a list of SF on TV in July.
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