Path of Fate by Diana Pharaoh Francis
reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer
Reisil spent her life being passed from one family to another, an orphan and burden being shared by all the village. Now a
grown woman, she is a skilled Tark, or healer, living in a tiny house in the very town she grew up in. As part of the agreement,
she's working for them for six months, a sort of trial period, after which if they decide they want her, she can stay. And it
looks like she's staying. In short, she finally has everything she has ever wanted, something many of us have and take for
granted -- a home and a dependable career. So it is no wonder that, when an ahalad-kaaslane goshawk flies towards her,
Path of Fate by Diana Pharaoh Francis
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
In the land of Kodu Riik, Reisil is a tark, a healer. Her training newly completed, she has returned to the town where she grew
up, hoping she'll be accepted as its official tark. Orphaned in babyhood, passed from foster family to foster family, she has
never really known what it's like to have a true home. Being a tark offers her the thing for which she has always longed: a place
in the world, a chance to belong.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary by Jane Frank
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Look at the cover of the book you've been reading. Chances are you'll see an illustration that evokes the novel within
the cover. There is also a good chance that if you look on the back cover or the title page, you won't be able to find
the name of the artist who created the work of art which may have caused you to pick up the book in the first place.
Bad Memory by Duane Franklet
reviewed by Leon Olszewski
It reads like a network administrator's nightmare. Someone is on the network,
seemingly unstoppable. All the control tactics are ineffective
and each retaliation grows in severity.
Leon found the author captured the sense of paranoia that someone, somewhere,
is out to get you, your network, and your computers.
Daughter of Troy by Sarah B. Franklin
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Lisa's view is that Franklin's version of this era is an entertaining one. The writing flows smoothly and
maintains the reader's interest. Colourful, legendary figures, seen in the daily details
of the lives, make for high adventure and down-to-earth survival fare.
The Magister's Mask by Deby Fredericks
reviewed by Donna McMahon
In the city of Chalsett, it is traditional that an apprentice who has finished her training shall be assigned
the very next case that requires a magister. But Shenza Waik, humble daughter of an illiterate fisherman, feels
far from ready when that case turns out to be the horrifying murder of the First Lord of Chalsett by magical fire.
Weak and Wounded by Brian James Freeman
reviewed by Mario Guslandi
Brian James Freeman is a brilliant writer whose horror stories do not rely upon vampires, zombies or werewolves, as the
present collection (a slim book reprinting five of his previously published stories) clearly demonstrates.
In these stories he portrays one of the true horrors afflicting human existence, namely the pain,the hurt and the emptiness
created by the loss of loved ones.
He describes that horror with skill, insight and finesse, leaving behind a deep sense of sorrow and anger for the atrocities of life.
Imposter by Valerie Freireich
reviewed by Mark Shainblum
This novel has many things going for it: sympathetic characters, a rich and
credible future civilization, and a genuine sense of wonder absent from much current
SF. More, the background and settings of this intriguing novel are almost as interesting as the
foreground characters.
Bonds of Blood, Bonds of Steel by Rebecca L. Frencl
reviewed by Steven H Silver
As a first novel, the book is good, although it
does suffer from the author's seeming inability to plot. The
story is told as a series of vignettes, which are without an
end goal. Although this is the way real life works, it tends
to work less well within the confines of literature.
Frequency #2
reviewed by Rich Horton
This a CD audio anthology presenting
"The Apple Golem" by Bruce Holland Rogers, read by William Foss; "Housecalls" by Jerry Oltion,
read by Alistair Logan; "Christmas at the Cushingura Cafe" by Stephen Dedman, read by Tadao Tomomatsu; "Abbat01r" by Cory
Doctorow, read by Alyxx Ian; "Chance in Hell" by John Rosenman, read by Martin Dunn; and "Rate of Change" by Bud Sparhawk,
read by David LaFontaine.
Frequency #1
reviewed by Steven H Silver
This is a new short fiction-on-CD publication. Highlights include oral versions of
Ray Vukcevich's humorous story, "Problem Solved," Kurt Roth's epistolary story, "Rift,"
John Serna's "User Error," Stan Schmidt's alien-on-conquest story, "Panic" and
Stephen Dedman's "Honest Ghosts" which is set at a New Orleans science fiction convention.
This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman
reviewed by Charlene Brusso
Centuries ago, when Earth first sent humans to the stars, something about
the Hausman stardrive caused bizarre mutations to those aboard the ships.
Just as Earth's colonies were getting started, Earth panicked, abandoning
their own people -- mutants known as "Hausman Variants" -- on foreign
worlds. Today the only safe way to cross deep space is by outpilot, for
only they have the peculiar mutation allowing them to navigate the dangerous
folds in spacetime. But now a fierce brainware computer virus is wreaking
havoc throughout known space, killing the starship outpilots.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Captain's Table: Dujonian's Horde by Michael Jan Friedman
reviewed by Alexander von Thorn
Rumours of an ancient treasure of powerful technology, a crew of
brigands sailing the infinite dark, a missing Starfleet officer, a lost
civilization in a pocket universe with a complex political conflict...
There is only one man to call for this assignment: Jean-Luc Picard.
Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men: Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman
reviewed by Mark Shainblum
Heroes meeting heroes across legends is a process as old as mythmaking. (The
Morte d'Arthur and the entire myth of the Round Table can be viewed
in one sense as a giant medieval team-up.) But this book demonstrates why
no one should own the basic archetypes and myths which define a culture.
Star Trek: Federation Travel Guide by Michael Jan Friedman
reviewed by Lela Olszewski
Lela plays tourist with this trip planner featuring such
exotic places as the Klingon homeworld, Cardassia Prime, and Vulcan,
Shiralea VI and Bajor.
The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature by Brian J. Frost
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
Werewolves garner much less attention than do vampires. Partly this may be because our image of werewolves
is that they are bestial and violent, whereas vampires -- while perhaps
evil -- can be suave and sensuous. Well, now, with the publication of this book, you can assuage your lycanthropophilic obsessions,
and with its 73 page bibliography of werewolf-related materials, build quite a to-read list.
|
Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost
an audiobook review by Nicki Gerlach
In this sequel to Shadowbridge, we return to his world of
giant bridges spanning endless swaths of ocean. We
return to the story of Leodora, a young orphan following in her father's footsteps and earning her fame as
greatest living shadow puppeteer and storyteller since her father, Bardsham. We even return to the exact
moment where the previous novel ends, with Leodora taken to Edgeworld, the realm of the gods.
Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost
reviewed by Tammy Moore
Lord Tophet, the second and final Shadowbridge novel follows Leodora, diguised as the
secretive, talented shadow-puppeteer Jax along with her manager Soter and her gifted, other-worldly musician Diverus.
But enemies draw ever closer as the wandering troupe finds itself on Colemaigne, where the cruel Lord Tophet blighted the Span.
Only Soter knows the true story of all that happened but, even as he struggles to protect
his ward, he cannot bring himself to tell the truth about what happened all those years ago.
Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
an audiobook review by Julie Moncton
Catherine Crawfield is on a mission. Ever since learning that she was conceived when her human mother was brutally
raped by a vampire, she has made it her vocation to eliminate vampires from the world – one silver stake at a
time. The score is in Cat's favor when she meets the vampire Bones, a bounty hunter who chases
down other vampires for a living. With a common goal of killing vampires, Cat enters into an uneasy alliance
with Bones.
The January Dancer by Michael Flynn
reviewed by Rich Horton
It is, first and foremost, an entertaining Science Fiction novel of the old sort -- nearly
a Space Opera, with mysterious aliens (including legendary "prehumans"), desperate planets, people searching for a way
back to Old Earth, an enigmatic object, travel through warp space that makes sense and the nature of which matters,
and plenty of color.
Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost
an audiobook review by Nicki Gerlach
The world of Shadowbridge is a world unlike any other. It's a world built on an ocean, where vast bridges connect
far-flung spiraling towers, and tiny islands underneath the spans are the only land most people ever see. But more
than that, Shadowbridge is a world of dreams, of sea dragons and fox-faced tricksters, of capricious gods visiting
their gifts upon unsuspecting mortals. And most of all, Shadowbridge is a world of stories.
Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost
reviewed by Dustin Kenall
This is something different. It is not quite fantasy and not quite science fiction. Not quite a quest epic and not
quite a character study. But it is, for the most part, a good read. There are pleasures to be found in its pages that
comprise the story of Leodora, a shadow puppeteer, and Diverus, a god-touched musician, and their performances across the
interlinking, innumerous bridge-cities that stretch across the fathomless oceans of Shadowbridge.
Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories by Gregory Frost
reviewed by Matthew Cheney
It is a rare writer who is well served by a large retrospective collection of their short fiction, and, unfortunately, Gregory Frost
is not one of them. He is a good writer, a skilled writer, a writer responsible for a couple of stories that are, in fact, better than
average. A collection of 150 pages or so would have shone his strengths well.
Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories by Gregory Frost
reviewed by David Hebblethwaite
If you've not heard of Gregory Frost before, the epigraph from Andrei Sinayavsky gives an idea of what
to expect: "Realism is a literary technique no longer adequate for the purpose of representing reality." Quite so. This idea
is most effectively embodied here in "Collecting Dust," the story of a family being literally ground down by modern life.
One Foot in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
an audiobook review by Julie Moncton
Four years have passed since the events of Halfway to the Grave and Cat is now leading a crack team of
recruits who track down and eliminate vampires. The team is a first-class vampire killing machine whose physical
skills are finely honed with a brutal training regimen and a touch of vampire blood infusions to give them an
extra bit of supernatural boost.
Good Faeries / Bad Faeries by Brian Froud
reviewed by Jonathan Fesmire
Filled with paintings and sketches, this book draws you into Faeryland as
effectively as a well told tale. Each creature, long and graceful or squat
and stocky, has a distinct personality. Froud's greatest talent is making
his images seem vibrant and alive.
A Midsummer Night's Faery Tale by Wendy Froud and Terri Windling
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Remember the delicate creatures of The Dark Crystal and
Labyrinth? Those almost human beings, somewhat like us, but
infinitely more fragile and winsome? Well, after too long a wait, those
faeries, pixies, trolls, sylphs, and all the other magical citizens of the
magical world, are back in a new faery tale.
Talebones #28 and Full Unit Hookup #5
reviewed by Matthew Cheney
The greatest joy of reading small press magazines is discovering odd and/or beautiful and/or enchanting and/or marvelously
uncategorizable writing, the kind of writing that makes you catch your breath, that sends shivers through your spine and
timbres. In the twenty-eighth Talebones, this joy is at its height with Sandra McDonald's fine story
"Bluebeard by the Sea"; the fifth issue of Full Unit Hookup brings shivering bits of "ah ha!" with the
breadth of the poetry presented and, especially, with "Hurricane Sandrine", a thoughtful and enigmatic tale by Daniel Braum.
Full Unit Hookup, Spring 2003
reviewed by Rich Horton
The opening story, "Waiting for Jenny Rex",
by Melissa Yuan-Innes, is very fine work. The story is told by a reporter who falls in love with the title character, a dead anorexic girl returned
from the grave with a mission to inform about her disease. Yuan-Innes deftly negotiates the creepy aspects, the affecting aspects, and the funny
aspects of her tale, as complications result when other dead return with other diseases to battle.
Full Unit Hookup, #1
reviewed by Rich Horton
Here is another in the recent near flood of small press slipstream 'zines. It offers six relatively
short stories, and a number of poems, as well as two essays. It fits very readily in the same general category as
Electric Velocipede, which Rich reviewed here recently, or the by now venerable Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet,
which he has called the "gold standard" of the SF/slipstream 'zines.
The Holler by Marge Fulton
reviewed by Kit O'Connell
The Holler is a slim volume of 20 very short stories drawn from author Marge Fulton's life in rural
Hazard, Kentucky. Its subtitle, "tales of horror from Appalachia" is,
perhaps, a bit of a misnomer. Very few of the stories in here would be described as horror in any conventional sense.
The Sci-Fi Channel Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction by Roger Fulton and John Gregory Betancourt
reviewed by Steve Lazarowitz
As a long time fan of television SF, Steve couldn't wait to get his hands on
this book. But when it finally arrived, it was somewhat different than
he had envisioned. Steve had not realized just how many SF series had
graced the screen throughout the years.
|