The Witch Queen by Jan Siegel
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
Morgus, the enemy who dragged Fernanda Capel outside of time and held her prisoner beneath the roots of
the gruesome Eternal Tree, didn't die in their final confrontation, as Fern believed. Preserved through sorcery, she has slipped back into the
stream of time, bearing a cutting of the Tree. In an ancient, ghost-haunted country manor, she nurtures the cutting, which soon shows signs
that it will bear its terrible fruit of living heads. When it does, Morgus will know what she must do to conquer modern Britain.
The Dragon-Charmer by Jan Siegel
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
Although Fern denies her Gift, its strength draws others to her, including the sorceresses Morgus and
Sysselore. These ancient, evil crones dwell outside of time beneath the Tree of Life and Death, whose branches
support the earth and whose roots penetrate the underworld. On the
eve of Fern's wedding, Morgus kidnaps Fern's soul and brings it to the Tree, intending to train Fern's Gift and
then join it to hers and Sysselore's, in order to make a gateway back into the world of time.
Prospero's Children by Jan Siegel
reviewed by Pat Caven
A doomed ship, tossed by a raging tempest, the siren who helps destroy it, and the key to the beginning of a tale that will
span centuries. Flash forward to the present where a young girl and her family are drawn into the tale when
her father inherits a house in Yorkshire. Fernanda Capel is an extremely self-possessed and practical young
woman. But a woman with a blossoming gift and a destiny that she has no idea how to fulfill.
Of Pigs and Spiders by Edward Lee, John Pelan, David Niall Wilson and Brett Savory, A Lap Dance With the Lobster Lady by S.P. Somtow and Two From Zothique: A Chapbook by David B. Silva and Geoff Cooper
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Readers under the age of 17 caught reading these 3 chapbooks will be forced to take a three-week family
vacation in a hatchback. With a car-sick dog sharing the back seat. And adults, please,
don't get talked into buying these for kids loitering around the convenience store.
Roger Corman: Metaphysics on a Shoestring by Alain Silver and James Ursini
reviewed by David Maddox
From monster movies to epic pictures, from historical drama to tense thrillers, no man has directed or produced a more varied
catalogue of film than Roger Corman. He has built his reputation on being a maverick filmmaker who doesn't play by Hollywood's
rules. His decades-spanning career has lead to an incredible cult following and the helpful development of such filmmakers as
James Cameron and Jonathan Demme.
Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of Feline Aesthetics by Burton Silver and Heather Busch
reviewed by Peter D. Tillman
Your first question here, no doubt, is what a review of a book of cat
photos is doing here. Well, we're glad you asked, because these
are fantasy cat photos -- fantastic, even. Besides, we happen to know
that a lot of SF Site readers like cats.
Wondrous Beginnings edited by Steven H Silver and Martin H. Greenberg and Magical Beginnings edited by Steven H Silver and Martin H. Greenberg
reviewed by Alma A. Hromic
In many of the actual stories chosen for publication in these anthologies,
the eventual shape of the mature author's work can be dimly discerned, like something
sketched out in pencil and rubbed out many times until only a blur remains -- but for someone just starting out there is much to recognise
in these stories, the kind of thing that a beginner, any beginner, does, and there is a shimmer of great and glowing hope there. Even
someone like Arthur C. Clarke, esteemed elder statesman, or Anne McCaffrey, wildly successful author,
had to step over some line in the sand somewhere, write a first word, write a first story, get a first cheque.
The Silver Web, Issue 15
reviewed by Rich Horton
Rich was particularly taken with Brian Stableford's "Oh Goat-Foot God of Arcady", in which he slyly interleaves a woman's conviction
that she is being stalked by the randy god Pan with biotechnological speculation about producing chimeras. A very neat use
of fantastical imagery in the service of SF. He also quite liked Carol Orlock's sweet, rather Bradburyan, fantasy "Ye Olde
Ephemera Shoppe", about a man who acquires the title business, and after making it a success selling fairly typical antiques
finds a more rewarding sort of "ephemera."
The Silver Web, Issue 15
reviewed by David Soyka
The standout stories are "A Lesser Michaelangelo" by T. Jackson King and "The Apocrypha According to Cleveland"
by Daniel Abraham. The former is an allegory about deviancy and suffering to create great art, while Abraham's
parable of the ineffable and perhaps meaningless nature of reality that lies beneath the myths constructed to
give the appearance of an orderly universe is already on my "Year's Best" list. For my money, it doesn't
get any better weird than this.
Science Fiction, The Best of 2002 edited by Robert Silverberg & Karen Haber
reviewed by Steven H Silver
One of the questions which must be asked when reading a new best of year
anthology is whether it adds anything to the genre beyond what is
provided by the already existent Gardner Dozois and David Hartwell
series. Part of the answer must be yes, because different editors have
(sometimes radically) different views of what science fiction is and
what constitutes the "best." It can further be argued that the more
anthologies of this type which can exist, the better the state of the genre.
The Avram Davidson Treasury edited by Robert Silverberg and Grania Davis
reviewed by Rich Horton
The collection is organized as a retrospective with the selections
placed in order of first appearance, along with introductions by many
of Davidson's friends -- mostly fellow authors and editors.
Rich is a big Davidson fan so he came to this collection
not at all objective.
The Sound of Angels by Lisa Silverthorne
reviewed by Jonathan Fesmire
From a haunted airplane crash site to Martian caves, her prose contains just the right
description to put you into her many imaginative locations. Even better, she puts you in the mind of her characters
so that you understand them, despite how alien some of their lives are.
In A Town Called Mundomuerto by Randall Silvis
reviewed by Sandy Auden
The author tells two intertwining stories -- one about the grandfather and the boy, set in a
present; and the other, more substantial story, about the tragic events in the grandfather's youth, when a beautiful maiden
was seduced by the mysterious dolphin-man.
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
reviewed by Rich Horton
Enoch Wallace is a reclusive man living in the Southwest corner of
Wisconsin. A U.S. agent has tracked down stories about Enoch that prove he
is 124 years old, the last survivor of the Civil War, though in appearance
he is perhaps 30. Enoch has a secret: he was chosen by aliens to operate a
way station of their interstellar teleportation network. Earth is not yet
ready for membership in the Galactic co-fraternity of races, so Enoch must
keep his station secret.
The Stars of Axuncanny by David Simms
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
While this book was a pleasant if not overly engrossing read, it would be hard to place it into either
science fiction or fantasy, or even imaginative fiction. This is sometimes a difficult distinction for books
by "mainstream" writers who use elements of SF or fantasy to place their story in a slightly alternate reality.
Secret of the Three Treasures by Janni Lee Simner
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
Tiernay West's father travels the globe doing research for his adventure novels. Tiernay Markovitz's mother lives
a useful live in a small northeastern town as mother to a daughter she intends to raise as
responsible and practical. Tiernay is trying hard to be a good daughter to
both her parents, who are now separated, but she really wants to be Tiernay West, Professional Adventurer.
The End of Earth and Sky by Tom Simon
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
The End of Earth and Sky is a frame tale set in an alternate universe, opening with an introduction
by the narrator, Calin Lowford, in response to a comprehensive indictment that claims he is the most heinous of
mega-super-extra-evil villains. Each chapter begins with a quote from this indictment, which, Calin explains, is written by
someone whose world indeed ended.
Calin is an ordinary young man, given to plumpness. He's termed lazy by many of his elders, and he's certainly tried several
apprenticeships unsuccessfully before being made into...
Cavalcade by Alison Sinclair
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Thousands of people took up the alien invitation and find they have been instantaneously
transported to a vast, strange cavern. They are a huge, motley crowd consisting of those people who would risk anything
to embark on this greatest human adventure and those -- in great numbers -- who had nothing on Earth left to lose. Some have
brought their families, pets and cherished possessions; others have brought nothing but the clothes on their backs; still
others are drunk and just coming to the appalled realization that this wasn't a hoax after all.
Cavalcade by Alison Sinclair
reviewed by Rich Horton
With a resolution that is quite original and very moving, the central mysteries of the story
come to a head in a fair and interesting manner. There isn't any cheating with the plot
and the book's theme is strong and satisfying, and deeply science-fictional. In some ways it
reminds Rich of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy.
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Accidental Goddess by Linnea Sinclair
reviewed by Steve Lazarowitz
Gillie, aka Captain Gillian Devre, has several problems, not the least of which
is that she has lost 342 years of her life. One minute she's fighting in a war, enters riftspace on the tail of an enemy
vessel, and then she's thrown through a freak hole in time/space, ending up more than three centuries hence. Her second big surprise
is, during the lapsed years, she has become a goddess, the patron saint of the Star Fleet, an object of worship.
Goddesses don't swill beer and play billiards in seedy space bars, and she wasn't the saint the religious texts claimed she was.
The Golem by Isaac Bashevis Singer
reviewed by Neil Walsh
From a Nobel laureate comes a powerful retelling of the legend of the clay giant who aids the Jews
of Prague in their time of need. Available in paperback for the first time.
Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh
reviewed by Sandra Scholes
The novel takes the reader through to Adria,
a wolf changeling and soldier who has to leave her past behind her in order to set about creating a new future for herself. But
when she meets a SnowDancer, Riaz, her heart is torn in two just as his is troubled by how he feels about her. His needs are
sexual, and all consuming. He is dangerous, and that appeals to her risky nature. They shouldn't be together, but they can't be
apart. Theirs is a love that is terrible, yet wild and tortuous for both of them.
Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh
reviewed by John Enzinas
Imagine a world like our own, except that instead of governments and corporations controlling our lives,
there is a council of Angels who have divided up the world into their own little fiefdoms where they
rule with an iron fist. These angels are very powerful winged humanoids but there is no explicit connection
with the divine. This is probably for the best as these angels have the ability to
transform humans into immortal servants who are vampires.
The Hand That Feeds by Peter Crowther and James Lovegrove, Alternate Lives by Paul Bradshaw and In The Mirror by Sarah Singleton
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
These are 3 exceptional chapbooks with a vitally important theme. It would be nice if these stories gave us pause, caused us
to examine the shadows around us more closely. "Nice," but not likely, according to these authors. People are people
and human nature is virtually set in stone; a genuine, lasting change just may be beyond such simple creatures.
Headcode by Kenji Siratori
reviewed by Georges T. Dodds
Georges may regret this review in 20 years when Siratori is a household name and William Gibson is forgotten has-been, but he seriously
doubts it. You can think of it as over 250 pages -- if only he'd written a sonnet -- of
incomprehensible, undecodable,
torturous, plotless, needlessly repetitive, self-indulgent gobbletygook -- a cyber-slang metalanguage to the
cognoscenti -- that one hopes was printed on recycled paper lest it have the added sin of killing trees and
contributing to global warming.
Blood Relations by A.L. Sirois
reviewed by Rodger Turner
The sabership Haltija sends a first contact party down to the planet
Lennon with the intent of re-establishing relations with a colony once
thought lost. The sentient ship had just about given up and its crew-family
was looking ahead to some shore leave. For events were not proceeding as
expected. The crew had factionalized and sabotage had damaged ship's key systems.
The Affinity Trap by Martin Sketchley
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
Alexander Delgado is a veteran soldier and experienced covert operative for Structure, the world government that has come to exist in the wake
of humanity's withdrawal into gigantic habitat towers, sealed off from the trashed, polluted, disease-ridden world of the far
future. Since a bloody coup by the power-hungry General William Myson, Structure has become a corrupt
dictatorship. Delgado, whose loyalty to the previous regime caused him to be punished by the sidelining of his career, is
called out of his semi-retirement by General Myson himself. Earth is in imminent danger of war with the
Seriatts, a powerful three-gendered alien race whose homeworld lies close to the locus of some of Myson's many illegal dealings.
Sky City: New Science Fiction Stories by Danish Authors edited by Carl-Eddy Skovgaard
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Every few years, international science fiction appears to be spotlighted by an American editor, whether it is the
excellent SFWA European Hall of Fame edited by James and Kathryn Morrow in 2007 or Tales from Planet Earth
edited by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull twenty years earlier.
Here we have Sky City, with stories selected by Carl-Eddy Skovgaard and published by Science Fiction Cirklen, an
anthology of Danish Science Fiction originally published in 2007 and 2008 with new translations into
English.
The Complete Roderick by John Sladek
reviewed by Stephen M. Davis
Roderick is an evolving robot: he evolves from an AI construct to a legless but mobile box with sensory apparatus,
and finally, near the end of the first novel in this two-volume compilation, to something with a body and a
reasonable facsimile of a head, though a head painted black, which causes quite a bit of confusion amongst some
of Roderick's neighbors.
Tik-Tok by John Sladek
reviewed by Rich Horton
The book is purportedly written by the title character, a robot, as he
awaits his trial and certain execution for murder. We are quickly told of the first of Tik-Tok's crimes,
the first time he realizes his "asimov" circuits must be damaged: he murders a little blind girl while his
owners are away, and then covers up the bloodstains with a mural. It is the mural which provokes interest
though: it is evidence that robots can be creative. The ironic linkage between creativity and
murderousness should probably not be missed.
Masters of Deception by Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner
an audiobook review by Steven Brandt
It's 1989, and while personal computers have been around for a few years, their full potential
is still largely untapped. Only about one household in three owns a computer, and most that do
own them don't really know what to do with them. But there are an elite few who understand
instinctively that mastery of the computer means power. These few are almost always teenage
boys, are highly intelligent, and are bored. It was fun at first, like a game, but when a
couple of hackers gain access to New York Telephone's computer system, the stakes are suddenly much higher.
The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales by Angela Slatter
reviewed by Mario Guslandi
An Australian author who spins beautiful yarns in a musical, fascinating narrative style, her
enticing stories are set in a magical world in which reality is colourful and fascinating, made of that elusive,
precious substance of which dreams are made. This collection of sixteen enchanting fairy tales
for grownups is penned by this incredibly talented writer.
Among the Dolls by William Sleator
reviewed by Dan Shade
Ten-year-old Vicky, is crushed when she receives a dusty, old doll house for her birthday instead of the shiny,
new 10-speed bike she'd been hinting about so much. She rushes to her bedroom in tears. However the doll house soon
begins to draw her interest and she soon begins play with it a great deal. Vicky then begins making the doll house
people behave like the real people in her life.
Rewind by William Sleator
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
Fans of Sleator's creepy and complicated SF stories may be surprised by this
relatively straightforward tale, in which there aren't any particularly
strange goings-on -- other than the fact that the narrator is dead, of
course. But not permanently dead, or at least not yet. He is given a chance
to go back and prevent his death.
The Boxes by William Sleator
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
This is a fast-paced, vividly imagined book. Many young readers will love
the fascinatingly creepy details and identify with the young heroes as they
outwit the nefarious grownups.
Brain Plague by Joan Slonczewski
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Chrysoberyl is a young artist, struggling to mount an exhibition
and pay her rent at the same time. In addition, her family cannot afford
the medical help her brother needs. When she signs up for an experimental
program, she becomes host to a microbe colony known as the Eleutherians.
Her status as a carrier is her ticket to wealth and fame,
but it also exposes her to the growing prejudice against the brain plague and its human hosts.
The Children Star by Joan Slonczewski
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
The author's ability to use her scientific background (she's Chair of the Biology Department at Kenyon
College) to create believable worlds is a powerful asset, while her
writing skills ensure that there's a good story to go along with the
scientific accuracy.
The Apparition Trail by Lisa Smedman
reviewed by Donna McMahon
It is 1884 on the prairies, but a very different 1884 than the one in Canadian history books. Since a mysterious comet struck Earth's
moon in 1877, magical phenomena have become real. For Europeans, this has manifested in the development of perpetual motion
technology, which is swiftly replacing coal and steam on the partially completed Canadian Pacific Railroad. And for tribes like the
Cree and Blackfoot, magic holds the promise of powerful spells to banish foreign interlopers from the plains and restore the vanishing
buffalo herds.
Tails You Lose by Lisa Smedman
reviewed by Donna McMahon
One of the signs of a successful novel is that it stands alone, regardless of whether the reader has read
prequels, or -- in the case of media and gaming tie-ins -- is familiar with the universe it's set in. On
that basis, this novel in the Shadowrun series, is a
winner -- a book that is readable by anybody, regardless of their interest or disinterest in gaming.
The Forever Drug by Lisa Smedman
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
You think werewolves are cursed with this nightmare of shape-shifting, and
spend their miserable lives bemoaning their tragic fate? That doesn't come
close to describing the problems of Romulus, free agent for the Magical Task
Force of Halifax. Running around in wolf-form is the least of his
worries.
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