Tom Harris by Stefan Themerson
reviewed by Seamus Sweeney
Tom Harris has the form of a detective story, one that consistently throws the reader off kilter,
does not allow complacency or certainty, yet a detective story nevertheless. A detective thriller, even. A
detective story that suddenly breaks down, for this is a book of two halves, the second very different from
the first. Some questions are answered but most aren't. This is no classic whodunnit, partly because we don't
quite know whatwozit in the first place.
The Other Ones by Jean Thesman
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
Bridget Raynes has never been like other girls. She can read
minds, move objects just by thinking about them, talk to birds and
animals. For as long as she can remember, she has tried to
suppress these talents, afraid of being different, wanting to fit in.
3SF
reviewed by Martin Lewis
This is a new UK magazine published by Ben Jeapes's Big Engine and edited by Liz Holliday. Aiming to publish six issues a year, it
is very much a commercial enterprise. Taking its cue from Interzone in terms of format, the debut issue
contains eight stories, split evenly between fantasy and science fiction.
Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas
reviewed by Jakob Schmidt
When private investigator Jeremy Stake is hired to find the very special doll of Yuki Fukuda, daughter of the wealthy bioengineer
John Fukuda, the whole thing seems to be little more than a practical joke. But soon, Stake is caught up in the rivalry between
two major bioengineering companies, and the doll, itself an artificial organism, proves to be the key to a secret that should
have been left buried.
Terror Incognita by Jeffrey Thomas
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
A shout may catch your attention for a moment, then you tune it out. But there is something infinitely
more dangerous and more hypnotic about a whisper. The hushed tones draw you closer. You strain to catch every
word, searching the near-silence for a threat. The author speaks in a whisper. And the repercussions are lethal.
Broken Time by Maggy Thomas
reviewed by Donna McMahon
A book which succeeds due to charming characters and the author's light touch is this one -- an
improbable collision between space opera, fantasy and The Silence of the Lambs. Even describing
the plot of this book is difficult; nonetheless the author manages to glue it together and deliver a satisfying wrap-up.
Broken Time by Maggy Thomas
reviewed by Victoria Strauss
This novel has a somewhat convoluted structure -- starting at
the Institute, jumping back to Siggy's childhood, skipping big
chunks of time and folding flashbacks within flashbacks. Nevertheless, for most of its length, it's
an engrossing, coherent story, with interesting action and intriguing science-fictional speculations.
Before & After by Matthew Thomas
reviewed by Margo MacDonald
The cover promises "exploding sheep, Nostradamus, and the end of the world".
And it delivers. It's wickedly funny, slickly written, positively
contemporary.
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The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas
reviewed by Nathan Brazil
Ariel Manto, seemingly by chance, discovers an extremely rare book, in a store she would never have found if her car wasn't stuck in
the car park of the university where she works. Is it serendipity, or just coincidence, that the book is a
fabled tome, which she had read about but never expected to see in person? The work, which is a supposedly
true account, disguised as a novel, is by an obscure Victorian novelist named Thomas Lumas, whose body of work
Ariel is familiar with due to the fact that he is one of her main dissertation subjects. The book, it is rumoured,
comes with a curse: "Those who read this are doomed to die."
Dark Matter: Reading the Bones edited by Sheree R. Thomas
reviewed by Steven H Silver
In 2000, the editor did a volume of short stories, both original and reprint, of speculative fiction written by black authors.
To round out the anthology, she included several essays which discussed the role of African Americans in science fiction and the
importance for blacks to read within the genre. Here, she presents another collection of stories
using the same format.
Dark Matter edited by Sheree R. Thomas
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
When people discuss important works in science fiction, they tend
to focus on novels, and the occasional short story. Less often, an
anthology is credited with being a major event in the field, but it's been
a while since that happened. Dangerous Visions was one such anthology,
Women of Wonder was another. The last anthology to introduce a new
generation of writers with their own sense of style and immediately launch
them into prominence was Mirrorshades. We're overdue for
something new to shake loose the cobwebs -- this is it.
Ghost Story by Julian F.Thompson
reviewed by Margo MacDonald
Margo can't say that this is a book she would recommend.
What worries her is that young girls reading
this novel may go away with the wrong message.
Storyteller by Amy Thomson
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Only eight years old, Samad was orphaned
and mistreated by foster parents, so he ran away and lives out of garbage cans on the streets of Melilla.
His life changes utterly when he meets and is adopted by Teller, a senior master of the storyteller's Guild, who spends her life
sailing across the huge oceans of this archipelago planet. Samad turns out to be a natural storyteller
himself, and he is even one of the rare gifted humans who can communicate
telepathically with 'harsels' -- huge, sentient, ocean-dwellers whose song stories stretch back for thousands of years before
the arrival of human colonists.
The Colour Of Distance by Amy Thomson
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Juna has a problem. She is sworn to adhere to strict non-interference directives, but her first contact with
an alien race comes when her shuttle crashes on an alien planet and the aliens rescue her from certain death.
Now she depends on them to keep her alive in a hostile environment until she can regain contact with her Earth
expedition.
The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson
reviewed by Ken Newquist
Alien worlds are exactly that: alien. The terrain, the atmosphere, bacteria,
the plant spores, the weather, the life forms -- we can expect some or all
of these things to be different when we arrive on an extra-solar world. Most
mainstream SF avoids or ignores these possibilities, but this author takes them head on.
Through Alien Eyes by Amy Thomson
reviewed by James Seidman
The subject of first contact with an alien race has long been a favourite of
science fiction authors. This refreshing variation on that theme reaches a
level of depth and complexity rarely achieved in first contact stories.
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