The SF Site: New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Kasper in the Glitter
Philip Ridley
Penguin/Dutton hard cover
From the author of Apocalyptica and Ghost from a Perfect Place comes a tale of ten-year-old Kasper, who has a series of fantastic adventures in the glitter and gloom of the city when he visits it for the first time. In the decrepit part of town known as The Gloom he soon meets King Streetwise, a young bully who entices children away from the Glitter.

The Serpent Garden
Judith Merkle Riley
Viking hard cover
This latest outing form the author of The Oracle Glass is the tale of a painter of small (miniature oil paintings) in the court of a young King Henry VII. It's such a good read.

The Oracle Glass
Judith Merkle Riley
Fawcett trade paper
A favourite book in 1994, it is now available in trade paperback.

Books by Jennifer Roberson

Conan the Bold
John Maddox Roberts
Tor
When Conan's intended bride and her family are killed by Taharka of Keshan, he vows a savage vengeance. "From the fighting pits of Croton to the plains of Ophir, Conan pursues Taharka to a battle to the death." Can't we all just get along?

Drive Communications

Waiting
Frank M. Robinson
Forge (hardcover, 303 pages, $23.95/$33.95 Can)
Publication date: April 19, 1999
It's very hard to pin Robinson down, and it looks like he likes it that way. His work includes the 1950s horror classic The Power, the 70s mainstream sensation The Towering Inferno, and the award-winning SF epic The Dark Beyond the Stars. His latest is a near-future thriller. "There are people living among us who look just like normal human beings. They've been here for a long time -- waiting. But they aren't exactly like us at all. There are subtle physiological differences that might be found in a thorough medical and genetic exam. And that is something they really want to avoid. They'll kill people to prevent it, in fact. One ordinary man in San Francisco, Arthur Banks, begins to find them out, and immediately his life and his family are in danger. It's a paranoid's worst nightmare. But that's just where it starts--Banks may well be fighting for the survival of the entire human race."

The Dark Beyond the Stars
Frank M. Robinson
Tor trade paper
A tale of interstellar travel, alternate sexuality, and overpowering obsession from the author of The Glass Inferno, the basis for the 70's movie The Towering Inferno. For 2000 years the generation ship Astron has conducted a failed search for alien life. Now the only direction left to explore is across the Dark, an interstellar void that will take a hundred generations to cross. Despite the dangers and the decaying state of the ship, the captain refuses to abandon the quest. Only Sparrow, a young crewman uncertain of his own past, may be able to stand against the immortal captain, and fight the lure and challenge of the dark beyond the stars. Winner of the Lambda Literary Award and a New York Times Notable book for 1991, The Dark Beyond the Stars is currently in development by director Francis Ford Coppola. "A generation-ship masterpiece... Do not miss this novel." -- Los Angeles Times

Books by Kim Stanley Robinson

Lifehouse
Spider Robinson
Baen paperback
When a couple approaching their 1000th anniversary takes just a little too long to respond to a distress call, the consequences could affect the entire universe.

Stardance
Spider Robinson & Jeanne Robinson
SFBC
The short version of this SF novel of dance, love and alien contact won a Hugo award, and proved that the husband and wife team of Spider and Jeanne could produce a beautiful marriage of their respective talents. A woman who yearns to dance in zero gravity discovers that her capacity to communicate is greater than even she expected... and may change the course of human events.

Callahan's Legacy
Spider Robinson
Tor hard cover
The bar where all the lifeforms know your name is back. Callahan's is back (albeit without Mike).

The Q Chronicles (The Star Trek Scriptbooks, Book One)
Gene Roddenberry, D.C. Fontana, Maurice Hurley, et al
Pocket (trade paperback, 840 pages, $18 US/$26.50 Can)
Publication date: January, 1999
This is one of those books you chuckle at... I mean, who really wants to wade through eight hundred pages of teleplays? Especially of episodes you've seen multiple times, and didn't particularly care for the first time? ("Hide and Q," anyone?). But geez, this stuff is like popcorn. I started to flip through the middle of this fat volume, and ended up reading far more than I ever expected to. Pick it up in a bookstore and see what I mean. The first volume in The Star Trek Scriptbooks series features all eleven episodes starring the enigmatic and annoying Q, including the first and last episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. "Of all the myriad beings who inhabit our galaxy, none are as enigmatic (and as entertaining) as the omnipotent cosmic trickster who calls himself Q. Sometimes a playful mischief maker, sometimes a deadly threat to all humanity, Q is nothing if not unpredictable. Starfleet has maintained an extensive record of all Q's bizarre manifestations, and now so can you. Here, painstakingly compiled, are the original scripts for each of Q's unforgettable encounters with the Federation. From his memorable first appearance on the Starship Enterprise to his single visit to Deep Space Nine and his ongoing flirtations with Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager, The Q Chronicles provides authentic transcripts of over a decade's worth of quintessential fun and games."

The Stars Dispose
Michaela Roessner
Tor (reprint, paperback, 408 pages, $6.99 US/$8.99 Canada)
Publication date: March 1998
A sumptuous Renaissance fantasy set in Florence, Italy in the late 1520s, from the author of Vanishing Point. Young Tommaso Arista and his sister Ginevra, chefs and scholars, are servants of the Ruggieros, a family of magicians who in turn serve the ruling Medicis. The swirl of events around them is portrayed as part of a vast and arcane struggle on the astral plane, where creatures and forces from other planes of existence strive to exert their dark influence over this world. Blended in with the tale are major characters and events of the period, including the deposing and eventual restoration of the Medicis, the Black Death, and war. And through it all the Befanini family rules the kitchens of the de Medici and their allies, serving as best they can with what magics they can supply. "Historically precise, culinarily evocative... and fantastically inventive, Michaela Roessner's writing will sweep you into the mazelike streets of Florence and the ominous tension of sorcerous conflict." -- Amazon.com.

Samurai Cat Goes to Hell (The Adventures of Samurai Cat, Book 6)
Mark E. Rogers
Tor trade paper
The final adventure in the Samurai Cat saga. Okay, I picked this up with scorn on my lips. The Samurai Cat prints were funny, but there's such a thing as extending a joke too far. But the scenes I scanned as I flipped through the novel were extremely funny. I dunno. Your call. "Miaowara Tomokato has died and gone to heaven, but his faithful sidekick, Shiro, has been sent to hell. On his way to retrieve Shiro from eternal damnation, Tomokato encounters all the folks he's consigned to the lower realm -- who all want a chance to get even!"

The Cinder-Eyed Cats
Eric Rohmann
Crown hard cover
This is a gorgeous book. Although the story is a little sparse ("In faraway lands, when twilight falls on fair and wind-swept days, cats like velvet shadows move, their coal-fire eyes ablaze," is the sum total text on the first 16 pages), that's hardly the point. A dreamy, surreal visit to a land of childhood fantasy and imagination, where a young boy encounters some curious cats -- and much more. Recommended.

Art: Greg Call

Not Exactly the Three Musketeers
Joel Rosenberg
Tor (hardcover, 316 pages, $23.95 US/$33.95 Can)
Publication date: February 11, 1999
A stand-alone fantasy novel set in the author's Guardians of the Flame world, this is a broad parody of Alexandre Dumas's classic. "Meet the heroes of Castle Cullinane: Kethol, Durine, and Pirojil -- sworn to protect the Cullinane manse... and the sometimes heroic Jason Cullinane, who (some say foolishly) chose to renounce his family's right to the throne. When our heroes are summoned by the reigning Dowager Empress and are sent on a mission to investigate whether an errant noblewoman is being coerced into an arranged marriage, they know that things are more complicated than they seem. But they have no way of knowing who is friend or foe...or whose hand holds the killing blade."

The Crimson Sky (Keepers of the Hidden Ways, Book Three)
Joel Rosenberg
Avon Eos (paperback, 341 pages, $5.99/$7.99 Can)
Publication date: November 11, 1998
Third novel in the paperback fantasy series (following The Fire Duke and The Silver Stone). "In earlier books, three young college friends discovered timeless, secret portals into the alternate world called Tir Na Nog and successfully located two magical jewels. Now they seek a third jewel as struggles between noble ruling houses push them perilously close to war. Meanwhile, at home in the "real world," an evil being is stalking family and friends of one of the young heroes. Now they must find the stone, defuse the increasingly volatile political situation n Tir Na Nog, and stop the evil one before he can destroy more innocent lives."

The Silver Stone (Keepers of the Hidden Ways, Book 2)
Joel Rosenberg
Avon/EOS (reprint, paperback, 511 pages, $24.95 US/$34.95 Canada)
Publication date: June 10, 1998
Sequel to The Fire Duke. In the first installment, three friends became entangled in the sinister intrigues of the noble houses of the magical realm of Tir Na Nog... and one of them, the young duelist Ian Silverstein, was both tested and found worthy. Now the threat of war looms in the land, disturbing the fragile peace between the houses, and Ian must find a way to stop the seemingly inevitable conflict. For Ian may be the "Peacekeeper" of legend, chosen by the great god Odin. But to prove it he will have to complete a dangerous mission given to him by the the ailing god himself.

Keepers of the Hidden Ways #2: The Silver Stone
Joel Rosenberg
SFBC
Second in the series, from the author of the Guardians of the Flame books.

The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein
Theodore Roszak
Bantam paperback
A new author brings us a prequel to the classic horror novel. It has been praised by Locus, among others.

Donato

Aramaya
Jane Routley
Avon/Eos (trade paperback, 278 pages, $13.50/$19.50 Can)
Publication date: June 8, 1999
The third offering from the author of Mage Heart and Fire Angels is another novel of love and magic featuring the young sorceress Dion. "In search of her missing niece Dally, Dion arrives in luxurious Akieva, the glorious and corrupt capitol of decadent Aramaya. Here, at the dazzling court of the handsome young emperor, Dion discovers her niece trapped in the web of necromancy and deceit hiding within the magnificent Winter Palace. But Dion's archenemy lurks at the center of the web, Bedazzer, the ruthless demon who has vowed to possess her - no matter the cost. In the ensuing deadly conflict, Dion must confront the dark secrets of her own heart and the mighty evil concealed in those around her."
Review by Jeri Wright

Fire Angels
Jane Routley
Avon/Eos (reprint, paperback, 500 pages, $6.99 US/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: April 6, 1999 (First Edition: June 1998)
The follow-up to Routley's debut novel Mage Heart continues the tale of the powerful young mage Dion. Returning to her homeland at last, Dion finds it overrun by marauding Witch Hunters and Fire Angels, in the grip of the creature know as the Great Destroyer. Soon she is thrust again into the world of court intrigue and political conspiracy as she attempts to confront the seductive power of demons.

Mage Heart
Jane Routley
AvoNova paperback
Reprint of Routley's hardcover debut from July of last year. Dion is naïve and unskilled, and just possibly the most powerful mage in the realm. She's been called to serve as protector for her Duke's favorite mistress: Kitten Avignon, the Lady of Roses, an extraordinary woman in her own right. But she is also a woman in great danger, stalked by a necromancer who will not sleep until she is destroyed.

Design: Steve Snider

Vespers
Jeff Rovin
St. Martin's Press (hardcover, 308 pages, $23.95 US/$31.99 Can)
Publication date: October 30, 1998
They say that in Manhattan, there's a phobia for everything. Now you know why. "For reasons unknown, millions of killer bats have migrated to Manhattan. First a boy and his father are attacked at a Little League game, then a young woman is found gutted in Grand Central Station -- and a slew of homeless people who live in the subway tunnels are massacred. >From the subways of Manhattan to the World Trade Center, the Museum of Natural History, and the Statue of Liberty, New York City's landscape becomes a battleground of enormous proportions as the island's inhabitants fight for their very lives."

Art: Eric Peterson

Dragon Ultimate (Bazil Broketail, Book 7)
Christopher Rowley
Roc (paperback, 373 pages, $6.99/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: February, 1999
The seventh volume in the popular Bazil Broketail series is being called "final," as in "In the final showdown between Battledragon and Deceiver, only one will survive." I can count the number of popular fantasy series which have resisted fan pressure to continue on one hand. We'll see how final this one is. "The dragonboy Relkin looks forward to his retirement from the Legion and his impending nuptials. But with the Empire of the Rose weakened by plague, the bloodthirsty Deceiver amasses an army powerful enough to finally destroy his ancient enemies, the High Ones. Relkin and the legendary battledragon Bazil Broketail must make a final stand to protect their world from the most devastating evil imaginable."

Dragons of Argonath (Bazil Broketail, Volume 6)
Christopher Rowley
Roc paperback
A brand new tale of Relkin and his battledragon, Bazil Broketail. Battle-scarred and weary after their last adventure, Bazil and Relkin return home at last. But their peace is short-lived, as the winds of war blow once more across their native land. And as an ancient evil draws the Empire to the brink of annihilation, Relkin is forced to rely on his own untested and frightening magical powers -- powers he may not be able to control.

Dragon at the End of the Worlds
Christopher Rowley
Penguin/ROC paperback
Latest in the light-hearted but exciting Dragon series from Rowley.

Battledragon
Christopher Rowley
Roc paperback
Here is the fourth in the series about the exploits of Bazil, a Battledragon, and his squire, Relkin.

Uretsky/Eshkar

Saucer Wisdom
Rudy Rucker
Forge (hardcover, 287 pages, $23.95/$34.95 Can)
Publication date: July 23, 1999
Only Rudy Rucker could pull this off: a serious science book that also doubles as an account of the visions of one Frank Shook, brought back from the future by flying saucers and reported first-hand to Rudy himself. Think I'm kidding? You don't know Rudy Rucker. "Please heed the warning from the Introduction by Bruce Sterling: "I'm going to spill the beans as directly as I can here: Saucer Wisdom is a work of popular science speculation. It's a non-fiction book, in which Professor Rucker takes a few quirky grains of modern scientific fact, drops them into the colorful tide pool of his own imagination, and harvests a major swarm of abalones, jellyfish, and giant anemones... It is a book by a well-qualified mathematician and computer scientist, a veteran pop science writer, in which 'Science' is treated, not as some distant and rarefied quest for absolute knowledge, but as naturally great source material for a really long, cool rant." Rucker also describes a hell of a party in Berkeley. Popular Science writing is never going to be the same hereafter."

Design: Julie Metz

Seek!
Rudy Rucker
Four Walls/Eight Windows (nonfiction, hardcover & trade, 365 pages, $35 and $15.95 US)
Publication date: June 28, 1999
Selected essays and nonfiction from the author of Freeware. "The essays and memoirs collected in Seek! trace Rudy Rucker's trajectory through the final decade of the second millennium. His topics include artificial life, chaos, the big bang, Pieter Brueghel, the church of the subgenius, live sex, mathematics, science fiction, and TV evangelism. A computer scientist and programmer, Rucker is an articulate, engaging guide to the world on either side of the computer screen."

Freeware
Rudy Rucker
Avon/EOS paperback
It is the year 2053. The latest advances in Artificial Intelligence and polymer science have given rise to moldies, second-class artificial citizens made of shape-changing plastic and gene-tweaking molds. When one of their number is kidnapped, a small group of moldies living on the beach in Southern California find themselves on the trail of a sinister cosmic plot that leads them to a moon colony where the first efforts are being made to contact alien life... and the start of a wacky adventure that could only have been spun by mad genius Rudy Rucker. Inventive, bizarre, and often very funny.

Software
Rudy Rucker
AvoNova paperback
First published way back in '82, when most of today's crop of cyberpunks were still struggling with long division, this seminal novel of artificial intelligence and revolution became the first of Rucker's loose Bopper trilogy, followed by Wetware in '88 and finally by Freeware, this month's featured review.

Wetware
Rudy Rucker
AvoNova paperback
Second book in the Bopper trilogy, sequel to Software. See this month's featured review of Freeware, the final book.

Art: E.A. Cardella

Sewer, Gas & Electric
Matt Ruff
Warner Aspect (reprint, trade paperback, 560 pages, $6.99 US/$8.99 CAN)
Publication date: September 1, 1998 (First Printing: 1997)
We like Matt Ruff. But then, we'd like anybody whose first novel was anything like Fool On the Hill. His second book took its sweet time hitting the shelves, but the wait was worth it. In his feature on the hardcover release SF Site reviewer Leon Olszewski called it "A wild romp set twenty-six years from now... a tale unlike nearly anything written in the past twenty years. Sewer, Gas & Electric can be read either as a light-hearted sci-fi story, or as satire. There are great similarities both to Kurt Vonnegut and to Jonathon Swift's Gulliver Travels. Some people will see similarities to Neal Stephenson...."
Feature Review by Leon Olszewski

Tesseracts 5
Robert Runte & Yves Meynard, eds.
Tesseract paperback
The latest anthology of SF from north of the border. The entire series has brought a fresh perspective to a genre crowded with American authors.

Books by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Design: Hodder Headline

Ecstasy Club
Douglas Rushkoff
Riverhead Books (reprint, trade paperback, 315 pages, $13/$1935 Can)
Publication date: November 1, 1998 (First Printing: May, 1997)
First novel from the author of Cyberia and Media Virus!. In an abandoned piano factory in Oakland, California, a small group of idealists hold round-the-clock raves (back in the old days we just used to call them parties), partly to finance an effort to combine drugs, computers, and New Age spirituality into a method of time travel. Their original idea is to reform and mutate society... but when their attempts begin to achieve a certain success, darker elements rapidly enter into play. "A darkly comic contemporary fable: a brave, very funny, very knowing trip through the neo-psychedelic substrate of the wired world" -- William Gibson.
Review by Glen Engel-Cox

Celestial Dogs
J.S. Russell
St. Martin's Press hard cover
A "unique combination of crime, horror and humour," Celestial Dogs tells the story of Los Angeles PI Marty Burns as he searches for missing prostitutes and tangles with ancient Japanese mythology.
(1st US printing. Cover art from UK edition.)

Children of God
Mary Doria Russell
Villard (hardcover, 438 pages, $23.95 US/$33.50 Canada)
Publication date: March 26, 1998
Doria Russell's first novel, The Sparrow, certainly won a mess 'a awards -- including the Arthur C. Clarke, James Tiptree, Jr., and British Science Fiction Association Awards. Unusual for an SF novel, it was also chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of 1996 by Entertainment Weekly. The tale of Father Emilio Sandoz, the sole survivor of a Jesuit-funded expedition to Alpha Centauri and the only man to have stood face-to-face with an alien culture, the novel was simultaneously a powerful and original work of science fiction and a chilling mystery. Wish I could tell you more about its sequel, which features the further adventures of Father Emilio in some no-doubt new and exciting venture, but I'm only about half way through The Sparrow and I don't want any surprises spoiled by reading the liner notes. So sue me.

Highlander: The Compact Watcher's Guide
Maureen Russell
Warner Aspect (trade paperback, 242 pages, $13.99 US)
Publication date: September 1, 1998
It's compact, it's got plenty of cool photos, it's for Highlander fans. Wrap it up and take it home. "This comprehensive history of the popular "Highlander" series features exclusive interviews with cast and crew, viewers' top ten shows, trivia about how the series began, and more. Approximately 150 photos."

Robert Giusti

The Compass of the Soul (The River Into Darkness, Book 2)
Sean Russell
DAW (reprint, paperback, 407 pages, $6.99/$8.99 Can)
Publication date: June, 1999 (First Edition: August 1998)
The concluding volume in the two-book The River Into Darkness saga, and sequel to Beneath the Vaulted Hills. "In his quest to destroy all magic in the world, the last great mage, Lord Eldrich, has sent Erasmus Flattery to find and eradicate Anna, the leader of the Tellerites, a group of fanatics desperate to preserve the magic -- including the key to immortality -- Eldrich wants to eliminate. Torn by his resentment of Eldrich's manipulations and his strange loyalty to Anna, Erasmus will undergo a magical and spiritual journey which will cause him to question all he believes to be true... and rock the foundations of his world."
Review by Rodger Turner

Beneath the Vaulted Hills
Sean Russell
Daw hard cover
From the Canadian author of The Initiate Brother and World Without End comes a novel set in an earlier age in the same world as World Without End and Sea Without a Shore. It is a culture where science and magic have clashed, and several factions struggle to master the secrets of both. Lord Eldrich, last of the great Mages, has dedicated the last years of his very long life to destroying all record of magic. Opposed to him are the Tellerites, fanatical devotees of a long-dead sorcerer, who seek to preserve the great secrets, in particular the key to immortality. A clash is inevitable, and the young Erasmus Flattery, once an apprentice to Eldrich, finds himself summoned once again -- this time to lead an expedition deep into the vaults of the earth, to find a dark secret hidden since the dawn of the first Mages.

Sea Without a Shore
Sean Russell
DAW
Volume two of Moontide and Magic Rise , fabulous two-book series from this remarkable Canadian author. The first half was one of Rodger's favourites for 1995.

Carlucci's Heart
Richard Paul Russo
Ace paperback
A new cyberthriller from the Philip K Dick Award-winning author of Destroying Angel, Subterranean Gallery and Carlucci's Edge. "In the burned-out streets of 21st century San Francisco, Lt. Frank Carlucci is drawn into an investigation surrounding the disappearance of his daughter's friend, a dying man who was mysteriously carried off. But as Carlucci digs deeper, the corruption and decay he finds is nothing compared to a final horror that could have devastating implications: a secret known only as Cancer Cell."

Art: Eric Peterson

253
Geoff Ryman
St. Martin's Press (trade paperback, 364 pages, $14.95 US/$21 Can)
Publication date: September 14, 1998
If you've been hanging out on the Web for any period of time, you know about Geoff Ryman's latest work: 253. It appeared on the Internet in installments, the tale of a seven-and-a-half-minute ride on a doomed London tube train, told in 253 separate chapters from the points of view of its 252 passengers and one driver. Each chapter is precisely 253 words. Now, in 253: The Print Remix, St. Martin's Press presents this vibrant on-line experiment in print for the first time, with footnotes, maps, and an index. Ryman is the acclaimed author of Was and The Child Garden.

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