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by Henry Leon Lazarus

If beach books are what you buy in the summer, what do you buy when you're locked in the house in the cold of winter and television has gone into reruns. Breach books? (To breach the quiet) I prefer books with lots of excitement to keep my heart pounding.

Catherine Asaro's Radiant Seas (hard from Tor) has a problem for me. It's so good that I had to go back and buy the books I had missed in the series. Luckily this war drama stands on its own. The two lovers, heirs to warring stellar empires, from Primary Inversion (paper), have fifteen years to themselves (producing four children and generally enjoying themselves) before he is captured to be a front for those who want to rule the traders' evil Empire. To get him back, she has to wage a war that comes close to destroying both empires. Diane Duane has a nice tale about a framed and expelled space marine. His first adventure in trying to prove his innocence gives him an odd alien partner and puts him up against an evil interstellar corporation in Sunrise at Corrivale (paper from Star*Drive).

David Weber destroys two star fleet battalions to bring one enemy troll and a heroine from three hundred years in the future to our near future in Apocalypse Troll (hard from Baen). It is a rollicking fun tale that's impossible to put down. William Shatner's Step into Chaos (hard from HarperPrism) will probably blow the teenager's minds who haven't encountered ideas like moving people into computers and civilizations growing to god like powers. This is the final of the tale of Jim Endicot, the boy with the secret in his DNA.

If The Net had been written by computer professionals like Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg, then it might have been a real thriller like Termination Node (hard from Del Rey) about a woman hacker framed for murder by the people who are using another hacker to steal billions. If you learn nothing else from this book, you should learn never to send important passwords over the internet.

Jerry Jay Carroll has a new tale of the stock broker who became a dog in another universe, in Dog Eat Dog (trade from Ace), the evil magician follows him to this universe and he has to use all his wits, and his millions to stop him from getting someone evil elected President. I really loved the dirty campaign tricks his PR people use.

Chris Bunch finishes his lusty trilogy about The Warrior King (trade from Aspect) in which the Emperor wizard escapes. Damaste has to use all of his military wits, his magicians, and the help of the Gods, to stop both him and the neighoring king. As usual the sex is hot and the battle scenes bloody.

In a very crowded near east of the future, Jamil Nasir creates a very odd new science – image digging (used for advertising). Cairo is the hot point, and at the center is a girl who shows up in everybody's dreams. Tower of Dreams (paper from Spectra) made me uneasy, but it also made me think. Robert Scheckley's odd humor has a very odd taste and Godshome (hard from Tor) starts with the concept of a place where gods retire, to some of them coming to Earth and ruining all about them, to ... well, to extremes. Not for everybody.

Finally there's the fourth book of Sharon Green's Challenges series, Betrayals (paper from Avon Eos) in which the five people who were betrayed in the last book have to get together. Then they find hidden secrets about their empire and the secret war it was waging.

There's some huge collections this month. Stephen R. Donaldson (Reave the Just and other Tales from Bantam Spectra); John Barnes (Apostrophes and Apolypses from Tor); and Charles de Lint (Moonlight and Vines from Tor) all have long-awaited hard covers of their shorter work. In addition Whitley Strieber has edited a collection of stories about Aliens (paper from Pocket) and there's the latest from Asimov's SF Mag, Valentines (paper from Ace).

Want to know more about the year 2000 than the Y2K problem, Matthew Bunson will make you hide under a bed for a full year with his compilation of all the Prophecies:2000 (trade from Pocket). One of my patients wanted to take it home.

My receptionist grabbed the Star Trek Cook Book (trade from Pocket and written by Ethan Phillips and William J. Birnes) because there are real recipes in it. Other Star Trek material includes: a novel written by Quark (Armin Shimerman) helped by David George III, The 34th Rule (paper from Pocket) which looked interesting, but I didn't read, postcards celebrating the women of Star Trek Voyager (Seven of Nine pic's guys! drool!) (Pocket) and two script Books (both trade from Pocket); The Q Chronicles and Becoming Human (about Seven of Nine – with more pics).

Paperback reprints include Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's modernization of American Indian fables, The God Mother's Web (Ace); Jack McDevitt's disaster novel, Moonfall (HarperPrism); Gregory Benford's odd tale of a bowling ball sized pocket universe, Cosm (Avon Eos); and Greg Bear's tale of returning the dinosaurs that Professor Challenger collected, Dinosaur Summer (Aspect).

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its February meeting on Friday the 19th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. Robert Sawyer, a best selling Canadian Science Fiction writer and winner of numerous awards will speak. Guests are welcome to attend this, the second oldest science fiction club in the country. Set your calendars to August 30 to September 3, 2001 when the World Science Fiction comes to Philadelphia for the first time in fifty years. It was invented here in 1936.