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by Henry Leon Lazarus

There's a thin line dividing genre Science Fiction and Fantasy from literature. What has always seemed amazing to me is that line keeps moving. Many authors, using sf themes, like time travel, near future tales, and vampire tales, have made the transition. Other authors, often writing at the same level or even better, seem permanently trapped in the genre sections, and never reach the wider audience they deserve.

Sherri S. Tepper is definitely one of them. Her work takes a very humanistic view of future technology and she tends to write of worlds with pastoral backgrounds Her last novel, Six Moon Dance (Avon Eos) now out in paper, dealt with a planet that seemed to violate all sorts of strictures and required a Great Questioner to determine if the world should be abandoned. Of course what seemed horrific turned out to be valuable and honorable. The opposite is true of Haven in Singer from the Sea (hard from Avon Eos). It is a pleasant pre-industrial world run by a benevolent aristocracy. But nursing mothers seem to be dying at a horrible rate and many aristocrats enjoy extended life spans. I like the fact that Ms. Tepper while being both feminist and environmental, has strong male characters and still considers humans to be included in their environment.

Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Talents (hard from Seven Stories Press) which I got from the library after it was nominated for a Nebula, shows a really horrid near future with electron collars making slaves out of enemies and criminals. It is told by diary excerpts written by the founder of the next great religion with interpretations by her daughter who was taken from her too young to really remember her.It is very powerful. But the villains are all conservative Christians. Which, in my opinion, moved the book frightfully close to being propaganda from the liberal left.

I picked the theme of this column because of Maria Doria Russell's Children of God (trade from Fawcett) which I just bought. Found in the fiction section of the book store, it is the sequel to The Sparrow and tells the how Father Sandoz is hijacked back to Rakhat where the effects of his first voyage have upset their culture. If the first novel was extremely Catholic and guilt filled, the sequel represents Ms. Russell's conversion to Judaism and is far more optimistic. Robin Hobb's second book about the live ships, wooden ships that somehow live, Mad Ship (hard from Bantam Spectra) will probably never find itself in the general fiction section but the level of characterization and depth of human insight should put it there. This middle book tells of the launching of the beached, insane ship Paragon to rescue the ship Vivacia, captured by pirates in the first book, Ship of Magic (paper), and now succumbing to the lure of adventure that piracy represents..

Kage Baker's Company is comprised of immortals, recruited from all of time and made immortal, and used to shepherd treasures to the future, was created by twenty-third century time travelers. Joseph, a ten thousand year old veteran is modified to look like Sky Coyote (hard from Harcourt Brace and company), god of a sixteenth century California tribe whose culture is being collected. With time travelers from the future come to help, and actually get in the way, Ms. Baker sets up the conflict in the next book when these immortals reach the future by dint of living though the remaining centuries. I thought it was funny that these "native" Americans reflect the values of modern California than the typical "native" Americans. I got this book from the library, but I think it is filed in the fiction sections too.

Denise Vitola's horribly poor future and her lycanthrope detective go on a trip "up the river" in The Red Sky File (paper from Ace) a phrase with literal meaning because the prison camps line the banks. Their main superstition is based on reincarnation and with polluted, monster filled waters, sunken treasure, and a rebellious prison group give Ty's enhanced lunar strength all the problems she can handle. This is a great series that could easily be filed in the mystery section, and the great joke of the series is that in spite of all the superstitious beliefs of the population, everything has a rational explanation. Alan Dean Foster's African hero and friends find their quest taking them into The Thinking Kingdoms (hard from Aspect) where the beliefs of the people pose as much problems as the wild nature did before. This is a fun series, started in Carnivores of Light and Darkness (paper), with a very modest hero who always manages to find the right way out of each predicament.

Tom Deitz is one of the best writers about young adults, their foibles, misjudgements, and relationship problems. Bloodwinter (trade from Bantam Spectra) starts a tale of five of them. Caught up in greed for some magic jewels and the potential war between the low country who are burning their forests faster than they can be regrown, and the high country, whose riches might buy them out of their problems. I just wish that plague hadn't rid the countries of wiser heads because so much of their problems come from their own lack of impulse control. Leo Frankowski has his young hero grow up after being sent to the military (after getting his girl friend pregnant through a hole in the wall the separated the sexes) in A Boy and His Tank (hard from Baen). Eventually he manages to win the war in a fun tale of extremely powerful war machines. The problem is the virtual reality the tanks provide makes it difficult to tell real from created reality. David Brin's Foundation's Triumph (hard from HarperPrism) could easily have been written by the master himself, Isaac Asimov. Concluding the trilogy started by Greg Bear and Gregory Benford, Mr. Brin has Hari Seldon rejuvenated to face the problems of chaos in his psycho-history equations. I just wish Dr. Asimov hadn't complicated his simple thesis by trying to add the robot stories to his Foundation series.

I don't know whether it was Andre Norton or Rosemary Edghill who thought of putting U.N.C.L.E. (yes, the television series) agents in the Napoleonic age as agents for England, in The Shadow of Albion (hard from Tor). Putting it in an alternate 1805 was also smart because it removed the dead hand of history from the problems of a missing Danish Princess and the hidden French King. It's a lot of fun, but, because of the addition of magic, one of the major puzzles was solved by hand waving magic. I hope any sequel would have enough sense to keep all puzzles natural and a problem for the reader to solve. Anne Logston may be more predictable and generic in her plotting, but she does know how to use magic well. Waterdance (paper from Ace) tells the tale of a women with minor magical talents who wants to be a swordsman. Impulsively rescuing one her people's enemies from the bone priests who had captured him, she finds love and adventure where she least expects it.

Peggy Kerr writes in the literary vein. My daughter liked her version of the Swan Princes in The Wild Swans (trade from Aspect) but passed over the other story, the tale of a young gay man in the early 1980's when AIDS began to hit. I'm not sure how the two fit together, but both are good. Craig Shaw Gardner is still in his depressing, literary mode. Writing under the alias of Peter Garrison, he tells of a world of castles and tunnels perpetually at war, that somehow connects to our Earth and drags gangsters and teenagers into The Changeling War (trade from Ace). I'm still not sure what is going on, but intend to keep reading.

Star Trek fans will enjoy Strange New Worlds II (trade from Pocket), fan fiction edited by Dean Wesley Smith, John J. Ordover, and Paula M. Block.

Authors with their collections of their own work include James P. Hogan, Rockets, Redheads, and Revolution (paper from Baen); Mercedes Lackey, Werehunter (paper from Baen); and Darrell Schweitzer (a fantasy and horror writer very popular in England), Refugees from an Imaginary Country (hard from Owlswick Press and W. Paul Ganley). The other collection this month is Twice Upon a Time (paper from DAW), humorous new looks at fairy tales selected by Denise Little.

Jane Routley's sequel to Mage Heart, Fire Angels (Avon Eos), both of which I've read twice) is out in paper. I want a new Dion tale. Also in paper is Lois McMaster Bujold's tale of how Miles VorKosigan solves a mystery on Komarr (Baen) and meets his future wife, Jerry Jay Carrol's tale of detective fighting ufo aliens Inhuman Beings (Ace) which is enough fun to put it on my reread list, David Drake's Northworld Trilogy (Baen) which I haven't read, and Elizabeth Lynn's odd tale of a were-dragon in a medieval background, Dragon's Winter (Ace) that never coalesced for me.

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its May meeting on Friday the 14th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. George R. R. Martin, one of science fiction and fantasy's major writers and also a Hollywood scriptwriter, 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.