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by Henry Leon Lazarus

Science Fiction doesn't seem to have a generic form. This is because there are so many sub-genre's within the field, i.e time travel, far future empire, near future, etc., that each group is too small. Fantasy, however, is a different story. I think of generic fantasy as taking place in a background generated from history anywhere from King Arthur through the reformation. The background is England or France during the middle ages with serfs, nobility, and a very strong church. Season in hand-waving magic and you can get a pretty unreadable blob. However, when the author modifies part of these elements, adds interesting characters, and adapts the background in subtly different way, then you can get great mind food.

Consider Delia Marshall Turner's Nameless Magery (paper from Del Ray) a sort of female fantasy Tom Jones. Lisane, on the run from the Enforcers whose starships destroy magic, and on a strange world, is put in to a magic academy filled with magicians whose first burst of power killed their parents (or even their whole village). This would be standard, even boring stuff, but Ms. Turner never takes a straight path to where she is going and Lisane is a wonderfully brash character who I hope to see more of. I also like how Katya Reimann uses the very real, and amoral gods of her world to shape the characteristics of the societies that worship them. In the sequel to Wind from a Foreign Sky (paper) Gaultry is on a quest to the corrupt, poison loving, empire of Bissanty in A Tremor in the Bitter Earth (hard from TOR) Aided by a young assassin, originally sent to kill her, and a slave she rescues, she has to face an evil, mad sorcerer. Ms. Reimann makes all this very real, and peoples the empire with living characters who reflect their society.

I have been very impressed with Felicity Savage's Ever, The final book being A Trickster in the Ashes (trade from HarperPrism). Ms. Savage is telling the history of Europia, an imaginary subcontinent set in the Pacific. Now that the Demons have been released from their cages, stilling the engines they drove, and now that the Significant Empire has conquered Ferupe, Ms. Savage, taking a historical novel approach, rather than a fantasy one, has Crispin on the run from one side of the Empire through Ferupe, showing how the technology created for demons is converted to diesel engines and sold to America and Europe. Thus creating new opportunities and directions for growth. I was expecting more explanation of the demons and how they fit in with the world, but I remain impressed with the trilogy. David Brin also takes a historical approach in telling how the dolphin crewed starship, Streaker, finally makes its way home and why all the alien species have been chasing it all this time. Heaven's Reach (hard from Bantam Spectre) has the crew reacting to cataclysmic events, rather than creating them. This makes the ending of this long series less satisfying.

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have a very odd and fun background for their Starshield series. Apparently each region of space has its own physics or magical rules. This allows a very odd mix of science fiction and fantasy. All the action and background is a bit larger than life. In Nightsword (hard from Del Ray) our heroes are after the fabled weapon and are opposed by the greatest magician in the galaxy. I also had a lot of fun with Alan Dean Foster's Carnivores of Light and Darkness (hard from Aspect) about a humble African herdsman, a self professed non-magician, on a quest given to him by a dying man. On a odd world where size can change easily from region to region as well as other basic characteristics, Etjole somehow has a seemingly magical solution for every major problem he faces on his way. I had a broad grin as I read this one, and can't wait for the continuation. Ken Hood pulls the largest rabbit out of a hat that anyone has ever dared in fiction in his continuation of a tale of a Demon Knight (paper from HarperPrism). This time Longdirk, the man ridden by a hob, must get the fifteenth century Itallian city states in his demon infested world, to cooperate against Nevil who has conquered most of the rest of the world. They wouldn't have cooperated in our world either.

In 1912, Europe was suddenly replaced by Darwinia (hard from TOR by Robert Charles Wilson), an overgrown jungle modified from an altered history, leaving it to be re-conquered by European-americans. Nothing is, of course, what it seems in this very odd time travel novel that is both of the turn of the twentieth century and the far, far future. Mr. Wilson evokes a pastoral voice similar to the late Clifford Simak and is the best replacement for that lost voice that I have ever seen. Robert J. Sawyer also mixes people stories with science fictional ideas. But only he would dare to use transmission from space as a way for a family to cope with a therapist who believes that all of her patients have been raped by their fathers. Factoring Humanity (hard from TOR) deals with how the father deals with these accusations and how the mother translates the inscriptions and finds a very alien way to contact humanity's soul.

Patricia Briggs introduces a woman thief and magician who has to help the conqueror of her country fight a demon he doesn't believe in. Of course they fall into friendship in When Demon's Walk (paper from Ace). Anne McCaffrey continues her tale of colonists dumped to survive on planet farmed by another superior species in Freedom's Choice. (Paper from ACE). Of course everything goes right for them and bad for the evil rulers. Acorna's Quest (hard from ACE by Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball) for her species has the unicorn-like girl facing weather pirates and the species that destroyed the ship she had been on and left her homeless. Younger readers will probably like this pleasant but very obvious series.

At the far end of time, on a world peopled by animals modified into human form, a true human makes his way down the river to find his destiny in Child of the River (hard from Avon by Paul J. Mcauley) which would be pretty good except for the cliff hanging ending. Melissa Scott has a great idea about terrorist artificial intelligences sent by religious fanatics in The Shapes of Their Hearts (hard from TOR) but it was too confusing to work well.

Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who've done a number of Star Trek novels have an edge-of-your-seat, non-stop action thriller, Icefire (hard from Pocket) about terrorists using nukes to boil antarctic ice and send a disastrous tidal wave out to the southern hemisphere. I believed it while I was reading it, and really enjoyed the description of high tech planes used by the hero to outrun his continual danger.. Finally, collectors of horror will be interested in Fritz Leiber will love to know that TOR has printed a lost manuscript of a novella of horror The Dealings of Daniel Kesserich (trade) written originally in the 30's.

Media related books include Star Trek Strange New Worlds, (trade from Pocket and edited by Dean Wesley Smith) which is fan written short stories, and All the Things I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek The Next Generation (hard from Pocket by Dave Marinaccio, a collection of humorous anecdotes.

The ultimate market for Science Fiction that every wannabe writer yearns to sell to is, of course, Playboy. So we have The Playboy Book of Science Fiction (hard from HarperPrism and edited by Alice K. Turner) with forty-five years of what they bought. Alas, there isn't one unknown amidst them. It's all famous stories by famous authors like Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, etc. Which means it's a very readable killer of dreams. Sniff. Other collections include David G. Hartwell's look at 1997 Sf, The Year's Best SF 3 (paper from HarperPrism), a look at alternate history in Roads Not Taken (paper from Del Ray, edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schimdt),and two paperbacks from DAW both edited by Martin H. Greenburg.; Black Cats and Broken Mirrors, new tales of superstition, and Camelot Fantastic, new tales of King Arthur.

Books in paper for the first time include: Terry Brook's look at modern good and evil Running with the Moon (Del Ray), Acorna (the first of the series by Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball from HarperPrism), and the final Avalon novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lady of Avalon (Trade from ROC).

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its July meeting on Friday the 10th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. Tony Daniels, a novelist with rather unusual backgrounds will speak. Guests are welcome to attend this, the second oldest science fiction club in the country.