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by Henry Leon Lazarus

It's the characters, stupid! I find weird and unusual plots in Fantasy and Science Fiction. It takes great characters to make these novels interesting. This month I have double the usual number to cover, because each had characters that demanded I read their stories.

The most intense was David Farland's sequel to his The Runelords (paper), Brotherhood of the Wolf (hard from Tor) which continues the story with the magic of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) more important than the transference of attributes that figured so heavily in the first. The final third of the book is a battle against Reavers which will glue your eyes to the page. Harry Turtledove starts a series about a magical world at way with dragons as bombers, sea leviathans as u-boats, etc. There are no countries to root for, but I found myself caring about the individuals caught up in the maelstrom of war in Into the Darkness (hard from Tor), and wishing that they survive the morass their aristocratic leaders have put them in.

Next we have two scientific expeditions, both surviving in harsh backgrounds and both hurt by sabotage. Ben Bova, our best technological writer, has a second expedition Return to Mars (hard from Avon ). The expedition is more commercial based and stays there ten times longer, looking for signs of life and learning more about survival on the red planet. Fascinating. Catherine Wells takes us Beyond the Gates (paper from Roc) to a planet settled by an appealing arabic based religion. When living quasi-dinosaurs are found, two non believer scientists are brought in to help investigate. Eventually evidence leads to the proscribed second continent, which instead of being barren, is a veritable lost world of interesting creatures. Ms. Wells tells a fun tale of a heroic woman guide and her interactions with the two men, both totally different in their approach to life.

Four books that come from our time and place include: Ken Goddard's First Evidence (hard from Bantam), a fun and exciting look at the trials and travails of a forensic detective who encounters evidence of "ufo" aliens at a murder scene and has to deal with the alien anthropologists who keep erasing the evidence. James Long's love story about a woman who finds she is one of two lovers, killed at a magical stone in the eighth century and reincarnated over and over again. It's a little difficult for her to believe that eighty year old Ferney (hard from Bantam) is the man from her many past lives. Then there is Richard Grant, a man who likes to put a dash of magic into real situations. In his latest he has fifteen year old Kaspian Lost (hard from Avon ) in fairy land where he loses four days and is displaced sixty miles. Most of the tale is about Kaspian surviving a special school with odd psychologists, and a business approach to learning. Mr. Grant has a wonderful satiric look at the world, in this case of education craziness, and I hope the second half will resolve all the issues. Finally there is the case of the girl turned into a lute by an elf she summoned, and the two friends who, while not believing in magic, have to rescue her. I like the fact that Kara Dalkey's elves are not cute, and as alien and powerful as the ancients pictured them. Crystal Sage (paper from Roc) is a quick read, but lots of fun.

Two futuristic political novels both relate more to how real people react to the problems around them. Joël Champetier's The Dragon's Eye (hard from Tor), named from the world's bright sun that can blind without proper protection, has a spy trying to get to a deeply hidden agent on a Chinese colony world breaking away from its debts and Earth. Robert J. Sawyer looks at the effects on people when a CERN scientific experiment gives everyone a Flash Forward (hard from Tor) of what they will be doing twenty years in the future. Along with one man trying to solve his own murder, others must deal with the consequences of who they will or will not marry and whether that future is real or not.

Two light, and fun fantasies. Tanya Huff returns to her land where bards sing magic to a tale of one who only sings water, but very powerfully. The Quartered Sea (paper from DAW) is a tale of his adventure after being shipwrecked on a far continent and how that allows his emotional growth to true adulthood. Mary Brown gives the task of returning a hatching Dragonne's Eg (paper from Baen) lost seven centuries before, to china, to a school teacher from Victorian London. This is light fun with a magical creature, a ring to help understand the language of animals, and a cat who may have once been human.

Two straight, and exciting, science fiction adventures. To Jack Chalker, Priam's Lens (paper from Del Rey) is the only weapon to stop the Titans from turning human worlds to garden planets, killing the people living there in the process. Of course the controls are hidden in the depths of a world taken by the Titans and bold adventurers have to venture naked into this artificial wilderness. Marc Stiegler tells of Shiva, for some unknown reason, is sending world killers against earth. Only intrepid adventurers can get onboard and usually get themselves killed in the process. Earth's network, Earthweb (paper from Baen), through the mechanism of betting, allows ordinary citizens to help these saviors of humanity and earn money by doing so.

S. M. Sterling and David Drake think that adding technology will raise a world that has fallen to roman empire levels in The Reformer (hard from Baen). This only works if you believe that technology can be created from knowledge quickly. But it is lots of fun.

Anne McCaffrey concludes two series this month. Her characters are intensely involving, but she has lowered the bar they need to jump over to survive, making their problems seem too easy. Freedom's Challenge (paper from Ace) which I missed in hardcover ends her tale of humans stranded on an usual planet while Earth is enslaved by aliens, who are killed in this book. The Flower and The Hive (hard from Ace/Putnam) ends the five part tales of the Rowen and her now huge gamily and the alien Hive creatures that had been attacking earth worlds. Some understanding about these insect like creatures is discovered so to stop their growth.

The only Star Wars Episode 1 book I've seen is the Phantom Menace Movie Storybook (trade from LucasBooks) which looks perfect for my younger patients to browse while waiting. Bruce Bethke has done the Novelization of Wild Wild West (paper from Aspect), and Diane Carey the novelization of the final Deep Space Nine episode, What You Leave Behind (paper from Pocket).

S. M. Sterling's The Domination (hard from Baen) is his complete Draka series that many readers like. I got stopped in the middle of the first volume, but with this reprinting, I might try again. Simon Green's mystery fantasy series is collected in Swords of Haven (paper from Roc), Bruce Sterling has a collection of his shorter work in A Good Old-fashioned Future (paper from Bantam Spectra), and Peter Crowther has gotten a group of stories from various authors honoring the Moon Shots (paper from DAW) of three decades ago.

The paper reprints this month include: a tale of werewolves in well-researched seventh century Rome, The Silver Wolf (Ballantine) by Alice Borchardt, of which I was glad to finally get a copy, and Matthew Woodring Stover's tale of an alternate world of magic, with heroes from our future whose adventures are watched by millions. Mr. Stover told me that Heroes Die (Del Rey) is the first of a series, but I can't see how he can continue. C. S. Friedman's odd tale of a closed faster-than-light society of worlds and the attempts to control it, This Alien Shore (DAW), and the conclusion to Sean Russell's dualogy about the end of magic in a Victorian world, Compass of the Soul (DAW).

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its July meeting on Friday the 16th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. A panel will review the Hugo Award nominated material to help those members voting for the award. 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.