 |
|
| Science Fiction for August 1997
The winds of summer blow too hot. I get addled
in the heat, and I guess publishers do too. For one thing, I've gotten
the oddest books this month, mixtures of everything from fantasy mixed
with sf and mystery mixed with metaphysics. I defy anyone working
at Borders or any of the other book stores to figure out how to file them.
Peter F. Hamilton mixes horror and sf as the Reality Dysfunction (full name) allows the Expansion (-- second half -- paper from Aspect) of dead souls who are possessing live humans and who have awesome powers five centuries from now. Mammoth space battles and excommunicating priests are both part of problem and solution. More is coming next spring. James Herbert gives us a plague in '48 (hard from Harper Prism) out of Nazi Germany that has wiped out most of humanity. Most died fast, but some of the slow dying think that the blood of the unaffected will save them. It's an exciting chase through an empty post-war London. Michael Kanaly has odd thoughts about souls and life-after-death which he muses on between a standard tale of vigilante chasing evil murderer in Thoughts of God (trade from Ace). Somehow the odd combination fits together. Fantasist Barbara Hambly has used her ability at world creation to bring the New Orleans of 1833 alive with all its prejudices intact and A Free Person of Color (hard from Bantam) has to solve the murder of a white man's mistress or be blamed for the crime. While the mystery is minor, the background is tremendously drawn. Shirley Rousseau Murphy brings Drusella and Joe Grey, the two talking cats, back to solve the mystery of an old age home which seems to have misplaced its tenants in Cat Raise the Dead (paper from Harper Prism) in a series I really enjoy, especially now that I have cats of my own--non-talking, of course. Two fun thrillers to look for (that I got from the library) are Ignition by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason (hard from Forge) which is a fun Die Hard clone taking place at a Shuttle launching in Florida. It gets an A for details and a C for originality. James Bond is back during the turn over of Hong Kong in Raymond Benson's Zero Minus Ten (hard from G. P. Putnam's)-- the best Bond since Ian Fleming bit the dust. I almost expected o see some of the events from the novel during the changing ceremonies. |
Of course for light fun you
can't beat Mark Sumner's The Monster from the Edge (paper from Ace)
about a tabloid reporter who finds X-file type monsters and actually gets
rid of them. I looking eagerly for the next in the series.  Anne
McCaffrey and Margaret Ball team together with a light story about an almost
human girl with a healing horn on her forehead, Acorna (hard from
Harper Prism)
who tangles with a child labor importer on a planet whose economy rests
on their labor. Predictable, but fun.
Mike Resnick tells the tale of the deadliest gunfighter in the galaxy. Frozen and waiting for a medical cure, he is cloned again, this time he has to find an elusive bandit and deal with the corrupt governor who wants his kidnaped daughter returned. All of this is no problem for The Widowmaker Reborn (paper from Bantam Spectra). Then there's Ian McDowell's continuation of his Mordred story, Merlin's Gift (paper from Avonova) in which I violate my rule of never reading Arthurian tales. The mad monk who miraculously evokes enough wine to drown Camelot was just one of the funny episodes.
Straight line futures with easy surgery, including odd sexual additions are common. Greg Bear's / (Slant) (hard from Tor) is a nice tale of a conspiracy to play with the mental health of treated individuals in that type of world is a nice mystery, but takes so long to get going, that it made a good soporific. William Barton and Michael Capobianco tell of an expedition to Alpha Centuri (hard from Avon) which faces the puzzle of an alien space going civilization let themselves die when their home planet. Home politics get in the way, which would be good, except so much of this is related by overwhelming kinky sex, that the main story gets side tracked. Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff's First Contact (paper from Daw) is the only collection this month. It's all new stories by favorite authors. Media fans will absolutely adore the Star Trek Travel Guide (paper from Pocket) which tells you the best place to get gakh on Klingon and places to see on Vulcan.
The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its August meeting on the 8th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. Guests are welcome to attend this, the second oldest science fiction club in the country.
|
The
oddest, and best of the month (and maybe the year) is Donnerjack,
(hard from 
Margaret
Alton who has The Shadow Matrix (hard from DAW) and was raised in
the empire, returns (see Exile's Song (paper)) with a ghost story,
Darkover style, and a time travel tale that take her and her lover back
to Darkover's Age of Chaos. While more for lovers of the series,
newcomers can start here.
I
also violated my rule about never reading books based on the Christ story
with Dave Duncan's final tale of The Great Game, Future Indefinite
(hard from 
Books just
out in paper include: Connie Willis's Bellwether (