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by Henry Leon Lazarus

One the pleasant surprises I've had in living in Philadelphia is to find the librarian, with whom I volunteered to work when I was in Junior High School in Akron, Ohio. Ray Barber is one of my patients and works at a local, well-regarded private school. He's active in librarian politics and has served on the Newberry Award Committee. So when he comes in to the office, I always recommend books to him and give him some of my extra copies. He's promised me the Harry Potter books so I can finally see what the fuss is about.

When I gave him the latest Peter S. Beagle novel, he asked if it had sex in it. This excellent tale of Tamsin (hard from Roc), a three-hundred-year-old ghost in rural England has no sex, but the implied violence from a turbulent period of English politics does make the novel more for adults. Jennifer is a thirteen-year-old moved from New York to Dorset England when her mother re-marries. Like the movie, The Sixth Sense, ghosts are real and seen by many people, but Mr. Beagle nicely adds magical creatures like Bogarts, Pookas, and the Wild Hunt. Jennifer has to discover why Tamsin has stayed in the house for three hundred years. The answer involves a love triangle and a very evil judge. Another ghost story is Nina Kiriki Hoffman's odd A Red Heart of Memories (hard from Ace) which is also the tale of a homeless woman and a magician who likes to live in walls and how they have to confront their own pasts as well as the ghost's past.

I also recommended to Mr. Barber, Judith Tarr's and Harry Turtledove's tremendous tale of a divorced single mother, and lawyer who, after a horrible day, asks a souvenir of her honeymoon, a plaque of roman Household Gods (hard from Tor), to send her to the peace and calm of Roman past. They do. Be warned, this is not a tale of bringing modern inventions to the past. Instead it is a heartwarming tale of a woman learning to survive not only normal living in a second century Roman town, but also barbarian invasion and plague. I plan to reread this one.

Recently, in one of publishing house mergers, several of the worst editors in SF history were finally canned. Ten years ago they halted Sharon Lee's and Steve Miller's cult favorite Liaden series. While those books are soon to be brought back into print, there's a new one, Plan B (trade from Meisha Merlin Publishing), which stands on its own. Val Con and Miri go to the planet Lytaxin to find Miri's missing kin, only to have it invaded. Luckily the pair have friends all over the known galaxy. For those familiar with the series I'm glad to say that the intelligent turtles are here.

Orson Scott Card started his career with a novelette, Ender's Game which grew to a long series. Ender's Shadow (hard from Tor) is the story of one of Ender's lieutenants in the war fought by children against the bug queens. It's practically like rereading Ender's Game, but I enjoyed it.

I got Poul Anderson's first Operations tale in decades, Operation Luna (hard from Tor), from the library. Steven is a werewolf, engineer and Ginny a Practicing witch in an alternate near-past in which magic is the main technology. Honda's are broom sticks, etc. When NASA's launch of a brass horse designed to go into orbit is sabotaged by Asian spirits, the married couple, who now have teen age children, go into action and work with the FBI in ferreting out the Chinese villains.

There are four nice additions to continuing series that I enjoyed reading this month. Exile (paper from Ace) sends the daughter of the protagonists of Anne Logston's best novel, Guardian's Key (paper) out from Crystal Keep to the real world to ground herself. But, though naive, she has much more potential than her parents think she has. She proves it, saving a city from a tidal wave. Denise Vitola has a new tale of her werewolf detective in her highly superstitious, extremely poor future. The Radon Files (paper from Ace) has her investigating a murder in a healing radon mine that somehow involves fake alien abductions and an ETA (IRS) plot. As usual corruption and superstition dominate her world. I wouldn't want to live there, but wait eagerly for the next tale.

Peter J. Heck had to help write Robert Asprin's latest tale of a very rich mercenary captain to get A Phule and His Money (Ace). This time Phule's company has to revive the economy of a planet who's only exportable commodity is amusement parks. Add in gangsters from their previous post on a gambling satellite and you have the normal fun that this series provides. Then there's Mercedes Lackey's and Larry Dixon's conclusion to their own series in which Darian becomes the Owlknight (hard from DAW) and goes on a quest to find his lost parents. In the process, of course, he works out problems with his girl friend and comes to terms with his future. The latest Roc short fairy tale, The River's Gift (hard,) is also by Mercades Lackey. A princess with a healing gift is forced into marriage when her father dies and only her elf friend can rescue her.

Other books this month include Alanna Moreland's Shackle and Sword (paper from Ace), about a slave who becomes a mercenary and then has to pretend to be a slave again to rescue a queen. Peter Garrison's second part of a tale of magic in our world and another, The Sorcerer's Gun (trade from Ace). It's too difficult to describe this tale in the short format, and I'm reserving judgement on it till the whole tale is told. George Zebrowski's has a tale of a starship finding a lost colony, Cave of Stars (hard from HarperPrism) with horrific consequences from both sides. I don't think this is a keeper, but it did get me to finish it. Leo Frankowski has a light tale of two engineers who wreck their boat on the floating islands of Fata Morgana (hard from Baen). The book would have been much better if Mr. Frankowski didn't get on a soap box so often.

Finally a book I should have been excited about, but cannot recommend. I don't really know how I managed to get through it. Greg Bear is an excellent writer and obviously has done a lot of research into genetics . The tale is about how CDC and other's deal with the next step in humanity. However his mechanism for creating humanity-plus, Darwin's Radio (hard from Del Rey) is too cumbersome and generally unbelievable. I couldn't help laughing at the book in the most inappropriate times.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy will be a mini-series next year so a collection of extra material about The Martians (Hard from Bantam Spectra) is very exciting. Other collections include: 999 (edited by Al Sarrantonia, hard from Avon) new tales of horror and suspense, Treasures of Fantasy (edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, paper from HarperPrism, Isaac Asimov's Werewolves (paper from Ace, edited by the editors of Asimov's: Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams), Future Crimes (paper from DAW, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers), and Merlin (paper from DAW, edited by Martin H. Greenberg.)

Media fans will probably snap up the Star Trek Sticker Book (trade from Pocket)

Paperback reprints this month include: the best novel of last year in my view, John Varley's The Golden Globe (Ace) about an actor of the future; Matthew Woodring Stover's well researched and fun second tale of magic in the bronze age, Jericho Moon (Roc); Dave Duncan's fantasy about knight's tied magically into service to one person, usually the king, The Guilded Chain (Avon Eos);George Zebrowski's odd tale of prisoners locked in asteroid homes, Brutal Orbits (HarperPrism); Mercedes Lackey's and Larry Dixon's second tale of Darian (see above) Owlsight (DAW); Peter Jurasik's and William H. Keith, Jr.'s joyfully fun tale of an abducted actor and replaced alien in Hollywood, Diplomatic Act (Baen); Terry Pratchett's latest Disc world tale, Hogfeather (HarperPrism); and the second part of Tad William's long Otherland series, River of Blue Fire (DAW). I hope to report on the third next month if DAW sends it to me.

Finally there are two hard cover reprinted clasics: Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (New American Library), and Frank Herbert's Dune (Ace). Both have been movies.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (paper from Bantam Spectra), a humorous time travel novel, won the Hugo Award this year.

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society will have its October meeting on Friday the 8th at 8:00 p.m. at International House. I don't know who the speaker will be. 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.