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Science Fiction for December 1997  by Henry Leon Lazarus  December is a bleak month  – cold and heartless.  It's why we celebrate all the happy holidays we do and why December books should be warming and comfortable. I don't know why Harper Prism scheduled Stephen Baxter's negative look at the future of humanity in space in this month. After the collapse of NASA because of another crash in our near future, space die-hards convince its administrator to finance a one-way expedition to Titan (hard) instead of moth-balling the shuttle fleet.  The six person expedition is an eclectic mix and the well described technology uses both shuttle and the Apollo moon landing technology to jury- rig the six year mission.  Of course things go wrong. On the ground kids are taught the celestial spheres theory which denies Titan even existed.  Their reports are shown on obscure cable channels. And of course their rescue mission is de-funded.   But Mr. Baxter is making a statement about the advancement of life, not just human life.  Thus he somehow makes an uplifting statement out of such a doomed expedition. Pippa, a practicing Wiccan (modern witch) who lives In the Land of Winter (hard from Avon by Richard Grant), a California resort town,  has been singled out by a local Christian hate group who have managed to use the law to take her daughter, her job, and her home just before Christmas. But fear not, there are fairy godmothers even in our time and one such will help poor Pippa regain all she lost. Katharine Kerr is finally filling us in on her tale of civil war in Deverry, her alternate Celtic world where magic and reincarnation mix and the forces of the green Wyvern fight those of The Red Wyvern (trade from Bantam Spectra), like the English War of the Roses, fight their final battles but with the help of magic. This is the ninth book of a series well loved by those who have found it.  I'd start at the beginning.  It's odd they way fantasists look at magic. Christopher Stasheff takes Matt's parents into his magic land where poetry makes magic in My Son, the Wizard (trade from Del Rey) in a light hearted romp that includes scenes from our reality as well as the artificial land. Magic is basically wish fulfillment and seems to be able to accomplish anything.  Sean Stewart looks at the dark, uncontrollable side of magic in an alternate future where magic started coming back in World War II.  It's a century since the events in Resurrection Man (paper) and magic has overwhelmed the world.  As it starts flowing away, however, the powers that maintained the world also started dying and two human communities, one near Seattle and the other the China Town of Vancouver face new problems in The Night Watch (Hard from Ace).  It's another dark-themed December book, and one that looks at compromises with power, magic and political. To top of next column  QuickLooks Archives

Receive the Gift by Louise Marley (paper from Ace) concludes her trilogy about descents from a crashed starship who survive on a very cold planet (summer comes once every five years) by their ability to create psionic warmth through singing.  I've enjoyed all three.  Tara K. Harper has another of her wolf books, Wolf's Bane (paper from Del Rey) in which she finally introduces the aliens who are keeping the human colonists from space and technology. I've enjoyed some of these animal-talking (through psionics) books, but not all. Michael Shea tells a new tale about his sixties hero and thief, Nifft the Lean.  The Mines of Behemoth (paper from Baen) takes him into a giant bee hive where he finds ways to steal more than he can possible imagine, and learns the errors of his ways.  Jack Vance fans will find this type of writing very familiar. Collections this month are The Wizard of Odds (paper from Ace, ed. Peter Haining), reprinted stories about humorous wizards. Tales from the Empire (paper from Bantam Spectre) a group of Star Wars related stories from the Star Wars Adventure Journal.  The annual expensive Christmas Star Trek book is out. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens have a tenth anniversary salute to The Next Generation in The Continuing Mission (hard from Pocket).There's also a collection of Postcards (Pocket).   Mary Henderson has Star Wars: The Magic of Myth (trade from Bantam Spectra) with lots of pretty pictures. The science of Star Trek is discussed in Lawrence M. Krauss's Beyond Star Trek (hard from Basic Books). Timothy Zahn, who started the Star Wars novels has a new one which I haven't read, Specter of the Past (hard from Bantam Spectre). Fans of Dean Koontz (Hard from Harper Prism)  will be interest in his biography by Katherine Ramsland.  And people who criticize the movie without rereading Starship Troopers (paper from Ace) will be very surprised at its violence and how close the movie makers followed the book. Paperback reprints this month include the latest in Lois McMaster Bujold's fan-loved series about Miles Vorkosigan, Memory (Baen), two of Rick Cook's Wiz books about a magic programer now together in one volume, The Wiz Biz (Baen), David Brin's soon to be movie, The Postman (Bantam Spectre), and the second of his on-going trilogy Infinity's Shore. We're still waiting for the conclusion of this tale. Finally there's Levar Burton's tale of a depressed future America, Aftermath (Aspect).  The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society meets monthly, with a guest speaker for each meeting. Guests are welcome to attend this, the second oldest science fiction club in the country. Return to the SF Literature Forum Page