Strange Horizons Reviews: Archives

Archived Reviews

Suspects by David Thomson, by Graham Sleight (05/14/08): Suspects is the sort of book whose nature and generic location are especially difficult to fix.
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds, by Dan Hartland (05/12/08): Reynolds manages space opera that does not read like farce.
The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford, by Michael Levy (05/09/08): We're not dealing with some damn metaphor or allegory. The things that happened, really happened. But what they mean, well, that's anyone's guess, and therein, I think, lies the novel's wonder.
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie, by Larry Nolen (05/07/08): Concluding volumes of epic fantasy trilogies are expected to contain an action-filled payoff and, for the most part, Last Argument of Kings fulfills this expectation.
What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid, by Martin Lewis (05/05/08): Kincaid displays a flexible, proportionate style and—like David Langford, who provides the introduction to this volume—he is erudite, demotic, and not afraid to put the boot in when necessary.
The Domino Men by Jonathan Barnes, by Lisa Goldstein (05/02/08): At this point the story starts to read like a collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Vlad the Impaler, with additional dialog by H. P. Lovecraft, as the two men head out into the streets of London and proceed to kill everyone in sight.
The Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist -- Part Two, by Abigail Nussbaum (04/30/08): What should win?
The 2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist -- Part One, by Abigail Nussbaum (04/28/08): No matter what your definition of science fiction, there is almost certainly at least one book on the 2008 Clarke shortlist that won't meet it.
Dark Space by Marianne de Pierres, by R. J. Burgess (04/25/08): Occasionally, the net is cast slightly too narrow, by which I mean that the gap between the galaxy-spanning presence of God and this tiny desert world seems simply too vast to match the two together; but in the novel's second half it's very easy not to care about such things as you sit back and simply allow yourself to be carried along for the ride.
Wildwood Dancing and Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier, by Hannah Strom-Martin (04/23/08): Delightful is the word for Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing and Cybele's Secret, the first two books in what promises to be a compelling historical fantasy series for young adults.
The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan, by Karen Burnham (04/21/08): Any imaginative child (between the ages of say, 10 and 14, depending on the kid) should find stories here to enjoy. There is a wide variety of styles and sub-genres on display, and also plenty of recommendations for what to read next.
Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett, by Jason Erik Lundberg (04/18/08): Bangkok Haunts is a fast read, but one that stays in the mind long afterward, plaguing the senses with the smell of curries, or the flashing lights of Soi Cowboy, or the startling sadness of silent Khmer guards.
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin, by Michael Froggatt (04/16/08): More obviously than his earlier works, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf demonstrates Pelevin's unease with Russia's increasingly authoritarian political system.
Matter by Iain M. Banks, by Gwyneth Jones (04/14/08): It’s been a long time in real-world politics since the last Culture novel. As I followed the adventures of the princess, and her brothers, I wondered what new corrective the story would deliver, so as not to give comfort to the war-mongers of the twenty-first century.
Worshipping Small Gods by Richard Parks, by Richard Larson (04/11/08): The contents of Worshipping Small Gods are drawn from a relatively short period (2002—2005, plus one story from 1996), and while some of the stories are quite strong, others feel like the same story, or at least a very similar story, recycled and repackaged. Fortunately, however, the gems are worth rooting around for.
Last Dragon by J.M. McDermott, by Michael Levy (04/09/08): First the basics—we're dealing with a very grim secondary universe here. Magic is present, but relatively low key and rarely fun. There were literal dragons once, but they're all dead. In general most people have it bloody awful.
The Bone Key by Sarah Monette, by L. Timmel Duchamp (04/07/08): What reader hasn’t been bedeviled by the experience of finding the verisimilitude of a book’s characters and world trickling away the farther one gets into the book? For the reader who’s also a writer, it’s a frightening experience. That, one inevitably thinks in horror, could be my book!
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, by Iain Clark (04/04/08): Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is none of the series you feared you might get when someone had the misconceived notion to remake Terminator 2 for TV. It's actually good.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, by Farah Mendlesohn (04/02/08): Doctorow revels in what he has set out to do, which is simply to place in the hands of every school child a manual which could be subtitled "how to bring down your government and enjoy doing it."
The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick, by John Clute (03/31/08): This book packs more ethnics than Ellis Island. They have emigrated from all the melting pots of story, and here they are in Babel, which is very much like the Manhattan of 1910 (and other years) transfigured into an enormity of Edifice: diced, braided, mirrored, eschered, bigger inside than out: pure urban fantasy.
Ascendancies by Bruce Sterling, by Nader Elhefnawy (03/28/08): Three decades after Sterling first appeared on the scene Ascendancies brings together twenty-three of his best-known and most highly praised short stories and novelettes, spanning the entirety of his career.
Rewired, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel, by Roz Kaveney (03/26/08): Rewired is a chastened collection of stories that inhabit a science fiction that is penitential in tone; guessing the worst that might happen is no longer a game when all too often you kind of got it right.
The Shock of the Old by David Edgerton, by Bruce Sterling (03/24/08): The Shock of the Old has one big, strong argument, and a host of smaller contrarian ones. These are all raids on the twentieth century's ideas of technological common sense, which Dr. Edgerton terms "passé futurism."
Black Sheep by Ben Peek, by Martin Lewis (03/21/08): If you've seen a copy of the book you might be surprised it's taken me so long to get around to talking about race, because one of the first things you are likely to think when you read the back cover is that this is a book inextricably linked to the subject. Actually though, it turns out to be little more than window dressing.
The William L. Crawford Award Shortlist: Part Two, by Victoria Hoyle (03/19/08): Reading the Crawford Award nominees has proved more interesting than I imagined. Certainly the breadth has been greater than I ever expected it to be, and that must be a strength. But it has left me asking questions about the validity of the prize’s broad criteria.
The 2008 William L. Crawford Award Shortlist: Part One, by Victoria Hoyle (03/17/08): The William L. Crawford Award for First Fantasy Book has selection criteria almost as sprawling as the Tiptree. Any debut fiction, published in the last 12 months and designated as "fantasy" by the selection panel, is eligible for consideration, no matter its form or intended audience. A brief glance at this year’s shortlist, announced in January, will demonstrate the difficulties inherent in such all-embracing vagueness. It includes: two short story collections, one short story sequence-cum-novel, one children’s book and one (arguably young adult) novel.
Four Novels of the 1960s by Philip K. Dick, by Adam Roberts (03/14/08): A sense of something hidden, something underground and flourishing in the interstices, like bluebells growing in the cracks of the pavement (or blooms of mors ontologica in amongst the corn) energises his fiction. It's this something that has kept his books alive when better written, better structured and better plotted novels have fallen into obscurity around them.
Halting State by Charles Stross, by David V. Barrett (03/12/08): Many years ago you read an interesting short story, in an SF anthology edited by George Hay, that was written in the second person (Perry A. Chapdelaine's "Someday You'll Be Rich!" in The Disappearing Future). It was an unusual conceit, and it worked—just—at short length. Now you're sent a novel for review, and you open it and find that the entire thing is written in the second person—in fact, in three separate voices of the second person. And you wonder: Why?
A Sword From Red Ice by J.V. Jones, by Nic Clarke (03/10/08): Red Ice is not an inevitable damp squib, precisely, but it is certainly a book with hurdles to overcome, some of which are extrinsic to the words on the page. That it fails at certain points is hardly surprising, but even if it is more uneven than its predecessors—and in terms of pacing a clear victim of middle volume syndrome—there is plenty here to enjoy.
Weaver by Stephen Baxter, by Jonathan McCalmont (03/07/08): Weaver is a book of considerable intelligence and subtlety that uses an alternative Second World War as a backdrop against which to explore the role, both in the macrocosm and the microcosm of history, of the conflict between ideology and expediency. Weaver is a book devoted to the concept of moral compromise.
Of Love and Other Monsters by Vandana Singh, by Richard Larson (03/05/08): Of Love and Other Monsters is primarily a story of immigration, of being foreign and displaced in a strange environment. Arun experiences a great deal of anxiety and loneliness when he realizes that no one in the world, save one, could ever really understand him.
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, by Abigail Nussbaum (03/03/08): The horror that runs through Pump Six is the kind that is at the very core, or perhaps origins, of science fiction. It's the horror Victor Frankenstein feels when he gazes at his creation and knows it for a monster. It's the horror the monster feels when it realizes that it is just human enough to know how inhuman it truly is.
The Fade by Chris Wooding, by Colin Harvey (02/29/08): Whether The Fade is fantasy or science fiction, it's quite simply the best speculative fiction novel of 2007 that I've read.
Rome Burning by Sophia McDougall, by Tony Keen (02/27/08): But plainly SF is not where the particular branch of Orion that McDougall is signed up to wishes to place the Romanitas series. From the packaging and advertising, it would appear that the lengthy works are aimed at the airport novel market, and the sort of people who buy Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler novels.
Swiftly by Adam Roberts, by Dan Hartland (02/25/08): If Roberts has explicated Swift's surreal world with wit and not a little learning, he has also in no small part written a book equal parts adventure story and social commentary. Its philosophy is Swift's, but its success is all Roberts's own.
Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell, by Paul Kincaid (02/22/08): If you wouldn't choose to recommend this book as a representative of the intellectual or literary heights that science fiction might achieve, it is at least a damned good example of something at the very core of the genre. This is where we grew up from, and if science fiction has gone off in many different directions since then it is still good to know that something so basic to the genre still has this much life in it.
Precious Dragon and Bloodmind by Liz Williams, by Donna Royston (02/20/08): You can anticipate certain strengths from a novel by Liz Williams. An inventive plot—that's a given. A vivid and detailed imagining of setting—that can be expected, also. Wide-ranging action, usually brisk and well paced, is also assured. These qualities are shared by two very different novels: Precious Dragon, a light fantasy with comedic touches, and Bloodmind, a dark SF narrative. In one case, the result is satisfying; in the other, this reader was left feeling that something was wanting.
Duma Key by Stephen King, by Adam Roberts (02/18/08): This novel reads like classic King; and his one-armed naïf-painter protagonist Freemantle whose phantom limb is more phantom than most, is a compelling and memorable creation.
The SFWA European Hall of Fame, edited by James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow, by Martin Lewis (02/15/08): The anthology's aim—to publish in translation non-English language European SF stories from the last twenty years or so—is laudable. (Europe is, of course, an imaginary place that means different things to different people but here it is given the standard "Continental" gloss and is assumed to spread from Portugal to Russia. Poor old Iceland.)
Kéthani by Eric Brown, by Michael Levy (02/13/08): Kéthani is a decent book. It's worth reading, especially if you like Brown's fiction, or if you're particularly interested in the theme of immortality or the venerable trope of aliens coming to Earth bearing gifts. It is not, however, anything particularly groundbreaking.
Debatable Space by Philip Palmer, by Paul Raven (02/11/08): I had high hopes for Philip Palmer's Debatable Space. A new science fiction novel from Orbit? A novel from a new author represented by none other than John Jarrold, an agent who knows his genre onions? A novel billed by the press release as "ideal for readers of high concept space opera," no less? And it arrived just before the holidays—perfect timing. This would be a fine book to savour in front of an open fire for a day or two, I thought.

Hence I was rather disappointed that I had to force myself to read beyond the novel’s first third.
disLOCATIONS edited by Ian Whates, by Duncan Lawie (02/08/08): DisLOCATIONS is firmly in the middle ground of current British SF. It could be accused of being a little unadventurous, but that's is almost a way of saying that none of the stories are failures.
The Long Price, Book One: Shadow and Betrayal by Daniel Abraham, by Siobhan Carroll (02/06/08): To be a Poet is to have freedom, power, and terrible responsibility, for as the few men able to capture a concept in words and make it do their bidding, they are the most powerful magicians in the world. The price of their power is a lifetime dedicated to serving their city and a relationship to a concept, or “andat,” that resembles that of a master to his slave.
Cloverfield, by Roz Kaveney (02/04/08): There are movies, to enjoy which, you have to turn off your brain; Cloverfield is a movie that turns your brain off for you.
Dangerous Offspring by Steph Swainston, by David Soyka (02/01/08): In an interview at UKSF Booknews, Steph Swainston describes Dangerous Offspring, the latest installment in her Castle series as "still a complete novel in its own right and is intended to be read on its own—so new readers shouldn't be afraid of starting here." Well, I'm not so sure.
Mindscape by Andrea Hairston, by Nader Elhefnawy (01/30/08): Hairston's premise, consequently, combines two long-standing science fiction traditions—the plumbing of the human reaction to the unknown and inscrutable, and the cultural clash between radically different, isolated cultures.
Bad Blood by Rhiannon Lassiter, by Nic Clarke (01/28/08): Lassiter writes well, generating the brooding, unsettling atmosphere with considerable skill. The cobwebbed recesses of the house and the overgrown paths of the neighbouring woodland are continually disorientating; the skies over both are invariably overcast, and night draws in all too quickly.
Blood Engines by T. A. Pratt, by Hannah Strom-Martin (01/25/08): Blood Engines is an urban fantasy starring kick-ass “crime lord” sorceress Marla Mason. She is paired with Rondeau, a friendly and often horny spirit who has adopted human form, and a washed-out TV actor nicknamed B, who has the ability to speak to spirits. Over the course of the tale, the three must grapple with body-switching Chinese sorcerers in Chinatown, a Pornomancer in the Castro, and assorted witches, gods, and cannibals, who pop up in unlikely places.
One for Sorrow by Christopher Barzak, by Richard Larson (01/23/08): In his debut novel, One For Sorrow, Barzak has written a love story about death, and life; a story about being dead and then being alive again—a story, indeed, about ghosts. And the writing is best when he describes his ghostly Youngstown itself.
Ink by Hal Duncan and In The Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente, by Dan Hartland (01/21/08): Hal Duncan, his style reminding me more of John Brunner's hectoring polemicist Chad Mulligan than a Virgil for our age, cannot marry in his heady, ultimately painful, duology the twin demands of multi-part narrative and compelling storytelling. He writes like a hippo. Catherynne M. Valente, on the other, enchants and enlightens in equal measure.
The Awakened Mage by Karen Miller, by R. J. Burgess (01/18/08): In many ways, then, The Awakened Mage can be seen as a copy of much that has gone before. However, it's what Miller does with these traditional tropes that makes this series more than just a re-hash.
Stealing Light by Gary Gibson, by Colin Harvey (01/16/08): Gary Gibson is the latest entrant in the British New Space Opera revival; Stealing Light is his third novel, following the release of Angel Stations and Against Gravity, and is expected to be his "breakout book." As such there are pressures on Gibson to deliver a commercial hit, and he has probably done so—although whether there is a cost to commercial success is debatable.
Gateways to Forever: the story of the science-fiction magazines from 1970 to 1980 by Mike Ashley, by William Mingin (01/14/08): Mike Ashley tells us in the preface to Gateways to Forever that he intended his history of the science-fiction magazines to be a trilogy complete in this volume. But he found the '70s to be too rich and complex a time to fit into one book with everything that came afterward. And so we have a volume of nearly 400 pages with another hundred pages of apparatus, including many appendices, for this decade alone. The more the merrier! My enjoyment and interest in the book did not flag.
Till Human Voices Wake Us by Mark Budz, by Abigail Nussbaum (01/11/08): The back-cover blurb for Till Human Voices Wake Us inexplicably calls the novel a thriller. This blatant piece of misinformation only serves to draw attention to the fact that it is almost completely lacking in tension. As the characters are so forgettable and Budz's prose so indifferent, there's nothing left for us but to mentally hurry him on.
The Red Men by Matthew de Abaitua, by Martin Lewis (01/09/08): This isn't a novel you can get an easy grip on; like the famous elephant surrounded by blind men, its shape and texture suggest differing beasts depending on where you grab it. Literary thriller and domestic drama, thought experiment and drug trip, cyberpunk and technopagan, satire and prophecy. It is almost as if de Abaitua is worried that he will only get one chance and has consequently crammed all his ideas into one novel.
2007 In Review, by Our Reviewers (01/07/08): We asked our reviewers to pick their SF-related highs and lows of 2007—books, films, tv, anything. This is what they said.
Dark Reflections by Samuel R. Delany, by Paul Kincaid (12/20/07): Feature Week: Samuel R Delany

Paul Kincaid: And so we come to the perennial problem of criticism and biography. How much is it legitimate to read knowledge (possibly privileged knowledge) of a person's life into their fiction? How much is it legitimate for a critic to allow their own biography to colour their readings of a particular text, a particular author?
About Writing: 7 essays, 4 letters, & 5 interviews by Samuel R. Delany, by L. Timmel Duchamp (12/19/07): Feature Week: Samuel R Delany

L. Timmel Duchamp: Like all of Delany's work, About Writing is vivid, passionate, and provocative. After first reading its 419 pages in December 2005, I've returned to the book again and again. Delany warns in his preface that "this is a book for serious creative writers." And so it is. But I recommend it also to all people who want more from their reading than simply entertainment; i.e., all serious readers.
Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories by Samuel R. Delany, by Graham Sleight (12/18/07): Feature Week: Samuel R Delany

Graham Sleight: Delany's work, here and elsewhere (most obviously in Dhalgren) is about the limits of the old positivistic SF urge to "make sense" of the world. There's a long passage explaining another art-form in this world, that of the Singers; it begins, "Singers are people who look at things, then go and tell people what they've seen." What they've seen: not tell people "about the world" or "the truth," but what has registered with their subjectivity. That begs a question: if, for Delany, subjective knowledge is the only kind of knowledge, to what extent are these stories transfigured autobiography?
Night and Day: The Place of Equinox in Samuel R. Delany's Oeuvre, by Matthew Cheney (12/17/07): Feature Week: Samuel R Delany

Matthew Cheney: That Equinox has not had the same sort of attention as its predecessors is hardly surprising, and not just because the original edition and the 1994 reissue (under Delany's preferred title) can be difficult to find. The book is pornography, and tells the tale of various cartoonish characters in search of endless orgasms and orgies, who encounter all manner of sex and sexuality, some of it violent.
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, by Karen Burnham (12/14/07): "Low-key" describes most of this book. It is very short and easy to read and completely lacks the emotional intensity and drive of The Forever War. Where that book describes a soldier caught up by circumstance and flung into the future despite himself, Matt, while not exactly a boldly going explorer, at least has basic control of his destiny. He chooses which path he will take, even if he makes stupid choices.
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff, by Michael Levy (12/12/07): Is a story realistic or fantastic? The answer may vary from person to person and depend more on the life experiences and specific reading protocols that each reader brings to the text than on anything in the story itself. Matt Ruff is a writer who loves to skate that boundary.
The Pesthouse by Jim Crace and The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, by Victoria Hoyle (12/10/07): Listening to the attendant hype, or reading the innumerable interviews with the authors in the mainstream press, you would be forgiven for thinking that the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it was more topical in 2007 than it has ever been before. Which isn't true, of course. These stories of the end and what comes afterwards are heirs to some of the founding narratives of Western culture. The anticipation of humanity's impending doom is deeply ingrained in our psyches: it is the front-page story that will not die. Terrorism, climate change, nuclear war—these are just the latest in a long line of potential catalysts to the end times. Once we feared God's almighty capacity to destroy us; now we fear our own. But the stories we tell about it have hardly changed at all. Open any of the above novels and what you will find is basically a variation, for better or for worse, on Noah's Ark.
Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest, by J.C. Runolfson (12/07/07): The ending of Not Flesh Nor Feathers shows Eden preparing to take a new direction in life, very different from the plans she made before the flood and its consequences. It's a good point at which to draw the trilogy to a close, and Priest leaves her conclusion bittersweet and untidy, in keeping with the atmosphere of the series.
The Terror by Dan Simmons, by Adam Roberts (12/05/07): Were I tasked to movie-pitch Dan Simmons's new novel (and what a splendid blockbuster it would make) I might try Jaws on Ice—except that makes it sound like a crew of professional skaters in spangly costumes tangling with a rubber-costumed monster, which it assuredly isn't.
The Engineer Trilogy by KJ Parker, by Farah Mendlesohn (12/03/07): The trilogy format of Parker's work is deceptive: it both does, and doesn't conform to recognisable fantasy trajectories. Yes, in almost all of the books there is at least one person who rises to power or moves towards the centre of the action; there is always big landscape; there are wars and many nameless people die. But the stories which form the plot are interlocked through future, present and past. Parker writes stories in which individuals become enmeshed in the machine, and in which economics is the god on which all the principals are sacrificed.
Thirteen/Black Man by Richard K. Morgan, by Sherryl Vint (11/30/07): This is a novel that wants to make us think about violence, about the hard masculinity we admire so much, and about the prejudice which is so often a justification for violence and a way of performing masculinity.
The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia, by Nic Clarke (11/28/07): Two currents shape the novel. The first is that the reader is presented with a classic fantasy protagonist in this modern-day urban setting: the outsider, the Cassandra, always correct but never believed, who resents her powers for the way they have marginalised her, even if she never doubts their reality. The second is a broader motif—of disappearance, of forgetting, of denial, all enforced or encouraged or allowed under silence—and it flows through both story and setting.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor, by Abigail Nussbaum (11/26/07): Far more egregious are the blows that "Razor" strikes against "Pegasus," and the flawed, complicated woman at its core. Written when Galactica was still at the height of its complexity, "Pegasus" worked hard to avoid easy indictment or approval of Cain's actions. She came off as a person who had gone astray, who had spent so long struggling to survive that she forgot to wonder what she was surviving for, and whose self-identity as a soldier had taken precedence over the soldier's purpose—to protect the state and its citizens. This is not the character as "Razor" presents her.
Divergence by Tony Ballantyne, by Duncan Lawie (11/23/07): There is a cool distance in the writing, as though the narrator is drawing the plot neatly to avoid confusing the audience with all the things they don't need to know. This engenders a rather passive voice, which results in emotions being described rather than experienced. Indeed, a significant part of the the thesis of Divergence can only be presented once the fog of emotions has been blown clear.
Of Tales and Enigmas by Minsoo Kang, by Justin Howe (11/21/07): Minsoo Kang is Korean by birth but has spent much of his life traveling the globe. He's a historian by training and belongs to that circle of Asian authors who have consciously adopted the styles of Western genre fiction. He ends stories with quotes from Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges, and he's written stories that draw attention to the fact that they are stories.
Beowulf, by Roz Kaveney (11/19/07): For the director, then, this is in part a film not just about story, but about the techniques through which story is told; given that epic as we know it is always a bastardized form in which mechanisms derived from oral culture are transferred across into literary culture, this is fair enough.
9Tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, by Alex Saltman (11/16/07): Since the mood of cyberpunk itself evolved from hardboiled detective fiction, it's unsurprising that Grimwood has written an entertaining noir. 9Tail Fox has all the lean prose, sex, and violence that implies, with one real innovation—the hero is dead.
The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, edited by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, by Michael Levy (11/14/07): There are odd comments from the editors that seem to have been included just for the hell of it, including an apology for any chocolate stains that may appear on the book; a short contributor's note for the long-dead British writer Hilaire Belloc (whose work does not appear anywhere within these covers); and a note on selling out. And there are lists, a wide variety of them, including someone's favorite music, and a selection of teas from the LCRW kitchen. This is all inspired silliness but hardly reason enough to shell out $14.95 plus tax to buy the book. Reason to do that, however, is provided by the fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron, by William Mingin (11/12/07): This nutshell summary doesn't convey the fairly complex narrative stratagems Barron employs, the levels of layered detail, and the real sense of dread he evokes. His manner is aimed at a more literate, sophisticated audience than this pulpy plot would seem to indicate; at his best, he gives the best of both worlds.
Navigator by Stephen Baxter, by Jonathan McCalmont (11/09/07): With each new book in this series, Baxter has become better and better at engaging with historical ideas and theories. While Emperor spent too much time dealing with Roman technology and Conqueror struggled to rise above historical and archaeological data, Navigator is a mature work from a writer completely at ease with not only historical fact but historical analysis too.
Shelter by Susan Palwick, by Richard Larson (11/07/07): Although it takes place decades in the future, Shelter is surprisingly old-fashioned, almost Steinbeckian in its attention to detail while chronicling what is essentially a family history—a domestic drama, a story about connectedness and the building of a family through the action of simply participating in the same narrative, playing a part in the same story.
Getting to Know You by David Marusek, by Adam Roberts (11/05/07): Getting to Know You's pleasures certainly outweigh its occasional drags. The buzz is that David Marusek is an author to watch, and given SF's propensity for troping the past as the future, it may well be that the solidly Campbellian mode of his storytelling will come into its own in the years to come.
Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe, by Tony Keen (11/02/07): Feature Week: The 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

Tony Keen: For me, what Gene Wolfe does is capture the ordinariness of the encounters with deities. The gods want various things done for them, but there are no great epic narratives, no wars of gods and men—just immortals going about their business in much the same way as mortals.
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente, by Dan Hartland (11/01/07): Feature Week: The 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

Dan Hartland: In the Night Garden is the first volume in a duology, concluded later this year with In the Cities of Coin and Spice. It has already won the 2006 Tiptree Award (together with Shelley Jackson's Half Life), and its nomination for the World Fantasy Award is richly deserved.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, by Victoria Hoyle (10/31/07): Feature Week: The 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

Victoria Hoyle: One hundred and fifty pages into The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch's World Fantasy Award-nominated debut, I remembered why I love fantasy novels. Not because they're strongholds of comfort, or repositories of nostalgia (although they are); or because they allow us to "escape" the real world, or even because they give the reader permission to confront the essential clichés of theme—love, grief, evil, goodness—without flinching (although they do). But because when they're well done, really well done, they're vivid and glittering works of the imagination's art: they blow the walls off buildings, take the lid off the sky and remake the world. Believe me when I say that The Lies of Locke Lamora is very well done indeed.
The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner, by Nic Clarke (10/30/07): Feature Week: The 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

Nic Clarke: It's a man's world. Yes, still. How else could Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword—a vastly entertaining bildungsroman, told as a novel of manners with a judicious amount of swashbuckling—be so easily dismissed by one blogger as "fantasy chick lit"? The main character is a young woman, and there are a couple of references to shoes, it is true. The setting is also largely urban, a generous amount of tears are shed (a girl is raped; this upsets her), and certain characters do indeed fall in love or at any rate have sex (both pastimes being, as I understand it, quite common among human beings). The fact that it is also pacy, witty, filled with politicking and swordfights, and essentially a coming-of-age story, is apparently irrelevant. Men's stories are universal, after all; women's are niche (and fluffy).
Lisey's Story by Stephen King, by Farah Mendlesohn (10/29/07): Feature Week: The 2007 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel

Farah Mendlesohn: My choice for "worst book I have ever read from beginning to end" has stood for a very long time, but this week it has surely been displaced. Stephen King, a writer I admire hugely, whose work I teach and recommend, has produced perhaps the most embarrassing load of twaddle I have ever been forced to complete.
Legends of the Fall: Television's newest SF shows, by K. Tempest Bradford (10/25/07): The American fall TV season has brought us seven new SF shows to vie for our attention. As often with television, the majority of these shows aren't particularly good. It's not too harsh to say that a few of them are utter crap. That said, at least two of them are really good, and one has problems but may end up better than it started.
The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton, by Karen Burnham (10/24/07): There may not be much poetry in The Dreaming Void—mostly the sentences exist to convey information, to fill the spaces between dialogue, and to move the plot from A to B—but one doesn't read Hamilton for the language.
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, by Hannah Strom-Martin (10/23/07): Fifteen minutes into the film, it is apparent that Cunningham, the shameless raconteur behind The Path to 9/11, has no interest in staying true to Cooper’s work, if, in fact he has even read it. This is especially apparent in his treatment of Cooper’s characters.
The Country You Have Never Seen by Joanna Russ, by Sarah Monette (10/22/07): I have a weakness for good literary criticism—the kind that is trenchant and witty and intellectually rigorous, but also passionately and personally felt—and Joanna Russ hits all my buttons, lighting me up like a pinball machine.
Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin, by Lisa Goldstein (10/19/07): Even with only three volumes, though, it's possible to trace some of the themes running through the Western Shore series, and to see the ways in which the stories mirror each other.
The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2, by Tony Keen (10/17/07): It's entirely appropriate that this review is a few months late, because if Ultimates was famous for anything, it was missing planned publication dates. In 2002, Ultimates #1 appeared. Five years, but only twenty-six issues (and one annual), later, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch finished their story. In between came one of the most talked-about superhero comics for several years.
Two Views: Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery, by Martin Lewis and Rose Fox (10/15/07): Martin Lewis: As always, you can judge a book by its cover. The back of the pretty little proof copy of Spaceman Blues carries a selection of helpful information for your faithful reviewer. This includes the fact that Spaceman Blues will have "national print advertising in The New Yorker." Not your average Tor novel then.

Rose Fox: Much as wild animals are best appreciated in their natural habitat, Slattery's version of New York and its inhabitants is at its best when encountered on the 1 train heading south from the Bronx, while it's still aboveground and rocketing past rag-curtained tenement windows and the occasional marble edifice left over from Inwood's glory days as a suburb for the wealthy Dutch
Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley, by Hannah Strom-Martin (10/12/07): In Dragonhaven, Robin McKinley departs from the fairy-tale mode which made her earlier novels so notable and tries something new: entering the heart, mind, and world of a modern fifteen-year-old boy. It's an interesting choice, and much like riding on the back of a giant dragon, it can leave you feeling out of sorts.
The Revenge of the Elves by Gary Alan Wassner, by Brian Malone (10/10/07): Let us be honest: odds are good that you may not have heard of Gary Wassner or the Gemquest series of books. Understandably. The freshman effort of a previously unknown author, issued by a small press without the marketing juice of a major publisher, Gemquest is tailor-made for obscurity.
Land of the Headless and Splinter by Adam Roberts, by Victoria Hoyle (10/08/07): Earlier this year Adam Roberts was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award with his survivalist space saga, Gradisil. He has followed up that success with not one but two novels in the last ten months, Land of the Headless and Splinter. And he has written both while also holding down a full time academic post, blogging (at the inestimably literary Valve, as well as elsewhere), and reviewing in his spare time. If he was churning out the SF equivalent of a James Patterson thriller I would still be impressed; but as it is—Splinter being one of the most beautifully written and sensitively themed novels I've read all year—I'm somewhat boggled. I begin to suspect he has some kind of literary superpower.
Settling Accounts: In at the Death by Harry Turtledove, by Nader Elhefnawy (10/05/07): After ten years and as many volumes, readers of what some fans have taken to calling the Timeline 191 series will no doubt be anxious to lay hands on what the blurb trumpets as "the thunderous conclusion" to "the most ambitious saga of [Turtledove's] long and storied career" and indeed, "one of the greatest sagas ever to portray an America that almost was"—Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts: In at the Death.
Two Views: No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong, by Genevieve Williams and Colin Harvey (10/03/07): Genevieve Williams: A newcomer to Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld, so thickly populated with ghosts, demons, werewolves, necromancers, and other supernatural beasties, might be forgiven for wondering where ordinary people fit in. The title of Armstrong's latest supernatural thriller/romance, however, puts the answer to that question beyond all doubt.

Colin Harvey: From the point of view of a new reader, while the main protagonists and the television characters are well drawn, the supporting cast felt sketchy. Of course, Armstrong faces a dilemma here: spend too much time telling new readers about Hope and the other protagonists of earlier books, and she not only slows down the story but also risks her regular readers switching off.
Trust Me, I'm a Fabulator: Three Books, by Dan Hartland (10/01/07): Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth by Ben Peek, The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick, and The Modern World/Dangerous Offspring by Steph Swainston

Under the entry for "Truthiness" in Twenty-Six Lies and One Truth, Ben Peek asks, "What is it that I have the authority to write about?" In the age of the Internet, authority is a topic much discussed, but ultimately it seems a question incorrectly framed. The question should be: what is it that a writer has the passion to write about?
The Innocent Mage (Kingmaker Kingbreaker Book One) by Karen Miller, by R. J. Burgess (09/28/07): This two-part fantasy series should keep fans of Trudi Canavan and Robin Hobb more than happy. Karen Miller’s world of Lur is an expansive, well-drawn, and believable place made all the more accessible by an easygoing prose style that you can’t help but get drawn into. There’s nothing particularly new about her depiction of a prosperous land shielded from evil by magic, but a strong cast of identifiable characters breathes new life into the clichés.
Cowboy Angels by Paul McAuley, by Michael Levy (09/26/07): I’m not criticizing the move towards thrillers in and of itself. Unfortunately, however, in McAuley’s case, as in the case of Greg Bear, the result has been less interesting books. Not bad books, you must understand. Simply less interesting ones.
Ice and Guilty by Anna Kavan, by Abigail Nussbaum (09/24/07): Coming away from Guilty and Ice, one has the impression of an author whose fiction should be read not for its fine details—for well-drawn characters, believable settings, or clever dialogue—but for its emotional effect. In this respect, Kavan is nothing less than a revelation.
The Sharing Knife: Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold, by Donna Royston (09/21/07): The first book, The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, concluded with the forbidden marriage of Dag Redwing and Fawn Bluefield, the two main characters, and now, in Book Two, we see the consequences.
Stardust, by David J. Schwartz (09/19/07): Perhaps it is axiomatic, but it may as well be said up front: the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's Stardust: Being A Romance Within The Realm of Faerie is not as good as the illustrated novel. It's not a fair comparison, obviously; a book is not a film, and vice versa. That seems to be the clear attitude of the filmmakers, who've taken nearly every opportunity to turn up the story's volume with big effects and big fights. The result is a film that is perfectly entertaining and, for the most part, perfectly forgettable.
It Happened Otherwise? Three Alternate Histories, by Paul Kincaid (09/17/07): In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan, The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter, and Resistance by Owen Sheers.

Why do we write—and read—alternate histories? What draws us to stories of our past turned around, re-set in strange ways that never were?
The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker, by Lisa Goldstein (09/14/07): Plotlines are tied up, lost characters are found, puzzles are solved. Even that much, these days, is grounds for rejoicing. But there is a good deal more to this book; it has twists and turns aplenty, surprises going off bangbangbang like fireworks.
Selling Out by Justina Robson, by David Soyka (09/12/07): Selling Out seems to suggest that what keeps us human is not so much the stuff of which we are made, but the stuff of our relationships.
Titan by Ben Bova, by Adam Roberts (09/10/07): Titan is one of the blandest pieces of fiction I have come across in three decades of reading novels. If the Campbell shortlist is a high-class curry restaurant of delicious, spicy, and stimulating food, then Titan is a single slice of white bread and margarine on a white plate under the neon light of a truck drivers' café.
Mike Carey's The Devil You Know and Vicious Circle, by Laura Blackwell (09/07/07): Anyone who enjoyed Mike Carey's writing in his Lucifer and Hellblazer graphic novels will not be disappointed by his first two prose novels. His plotting is tight, and his dialogue crackles. Both books are hard to put down. Carey's matter-of-fact approach to imaginative horrors makes them powerful without seeming lurid or voyeuristic.
Polyphony 6, edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake, by Paul Kincaid (09/05/07): We grow tired. The world and its doings now excite not engagement, not rage, not even despair, but rather a weary resignation. Even the pulse of creativity seems to have slowed. Or such is what we take from the latest iteration of Polyphony.
Best American Fantasy, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, by Gwyneth Jones (09/03/07): What is "best," what is "American," what is "fantasy"? As Matthew Cheney points out (getting the disclaimers in swiftly!), in his preface to the first volume of a new series, none of these terms has a stable definition.
Steven Moffat's Jekyll, by Colin Harvey (08/31/07): Jekyll has caused genuine consternation among viewers; one said to me, "I don't know whether to dismiss it as utter crap or to call it a masterpiece. Which is it?"
The Man With the Golden Torc by Simon R. Green, by William Mingin (08/29/07): Green is a prolific writer of fantasy and science fiction, generally in series, who has published over 30 books in the last 20 years or so. His writing is workmanlike (he's improved over the years), but has a certain snap and verve to it, helped along by his hero being a wise-ass, as he is here and in much of Green's work.
Spook Country by William Gibson, by Graham Sleight (08/27/07): Plato’s argument is that we humans, chained in the cave, cannot perceive the Real directly, only its shadows on the wall. I know of no SF author who (consciously or unconsciously) adheres more closely to this aesthetic, that what can be described is only what can be perceived, than William Gibson.
Bone Song by John Meaney, by Duncan Lawie (08/24/07): Meaney sets the tone of Bone Song very effectively. Tristopolis is a city powered by bones, and many of its citizens will go to the reactors after they die. But not all of them.
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, by Martin Lewis (08/22/07): Red Seas Under Red Skies shows every sign of being the work of an author who has rolled up his sleeves, put his feet up, and settled in for the long haul. When you turn the final page of the book there is nothing approaching closure; instead you get the impression you have just finished the opening gambit. Much as with the first book in the sequence, in fact, but without the same excuse.
Fantasy, edited by Paul G. Tremblay and Sean Wallace, by Nic Clarke (08/20/07): This new anthology is not a "best of" the magazine, but rather sets out to showcase "short fiction of the type that can be found" in it. In other words, the stories have not previously been published in the magazine, although some of the authors have. We are promised "sophisticated, literate tales" that push imaginative boundaries using original styles. Inevitably, this is truer of some contributions than others.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by Catie Ash (08/17/07): Not that any of the past Potters has been particularly atrocious, but all of the things that routinely tainted them (scanty plot development, awkward child actors, and heavy, corresponding doses of syrupy-sweetness and cheese) are adamantly absent from Order of the Phoenix. The other four Potter movies are varying degrees of okay; this is the first to feel like a real film instead of a brand name.
Logorrhea, edited by John Klima, by L. Timmel Duchamp (08/15/07): As a child, I spent hours with my nose buried in the biggest, heaviest tome in the house—the dictionary—and because I loved words, I was a champion speller (though never in an official contest). And so I felt an immediate keen interest when I came across Logorrhea, the stories in which were inspired by some of the Scripps National Spelling Bee championship words.
Two Views: Transformers, by Tim Phipps and Tim Phipps (08/13/07): 1: Initial Reaction

ROBOTS SMASH! RARR! Bloody marvellous, and a fanboy's wet dream. Quite simply the most fun you'll have in the cinema this year. Who cares about politics or heart when you've got SMASHY ROBOTIC GOODNESS?

2: On Reflection

Last week I went to see Transformers and, well, I don't know what I expected to gain from the experience. But I went.
Breakfast with the Ones You Love by Eliot Fintushel, by Paul Kincaid (08/10/07): Jack Dann describes Breakfast with the Ones You Love as a collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Harlan Ellison, and Woody Allen. Frankly, anyone who knows the work of those writers would realise that such an unholy collaboration would result in an almighty mess. And this novel is not an almighty mess . . . well, not quite.
The Man Who Melted by Jack Dann, by Nader Elhefnawy (08/08/07): Dann wrote The Man Who Melted as a poet, not an engineer, "concerned primarily with the future as a visionary construct, almost as a dream, rather than as a tangible reality." There is everywhere an obsession with death, manifested in ways that can only be depicted surreally, from casinos where players hooked into one another gamble for organs to elaborate suicides based on the re-creation of historic disasters.
Doctor Who: Series Three, by Adam Roberts (08/06/07): There is, I'd say, a pretty widespread consensus about the new Who, viz.: that the retooling of the series has been a notable success; that Eccleston was a good Doctor but Tennant is even better (perhaps, some people whisper, the best yet) and that Russell T Davies is to be greatly lauded for his part in the whole Whonaissance. By the same token the consensus seems to have arrived at a less dithyrambic assessment of Series 3.
Acacia by David Anthony Durham, by Hannah Strom-Martin (08/02/07): Why dole out your money for tales of fictional worlds when things there are just as bad? One reason, I suppose, is that you would then miss out on novels like David Anthony Durham's tour de force, Acacia, a deeply political vision of the fantastic that exposes the humanity at the heart of every ruthless machination.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 1, edited by Jonathan Strahan, by Colin Harvey (08/01/07): It's interesting that although it's billed as "SF and Fantasy"—presumably so that readers don't mistake this for a book/collection of reprints from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction—fantasy dominates; the first half of the book is two-thirds fantasy to one-third SF, and although the story count almost evens up by the end (or does even up, depending on whether the reader classifies Paul di Fillipo's "Femaville 29" and Neil Gaiman's anthology-opening "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" as SF or fantasy), in terms of number and memorability of stories, it's still a somewhat fantasy-dominated anthology.
The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi, by Niall Harrison (07/31/07): Aya is an Orisha—"deadly friends from stories" is how one of the characters describes Orishas—a manifestation of the Santerian patron of women. She overflows, we are told, with "the kind of need that takes you across water on nothing but bare feet." She is "powerful, half mad, but quiet about it." And either The Opposite House isn't about her, or it's about only her. It's hard to say.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, by Abigail Nussbaum (07/30/07): The basic structure is that of a thousand hard-boiled mysteries, but The Yiddish Policemen's Union is spared from utter predictability by Chabon's beautiful, energetic, humorous prose, as well as by the fact that there is virtually no limit to the amount of humor that can be wrung out of combining the noir detective style with Yiddish colloquialisms.
Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages, by Richard Larson (07/26/07): Klages's protagonists experience a world which never quite makes sense, and in which they are never quite welcome. For Klages, childhood is a distinctly antagonistic realm, a physical place or thing from which we must escape at all costs. Unfortunately, this is told more than felt: her characters never experience anything more than they can stand, and their ultimate escapes are often unsatisfying.
Interfictions, edited by Theodora Goss and Delia Sherman, by David Soyka (07/25/07): If you want to know the definition of "interstitial writing," skip the introduction by Heinz Insu Fenkl. Instead, go straight to the afterword in which the editors of Interfictions, Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, explain how they know what it is when they see it.
Trial of Flowers and Mainspring by Jay Lake, by Nic Clarke (07/24/07): Two novels, two publishers, two worlds: a little over six months in the life of one ambitious author, in a market that apparently equates writer versatility with audience confusion, as if a reader's world might collapse when faced with different types of books from the same author.
Swans Over the Moon by Forrest Aguirre, by Colin Greenland (07/23/07): In this first novel—novella, really, lavishly spaced, leaded and interleaved—by anthologist and short-story-writer Forrest Aguirre, there are indeed swans on the moon: actual feathered and beaked ones, not to mention copious representations of them in painting and architecture and even as ornaments on the armour of Judicar Parmour Pelevin, monarch of Procellarium.
HARM by Brian Aldiss, by Nader Elhefnawy (07/19/07): HARM is unambiguously (and for a publisher, intimidatingly) about the present War on Terror, and Paul's torturers, at the titular Hostile Activities Research Ministry, are unambiguously American and British officials.
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang, by William Mingin (07/18/07): This is the third time Chiang has dealt with the essential problems of fate, determinism, and free will. His darkest view of the subject comes in a short-short published in Nature, "What's Expected of Us" positing a device that, by undeniably demonstrating our lack of free will, leaves a third of its users in a waking coma. In The Merchant and The Alchemist's Gate, as in "Story of Your Life," he presents us with a more gentle, nuanced fatalism—fatalism from the inside, fatalism understood.
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, by Victoria Hoyle (07/17/07): In 2005 Lionel Shriver won the Orange Prize for Fiction for her seventh novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003). The judges' decision caused a minor furore within the literary establishment, not least because Shriver was a virtual unknown, published by a small press, and had a man's name. The book itself, however, was almost universally recognized for what it was—a disturbing and vigorous meditation on motherhood and modern America, a compelling virtuoso performance by a mature author. The Post-Birthday World—a long, meandering, and, it has to be said, somewhat arduous take on parallel worlds—hardly bears favorable comparison.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien, by Adam Roberts (07/16/07): Here are two titles for booksellers to shelve under Fantasy. Both follow the adventures of an essentially good though morally (slightly) complicated hero around a medievalised imaginary world. Both embody a sort of under-narrative about revenge, upon which are constructed varied and peripatetic adventures. There is, in both books, Evil to be combated, magic to be performed, and artefacts that have special powers. One (the Rothfuss) is an example of a genre pretty much wholly invented and defined by the other (Tolkien). Nevertheless they are absolutely as different from one another as could be imagined. One of these is, in its way, a great book. The other is a competently constructed time-wileawayer. See if you can guess which description fits which novel.
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas, by Dan Hartland (07/12/07): One afternoon a few months ago, I was sitting alone in a pub. (News of my incipient alcoholism has been greatly exaggerated.) I was reading a book. After I'd been sitting there for about half an hour, a woman the worse for wear arrived at my table and, as her opening gambit, demanded, "What's so clever?" She was pointing at the book. Did she not like books? "I don't mind the books," she replied, swaying into the seat opposite me. "I just think—don't—what's so clever? What's the point?"
Verdigris Deep by Frances Hardinge, by Farah Mendlesohn (07/11/07): Verdigris Deep confirms what I already suspected: Frances Hardinge is the best new fantasy writer for children since Diana Wynne Jones.
Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce, by David V. Barrett (07/10/07): The award for the longest SF/fantasy title is probably still held by DG Compton's 1971 time travel novel Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper Sides of Used Matchboxes, and Something That Might Have Been Castor Oil, later reissued under the more manageable but far less inspiring title Chronicules. However, Ysabeau S Wilce's juvenile fantasy Flora Segunda must be in the running for the longest subtitle: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. And yes, it lives up to it.
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand, by Matthew Cheney (07/09/07): Cass is a refugee from a lost generation, the generation of the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols, of Television and Blondie, of Performance Studio and CBGBs. Her passions were born in the latter days of Arbus and the early days of Mapplethorpe, but she never quite became who she should have been, because death was her best muse, and she couldn't whistle a happy tune and wander away from all the pills and potions that crossed her lips.
The fourth book of Ægypt: Endless Things by John Crowley, by John Clute (07/05/07): Feature Week: John Crowley's Ægypt

John Clute: Endless Things comprises, in part, a release into stillness, an ontological black hole from which other stories of the world cannot escape, or are disinclined to; a spiral which becomes a circle in the end; a holy emptiness vaster than pleroma, where the utter still centre of the world utters all.
The third book of Ægypt: Dæmonomania by John Crowley, by Paul Kincaid (07/04/07): Feature Week: John Crowley's Ægypt

Paul Kincaid: Dæmonomania should represent the point in the sequence where the creation has become too big, so that it starts to slip out of the author's sure grasp. In fact I think it is where Crowley reasserts his grip on the story after the (relative) slippage of Love & Sleep. But it is also where he breaks the pattern of Ægypt.
The second book of Ægypt: Love & Sleep by John Crowley, by Graham Sleight (07/03/07): Feature Week: John Crowley's Ægypt

Graham Sleight: The story of the first three volumes of John Crowley's Ægypt sequence is, broadly, the story of his protagonists getting what they want and finding they can't stand it. The first volume, Ægypt, is the story of the main characters wishing; Love & Sleep is the story of them getting.
The first book of Ægypt: The Solitudes by John Crowley, by Abigail Nussbaum (07/02/07): Feature Week: John Crowley's Ægypt

Abigail Nussbaum: The Solitudes presents the reviewer with an unusual challenge. How to review the novel as an independent entity—and thus avoid stepping on my fellow reviewers' toes—when it is so clearly and overwhelmingly part of a whole? More importantly, how to review Ægypt the novel when the experience of reading Ægypt the series so completely and irrevocably colors and alters one's reactions to it?
Alien Crimes, edited by Mike Resnick, by Karen Burnham (06/28/07): Thus we have a new anthology, Alien Crimes, that contains six detective stories, each different to the others in everything from style to theme. In the end, the only points of commonality are crimes or misbehaviors of some nature, and the fact that a detective has to investigate them.
The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson, by J.C. Runolfson (06/27/07): While she interacts with two potential love interests and her estranged childhood best friend, and these relationships are also important, it's family, particularly the fear of losing it, that drives most of Calamity's choices.
The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, by Martin Lewis (06/26/07): With his latest novel Alastair Reynolds has, not for the first time, produced a curate's egg. However, since this is his seventh novel and he is now deep into his career this particular egg must surely mark the point where we have to finally accept that he is probably never going to write the great novel that a lot of people (myself included) thought he had in him.
The Future Is Queer, edited by Richard Labonté and Lawrence Schimel, by Rose Fox (06/25/07): There's something here for everyone, more or less. Sometimes it seems as though the editors went out of their ways to make sure that any possible reader could find a character or two to identify with, perhaps passing over better stories in the process.
Dzur by Steven Brust, by Genevieve Williams (06/21/07): Brust has chosen to pattern the novel's plot after one of the most sumptuous multicourse offerings one could imagine. Each dish, course, and wine is expressly (if not always explicitly) related to the action of the chapter that follows it, and the results can be both affecting and surprisingly dramatic.
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie, by Siobhan Carroll (06/20/07): The Blade Itself mixed the pared-down prose of hard-boiled detective fiction with the epic scope of a George R. R. Martin fantasy. Now, however, the familiar beats of an epic fantasy series are beginning to emerge. Characters who previously displayed intriguing degrees of moral ambiguity are beginning to learn Valuable Lessons, while some stock fantasy types seem poised in the wings, waiting to take over the story.
Three Dreams on Mount Meru by François Devenne, by Finn Dempster (06/19/07): As an exploration of the natural history and anthropology of its setting and an amalgamation of fables and moments, Three Dreams on Mount Meru is often a delight, routinely evoking a sense of wonder, magic, and mystery. As the story of a boy's journey into manhood, it is functional but less successful.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, by Hannah Strom-Martin (06/18/07): The Name of the Wind is a book that, while posing no serious threat to George R.R. Martin's reign, still carries a certain weight. I defy anyone who has read it to contradict me when I state that it is the David Copperfield of fantasy.
Dangerous Space by Kelley Eskridge, by Ilana Teitelbaum (06/14/07): With its kaleidoscopic variety of settings and prose styles, this short story collection by Kelly Eskridge is comprised of many spaces rather than just one.
Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks, by Duncan Lawie (06/13/07): Cadel Piggott's whole life has been designed to make him the perfect inheritor of a criminal empire; when he learns that even his adoption was carefully arranged, he realises that his upbringing has totally twisted him. Yet Catherine Jinks does a remarkable job of indicating right and wrong without Cadel having to be a clear avatar of morality himself.
Helix by Eric Brown, by R. J. Burgess (06/12/07): The Helix—a vast collection of thousands of Earth-like worlds linked together like beads on a necklace and wrapped around a star. It's clearly an artificial construct, thousands of years old and self-sustaining, but who would build such a thing? And why?
28 Weeks Later, by Martin Lewis (06/11/07): It goes without saying that the virus was not successfully eradicated. I will allow you the pleasure of picking apart the plot holes in its re-introduction for yourself but suffice to say it wouldn't have been any less plausible if the Americans had just installed a big, unguarded button labelled "PRESS HERE FOR ZOMBIES."
The Time of the Reaper by Andrew Butcher, by Siobhan Carroll (06/07/07): Apocalyptic and postapocalyptic settings have long held particular appeal for YA authors. There's nothing like a good plague or nuclear holocaust to set teenage characters adrift in a world without rules. For younger audiences, apocalyptic fiction provides a short and dramatic version of the journey into adulthood: one minute a protagonist is safe within the confines of a stable home, and the next he or she is thrust into a world in which one must learn the skills of a self-sufficient adult in order to survive.
The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, by J.C. Runolfson (06/06/07): The Coyote Road is named for one of the more famous tricksters of North America. But the anthology features tricksters of many cultures from all over the world. There are stories here of Loki, Legba, Hermes, Raven, the Monkey King of China, and the fox spirits of Japan.
Softspoken by Lucius Shepard, by Richard Larson (06/05/07): Engaged with a mystery that grows more complex as the novel progresses, Sanie is the ultimate outsider, a guest at her husband's family's house and a foreigner to their small southern town. But even with this familiar situation—young woman stranded in creepy old mansion—the novel avoids being just a stock ghost story, becoming instead a thoughtful investigation of genre expectations.
The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod, by Paul Kincaid (06/04/07): It is in the nature of critics to quibble. Not because we like doing so, but because we are in the business of weighing a work, and in a good book problems can stand out more starkly than they do in mediocre novels. The Execution Channel is a good book. In fact it is a very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date. Which makes the couple of places where it goes wrong all the more infuriating.
Extended Play: The Elastic Book of Music, edited by Gary Couzens, by Paul Raven (05/31/07): As the back-cover blurb would have it, in this anthology "writers use music as a springboard for their fiction," and indeed they do. But your mileage may vary, as the saying goes—because music, like all art, is a very personal and subjective experience. If you don't believe me, sit down with three heavy metal fans and try to get them to agree on a definition of what "heavy metal" is—Damon Knight's adage can be applied there just as well as it can to science fiction.
Players by Paul McAuley, by Karen Burnham (05/30/07): It remains to be seen if Paul McAuley can insert a well-reasoned action-adventure into the territory so thoroughly colonized by Michael Crichton. We don't need to implausibly genetically engineer dinosaurs when we've got seriously insane people around who are willing to turn themselves into literal as well as metaphorical monsters.
Hunter's Moon by David Devereux, by Richard Larson (05/29/07): Usually, the hero in this sort of genre fiction has a deep understanding of good and evil and works to make things right in the world; they serve as our moral compass. Jack, however, is more or less along for the ride, defeating people he is told to defeat, and killing, torturing, or otherwise manipulating most of the other characters in the book. While he is obviously very good at his job, he's missing any sense of social responsibility; he just wants a drink and a pretty lady at the end of the day, like any self-respecting wage slave, and doesn't care who he has to hurt to reach this objective.
Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan, by Colin Greenland (05/28/07): She’s bloody good, Margo Lanagan. She really is. Readers of White Time or Black Juice, her two previous collections, will recognise her custom, her knack, of getting us to lay all this conceptual brickwork, erect all these airy constructions, by familiarising us each time with the ground floor of the imaginary world: the level of the commonplace.
Barking by Tom Holt, by Lisa Goldstein (05/24/07): But Holt has a lightness of touch, an eye for the comic scene, that sets him apart: the Rhinemaidens at a horse show, for example, or Wotan forced more or less into retirement with his daughters the Valkyries.
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt, by Colin Harvey (05/23/07): In its early pages the book reads as if it is set in a parallel Dickensian London, but as the novel progresses the full strangeness of the world beneath (literally in some cases) emerges.
Ascent by Jed Mercurio, by Michael Froggatt (05/22/07): The Soviet space programme has always provided fertile ground for urban myths, conspiracy theories, and tall tales. The secrecy which surrounded it, in comparison to the blaze of publicity which accompanied the Mercury and Apollo projects, does much to encourage such speculation. Soviet cosmonauts remained anonymous until they returned safely to Earth and any accidents along the way (even if they resulted in several hundred deaths) could be discreetly erased from history.
Two Views: Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay, by Graham Sleight and Victoria Hoyle (05/21/07): Graham Sleight: The first thing that struck me—a reader who'd not encountered Kay's work before—is the shocking directness of its telling. Every sentence moves the action forward, every action moves the plot forward.

Victoria Hoyle: In the interests of full disclosure, and before I begin to wax thoughtful, I should admit that I have a long history with Guy Gavriel Kay. You might go so far as to say that he has been with me since the beginning.
Horizons by Mary Rosenblum, by Duncan Lawie (05/17/07): Ahni Huang is an incredibly rich and talented young woman. Her brain has been infiltrated by nanotech, giving her an on-board AI and communications device, and she is a capable empath. She also has combat training—as Horizons opens she is on her way to Earth's orbital platforms to avenge the murder of her brother.
Spider-Man 3, by Iain Clark (05/16/07): Who'd have thought a radioactive spider-bite could prove so versatile? In Spider-Man (2001) nerdy Peter Parker's super-powers were treated as a metaphor for puberty in a quirky tale of boy-meets-girl. In Spider-Man 2 (2004), his powers suffered an embarrassing bout of impotence in the face of crippling self-doubt, although he did win the girl. Now in Spider-Man 3 his powers become as self-destructive as his testosterone-fuelled behaviour, and boy loses girl once more.
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville, by Dan Hartland (05/15/07): Un Lun Dun reminds the adult reader of New Crobuzon, not least because ultimately Miéville shows himself to be refashioning the staples of kiddy portal fantasy, in the way his earlier novels refashioned the staples of the steampunk dystopia.
Mistakes and All: Defending Battlestar Galactica, by Jeremy Adam Smith (05/14/07): Hell hath no fury like a raving army of disappointed fans. Mistakes have been made on Battlestar Galactica—but I would like to take this moment to come out swinging in defense of the show, mistakes and all.
Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker, by Sherryl Vint (05/10/07): Rude Mechanicals is set in Hollywood in 1934 and concerns two cyborg characters familiar to Baker's readers: the facilitator Joseph and the literary preservation specialist Lewis.
Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas, by Finn Dempster (05/09/07): Begging publisher Solaris's pardon, but Jeffery Thomas's novel deserves a better introduction than the blurb on the back cover provides. Informed that "Punktown, crime-ridden metropolis on the colony world, Oasis, is home to the scum of countless alien races," and that "Stalking its mean streets is Jeremy Stake, the private detective," I began to suspect I was dealing with the literary equivalent of a straight-to-video release. But whilst Jeffery Thomas's novel is not without its tackier elements, the overall package is unpretentious and enjoyable.
So Far, So Near by Mat Coward, by Jonathan McCalmont (05/08/07): Most SF authors pick a genre, or even a sub-genre, and stick with it until the muse stops calling. Mat Coward is not that kind of writer. While his short story collection So Far, So Near might well be his first book of SF, it is not his first book.
Double Vision and Sound Mind by Tricia Sullivan, by L. Timmel Duchamp (05/07/07): The antagonist of Tricia Sullivan's duology Double Vision (2005) and Sound Mind (2007), who is not completely unmasked until well into the second novel, would like to pull off an ambitious scheme that bears more than a passing resemblance to Baudrillard's "perfect crime."
From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain by Minister Faust, by Karen Burnham (05/02/07): In the terms we use to talk about the fantastic, comic books, especially superhero comics, have long been a genre unto themselves. They combine elements of fantasy (magical and mythic powers) and science fiction (mutants and alien invasions) with archetypal characters and violent conflict. While comic books and graphic novels in general have expanded far beyond these genre boundaries (see "Sandman", "Maus," et al) recently this sort of story has been moving into the world of the conventional novel. Minister Faust subtly used some of these conventions in his amazing debut, Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, and now approaches the heroic comic book genre head-on in the hilarious and pointed From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain.
One of these books is not like the others: three tomes about SF TV, by Tim Phipps (05/01/07): I am a man forever tainted by fandom, of course, so simple things like Jim Robinson being head of the Newport Group or that kiddy-fiddling vampire who tortured Angel being a history teacher at Harbour bring me a geekish joy beyond words. And let's not even start on how Ryan's mom loved to listen to Puccini and killed the seventh Doctor.

I am tainted. And it's the fault, frankly, of the internet and of books like these.
Brasyl by Ian McDonald, by Adam Roberts (04/30/07): This year's award season is still in full cry: the Arthur C. Clarke Award reaches its climax on May 2nd, the Nebula winner will be announced May 11th, and the Hugo at the beginning of September. But that shouldn't stop the ever-future-oriented SF community speculating about next year's prizes. So, and by way of handing Strange Horizons readers a reviewerish hostage-to-fortune: I predict Brasyl will be on multiple shortlists in 2008. It's easily the best SF novel I've read this year.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, by Lisa Goldstein (04/26/07): Michael Chabon, though, has already shown a certain savvy about genre conventions. His YA novel Summerland was fantasy; the protagonists of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay write and illustrate comic books; Wonder Boys begins with a tribute to a fictional pulp writer, August Van Zorn. In retrospect it seems obvious that Chabon was moving in the direction of science fiction all along.
Black Man/Thirteen by Richard Morgan, by Martin Lewis (04/25/07): This is a book that wears its heart on its sleeve. Or, at least, it does in the U.K. In America—the country that occupies the heart of the novel—Richard Morgan's Black Man has become Richard K. Morgan's Thirteen. It is an act of cowardice on the part of the publishers that is so minor as to be baffling. Both titles relate to the central character, but only the original gets straight to Morgan's concerns, lets us know up front that this is a novel about identity politics.
Sunshine, by Adam Roberts (04/24/07): The story, in other words, is a will-they-won't-they mission to save the world; and scriptwriter Alex Garland clearly believes the way to make this interesting is to throw lots of obstacles in the way of the mission, one after the other, any of which could result in the world's doom. But there's an inevitable sense of diminishing returns to this narrative strategy.
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales by Rudyard Kipling, by William Mingin (04/23/07): Rudyard Kipling was for several decades one of the most popular writers in the English-speaking world, and at a young age became the first Englishman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. It's remarkable that, setting aside collections of connected stories, he wrote only four novels: Kim (1901), Captains Courageous (1897), The Light that Failed (1890), and The Naulahka (1892). While these are not negligible, it's his short stories (including his children's books) that constitute his most important work, and among their large number (he was prolific) was a good helping of speculative fiction—science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales gives us 48 stories, in order of publication, a generous sampling of Kipling's output, no matter the genre.
Flavors of My Genius by Robert Reed, by Colin Harvey (04/19/07): In Reed's future world, everyone has access to an internal universe at least as interesting as the external; it's a place where someone's genius can render him catatonic with overstimulation at the sight of the commonplace and where work has become meaningless.
Deliverer by C. J. Cherryh, by Siobhan Carroll (04/18/07): C. J. Cherryh has always excelled at describing the alien. Whether her novels feature actual alien creatures (as in The Chanur Saga) or merely human beings so clinically detached from their peers that they might as well be from a different species (as in Cyteen), Cherryh's stories center on the experience of encounter—the moment an individual or a society collides with a culture strikingly different from their own.
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, edited by George Mann, and Fast Forward 1, edited by Lou Anders, by David Soyka (04/17/07): What with the various yearly "best of" collections, on top of those calling themselves paraspheres, new wave fabulists, new weird, post-cyberpunk, slipstream, and even, god help us, interstitial fictions, what's an editor to do to distinguish his or her particular anthology on the crowded shelves of what we used to just call science fiction and fantasy? You can't just put together a bunch of stories you think are really cool. There's got to be either a theme (e.g., alien sex, feminism, award winners) or a declaration of some movement (see above) in which the editor's selections herald some brave new genre.
The 2007 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist, by Farah Mendlesohn (04/16/07): The Arthur C. Clarke award comes around but once a year, and as ever the judges have done sterling duty working their way through the best and worst of the British publishing scene. Their trawl is not limited to the SF publishing houses and their definition of SF is wide. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes, as this year, it seems to have offered little Added Value. There are three clear genre science fiction novels, all from Gollancz (as Gollancz is the premier UK SF publishing house this should be understood as a bias in the field, not in the jurors), all of which are excellent in their own way. Then there is a weak piece of nuclear rapture fiction, a pale allegory, and, from one of our best SF small presses and one of our best SF writers, we have a 1970s Playboy cod-psychological battle of the sexes.
Primeval: The First Season, by Iain Clark (04/11/07): We've already witnessed Robin Hood, the BBC's own attempt to reinvent another old show in the same contemporary vein as Doctor Who, mixing brisk historical action with modern characters and concerns and a healthy dollop of romance. ITV's Primeval is, if anything, an even more transparent attempt to reach the same audience; a series so carefully crafted around its different demographics that it feels as if it was designed by focus group.
The Last Mimzy, by William Mingin (04/10/07): If you’re not in nursery school yourself, you may already have questions about this scenario. Why didn’t the scientist send a jar and a note (“Please spit in this and take the following steps to return it to the future, thank you”) and aim it at grown-ups?
Glorifying Terrorism, edited by Farah Mendlesohn, by Dan Hartland (04/09/07): In short, the stories in Glorifying Terrorism exist to extrapolate situations and futures in which their authors may justify and understand terrorist action. This is a laudable goal—all the singing very loudly and sticking one's fingers in one's ears in the world won't make terrorism or terrorists go away, and to pretend "terrorism," or even particular groups of terrorists, can be defeated or silenced is of course to fundamentally misunderstand the phenomenon.
The 2007 Philip K. Dick Award Shortlist, by Nicholas Whyte (04/05/07): I think Dick would have been pleased by the candidates arrayed to honour his memory. Almost all of them deal with his favourite themes of politics, the nature of reality, or both. Of course, science fiction has moved on since Dick's death in 1982, and the authors also deal with the legacy of cyberpunk and the latest thinking on AI, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology.
Majestrum by Matthew Hughes, by Siobhan Carroll (04/04/07): Reality, it seems, operates in a cyclical pattern, alternating ages of science and reason with ages of "sympathetic association," or magic. Hapthorn's age is on the brink of such a turn, and as a result, pockets of magical reality are suddenly appearing in Hapthorn's logically ordered universe.
Mythic 2, edited by Mike Allen, by Donna Royston (04/03/07): Mythic 2 can be viewed as its own fantasy universe, with a heavenly realm of gods, a middle realm of lesser magic and human enchantment, and a lower realm where all the magic has drained away, leaving imperfect memories and forlorn longing or opportunities for erudite display.
Grey by Jon Armstrong, by Richard Larson (04/02/07): In Armstrong's world, the media is the primary factor in the development of our identities. Choosing to be grey in a world dominated by a whirlwind of images is a bold statement, an act of defiance: it represents the choice to be turned off to the onslaught of media manipulation.
The Blood Confession by Alisa Libby, by Hannah Strom-Martin (03/29/07): This is an age, after all, that embraces the sensationalism of Paris Hilton's DUI convictions, Ms. Spears's lack of panties and Lindsay Lohan's drug abuse, the very sort of hysterical, hyper-sexual antics the Gothic celebrates. And so, without further ado, I give you the next representative of girlhood in our modern age: The Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
Galactic North and Zima Blue and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds, by Duncan Lawie (03/28/07): Reynolds tends to focus on the darker corners of his characters and their environments, building a grandiose, gothic flavour over a hard science fiction base. Many of Reynolds's stories also possess a sense of scale. They tend to be long, but more than this, they do not flinch from gazing on the immensity of the universe.
Hart & Boot & Other Stories by Tim Pratt, by Karen Burnham (03/27/07): Tim Pratt's new collection will be a revelation to those who are only familiar with him from his first novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. Indeed, the cover of Hart & Boot & Other Stories promises more of the same Western-flavored contemporary fantasy, but this is something of a bait-and-switch. The title story shows similar influences to Rangergirl, but all the other stories draw from different styles and mythologies: Greek, Southern, and Irish among others, showing off the breadth of Pratt's knowledge and craft.
Two Views: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, by Victoria Hoyle and Paul Kincaid (03/26/07): Victoria Hoyle: From the very first page there can be no doubt at all that McCarthy is situating The Road in a tradition of great narratives of death, despair and hope, and of sheer human doggedness. It contrives to be two novels at once. On the one hand it is a thoroughly contemporary post-apocalyptic novel: an elegy for our world, in both its modernity and its natural beauty, and a clarion warning of what we stand to loose through expedient stupidity. On the other, it is a parable, stripped bare—a mythic representation of humanity's struggles to reconcile suffering with divinity, and despair with the instinct to love.

Paul Kincaid: Cormac McCarthy's extraordinary novel, The Road, is at first sight a clear example of a familiar science fictional trope, the post-apocalyptic story. This is a tradition within science fiction that reaches back to Carolyn See's Golden Days (1987), to George R. Stewart's Earth Abides (1950), to Richard Jefferies's After London (1885), and The Road seems to fit right in, telling the familiar story of the struggle of civilised people to survive when there is no more civilization. On closer examination, however, this line of descent is not so plain.
Sean Wright’s Jaarfindor Remade and Love under Jaarfindor Spires, by Colin Harvey (03/21/07): But just when it looks as if Jaarfindor Remade is simply a caper with gaudy dressings, the novel's second part abruptly takes off in a completely unexpected direction. Such bravura is at once endearing and deeply, deeply annoying, and all of Wright’s strengths and weaknesses are similarly shown in Love under Jaarfindor Spires, his first collection of short stories.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, by Jonathan McCalmont (03/20/07): In 1977, when George Lucas was taking the pulpy spectacular roots of US SF and making Star Wars, Andrei Tarkovsky was taking one of the landmarks of Soviet-era science fiction and producing a characteristically cerebral and symbolic art-house film. The year that Stalker was released marked the first appearance of the original book, Piknik na obochine, in English. Reading it now, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's novel (translated by Antonina W. Bouis, who is not credited in this Gollancz Masterwork edition) is just as cerebral and symbolic as its cinematic counterpart, and as powerful and fresh as the day it was first published.
Map of Dreams by M. Rickert, by Niall Harrison (03/19/07): It hurts. That has to be said. M. Rickert's brilliant debut collection hurts from the first sentence of the first (and title) story, a bald statement of loss that sets the tone for much of what follows. "My six-year-old daughter," Annie Merchant tells us, "was shot and killed by a sniper while we were visiting New York City in the summer of 1992."
Fat by Rob Grant, by Siobhan Carroll (03/15/07): The first few pages of the novel describe a world in which the British health service has decided to deny service to overweight citizens, but the vaguely science-fictional premise doesn't last. Instead, the book steers quickly into straightforward contemporary comedy, following the adventures of three characters whose radically different BMIs influence the course of their lives.
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes, by R. J. Burgess (03/14/07): I'll confess it up front—I don't know much about Mexican politics. You'd think this would be a problem, what with The Eagle's Throne being a political satire, in translation, by one of Mexico's most famous writers, Carlos Fuentes. But you'd be wrong.
Dreadful Skin, by Cherie Priest, by J.C. Runolfson (03/13/07): Despite the English origins of the main antagonist, the Irish origins of the protagonist, and the Southwestern United States setting of the second and third parts of the book, there is a dark, rich, and fevered atmosphere to Dreadful Skin that feels quintessentially Southern Gothic. But while the prose rushes forward with a kind of breathlessness, there's restraint in the levels beneath the plot.
Hav by Jan Morris, by Matthew Cheney (03/12/07): History's shortcomings are the impetus, material, and theme of Hav, a remarkably subtle book, a novel of indirections that presents an imaginary (and richly imagined) geography and history for a Mediterranean nation called Hav, a country that incorporates the potentials and mysteries of various real societies and cultures.
Contact, for Nintendo DS, by Erin Hoffman (03/07/07): And while this particular game is not out to push the boundaries of interactive media or expand the conveyance of philosophical realization through agency in gameplay, it is undoubtedly a must-play for anyone who enjoys RPGs. If you're down with the nostalgia, Grasshopper Manufacture is the studio for you.
Ilario: The Lion's Eye by Mary Gentle, by Nic Clarke (03/06/07): With Ilario: The Lion's Eye, Mary Gentle returns to, and broadens our picture of, the skewed fifteenth-century Mediterranean world she explored to such acclaim in her gritty, witty, absorbing Ash: A Secret History (2000): a world in which Carthage is a Visigothic stronghold locked in perpetual darkness; in which proud Pharaonic Egypt (and its library) lives on—just—in Constantinople; in which Christianity is divided between the followers of Christus Imperator and those of the Green Christ, and the papacy is a magically cursed and powerless shell; in which the Arabs apparently never made it out of the Hijaz, and the Etruscans live on the margins, worshipping their old gods in precarious secret.
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, by Abigail Nussbaum (03/05/07): Joe Hill's debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box