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Science Fiction for July 2026

by Henry L Lazarus

I’m uploading this review column of Science Fiction and Fantasy early because I’m getting a new hip this Friday. 

The Spanish Inquisition was a horrible time. M. A. Carrick adds magical Fae lands that can only be accessed when Mercury is in retrograde and Spain is sending conquistadors to conquer and bring back its magical riches. Estevan is a tree spirit who voluntarily becomes a changeling to save the life of a baby girl whose father would murder because she was the wrong gender.  As he grows up, gets educated and becomes part of the bureaucracy. He is hoping to destroy the horrors the inquisition is wrecking on the fae. Hungry Girl has drifted into the magical islands and has many adventures trying to get back to her real home, The Eye of Leviathan(paper from Orbit) is an amazing beginning to a wonderful historical fantasy. 

Larry Niven and Steven Barnes tell an exciting tale set in Ice Vegas(hard fromBlackstone Publishing) , a gambling center buried in the Greenland ice a century from now. Assassin Spider is in hiding after her last job, and is hired to stop staff who have become saboteurs and plan a devastating attack on the city. The client has no idea who they are. Not only that but another assassin from the same purple group where Spider was trained is after her. Her only ally is a mentally enhanced octopus and an ex-cop also hunting her. Very exciting and lots of fun. I wouldn’t mind seeing more Spider adventures. 

Maggie and Arthur's Magic Moment (paper from Ace) came at the Beltane celebrations with a kiss. Unfortunately the masks they are wearing keep their identities secret. Leslie René sets her love story. Both Maggie and Arthur are professors at a magical college in a world where magic works. An alchemical accident pollutes one of the colleges' halls forcing the two to share an office and eventually work together to solve the complicated magical problem. I had a grin on my face the whole time. 

Brian Moyer imagines an alternate Wyoming where people Splinter (hard from Unbound Books) to losing everything from our world. Survival is tough and many starve, but there are small communities. Trading keeps the communities alive. Some people develop simple skills like manipulating water, or earth or fire that  can be improved with practice. The tale follows Ama and Esah who find their niche in this harsh environment. This first year hints at a complicated world still to be explored and I’m looking forward to more adventures.

In the spring of 1941 people start dreaming of King Arthur. Elaine Ambrose has been assigned by the British Museum to catalogue a collection in Camlan house in Wales. She has been dreaming about Nimue, the witch who trapped Merlin, and the dreams have become quite real. H. G. Parry in his tale about The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood(paper from Redhook) borrows his version of the King Arthur tale fromT.H. White and even has the famous author make a cameo since he was living in Ireland at the time. I enjoyed  this very original look at the famous legend. 

Poppy Stringer is a modern grave robber stealing the Fabulous Bodies(hard from Tor Nightfire) of unknown people for whoever wants bodies. Then she is offered millions to pick up the recently deceased pop star Eddie Michaels. Easy. Someone else would bring the body to her. Chuck Tingle has horrible things in mind for Poppy. The body wakes up. No. It’s not a vampire, it's worse. Eddie, it seems, can order people to do horrible things to themselves and makes Poppy watch. The corpse has a reason for the horrible things it does and  what he plans for Poppy is horrible. Impossible to put down. 

Zephyr Trillian tells of a world filled with What the Gods Left Behind(self-published hard) centuries before. Wisterly, whose silver collar keeps her alive, has hearthkeeper powers. When the daughter of a cruel Lord slips and falls, she runs away to avoid a punishment she didn’t deserve. Mordred is a master thief who takes her in. The thieves guild wants him to steal a divine Artifact, the Box of Pathways, from a collector driven mad by the box Mordred takes Wisterly along because as an Acolyte only she can touch the box safely. The collector dies by falling out of a window and the two are on the run. This is a nicely defined world that kept me reading. In fact, because the tale ended on a literal cliff-hanger, I bought the sequel What the Gods Became(hard) and am eagerly waiting for the third book. 

James L. Cambias returns to the solar system eight thousand years from now and is filled with a billion worlds. Daslakh, an ancient digital mind in a small body, is still following Sabbath Okada, agent of Deimos. He has been sent to the largest city on Venus to investigate the death of a fellow agent who had fallen while mountain climbing. The Ishtar Deception(paper from Baen) in a wonderful maze of spy intricacies. Several times the two have to navigate the partially terraformed outside with Oxygen at four times Earth’s pressure. This is an amazing addition to a delightful series.
Jennifer K. Lambert returns to the world of Never the Roses (paper) with the tale of another dream sorceress; actually two. This a world where mages are bound by contract to obey the owner of the contract until they have paid off their impossible debt. Rose of Northbrooke is ready to graduate as a powerful dream mage, never knowing she has a twin, Thorn has been locked up in a cottage warded to keep her in for her whole life, valued because she can read the past of any object. Then there is Sebastian, a younger prince who has discovered a magical ability to talk to animals and who is expected to woo Rose to work for his father. This tale of life Among the Thorns (Hard from Tor) is a nice addition to this interesting and luckily, the romance is kept low boil, while the plotting is the more interesting.
Rachelle Raeta has a great conclusion to her tale of immortals hidden among us. In 1185 Anna was burned at the stake for being thought a witch. Then a woman gives her a magical peach that not only allows her to survive the fire, but to never age. These Immortal Truths( paper) hint at her slow growing relationship with Khiran, another immortal who can shape change and teleport. These Godly Lies( hard from Tor)  show how their relationship deepens while they are being chased by other immortals, each with different powers, to be brought to the first eater of the peaches who dominates the others. This is a very exciting conclusion to this tale of immortals who have walked among us for thousands of years. I had to start the first tale twice and was glad I waited till the second came out. S. C. Lee has a basic concept for his tale of Manifest Fantasy(paper from Portal Books). Earth opens a stargate into a Dungeons and Dragons universe. Captain Henry Donnager is the head of an Alpha group that joins an adventuring guild to learn more about the planet. At the same time Earth is building a base near the gate to bring advanced weapons through. To add to the mess, ruins of an ancient civilization that was responsible for the original gates. The builders brought monsters from other worlds. I really enjoyed how the magic system made internal sense, the wizards were not all knowing, but could quickly teach the newcomers their language, and the natives were not primitive but used magic to create a complicated world. I ordered the sequel.
Glynn Stewart has an urban fantasy tale that will probably have sequels. Aaron Conner was once a knight of a Catholic order fighting feeders from that dropped through a veil to our world. There are others from those worlds that don’t feed on human souls, and when the order attacked them, he lost his faith, and  his Spirit Blade(paper from Faolan's Pen Publishing Inc.). Now he hides as a bartender. Then he takes a job at a private club, and happens on clients torturing a girl to death. After he rescues her, he is forced to reclaim faith and his blade.
Working with a sorceress and a Dwarf he has to fight an ancient feeder out for his blood. Very exciting. 

Berkeley is reprinting Tao Wong’s tale of ancient Chinese who cultivate their inner souls to become immortal. The second book is The First Stop. 

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter(hard from S&S/Saga Press ) by Stephen Graham Jones won the Nebula award.

There are more reviews at http://www.henrylazarus.com/sf.htm

Henry Lazarus is a retired Dentist and author of several books.