Science Fiction for February 2010
By Henry Leon Lazarus
Jim
Butcher has been writing about a world a millennium years after a roman
legion found itself thrown through a gate. People learned to make use of
the elemental based furies to alter earth, air, fire, and water, fighting
other intelligent species that also found their way to this world. The
previous books have followed Tavi, originally young man with a total lack
of fury abilities, whose ability to think on his feet, made him special.
As he rose in prominence, his blocked abilities came through. At the same
time the insectoid Vord have grown as an enemy of all the other beings
and, led by their Queen, are attempting to wipe out all other species.
In the sixth and final volume the Vord Queen, with her armies, has to face
the First Lord’s Fury (hard from Ace which I bought) in a very satisfying
set of battles that pit the most powerful humans against an unstoppable
horde of specialized insects. Wow!
Ari
Marmell’s single volume tale is exiting and way over the top. There are
vampiric mists that occupy dead bodies, demons trapped in jewels, and plenty
of bloody battle scenes Two decades previous Corvis Rebaine led an
army across the empire and suddenly ended his fight and left, taking a
young noblewoman with him has hostage. He’s been married and living quietly
when the latest warlord decides not only to attack the empire, but also
sends men to attack Corvis’s family. To stop him, Corvis finds his retired
old allies, raises an army and follows in The Conqueror’s Shadow (Hard
from Bantam Spectra). But Corvis was brought into the fight for a reason.
His enemy, Audriss, is really in disguise and has ulterior reasons for
his conquering army. Lots of fun and I can’t wait for more of Ari’s tales.
I
really enjoy L. E. Modessitt, jr’s fantasy, especially his Recluse series.
They meander all over the history of this world where order and chaos are
the basic elements and in balance and allow the magic to work. Saryn was
the pilot of the starship of Angels that broke through the dimensional
barrier ten years before. Ten years later she is Arms -commander
(hard from Tor) for the small struggling mountain-top community of
Westwind which is ruled by women. Historically women have never ruled,
and this provides the impetus for the wars that Westwind has won through
its order talents. One of its neighbors, Lorinth, has been friendly to
Westwind and has a female regent. Some if its lord holders resent being
ruled, even temporarily by women and are willing to rebel Saryn is given
a few troops and asked to aid the regency as she struggles to learn her
growing chaos/order abilities. The usual fun in a very-detailed world ensues.
Connie
Wilis has won a number of awards for her tales of inept historian time-travelers
from 2080. Her first in a number of years sends three to observe civilians
in England during the Blackout (hard from Bantam Spectra) of the
first year of World War II.. Their gates to their present cut off, maybe
by the action of one of them at Dunkirk, this first half of the tale has
them finding each other in the midst of a very well limned description
of the period. Fun as usual, but I still don’t understand why historians
would work in a very document era when so much from other eras would fill
in the information gap. The second half of the tale is due next year.
Jasper
Fforde is the only author I pre-order as soon as news of a new book arrives.
His British humor and outrageous ideas make make for intoxicating reading.
But he is trying for serious in his new series and it just lacked the oomph
of his previous works. The future world is heavily caste driven and designed
for stability. Rank is based on color perception (with purple at the top)
and people who only see Shades of Grey (hard from Viking which I
bought) do the hard work that keeps the society going. In fact medicine
is based on viewing certain colors and certain greens give a high. Technology
has made many leap backwards where the most advanced car is a Model
T ford, but remnants of advanced technology like perpetulite roads that
eat debris. Edward Russet’s father, a swatchman (healer) is sent to the
outer provinces to replace a murdered swatchman, and Edward, who is near
his testing date for color perception, is sent along as a lesson in humility
for a trick he played on a classmate. There are two more books planned
in this series, so only a few hints on how the society got this way are
given. The tale is fun, but not the mind-blowing stuff of Mr. Ffordes previous
work.
Imagine
Treasure Island set in an alternate world with crazy magic and you might
just have a sense of the fun of Robert V. S. Redick’s tetrology about the
final, disastrous voyage of the six-century-old IMS Chathrand, the last
of the huge ships with a six-hundred man crew and enough. After The
Red Wolf Conspiracy (paper) was revealed, the only thing that Pazel,
the young man with a gift for languages, can do is murder his love, Thasha,
to stop the wedding and halt the peace treaty. When that goes awry, he
is still on the ship as it sails across The Ruling Sea (hard from
del Rey) and facing the dangers that only a ship that size can barely survive.
I like the odd characters like the crazed captain who doesn’t seem to chose
sides, the hand sized Ixshel people with their own agenda. Alas there are
still two more books and two years before everything will be revealed.
I can’t wait.
John
Ringo launches a new series about what happens after the Grtul move a space
gate to Earth’s orbit as part of a series of new gates they are expanding
galactic civilization with. Earth, of course has very little to sell to
the galactics that come through the gate. Then the Horvath arrive with
a warship and demand everything of value. What they don’t count on is Tyler
Vernon, ex-engineer and famous web comic writer, who discovers that maple
syrup has real value to one of the galactic species and manages to smuggle
it off Earth on a small trading vessel. Soon it’s a matter of maple syrup
farmers, who believe in Live Free or Die(hard from Baen) vs the
Horvath. That is only the beginning because Galactic civilization is unstable
and a potential war is starting that will leave Earth defenseless unless
Tyler can beg, borrow, or steal some sort of defense. I can’t seen Mr.
Ringo avoiding the heavy technical lingo of the middle of the book, which,
alas, slows the action down. Liberals will hate the anti-government sensibilities.
I’m waiting eagerly, however, for the sequel.
I
gulped down Sarah A. Hoyt’s tale of a future recovering from the rule of
bio-engineered mules. Athena is daughter and heir to one of the ruling
oligarches of Earth. Energy of the future is farmed from genetically-engineered,
giant trees in Earth Orbit. Athena thinks herself safe in her room on a
space ship traveling to the Circum Terra station that mines these trees.
But she is attacked and manages to escape in a life pod, being rescued
by a ship of the Darkship Thieves (trade from Baen) where she is
taken to the asteroid where the descendants of the mule followers hide.
The tale is heavy on romance, but there was enough puzzles about her attack
and background that I couldn’t put the book down.
Margaret
Ronald has another adventure for Evie Scelan who works part time as a bike
messenger in Boston, and part time using her inherited hound abilities
to track down magical objects. This time a woman has hired to return an
object stolen by her grandmother. The only hard part, Evie thinks, is calling
up the grandmother’s ghost, But then people around her are mauled by wolves
called to the Wild Hunt (paper from Eos). I didn’t read the first
one of these, but had no problem following this one, which kept me gripped
in its thrall and I appreciated that Ms. Ronald has enough sense to keep
sex scenes off screen.
I’ve
been enjoying Linda Roberson’s tale of a witch who boards werewolves during
the full moon and writes a column supporting werewolf rights. In the second
tale, Persephone has to go to the Hallowed Circle( paper from pocket)
because a close friend has pushed her to compete for the now open High
Priestess position of the Cleveland Coven. As a solo witch, Persephone
really doesn’t want the position, but can’t refuse. These tales emphasize
the human side of the paranormal – relationship issues and normal day-to-day
living despite the fey, werewolves, etc that are out in the open. I had
a smile on my face reading this tale.
Douglas
Preston tells two intermixed tales in his latest thriller. The primary
one is of a hired killer chasing after the good guys, a young woman who
didn’t finish college and a hardened ex-CIA agent, to retrieve a
hard drive stolen from the National Propulsion Facility which analyses
date from Martian surveys. The second tale has is about a strange meteor
Impact (hard from Forge) in the Islands off Northern Maine which relates
to the McGuffen data on the hard drive. Very exciting, and fun. But
I found the rational driving the plot a little too implausible. .