Henry L Lazarus
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Science Fiction for March 2015
by Henry Leon Lazarus
Super hero tales are becoming more and more
common in both fantasy and science fiction books, movies and
television. I’ve always loved them, but it takes a lot to make them
unique.
S. C. Browne introduces us to a group of
human guinea pigs who earn enough money by testing prescription
drugs to float through life. Lloyd is one of them. He also
panhandles in central park with funny signs like “Will take
verbal abuse for money.” He has a permanent girl friend, Sophia who
is a manager at an office, but also moonlights as a living statue of
a fairy in the park. Then his small group of Less Than Hero
(trade from Gallery Books) guinea pigs develop the ability to send
drug side- effects to other people. Lloyd puts people to sleep, one
of his friends gives people a rash, and a third causes rapid weight
increase. But there’s some bad people out there. One erases memory
and another causes hallucinations. Somehow this low ambition group
gets the idea to protect the homeless from threatening thugs. It’s
hard to read this tale without a smile on your face. Very enjoyable.
Veranix Calbertis a college student
studying magic, and at night he tries to disrupt the drug dealers,
particularly the smuggler and drug lord, Willem Fenmere who murdered
his father. The Thorn of Dentonhill (paper from Daw)
interrupts what he thinks is a normal drug shipment and discovers a
magical rope and cloak destined for an evil magical ceremony.
Marshall Ryan Maresca tells a fun, exciting tale in a corrupt
medieval city in which some magic users, the Blue Circle will
attempt impossible magic to become rulers. Veranix has some help
from his cousin, a gang leader, and inspires other gang members.
It’s hard to juggle two lives, but Veranix has sufficient reason in
this fun an exciting tale. I hope there’s a sequel.
Imagine Dances with Wolves with a
Roman soldier. Alan Smale starts his trilogy in the early thirteenth
century in which the Roman Empire never fell. A legion is sent to
America looking for gold under the command of Praetor Gaius
Marcellinus. They march to the Mississippi where the mound building
culture, the Cahokian is at it’s peak. While lacking the steel of
the Romans, they counter with hang-gliding braves in this Clash
of Eagles (hard from Del Rey) and only Marcellinus
survives. Kept alive for reasons he doesn’t understand, he
integrates into the new culture, learning its language and teaching
them Roman ways of fighting and steel making. The battle at the end
with the Caholian’s facing other tribes who have picked up some
Roman technology, is quite exciting. I look forward to the next two
books in the trilogy.S
Rysa Walker has a series of tales that
remind me of the late Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol series if the hero
was a six-teen-year-old girl. Grabbing from odd, and forgotten
incidents that really happened like a serial killer at the Chicago
World Fair of 1893 who built a whole hotel for his deviltry or the
legend of a town in which all the inhabitants died. A few
centuries from now CHRONOS sends historians into the past, all
genetically modified to use the small pins that allow time travel.
Her grandfather, Saul, decided to change the past, destroying the
headquarters and locking in all time travelers from CHRONOS to the
past. It turns out that their children and grandchildren who inherit
the gift can use the pins to travel in time. Saul is using his
family, including Kate’s aunt Prudence to create a religion
Cyristism that is a strange mixture of Scientology and Christianity,
rewarding some with investment advice from their future. In Timebound
(ebook or paper) Kate is given on the pins from her grandmother
which protects her when the past is changed so that her grandmother
had been murdered at the 1893 World’s fair and she was never born.
That means she has to travel back to 1893 and figure out how to
protect her grandmother and, alas lose the new boyfriend Trey who
has been helping her. Time’s Edge (paper from Skyscape) has
her working with a friend from 1905, Kiernan whom her previous
version loved and who has the ability to work the key. She also has
a new version of Trey in the present. The idea is to collect the
keys from the trapped CHRONOS historians without getting herself
killed. That sends her to a lynching in 1905 Georgia, and a few
other places. I’m waiting eagerly for the next tale.
Greg van Eekhout continues his tale of a
Southern California Kingdom where magic comes from the bones of
magical creatures. California Bones (paper) told the tale of
how Daniel Blackland killed the Hierarch and stole his golem
(think magically created clone.) A decade later Daniel and the
golem, Sam, are living on the run because of the magic in Sam. This
is a world where cannibalism is common because it is an easy way to
grab magic. The Hierarch has never been replaced, but some lesser
powers think it would be a good idea to resurrect a dragon. Pacific
Fire (hard from Tor) tells the exciting tale of how Daniel
and Sam went to Catalina to somehow destroy the dragon. It’s lots of
fun and very exciting.
David Drake and John Lambshead continue
their tale of a future in which bicycle powered starships can move
from planet to planet. Full warships are limited in size and
attacking a colony is difficult. The Cutter Stream colonies are
tired of being under control of Brazalia Allen Allenson had proved
himself in the battles that led Into the Hinterlands (paper) in
which Brazalia fought Terra for control of the colonies. It’s time
for a George Washington and a new congress. Into the Maelstrom(hard
from Baen) depicts the first few battles borrowed, as Mr. Drake
usually does, from history. There’s even a reference to crossing
something like the Deleware in the final battle. Lots of fun with a
very eighteenth-century feel to the background.
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. returns to his world
where magic is imaged into being four centuries after the five
part series that showed how the continent was united. A Rex
with a royal temper determined to raise tariffs, and the council of
High Holders determined to keep the tariffs the same. The kingdom is
running out of money at the same time the head of the Army has
expanded the number of battalions and has invested in cannons
that have greater range. Caught in the Madness in Solitar (hard
from Tor) is Alastar the new Maitre of the Collegium of Imagers. The
problem is that it’s been over a century since the Collegium has
shown the power it potentially has, and there hasn’t been war
training in the curriculum. So Alastar, a powerful imager who
is widowed , has to find the narrow path between haste that
could turn the population against the imagers and slowness that
could get the Collegium destroyed by the Army. The tale is a bit
slow in parts, but a fascinating view of power struggles.
Patricia Briggs has another tale of the
two werewolves, Alpha and Omega in a world where werewolves and the
Fae are known. Dead Heat (hard from Ace) take Charles and
Anna to a horse farm owned by a werewolf several centuries old. His
son, whom Charles grew up with, has refused to be converted to being
a werewolf and is in his late eighties. Then the Fae release a child
molesting Fae and his grandchildren and daughter-in-law are
attacked. Another child at their pre-school has been replaced by a
fetch (really sticks) Not only that but this evil Fae has killed a
werewolf in the past. The usual excitement in finding this evil
being ensues.
Randy Henderson tells a fun urban fantasy
about forty-year-old teenagers. Finn Fancy Necromancy (hard
from Tor) tells the tale of Finn Gramaraye who had been falsely
convicted of dark necromancy and his mind exiled to the fey realm
where the fey lived off his memories for twenty-five years. When he
is released, the changeling inhabiting his body has disappeared and
he finds the women who accused him dead in the trailer his
body had been living in. Going to his family home, he finds his
father has gone nuts, His mother’s ghost haunts the living room, and
the enforcers are after him. Somehow with the help of his
incompetent brothers, including one who believes he is a waerwolf
because of a joke played on him years before. There’s the witch
Heather now divorced who had been close before, and Dawn, a mundane
who has to be told he has amnesia for the last quarter century.
Somehow he has to find the keys to his fake conviction before he is
sent back for the rest of his life. There a comfortable silliness to
the tale that brought a solid smile. Nice one.
B. V. Larson has a fourth tale of soldier
James McGill in a universe where galactic technology allows for new
bodies after death. This time he’s part of an Earth expedition to
take a methane world with available titanium ore. Machine World
(ebook which I bought) is inhabited by living machines who eat the
suits and armor of dead soldiers, The Cephalopods want the world
too, and the Galactics are after James for murdering one of their
ambassadors. Lots of battle with lots of death ensue. This is a fun
series that I have on my must read list.
Richard Phillips has a second exciting
tale about Jack “Ripper” Gregory who is somehow linked to the same
alien who lived in Jack the Ripper and Pizarro. Neo-Nazi Conrad
Altman, son of Klaus Barbie is Dead Wrong (paper from
Amazon) andon the trail of a magical Incan object. He has one part
and is torturing Tupic Inti, and Incan Shaman who knows where the
other part is. Jack has been hired to rescue him, but doesn’t know
that Tupic has his own plans and doesn’t want rescuing. Sexy Janet
Price is working from the inside for the NSA. Jack is eager for the
device himself, because Pizarro freed himself from the same alien
using the device. It all comes down to a predictable fight in a
secret cave in the Tiahuanaco ruins. Very exciting, but I expected
more.
It’s Half Past Hell (paper from
ImaJinn Books) In Milwaukee a decade after the vampire/human war
ended and some cops are vampires. Duvall who became vampire during
the French Indian war serves on that shift dealing not only with
human vampires problems but also from new ‘sucklings’ who can’t
control their thirst. Then some of the sucklings die from tainted
artificial blood. He has a new human partner, John Kilpatrick who
dislikes vampires and doesn’t like working with one. The trail leads
to a hate group, the Brotherhood of the Sun, and then deep into
vampire politics. Jaye Roycraft served as a cop and brings a reality
to this exciting police procedural.
If Agatha Christie added fantasy to her
mysteries, the result might be like Simon Green’s latest. Ishmael
Jones walks on The Dark Side of The Road (hard from
Severn House Publishers) since he was created human in 1963 when his
saucer crashed. He hasn’t aged and has golden blood. His Colonel,
whom he has worked for, for the last fifteen years has called him to
the Colonel’s country estate for Christmas where there might be a
true horror. But the colonel isn’t there, the servants are on
vacation and a butler and cook have been hired for the weekend. A
winter story has isolated the squabbling guests, all with reasons to
murder. When Ishmael arrives the Colonel has disappeared. Later the
guests die one by one in gruesome manners. I felt the murderer was a
bit obvious, but I don’t want to give away who or what the murderer
is, but the tale is fun. I expect that Ishmael will return for more
adventures.
Jon F. Merz sends his Shadow Warrior up
against the Slavers of the Savage Catacombs (trade from
Baen). After his first adventures, Ran is heading east, working as a
Caravan guard when he is captured as a slave. There’s a whole group
of cannibals living deep in the Earth and the exiled brother of the
king is using slave labor to create a new passage to their world so
he can use human troops to become king. Ran is an excellent fighter,
but has a lot of luck. To keep matters simple, the princess
Cassandra has been captured too and needs rescue. The
characters tend to be two-dimensional, especially Ran who lacks the
intensity that a hero demands. The tale however is compelling enough
for a fun light read.
Baen has a fun collection of military, magical
tales Operation Arcana (trade, John Joseph Adams, Editor)
written by major voices in the field. And a group of older tales put
together by Hank Davis As Time Goes By (trade). They’s
also reprinted in paper the latest of David’s Drake’s fun
adventure in the Republic of Cinnabar series, The Sea Without A
shore., and Larry Correia’s fun Monster Hunter Nemesis.
Tor has Charles Stross’s updated version of the
fifth and sixth novels of his Merchant Princes series, The
Revolution Trade (in trade) .
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on, March 13th 2015 at 8 p.m. at the Rotunda
on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. There will be a
guest speaker. As usual Guests are Welcome.
Dr. Henry Lazarus is a local Dentist and the
author of A Cycle of Gods (Wolfsinger Publications) and Unnaturally
Female (Smashwords). Check out his non-formula unified field
theory at henrylazarus.com/utf.html