Henry L Lazarus
HOME
4603 Springfield Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Science Fiction for March 2017
by Henry Leon Lazarus
For all genres in fiction, including Fantasy and
Science Fiction, we are in a new age of Pulp. Authors have
discovered that if they publish a book a month on Kindle, they will
get noticed. And can earn a good income. This only works is there is
something in the series that draws readers in.
Michael Anderle decided to mix
super-science with vampires and werewolves. In fact alien starships
sent to create super-humans created both. Michael, the first vampire
found a crashed Kurtherian star ship (with its pilot in its
computer) and was modified by its medical pod, but not completely. A
thousand years later and vampires created from the nanocytes in his
blood have to avoid the burning sun. Michael is tired to trying to
keep evil vampires under control, so he brings Bethany Anne, an
aggressive but honorable woman dying of the same genetic disease
that killed her mother, to the ship for conversion. Unfortunately in
the weeks the conversion takes, he is captured. So Bethany
Anne awakes unsure of her abilities. Luckily Michaelleft her access
to his vast funds and the Kurtherian pilot implants the quantum
computer containing his mind into her. Death Becomes Her
(paper from LMBPN Publishing) as she finds a team of mercenaries to
help her.
Michael Anderle has been
writing like mad, because the fifteenth book shows that Bethany Anne
will Never Submit (ebook) to an alien invasion of Earth. In
the previous books she has destroyed the evil vampires, fought Earth
Governments that want her technology, built bases in space and then
finished a space armada to attack the Yollin’s who already sent a
scout ship into our solar system. Before TQB forces leave, they have
to deal with the final elements of attempts to kidnap one of them,
and steal the formula for Coke so Bethany Anne has enough on her
galaxy conquering tour. This is an addicting series that grows with
each book.
Glynn Stewart continues his tale
of Earth trapped between two interstellar empires. Annette Bond has
become the Duchess of Terra (paper from Faolan's Pen
Publishing Inc) in the A!Tol empire as a compromise for more freedom
for Earth. Harriet Tanaka had been a captain in Earth’s space navy
and transferred as captain into the A!Tol helping to keep Earth out
of Kanzi hands. The Kanzis are determined to enslave humans and only
by quickly building ships, making alien friends, and putting
everything on the line will save Earth. This tale reminds me of the
best of David Webber’s work and is, like the first tale, impossible
to put down.
K. M. O'Brien starts a fun series
about a starship engineer, Anailu Xindar who buys The Sculpted
Ship (ebook). Only a hundred Dove starships were made and
finding one in a used starship lot, was as impossible as finding a
Rolls Royce in a used car lot. Parts that would let it fly in space
were missing and the owners thought even the engines were blocked.
Anailu persevered and chartered it out for local flights while she
earned enough money to bring it into shape, including a safari
company and a university professor. She’s very lucky in the friends
she makes and works hard to get her special ship into shape. Lots of
fun, but very little violence
I keep putting off adding Terry
Mancour’s Spellmonger series. Shadowmage (ebook) the ninth in
the series can be read separately. Tyndal and Rondal,
originally Minalan’s apprentices have become mage knight journeymen,
have a fight with the brotherhood of the rat, a group of thieves who
dominate the rebellious province in southern Alshar. At first they
go to rescue a boy with special powers, but then their duke asks
them to help put the brotherhood down. They do have friends to help,
including a clan of shadowmage thieves. One of them has set
her eyes on marrying Rondal. The task might seem impossible as the
rats have roots throughout the province, but the two have crazy,
impossible plans and are powerful mages. Lots of fun.
Patricia Briggs 10th tale of Mercy
Thompson, a shifter coyote who can also see ghosts. In Silence
Fallen (hard from Ace) the head vampire of Europe has her
kidnaped to Italy. Her escape, and travel hidden in a bus luggage
compartment lands her in Prague where she has to deal with a
witch/vampire and the ghost of the golem that defended the Jews of
Prague in the sixteenth Century. Adam, her hubby, and alpha
werewolf has to deal with vampire politics before he as to find her.
It’s the usual fun mixture of magic and mayhem of this fun series.
When an arsonist destroys a street
in Maradaine, he leaves survivors and some are ex-agents and quite
deadly. It doesn’t take long for the The Holver Alley Crew
(paper from DAW) to work a theft to get funding and then, like in
Ocean’s Eleven, break into a casino owned by the villain who had
burned their homes down. Marshall Ryan Maresca tells a fun,
pulse-pounding tale of robbery and revenge. Maradaine is a world
class, 19th century city with magic and with each tale, the world
gets more complex.
Wen Spencer has her own view
of the world of Vampires, werewolves, descendants of angels,
and witches. Werewolves protect the world from breaks in
reality. Their king has been around for centuries and is breeding
pack wolves. Joshua thought he was a normal boy preparing for
college, when monsters and werewolves attacked the Halloween party
he had helped prepare, bit him and turned him into a werewolf. A
voice told him to run toThe Black Wolves of Boston (hard from
Baen). There, somehow, the only good vampire in the
world, Decker, rescues him from a magical hunter. . The main
villains are evil witches called Wickers who can mind-control most
people and sacrifice their blood to create monsters. Decker’s
friend, Eloise, a Virtue, goes back to Joshua’s home to face the
Wickers and is helped by Joshua’s real brother Seth, the Werewolf
Prince of Boston. But the Wickers are still after Joshua who is
important to their plans against the Werewolf King. It doesn’t help
that Decker wants to adopt a werewolf cub of his own to get out of a
funk of centuries. It takes a bit to get through this complicated
background, but the characters are enough fun that I would love to
visit them again.
Seanan McGuire’s latest tale of
the Price family who protect incryptids in America from the English
based Covenant of St. George is a tale of Magic For
Nothing (paper from DAW) Antimony goes undercover to determine
how much the covenant knows and is trained and sent undercover to a
carnival to find the incryptid killing atendees The problem is the
that carnival also houses safe incryptids like the were-rat acrobat,
that Antimony falls for. The talking mice who worship the Price
family are along for the ride. Lots of fun, as usual.
T S Paul’s third tale of Agatha
Blackmore, a powerful witch in the FBI, is now Special Agent in
Charge (ebook) of The Magical Crimes Division working with the
were friends she made at Quantico along with an ancient
vampire who worked with J. Edgar Hoover and a senior human agent.
Kidnaped werewolf children had being brainwashed into warriors. The
death of a child leads also to a small town with coming pack war
between two packs and a missing diamond mine. Lots of fun.
Jean Johnson has a third part of
her series of Fae and Efrijt on a world with animistic magic. In
order to claim the world, the standard path is a child born of both
species, deciding which will stay. It doesn’t help that the Fae have
been cut off from their home world. But worse than that is the
problem that Udrin half-fae half Efrijt is a socio-path who can use
the local magic to make himself a god. The only way to stop him
involves using the Gods of the Flame Sea (ebook from
Intermix) and some very difficult choices for the Fae that prefer to
live in peace.
Baen has reprinted David Weber’s fun The
Sword of the South in paper.
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on March 3rd 2017 The meeting starts at 8
p.m. at the Rotunda on the University of Pennsylvania
Campus. Sarah Pinsker, a nebula award winning author, will
speak. 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 unified field theory at
henrylazarus.com/utf.html that suggests a simpler way to achieve
fusion generation.