China
Miéville imagines a world of flat lands where the oceans should be. Its
covered massively with railroad lines and underneath those lines
are strange creatures like huge moles. Shamus Soorap is a physician’s apprentice
on the Mole Train Medes which kills the giant creatures for their meat
and skin. He finds a photo card with pictures on a wrecked train,
one of which purports to show the end of the Railsea (hard from
Del Rey) and somehow convinces the Captain to take the Medes to the land
where the wrecked train had originated, to tell the orphans of the
people who owned the train that their parents are dead. That gets him captured
by pirates. Mr. Miéville has great fun mixing tropes from Treasure Island,
Robinson Crusoe, and many more sea tales. There are also trains running
on all types of power like wind, electricity, slaves,
and even diesel. This deserves any award it is nominated for.
L.
E. Modesitt, Jr. is one of my favorite writers. A friend recently was introduced
to him and was overwhelmed by his sixty plus books. Princeps (hard
from Tor) is the middle book in the prequel trilogy to his Imager series
(whew!). The hidden Imager, Quaaeryt is appointed governor to a city and
Provence ravaged by a volcano. Doing all the right things, of course, angers
the locals. So he is sent to the war front to help prevent an invasion.
He is put in charge of a group of imagers who have to be trained to use
their talents in war, and does most of the imaging work while letting his
crew get the credit. As usual lots of fun.
David
Drake’s tales of Captain Daniel Leary and ex-librarian Adele Mundy keep
getting better and better especially since the pair haven’t been
promoted out of the action. Mr. Drake has a dirty future with automobiles,
flying cars, and, of course, starships with masts and sprits. The latest
adventure, borrowed from an historical event in the punic wars, sends them
to an Aliance planet where revolution has ruined the profitable rice trade.
The problem is that the man at the heart of the revolution may be a Cinnabar
native, so the Princess Cecile is sent On the Road of Danger (hard
from Baen) to get him out of there. Daniel has to go undercover to reach
his quarry, while the Princess Cecile pretends to be a private yacht owned
by Adele. Luckily they somehow manage to get together only to come under
the guns of a privateer. This is the eighth book of a series that is only
lightly arced so that each may be read independently. Fun Fun Fun.
James
Swain has fun mixing stage magic with the real thing. Peter Warlock is
a noted stage magician with a real telepathic talent. In fact, he and seven
other friends hold seances to accurately foretell horrible events with
enough specificity to pass secret hints along to responsible authorities
Like a nerve gas attack. Then evil warlocks using Dark Magic (hard
from Tor) send an assassin to attack their group. Peter doesn’t realize
that his parents, murdered when he was a child, had been members of that
group, and that he has inherited their power which comes out in the stress
of trying to protect his friends. I really enjoyed the mixture of real
stage magic with its fancy tricks, with the unreal spiritualism of ghosts
and demons. Fun.
Kevin
Hearne has a new tale of Atticus, a two thousand year-old druid who talks
to his dog. In a world with all spirits and gods, He owed a favor for Coyote
and is Tricked (paper from Del Rey) into also having to deal with
skin-walkers, evil people whose souls are linked to a navaho demon and
aren’t killable. There’s also the Norse goddess Hel. As usual he survives
to wait the next fun tale. Lots of fun.
Stacey
Jay returns to an alternate present where deadly faries have replaced mosquitos
in the south. To most people their bite is deadly, but Annabelle Lee is
one of those immune. There’s Blood on the Bayou(paper from Pocket)
Hitch, FBI agent and ex-lover, is being blackmailed. His fiancee
has been poisoned to loose their baby, and will only get the antidote if
he finds and destroys a government lab hidden deep in Fairy territory.
Annabelle is caught between her new lover and her old, the big man who
gives her medicine to keep from going insane from the fairy bites she got
in the last tale and her ex-boss in Fairy Containment. Fun, but a bit confusing.
I got two books that gave me nightmares.
Brian
Evenson tells that after an apocalypse which left the world uninhabitable,
Joseph Horkai is woken from storage to be given a mission. He remembers
very little of the Kolapse, or even why he was put into storage, but he
is one of a few people who had a radical adaption that allows them to survive
outside. Two men wearing biohazard suits are his mules, because of his
Immobility (hard from Tor) and they expect to die on the journey.
Monks, adapted as he has, have stolen a canister of precious
seeds and he has to cross fifty miles of wasteland to retrieve the canister.
Needless to say he has been lied to. This is impossible to put down, but
very depressing.
Steven
John takes noir mystery to a new level by showing us San Francisco covered
in fog for sixteen continuous years. Thomas Vale is a detective in a world
where fog lamps are needed just to walk a block. Every night he wakes up
at Three A. M. (Hard from Tor) until a blond in a red dress hires
him to prove her boy friend is innocent of murder. When the authorities
have no knowledge of her boy friend, he realizes that something is wrong.
But the conspiracy goes to the heart of the fog. There are several times
when the bad guys should have killed our dark hero, but he always gets
away. It’s fun, even though I find it hard to believe that such a conspiracy
would have lasted as long as it did.
I
missed the latest wild card novel, a series I’ve loved since 1987
and found it in the Library. Fort Freak (hard from Tor and
edited by George R. R. Martin) is the police station in Joker town in New
York City. Ramshead, Leo Storgman is near retirement when he is pushed
into looking into a cold case, the murder of five people in diner in 1978.
The most likely suspect was murdered, but dirty cops have started to murder
snitches with information. There are also three cute stand-alone tales
about a nat rookie who helps high school joker convicted of car theft when
she ran from a rape; a cop transfer who helps locate a teleporting thief,
and a very fun tale of a wannabe actress with the ability to absorb other
Ace talents but unable to control them.
One
of my favorite authors, Steven Gould, has such a horrible title, 7th
Sigma (hard from tor) that I waited till I got it from the library.
Then I couldn’t put it down. Kimble is on his own when his mother dies
and his abusive father has to leave the territory for surgery. It seems
metal eating bugs have invaded the American Southwest, destroying technology
and forcing people to either leave or put up with dangerous, low-tech living,
because the bugs attack humans if they swarm. Then he meets Ruth
who is building a Dojo in the territory and accepts Kimble as an inside
student. As Kimble grows he gets involved with Major Benthan of the territorial
rangers and soon becomes an agent for him. If this were a series, I would
expect some clues as to where the bugs came from, but I doubt any sequel
is coming. Fascinating.
Tanya
Huff continues her fun tale of Charlie, one of the magically powerful Gales
who could rule the world, except it wouldn’t be proper. Right now the Gales
have their hands full with Jack, a fourteen-year-old half-Gale and half-dragon
prince who can turn into a golden dragon at will, and usually at the wrong
time. Aunt Charlotte has decided to steal Selkie skins as blackmail to
keep the local Selkies from protesting an oil company from drilling near
a seal rookery. Charlie gets involved because the leader of her latest
band is going with a Selkie girl who has had her skin stolen. Add in a
Boggart attack on a concert they were playing and Goblins and a troll guarding
the skins which makes Charlie walk The Wild Ways (hard from DAW
which I also got from the Library) and you have the recipe for a fun, light
lark.
Pyr is publishing the Nebula Awards Showcase 2012 in trade. Great stories from the 2011 ballot. Open Road Media has brought out Barbara Hambly’s tale of an evil bracelet in 1920's Hollywood Bride of the Rat God as an ebook. I vaguely remember that it as a fun attempt to merge the outrageous plotting of silent movies with the famous actors of the time.
Baen has a fourth volume of A. Bertram Chandler’s works Ride the Star Winds (paper) and a collection about Armored warriors (paper and edited by John Joseph Adams).
George R. R. Martin’s classic Fevre Dream (Bantam Books) about vampires on the Mississippi just prior to the Civil War is out in paper.
People interested in the movie Battleship should pick up Peter David’s novelization in paper from Del Rey.
Hugo nominations for this year include: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor); A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra); Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit); Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey); and Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)
The Science Fiction Society will have its next meeting on May 11th at 8p.m. at International House on the University of Pennsylvania. Campus. Author Brenda W. Clough 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)