Henry L Lazarus
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Science Fiction for June 2019
Armageddon is always twenty years in the future
in Fantasy and Science Fiction. In the aftermath of a horrible
event, heros have to survive in a world without technology. Today
the disaster is frequently the unlikely effects Climate Change or
Zombie attack. When I was growing up, it was world war III. Reading
the papers and comparing the world to the pre-Nazi era in Germany, I
think we are closer than ever to a disastrous war-to-end-all-wars.
History tells us that the Nazi’s
didn’t develop a nuclear bomb. Robert Buettner posits that they
might have but the results were buried in rubble. In a Mountain
Lake, deep in the Rockies, he sends a terrorist known as the Asp, to
recover the plans to a bomb lost there since the end of World War
II. The secrets were sent by an aging Nazi who thought that a
fanatical Islamic cult was My Enemy’s Enemy (hard from
Baen). Peter West was a rising physicist in Germany before Hitler.
He and his Jewish wife Rachael (she in hiding) end up working in the
secret plant deep in the salt mines of Salzburg to develop a
simplified Uranium bomb and a jet big enough to carry to the bomb to
the US. What’s amazing about the tale is the details that prove that
Germany could indeed have created an atomic bomb. Very Scary.
Teagan Frost, not her real name,
is the The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind (paper
from Orbit). Her parents had done independent genetic research,
leaving her with a telekinetic ability and a lot of reachers wanting
to cut her up. She’s been working with a secret government group in
LA where she hopes eventually to open a restaurant. Then someone is
murdered using her abilities, framing her. With only her co-workers
and a close friend to help, and chased by the police and feds, she
has to somehow catch the serial killer and prove her innocense, or
else she’ll be locked up for study for the rest of her life. Lots a
fun, though a bit dark when looking through the eyes of the killer.
I look forward to the sequel.
Bill Lace has a taut thriller set
in a future in which Uranus is being mined for He3. Amma Janko is
the manager of Belvedere station. Her tween son Dag is having
psychological problems from being raised in space and Phoebe typical
teenage angst. Then her pilot husband is lost in a deep dive into
Uranus, and she decides it is time to take a sabbatical to Earth,
joining a tanker on its two month journey. Then things start going
wrong. The company doesn’t want to authorized funds for the
trip. Her son somehow is talked into a bungee jump in space
when they join another ship. They have to deal with a hitchhiker,
and then things really go crazy when they get a distress call. More
than anything else, Celestial (ebook) is a tale of a mother
trying to save her children in a well-lived future that feels very
real. Excellent.
In the 30th century they thought
that all time travel changes were erased. Dr. Raibert Kamiski and is
AI partner Philosophus are traveling forward from ancient Rome in
their time machine Kleio when they’re hit by a time quake from a
knot in time that will wipe out fifteen alternate universes in 1300
years. Returning to what they think is their present, they find an
alternate version of their time absolutely against any change that
would erase them. Their only hope is Professor Benjamin Schröder in
2018 who somehow has a memory of both timelines. David Weber and
Jacob Holo have created a romp through time to solve The Gordian
Protocol (hard from Baen) while evading other time travelers
trying to stop them. And yes, it involves Hitler. Great fun and hard
to put down.
In 1986, fifteen-year-old Nick
Hayes is being treated for Leukemia. He is a math genius and loves
playing Dungeon and Dragons with his friends. There’s a sociopath at
his school that he knows to avoid, and a whole drug dealing culture
that he knows to avoid. Then an adult shows up and claims to be Nick
at forty. To save a future girl friend, a new friend to Nick, he has
to steal a new Motorola chip from the factory one of his friend’s
father runs. Does in have anything to do with the One Word Kill
(hard from 47North) charm he won in the game? All he really
knows that he might survive cancer treatment if he follows the
advice of his future self. Mark Lawrence tells a taut tale,
and somehow promises sequels. I expect this to find itself on some
award lists.
In our near future, alien plans
are found, in an ice core in space, for gates to other solar
systems. In the far future, the plans are in parts and hidden in
chips installed in the ruling Keepers. In one system, with two
inhabitable planets, Icarion has built a Velocity Weapon
(paper from Orbit). Sergeant Sanda Greeve barely survived the first
attack in an escape pod, after losing her leg. She wakes up in an
empty space ship run by an AI called Bero. Over two centuries have
passed since the war destroyed both planets in the system and their
only hope is to use Bero’s mass driver to travel at .8 C to the next
system. After the war, and before the destruction, Biran, her
brother and a new Keeper, is appointed the Keeper voice and
works to find his sister and any other survivors. Megan E. O'Keefe
has a fun beginning to a fun series with lots of mysteries
revealed, only to uncover new mysteries. Lots of fun and I look
forward to the next volume.
A few decades from now medicine
can literally resurrect the dead, unless their head is cut off, but
even average care is too expensive for average people. Resurrection
technology has led to pit fights to the death. Horace “The Hammer”
Harkness has died twenty-seven times in his long career, and needs a
final fight to pay for the new heart he needs. He’s borrowed heavily
from the Russian Mob and could pay them off and get a new heart with
his winnings. However there’s the son of a friend who need genetic
modification to fix his bones, and that is why The Hammer Falls
(paper from Bear Paw Publishing). Horace decides to cut off the head
of the mob leader and takes off running. The mob immediately goes
off trying to kill everyone near him. Travis Heermann leaves The
Hammer an out, kill the real head of the mob, and the mob collapses
into dueling factions. The tale is a romp about a killer with a
heart of gold and a real heart ready to conk out any moment. Lots of
fun.
P. C. Hodgell started her writing
career in 1982 with a tale of Jame Knorth coming out of of the
haunted lands to do a God Stalk (paper which I’ve read
several times) in the city of Tai-Tastigon, because her people
believe their three-faced god is unique and they have been fighting
Perimal Darkling across multiple worlds, with present being the
last. In that one she discovered that the gods of the city were
getting their magical power from the Kencyrath temple. Flash forward
that Jame has to return to the city because the gods are By
Demons Possessed (trade from Baen) when they eat people’s
souls. All of her old friends are in trouble, and the gods who
haven’t become demons are dying. Some of her friends became gods and
then demons. Neat series. I gulp down each new episode.
Sherwood Smith wrote a number of
juveniles three decades ago. A group of teenagers somehow broke the
magics of Norsunder and eliminated Norsunder’s ability to move
armies through rifts. A few years later, the young rulers are
settling down, and those with magical ability can visit the friends
they made using magical transfer tokens. One of the Norsunder
leaders left A Sword Named Truth (hard from DAW). When he
retrieves the sword, the various young heroes must join into an
alience to thwart Norsunder’s plans, Even if that means transferring
to a world on the opposite of the star in the Sartorias-deles
system. This is a bit slow, but I’m still waiting for the next tale
in the trilogy.
C.S. Ferguson gets his Crimson
Star pirates back together with their intelligent starship,
and with the help of new crewmen, out of the Heracles system. Thieves
& Beggars (hard from WordFire Press) pulls all the irons
out of the fire that Devils and Black Sheep (paper) left,
even answering what was in the valuable box that everyone was
hunting. .I can only hope that the enlarged crew have more
adventures in them. This is a fun universe.
Larry Correia and Kacy Ezell had a collection of
Noir Fatale (hard from Baen) tales about dangerous women.
WordFire Press has reprinted a classic Mike
Resnick tale, Walpurgis III (ebook) written when Mr.
Resnick was at his best. Baen has reprinted David Drake’s RCN tale Though
Hell Should Bar the Way in paper and Elizabeth Moon’s final
book of The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, Oath
of Gold, in trade. My copy is the whole trilogy which I’ve
read several times.
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on June 14th. Mark Wolverton, author of Burning
the Sky about US nuclear tests in space, will speak. The
meeting starts at 8 p.m. at International House
on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. As usual guests are
welcome.
Dr. Henry Lazarus is a retired 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 fusion generation requires
less energy because only one frequency is needed rather than a full
spectrum. It also explains dark matter, the proliferation of
subatomic particles, and the limit of light speed for matter.