Henry L Lazarus
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Science Fiction for October 2014
by Henry Leon Lazarus
The best fantasy and science fiction take place
in strange worlds, worlds where the common rules of nature either
don’t work or are modified by magic or modified physics. These type
of books make the reader stretch his mind and really allow a sense
of wonder.
Max Gladstone has been writing about a
world with gods, deathless kings and the power of soul used for
money. But if money requires part of someone’s soul, how do you
create off-shore banks? Full Fathom Five (hard from
Tor) takes us to the island of Kavekava whose gods were lost in the
war of the gods. They store soul in the idols they create. Because
of dealing in the money markets sometimes these non-intelligent
idols, like Seven Alpha die. Kai, a priestess and money dealer who
is present when seven alpha sinks, but something she senses in the
Idol forces her to unsuccessfully rescue the being. Izza is a
homeless pre-teen living off of begging and stealing. A being she
worshiped, and who had come to her help that she called the blue
angel just died. So in helping the other children and avoiding the
giant stone penitents that enforce the law on the island, she wants
to find out how the blue angel died. But there is corruption in the
priesthood that creates the idols, and a Craftwoman from another
land looking the loss. Izza, Kai, and a poet who might
have dipped into Seven Alpha’s soul storage to create poems are all
at risk. I suspect this is an award nominee.
It’s hard to write about computer games
because, at least to me, they never feel real. Nick Cole gets around
this problem with professional gamers who fight for corporations
competing for ad space. With money involved, the stakes in
real life can get a lot higher as John Saxon discovers. He’s a Soda
Pop Soldier (trade from Harper Voyager) fighting on computer
for Colacorp and his side is losing. His girlfriend has left him and
he’s behind on the rent, so he enters a black, illegal game to pick
up extra money. But the stakes are high in his real game as the
bribes start coming, while in the real world his apartment building.
There’s another money player willing to help and that’s why he
eventually finds himself playing in an expensive cabin on an
airplane, while the plane is being boarded by thugs with real
weapons. Both games are very important to multiple parties and his
genius at play makes him a target. Lots of fun and impossible to put
down.
One of my favorite tropes is that of
someone from our world dropping into a fantasy one. Christopher
Sinclair is a forty-year-old mechanical engineer with sword fighting
hobby. The world he finds himself in gets its magic from dead
people, with ranks coming from the amount of magic owned. Once his
is magically taught the language, and told he can’t go home, he has
to become a priest of one of the very real gods and carry the Sword
of the Bright Lady (trade from Pyr) Every year all the villages have
their young men drafted into a war with monsters and he will go with
them. Of Course M. C. Planck has him creating a banking system and
building guns and cannons. It’s not as easy as it sounds because
rumors of his magical sword send swordsmen after him. Lots of fun
with enough left for a sequel. I can’t wait.
Wen Spencer tells of the cutest
nine-year-old geniuses ever. Louise and Jilian go to a school for
the gifted only because their parents want them to have normal
social interaction. On their own, they have created videos about
Elfhome, The place where Pittsburgh disappears to every month. These
are posted on an obscure film site because their parents are very
protective. Their father works for a company that stores unused,
fertilized, human eggs, and they were his solution to providing
children for his sterile wife. Technically they are siblings of the
main character in Ms. Spensor’s other books in the series, Tinker
(paper) and have four potential other siblings whose eggs are
supposed to be destroyed in a few months. Rescuing the eggs,
creating all the sets for Peter Pan at their school, and dealing
with the fact that their little films have become very popular, are
only part of the problem. When the Wood Sprites (hard
from Baen) literally break into a museum to steal some magical
containers, they also discover there is an ancient elf determined to
attack Elfhome. Then things get really complicated. Because this
tale takes place at the same time as the other books in the series,
it’s unnecessary to have read the other tales. This is defiantly a
wow.
Stephen Renneberg captures the same fun
as Guardians of the Galaxy with the tale of Sirius Kade,
free trader with his own ship, and former spy for the Earth
Intelligence Service. Earth was cut off from galactic civilization
for a thousand years when fanatics blew up their ship on a galactic
world. With only fifty years left of the current five century
probation period, Earth is eager to prevent other incidents. So
Syrius is reactivated when something is heard of a potential
incident. The trail leads to the Mcguffin of the tale, The Antaran
Codex (ebook from Amazon Digital Services, Inc which I bought) which
is up for bid. But the aliens who where hurt with the first
incident, the Matarons have an evil plan that involves the Codex and
one of the buyers. Sirius has to risk his ship and his crew, first
stealing the Codex, then restealing it, then stopping the final crew
from destroying a low-tech world. The action is fast and furious and
the background shear fun. I hope there’s a sequel.
Suppose someone managed to not only sense
the soul, but actually trap it. Timothy Zahn considers all the
ramifications and implications of a Soulminder (paper from Open Road
Media) in a novelization of the stories he wrote in the 90's for
Analog. Capturing the soul allows the body to be worked on when
essentially dead. But dictators can use if for torture, gangsters to
grab a new body, and other horrible consequences. Fun and
interesting.
Chris Evans creates a magical variation
of the Vietnam War fought with dragons (rags) instead of
helicopters and crossbows (rifles) with magical radios for
communication At home political pressure comes from the literal
bastardization of the royal line. The sylts are mainly peaceful, but
the fighters have magicians who can throw lightning. Like Vietnam
the war is fought with conscripts who have no real reason for
fighting. There’s drug abuse, racial hatred of trolls, and a final
battle in the valley Of Bone and Thunder (hard from Gallery)
where victory seems impossible. I expected to hate this because it
was so obviously based in history, but the characters came alive and
I found myself rooting for them. Very exciting, but dark.
Ani Bolton sets her tale of Steel and
Song( ebook from Writer Unboxed Publishing) in a variation of
Russia during World War I. The only ones with magic are the gytrash
and they are drafted for the war with the Franks, emptying out their
villages. Tova is the last airwitch in her small village, and she is
drafted into a war Aileron captained by Cossack Piers Dashkov who
has already lost most of his family to the war. Thrown immediately
into small battles, Tova quickly has to learn to moderate her magic
so it won’t kill her, a common fate of airwitches in the war.
In the barracks rebellion is brewing and the secret police don’t
care who they catch. This is an exciting beginning to a longer tale,
filled with romance and danger. I’m looking forward to more.
Nancy Kress tells a tale of science and
culture shock as aliens who are really Yesterday's Kin (paper
from Tachyon Publications) A hundred thousand years ago some humans
were taken to another planet. Very peaceful they have prospered and
are far advanced in technology. Geneticist Marianne Jenner has just
written a paper on the discover of a rare branch of humanity
discovered by tests of mitochondrial DNA and these strangers, not
only belong to that group, but they are seeking earth humans with
the same traits because their culture is very family oriented. Noah,
Marianne’s adopted son is one of them and he becomes fascinated with
their culture, since he never fit in with ours. The main reason they
have come is to find a cure for a spore cloud in space that had
already wiped out one of their colonies and will hit Earth in less
than a year. As usual for this Hugo-winning author, the emphasis is
on character and social issues. Fascinating.
Prudence Jones “Roo” struck in rich as a
spy in the right place and time. He’s living on his catamaran in
near future predicted by the Global Warming alarmists, in the
Caribbean infected with Hurricane Fever (hard from Tor) when
an old friend sends him information post death. That leads to men
trying to kill him and getting the nephew he was raising instead.
Tobias S. Buckell tells an exciting tale that Ian Flemming might
have written today about a very rich megalomaniac who has to be
stopped. Helped by a woman first claiming to be Roo’s friend’s
daughter, and then french intelligence, he is constantly attacking
the bad guys in the middle of one hurricane after another, a common
event for the Caribbean of the future. Fun!
Jennifer Foehner Wells imagines that the
government has kept top secret an alien ship in the asteroid belt
near Mars. The Roswell craft was one of their shuttles. An
expedition, ostensibly going to mars is really sent to the ship. Dr.
Jane Holloway is along because of her Fluency (ebook
from Blue Bedlam Books) but she doesn’t realized that she is
so fluent that the only survivor , the ship’s navigator, can
communicate with her telepathically. The ships crew had all been
killed by a mysterious disease, and the rest of the astronauts don’t
believe her, especially when talking to Ei’Brai requires her to fall
into a coma. The ship has been empty so long that the pests have run
wild, creating danger for the small expedition, Exciting and fun. I
hope that a sequel sending her to the ships’ home world is available
soon.
Kendare Blake puts dying Greek Gods and
reincarnated mortals from the Trojan war into our world. Athena is
growing feathers, Demeter is stretched flat over acres, and Hera is
partially stone. All the gods who used to live on Mount Olympus are
dying. Odysseus has remembered his past life, and together with
Athena and Hermes locate Cassandra, the prophetess who might be
considered an Antigoddess (trade) because her touch can
destroy a god. They have to face a mad Poseidon working with Hera
and Aphrodite who is convinced that killing other gods will let them
live. It doesn’t help that all the reincarnated mortals are
teenagers.
Alas the fates interfere and with Ares
and a revived Hera working against them the Mortal Gods
(trade from Tor), Cassandra, lying to her parents, has to help
Athena as they eventually travel to Olympus to face the dying fates
and their allies. There’s at least another book in the series. The
tale is a bit too dark for my taste, but I’m intrigued enough to
keep reading.
The royal family of the tine kingdom of
Swansgaard had one son and twelve daughters who couldn’t inherit.
Since the cost of doweries would bankrupt the kingdom, each sets off
at eighteen to seek their fortune. Mercedes Lackey and James
Mallory tell of Clarice who wants to be a swordswoman, but starts
her travels disguised as a man. A whim sends her on a ship to the
new world, not knowing that the captain intends to goad his crew to
mutiny so he can kill most of them and make his way to the magically
protected The House of the Four Winds (hard from Tor). The
mutiny but their new captain, the original navigator is force to
land at the pirate island. The island is run by sorceress Shamal who
forces them off on a massive treasure hunt, happily killing
any crew member who protests. Light fun with a dash of romance.
E. C. Blake continues his tale of
fifteen-year-old Mara, daughter of a mask maker in a land ruled by
an evil Autarch and where all adults wear magical Masks (hard) . In
the first tale her ability to see all the colors of magic causes her
to be sent to the mines and rescued by the Unmasked Army. But
she has to creep in the Shadows(hard from DAW) to visit her
father and get the secret of making masks– but she is captured along
with Chell, a prince from a foreign land seeking magical help
against their enemies. She convinces the Autarch to let her train
with the Mistress of Magic who also can see all the colors. Then her
father is murdered and she inadvertently gives up the location of
the unmasked army. On the run, she and Chell sail to his ships
only to be in worse straits. Third book to follow in this fun teen
series.
Drew Hayes has The Utterly
Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, The Vampire
Accountant (Ebook from Reuts) who boringly kept doing people’s
books after being turned. He works all night (and day during tax
season) and gets his blood from the hospital he keeps accounts for.
Until he attends his high school reunion and meets an old friend who
is an agent for the agency that maintains all the paranormal
agreements. Of course werewolves attack the reunion. Other tales
have him face a wizard with his only zombie who is determined to
kill people at a gamers party. Properly silly and I can only hope
for more adventures.
Ilona Andrews sets their (husband and
wife team) latest in an alternate present where a serum created
magical, inheritable powers. Families breed to produce powerful
primes, like Adam Pierce who can melt steel with his mind. He’s
killed a bank guard while stealing something from its vault, and his
family wants him back, and they own part of Nevada Baylor’s family
detective agency. So with only the ability to tell truth from lies,
her only hope is convince him to return to his family peacefully.
Enter Mad Rogan whose ability to tear down buildings help win the
Mexican war. He’s searching for a cousin who worked with Adam. So we
have two strong-willed people finding they have to work together to
stop Adam from destroying Houston as he does a Burn for Me
(paper from Avon).
Richard K. Morgan finishes the tale of an
expedition to the far north to locate the tomb a dead sorcerer that
was started in The Cold Commands (paper).The tomb was looted
and, while our heroes were gone, the Empire started a war with the
League. So the group is captured. Egar, dragonsbane and
Archeth, the half-breed daughter of the immortal Kiriath get
shipwrecked and survive to find an ancient Kiriath fortress with a
living demon controller (think immortal computer) with plans for
Archeth. Ringil Eskiath the sorceror warrior takes control of the
ship carrying him and returns to face some of the ancient Dwenda in
his home town. Everybody it seems, including the ancient gods have
plans for these two including sending them down The Dark
Defiles.(paper from Del Rey). Mr. Morgan has great fight
scenes and fun characters, but the plots within plots got too
complicated for my taste and some of the action was a bit too
arbitrary.
Henry V. O’Neil tells of a time when
humans are combating people-looking Sims, who chirp instead of talk
and can’t eat our food.. Jander Mortas is a shave-tail lieutenant
right out of training and off to his first assignment. But his ship
was wrecked and he gets woken out of a deep-sleep coffin with only
three other survivors, a psychoanalyst, a scout, and a conscientious
objector. They have no food, water and have been dumped on a dry
world. Somehow they have to survive, face the sim colonists, survive
other human soldiers under attack by the Sims, and steal a Sim
ship to get to Glory Main (ebook from Harper Voyager
Impulse). I enjoyed it, but could quite believe the
background, giving it the same feeling as The Good, The Bad, and the
Ugly. This is only the first book in a series, so I expect the
mystery of the Sims will be saved for later adventures.
R. S. Belcher continues his tale of a
mining town, Golgotha in 1870 where the richest man in town, Malachi
Bick, is really an angel, and the sheriff Jon Highlander has fought
monsters and is known as unkillable. The Shot-Gun Arcana
(hard from Tor) tells of another Angel Ray Zeal who had forgone his
job of watching Cain’s skull. Determined to get his revenge on Bick,
he finds the thirty-two evil people, mostly cannibals and serial
killers, with the teeth of Cain and sends them to attack the town.
Unfortunately for them, they die as easily as their victims. While
fascinating, this second tale is a bit too predictable. The
characters are interesting enough for want for more of their
adventures.
Sandman Slim came back from Hell full of
revenge a few books ago. Since then he served a term as Satan and
dealt with numerous monsters. However the elder gods whom God kicked
out before creating our universe and then splitting into five parts,
want to come back. One of the God parts has been murdered and the
others are weak. Sandman Slim has the only key to letting these gods
in to remake the universe and they will stop a nothing to forced him
to let The Getaway God (hard from Harper Voyager) back in.
I found the tale fun, but a bit anti-climatic. Sure signs that the
series has gotten old.
I was disappointed with Peter F.
Hamilton’s latest addition to his Commonwealth universe in
which the Milky Way is filled with a high tech civilization except
in the central void where different physics allow humans esp powers.
Into The Abyss Beyond Dreams (hard from Del Rey) goes
a copy of Nigel Sheldon with a ship designed to partially work
in this void. The planet he finds has been inhabited by humans from
a kidnaped colonizing expedition and have been there 3000 years (300
years in real time) The planet has been attack with falling
alien eggs that can absorb people and animals and turn them into
killers. To get the bombs from the original ship lying under the
capital city, Nigel has to stage a communist-style revolution
as a decoy. The planetary government might be corrupt, but
revolution destroys stability. Most of the tale is devoted to the
characters involved in the revolution, which I found hard to
identify. Still fans of the series will find this a must read along
with the coming sequel.
Baen has two collections this month. David
Drake’s time travel and tourist tales, Dinosaurs and a Dirigible
(trade) and the sixth worlds of Honor Beginnings (edited by
David Weber) in paper.
Charles Stoss has revised and updated the first
two tales of the Merchant Prince series in The Bloodline Feud (trade
from Tor)
Baen has reprinted in paperback John Lambshead’s
fun Wolf in Shadow about a werewolf in London that needs a
sequel; the late Anne McCaffrey writing with Jody Lynn Nye in The
Death of Sleep; The Throne of Stars, the second
two tales about a lost Prince from the Empire of Man by David Weber
and John Ringo; and Wen Spencer’s fun tale of Eight Million Gods
in the modern Japan. In trade they have reprinted David Weber and
Jane Lindskold’s tale of the Treecat Wars; Lois McMaster
Bujold’s Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance; and the fun tale of a
Slow Train to Arcturus by Eric Flint and Dave Freer. An
earlier Miles Vorkosigan tale, Memory has been reprinted in
Trade.
Ace has reprinted in trade Stella Gemmell’s
excellent tale of The City, which reminded me of Victor Hugo
romances.
Tor has repinted Wolfgang Jeschke’s fun time
travel tale, The Cusanus Game, and Twenty-first Century
Science Fiction Edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick
Nielsen Hayden
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on, October 17th 2014 at 8 p.m. at International house
on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. Author Craig Shaw
Gardner 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).