Henry L Lazarus
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Science Fiction for April 2020
by Henry L Lazarus
Fantasy and Science Fiction have many tales of
plague. Hopefully by the time this is printed Covid-19 will have
peaked.
Nadja Bikram is lured to the
planet of Skiathos (ebook from 3B Independent Publishers)
because the language of the eight-foot tall Lacertians seems to be
untranslatable. A former starship captain and noted linguist she and
her team are perfect for the job. Unfortunately the survey team has
lost its leader and is a mess. Searching for the missing scientist,
Nadja’s skiff is shot down and she finds herself with the native
Lacertians along with two marines who had survived a previous
wreck are there to help her. Fortunately living with the natives,
who are well adapted to their desert land, provides answers to their
language and their food is edible. In an effort to get to place
where she can signal the mission, she finds herself caught up in a
war between her tribe and others. Boris L. Slocum has created
fascinating aliens who are easy to identify with, and an interesting
universe. I would really love another adventure with Nadja and
Gunny, one of the marines. Highly recommended.
Sarah Beth Durst looks at a world
where reincarnation is very real. Augurs can read souls and
council people on how to avoid the worst reincarnation. The worst
reincarnate as monsters, kehoks who come in various shapes. In
Becar if a kehok wins in the Race the Sands (paper from
Harper Voyager), it can be reincarnated as human. The tale borrows
the fun parts of the Seabiscuit tale with a trainer Tamra who is
down on her luck and unable to pay tuition for her daughter training
to be an augur. A jockey Raia who flunked out of augur school
and whose parents want to marry her off to a man who may have
murdered his previous wife. Then there’s the owner Lady Evara who
secretly is on the verge of bankruptcy. The Kehok, she races,
is a black lion hiding a deep secret that effects the emperor-to-be.
Lots of fun.
In an alternate 1905 where some
very rich people have alternate animal bodies they can trade with,
as opposed to the solitaires who can’t. Thalia Cutler is a
stage magician mostly working her late father’s tricks. She thinks
her main problem is that of another magician with a non-compete
clause who got her act closed down for using a bullet catching trick
invented by her father. Then Von Faber is killed doing the trick,
and Thalia is suspected of murder. Unfortunately Thalia is not aware
she is really a trader, and there are Manticore’s hunting traders
who haven’t mastered their ability to switch forms. Luckily the
Trader family where she’s been giving stage magic lessons is willing
to help. Caroline Stevermer has a very pleasant tale of The
Glass Magician (hard from Tor). A sequel would be fun.
Robert Jackson Bennett continues
his award nominated Foundryside (paper) where the basic laws
of the universe can be manipulated with symbols on metal. Sancia
Grado, who has an etched tablet in her head, and her friends think
they have a way to bring down another one of the Merchant
Houses. Unfortunately someone has brought Crasedes Magnus back to
life; a being who has crushed civilization after civilization for
thousands of years in an effort to eliminate evil. A thousand years
before his tools had rebelled when he tried to modify humanity. His
return brings the horror of Shorefall (hard from Del Rey)
night to the city of Tevanne and only Sancia and her friends have a
chance of stopping him. This unique world is not to be missed.
The mining city of Titanshade
(paper) is in the far north on an Earth with eight very
different types of people. It’s running out of the oil that has
replaced the magical manna. In the first police procedural
mystery Detective Carter followed the trail of a murderer straight
to a point where people had found a well of Manna deep
underground. He’s been on paperwork detail until he and his
partner Jax, a Mollenkampi get their first case. The murderer had
taken the teeth of a Mollenkampi artist new to the city. No one even
knew her name. It’s the time of the Titan's Day (hard from
DAW) celebration with an election going on. The city is trying to
deal with the gang violence and typical corruption. Carter and Jax
persue the case that noone cares about, while the department tries
to deal with his notoriety and keep him from finding the
murderer. Dan Stout has a gritty, impossible-to-put-down tale
and I look forward to more cases.
Eric Lewis borrows the horrors of
the 30-year war on a peninsula where two potential kings are
fighting to rule. Peasants are either in the way and killed, or made
an object and crucified. There’s a small group called The
Heron Kings (hard from Flame Tree Press) who get good at
stealing from both armies to survive. Then they capture a
messenger with proof that both sides in this war are being
manipulated. The fun is in getting the message to the Queen of one
side and the King of the other. The full horrors of medieval and
it’s effects on the peasants are depicted well. Recommended.
S. L. Huang returns with a third
tale of Cas Russell who can use mathematics for amazing acrobatics.
This time the Critical Point (hard from Tor) is about a
plastic surgeon who can create faces with absolute beauty and trust,
along with faces that cause intense fear, and faces that make their
possessors totally forgetable. It doesn’t help that someone is using
people with these odd faces to blow building’s up , like Cas’s
office. In addition her private detective friend Arthur, has been
kidnaped. Very exciting.
In the Queendom of Sol centuries
from now the genius Bruno De Towaji lives on a very small planet in
Kuiper belt working by himself on obscure problems when he is called
in to fix problems with The Collapsium (trade from Baen)
Ring that was being built to speed communications between Earth and
Mars. The problem is that it is falling into the Sun and will
destroy the Solar System. It’s a time of utopia with the problems of
death fixed and no human suffering. The first time the
problems is easily fixed. The second time the problem is the result
of murder. But the third time it’s sabotage. There’s a silliness to
the tale, but Wil McCarthy tells a fun tale in this finale of the
series.
K.A. Emmons tells the tale of
14-year-old Ion Jacobs, an orphan fosterling put in a family whose
son hates him. Ion is an Anolamy(ebook) and is developing
powers like telekinesis and healing and doesn’t understand what is
happening to him. He’ll be ok because this is a prequel to The Blood
Race trilogy which starts when he’s eighteen.
Sarah Zellaby was introduced in
Seanan McGuire’s series as human-looking alien cockoo adopted into
the Price family of crytid biologists. Cockoos have their children
raised by humans, and use their telepathy to influence humans
to do their bidding. Until Imaginary Numbers (paper from
DAW) all that was known about the species was that they came from
another dimension and evolved from wasp like insects. It turns out
that Cockoos molt mentally through stages and Sarah is changing to
the equivalent of Queen and faced with solving equations that can
destroy the world. This is part one of a two part tale and the
ending abrupt.
Nicole Lee was abducted from her
life in the gangs of Philadelphia to a huge alien ship called the
Fyrantha where she becomes a Pawn (paper) of the ship
masters who capture aliens to test their war making ability and sell
the location of their planets. Humans, for some reason, are the only
beings who can repair the ship. The ship mind has been broken into
four parts and one of them declares Nicole Protector, raising her
value to Knight (paper). As the war against the ship
masters and other aliens who bring an armada to attack the ship,
Nicole can only win and become a Queen (hard from Tor) if
she unites all her friends and gets them to work together. Timothy
Zahn tells a fun tale, but the ending was abrupt and felt unearned
like a deus-ex-machina solution where a god-like being solves all
problems.
Tor has reprinted Peter Watts’s award winning
Blindsight in hard cover. Subterranean Press has
collected Michael Swanwick’s odd tales of The Postutopian
Adventures of Darger and Surplus in hardcover. Berkley
has Fantastic Hope a collection edited by Laurell K.
Hamilton and William McCaskey in paper. Subterranean Press has
reprinted Connie Willis’s Jack in hard cover.
The Nebula Awards for best novel are: Marque
of Caine, Charles E. Gannon (Baen); The Ten Thousand Doors
of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK); A Memory
Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor); Gods of Jade and
Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher); Gideon
the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing); and A Song
for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on April 17th. The meeting starts at 8
p.m. at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at 39th and Locust Walk
on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. Dr. Vikram
Paralkar a physician in infectious diseases who also writes fantasy
will speak. 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.