New SF, Fantasy, and Horror books seen : March 2005 Week 3

Fantasy novel, first of a trilogy that combines the Frankenstein and Dracula stories.
• Amazon has the back cover description.
• The author's homepage has a biography and a list of books by the author, which also includes two titles recently received, Arabian Nights Lost: Celestial Verses I and Arabian Nights Lost: Celestial Verses II.
• The back covers advises that the author is "a thoroughly creative, multi-genre novelist—with no pretensions of ever becoming a pompous 'author'—who aspires to stay solely a writer who writes epic, cinematic fiction capable of transporting his readers by sensory- and thought-provoking prose to other exciting, entertaining, enchanting, entrancing but untried and untrodden realities."

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Fantasy romance novel, about a woman granted 'godstruck' abilities in order to defend her nation.
• The publisher's site has this description and a link to an excerpt.
• The author's site has a page about the book with the same description, quotes from reviews, and an excerpt.
• Amazon has reader reviews.

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Nonfiction guide to SF poetry, with chapters on defining the SF poem, graphic, phonological, and lexical patterns, marketing, reading and workshops, and the SF Poetry Association, which Elgin founded in 1978.
• There are also 16 pages of references and suggested readings, and a list of the Rhysling Awards (presented by the SFPA for short and long poems each year) to date.
• Order from Project Pulp, which has this description, with review blurbs.

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Historical fantasy novel set in 17th century Venice, about the efforts to create a market for coffee -- blurbed as "A short novel of coffee, and ideas, and ambition."
• An abridged version appeared in the April/May 2004 issues of Asimov's SF Magazine, and is on Locus Magazine's 2004 Recommended Reading List as a novella.
• This page at avramdavidson.org has publication details, and blurbs from John Crowley, Maureen F. McHugh, and Thomas M. Disch.
• Amazon has the PW review, which calls it "an elegant, low-key historical fantasy about a young Venetian merchant's efforts to create a market for coffee in the early 17th century... Aficionados of quirky, understated speculative fiction will be rewarded."
• Rich Horton reviews the book in the March issue of Locus Magazine, saying " 'Arabian Wine' was one of the best novellas of 2004, and Arabian Wine will surely stand as one of the best novels of 2005."

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Nonfiction anthology of essays by various writers, follow-up to Irwin's The Matrix and Philosophy (2002 -- listed here), this one focusing on the sequels to the first film.
• Contributors, virtually all philosophy academics, include Lou Marinoff, James Lawler, Theodore Schick Jr., Nick Bostrom, Theodore Gracyk, and others.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Amazon has the PW review: "But only a few chapters delve into the movie's aesthetics; the rest seem to use The Matrix as a peg on which to hang a canned philosophy lecture. The results are occasionally engaging, as with David Mitsuo Nixon's nifty refutation of the "reality is just an illusion" conceit, but they're too often dryly academic and liable to elicit no more than a drowsy "whoa" from the movie's legions of fans."

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SF novel about human resistance to alien invaders, third in the "Vampire Earth" series following Way of the Wolf (2003) and Choice of the Cat (2004).
• The series has this website, www.vampireearth.com, with descriptions and background and an excerpt from the second book.
• The Amazon page has reader reviews.

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Collection of 16 stories by the John W. Campbell Award winner for Best New Writer, 7 of them original to this book, grouped under headings for Ghosts, Angels, Gods, and Aliens. Introduction by Ray Vukcevich.
• Prime Books' site has this description. The author's website is http://www.jlake.com/.
• Nick Gevers reviewed the book in the February issue of Locus Magazine.

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Urban fantasy novel set in an artists' colony in Berlin, first book in the "Europa Suite". This is the first US publication by an author well-known in Australia.
• Warner's site has this description and an excerpt.
• The author's site has this description and notes about the writing of the book.
• Amazon has the PW review. Infinity Plus posted this review by Gary Couzens last year, while SF Site just posted this review by Alisa McCune.

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Matteo could feel the pressure rising, as though his very nerves (never mind much of his fortune and more of his honor) were now twined about the rapidly warming vessel. A seam creaked loudly and the young trader flinched, recalling a weaker model that had blown open, spraying Gaspare and an assistant with scalding water. He wished he had calmed his nerves with a cup of kahveh. There was some reassurance in knowing that it was the elixir of clarity and resolve that now held his fortune in pawn.

The wind off the sea snapped the banners to attention on the city walls. It ripped at the edges of the captain’s tight queue and set the two white ribbons of her rank fluttering from her shoulders. Kallista Varyl tugged her tunic, blue for the direction of her magic, into better order. Yet one more time she wished that if she had to have North magic, she might have been given some more useful type. Directing winds, for instance.

Please don't make me remember, please don't make me remember. Inevitable, however. Christine had known from the moment the man had glanced at her business card, his eyebrows shooting up. "Starlight. That's an unusual surname." "Mm-hm."