Running With the Demon, Terry Brooks (Del Rey 9/97, $25.95, hc) A knight and a demon contest over the soul of a 14-year-old girl on a hot Fourth of July weekend in Hopewell, Illinois, in this atypical dark fantasy more influenced by Barker than by Tolkien.

Entertainment, Algis Budrys (NESFA Press 9/97, $12.00, tp) Ten early SF stories from Budrys as a hot new writer of the 1950s, issued in honor of his GoH appearance at this year's Worldcon.

Back in the USSA, Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman (Ziesing 9/97, $29.95, hc) Alternate history runs amok, while some familiar names show up, in this linked collection dealing with capitalist Russia vs. the United Socialist States of America.

Finity's End, C.J. Cherryh (Warner Aspect 9/97, $22.00, hc) This new novel in the Union/Alliance series is one of Cherryh's strongest, both as character study and grittily realistic portrait of far future worlds.

New Worlds, David Garnett, ed. (White Wolf 9/97, $12.99, tp) The famed British New Wave series of the '60s returns in a new format, with fiction by some of the best writers in the field today, from Aldiss and Cadigan to Watson and Waldrop.

Signs of Life, M. John Harrison (St. Martin's 9/97, $21.95, hc) What starts as apparent mainstream, set in Britain from the 1960s through the '90s, and a bit beyond, takes on elements of SF in this very quirky, literary, and British exploration of one woman's physical and imaginative life -- with a whiff of J.G. Ballard.

Lightpaths, Howard V. Hendrix (Ace 9/97, $5.99, pb) Near-future SF of a utopia that isn't quite what it seems. An impressive first novel.

The Barbed Coil, J.V. Jones (Warner Aspect 9/97, $22.00, hc) Violent action meets complex, well-drawn characters in this stand-alone fantasy novel of a modern woman swept away to a dark world of magic.

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, Stephen King (Donald M. Grant, $45.00, hc) Even if most of it turns out to be a vast prequel to the main story, this latest volume of King's major fantasy series combines splendid writing, tragic doomed romance, and gonzo framing episodes, along with wonderfully dark, sophisticated full-color illustrations by Dave McKean.

Blood and Chocolate, Annette Klause (Delacorte 9/97, $13.45, hc) Young-adult werewolf novel of a young female shapechanger who falls for a human boy, and dark magic takes on elements of vivid romance.

The Moon and the Sun, Vonda McIntyre (Pocket 9/97, $23.00, hc) History, fantasy, and an almost SFnal take on a mythic, singing sea creature combine in this impressive novel set in the Versailles of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley (Greenwillow 9/97, $16.00, hc) Acclaimed for Beauty, her first retelling of "Beauty and the Beast", now McKinley has returned to the tale for an entirely new, more complex, version.

Shade's Children, Garth Nix (HarperCollins Children's Books 9/97, $15.95, hc) Grim but absorbing post-holocaust YA SF novel (with elements of fantasy) set in a world without adults.

Beneath the Gated Sky, Robert Reed (Tor 9/97, $23.95, hc) Earthly conspiracy mingles with cross-world romance in this ambitious sequel to Beneath the Veil of Stars.

Beneath the Vaulted Hills, Sean Russell (DAW 9/97, $24.95, hc) This prequel to World Without End introduces new series "The River Into Darkness", where science and magic are dangerously at odds in an exotic world.

Ever: The War in the Waste, Felicity Savage (HarperPrism 9/97, $14.00, tp) First in a new fantasy series set in a world peculiarly like our own in the early days of the Industrial Revolution -- with daemons as a substitute for steam power.

The Rise of Endymion, Dan Simmons (Bantam Spectra 9/97, $23.95, hc) A new (female) messiah appears in this fourth and final book of the now-classic "Hyperion" series, where space opera joins with high literary ambition.

A King of Infinite Space, Allen Steele (HarperPrism 9/97, $23.00, hc) SF novel of a sometimes over-the-top future where nanotech meets life-after-death, and a young man embarks on an odyssey to the stars.

Someone to Watch Over Me, Tricia Sullivan (Bantam Spectra 9/97, $5.99, pb) Near-future SF novel which looks sharply at big questions about mind control, body transfer, and personal freedom, by a new writer whose work is worth watching.

A Geography of Unknown Lands, Michael Swanwick (Tigereyes Press 9/97, $12.00 tp) (Also hardcover.) Short-fiction collection (five stories and a vignette) by one of the best writers in the field.

Jack Faust, Michael Swanwick (Avon 9/97, $23.00, hc) The classic deal-with-the-devil story intriguingly retold as SF, with Faust as a kind of latter-day Prometheus sweeping his world into a premature destructive modern age.