Reviews and Articles in General Publications

§ New York Times Nov. 1, 1999
An article about the Harry Potter controversy contrasts the protests with what kids like about the books.

§ Washington Post Book World Oct. 31, 1999
Gregory Feeley's science fiction column reviews Jan Lars Jensen's Shiva 3000 (Harcourt Brace), Kim Stanley Robinson's The Martians (Bantam Spectra), Ken MacLeod's The Cassini Division (Tor), and John Clute and Candas Jane Dorsey's anthology Tesseracts 8: New Canadian Speculative Writing (Books Collective).

Elizabeth Hand reviews Thomas M. Disch's The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft (Knopf): ''a bracingly vitriolic dose of pure Northern Gothic that shows what might happen to Lake Wobegon if David Lynch came to visit.''

Charles Wilson reviews Wes Craven's Fountain Society (Simon & Schuster). In contrast to the director's slasher pics, this book ''is an often well-rendered, funny and engaging scientific thriller about human cloning, and a sympathetic portrait of a loving 50-year marriage.''

Also, Marcia Bartusiak reviews William Poundstone's Carl Sagan biography.

§ Los Angeles Times Book Review Oct. 31, 1999
Peter Green reviews James Morrow's novel The Eternal Footman (Harcourt Brace) and is unimpressed. ''Unfortunately, 'The Eternal Footman' remains mired ... in snook-cocking adolescence. ... 'Eat your heart out, Salman Rushdie!' one critic gushes. But 'The Satanic Verses' went lethally to the heart of the matter: It's easy to see why that fatwa was pronounced. 'The Eternal Footman,' on the other hand, is just plain silly and thus, in the last resort, not worth getting riled up about.''

§ New York Times Book Review Oct. 31, 1999
Paul Churchland reviews John Horgan's The Undiscovered Mind (Free Press). ''Running out of addressable problems and candidate theories to explain them is the last thing science needs to worry about. And the nature of mind, at least at the moment, is the last topic that might be in danger of stagnation. Horgan's final take on this is plain defeatist. But if he is weary, let him sit down. The rest of us will go on.''

(Mon 1 Nov 1999)

Bestseller Watch, 1 November

William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties (Putnam) breaks onto the San Francisco Chronicle list at #8 and Amazon's hardcover fiction list (from last Wednesday) also at #8.

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune: House Atreides (Bantam Spectra) rises one to #12 at NYT, drops five to #15 at LAT, holds on at #15 at SFC, drops three to #15 on the Amazon hardcover fiction list. It leads Amazon's SF bestsellers.

Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis remains solidly on the NYT, LAT, WP, and Amazon lists.

The Harry Potter books continue their dominance of the lists, filling spots 1-2-3 at NYT, 2-4-5 at LAT, 1-2-3 at SF Chronicle, 2-3-6 at USA Today, 2-3-4 on Amazon's Hot 100, and 3-4-6 on Barnes & Noble's Top 100 (the last two as of Monday morning).

Again this week science-themed nonfiction by Dava Sobel and Simon Singh rank high on SF Chronicle's nonfiction list, in spots #2 and 5. The books are also-rans on the extended NYT list, at #23 and 31.

Links to the Bestseller lists:

LAT | NYT | SF Chronicle | USAT | WP | PW
Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N | Borders

(Mon 1 Nov 1999)