 |
REVIEWS
Complete Locus reviews are available in
back issues
Linked titles can be ordered from Amazon.com (US books) or Amazon.co.uk (UK books).
|
|
 |
|
Profiles of Recent Books
from reviews in Locus Magazine
|
The Golden Globe, John Varley (Ace 0-441-00558-6, $22.95, 425pp, hc, October 1998, cover by Danilo Ducak)
Varley's new novel isn't exactly a sequel to Steel Beach (1992) but ''its timeline straddles that of the earlier book and it features both Hildy Johnson and the Lunar Central Computer in small but significant roles'' writes Russell Letson in the January 1999 issue of Locus Magazine. The main character is a Heinleinian actor and rogue, Kenneth C. Valentine, whose adventures carry him through both familiar and new aspects of Varley's Eight Worlds future solar system. ''As his problems keep getting bigger and meaner, he keeps coping and dodging and running, talking a blue streak the whole time. It is that voice and the virtual person behind it, as much as the technological wonders and exotic landscapes and societies, that make this book so compulsively readable.''
(Mon 4 Jan 99)
|
|
Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK 0-385-40992-3, £16.99, 285pp, hc, November 1998, cover by Josh Kirby)
The latest Discworld novel is about Vampires and Progress, writes Faren Miller in the January 1999 Locus. The book ''offers plenty of outright laughs, mixed in with more serious takes on human foibles, sorrows, and occasional triumphs''. In the same issue Carolyn Cushman writes ''Between the supernatural invasion and the religious discussions, this is something of a cross between Lords and Ladies and Small Gods, in a somewhat more serious mode as ''Discworld'' stories go, but still full of the biting wit that makes the series so addictive.''
(Mon 4 Jan 99)
|
|
|
Tea from an Empty Cup, Pat Cadigan (Tor 0-312-86665-8, $22.95, 254pp, hc, October 1998, cover by Bruce Jensen)
Gary K. Wolfe writes in the November 1998 Locus that Cadigan's new cyberpunk novel works well as a mystery: ''it's tight, ingenious, and very sharply written''. And though its cyberpunk elements
''may seem like entry-level stuff'' the novel's tale of a detective investigating deaths in an artificial reality ''post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty'' leads ''toward a conclusion that is just a shade more unpredictable, a few degrees more complex, than we might have expected. In other words, Cadigan proves to be as tricky as ever.''.
(Mon 4 Jan 99)
|
|
|
