Stephen Baxter, Manifold: Time (Del Rey 1/00) As usual, Baxter defies expectations in this wild novel, starting from a damaged near-future Earth and one man's desperate plans for space development, reaching out to the end of time as it explores the complexities of time itself.

Edgar L. Chapman, The Road to Castle Mount: The Science Fiction of Robert Silverberg (Greenwood 10/99) This thorough critical work provides a rare, balanced look at the importance of Silverberg to the field. [Greenwood Press link]

John Clute & Candas Jane Dorsey, eds., Tesseracts⁸ (Tesseract 12/99) The annual anthology of new fiction from Canada, this year chosen by the iconoclastic Clute and Tesseract Books editor Candas Jane Dorsey, with authors including Cory Doctorow, Yves Meynard, and Francine Pelletier.

Stephen Dedman, Foreign Bodies (Tor 12/99) This entertaining and unpredictable novel of time travel, body switching, and a right-wing terrorist conspiracy in 21st-century America paints convincing portrayal of the world of the disenfranchised, while providing all the thrills of a Hollywood action thriller.

Joe Haldeman, Forever Free (Ace 12/99) A true sequel – or maybe coda – to Haldeman's 1975 Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel, The Forever War, as the surviving veterans try to make lives for themselves, left by relativistic forces in a much-changed future that has little room for ordinary humans.

Peter F. Hamilton, The Naked God (Warner Aspect 1/00) The epic, far-future SF trilogy begun in The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist concludes as charming space-captain Joshua Calvert seeks a dormant alien god to stop Night's Dawn, the entropic annihilation of the universe. Set in a fascinating 900-world Confederation pulled apart by ancient aliens and different varieties of humans – nano-augmented, genetically engineered, and undead.

Charles L. Harness, Rings (NESFA 12/99) An omnibus edition of four SF novels that loop through space-time: his classic The Paradox Men, The Ring of Ritornel, Firebird, and the never-before-published Drunkard's Endgame. The ''Ring'' novels have been variously described as ''Baroque space-time opera at its best!'' and as ''transcendental'' SF.

George Clayton Johnson, All of Us Are Dying and Other Stories (Subterranean 8/99) Selected from a lifetime's work, this collection presents 23 stories old and new, along with screenplays, story treatments, and discussions of writing for television and movies, from a multi-talented author best known for his work on The Twilight Zone.

Kij Johnson, The Fox Woman (Tor 1/00) Japanese legends of shapechanging foxes and their human lovers come to life in this moving fantasy set in medieval Japan, and told from three points of view: a minor aristocrat, his too-perfect wife, and the fox who wants the man for herself. Expanded from a Sturgeon Award-winning story.

Stephen Jones, ed., Dark Detectives (F&B Mystery 12/99) Dark fantasy and detection mix in this anthology, which gathers tales of supernatural investigation by detectives Solar Pons, John Thunstone, Carnacki, and Titus Crow, to name a few, by authors from William Hope Hodgson to Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman – with original stories by Peter Tremayne, Brian Mooney, and Jay Russell, plus an original novel by the ever-entertaining Kim Newman, in which many detectives over the years confront the evil stone of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars.

S.J. Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House (Arkham House 2/00) A must for collectors of books from Arkham House, the noted small-press publisher of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and many more. An extensive update of August Derleth's Thirty Years of Arkham House, this provides a comprehensive bibliography, with notes, of more than 230 titles, along with a history of the press, and indexes to books and stories.

Tanith Lee, Saint Fire (Overlook 12/99) Fire is the central element in this second volume of the alchemy-based dark fantasy series, ''The Secret Books of Venus''. Lee reworks the story of Joan of Arc, setting it in her alternate version of medieval Venice, where a girl with the power to conjure fire is both used and condemned by the church.

Jane Lindskold, Legends Walking (Avon Eos 12/99) Multi-cultural myths walk the modern world again in this sequel to Changer, which takes the ancient shapeshifter and other god-like athanor to Africa to deal with plague and a self-proclaimed god of smallpox – but the Changer's toughest task may be teaching his wild coyote-daughter manners.

Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal (Tor 12/99) A clone of Jonathan Wilde on the colony planet New Mars investigates the reason for ''his'' death in this complex novel of cybernetics and politics, sequel to The Star Fraction and set in the same universe as The Cassini Division, the first of MacLeod's novels published in the U.S.. Winner of the Prometheus Award.

Gene Wolfe, Strange Travelers (Tor 1/00) One of SF's most celebrated writers displays the full range of his literary talents in this dazzling collection of fifteen stories written in the mid-to-late '90s.