Charles de Lint, Forests of the Heart (Tor 6/00) Creatures out of Celtic myth mix it up with Native American spirits in this latest contemporary fantasy set in de Lint’s town of Newford. De Lint’s ability to bring classic fantasy into an urban setting is outstanding.

James Gifford, Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader’s Companion (Nitrosyncretic Press 5/00) Every known work by Heinlein - stories, novels, non-fiction, and films - is listed here, with comments on the writing of the major works, and their place in Heinlein’s oeuvre. Gifford, an amazing Heinlein expert who had access to Heinlein’s original notes, eschews plot summaries in favor of noting interesting anomalies or odd related facts, with entertaining and informative results.

Molly Gloss, Wild Life (Simon & Schuster 6/00) A woman writer of SF and fantasy at the beginning of the 20th century gets lost in the woods of Oregon, and encounters a family of Bigfoot (Bigfeet?). A literary collage of diary entries, scraps of fiction, and insightful musings, this explores the place of the fantastic in literature while spinning a powerful tale of survival.

Graham Joyce, Dreamside (Tor 6/00) Dreams go bad in this fascinating dark fantasy of an experiment in lucid dreaming that disrupts the lives of four college students, and comes back to haunt them years later. Joyce’s first novel (1991), this is available for the first time in the US.

Paul J. McAuley, Making History (PS Publishing UK; Firebird Distributing 4/00) A limited edition novella by one of Britain’s most noted ‘‘radical hard SF’’ writers, one of several stories about the aftermath of the ‘‘Quiet War’’ between Earth and its solar system colonies; just after the war, a historian tries to determine the truth about the rebellion on Saturn’s moon Dione.

McKillip, Patricia A., The Tower at Stony Wood (Ace 5/00) The mundane and magical, illusion and reality, and two seemingly separate quests interweave with the complex beauty of a tapestry in this medieval fantasy of a knight and a nobleman, one searching for a lost queen, the other for a dragon.

Alisa Kwitney, ed. Vertigo Visions: Artwork from the Cutting Edge of Comics (Watson-Guptill 4/00) Cover, trading card, and gallery art from DC Comics’ groundbreaking Vertigo imprint, including Sandman, Books of Magic, and many more; along with artists best known for the comic art are many familiar to SF fans, such as Clive Barker, Phil Hale, Ian Miller, and Dave McKean. The lines between fantasy art and fantastic art, between illustration and surrealism, keep blurring in the marvelous nexus.

Peter Ruber, ed. Arkham’s Masters of Horror (Arkham House 7/00) For this ‘‘60th Anniversary Anthology Retrospective of the First 30 Years of Arkham House’’, editor Ruber provides biographical essays on 21 of Arkham’s most-noted authors including Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury, and reprints some of their less-anthologized stories - for the oft-anthologized Lovecraft printing excerpts from letters to Arkham founder August Derleth, also discussed in ‘‘The ‘Un-Demonizing’ of August Derleth’’. A fascinating picture of the early years of this bastion of weird fiction.

Rudy Rucker, Realware (Eos 6/00) Aliens calling themselves Metamartians offer humanity the power of mind over matter - but do the aliens and their ‘‘god’’ have ulterior motives? The fourth frenetic novel in the ‘‘Ware’’ series, this adds a magic-like touch to Rucker’s usual satiric, near-future mix.

Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God (Tor 6/00) Aliens arrive on Earth to find paleontological evidence they believe proves the existence of God in this near-future thriller, a provocative examination of religion, science, and cosmic disaster.

David J. Schow, Lost Angels (Babbage Press 5/00) This out-of-print (1990) collection of five horror stories returns in a new, definitive edition, with a new story, an introduction by Richard Christian Matheson, and a new afterword by Schow, one of the best of the literate horror practitioners.

Melissa Scott, The Jazz (Tor 6/00) Scott spins another near-future cyberthriller romp through fascinating sub-cultures in this tale of a teen who hacks into the secret software of a vindictive movie mogul, and has to go on the run with his reluctant mentor, a mistress of the art of deliberate online misinformation.

Jeffrey Thomas, Punktown (Ministry of Whimsy Press 6/00) The strange futuristic city called Punktown is the setting for these nine vividly insightful stories - seven previously unpublished - that combine SF, horror, surrealism, and a touch of satire.

Joan D. Vinge, Tangled up in Blue (Tor 6/00) A noir thriller and a standalone sequel to the Hugo-winning novel The Snow Queen. Galactic Hegemony police try to eliminate corruption in their forces on Tiamat, where the ruthless Snow Queen rules.