Bear, Greg Strength of Stones
(iBooks 0-7434-5263-1, $6.99, October 2002)
SF novel, first published in 1981 by Ace, Bear's 4th published novel, incorporating two early stories, "Mandala" and "Strength of Stones, Flesh of Brass" -- neither, by the way, included in Bear's recent Collected Stories. It's set on a planet where living, mobile cities have cast out the humans who created them. Not a major Bear novel, but it keeps coming back into print.
• First published in 1981
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Card, Orson Scott Children of the Mind
(Tor 0-765-30474-0, $15.95, 349pp, trade paperback, August 2002, jacket art John Harris)
SF novel, fourth in the Ender sequence after Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide; this book continues the story begun in the third book about Ender, his brother Peter, and the computer entity Jane. Dubbed "the conclusion of the Ender Quartet" [the original edition had "saga"], this came before the parallel series Card has been writing since 1999 with Ender's Shadow.
• First published in 1996
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* Clement, Hal Heavy Planet
(Orb 0-765-30368-x, $15.95, 414pp, trade paperback, November 2002, cover art Stephan Martiniere)
Omnibus of two hard SF novels plus associated stories and articles. Mission of Gravity (first published 1954) is about centipede-like aliens on a fast-spinning planet, Mesklin, with very high gravity at the poles and relatively low gravity (only 3x Earth's) at the equator. It's regarded as a classic of hard SF and frequently appears on lists of all-time great SF novels; it was published in a year with no Hugo Awards, but was nominated for the International Fantasy Award. The sequel is Star Light (1971), a Hugo Award nominee. Also included is an essay, "Whirligig World", a follow-up to the first novel's serialization in Astounding; and two stories, "Lecture Demonstration" and "Under".
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Ellison, Harlan, ed Dangerous Visions
(iBooks 0-7434-5261-5, $14.95, 43+544pp, trade paperback, October 2002)
Landmark original anthology of 33 stories, first published in 1967, designed as a showcase for stories dealing with controversial themes (sex, racism, etc.) that could not be published in the then relatively conservative genre magazines. The book was notable for its size, the long chatty introductions to each story by Ellison, the Leo & Diane Dillon cover and interior illustrations (preserved in this reprint), and for the number of fine stories, several of which were award nominees or winners: Samuel R. Delany's "Aye, and Gomorrah…", Philip José Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage", Philip K. Dick's "Faith of Our Fathers", Fritz Leiber's "Gonna Roll the Bones", and Theodore Sturgeon's "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" among them. Ellison won a special award from the 1968 Worldcon [not, technically, a Hugo Award] for the book (he also won an actual Hugo for best short story that year, beating out two stories from this book). This is the 35th anniversary edition (also available in hardcover), with a new introduction by Ellison, and at least a couple different cover illustrations.
• First published in 1967
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Niven, Larry, Jerry Pournelle & Michael Flynn Fallen Angels
(Baen 0-7434-3582-6, $24, October 2002)
SF novel, originally published in paperback by Baen in 1991, in which astronauts and SF fans save the world from environmentalists, the government, and other such irrational folk. It's fondly regarded for its fannish in-jokes, though some readers (see Amazon) find the political diatribe embarrassing. The Baen site has the blurb and numerous excerpts.
• First published in 1991
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van Vogt, A.E. The World of Null-A
(Orb 0-765-30097-4, $14.95, 272pp, trade paperback, October 2002, cover art Mark Rogers)
SF novel, probably van Vogt's most famous aside from Slan. It's a classic pulp novel, first serialized in Astounding in 1945, about a man's ambition to power based on mastering non-Aristotelian ("null-A") logic; van Vogt borrowed ideas from Alfred Korzybski's theory of General Semantics. Mind-blowing to some, very popular in its time, but van Vogt's style hasn't aged gracefully; David Pringle's Ultimate Guide to SF says "It's dreadful old garbage by any reasonable critical standard, and yet it has a dreamlike conviction which has endeared it to generations of readers."
• First published in 1948
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Wilson, Robert Charles A Hidden Place
(Orb 0-765-30261-6, $12.95, trade paperback, September 2002)
SF novel, Wilson's first, first published in 1986, about two young people in small town America in the 1930s who encounter aliens. Noted for its atmosphere and characterization, it was nominated for several awards, including the Philip K. Dick.
• First published in 1986
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