31 January 2003

Anderson, Poul Conan the Rebel
(Tor 0-765-30073-7, $13.95, 223pp, trade paperback, January 2003, cover art Charles Keegan)
Anderson's entry in the enduring Conan series, first published in 1980 and recently reprinted by Tor in hardcover in October 2001 and now in trade paperback. The Publishers Weekly review on the Amazon page describes its "pastiche of favorite Howardian images". Anderson died in July 2001.
• First published in 1980
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de Lint, Charles From a Whisper to a Scream
(Orb 0765304341, $14.95, 304pp, trade paperback, January 2003)
Second reprint by de Lint of a novel first published as by "Samuel M. Key", in 1992, concerning a serial killer in de Lint's setting of Newford. It's the first full-length novel de Lint wrote set in Newford, according to his webpage, which has some details about this reprint here.
• First published in 1992
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* Laumer, Keith A Plague of Demons & Other Stories
(Baen 0-7434-3588-5, $15, 438pp, trade paperback, February 2003, cover art Richard Martin)
Collection of stories by Laumer, mostly from the 1960s, edited and compiled by Eric Flint. Includes the full-length novel A Plague of Demons (a 1966 Nebula nominee), the novella "Thunderhead", and several shorter works. Baen's site has this blurb with links to several excerpts.
• First published in 2003
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* Malzberg, Barry N., ed The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time
(ibooks 0-7434-5814-1, $15.95, 8+440pp, trade paperback, February 2003, cover art & design Ralf Heimlisch)
Anthology of 15 time travel stories. Are they really "the best"? Without Heinlein's "All You Zombies" or "By His Bootstraps", Bester's "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", or even Wells's "The Time Machine"? Of course, titles like this sell books, as Malzberg grants in his introduction. Anyway, the stories here are all pretty good, including Poul Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early", Philip K. Dick's "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts", Charles L. Harness's "Time Trap", William Tenn's "Brooklyn Project", Robert Silverberg's "Hawksbill Station", plus comparatively recent stories by Nancy Kress, Geoffrey A. Landis, Jack McDevitt, and Paul Levinson. Bound in the middle is a color graphic adaptation of one of the canonical time travel stories: Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder", adapted by Richard Corben. [This is a new anthology, but is listed on this page since the contents consists are reprints of classic short fiction.]
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Rucker, Rudy The Hacker and the Ants: Versions 2.0
(Four Walls Eight Windows 1-56858-247-1, $13.95, 308pp, trade paperback, January 2003, cover art Georgia Rucker)
Revised and updated version of a novel about a plague of virtual reality ants that infect a computer network. There's a new preface by Rucker. The Amazon page has reviewed of the original edition. The publisher's site has this page about the book.
• First published in 1994
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Zelazny, Roger Changeling
(Pocket/ibooks 0-7434-5819-2, $11.95, 244pp, trade paperback, February 2003, cover art Lebbeus Woods, cover design j. vita)
Fantasy novel about wizards and dragons and whatnot, from a period when Zelazny's work was far more intermittently rewarding than in the first decade of his career (which produced Lord of Light, The Dream Master, and This Immortal). Despite the Amazon listing, this volume is not an omnibus of this novel plus its sequel Madwand; that book will be published separately later this year. Ibooks is to be commended for issuing this series of 'authoritative new editions' of Zelazny's works, but this volume is of lesser interest compared to some of the others. (Nice cover, though.) The Amazon page has some reader reviews.
• First published in 1980
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* Zelazny, Roger To Die in Italbar
(Pocket/ibooks 0-7434-3510-9, $13.95, 310pp, trade paperback, January 2003, cover art Michael Whelan, cover design j. vita)
Omnibus of two mid-period Zelazny novels, the title work from 1973, and A Dark Travelling from 1987. Similar comments as for the above volume; the reader review on Amazon is enthusiastic, but these are not among Zelazny's greatest hits. Another nice cover, though.
• First published in 2003; separately in 1973 and 1987
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