May-June 2003

Classic psychological horror novel; basis for the canonical Alfred Hitchcock film. Amazon has several reader reviews.
(Sun 15 Jun 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Young-adult SF novel, first in the "Tripods" trilogy, set on an Earth ruled by three-legged machines who enslave humans via metal caps on their heads; this first book is about a 13-year-old's journey to find a stronghold of free people. Two novels follow in the trilogy: The City of Gold and Lead and The Pool of Fire; a fourth, prequel novel, When the Tripods Came is released in the same set of paperbacks and hardcovers (see Amazon link). This is a 35th anniversary edition, with a new Preface by the author. The actual cover has a reflective silver background, difficult to reproduce in a scan.
(Tue 20 May 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy novel, first of the two-book Mordant's Need series, followed by A Man Rides Through; it's about "a 20th century woman summoned to a threatened fantasy land that requires her assistance" according to the Locus Index of SF. The Amazon site has the original Publishers Weekly review, plus several 5-star reader reviews. The second novel is listed on Amazon here.
(Sun 1 Jun 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Collection of six dystopian stories and one novel, Catastrophe Planet (first published 1966), by a popular writer in the '60s and '70s (most remembered for the "Imperium" and "Retief" series). The Baen site has this blurb, with links to numerous excerpts.
(Fri 2 May 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy collection, second book in the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" series. Ten stories, including Leiber's first-published story "Two Sought Adventure" from 1939, here retitled "The Jewels in the Forest", as well as "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (from 1963), and originals "The Circle Curse" and "The Price of Pain-Ease". Amazon has a couple reader reviews.
(Fri 23 May 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Young adult collection of stories, comprising earlier collections Kidzilla and The Witch's Monkey plus several new stories, by the author of Hidden Talents, earlier released as a Starscape book. The author's website, www.davidlubar.com, has details about this and other books.
(Fri 30 May 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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New edition of the classic, canonical literary SF novel about a state where "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", and "Ignorance is Strength"; the book that gave us Big Brother, doublethink, and Room 101. It's been continuously in print for decades, but this edition is notable for the new foreword by Thomas Pynchon -- earlier posted by the Guardian (link no longer available), and excerpted here by Field Inspections -- as well as the earlier afterword by Erich Fromm. One of the 20th century's essential novels.
(Wed 14 May 2003) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Omnibus of two SF novels in the "Sector General" series, about a multi-species galactic hospital: Code Blue: Emergency (first published 1987) and The Genocidal Healer (1992). It follows two previous Orb omnibuses containing the first six novels in the series:

Beginning Operations

• Hospital Station (1962)
• Star Surgeon (1963)
• Major Operation (1971)

Alien Emergencies --

• Ambulance Ship (1979)
• Sector General (1983)
• Star Healer (1985)

This book has an introduction by Brian Stableford. There are, in addition, four subsequent "Sector General" novels, namely The Galactic Gourmet (1996); Final Diagnosis (1997); Mind Changer (1998), and Double Contact (1999), all first published by Tor.

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The night before Geraden came for her, Terisa Morgan had a dream -- one of the few she could ever remember. In it, she heard horns: faint with distance, they reached her through the sharp air over the hills covered with crisp snow like the call for which her heart had always been waiting. They winded again -- and while she strained to hear them, again. But they came no closer.

The ruler of the ship sat beside Cha Thrat at the recreation deck's viewscreen while the fuzzy blob of light that was the space hospital grew into a gigantic, complex structure ablaze with every color and intensity of light that her eyes could detect. She had strong feelings of awe, wonder, excitement, and great embarrassment.