Notable new SF, Fantasy, and Horror books seen : May

Young adult fantasy novel, follow-up to City of the Beasts (2002), about an expedition to the Himalayas that encounters bandits and yetis.
• A "breathtaking Indiana Jones-style adventure" according to the School Library Journal review reproduced on the Amazon page.
• The HarperCollins site has this description, with an excerpt and a reading guide.
• Author's website
(Tue 4 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Supernatural fantasy novel about witches; third in the author's "Otherworld" series following Bitten (2001) and Stolen (2002).
• The author's website has this page about the series, with descriptions and excerpts. The site also has a journal, discussion board, an e-serial, etc.
• The Amazon page has the Publishers Weekly review.
• Bitten won the 2002 International Horror Guild Award for best first novel.
(Tue 4 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF novel, third in the "Asteroid Wars" trilogy following The Precipice (2001) and The Rock Rats (2002).
• The author's official website has details of earlier books.
• The Publishers Weekly review on the Amazon page notes the book's "macho posturing and stereotypical characters" to suggest that it "could just as well have been written in the 1950s as today", while the New York Times' Gerald Jonas recently called Bova "the last of the great pulp writers".
(Fri 23 Apr 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Swashbuckling fantasy novel, third in the "Viscount of Adrilankha" trilogy following Paths of the Dead (2002) and Lord of Castle Black (2003 -- just out in paperback).
• Brust has this recently updated weblog, though his home page hasn't been updated since 2002.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which calls the book "stylish", and several reader reviews.
(Fri 23 Apr 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Far future alternate history novel, second in the "Time of the Sixth Sun" series following Wasteland of Flint (2003), involving a xenoarchaeologist in a future where Japanese and Aztec cultures reign.
• The author's website, www.throneworld.com, has this page about the series and this page about the current book, with a lengthy excerpt.
• Faren Miller reviews the book in the April 2004 issue of Locus Magazine--"seems designed for video gamers more than readers"--while the Publishers Weekly review on Amazon calls it "exciting" but concludes "Harlan clearly pays homage to Jack Vance and other classic writers of SF's Golden Age, but in devoting about a third of the book to the mechanics of fighting, he too often loses sight of the human story at the novel's center."
(Wed 28 Apr 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Collection of 26 fantasy and horror stories, first published from 1982 to 2003. Described on the dust jacket as comprising, along with previous collection High Cotton, the author's "definitive volumes" of short work.
• The publisher's site has this description (the dust jacket copy) and the Publishers Weekly review, which is also on the Amazon page.
• The author's website has a Hot Stuff news log and some free stories.
(Fri 30 Apr 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF-like novel--a techno-thriller not about the future but involving technological issues in the post 9/11 era--concerning a computer scientist recruited to investigate the failure of an expensive spy satellite.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Sterling runs a blog and The Viridian Design Movement, but doesn't have a homepage or personal website as such.
• Online reviews include Andrew Leonard's review in Salon.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews the book in the March issue of Locus, calling it "a provocative and highly quotable novel that successfully reminds us [...] that what we tend to regard as speculative SF futures have often been with us all along, just beneath our antiquated radar."
(Fri 23 Apr 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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The Most Important Man in the World put his pants on one leg at a time. Then he put on his boots and his Stetson.

The Buddhist monk named Tensing and his disciple, Prince Dil Bahadur, had been climbing in the high peaks north of the Himalayas for many days, a region of eternal ice where no one but a few lamas had ever ventured. Neither of the two was counting the hours, because time did not interest them. The calendar is a human invention; time does not exist on the spiritual level, the master had taught his student.