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

Collection of 15 stories, all of Crowley's short fiction to date--except, as Gary K. Wolfe notes in his review in the April '04 issue of Locus Magazine, "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" from the Peter Straub edited issue of Conjunctions two years ago. Otherwise it includes all of Crowley's stories, including 1985 Hugo and Nebula nominated "Snow", 1989 World Fantasy Award winning novella "Great Work of Time", and 1996 Locus Award winner "Gone". Includes the contents of Crowley's two previous story collections, Novelty (1989) and Antiquities: Seven Stories (1993).
• The publisher's site has this description with links to an excerpt, a reading guide, and an interview.
• Locus Online's John Crowley bibliography
(Sat 8 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF novel subtitled "Species Imperative #1", about a salmon researcher who's drafted to help an alien archaeologist save the galaxy. First of a trilogy.
• The author's website has this description and excerpt.
• The Amazon page has the Publishers Weekly review and reader reviews.
• Reviewed by Carolyn Cushman in the June issue of Locus; she calls it an "intriguing new series".
(Wed 12 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF novel subtitled "A novel of interplanetary civil war", sequel to Metaplanetary (2001). Includes 60 pages of appendices.
• The Amazon page has the Publishers Weekly review. The author's webpage is a FAQ.
• The HarperCollins site has this description and an excerpt.
• Gary K. Wolfe's review in the April issue of Locus concludes the book "offers sufficient surprises and eccentricities to make it one of the year's more intriguing novels so far."
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SF time travel novel, third in a series following Flint's 1632 (2000) and Flint & David Weber's 1633 (2002), this one set in Renaissance Italy.
• Several more volumes are planned, according to this series listing at Uchronia.com.
• Baen's site has this description with links to numerous excerpts.
• Flint's website, www.ericflint.net, has a bibliography of past and forthcoming works.
• The Publishers Weekly review on the Amazon page says "In many ways this reads like a Tom Clancy techno-thriller set in the age of the Medicis with the Three Stooges thrown in for seasoning."
(Wed 12 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Mainstream novel by the writer whose genre works include the novel Sarah Canary, the World Fantasy Award winning collection Black Glass, and the short story "What I Didn't See", which just won a Nebula Award. This book is about six people in a central California town who meet monthly to discuss the novels of Jane Austen.
• It's received widespread positive coverage in the mainstream press, as summarized by Slate (scroll down).
• The publisher's site has this reading guide. Fowler's website has this page about the book, with links to the prologue, reader's guide, and a "Who's Your Jane Austen?" quiz.
• Locus Online's Karen Joy Fowler bibliography
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SF novel about two realms, one technological and the other magical, facing war. It shares its setting with the author's previous SF novel, Kirith Kirin (2000), a Lambda Award winner.
• The author has also written literary novels, and plays; his homepage has descriptions of his earlier books.
• The Publishers Weekly review on the Amazon page says "Unlike many 'literary' authors who fail when they try to write SF, PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award winner Grimsley (Winter Birds) has the necessary world-building skills to shine brightly here." Amazon has an interview with Grimsley here.
• Faren Miller reviews the book in the May issue of Locus, calling it "an important novel that's remarkably hard to discuss" while seconding Michael Bishop's cover blurb comparing the book to Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness.
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SF novel about human resistance to alien invaders, second in the "Vampire Earth" series following Way of the Wolf (2003).
• The series has this website, www.vampireearth.com, with descriptions and background and this excerpt.
• The Amazon page has reader reviews.
(Wed 12 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Historical fantasy about a Victorian millionaire and his niece who set off to Egypt on an archaeological expedition.
• The author's website has this excerpt.
• The Amazon page has the Publishers Weekly review. Carolyn Cushman's review in the June issue of Locus notes the novel's inspiration in a story from the anthology Pharoah Fantastic, and calls it "old-fashioned adventure ... It doesn't all make sense, but it's spectacular."
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SF novel about a religion, Cosmic Unity, spreading a destructive message of universal harmony.
• The publisher's site has this description and excerpt.
• Cynthia Ward's Amazon.com review calls it "a fun, thought-provoking, impressive example of classic sense-of-wonder science fiction."
• Stewart has this somewhat out-of-date homepage.
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Fantasy novel in the series following Oath of Swords (1995) and The War God's Own (1998), featuring Bahzell of the Hradani.
• Baen's site has this description with links to excerpts.
• Amazon has mixed reader reviews.
(Wed 12 May 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Jedda arrived at the Twil Gate by hoverboat and waited in a private lounge for the rest of the delegation to join her. She had received a mentext message to meet the party only a few hours before, an assignment from the ministerial offices in Béyoton; she was to set her stat for an unheard-of level of security and was to speak to no one at all about her trip. At Arnos Platform, which rose over the waves like a cluster of mushrooms on stilts, she met officials of the Planetary Ministry who conducted her to a lounge where she sipped purified water, alone. She looked at the vast, open ocean, a sight that always confounded her, especially after the months she'd spent underground in her apartment in the second tier of Nadi.

Thunder rumbled overhead like a distant battering ram, pounding at the hasp of heaven. The harsh grumble was muted in the stone-walled room, but the waterfall sound of pounding rain came through the single open window on the windy breath of the chilly spring night. Half a dozen richly dressed men sat around the large wooden table's polished surface. Three of them nursed ruby-hearted wineglasses. Two more quaffed beer from elaborately ornamented tankards. The sixth leaned back in the larger, more heavily ornamented chair at the head of the table. A small glass of Dwarvenhame whiskey sat before him, warm amber in the light of the oil lamps, and he squinted through a cloud of fragrant smoke as he used a flaring splinter to relight his pipe from the lamp at his end of the table.