Notable new SF, Fantasy, and Horror books seen : Posted 10 August 2004

SF novel, third in the "Saga of Seven Suns" series after 2002's Hidden Empire [Locus Online listing] and last year's A Forest of Stars [Locus Online listing].
• The author's website, www.wordfire.com, has this description, as well as an excerpt from volume 2, recently out in paperback.
• The publisher's website has this description and an excerpt.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy novel, sixth and final volume of "The Last Rune" saga that began with Beyond the Pale in 1998.
• The author's website, www.thelastrune.com, has descriptions and excerpts from the previous volumes in the series.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Amazon has a reader review from Harriet Klausner, who is even more enthusiastic ("triumphant saga") than usual.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy novel, second in the "Tears of Artamon" trilogy after last year's Lord of Snow and Shadows.
• The author's website, www.sarah-ash.com, has this excerpt.
• The publisher has this description and excerpt.
• Amazon has the review from Publishers Weekly, which describes the book as "a skillful mix of horror and romantic fantasy, [in which] vampiric dragons soar against a wonderfully gothic backdrop straight out of Tolstoy by way of Stoker, Dumas and Tolkien".
(Fri 6 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy novel, third in the "Clingfire" trilogy following The Fall of Neskaya (2002) and Zandru's Forge (2003), set on the planet Darkover following the Ages of Chaos.
• The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust website has this updated page listing MZB's works, with Darkover chronologies by order of publication and by internal chronology.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Anthology of 15 original alternate history stories. Authors include Geoffrey A. Landis, Kage Baker, James Alan Gardner, Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross, and Mike Resnick & Susan R. Matthews.
• Uchronia has this description of the book.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Anthology of 20 stories, poems, and songs, all but one of them original to this book, about faeries (or similar creatures); designed for YA readers, it's a follow-up to 2002's The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest. Authors include Neil Gaiman, Gregory Maguire, Delia Sherman, Patricia A. McKillip, Gregory Frost. Introduction by Terri Windling.
• The Amazon page reproduces the starred review from School Library Journal; Datlow's website excerpts reviews of this book and others.
• The publisher's site has this brief description.
• Jonathan Strahan reviewed the book in the July issue of Locus Magazine. He especially liked the stories by Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, Holly Black, Delia Sherman, and Ellen Steiber.
(Fri 6 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Fantasy novel about "science fiction fans caught up in some mythological Egyptian apocalypse" according to Jonathan Strahan's review in the July Locus; a first novel by Canadian media personality Malcolm Azania, aka Minister Faust.
• The Random House site has this description, and an excerpt.
• The CJSR radio website has this page about Faust and his radio programs, with several photos.
• A review by Faren Miller will appear in the September issue of Locus.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Literary fantasy novel, the fourth in the popular series about Thursday Next, following The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, and The Well of Lost Plots.
• The author's websites include jasperfforde.com and thursdaynext.com.
• The publisher's site has this description, an excerpt, and is sponsoring a Jasper Fforde Wales Trip Sweepstakes.
• Faren Miller reviews the book in the August issue of Locus.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Humorous fantasy novel, sequel to the author's first novel Fat White Vampire Blues.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• The author's site has this page about the book, with links to signings and appearances, esssays and fiction, links to New Orleans resources, etc.
• Faren Miller's review in the August issue of Locus calls it a "real gem".
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Military SF novel involving members of an explorer corps called 'expendables' and character Admiral Festina Ramos from Gardner's previous novels; this is his seventh novel, and first in hardcover.
• The publisher's site has this description and excerpt.
• The author's webpage includes a list of his novels with brief descriptions.
• The Amazon page has the Publishers Weekly review.
• Carolyn Cushman reviews the book in the August Locus.
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF novel about an alien artifact found undersea. It was serialized earlier this year in Analog.
• Damien Broderick reviewed it in the July issue of Locus, recalling an earlier novel by Randall Garrett (as Darrell T. Langart) on a similar idea.
• Gerald's Jonas's New York Times review called it a "smoothly written entertainment".
(Tue 3 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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SF novel, follow-up to Crossfire (2003), about a ship of military personnel arriving on a colony world to protect the human settlers against warring aliens.
• Kress's website includes the prologue and Chapter 1 of the previous book, though nothing yet about this one.
• The Amazon page has the book description and flap copy, and a review by Harriet Klausner.
(Mon 2 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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Collection of 13 stories, 3 of them previously unpublished, with a title coincidentally the same as the Ray Bradbury book that appeared last month. One of the original pieces is a play, "The Zombies of Montrose". The book has an introduction by Terry Bisson.
• Included are "Auspicious Eggs", a Nebula Award finalist in 2002; the title story, a Sturgeon Award finalist in 2002; and "The War of the Worldviews", which placed on the Locus poll in 2003.
• The publisher's site has this description, with a list of the stories' prior credits.
• Faren Miller's review will appear in the September Locus; she says the book "amply displays [Morrow's] ability to juggle absurdity, tragedy, irony and outrage, along with tropes from assorted genres and some crazy ideas all his own, and never lose his rhythm".
(Mon 2 Aug 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

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The dervish stepped from a swirl of sand, appearing on the edge of the village like a mirage taking form.

A boy herding goats was the first to see him. The boy clucked his tongue, using a switch to prod the animals back to their pens. All at once the animals began to bleat, their eyes rolling as if they had caught the scent of a lion. Usually a lion would not prowl so near the dwellings of men, but the springs that scattered the desert--which had never gone dry in living memory--were failing, and creatures of all kinds came in search of water and food. It was said that, in one village, a lion had crept into a hut and stolen a baby from the arms of its sleeping mother.

Cue theme music: "Fe Fe Naa Efe" by Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Badass Nigerian horns and Afrobeat drumming funk-James Brown's Jurassic DNA blasted balls first into the future. That's my song, damnit, and I pity the fool who forgets it.

It's Wednesday night again, which it always is after Wednesday afternoon, which it always is after Wednesday morning.

The monster came from a swarm of stars that humans call Messier 22, a globular cluster ten thousand light-years distant. A million stars with ten million planets—all but one of them devoid of significant life.

It's not a part of space where life could flourish. All of those planets are in unstable orbits, the stars swinging so close to one another that they steal planets, or pass them around, or eat them.