19 October 2004

Mid-period SF novel by PKD, latest in the ongoing series of reprints from Vintage Books that now numbers nearly three dozen titles. This one is about millions of people living underground to survive an endless war that rages on the surface of the Earth, or so they're led to believe.
• The publisher's site has this description, while philipkdick.com has a brief plot summary and a cover art gallery.
(Thu 14 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Early SF novel by PKD about a society ruled by computer.
• The publisher's site has this description, while philipkdick.com has this plot summary and a cover art gallery.
(Fri 1 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Fantasy novel, first in a trilogy "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever", followed by The Illearth War and The Power that Preserves. They're reissued with new covers to coincide with the publication of the first book in a new Chronicles, The Runes of the Earth, this month.
• Amazon has an exclusive essay by Donaldson about why the last chronicles took so long. He also discussed the issue in his Locus Magazine interview in the September issue, excerpted here.
• Del Rey's site has this brief description.
(Thu 14 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Omnibus of three Conan novels written by Jordan in the days before he became famous with his "Wheel of Time" series: Conan the Magnificent (1984), Conan the Triumphant (1983), and Conan the Victorious (1984).
• Amazon's page for 1999 hardcover edition of this omnibus has a review by Paul Hughes, and the Publishers Weekly review.
(Sat 9 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Collection of 19 ghost stories, first published from the 1950s through the 1980s, plus an essay, "A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale" by Kirk, edited and with an introduction by Vigen Guroian. One of the stories, "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding", won a 1977 World Fantasy Award.
• The publisher's site has a description and table of contents.
• Amazon has the same description, and reader reviews. The Washington Times has this review by James E. Person Jr., author of a biography of Kirk.
• Kirk is known as a founder of the conservative movement in US literary and social circles. The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal is a nonprofit institution in Mecosta, Michigan whose mission "is to strengthen the foundations-cultural, economic, and religious-of Western civilization and the American experience within it." The site has a biography of Kirk.
(Mon 4 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

YA fantasy novel, first in the classic "Earthsea" trilogy (which later extended to additional books). This edition is issued with a cover tying it to the Sci Fi Channel miniseries due to air in December.
• There's also a trade paperback tie-in edition available.
• Amazon has a summary of the series.
(Thu 30 Sep 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

SF novel (Martin's first novel), a moody far future space opera about a festival on a wandering planet, similar in tone to the early short fiction that established Martin's reputation ("A Song for Lya", "With Morning Comes Mistfall", etc.). On his website Martin describes it as "a tale of doomed love and betrayal on a dying world".
• Martin's website has this gallery of earlier editions' cover art.
• The novel was a 1978 Hugo Award nominee, losing to Pohl's Gateway.
• This edition, along with Fevre Dream, comes with publisher ads at the front for Martin's long-awaited A Feast of Crows, next volume in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, currently listed by Amazon has due December 30, 2004. (See also About A Feast for Crows.)
(Thu 30 Sep 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Another earlier Martin novel, a historical vampire novel, this one his "first major departure from science fiction" according to Martin on his website.
• Amazon has the book's description.
• It was a World Fantasy Award nominee, and placed 3rd in the 1983 Locus Poll for best fantasy novel.
• Martin's website has this gallery of previous editions' cover art. January has this interview with Martin. Nick Gevers reviewed an earlier UK edition of the book for Infinity Plus.
(Thu 30 Sep 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Anthology of 21 stories, 8 articles, and 1 poem, from the heydey of New Worlds, the magazine, then anthology series, that became identified as the center of the "new wave" movement in science fiction in the '60s and '70s.
• Story authors include M. John Harrison, J.G. Ballard, John Sladek, Michael Moorcock, Thomas M. Disch, Langdon Jones, Pamela Zoline, David I. Masson, and Charles Platt.
• This edition has a new introduction by Moorcock, and drops the index and appendix from the first edition. There have been several anthologies with similar titles over the years; a reader review on Amazon's page for this one apparently refers to one of those.
(Tue 5 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

SF novel in which humans discover leftover artifacts of the alien Heechee, giving Robinette Broadhead a chance to discover riches via the 'gateway' spacecraft the Heechee have left behind.
• Winner of the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and John W. Campbell Awards, and followed by several sequels -- novels Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Heechee Rendezvous, and The Annals of the Heechee, and collection The Gateway Trip (1990), and a new novel just published The Boy Who Would Live Forever (description).
• Del Rey's website has this description.
(Thu 14 Oct 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

Satiric dystopian novel in which an overcrowded future humanity lives within thousand-story urban monads, 'urbmons', while being encouraged, through a culture of free sex, to be fruitful and multiply.
• Placed 6th in the 1972 Locus Poll for best novel, and was nominated for the Hugo that year but was withdrawn by the author in favor of A Time of Changes, published the same year; both lost to Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven (though A Time of Changes won the Nebula).
• Silverberg's website www.majipoor.com has this commentary by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro.
(Thu 30 Sep 2004) • Purchase this book from Amazon | BookSense

|

A rogue, an aimless wanderer, creation's castaway; this world was all those things.

For uncounted centuries it had been falling, alone, without purpose, falling through the cold lonely places between the suns. Generations of stars had succeeded each other in stately sweeps across its barren skies. It belonged to none of them. It was a world in and of itself, entire. In a sense it was not even part of the galaxy; its tumbling path cut through the galactic plane like a nail driven through a round wooden tabletop.

Here begins a happy day in 2381. The morning sun is high enough to touch the uppermost fifty stories of Urban Monad 116. Soon the building's entire eastern face will glitter like the bosom of the sea at daybreak. Charles Mattern's window, activated by the dawn's early photons, deopaques. He stirs. God bless, he thinks. His wife yawns and stretches. His four children, who have been awake for hours, now can officially start their day. They rise and parade around the bedroom, singing:

God bless, god bless, god bless!
God bless us every one!
God bless Daddo, god bless Mommo, god bless you and me!
God bless us all, the short and tall,
Give us fer-til-i-tee!

My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, althought that isn't his name; he hasn't got a name, being a machine) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact...