Green, Simon R. :
Shadows Fall
(BenBella Books 1-932100-45-8, $14.95, 506pp, trade paperback, May 2005, cover art Donato Giancola)
(First edition: UK: Gollancz, 1994)
Fantasy novel about a town "where legends go to die when the world stops believing in them", according to the description on the publisher's site.
Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review -- "Ultimately this fantasy would have been more successful had the author done more with a bit less, spinning a richer story from fewer threads." -- and numerous reader reviews.
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Heinlein, Robert A. :
Citizen of the Galaxy
(Pocket 1-4165-0552-0, $13, 282pp, trade paperback, May 2005, cover design Stevenson, David)
(First edition: Scribners, 1957)
Young adult SF novel, 11th of Heinlein's acclaimed and fondly-remembered series of 'juveniles' published from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Considered one of most mature of the series, this one is about a young boy who rises from slavery to life among the interstellar Free Traders.
The Heinlein Society website has this detailed review by Alan Milner, a concordance entry, and an article by David M. Silver with background on slavery in the novel.
Heinlein's Wikipedia entry.
Amazon has several dozen reader reviews, whose average rating is 4 1/2 stars out of 5.
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Laumer, Keith, & Eric Flint, ed. :
Imperium
(Baen 0-7434-9903-4, $25, 465pp, hardcover, May 2005, cover illustration David Mattingly)
Omnibus of three novels in the Imperium series, concerning an infinite series of parallel Earths. Worlds of the Imperium (1962, the author's first novel), is about an American diplomat trying to stop war with a parallel Earth whose ruler is a parallel version of himself. The other two novels are The Other Side of Time (1965) and Assignment in Nowhere (1968). There's a preface by Harry Turtledove, and an afterword by editor Eric Flint.
Baen's site has a description, Turtledove's preface, and the first several chapters of the first novel.
Tribute site keithlaumer.com has a biography, list of books, links, and a forum.
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Matheson, Richard :
Earthbound
(Tor 0-765-31171-2, $13.95, 223pp, trade paperback, April 2005, cover art Michael Deas)
(First edition: UK: Robinson, 1989)
Erotic horror novel about a troubled married couple whose honeymoon is disrupted by the ghost of a beautiful woman.
The book first appeared in cut version from Playboy Press in 1982, under the pseudonym Logan Swanson. This restored version was first published in the UK in 1989, and by Tor in 1994.
Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review of the 1994 edition -- "Though the author injects some excellent suspense into this tale, he also veers into unabashed bathos and outright titillation..." -- and a Library Journal review: "While the first half of this book is not entirely convincing, the second half is incredibly powerful. This belongs in any horror fiction collection."
The Agony Column has an item about this edition -- scroll to near bottom of the page.
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Palwick, Susan :
Flying In Place
(Tor 0-765-31386-3, $11.95, 189pp, trade paperback, May 2005, cover by Kamil Vojnar)
(First edition: Tor, May 1992)
Contemporary fantasy novel about a young girl sexually abused by her father who finds escape with the ghost of her dead sister.
The author's first novel, it won the 1993 Crawford Award for best first novelist from the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, and placed #4 in that year's Locus Poll for best first novel.
This edition has an 11-page reader's guide. The author's second novel, The Necessary Beggar, is due from Tor in October.
Amazon has reviews from Kirkus and PW; the latter concludes "Palwick avoids pat solutions, offering instead a deeply felt, deeply moving tale."
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Russ, Joanna :
The Two of Them
(Wesleyan University Press 0-8195-6760-4, $14.95, 15+150pp, trade paperback, February 2005, cover illustration Martina Pilcerova)
(First edition: Berkley-Putnam, 1978)
SF novel, by a noted feminist author, about a female agent of the Trans-Temporal Authority, formerly a product of 1950s America, who attempts to rescue a young girl from a male-chauvenistic pseudo-Islamic world.
This was the last SF novel by Russ, best known for The Female Man (1975) and Alyx (1976), though she later wrote short fiction, including Hugo Award winning "Souls" (1982), and a non-genre 'coming-out' novel On Strike Against God in 1982.
This edition has a foreword by Sarah LeFanu, and back cover blurbs from Marilyn Hacker and Marge Piercy.
The publisher's site has this description, including the back cover blurbs.
The book was included on the 1996 Retrospective Tiptree Shortlist.
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Russ, Joanna :
We Who Are About To...
(Wesleyan University Press 0-8195-6759-0, $14.95, 15+118pp, trade paperback, February 2005, cover illustration Mark Lupo)
(First edition: Dell, 1977)
SF novel about what would really happen to the few survivors of an exploded starship, stranded on an alien world.
This edition has a new introduction by Samuel R. Delany, and back cover blurbs from Farah Mendlesohn and Carl Freedman.
The publisher's site has this description.
Amazon has highly variable reader review ratings.
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White, Michael :
Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction
(Carroll & Graf 0-7867-1518-9, $15.95, 11+285pp, trade paperback, March 2005)
(First edition: UK: Millennium, 1994)
Biography, first published in the UK under the title Asimov: The Unauthorised Life. Includes bibliography, chronology, and index. This edition has been expanded with an afterward on the real cause of Asimov's death and his continued legacy.
The description on the publisher's page is also on Amazon's page.
The author's site has excerpts from reviews about his more recent books, about Tolkien, Darwin, Hawking, Newton, Leonard, and other topics.
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