*
Budz, Mark :
Idolon
(Bantam Spectra 0-553-58850-8, $6.99, 448pp, mass market paperback, August 2006, cover illustration Allen Spiegel)
SF novel about identity in a mass-mediated society, in which anyone can change their appearance via electronic skin and 'philm' technology.
•
Budz's new website markbudz.com has a description, excerpt, and a clever interactive trailer.
•
Bantam Spectra's website has the back cover description, and an excerpt.
|
*
Campbell, Jack :
The Lost Fleet: Dauntless
(Ace 0-441-01418-6, $6.99, 293pp, mass market paperback, July 2006, cover art Pat Turner)
Military SF novel about a century-long war between the Alliance and the Syndic, and an Alliance hero from early in the war just emerged from hibernation.
•
The publisher's site has this description.
•
The book is copyright John G. Hemry writing as Jack Campbell.
•
Amazon has mostly-enthusiastic reader reviews.
•
SF Weekly posted a review by Cynthia Ward, who says the book "represents a recent trend in SF: novels that ignore everything that's happened in SF since the 1960s' New Wave. Readers of The Lost Fleet: Dauntless will find a rigorous adherence to relativity, but no singularity, nanotechnology, quantum states, cyberspace, posthumans, multiculturalism, complex antiheroes or even strong language. If sent back in time, The Lost Fleet: Dauntless could be serialized without a hitch in John W. Campbell's Astounding SF."
|
*
Card, Orson Scott, ed. :
Getting Lost: Survival, Baggage, and Starting Over in J.J. Abrams' Lost
(BenBella 1-932100-78-4, $17.95, 260pp, trade paperback, August 2006)
Nonfiction anthology ("completely unauthorized") of essays about the TV series Lost.
•
Contributors include Joyce Millman (on how the island may be one big video game), Glenn Yeffeth (on who the island's real leader is), Bill Spangler (on the Lost book club), Adam-Troy Castro, Nick Mamatas, pilot Clayton Davis (on the survivability of the crash), and editor Orson Scott Card (on why Lost is "as close to perfect as television has ever been"). There's also a 90-page "Who's Who and What's What" guide to Lost by Wayne Allen Sallee.
•
BenBella's website has a description [scroll down] with a complete list of contributors.
•
Amelia Beamer reviews the book in the August issue of Locus Magazine, saying "The essays do a good job, overall, of discussing the pop culture aspects, as well as recurring themes: coincidence (or free will) versus fate; faith vs. science; group vs. outsiders; and fantasy vs. science fiction" while noting that "predictably, any book about an ongoing TV show risks being out of date as soon as it is in print, and this is no exception: the writing is current only through the first third or so of season two, and some theorizing in the essays is rendered invalid by later episodes" yet concluding "The overall tone is conversational and accessible, emphasizing possibilities rather than assertions of truth; extrapolations as well as entertainment. What more do we ask from TV?"
|
*
Cook, Dawn :
Princess at Sea
(Ace 0-441-01424-0, $7.99, 344pp, mass market paperback, August 2006, cover art Patrick Faricy)
Fantasy novel about a princess who learns the truth about her origins; sequel to The Decoy Princess, published earlier this year.
•
The publisher's website has description.
•
Cook's website has this excerpt.
•
Amazon has several reader reviews.
|
*
Cross, Janine :
Shadowed by Wings: Book Two of the Dragon Temple Saga
(Roc 0-451-46089-8, $14, 354pp, trade paperback, August 2006, cover art Paul Youll)
Fantasy novel, second in the "Dragon Temple" trilogy following Touched by Venom (2005), about a young woman's training to become an apprentice dragonmaster.
•
The publisher's site has this description.
•
Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which warns "Cross's anguished protagonist faces grim issues that might make some fantasy enthusiasts uncomfortable -- addiction, genital mutilation, rape, slavery, racism, bestiality and prostitution, to name a few. Warning: these are not McCaffrey dragons. Think X-rated Tolkien set in the Middle East."
|
*
Egan, Jennifer :
The Keep
(Knopf 1-4000-4392-1, $23.95, 240pp, hardcover, August 2006)
Literary gothic horror novel about two cousins, reunited after a devestating childhood prank, who attempt to renovate a medieval castle in eastern Europe.
•
The publisher's site has this description, an author Q&A, and an excerpt.
•
Bookslut has this review ("easily the best book I've read all year"), and this post linking various great reviews.
•
Amazon has its own review by Daphne Durham ("a wonderfully weird read"), an interview with Egan, and the Publishers Weekly review.
|
*
Haldeman, Joe :
A Separate War and Other Stories
(Ace 0-441-01407-0, $23.95, 18+269pp, hardcover, August 2006)
Collection of 15 stories spanning the author's career, including first-published story "Out of Phase" (1969) and recent stories "A Separate War" (1999), "Four Short Novels" (2003), "Faces" (2004), and author's favorite "For White Hill" (1995).
•
Original to this book is "Fantasy for Six Electrodes and One Adrenaline Drip", "a play in the form of a feelie script", written in 1972 for Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions.
•
Connie Willis contributes "Meet Joe Haldeman". Haldeman provides an introduction and 9 pages of "notes on the stories", which says about his LDV story "I could have been the Father of Cyberpunk, seven years before William Gibson's 'Johnny Mnemonic.' Or maybe not."
•
Amazon has Publishers Weekly and Booklist reviews; the former notes "Set on a far future Earth, 'For White Hill' is one of the most memorable tragic love stories ever written as SF."
•
Gary K. Wolfe reviewed the book in the July issue of Locus Magazine, noting that "For White Hill" "alone is worth the price of the volume".
|
*
Little, Bentley :
The Burning
(NAL/Signet 0-451-21914-7, $7.99, 391pp, mass market paperback, August 2006)
Fantasy/horror novel, about a ghost train that pursues four characters in the American west.
•
Wikipedia has this Bentley Little entry. His geocities site has a synopsis.
•
Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which says that despite a "revolving door structure" the book "offers Steven King-size epic horror for those with the patience for it."
•
Edward Bryant reviewed the novel in the July issue of Locus Magazine, saying the novel "gives us one of the year's greatest and most elaborate set-ups, eventually presenting us with astonishing atrocities from American history that might or might not have ever happened as Little suggests" and concluding that Little's "writing in The Burning charms and shocks by turns. Perhaps akin to an epic Chinese ghost tale staged in a grand opera house by Barnum & Bailey, Bentley Little's novel suffers from no lack of ambition".
|
*
Sagara, Michelle :
Cast in Courtlight
(Luna 0-373-80244-7, $14.95, 488pp, trade paperback, August 2006)
Fantasy novel, second in the "Kaylin Neya" trilogy following Cast in Shadow (2005), about court intrigue and ancient magic.
•
The author's website lists numerous previous novels published as by Michelle Sagara and as by Michelle West; under the latter name she's also published numerous book review columns in F&SF.
•
The publisher's site has this description with a link to an excerpt.
•
Carolyn Cushman reviews it in the August issue of Locus Magazine, calling it "a decent fantasy mystery, but this middle volume frustratingly does nothing to answer the major questions surrouding Kaylin."
|
*
Smith, Sherwood :
Inda
(DAW 0-7564-0264-6, $25.95, 568pp, hardcover, August 2006, jacket art Matt Stawicki)
Fantasy novel set in the same world as the author's early YA novels Crown Duel (1997) and Court Duel (1998), about the son of a prince sent to learn the art of war.
•
The author's site has a page about Inda and His World, with links to pages about the world, the ships, the characters, a timeline, and a pronunciation guide.
•
Amazon has posts by the author, and several reader reviews.
|
