Anderson, Poul :
Time Patrol
(Baen 1-4165-0935-6, $7.99, 765pp, mass market paperback, February 2006, cover art David Mattingly)
(First edition: Tor, 1991)
Collection of 9 stories and one novel about the Time Patrol, an agency that polices history to prevent inadvertant changes to the past that would alter the present; centering on patrolman Manse Everard.
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Four of the stories were first published in SF magazine's in the late 1950s, and gathered in collection Guardians of Time (1960), two appeared as original novellas in Time Patrolman (1983), with the other three added to subsequent editions of those books and previous omnibuses, including 1995 story "Death and the Knight". The novel is The Year of the Ransom first published in 1988.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review of an earlier edition: "Frequently Everard finds that to preserve his own future he must destroy an alternate one, and his success is made bittersweet by his empathy for people who will never exist except in his own memory. The writing is excellent, distinguished by Hugo and Nebula winner Anderson's skill at weaving a background of sights and sounds to make the stage, and thus the actors, more real."
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Effinger, George Alec :
A Fire in the Sun
(Orb 0-765-31359-6, $14.95, 289pp, trade paperback, March 2006, cover art Craig Mullins, cover design Howard Grossman/12E Design)
(First edition: Doubleday Foundation, July 1989)
Cyberpunk SF detective novel set, sequel to When Gravity Fails (1987, reprinted by Orb in November), set in a corrupt Arab ghetto called the Budayeen. In this book Marid Audran has become a policeman working for the 'godfather' of the Budayeen.
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The book like its predecessor was a Hugo nominee; it was followed by The Exile Kiss (1991) and a posthumous collection of associated stories, Budayeen Nights (2003, reviewed by Claude Lalumière).
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Amazon's 'search inside' feature including an excerpt.
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SFSignal just posted this four-and-half-star review.
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Farmer, Philip Jose :
Strange Relations
(Baen 1-4165-0934-8, $13, 476pp, trade paperback, February 2006, cover art Clyde Caldwell)
Omnibus of novels The Lovers (1961) and Flesh (1968) and collection Strange Relations (1960), all on sexual or erotic themes. The Lovers, expanded from a 1952 novella, concerns an affair between a human male and an alien female.
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Baen's site has a description and excerpts from "Mother", one of the stories from Strange Relations.
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Patten, Fred, ed. :
Furry! The Best Anthropomorphic Fiction Ever
(ibooks 1-59687-319-1, $12.95, 445pp, trade paperback, February 2006)
(First edition: Sofawolf Press, March 2003)
Anthology of 26 stories about animals with human characteristics, a genre called anthropomorphic or 'furry' fiction. It was first published under the title Best in Show: Fifteen Years of Outstanding Furry Fiction.
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Authors include Lawrence Watt-Evans, Jefferson P. Swycaffer, Watts Martin, Michael H. Payne, and others, as well as introductions and a bibliography.
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Amazon's listing is out-of-date; the book was published in February and has appeared in stores.
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Barnes & Noble's page for the book has the publisher's description.
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Patten has this Wikipedia entry.
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Saberhagen, Fred :
An Old Friend of the Family
(Tor 0-765-31498-3, $12.95, 207pp, trade paperback, February 2006, jacket design Peter Lutjen)
(First edition: Ace, 1979)
Vampire novel about an Old World family settling in America that becomes involved in a blood feud between Morgan Le Fay and Dracula.
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Saberhagen's website has this page about the book, with publication details and an excerpt.
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The publisher's description calls this the first of Saberhagen's Dracula series, though he wrote at least one earlier novel touching on the theme, The Holmes-Dracula File (1978).
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Amazon has reader reviews, and its 'search inside' feature with an excerpt.
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Silverberg, Robert :
The Book of Skulls
(Ballantine Del Rey 0-345-47138-5, $12.95, 232pp, mass market paperback, February 2006)
(First edition: Scribners, 1972)
Fantasy novel about four college friends on a trip to Arizona on a quest for immortality that requires, according to an ancient manuscript, that two of them die so the others will live.
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One of Silverberg's most celebrated novels (and published the same year as Dying Inside), it was a Hugo and Nebula nominee and placed #2 in that year's Locus Poll for best novel.
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This edition says "soon to be a major motion picture" on the front cover, and has a new afterword by the author. The Internet Movie Database has an entry for Book of Skulls (2006) indicating director William Friedkin and screenwriter Terry Hayes, though no cast or release date.
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Amazon has several 5-star reader reviews.
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Varley, John :
Titan
(Ace 0-441-81304-6, $7.99, 309pp, mass market paperback, February 2006)
(First edition: Berkley-Putnam, March 1979)
SF novel about astronauts exploring a huge artifact found in orbit of Saturn that turns out to be a living spaceship called Gaea. It's first of a trilogy, followed by Wizard (first published 1980) and Demon (1984), also due to be reissued by Ace with new covers.
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Varley's first 'big' novel, following debut The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), it was compared to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Niven's Ringworld as a prime example of the 'big dumb object' subgenre of SF. It was a Hugo and Nebula nominee, and it won the 1980 Locus Poll as best novel.
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Varley's site has this page about the book, with a brief description and cover image.
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Zebrowski, George :
Macrolife
(Prometheus/Pyr 1591023416, $15, 385pp, trade paperback, January 2006, cover illustration John Picacio)
(First edition: Harper & Row, May 1979)
Far future SF novel in which humanity is forced to abandon Earth and spreads through space in a series of self-reproducing space habitats called 'macrolife'. This edition has interior illustrations by Rick Sternbach, an introduction by Ian Watson, and a new afterword by the author.
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Visionary and philosophical, the novel has been compared to Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men and Star Maker, and the cover of this edition calls it "one of the hundred best science fiction novels of all time" according to Library Journal.
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Pyr's website has this description with excerpts from reviews.
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Amazon has the publisher's description, while Barnes & Noble's
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SFWA's Pressbook has this press release.
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