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Anvil, Christopher :
The Trouble with Aliens
(Baen 1-416-52077-5, $24, 440pp, hardcover, August 2006, cover by Bob Eggleton)
Collection of 18 stories, all previously published from the 1950s to the 1990s, most of them from Astounding/Analog from the late '50s to mid-'70s, including 9 stories in the "War with the Outs" series about aliens with mental powers. Anvil specialized in Astounding/Analog editor John W. Campbell's favorite scenario: clever humans who outwit nominally more powerful aliens.
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A few of the stories first appeared in Galaxy ("Mind Partner"), F&SF, and other magazines.
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Baen's Webscriptions site has this description with links to several chapters.
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This Library of Congress entry has the complete table of contents.
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Bradbury, Ray, illustrated by Dave McKean :
The Homecoming
(HarperCollins Design 0-06-085962-8, $14.95, unppp, hardcover, September 2006, cover by Dave McKean)
New hardcover edition, illustrated by Dave McKean, of Bradbury's classic 1946 story (included in The October Country) about an ordinary boy from a family of ghouls attending his family's reunion on Halloween.
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This edition is part of HarperCollins "Wonderfully Illustrated Short Pieces (WISP)" series. The publisher's site has this description.
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Bradbury new novel, Farewell Summer, touted as a sequel to Dandelion Wine, is due from William Morrow on October 1st.
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Douglass, Sara :
The Wayfarer Redemption
(Tor 0-765-35616-3, $3.99, 629pp, mass market paperback, June 2006, cover art Royo)
(First edition: Aus: ??, 1995)
Fantasy novel, first book in the six-volume series also called "The Wayfarer Redemption", first published in Australia as two trilogies, the "Axis" trilogy and the "Wayfarer Redemption" trilogy. The US editions from Tor just concluded with the hardcover publication of volume 6, Crusader (listed here).
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This mass-market paperback is a "special $3.99 edition", with a coupon inside for a mail-in rebate if you buy both this edition and Crusader.
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Amazon has reviews and reader comments, and its 'search inside' feature with an excerpt.
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Drake, David :
The Complete Hammers Slammers: Volume One
(Night Shade Books 1-892389-69-X, $35, 395pp, hardcover, February 2006, cover art John Berkey)
Collection of 20 stories, one original ("A Death in Peacetime"), and two non-fiction pieces in Drake's military SF series about a mercenary tank regiment, beginning with "Under the Hammer" from 1974.
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Introduction by Gene Wolfe. This is the first of a three-volume set gathering the complete Hammers series.
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The publisher's site has this page with a description and complete table of contents.
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Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, from its January 2nd issue, which says that Drake "uses prose as cold and hard as the metal alloy of a tank to portray the men and women of Hammer's Regiment as neither cartoon heroes nor propaganda villains but as competent professionals trying to survive in a deadly business" and "In his depiction of combat, Drake (The Way to Glory) rivals Crane and Remarque."
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Harrison, Harry :
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers
(BenBella 1-932100-83-0, $14.95, 212pp, trade paperback, June 2006, cover art Don Maitz)
Humorous SF novel, a parody of space opera.
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The publisher's site has this description: "When the two college students develop a faster-than-light space drive in their homemade workshed, they decide to sneak it aboard their football team's airplane as a prank...."
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Amazon has the same description, and several very positive reader reviews.
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Lindskold, Jane :
Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls
(Orb 0-765-31481-9, $14.95, 287pp, trade paperback, August 2006, cover art Patrick Arrasmith)
SF novel, the author's first novel, about an autistic girl who learns secrets from inanimate objects. First published by AvoNova in 1994.
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The author's site has this description and comment from the author -- "This was my first novel, and I am irrationally fond of it..." -- and this excerpt.
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Amazon's 'search inside' feature also has an excerpt.
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Robinson, Spider, & Jeanne Robinson :
The Stardance Trilogy
(Baen 1-416-52082-1, $26, 742pp, hardcover, September 2006)
Omnibus of three novels: Stardance, (1979, based on the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winning novella published in 1977), Starseed (1991), and Starmind (1995), about dance used as a medium of contact between humans and aliens.
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Spider Robinson's books page (scroll down) has descriptions of the three novels.
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Baen's Webscription site has this description with links to several chapters.
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Shirley, John :
A Splendid Chaos
(Babbage Press 1-930235-23-2, $19.95, 303pp, trade paperback, March 2006)
(First edition: Franklin Watts, April 1988)
SF novel about a group of humans kidnapped by aliens and forced to survive on an alien planet.
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Shirley's website has this page about the book, quoting the author: "A Splendid Chaos was an attempt to write surrealism that nevertheless made sense... writing allegorically and using archetypal characters."
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Babbage Press, which has this page about the book quoting reviews and reader feedback, is run by Lydia Marano and Arthur Byron Cover, who formerly ran Dangerous Visions bookstore in Sherman Oaks, CA, for many years; their online bookstore has been lately renamed Infinite Worlds.
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Sleator, William :
Fingers
(Tor Teen 0-765-35349-0, $6.99, 197pp, mass market paperback, July 2006, cover art James Jean)
YA novel, first published in 1983 by Atheneum, about a child prodigy pianist and his older brother who contrive a scheme to compose new music from beyond the grave in an attempt to revive the pianists' career.
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Amazon's 'search inside' feature includes an excerpt.
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Theis, Jim :
The Eye of Argon
(Wildside Press 0-8095-6261-8, $10, 74pp, trade paperback, December 2006)
Fantasy novella, first published in fanzine Osfan in 1970 and subsequently circulated among fannish circles to gain a reputation as a work of fiction so bad that it was classic. The cover description cites the "negative genius of this amazing Ed Wood of prose".
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Though Amazon (click on cover image or title above) lists it as forthcoming in December, and book was for sale at last month's World SF Convention in Anaheim, and publisher Wildside Press has this page with description and ordering information.
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This edition has a 16-page introduction by Lee Weinstein, which first appeared in slightly different form in The New York Review of Science Fiction, November 2004 and February 2005.
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Wikipedia has this entry about the work.
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Opening lines are quoted below.
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Wilson, F. Paul :
The Tomb
(Tor 0-765-35513-2, $4.99, 425pp, mass market paperback, August 2006)
Fantasy/thriller novel, the first novel in the author's "Repairman Jack" series about a vigilante hero who deals in the paranormal.
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This is the "author's definitive edition" with a special price of $4.99. It reprints the revised edition, published by Borderlands Press in 2004 under the original title Rakoshi.
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Wikipedia has entries about the author and about the book.
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Wilson's website www.repairmanjack.com has this page about the book.
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