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© 2002 Ernest Lilley / SFRevu
Editor:  Ernest Lilley
Associate Editor: Sharon Archer
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Columns:
Editorial License
US Books
UK Books
Can Books
Comics
DVD

Events/Cons:
CanVention 22 and the Aurora Awards
If It's Tuesday, this must be TOR

Feature Interview:
Ken Macleod
Feature Review: Cosmonaut Keep by Ken Macleod

Book Reviews: 
The Alchemists Door
by Lisa Goldstein
Alternate Generals
ed by Harry Turtledove
Argonaut by Stanley Schmidt
Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks
The Iron Grail by John Woodstock
The Sacred Pool by L. Warren Douglas
The Sky So Big And Black by John Barnes
Spaceland by Rudy Rucker
Straw Men by Michael Marshall Smith
Sisters of the Raven by Barbara Hambly
To Trade The Stars by Julie E. Czerneda
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Graphic Novel:
Murder Mysteries. Original short story and radio play by Neil Gaiman. Graphic story script and art by P. Craig Russell
Zine: The Journal of Pulse Pounding Narratives

SFMedia:
Film:
Austin Powers: GoldMember
Metropolis (2002) Restoration
& Metropolis Essay PowerPuff Girls
Reign of Fire
Signs
Simone

August 2002 US Releases by Ernest Lilley

Here's a list of what's coming out in the US this month in Science Fiction and Fantasy. If we missed something or you have a title coming out in the future, email us at news@sfrevu.com

Ace Books - Starting with The King by David Feintuch (Hardcover) puts fans of Feintuch's acclaimed 1997 work, The Still, out of their misery with this sequel about a young king and a magic power that lets him access the wisdom of past rulers by gazing into still waters. Lets hope they don't have to wait as long for the next installment. In Empty Cities of the Full Moon by Howard V. Hendrx, Howard V. Hendrix (Paperback) came out last August in hardcover and is getting its mass market release. From all accounts, this story of a biotech ravaged Earth and the diverse groups of humanity that try to find a future is idea rich SF.  Myth-Ion Improbable by Robert Aspirin, Robert Asprin (Mass Market Paperback) is also a year old. In it, he "combines the Wild West with the vampire-cursed hills of Transylvania-where gold is common as dirt, and danger lurks behind every sagebrush." Fans of the Laiden Universe will be happy to know that the third book in that series, Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller (Mass Market Paperback) is back in print, and so is The Mirror of Merlin by T. A. Barron (Paperback) a YA fantasy title popular enough to warrant it's fourth printing in two years.

Avon/EOS - The Isle of Battle: Book Two of the Swans' War by Sean Russell (Hardcover) is released this month, and though I've heard good things about the Swan's War trilogy, I gather that this middle book is no place to start. Fortunately, you can pick up the first book The One Kingdom (Swans War, Bk 1) in paperback before you get lost in the substantial cast and plotlines as intricate as the river in the book...which weaves though other times as well as other places.

Baen Books - Hardcover:What a difference a year makes. When Eric Flint sent a town full of 20th Century Virginians back in time to 1632, they set up a democratic government with the help of the King of Sweden. Now it's a year later in 1633 and Eric's back with reinforcements: authors David Weber and Dru Blair joined forces for the sequel  in which the newly formed alliance has to withstand pressures from without and within.
In For King & Country by Robert Asprin and  Linda Evans teamed up to  stop a time traveling terrorist bent on undoing British history, and coincidentally, the rest of the world.

Paperback: In classic Baen fashion, Heris Serrano by Elizabeth Moon combines Hunting Party, Sporting Chance and Winning Coors in one Fleet filled book. Actually, that's not true, since the whole storyline is about what the intrepid officer does when she gets booted out of the Fleet. It's space opera in fine form. Med Ship by Murray Leinster, Eric Flint (Editor) is a another fine compilation, this one of the late Murray Leinster's Calhoun of the Med Service's adventures. Janus by Andre Norton combines two classic titles, Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus, books that practically spawned a genre about going alien on their own. Star Soldiers is still more Andre Norton about a time when humans are only allowed off planet as mercenaries, combining Star Soldiers and Star Guard, it shows once again how influential the author has been on another SF genre: Mil-SF.

Fans of David Weber's Honor Harrington series take note; On Basilisk Station, Honor of the Queen, and Short Victorious War, books #1,2,and 3, are being reissued in August as well.

Bantam Spectra - Dune: House Corrino by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson (Paperback) concluded the Dune "House" trilogy (Dune: House Atreides and Dune: House Harkonnen) and came out in hardcover last October, now in paperback. The Way of the Rose: Everien, Book Three by Valery Leith (Paperback) is a reissue from last August of the third book in the series (Everien Book One: The Company of Glass, Everien Book Two: The Riddled Night).

Daw - The Lost Dragon of Barakhai (Books of Barakhai, 2) by Mickey Zucker Reichert (Hardcover) is the sequel to The Beasts of Barakhai (2001) in which humans must spend half the day in some animal form, and "dissidents" try to undo the curse that forces the change by finding the decendents of the creatures that started it long ago...the lost dragons. . The Saga of the Renunciates (Dark Omnibus, 3) by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Paperback) "In the three novels which comprise The Saga of the Renunciates, Marion Zimmer Bradley tells the masterful tale of two valiant women: Magdalen Lorne, a Terran woman, and Jaelle, a Dry Towner, who face and try to break the invisible chains of custom, convention, habit and expectation with which society binds women, and women bind themselves, by becoming Free Amazons." from www.dawbooks.com.

Del Rey - There's plenty of Terry Brooks' Shanara about this month with Morgawr (The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, Book 3) (Hardcover) The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (Hardcover) and The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Antrax by Terry Brooks (Paperback) all coming out.
The Fifth Sorceress (Chronicles of Blood and Stone, Book 1) by Robert Newcomb (Hardcover) is called a "surprisingly original doorstopper" by Publisher's Weekly. The good wizards are all men, and the evil sorcereses are all women. “We gave them a chance once, long ago. . . . We offered to share power equally, and in peace." Evidentally that didn't work out too well, as the book opens with four sorcereses being stranded adrift by the victorious Wizards. Clearly, they missed somebody. In The Witch Queen, also out this month,
Jan Siegel finished up the trilogy she started with Prospero's Children, bringing the battle against the Witch Queen Morgus into 21st century Britain, once the ancient kingdom of Logrz.

In Impossible Places by Alan Dean Foster (Paperback) we get twenty flights of imagination from a very imaginative author, including a story about NASA sending addicts to Mars and visits to some of his characters storylines. I'd bet on Foster to deliver. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (Paperback), recasts another classic with illustrations to attract the Harry Potter set. Hopefully this edition will introduce the world of Pern to many new generations of dragonriders.

GOLDEN  GRYPHON PRESS -

Though they don't actually have any releases this month, you can look forward to some interesting titles for September: Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker and Strange But Not a Stranger by James Patrick Kelly, Connie Willis.

Jove - The Straw Men by Michael Marshall (Paperback) "this long awaited new novel from one of the UK's best exports is simply one of the best things I've read in ages.. " says our man in London, John Berlyne in his review this issue. Fortunately for us this novel of abductions and conspiracies is being released on both sides of the Atlantic this month, so we son't have to wait to find out what the fuss is about. The UK edition got the better cover by a longshot. (see John's review this issue)

Pocket Books /  Star Trek

Paperbacks: Pocket has collected all the Star Trek that appeared between 1998 and 2000 in Amazing Stories magazine in, logically enough, The Amazing Stories -- by John J. Ordover, where Spock faces the death of his father, Crusher clashes with holo-colleauges, Troi "puts it all on the line" (whatever that means)...and many more! And if you thought they could ever run out of ideas for Trek novels, shame on you. Why, there are over four hundred untold stories from the crew of the first Enterprise alone...and they've decided to tell some of them in Errand of Vengeance Trilogy, the first of which, Sword of Mercy, came out this July, and which finishes up this month with Killing Blow (TOS) and River of Blood (TOS), both by Kevin Ryan. Aye, there's trouble below decks, Jim, me lad. Best you see to it before someone scuttles that nice ship of yours. Argh.

Hardcovers: Do you open your cell phone with the Kirk-flip? Have you ever said "Beam me up."...and meant it? If so, you'll want to take a look at Star Trek: I'm Working on That: A Trek from Science Fiction to Science Fact by William Shatner and Chip Walter. They look at everything from space trave to computers, Caltech scientists to MIT engineers, fact and fiction, to see who's working on the Trek Future, and how far off it is. If Treknology isn't enough fantasy for you, there's also the real stuff: Kingdom of Shadow (Diablo #3) by Richard A. Knaak is, fittingly enough a dark fantasy, about a city that appears once every 2000 years to open a gateway to heaven...or someplace less fun as the adventureres within discover. More fun is to be found in Woad to Wuin: Sir Apropos #2 by Peter David with "the medieval era's most notorious antihero suddenly finding himself once again in the middle of events of which he wants no part."

What could make more sense than reading Trek as an ebook? Scotty did it, didn't he? You can follow the further adventures of the Starfleet Corp of Engineers in Foundations Book 2, the second in Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore's trilogy on the early days of the S.C.E, and I'm sure downloading it will be no tribble at all.

ROC - Worlds That Weren't by Harry Turtledove (Editor), et al (Hardcover) Harry is the Dean of Alt U. (that's Universes) and he's assembled a collection of top scholars to show how things might have been if only they hadn't been the way they were. Restoration by Carol Berg (Paperback) concludes the Fantasy authors trilogy (Revelation,  Transformation, and now Restoration) to much acclaim by readers and Star Risk, Ltd. #1 (Star Risk, 1) by Chris Bunch (Paperback) starts off an SF Action series about the "outnumbered, outgunned, and out of luck"...mercenaries of Star Risk, Ltd. They'll take on "any mission-no matter how dangerous-provided of course, the price is right." Sounds like my kind of folks.

Saga SF - The Measure of the Universe -- by Ellen Larson
"A wide-eyed archaeologist from Antares arrives in the Greek isles to study ancient inscriptions with a sharp-tongued professor of paleography. Blundering through the lexical labyrinth, they discover love among the runes---and a thread of deception leading straight to interplanetary disaster. " from the Saga SF Site.