- Home
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
The protagonist of this Explorer Corps adventure is Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl. The name is supposed to bring her luck, but since she is quickly contaminated by a red fungus known as the Balrog, one has to wonder. Then she, Admiral Festina Ramos, and a slightly mad fellow named Tut are assigned to a rescue mission on the planet Muta. There, an entire expedition from the unit has been turned into gas clouds that give out electromagnetic pulses, and it looks as if this is the result of a deadly defense mechanism left behind by an alien race. It takes ingenuity and suffering to discover the mystery behind the pulses. The sheer complexity of Gardner’s characters and inventions will make the book daunting to a good many, but his ingenuity and wit will keep a good many others reading voraciously. Views: 25
Rissa, the tormented Warlord of Tiyan, struggles to protect her people and Tiyan’s magical springs against enemies led by the King of Landis and traitors within her own walls. She must also protect the secret of Tiyan’s magic and the source her ultimate doom: the parasitic demon lurking within her, which has awoken to kill her and choose its new host : Taram, a near-blind slave of Tiyan's enemy.
Taran's sole motivation in life is his patient pursuit of vengeance for his family's death. Coincidence lands him in Tiyan and at the center of the kingdom's power struggle. The strength of Tiyan’s army, the allure of the magical waters, and the endangered Warlord at first are nothing more than a means to an end, until he looks beneath the surface to find a world - and a woman - worth fighting for. Views: 25
Artemis Fowl is going straight-as soon as he pulls off the most brilliant criminal feat of his career… but his plan goes away, leaving his loyal bodyguard, Butler, mortally injured. Artemis's only hope of saving his friend is to employ fairy magic; so once again he must contact his old rival, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon fairy police. It is going to take a miracle to save Butler, and Artemis's luck may have just run out… Views: 25
When the Atlaran Ambassador and half the heirs of the western kingdoms disappear on the kingdom of Darest's border, Gentian Calder agrees to join the Diamond Coeurveur and his apprentice in a rush to join the search. Will they find the missing? A plot against Darest? Or uncover older secrets, buried deep? Views: 25
Grant Archer only wanted to study astrophysics. But the forces of the "New Morality," the coalition of censorious do-gooders who run 21st-century America, have other plans for him. To his distress, Grant is torn from his young bride and sent to a research station in orbit around Jupiter, to spy on the scientists who work there. Their work may lead to the discovery of higher life forms in the Jovian system-with implications the New Morality doesn't like at all. What Grant's would-be controllers don't know is that his loyalty to science may be greater than his desire for a quiet life. But that loyalty will be tested in a mission as dangerous as any ever undertaken-a mission to the middle reaches of Jupiter's endless atmosphere, a place where hydrogen flows as a liquid, and cyclones larger than planets rage for centuries at a time. What lurks there is more than anyone has counted on...and stranger than anyone could possibly have imagined. **Amazon.com ReviewHe made planetfall on Venus and all but colonized Mars, so it's not surprising that SF don Ben Bova finally set his sights on our solar system's swirling, red-eyed sovereign.As with his previous planetary exploration books, Jupiter plants you right in the heart of the action, witness to the speculative science and political intrigue--and in this case, religious machination--that surround a fast-paced, dangerous, and technically fleshed-out mission. Our unlikely hero on this touchdown is an earnest, likeable, hard-working grad student named Grant Archer, a frustrated astrophysicist who's been shanghaied aboard Jupiter's Gold space station to fulfill a ROTC-style public-service commitment. What's worse, this devout young man has been ordered by the New Morality--the American flavor of the conservative religious order that runs Earth nowadays--to spy on some suspicious research involving alleged Jovian life forms.Bova begins his book with an A.C. Clarke quote: "The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths." This tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where this book's going, and who, respectively, will be wearing the white and the black hats (unfortunately, some of the characterizations don't get much deeper). That the central protagonist is both a Christian and a scientist makes for some fertile character development, but Bova's not exactly gunning for God here--he's happy just to blast away at narrow-minded ideologues and other assorted religious fanatics. (But that, of course, is about as easy as making teenagers depressed.) --Paul HughesFrom Publishers WeeklyIn continuing to explore the marvels of the solar system, Bova (Venus) tracks the metamorphosis of his protagonist, Grant Archer, from a selfish, petulant grad student into a man who does what's right despite massive pressures. Sent to study on Jupiter's orbital space station, rather than the more desirable lunar colony, astrophysicist Archer resents everyone and complains about his bad luck; he isn't even allowed to study in his field of expertise. The New Morality, the ultrareligious creationist group who controls the U.S., has given him the additional task of spying on the station's untrustworthy scientists who are suspected of looking for Jovian life. The mere existence of extraterrestrials would conflict with New Morality doctrine. Grant is a true believer, but he's also a scientist resentful of the New Morality's control over his life. When he's given a chance to aid in the Jovian research, he jumps at it, even though it means horrifying modifications to his body and repeated drownings. This easy read provides solid action and wonder with credible alien life forms and inspired technology for exploring the Jovian depths. Jupiter is a new favorite destination for sci-fi exploration, and Bova's take on the planet is unique and enticing. (Jan. 1) Forecast: Bova is one of the more popular SF writersAhe's won six HugosAand fans of Venus will delight in the continuation of the series, which gets a push in the Nov. issue of Locus, with Bova as the cover interview. Heavenly sales could ensue. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 25
*“My name is Meredith Gentry, but of course it’s not my real name. I dare not even whisper my true name after dark for fear that one hushed word will travel over the night winds to the soft ear of my aunt, the Queen of the Air and Darkness. She wants me dead. I don’t even know why.”Meredith Gentry, Princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, living as a P.I. specializing in supernatural crime. But now the Queen’s assassin has been dispatched to fetch her back–whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt’s plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown–and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death.Amazon.com ReviewLaurell K. Hamilton revitalized vampires, werewolves, and zombies in the popular Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter books. In this new series, she updates faeries. A Kiss of Shadows introduces Merry Gentry, a.k.a. Meredith NicEssus, a faerie princess of the Unseelie Court, where politics is a blood sport. Merry, who's part sidhe (elvish), part brownie, and part human, never really fit in. She's short, not skilled in offensive magic, and mortal because of her human blood. These are real liabilities when your family, especially aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, is out to kill you. Merry has been in hiding for three years, living in Los Angeles and working for the Grey Detective Agency, which specializes in "supernatural problems, magical solutions." A new case sets her against a man who uses forbidden magic to seduce fey women and drain their power. A plan to trap him goes awry and Merry's cover is blown. Now Andais knows where she is. But things have changed in Andais's court, and Merry is changing too.Despite the selkies, brownies, goblins, and ogres in this book, it's not for children. The fey are "creatures of the senses"--and in the Unseelie court, sex and pain go together. Merry is sexually adventurous and surrounded by gorgeous, powerful males, most of whom want her badly. She's politically savvy and no coward, though she's not the warrior Anita is. Hamilton fans and readers of adult fairy tales like Anne Bishop's Black Jewels trilogy will want to give Merry a look. --Nona VeroFrom Publishers WeeklyErotica is fantasy, but it rarely gets as fantastic as this. After nine novels featuring Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (Obsidian Butterfly, etc.), Hamilton launches a sizzling new series that blends supernatural fantasy with detective adventure and hot sex. Here, the world is populated with various magical faerie races along with humans. The most supreme of the fey are the immortal sidhe, so beautiful and powerful they were once worshiped as gods. The fey are not only lusty but incredibly accomplished lovers; those of the royal sidhe bloodline are literally addictively sexy. Full-blooded fey are, for the most part, intolerant of cities, metal and technology. They seldom live for long among humans. Mixed-blood Princess Meredith NicEssus, however, has fled the faerie world to pass for three years as Merry Gentry, a human with some fey blood who works in Los Angeles with a detective agency that specializes in supernatural problems and magical solutions. Suddenly outed as the missing princess and fearing that her aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, will kill her, she makes a desperate run aided by her detective pals. The queen does want her, but not in the way Merry expects. Ultimately, Meredith must fulfill the queen's designs for the future of her court, even if it means having to bed the most beautiful studs in the universe. Through constant danger and adventure, Meredith finds herself in a variety of sexual encounters that make it easy to see why her ancestors were so worthy of worship. As wild as the novel's premise is, memorable characters and wicked wit make it all delicious, ribald fun. 8-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 25
An epic masterwork about the trials of a man of "science" in a Kafkaesque realm of persecution and paranoia from a World Fantasy Award–winning author. The Well-Built City is a hellish place of unrelenting nightmare, ruled with cruelty, oppression, and terror by the inscrutable madman Drachton Below. In his multiple-award-winning, New York Times Notable trilogy, Jeffrey Ford creates a dystopia that chronicles the hubris, downfall, and damnation of a highly placed functionary responsible for determining who will live or die according to their facial structure. The Physiognomy: With his unimpeachable authority to condemn and destroy, the pompous, drug-addicted Cley is one of the most feared civil servants in Drachton Below's Well-Built City. But when the Master himself dispatches him to a remote mining town to recover a stolen object of unimaginable power, events will cause the physiognomist to doubt his science and the reality of his... Views: 25
