THE LADY VANISHES: And Other Oddities of Nature

Hugo Award winner Sheffield's gift for merging hard SF with compelling characters shows brightly in most of these 11 previously uncollected stories. In the poignant title tale, a physicist tries to help find a missing fellow scientist who seems to have disappeared by making herself invisible. Likewise, in "Packing Fraction," another scientist must explain why a disastrous experiment levels a town. In the autobiographical Nebula winner, "The Peacock Throne," which retains its strength despite dated references to the Reagan era, a journalist follows rumors of an incredible new energy source to Iran, where the answers will not be clear or easy to find. "The Art of Fugue" and the first contact tale, "Waiting for the Riddler," are classic puzzle stories with suspenseful twists, while "Cloud Cuckoo" offers space adventure with a touch of astrophysics instruction. "The Whole Three Yards" explores one possible future for pro sports, in which football players don't retire for decades; meanwhile, the veteran soldiers in "Brooks Too Broad for Leaping" will sacrifice anything to get back into the service. "Nuremberg Joys" and "Phallicide" powerfully depict sacrifice and betrayal in the name of science. In contrast, "What Would You Like to Know?" tells an old-fashioned story of love lost and found with nary a scientist in sight. Readers who enjoy Sheffield's work will want this to fill in the gaps of previous collections, and those who may only know him from his novels (Cold as Ice, etc.) will find much to savor here. (June)

Forecast:The "ghostly" jacket art, so at odds with Sheffield's concrete imagery, won't mislead existing fans, but horror or fantasy readers are in for a big surprise if they pick this one up. The author's most recent novel is Dark as Day (Forecasts, Jan. 14).