July Publications

"To land anywhere on Big Planet except Earth Enclave meant tragedy, debacle, cataclysm": it doesn't look good for Claude Glystra's interstellar mission when his sabotaged ship crashes deep in the heart of enemy territory. At least one of the traitors is on the loose, and the forces of the despotic Bajarnum of Beaujolais are out to destroy Claude, his fellow Earthmen and a lovely young native they christen Nancy, as the group embarks upon a deadly 40,000-mile journey to refuge in Jack Vance's weird and highly imaginative Big Planet. (Gollancz [Sterling, dist.], $14.95 paper 224p ISBN 0-575-07117-6)

British SF writer Ian Watson, author of the screen story for AI, crafts an intricate and elegantly written tale of a boy and some whales—or, more accurately, a tale of defection, thought replacement and the death of the universe—in The Jonah Kit. The boy, an escapee from a Russian research institute, bears the mind of a dead astronaut, a famous scientist claims to have discovered God's absence and whales learn the true nature of humans to devastating effect in Watson's terrible brave new world. (Gollancz [Sterling, dist.], $14.95 paper 224p ISBN 0-575-07389-6)

Though highly skeptical of her "anarchist" government, gutsy Paula Mendoza rises from the ranks of the unemployed Earthish to become its peace negotiator in the escalating war between the Middle Planets and the Gas Planets in this latest by Cecelia Holland (The Pillar of the Sky), whom the Chicago Tribune has compared to Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula Le Guin. Paula's methods (which include sleeping with the enemy) are innovative, to say the least, and they land her in troubled waters in the startling and epic Floating Worlds. (Gollancz [Sterling, dist.], $14.95 paper 544p ISBN 0-575-07142-7)

Humans, those "rapacious interlopers," brought strife and environmental devastation to the ancient land of Maras-Dantia, but the warlike orcs may be its saviors in Stan Nicholls's gory sequel to Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder. Leading a band of rebel orcs called the Wolverines, Stryke (who's smart at least by orc standards) searches for the three remaining "instrumentalities" that will free the elder races from human domination, battling evil symbiotes, bandits and goblin slavers at every turn. (Gollancz [Sterling, dist.], $14.95 paper 288p ISBN 0-575-06871-X)

Two sisters separated at birth, a disillusioned cop, a thieving drug addict and the Lord of Darkness all cross paths on one fateful night in Tony Lindsay's gritty urban supernatural suspenser, Prayer of Prey. When crackhead Mike overdoses and dies, Satan resurrects him as an ancient evil warrior king intent on impregnating one of the sisters to inaugurate his reign on earth; it's up to cop Johnny to stop the beastly Brown, even as he finds himself falling in love with one of the witchy sisters. (Blackwords [www.blackwordsonline.com], $14.95 paper 240p ISBN 1-888018-25-9)

Shakespearean scholar Graham Holderness imagines an 11th-century Scandinavia after Hamlet's death—though, by cutting back and forth in time, he suggests a few twists in the tortured prince's life—in The Prince of Denmark. Ofelia (as her name is spelled here), for instance, is rescued from the river in time to give birth to Hamlet's son before expiring; Hamlet's foil Fortinbras assumes a much more devious aspect; and Horatio proves himself a hero in a novel that may affront purists but is likely to please more forgiving fans of one of Shakespeare's darkest plays. (Univ. of Hertfordshire [IPG, dist.], $29.95 240p ISBN 1-902806-12-3)

Having mysteriously remained 17 years old for two decades, the dopey Rueben Hecht gives new meaning to the term psychosocial moratorium—and that's just the beginning of his problems in Eugen Egner's comic, insanity-riddled Androids from Milk, translated from the German by Mike Mitchell. Rueben's parents have apparently committed suicide, his doctor wants to put him in a kids' home and Rueben and his age-shifting sidekick, Edwina, must embark on an "android-procurement" mission that will uncover dark and surprising family secrets. (Dedalus [SCB, dist.], $11.99 paper 202p ISBN 1-903517-02-8)

Love gets sealed with the sacrifice of a finger, monsters roam high school hallways and invisible dwarves function as angels of death on a city bus: the fantastical intertwines with the quotidian in James Van Pelt's Strangers and Beggars. The 17 stories, divided into four sections (Teaching, Love, Death, Time), contemplate modern dystopias, offering, in the words of Bruce Holland Rogers's introduction, stories of "things gone very wrong" that still manage to feel uplifting—not "new maps of hell... [but] new maps out of hell." (Fairwood [5203 Quincy Ave. SE, Auburn, Wash. 98092], $17.99 paper 200p ISBN 0-9668184-5-8)

In the not-too-distant future, economic and political disasters lead to the collapse of the United States, and a new and troubled country called the Lands is born. It's a lot like the old U.S., except that the judicial system is openly crooked, alcohol's the devil's drink and an accused drunk driver can be sentenced to hard labor in retired lawyer F. David Stevenson's Banished, a multi-character novel for readers who like polemics mixed in with their plots. (Robert D. Reed [www.rdrpublishers.com], $21.95 266p ISBN 1-885003-80-3)