The year in fantasy got off to a strong start with the release of Robert Jordan's Crossroads of Twilight (Tor), the 10th book in his massive Wheel of Time sequence. New volumes by two other well-established fantasy authors also hit bestseller lists: Terry Goodkind's Naked Empire (Tor) and Terry Brooks's Jarka Ruus: High Druid of Shannara (Del Rey). Other fantasy veterans with major novels included Raymond E. Feist (Talon of the Silver Hawk: Conclave of Shadows Book One, Eos), Tad Williams (The War of the Flowers, DAW), R.A. Salvatore (The Lone Drow: The Hunter's Blades Trilogy, Book II, Wizards of the Coast), and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Journey into the Void: Volume Three of the Sovereign Stone Trilogy, Eos).
In science fiction, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson delivered Dune: The Machine Crusade, their latest epic to explore the origins of Frank Herbert's Dune universe; the younger Herbert also produced a moving biography of his celebrated father, Dreamer of Dune (both Tor). Five years after the fifth book in his popular series about an alternative American frontier, Orson Scott Card came through with The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker VI (Tor). The Star Wars franchise was represented on hardcover lists by Troy Denning's Star Wars: Tatooine Ghost and Matthew Stover's Star Wars: Shatterpoint (both Del Rey).
In horror, Anita Blake, Laurel K. Hamilton's supernatural heroine, took on a serial killer and vampire politics in Cerulean Sins (Berkley), her 11th lurid outing. Anne Rice let her most famous character, the Vampire Lestat, "write" her 25th book, Blood Canticle: The Vampire Chronicles (Knopf), which completed the unification of her vampire series with her Mayfair witch saga.
Budayeen NightsGeorge Alec Effinger (Golden Gryphon)
One of the founders of cyberpunk, Effinger (1947—2002) led a pain-filled life, but his personal suffering is absent from this brilliant story collection, full of antic humor and atmospheric inventiveness.
Things That Never HappenM. John Harrison (Night Shade)
This British author's first U.S. collection contains 24 superlative ghost stories without any ghosts in them.
The Two Sams: Ghost StoriesGlen Hirshberg (Carroll & Graf)
These exceptional and accomplished stories will put readers in mind of the electrifying short works of Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and other writers who represent the best of modern literary weird fiction.
FudokiKij Johnson (Tor)
Johnson's mesmerizing second fantasy based on Japanese myth surpasses her inspired debut, The Fox Woman (2002).
The White Dragon: In Fire Forged, Part OneLaura Resnick (Tor)
The author of one previous novel, In Legend Born (2000), Resnick shows she's a new writer with serious and already polished talent in this romantic fantasy, which was followed by the equally stunning sequel, The Destroyer Goddess, later in the year.
AirGeoff Ryman (St. Martin's Griffin)
Set in the country of Karzistan, a lightly fictionalized version of Kazakhstan, this intensely political novel, involving an effort to implant the equivalent of the Internet in everyone's mind, has important things to say about how developed nations take the Third World for granted.
IliumDan Simmons (Eos)
Hugo and Stoker winner Simmons makes a spectacular return to space opera in this elegant monster of an SF novel that plays literary games with Homer's Iliad.
Crown of SlavesDavid Weber and Eric Flint (Baen)
This offshoot of Weber's "Honorverse" transcends the label "military SF" and is truly a novel of ideas, blending Edmund Burke and Carlos Marighella into an intriguing synthesis.
See our "best books" in the following categories:
