January Publications

In Steve White's fantasy Demon's Gate, the Bronze Age Prince Valdar and the sorcerer Nyrthim have their work cut out for them. The barrier against long-exorcised demons is crumbling, threatening universal ruin. As usual, White offers fast action and historically informed world-building. (Baen, $24 288p ISBN 0-7434-7176-8)

British author Richard Calder (Frenzetta) delivers an offbeat SF adventure yarn in the pulp tradition, The Twist, in which 1950s-vintage invaders from Venus make trouble in an old Wild West cut off from Earth in a "psychogeographic event." Can gunslinger John Twist prevent Venusian "necrobabe" Viva Venera from eating his soul—and scuttle the nefarious schemes of Queen Musidora, an even deadlier Venusian who wants to hand the CIA a secret weapon she claims will win the Cold War? (Four Walls Eight Windows, $12.95 paper 238p ISBN 1-56858-292-7)