A Deeper Sea
Wow. This is the single word that best describes the first book of Alex Jablokov's that I read. Here is a book which has such things in it as a bioengineered whale designed to dive into the clouds of Jupiter, as a lone Russian scientist who discovers that dolphins do speak but does so in a way that ends up haunting him forever. It is also the story of people and of war and of events which overshadow entire planets. It is also a book about philosophy and art. It is these last two additions which really made the book for me. Sure the concepts blew me away and certainly the characters, particularly the Russian, Stasov, were moving and more than intelligent but it was more the presentation and the incongruity of the art and philosophy amongst all this that really made the book for me. I bought it. I read it. I recommend it with force to everyone who asks if I know of any great books.
Steven Sawicki
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Serve It Forth: Cooking With Anne McCaffrey
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I'm going to break two of my rules with this review; I'm reviewing the book in more than one place and I'm reviewing a book that contains my own work. Now, besides the obvious ego blasting I should also point out that if you want to see my contribution you need to buy the book since it would be obscenely self centered to review my own stuff. The reason I'm rule breaking is two fold as well; this is an unusual book in terms of content and all of the profits are being donated by the authors to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Of America Emergency Medical Fund.
Years ago, back in August of 1973, Ballantine books published an anthology of recipes by Science Fiction authors which was edited by Anne McCaffrey and which was called Cooking, Out Of This World. The book sold very few copies and today it can be found for prices as high as $400. More recently, the idea evolved to redo the concept and once more present the favorite recipes of authors, along with a few lines about the work in progress, to the public.
Inside you will find ideas and wonders by such notables as Larry Niven, David Drake, Ardath Mayhar, Allen Steele, Peter S. Beagle, Lois McMaster Bujold, Poul Anderson, Joan D. Vinge and close to 50 others. I should also point out that this is a serious cookbook in that all of the recipes work and produce edible food. Most of the recipes produce excellent food in fact. There are a couple of tongue in cheek entries but these are easily spotted. The recipes themselves run the range of very short half pagers to long and complicated multi-page events. There are recipes for snacks, for entrees, for deserts, for specialty presentations for quick fixes and for grand feasts. There's even a recipe for liquid nitrogen grapefruit sorbet which really works, although where you'd get the liquid nitrogen is always a question.
Besides giving you some insight into what you favorite author cooks, this book provides a widely diverse running commentary by these same authors on either the recipe, how the recipe came to be, or their lives at the time the recipe became important. The whole book is not only something you'll want on your kitchen shelf, but it's an extremely interesting collection of short-shorts as well.
Buy three copies of this book. Stash the first one away in case it becomes as collectible as the first one did. Buy the second copy because the proceeds of this book are going to such a good cause. Buy the third book because you're bound to find a half dozen or more recipes which you'll want to make over and over; and the next time you make dinner for friends and they ask where you got the recipe for Greek-Style Artichokes you can tell them you got it from Joe Haldeman.
Steven Sawicki
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War of the Worlds : Global Dispatches
Kevin J. Anderson (Editor)
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This is one of those neat idea anthologies that makes you glad you're a SF reader. The basic premise here is to develop a logical chain from the following 'facts': H. G. Wells War Of The Worlds. portrayed a invasion of the Earth by Martians. His story was told through the eyes of a London reporter sending dispatches back to the home office. Wells does mention, in the novel, of other places on the planet being invaded and fighting. But, what if you took the time period and looked to see who would have been alive then and wrote the story from their perspective?
Instead of tackling this himself, Anderson has gathered some of the best writers in the field to portray Wells invasion from 18 different points of view. Thus we have George Alec Effinger giving us Edgar Rice Burroughs ideas from the Barsoom perspective (Barsoom is the native name for Mars as told by John Carter through Burroughs), we have the hilarious Emily Dickinson piece done by Connie Willis (perhaps the best piece in the entire book,) Don Webb portraying an 8 year old H. P. Lovecraft, Dan Marcus giving us Pablo Picasso, Mike Resnick doing Teddy Roosevelt and so on and so forth.
Some of the pieces fall a bit short. This is due more to my own ignorance about the person being written about than the writing itself. know next of nothing about the Dowager Empress of China and therefore found that particular story a bit tedious and incomprehensible. There were also a couple of names that I would have loved to have seen added, P. T. Barnum for one and Mr. Winchester for another (or even his wife for that matter.
And what about Houdini? In any case you get the idea and type of energy that quickly sucks you in with this concept. Anderson has collected a great bunch of stories (I hesitate to call them stories since some are letters and responses and notes and papers) from a very talented bunch of authors and has show that, once again,science fiction is not only a fiction of ideas but a fiction of fun ideas.
This anthology is well written, well researched and fun. There's also a couple of neat cover paintings by Roger Dean and Tim White. With current thoughts turned to Mars, now is the ideal time to present Wells Martian Invasion as if seen by historical people and written by current SF authors.
Steven Sawicki
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A Man Betrayed
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This is the second book in the great fantasy series A Book of Words , the first book being The Baker's Boy This book continues the story of Jack, the aforementioned baker's boy, Melliandra, headstrong daughter of a nobleman, Prince Kylock the demented who benefits from his father's untimely death, and the knight Tawl, oathbroken and destitute. Before I get carried away let me tell you the final book is out now so it would be an opportune time to get involved with this series.
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This is a big series with a big story to tell. Frankly, fantasy trilogies are a dime a dozen (actually, at about $60 a throw, a dozen trilogies would cost about $720 in hardcover). All trilogies, it seems, have cover art by the same artists depicting the same scenes of juvenile questing and they all disappoint to a varying degree. This is what I had in mind when I approached the first book. In fact, it sat on my desk for quite some time. I'm sorry I waited.
J. V. Jones is an excellent author and while she may very well be a single shot artist, the single shot is well worth following. This is a tale of depth, of many characters who constantly surprise, of treachery and wickedness wrapped in good intentions and self preservation. This is the story of people caught in the decision point of history, all playing a reluctant part and all having a say in what the future might be. This is, and a rare thing indeed it is, a story worth following. Jones uses a pacing style where every chapter moves to follow a different character, whose story may or may not reflect on the character in the previous chapter. This is a time-worn device to break action up into palatable segments and sometimes it is transparent. In this case we are actually sorry to leave each character, wanting to know how things turn out but then immediately enraptured by the new set of circumstances. And there are many characters worth following, which brings me to another point concerning how Jones manages to really construct her characters as fully developed individuals.
This is really a wonderful book and a wonderful series. Jones has done a masterful job of pacing, plotting and story construction. That she is also a first published author just makes it all the more amazing.
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The October Country
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Ray Bradbury has published more than 500 short stories, novels and plays in his lifetime and he's still going! Arguments arise when you try to discuss which he is better at. His novels like The Martian Chronicles are classics, his short stories have all been made into Twilight Zone, Outer Limits or other anthology TV episodes. Is Bradbury the best fantastical short story writer alive now? Is he perhaps the greatest fantastical novelist still writing? Maybe he's the most prolific producer of fantastical episodic television. Myself, I vote yes in all three cases.
Regardless of the medium or the length, Bradbury is a writer who evokes images, who has the ability to juxtapose the absurd and the ordinary. He is, in some ways, a better horror writer than most horror writers. This anthology collects 19 classic Bradbury stories, reprinting 15 from his first anthology, Dark Carnival and adding four more. There's also a new introduction by Bradbury where he tells how he came to produce such work in the first place.
This is vintage Bradbury, the scary settings, the nervous placements, the people you seem to know put in compromising situations, and the devil his payment collecting. Bradbury is purely scary . If you're not a fan you owe it to yourself to give Bradbury a try and find out why he's considered one of the masters of the field. If your an old friend then maybe it's time for a revisit. And if you're somewhere in between, writing this good is never to be passed up.
Del Rey has done a nice job of packaging this anthology and it's worth taking a look at.
Steven Sawicki
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Voyage Of The Basset, James C. Christensen, Artisan Hardcover
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This is a beautifully crafted book. The fact that the physical construction so complements the interior contents is an indication of the thought behind the entire work. The book is half art book and half children's tale and half fantasy. The art is the draw here though.
Christensen is a master at creating weird worlds within worlds within worlds. His work is partially reminiscent of Brian Froud and partly Dr. Suess for it is a mix of the very strange with the strangely romantic and absurd. The art is magnificent. The story which ties together all of the pretty pictures is not bad in and of itself either but it is overshadowed by the wonderful art. Christensen is a talent worth following and this book is a thing worth owning. If you love mythology at all you must getthis for Christensen has portrayed many of the figures and creature so myth. The art is so good that I would dare say that there are at least two dozen single pictures alone which would justify the purchasing of the book. The fact that you get all of them plus the story and all the rest along with the wonderful construction makes this a book that you just should not pass up.
Steven Sawicki
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