Books this Month

By: Chris Wyatt
Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2002

A big hello out there to all you genre book enthusiasts. Before we get underway, I want to ask for some help. Next month I'd like to start off Wordscape with a few reader recommendations.

What have you read lately? What have you liked? What have you hated? Want to warn people away from a title? Want to make sure your fellow readers find a title? Drop me a line at: otherland71@hotmail.com.

I'll pick five or six of you're e-mails and include them in the next month's edition of Wordscape. (Please mention whether you want your name made public or not). But, without further ado...

Let's get right into this month's releases: Of course everyone should already know that this is a big month for mainstream horror-- new releases hit shelves from both Stephen King and Clive Barker. Undoubtedly publishers are looking to bring up awareness for the titles before this coming Halloween sales season (which is like the retail Christmas of the horror genre).

You're going to have to wait for the end of this article to read about Barker's ABARAT but here's the skinny on King's FROM A BUICK 8... With King declaring his intentions to hang up his typewriter and go into retirement after the conclusion of the next DARK TOWER trilogy, many fans are frantic to get their hands on what could be one of his last novels ever...


But at the same time, BUICK is another haunted car story, along the lines of CHRISTINE. One of the reasons King sited for his coming retirement is that he felt like he was using the same ideas over and over again. Does that mean that BUICK will read like old news? We'll have to wait and see...

There are two potentially interesting releases from ACE. The first is THE FORGE OF MARS by Bruce Balfour. Outwardly the book doesn't seem too original: basically some astronauts are exploring and they come across alien artifacts. Then somebody sends out the smartest physicist in the world, who starts researching the thing...until he gets a big surprise of some kind.

Yeah, I know. It's the same old alien artifact scenario that we've seen a thousand times... But the buzz off this book is good. Keep in mind that ACE put out Ken Wharton's DIVINE INTERVENTION which, based on the back cover, seemed like just another "generation ship" story, but turned out to be genre redefining. Also, I've just re-read Nancy Kress' PROBABILITY SUN (so that I could review PROBABILITY SPACE) and that's basically another artifact story. So give Balfour the benefit of the doubt.

The other ACE release is William C. Dietz's EARTHRISE which is a sequel to DEATHDAY. I have to profess that I've never read Dietz, though I know that he has a very solid following. Apparently this one involves secret agents and puppet governments. I think I'm going to check it out when it gets here.

TOR, which has been on a pretty great run lately, has two more solid hits this month. There's DUNE: THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD, which tells about the war with the thinking machines; and there's THE COLLECTED STORIES OF GREG BEAR, which is a self-explanatory book. It's about time a volume like this hit stands. It leads with "Blood Music", the essential nanobot tale.

From I BOOKS comes ULTIMATE CYBERPUNK and anthology co-edited by dystopian legend Pat Cadigan. Personally I'm a huge cyberpunk fan, so I'm interested in this collection, which supposedly follows the sub-genre from its roots in Philip K Dick all the way to its current post-cyber manifestations.

My only real concern is that the collection might turn out to be just one big rehash of all the same stories we've read over and over again since Bruce Sterling edited MIRROR SHADES way back when. The cover art is actually from an unpopular graphic novel version of NEUROMANCER; but "never judge a book by it's cover", right? We should trust in Ms. Cadigan.

Speaking of post-cyberpunk, here's a solid entry: EOS is releasing a new author, Kelly Eskridge's first book, SOLITAIRE, which is a bizarre tale of crime and punishment in a hollow future.

The small presses are always on the move as evidenced by NESFA PRESS' release of the collected novels of Frederic Brown, called, appropriately enough, MARTIANS AND MADNESS. The volume includes the text of the amazing book WHAT MAD UNIVERSE. Of course, knowing NESFA, you'll probably need a high-powered magnifying glass to read the microscope font size (this Oxford English Dictionary).

Also on the small press front, Galaxy Press (formerly Bridge Publications), L. Ron Hubbard's follower's company, is releasing the next in their yearly WRITER'S OF THE FUTURE contest winner books. If you're into that, there it is.

DEL REY's big fantasy release is Terry Brooks' MORGAWR: THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA, BOOK THREE. The dude has been in the epic fantasy business for over twenty-five years and he's still going strong. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Tolkien!

Back to EOS for a great coffee table volume that's the runner up for pick of the month. It's called RAY BRADBURY: AN ILLUSTRATED LIFE by Jerry Weist. The book is a very comprehensive collection of images related to the career of the master fiction writer. It contains book covers, sketches, film storyboards and photos of the author in various stages of life. No Bradbury fan should be without it.

But now...(drum roll)...it's time for the:

WORDSCAPE PICK OF THE MONTH

Clive Barker's long in the works, extremely well illustrated children's novel ABARAT is a fanciful tale about a girl named Candy who, while avoiding her dysfunctional parents, runs into a mysterious lighthouse and an eight-headed creature called John Mischief. Candy soon becomes embroiled in a fantastical adventure across the archipelago of Abarat.

The lovely writing is some of Barker's best and most imaginative. Check it out.

Wordscape is our monthly Books column.

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