The Last Mimzy
© New Line Cinema
Henry Kuttner and THE LAST MIMZY
By: Pat FerraraDate: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Dan Abnett releases a slew of Warhammer novels, Jeffrey Thomas continues the bizarre tales of the inter-dimensional Punktown, and alternate historical fiction runs rampant in this edition of the Weekly Book Buzz.
Greetings Maniac readers and welcome to yet another installment of the Buzz. Since I started this column last summer I’ve never before seen a week where not a single hardcover book was released…until today. Apparently February 27th isn’t a hotspot for hardback debuts, but never fear, we’ve still got quite an eclectic bunch of books hitting the shelves this Tuesday.
Brit fantasy author Dan Abnett rounds out some Warhammer work through Games Workshop this week with the release of the first three Gaunt’s Ghosts novels in the omnibus The Founding. Warpsword, penned by Abnett and Mike Lee, marks the fourth novel in their collaborative Darkblade series. Tactica Imperialis, a background novel on the Warhammer universe, also debuts on paperback today from Abnett.
If you’re an alternate historical fiction fan then this is the week for you with several top novels making their debut from some of the subgenre’s most respected authors. Games Workshop releases an omnibus of David Bishop’s Fiends of the Eastern Front series, Hal Duncan returns with a mind-bending sequel to 2005’s Vellum with Ink: The Book of All Hours, Dave Freer continues the Heirs of Alexandria series with A Mankind Witch, and Peter Tsouras offers another look at the Civil War in Gettysburg: An Alternate History. If that wasn’t enough Harry Turtledove brings the paperbacks of Alternate Generals III and Every Inch a King to the table today as well.
Last but not least Random House Publishing has put out a collection of Henry Kuttner’s sci fi and fantasy literature in The Last Mimzy. Tactfully syncing the book’s name with the movie adaptation of its title story (“Mimsy Were the Borogoves”), this Kuttner collection is also cross-promoting New Line’s upcoming film THE LAST MIMZY. I think the movie looks like a fun ride, but we’ll see if the film’s success makes enough of a splash to direct the negative energy away from director and New Line co-chairman Robert Shaye (whose rep has now become infamous after the botched handling of Peter Jackson and THE HOBBIT prequel).
Other Books to Check Out: Deadstock, Breakfast with the Ones You Love, Ink: The Book of All Hours, & Under My Roof
New in Paperback:
Warpsword of the Warhammer - Darkblade Series © Games Workshop Publishing
In the world of Warhammer, no race is as cruel and treacherous as the dark elves, and no member of this race is more infamous than Malus Darkblade. His soul taken forfeit by a daemon, Darkblade must now seek the legendary Warpsword of Khaine or be forever damned. Book four of the Warhammer: Darkblade series.
The Thirteenth House, Sharon Shinn (Penguin Group USA)
The first book of The Twelve Houses, Mystic and Rider (2004), introduced readers to the troubled land of Gillengaria. Now, Sharon Shinn continues her epic tale, as a beautiful shapeshifter finds that intrigue and danger can be found even in the safest of havens... After joining an unlikely band of soldiers and sorcerers to rescue the kidnapped regent Romar Brendan, the shiftling Kirra returns home to learn that her half-sister, Casserah, has been proclaimed heir to the land. But when Casserah refuses to go on a social tour of great Houses, Kirra shifts into her sister's form and makes the rounds, during which she unexpectedly meets up with her compatriots from her previous adventures. The motley group faces many dangers- and Kirra places herself in peril when she falls in love with the married Lord Romar. Revealing her true identity to him, Kirra begins a tempestuous affair that places them both in mortal danger, and leads them both into the stronghold of the devious lords of the Thirteenth House.
Deadstock © Solaris Books
Punktown: established by Earth colonists on a faraway world, a crime-ridden megalopolis peopled by countless races. There is Stake, the private detective with chameleon-like abilities he can not control. There is his wealthy client, Fukuda, whose company mass produces life forms for labor and as playthings. There is Fukuda's beautiful teenage daughter, whose priceless one-of-a-kind living doll has been stolen. And there is the doll itself, growing in size and resentment. Meanwhile, at an abandoned apartment complex with a dark history, a tough street gang and a band of mutant squatters have been trapped inside by bioengineered life forms mindlessly bent on destroying them like an infestation of vermin. The destinies of all these individuals will converge and collide.
The Founding, Dan Abnett (Games Workshop Publishing)
This omnibus edition of the first three Warhammer: Gaunt's Ghosts novels follows the story of the Tanith First-and-Only regiment (nicknamed the Ghosts) and their charismatic commissar, Ibram Gaunt. As they travel from warzone to warzone in the Chaos-infested Sabbat Worlds system, the Ghosts must not only carry out the most dangerous of missions but also survive the deady politics of the Imperial Guard.
The Last Mimzy, Henry Kuttner (Random House Publishing)
The Last Mimzy is the ideal introduction to an author who was ahead of his time…and whose time has finally come. These seventeen classic stories create their own unique galaxy of vain, protective, and murderous robots; devilish angels; and warm and angry aliens. In “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”–the inspiration for New Line Cinema’s major motion picture THE LAST MIMZY–a boy finds a discarded box containing a treasure trove of curious objects. When he and his sister begin to play with these trinkets, including a crystal cube that magnifies the unimaginable and a strange doll with removable organs that don’t quite correspond to those of the human body, their parents grow concerned. And they should be. For the items are changing the way the children think and perceive the world around them–for better or worse. I don’t care what people say I think this movie looks real cool.
Tempting Evil, Keri Arthur (Dell Publishing)
In a world of sorcery and seduction, the nights bring out the beautiful, the damned, and the desired. Here, Riley Jenson is on her own–half werewolf, half vampire, working for an organization created to police the supernatural races. Trusting her superiors and lovers barely more than she trusts her worst enemies, Riley plays by her own set of rules. Her latest mission: to enter the heavily guarded pleasure palace of a criminal named Deshon Starr, a madman-scientist who’s been messing around in the gene pool for decades. With two sexy men–a cool, seductive vampire and an irresistibly hot wolf–vying for her attention, Riley must keep focused. Because saving the world from Deshon Starr will mean saving herself from the trap that’s closing in around her… Book three in the Riley Jensen Guardian series.
Tactica Imperialis of the Warhammer 40K Series © Games Workshop Publishing
A Warhammer 40,000 background book, emulating in tone the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, though describing a number of significant battles and campaigns in Imperial history. Comes from the perspective of an actual educational document of the 41st Millennium and as such is packed with diagrams, maps, artwork, photos and numerous facts and figures of these battles. A book only true Abnett fans can fully appreciate.
Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, Abolqasem Ferdowsi (Penguin Group USA)
The great national epic of Persia—the most complete English-language edition. Wherever Persian influence has spread, the stories of the Shahnameh become deeply embedded in the culture, as their appearance in such novels as The Kite Runner amply attests. Among the greatest works of world literature, this prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi in the late tenth century, tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century. The sweep and psychological depth of the Shahnameh is nothing less than magnificent. Now one of the greatest translators of Persian poetry, Dick Davis, presents Ferdowsi's masterpiece in an elegant combination of prose and verse.
The Southern Cross, Jack McKinney (Del Rey Publishing)
Three Robotech: The Master Saga novels for the price of one. #7 SOUTHERN CROSS: The Robotech Masters had come to Earth to finish the conquest their Zentraedi warrior-slaves had begun... and a battle-ravaged planet had to defend itself once more. That was when Dana Sterling, half-Human, half-Zentraedi commander of an elite Hovertank unit, stepped into the spotlight of interstellar history! #8 METAL FIRE: An alien fortress had crash landed on Earth, brought down in the struggle between the Robotech Masters and Earth's Human inhabitants. Now the fortress dared someone to penetrate its dark mysteries. And who better to brave that ship than Dana Sterling's 15th Squadron ATACs, after all, they had brought the thing down to begin with! #9 THE FINAL NIGHTMARE: The Robotech Masters' Protoculture Matrix was degenerating, transforming into the Flower of Life, which was sure to draw the savage, merciless Invid across the galaxy to Earth. But the Army of the Southern Cross vowed to fight to the bitter end. And Dana Sterling raged a desperate war of her own to decipher her strange visions and the secret of her alien heritage...
Ahmrahlynn, Drew Hayes, Keith Davidsen, & Aaron Bordner (Sirius Entertainment)
Amrahlynn is the world of Poison Elves, where Tolkien-fantasy meets Goth-sensibility in a continuing struggle between the races of man, elf, troll and pixie. This volume is a collection of character solo stories by Davidsen and Bordner, bound together by the narration of fan favorite, funny-guy Parintichin. Each story features one of Lusiphur's friends or nemeses, like Cassandra, Lynn & Jace and - of course - The Purple Marauder, in a complete tale of mayhem and debauchery, as the case may be. Also included are three extremely rare stories by Drew Hayes, never before available in graphic novel form, all wrapped together with a brand new cover by Hayes. Volume two of the Poison Elves Ventures series.
A Mankind Witch, Dave Freer (Baen Books)
In an alternate world where magic works, the Holy Roman Empire still rules Europe and the time of the Renaissance has come… with very different results. Norway is still pagan, and a sacred relic, the Armring of Telemark, has been stolen from Odin's temple. Without it, truce-oaths cannot be renewed and bloody war with the Empire will follow. Signy, the older stepsister to the King Vortenbras, is accused. When she disappears, most think it proof of her guilt. Her only partisan, the Corsair-Captain Cair, knows that she had been carried off and is determined to find and rescue her. Cair is an educated man, and a hardened skeptic, thinking that all talk of magic is nonsense. As he and Prince Manfred of Brittany set out to rescue Signy, following her trail into the Underworld, battling trolls and other deadly supernatural creatures every step of the way, he will not only find that magic is very real, and dangerously so, but that he himself has a natural talent for it. A new novel set in the universe of the top-selling books The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic; the Heirs of Alexandria series.
Games of Command, Linnea Sinclair (Bantam Books)
The universe isn’t what it used to be. With the new Alliance between the Triad and the United Coalition, Captain Tasha “Sass” Sebastian finds herself serving under her former nemesis, biocybe Admiral Branden Kel-Paten–and doing her best to hide a deadly past. But when an injured mercenary winds up in their ship’s sick bay–and in the hands of her best friend, Dr. Eden Fynn–Sass’s efforts may be wasted. Wanted rebel Jace Serafino has information that could expose all of Sass’s secrets, tear the fragile Alliance apart, and end Sass’s career if Kel-Paten discovers them. But the biocybe has something to hide as well, something once thought impossible for his kind to possess: feelings… for Sass. Soon it’s clear that their prisoner could bring down everything they once believed was worth dying for, and everything they now have to live for.
Breakfast with the Ones You Love, Eliot Fintushel (Bantam Books)
Meet Lea Tillim, aka Cadaver Dimples, Star of Morgues and Emergency Rooms. Scarecrow thin, with a sharp crew cut and a dead face, Lea’s a girl with a talent. She can think you into a heart attack if you cross her–or, if she’s feeling kind, just a bad case of indigestion. She has only one friend in the world, her cat, Tule. You see, a girl like Lea can’t be too careful whom she shows her talent to. In her experience it only leads to troubles and tragedies. Now it’s led her to Jack Konar, who’s secretly building something strange and wonderful in an abandoned section of the local Sears and Roebuck. According to Jack, it’s all part of a master plan to rescue the Chosen from this godforsaken planet. But the agents of the Evil Ones–cleverly disguised as ordinary people and sometimes even cats–are trying to stop him. Jack needs a girl with Lea’s special talents. It would all sound just too crazy for words if the most dangerous and unexpected thing of all hadn’t happened. After years of the best poker face grief could buy, Lea finds herself slowly coming back to life… and falling in love with the savior of the world.
Ink: The Book of All Hours, Hal Duncan (Random House Publishing Group)
When reality is written on skin, only blood will do as ink, the astonishing sequel to Hal Duncan’s groundbreaking literary fantasy Vellum (2005). It's twenty years since the Evenfall swept across the Vellum and the bitmites took reality apart, twenty years since Phreedom Messenger disappeared into the wilderness and Seamus Finnan was imprisoned in his own past. Twenty years of chaos… but the Dukes, the remnants of the Covenant, still cling to power in their enclaves of order in the bitmite-devastated wilderness. Across the folds of time and space, though, rogues and rebels are rising up against the Empire. From a mediaeval fortress where wandering mummers stage a Harlequin play based on Euripides’s The Bacchae to Kentigern where another Harlequin, Jack Flash, wreaks havoc on a fascist state that thought him dead. From a 1939 Paris where Jack Carter and Seamus Finnan, heroes of the International Brigades, seek to rewrite history to a 1929 Berlin where a very different Jack seeks to save the world from a history he has helped make real. Locked in an eternal battle of chaos and order, it seems everyone must play their part now, as rebel or tyrant, hero or villain.
Gettysburg: An Alternate History, Peter Tsouras (Presidio Press)
In the Battle of Gettysburg, the difference between victory and defeat was as narrow and sharp as a knife edge. And in those three horrific days of sweltering heat and roaring cannon fire, the outcome was decided not only by acts of courage and strategic decisions but by the character of the players, complex relationships, and pure coincidence. What if a few key factors had gone another way? What if Robert E. Lee’s brilliant young cavalry commander Jeb Stewart had arrived earlier than the second day of battle? What if Pickett’s Charge had been swifter and stronger? What if the Army of the Potomac was commanded by the daring Winfield Hancock instead of the more cautious George Meade? Gettysburg fuses a chaotic clash of arms with a keen vision of how wars are fought and won–or lost. Most of all, this is a monumental, blow-by-blow re-imagining of one of history’s most famous battles, the men who shaped it, the events it triggered, and the way it might have been.
Fiends of the Eastern Front, David Bishop (Games Workshop)
Games Workshop is proud to present the collected edition of David Bishop's World War Two magnum opus. From the Russian front in 1941, the Siege of Leningrad in 1942, to the bloody climax in Berlin, 1945, we see Lord Constanta dictate his vampire cadre to influence the outcome of the war with unholy terror. Fiends of the Eastern front mixes the gritty realism of war, rich military detail and alternate history.
Every Inch a King, Harry Turtledove (Random House Publishing)
It's Good to Be the King. They say that everyone has a twin somewhere and when Otto of Schlepsig sees the picture of Prince Halim Eddin, he realizes that he's not only found his twin, but his ticket out of the third rate circus run by Dooger and Cark. Instead of performing on a tightrope for the marks, he's taking his act to Shqiperi, where the Prince has been invited to become their new king, a role that Otto is more than happy to assume himself. And so, Otto and his companion, the sword-swallowing Max of Witte, leave the circus in search of the royal treasury…and royal harem…of Shqiperi. But after traversing dangerous seas and facing incompetents, monsters, and pirates, they now face their most dangerous challenge - the suspicions of Otto's new subjects. Shqiperi bargained for Halim Eddin, raised in a royal household, to be their ruler. But when Otto, a rogue with very specific ideas about the duties of a king, arrives in his place, they get something that they never bargained for. If rank has its privileges, Otto intends to enjoy all of them. Every Inch a King is a humorous fantasy filled with feats of derring-do, wondrous magic, and beautiful maide…well, beautiful women. Otto and Max find that they have entered a royal world that is truly fantastic. And perhaps most fantastic of all, it is based on a true story.
Dante's Girl © Solaris Books
When Kayla Steel's fiancé, Karrel Dante, is found mauled to death, she thinks it is the end of her world. But when Karrel shockingly returns from the dead, Kayla is stunned to find out that everything she knew about the man she loved was a lie. Part of an underground network of supernatural hit-men, Karrel had secretly dedicated his life to exterminating the dangerous supernatural entities that stalked the streets of California. Now Kayla is on a mission to learn the Dark Arts so she can avenge Karrel’s death and bring peace to the supernatural community by continuing his work. Not easy for a girl trying to hold down a job at the perfume counter to pay her mounting bills.
Alternate Generals III, Harry Turtledove (Baen Books)
"History shows that leadership is crucial in war, but there are other factors at work. What if history were given a twist or two, and great commanders on land and sea fought their greatest battles under different circumstances?" Harry Turtledove and his colleagues turn the past upside down and inside out, and the possibilities are endless. The third novel in the Alternate Generals series?
Eldar Prophecy, Cassern S. Goto (Games Workshop Publishing)
Isolated and alone, the Eldar craftworld Kaelor floats through the dark reaches of space. Exacting vengeance on those who brought low his ancestors, a youthful Eldar warrior wreaks destruction across the craftworld… but can the prophecy that drives him be trusted, or are darker forces at work? A Warhammer 40K novel.
Under My Roof of the Soft Skull ShortLit Series © Soft Skull Press
Herbert Weinberg's father is striking a blow for freedom. Implanting a nuclear device within a garden gnome in the front yard of their Long Island home, he's declared independence from the U.S. The household is understandably in an uproar. Mother's gone, the local weatherman has moved in, and 12-yeard-old Herbert is simultaneously a hostage and the minister of information. A daring raid plucks the lad from his ancestral home, but even while troops surround the belligerent house state of Weinbergia, the call to freedom has been sounded. The house is rapidly filling up with American refuseniks. Can the refrigerator hold out? And will Herbert's telepathic powers defeat imperialism and reunite him with his father? A comical satire on near-future politics, Under My Roof is a novelette in the Soft Skull ShortLit series.
New in Audiobook:
The Ultimate Adventure © Galaxy Press
In a bizarre twist of fate, Stevie Jebson is caught between two worlds as the unwitting victim of a renegade research scientist. Down on his luck and penniless, he is tricked into volunteering for a horrifying experiment, and soon finds himself trapped in another dimension, facing a wild array of dangers in a long-forgotten enchanted city. Pitted against a variety of villainous mortals, shape-changing ghouls and the Machiavellian jinn Karoof, in a world where the entire populace has been spellbound and enslaved for years, Stevie has no choice but to pluck up what courage he can to break the spell and restore the city to its rightful ruler… or face certain death. An abridged edition of the original 1939 publication.
That does it for this Tuesday’s Weekly Book Buzz. Be sure to check back next week for all the latest on new sci fi, fantasy, and horror book releases. Questions or Comments? Hit me up at PFerrara.mania@gmail.com.
