True Review : If You Have A Story, We Have You Covered!

Number 74 Vol.19 No.3 February 2010

Diving Into The Wreck:

DIVING INTO THE WRECK, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Pyr/Prometheus (www.pyrsf.com), 2009, 269 pp., $16.00. ISBN 978-1-59102-786-7

In DIVING INTO THE WRECK, salvage- and tourist-wreck "diver" Boss, captain of the space vessel Nobody's Business, discovers the exact coordinates of a ship, Dignity Vessel class, abandoned and adrift in space. Along with several of her colleagues, including Squishy (Rosealma Quintinia) and others, the ship, bearing old earth combat technology, is an anomaly - adrift where it simply should not exist, out of location, out of time. The ship is equipped with top-secret stealth technology that is deadly to humans - proven many times as others, attempting to board the ship, are killed in the Room of Lost Souls.

Does Boss try to recover the long-lost technology - or simply destroy it to save lives? And as she learns that the ship's past and destiny are linked to her own father's - what alternatives does she have?

DIVING is an angst-driven, complex story of the personalities driven to protect and reclaim a vessel literally out of space and time, providing great reading. The novel "arc" is a series of novellas appearing originally as "Diving into the Wreck" and "Room of Lost Souls," from Asimov's SF Magazine.

Andrew M. Andrews

Warriors - George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Diving Into The Wreck - Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Jewel Hinged Jaw - Samuel R. Delaney

Boilerplate - Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett

Swords From The Desert - Howard Andrew Jones

Dinner at Mr. Jefferson's - Charles A. Cerami

The Raindrop's Adventure - Kimberly Kerr

An Irish Country Christmas - Patrick Taylor

Puttering About in a Small Land - Philip K. Dick

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant - Jeffrey Ford

CYBERABAD DAYS, by Ian McDonald. Pyr/Prometheus (www.prometheusbooks.com), 2009, 279 pp., $15.00. ISBN 978-1-59102-699-0

Seven stories in CYBERABAD DAYS are set in the year 2047 in India, including a Hugo Award winner and nominee.

THE THIRD SIGN, by Gregory A. Wilson. Five Star/Gale Cengage Learning (www.gale.cengage.com), 2009, 351 pp., $25.95. ISBN 978-1-59414-765-4

Calen Gollnet, resident of the country of Klune, watches as his world goes to war, as the peace made by the king and the arlics has become tenuous at best. But the armies are the least of his concern, as the Soul Wall appears. Prophecies are coming true - and what will the latest portend?

BY BLOOD WE LIVE, ed. by John Joseph Adams. Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 2009, 485 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-59780-156-0

There is a strange craving for these types of stories, felt by mostly teenage girls suddenly feeling the throngs of post-puberty. And there are plenty of authors to accommodate this strangeness, indeed.

TWO EXCELLENT TACHYON ANTHOLOGIES:

THE SECRET HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION, ed. by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. Tachyon (www.tachyonpublications.com), 2009, 381 pp., $14.95. ISBN 978-1-892391-93-3

I remember reading most of these SF classics when they were first published, with seminal work by Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. LeGuin, Lucius Shepard, Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe, James Patrick Kelly, and many others.

Also:

THE VERY BEST OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, 60th Anniversary Anthology, ed. by Gordon Van Gelder. Tachyon (www.tachyonpublications.com), 2009, 475 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-892391-91-9

Many of these I read collected in other anthologies, and some I read in the magazine itself. (I have subscribed to F&SF regularly from 1977-2007, and off and on since 2008.) Included are works by Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, Theodore Sturgeon, Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, Damon Knight, Ursula K. LeGuin, Neil Gaiman, Ted Chiang, and others).

A Sample Of Our Upcoming Reviews...

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes, ed. by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. Edge (www.edgewebsite.com), 2009, 311 pp., $16.95. ISBN 978-1-894063-31-9

TESSERACTS THIRTEEN ed. by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell. Edge (www.edgewebsite.com), 2009, 317 pp., $16.95. ISBN 978-1-894063-25-8

THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR Vol. 1, ed. by Ellen Datlow. Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 2009, 321 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-59780-161-4