12 WEEKLYPRESS.COM • UCREVIEW.COM • DECEMBER 5 • 2012 Science Fiction for December 2012 continued from page 11


ammonia, and Tim, cabin boy have found their way to Aus- tralia, The Cuttlefish (hard). With the submarine in dry dock, Tim takes a job working on The Steam Mole (hard from Pyr) but his dark skin gets him mistaken for an aboriginal and kicked off the Mole in the mid- dle of the desert. Clara gets a letter from the British, possibly from her father, Jack, who has been transported to work on the mines. With her mother sick (actually poisoned,) Clara runs to Tim and steals a mini steam mole to find him on the desert. In the meantime Jack escapes. Meanwhile Clara’s


mother recovers and manages to get the rest of the Cuttle- fish crew together to find her daughter and deal with a British invasion of Rebel ter- ritory. This nicely concludes the juvenile series. I found it hard to believe that the various characters would find them- selves but Dave Freer justifies it well enough to allow for a fun read.


I knew that Alan Dean


Foster’s tale of two ordinary folks making their way into a top secret installation in deepest Africa would end in a Deus ex Machina be- cause otherwise there was no way that Whispr and his Physician ally Ingrid would manage to break their way into. But after surviving flash floods, sand storms and heavy security, The Sum of Her Parts (trade from Del Rey) takes them to a the core secret that I expected from the previous books. It’s still fun even though Whispr and Ingrid survive more by luck than by their wits. I almost stopped reading Ian McDonald’s sequel to his fun Planesrunner (paper) in which Everett Singh found the secret to mapping the of parallel and is on the run from people who want the secret enough to have sent his father randomly out into the multi-universe. The problem was that the tale starts with an alternate Everett Singh who is turned into a modified cyborg with lasers and missiles to at- tack and kill the version of him still flying with the crew of air- ship Everness. Be My Enemy (hard from Pyr) soon returns us to our hero and is friend Sen as they find their way to the first Universe that discov- ered how to travel to alternate universes, but then had nano- technology go wrong and eat most of the people. Everett has to survive not only the attacks by his duplicate, but also find the technology that will help locate his father. Lots of action and fun.


I’ve been enjoying Sheryl Nantus’s tales of super hero sidekicks who ended up sav- ing the world from an alien invasion. Before that a group of guardians working for the Agency who keep them in line with bombs in their brain stems. Even though the remote signal was destroyed, there are still portable sen- sors. Heroes Lost and Found (digital from Samhain Pub- lishing, Ltd) tells of a de- ranged guardian who wants to use one of these devices plus to control the remaining super heroes. Jo Tanis tries


to catch him and ends up captured herself and forced to fight her own team. Lots of fun for those who like their super heroes with heart. S. G. Browne considers Zombies with brains, at least as much as what they started with. When his hero, Andy (introduced in Breathers), escapes from the lab work- ing on Zombies, he puts on a Santa Claus suit, tries to bring Christmas to a little girl, and break his friend out of the torturing lab clutches. I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus (hard from Gallery Books) is a very silly tale that is perfect for that rare combination of Zombie and Christmas lover and a bit of a giggle. Travis S. Taylor presents


his argument for A New American Space Plan (trade from Baen). It probably won’t happen.


Bantam Books has a col- lection of David Drake tales, Knight and Demons (trade) and George R. R. Martin’s Dreamsongs Volume I and Volume II (trade) Baen starts the season with We Wish You a Cosmic Christmas (trade from Baen and edited by Hank Davis).


Baen has two paper re- prints; Catherine Asaro’s tale of music in her Skolian Empire series, The Carnelians; and classic tales from A. Bertram Chandler, First Command. Bantam Books has re- printed George R. R. Mar- tin’s early novels in trade including: Dying of the Light; Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle); and The Armageddon Rag. He was always a terrific writer, but these come with solid endings. Baen has reprinted in paper classic tales by Cord- wainer Smith, When the Peo- ple Fell; Robert A. Heinlein’s classic Starman Jones which still use sliderules to navigate the stars; David Drake and John Lambshead’s tale of hu- man powered star ships that go Into the Hinterlands; and fun space opera by Robert Buettner, Undercurrents. Del Rey has a thirty- fifth anniversary edition of


Terry Brooks, The Annotated Sword of Shannara (hard). Mr. Brooks was, of course, writing his version of Lord of the Rings and has become a much better writer. Gallery books has Star


Trek: Klingon Bird-of-prey Haynes Manual (Hard) by Rick Sternbach and Ben Rob- inson for star trek fans. The Science Fiction Soci-


ety will have its next meeting on December 9th


at 8 p.m. at


International House at 37th and Chestnut Streets. John Henry, who also writes as Jack Campbell and is known for his fun space opera. As usual guests are welcome. Dr. Henry Lazarus is a lo- cal Dentist and the author of A Cycle of Gods (Wolfsinger Publications) and Unnatu- rally Female (Smashwords)


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