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WEEKLYPRESS.COM •
UCREVIEW.COM • JANUARY 23, 2013 Science Fiction for January 2013 By Henry Leon Lazarus M
ixing genres is dif- ficult, but fantasy and Science Fiction
are very welcoming to tales that mix in mystery or even classic western. When the mixture works, it’s like a well mixed ice cream soda. R. S. Belcher’s The Six-
Gun Tarot (hard from Tor) takes place a few years after the civil war, in a town in the Nevada des- ert. Golgotha is home of a played-out silver mine, a sheriff who can’t be killed and his half-Indian deputy who talks to coyotes as a brother. It’s a place that at- tracts strange magic like the golden books of John Smith held in trust by Golgotha’s
Handmade
Goods
Open Tuesday-Saturday
gay, Mormon mayor. When the mine is lost in a poker game to a hapless banker, later murdered, strange people come to town. There’s an ancient evil stir-
Unique
gifts
ring under the mountain. It’s been around since be- fore creation and it can’t be contained again. Soon the town’s people have been taken over by the evil, and only silver bullets can kill them. Finally only the sher- iff, his deputy, a fifteen-year old boy who revenged his father and recovered his magical artificial eye, and the banker’s wife who was trained as an assassin, can save the world. Impossible to put down and an amaz- ing first novel. R. S. Belcher is an author to watch. I read Joanne Bertin’s first two tales of were- dragons in a fantasy world twice. The Last Dragon Lord (Tor) introduced to Maurana, a ship’s captain who discovers the hidden dragon inside her. Then the second tale sent them to another country where the inhabitants have locked up both a Dragon and Phoe- nix (Tor) and our friends have to rescue them. Now everyone is home and en- joying a horse fair. There are jokes about people not recognizing Raven’s Llysanyin mount because they usually only bond to Dragonlords and there’s a bully of a noble’s son who causes some problems. But true evil arrives in the form of a master Bard, Leet, on a mission of revenge. He has a harp made out of evil
meantime the quest to dis- cover the murder uncovers a horrible plot. While the monster seems designed to fit the story constraints, the characters who confront various forms of it, are quite three dimensional. The tale is impossible to put down.
Lois McMaster Bujold
wood that can force people to do evil. He lost a grand- son to a mad horse and he want’s the horse and all those responsible for his grandson’s death to die, even if it breaks his Bard’s Oath (hard from Tor). I can only hope this isn’t the last tale set in this fun world. Peter F. Hamilton writes
You shouldn’t need
a student loan to get a great haircut
monstrously long tales. Great North Road (hard from Del Rey) is set in 2143 on St. Libra, a warm world with only plant life orbiting Serius. There are gates to ship the biofuel grown on St. Libra back to both Earth and other colony planets and that has made the North family of clones (the only clones) very rich. Then the dead body of a North clone is found. It was mur- dered by the same method used two decades before, a murder of fourteen people. The only survivor had been accused of the murder and locked up. Now, as the only witness she is sent on an expedition to the far end of St. Libra, a part of the planet never explored, to look for the monster. The expedition is attacked, the weather on St. Libra sud- denly changes to very cold and you get the classic tale of a polar expedition being hunted by a monster. In the
returns to her Vorkosigan future tales. Ivan has al- ways been a bit of a joke in the series.When a friend asks him to look after a damsel in distress, he ends up defending her from immigration by marrying her, something he thinks is temporary because his uncle, a judge on Barrayar. What he doesn’t count on is that his mother, Miles, and the Emperor Gregor all like the girl and want the mar- riage to continue so that Ivan will settle down. Then the in-laws arrive, and, with the help of Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (hard from Baen) to protect them, set on finding lost treasure buried under Imperial Se- curity Headquarters. What happens then is a solid giggle and a must for fans of this fun series.
Kim Harrison continues the tale of Rachel Morgan, a witch who because of genetic engineering that saved her life, is the only demon in our reality. The others live in the Ever After (hard from Harper Voyager), a place that pow- ers magic. When energy starts leaking fromEver After, dooming the place, Rachael is blamed. But the problem is really caused by a powerful demon who is kidnapping babies with the same genetic flaw that almost killed Rachael. Then her friends are kidnapped and Rachael has to figure out how to save her uni- verse and the Ever After
by creating magic far more powerful than anything she has ever attempted before, magic that can kill her. This is just as much fun as the previous ten in the series and I am still looking for- ward to the next. Harper Voyager has
brought Kylie Chan’s tales of a schoolteacher turned nanny who discovers that her boss is a real Chinese god and a giant turtle from Australia. In the first tril- ogy, he was very week and Emma fighting methods to kill demons. Then he disappeared to recover his energy. In Heaven to Wodang (paper) the third book of the final trilogy, John Chen is finally back and he and Emily face the evil Kitty Kwok while try- ing to keep their followers safe. But not everything ends happily because there is a third trilogy in the process of being writ- ten. Unlike the first two trilogies which came out monthly in paper because they had already appeared in Australia, I suspect that we will see the final books of the trilogy out in hard cover, one per year. I’ve enjoyed these so far, with their fun view of Chinese mythological figures in the modern world. It is, alas, getting a bit repetitive and overly long. Fans should keep going.
The Science Fiction Society will have its next meeting on January 27th at 40th
at the Rotunda and Walnut St. Shaw-
na McCarthy, who edited Asimov’s and is now an edi- tor and agent will speak. As usual, guests are welcome. Dr. Henry Lazarus is a
local Dentist and the au- thor of A Cycle of Gods (Wolfsinger Publications) and Unnaturally Female (Smashwords)
continued from page 7 All services provided by supervised students.
Chestnut Street at 40th | 267.350.8800 315A Bainbridge Street | 215.574.0334 7248 Frankford Avenue | 215.332.5133
www.jeanmadeline.com
Stern performs Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1(Classical), Wolf’s Italian Serenade, Schubert’s Symphony No.2 and with guest soloist Jo- seph Conyers, Bottesini’s Double Bass Concerto No. 2. Jan. 27 at 2:30 p.m. and Jan. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Perel- man Theater at the Kim- mel Center, Broad and Spruce. 215-545-1739.d
Crossroads Music pres- ents our city’s Peter Tang Ensemble performing tra- ditional and contemporary Chinese music on Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m. in a ticketed per- formance preceded at 6 pm. by a free children’s pro- gram. 801 S. 48th St. Tickets and further information at 215-285-2307. d A Settlement Music School Winter Orches- tra Festival is set for 3
p.m. on Jan. 27 featuring all Settlement student orchestras including the noted Trowbridge Cham- ber Orchestra led by Jeri Lynne Johnson. Free in- cluding free on-site park- ing. PNC Bank Presser Recital Hall, Settlement Music School, 416 Queen St. 215-320-2600. d
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