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Darwin's Radio
by
Greg Bear
All the best thrillers contain the solution to a mystery, and the mystery in this intellectually sparkling scientific thriller is more crucial and stranger than most. Why are people turning against their neighbors and their newborn children? And what is causing an epidemic of still births? A disgraced paleontologist and a genetic engineer both come across evidence of cover-ups in which the government is clearly up to no good. But no one knows what's really going on, and the government is covering up because that is what, in thrillers as in life, governments do. And what has any of this to do with the discovery of a Neanderthal family whose mummified faces show signs of a strange peeling? |
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Lucifer's Hammer
by
Larry Niven
and
Jerry Pournelle
The gigantic comet had slammed into Earth, forging earthquakes a thousand times too powerful to measure on the Richter scale, tidal waves thousands of feet high. Cities were turned into oceans; oceans turned into steam. It was the beginning of a new Ice Age and the end of civilization. But for the terrified men and women chance had saved, it was also the dawn of a new struggle for survival--a struggle more dangerous and challenging than any they had ever known.... |
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Eaters of the Dead
by
Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton takes the listener on a one-thousand-year-old journey in his adventure novel Eaters Of The Dead. This remarkable true story originated from actual journal entries of an Arab man who traveled with a group of Vikings throughout northern Europe. In 922 A.D, Ibn Fadlan, a devout Muslim, left his home in Baghdad on a mission to the King of Saqaliba. During his journey, he meets various groups of "barbarians" who have poor hygiene and gorge themselves on food, alcohol and sex. For Fadlan, his new traveling companions are a far stretch from society in the sophisticated "City of Peace." The conservative and slightly critical man describes the Vikings as "tall as palm trees with florid and ruddy complexions." Fadlan is astonished by their lustful aggression and their apathy towards death. He witnesses everything from group orgies to violent funeral ceremonies. Despite the language and cultural barriers, Ibn Fadlan is welcomed into the clan. The leader of the group, Buliwyf (who can communicate in Latin) takes Fadlan under his wing. Without warning, the chieftain is ordered to haul his warriors back to Scandinavia to save his people from the "monsters of the mist." Ibn Fadlan follows the clan and must rise to the occasion in the battle of his life. |
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Timeline
by
Michael Crichton
When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole," and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat. This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates's most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artifacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages, and Crichton marvelously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air." I dare you not to turn the page! |
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The
Peshawar Lancers
by
S. M. Stirling
Aimed at readers who thrill to King, Empire and the fluttering Union Jack, as well as to brave white heroes, their faithful dusky-skinned servants and sneering villains, this alternative history from the bestselling author of the Islander novels supposes that in 1878 "a series of high-velocity heavenly bodies struck the earth," wreaking havoc throughout Europe and North America. Because much of the British merchant fleet survived the "Fall," the English upper classes were able to escape to the Asian subcontinent. As a result, the British raj, extending from Delhi through India, Afghanistan and the Kashmir, still exists in the 21st century, though the technology consists of 19th-century vintage railways, hydrogen airships and a turbine-powered building-sized "Engine," the equivalent of a computer. It's a nifty premise, but in trying to continue in the grand tradition of such adventure writers as Kipling, Lamb and Mundy, whom Stirling acknowledges as influences, the author fails to inject much life into his stock characters, from the heroic Captain Athelstane King of the Lancers and the captain's memsahib sister, Cassandra, to King's Sikh companion, his trusty Muslim servant and the inevitable wise and helpful Jew. Unfortunately, this is less history altered than simply stopped, and the story is wordy pastiche rather than active inspiration. Not without humor, appendices survey the worldwide consequences of the Fall, complete with the succession of British monarchs from Victoria on. |
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Lest Darkness Fall,
to Bring the Light
by
L. Sprague De Camp
and
David Drake
"Lest Darkness Fall..." is arguably the novel that began the entire science fiction sub-genre of alternate history. Centering around a Ph.D. candidate studying in Rome in the late 1930s, early 1940s, it tackles the idea question of "What would you do if you had the chance to save the Roman Empire?" Perched at the very edge of the twilight of the (Western) Roman civilization, it realistically tackles the political, scientific and cultural problems of the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. in southern Europe. De Camp was not only a famous science fiction author (a lesser-known contemporary of Isaac Asimov), but he was a published historian and classicist in his own right. This book showcases all three of those fields in one go - at the height of his writing talent. The short story paired with this, "To Bring The Light" by David Drake, is less meant as a serious contender in terms of literary quality than an homage to de Camp's work. Dealing with the founding of the Roman civilization in much the way that "Lest Darkness Fall..." deals with it's death throes, it succeeds in showing the David Drake's admiration for de Camp's work. Ultimately, though, I'd buy the book for "Lest Darkness Fall...": it's a surprisingly ignored but wonderful novel that paved the way for what has become an entire sub-field of science fiction. Whether you like alternate history or not, though, this book should not be missed. |
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Darwinia
by
Robert Charles Wilson
In 1912, the entire European continent and all of the United Kingdom mysteriously vanished during the Miracle, replaced by an alien landscape known as Darwinia. Darwinia seems to be a slice of another Earth, one that diverged from our own millions of years ago and took a separate evolutionary path. As a 14-year-old boy, Guilford Law witnessed the Miracle as shimmering lights playing across the ocean sky. Now as a grown man, he is determined to travel to Darwinia and explore its mysteries. To that end he enlists as a photographer in the Finch expedition, which plans to steam up the Rhine (or what was once the Rhine) and penetrate the continent's hidden depths as far as possible. But Law has brought an unwanted companion with him, a mysterious twin who seems to have lived--and died--on an Earth unchanged by the Miracle. The twin first appears to Guilford in dreams, and he brings a message that Darwinia is not what it seems to be--and Guilford is not who he seems to be. |
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Fatherland
by
Robert Harris
There are no happy novels set in Berlin, but Harris has managed a novel that dances on Hitler's grave with amusing success. Naturally, the whole book is entirely depressing, depression being the keynote of Hitlerian fantasias; its leading tones were struck earlier by Orwell's 1984 and le Carr‚'s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Harris's novel is set in 1964--Germany has won WW II, and this is the weekend of Hitler's 75th birthday, with huge celebrations ready to blow. After defeating Russia, Germany has formed a European trading bloc with 12 Western nations; German is the second language in all schools; everyone drives German cars, watches German TV, and so on. Switzerland alone is neutral, afloat on the Wehrmacht's stalemate in its cold war with the US. Tying in with Hitler's birthday is the announcement that--to reinforce d‚tente between the two countries--US President Joseph P. Kennedy has been invited to Berlin. But that d‚tente is threatened by the murders of two retired high officials, and Xavier March, homicide investigator with the Berlin Kriminalpolizei, lands the job of tracking down the killers. March is divorced and disaffected, and his ten-year-old son hates him for not being a super-Nazi like himself. Just as March is getting ahead in the case, he is taken off it by Globus, a top pig in the Gestapo. But March is too far in to stop. And he's fallen in with the beautiful American journalist ``Charlie'' Maguire, a smart and feisty woman who's always ready to prick March's Nazi chauvinism. The big secret: March has stumbled on the great Nazi coverup of the gas chambers, with ghastly proofs of it hidden in a numbered Swiss account. Farsighted readers know that massive dystopian evil such as Winston Smith faced in 1984 can provide no happy end. But only a Schweinehund wouldn't like this springtime for Hitler, with its waltzes through the Holocaust to the tunes of Leh r's The Merry Widow. |
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Vitals
by
Greg Bear
Reading Vitals, Greg Bear's dark, suspenseful, paranoid thriller of high-tech bioterrorism, would be terrifying even without real-world anthrax attacks. But the news stories of late 2001 add layers of resonance to the book. You'd think the secret of eternal life would be an eagerly awaited boon to humanity. Yet when cutting-edge researcher Hal Cousins travels deep below the ocean's surface in a two-man submersible, seeking primitive lifeforms that may hold the key to immortality, his pilot attacks him. Barely surviving, Hal maneuvers the sub to the surface--and finds a fellow scientist has shot up his research ship. Then his lab is destroyed, his twin brother leaves a mysterious message saying they're both being pursued by an unknown force, and his sister-in-law calls to tell him his twin, who is also researching life extension, has been murdered. Someone or something has already discovered the secret of eternal life. It has immense power and influence, and it will stop at nothing to protect its secret. |
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Hominids
by
Robert J. Sawyer
In this polished anthropological SF yarn, the first of a trilogy from Nebula Award winner Sawyer (The Terminal Experiment), Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth, as both sides discover when a Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleoanthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer called a Companion implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. A computerized guardian spirit, however, doesn't eliminate cross-cultural confusion permanent male-female sexuality, rape and overpopulation are all alien to Ponter nor can it help his housemate and fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder. Ponter's daughter Jasmel believes in Adikor's innocence, but to prevent a horrendous miscarriage of justice (Adikor could be sterilized), she must try to reopen the portal and bring her father home. The author's usual high intelligence and occasionally daunting erudition are on prominent display, particularly in the depiction of Neanderthal society. Some plot points border on the simplistic, such as Mary's recovering from a rape thanks to Ponter's sensitivity, but these are minor flaws in a novel that appeals to both the intellect and the heart. |
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The Year the Cloud Fell
by
Kurt R. A. Giambastiani
The Year the Cloud Fell will please not only SF and fantasy fans, but also lovers of historical and revisionist Western fiction. In 1886, the U.S. Army experimental dirigible A. Lincoln is making a scouting flight above the Unorganized Territory when a terrific thunderstorm strikes the craft to earth. Now the mission commander, the president's only son, is a prisoner of the Cheyenne Alliance. The Indians have no reason to love the president, the implacable enemy they call Long Hair: General George Armstrong Custer. And only the strange shamanic vision of one young Cheyenne woman stands between Captain George Armstrong Custer Jr. and death. With his debut novel, Kurt R.A. Giambastiani has created a fast-paced, imaginative, intelligent alternate history with a bold, breathtaking climax. The Year the Cloud Fell has "gotta" quality, as in "Honey, I'm coming right to bed, but first I just gotta finish this chapter." The novel ends conclusively, yet it also leaves the door open for a sequel that readers will eagerly await. Unfortunately, whites who create historical fiction or movies about American Indians often end up producing a sort of noble-savage porn, and alternate history provides more possibilities than any other fiction for a simplistic approach to white/Indian interactions. However, Giambastiani has avoided such pitfalls. The Year the Cloud Fell provides no easy answers, noble-savage stereotypes, great-white-father saviors, or clichéd situations. Bravo. |
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Making God
by
Stefan Petrucha
It's the final days of the century, a time traditionally teeming with revolutionaries, mystics and crackpots. Adding fuel to the usual fin de siecle fire is the approaching Millenium, and the epicenter of madness is, inevitably, America. A potent conjunction of genius, schizophrenia and egomania finds its way to the mass culture through a manuscript lost by a brilliant and unlucky recluse, found in the trash by an insane street woman, and marketed by a megalomaniacal Master of the Universe. Making God, a novel by Stefan Petrucha, internationally-acclaimed author of the graphic version of "The X-Files," is fast, funny and philosophical, a book that locates and dissects the fine loopiness of the late 20th Century with the kind of imagination that often looks frighteningly more like fortune-telling than fiction. Hapax Trigenomen has written the definitive discourse on Life which he calls "The Great Work," a text whose disturbing power has roused his creepy parents from their customary alcoholic stupor to seize and remove it from their home. It falls into the hands of Calico, a nubile street schizo, whose public readings from the manuscript fascinate business titan Albert Keech. There is clearly some hay to be made from the powerful confluence of Hapax's words and the beautiful Calico's charismatic delivery, and Keech is the man to do so. If it were mere money Keech sought, he would be only an ordinary villain, but Keech is not like other mortals. What starts as a rich madman's fantasy shortly becomes an engine of destruction. The rapidly snowballing cult of Calico soon attracts the authorities in the form of a female FBI agent in what turns out to be a very personal battle for reason in an hysterical climate of millenium fever that threatens to move the Moon from its perch. Making God is a novel that defies genre, resonating with the ideas that fire science fiction, fantasy and action novels, but which also intrigues us with the deeper questions of creativity, spirituality and humanity. But mostly it is a ripping good yarn. |
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Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher
Columbus
by
Orson Scott Card
Given the political squabbles over America's traditional "discoverer," the subtitle of this novel might be enough to scare off many readers. Except, of course, that it is written by Orson Scott Card, one of the finest current writers of science fiction who possesses a rare feeling for both history and religion, as he has displayed in his saga of Alvin Maker, recently resumed in Alvin Journeyman. The plot of his new book is fairly straightforward: three time travelers from a ruined and doomed future Earth journey to the time of Columbus' landing, hoping to alter events so that the contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres will be less disastrous for the American Indians, indeed, for the whole world. At the heart of the book, however, is a marvelous, enormously powerful portrait of Columbus himself. Another superior addition to a superior body of work. |
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Timegate
by
W. L. Hesse
The year is 2044. The German Occupation Authority has held the United States in a tyrannical grip for the past 100 years, ever since the Nazis emerged victorious in World War II. Loner rebel, Scott Hanover hates the GOA for destroying his family, and regularly defies its harsh rule. Jailed for general crimes against the state, he awaits execution in a New Mexico prison. Then one day, Hanover is given the chance to "escape". There is, however, a price to pay for his freedom. Hanover must travel back in time to 1944 to thwart the plans of the Nazis. But there are GOA police on his tail, and one man in particular who will stop at nothing to see Hanover dead. The task is impossible, and no one expects Hanover to come back alive. Can he survive the Timegate and change the course of history? In the end, it is Hanover alone who must risk everything to claim a new future for America. |
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Pavane
by
Keith Roberts
First published in 1968, these intricately linked short stories (broken into six measures and a coda) constitute a pioneering work of alternative history that has influenced many contemporary SF and fantasy writers. In them a twisted Church of Rome rules a modern world where steam locomotives are the primary mode of transportation, semaphores (telegraph signals moved by hand and read via binoculars) are used for communication and the horrors of the Inquisition continue. Why? Because in 1588 Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated, leading to the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and the subsequent suppression of the Protestant Church. But in this stately "dance" of stories, revolution becomes inevitable when society's natural cultural and scientific progress can no longer be contained. Roberts displays intense respect and love for history as he rewrites it with deft abandon. Three measures in particular stand out as profound today, just as they did when originally published: "The Signaller," which allegorically portrays a young guild member who pays a high price for his dedication to communication; "Brother John," a stunning portrayal of a devoted priest's traumatizing encounter with torture and his resultant reaction; and, finally, "The White Boat," another almost mythological piece about a young girl's obsession with a boat that can take her to freedom. All the other stories are excellent, but these are outstanding examples of why revolutions occur. Impact is doing a great service by reprinting this and other classics. |