Elizabeth Bear’s first fantasy novel, Blood and Iron: A Novel of the Promethean Age, follows her well-received debut science fiction trilogy, Hammered, Scardown and Worldwired, released last year. Her latest work a distinct change of pace from her action-packed near-future trilogy is a complicated, immersive fantasy in which readers must hold back their questions and wait patiently for answers to appear later in the lengthy narrative. For the last 500 years, humanity, mostly through the workings of the mysterious Promethean Club, has been gaining the upper hand in a war against the faerie. A Merlin, a human who can not only practice magic but also embodies it, has been born a rare event that occurs once every few generations. The two faerie courts, the Seelie and the Unseelie, both equally slippery in their dealings, vie with one another (and the Promethean Club) to bring the Merlin to their side of an eternal low-level conflict. Mixed in with this struggle are the politics of succession within a werewolf clan; speaking trees; Morgan le Fey and King Arthur; and linking them all, a few half-human, half-faerie folk who must balance the two worlds they straddle. The story moves from midtown Manhattan to the Western Isles of Scotland, from palaces to penthouses, as the complex tale plays out.

Bear’s knowledge and use of ballads, legends and fairy tales is impressive. Her rich style filled with double and triple metaphors and references that range from Yeats to Uncle Remus make the novel dense and a slower read than it might otherwise be. However, this complexity will be no bad thing for readers who enjoy the opulent fantasies of writers such as China MiŽville and Hal Duncan.

Bear’s confidence in both her writing and her readers shines through her ornate prose. From the looks of this knotty first fantasy, there will be more novels of the Promethean Age ahead to enjoy and learn from. Gavin J. Grant co-edits The Year’s Best Fantasy &andamp; Horror for St. Martin’s Press.

Alexander C. Irvine’s debut novel, A Scattering of Jades, is a rich and entertaining tale. With no sign of first-timer nerves, Irvine brings together such disparate elements as Tammany Hall, Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, P.T. Barnum, Aztec gods, riverboats and New York in the mid-1800s to create a glorious adventure. While all these well-known people and places might overwhelm other writers, Irvine moves serenely among them, using characters and settings when necessary and dropping them immediately whenever his story demands it.

Irvine is like a real estate agent working areas no one else has discovered. He knows that one of the secrets of a good novel is location, location, location, and he fearlessly takes the reader down the rivers, into the caves and through the cities of the still-coalescing 19th century United States. One of the most interesting threads of the novel is the tale of Stephen Johnson, a historical figure whose real-life story Irvine entwines with his fiction. Johnson, a guide at Mammoth Cave, had a knack for discovering new caves and was responsible for finding and naming many of the caverns that are now famous visitor spots. In a particularly dark and almost claustrophobic section of the novel, Johnson explores a new cave. The scene is frightening, and the action gets even stranger when he goes off the beaten path and discovers an Aztec mummy hidden far from where anyone else had ventured at least for the last several hundred years. The mummy is an Aztec god who, now awakened, wants to bring about the end of the world, and needs a few small things including a child sacrifice to make it happen.

A Scattering of Jades is not a run-of-the-mill quest novel, in which a plucky band of brothers takes on the Dark Lord of So-and-So. Here, saving the world is left to a half-dozen or so seemingly unconnected people.

Irvine can be favorably compared to Tim Powers, especially Powers’ historically flavored novels such as The Anubis Gates, yet A Scattering of Jades instantly sets Irvine apart from his influences and allows him to carve out a space for himself.

The year 2004 will undoubtedly go down as a singularly exciting—and bittersweet—year for the millions of Stephen King’s Dark Tower fans anxiously awaiting the series’ much-anticipated finale. More than a quarter of a century after the publication of the short story "The Gunslinger" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (October 1978), the genre-transcending saga that has been called King’s magnum opus will come to its climactic conclusion with the release of the final two books: Song of Susannah this month and The Dark Tower in September.

The seven-volume Dark Tower saga—essentially an epic fantasy—is a bit of a departure for the prolific King, who is best known for his wildly popular horror offerings (The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, Pet Sematary, etc.). The story’s central character, an enigmatic, solitary gunslinger named Roland Deschain (a cross between Clint Eastwood’s legendary Man With No Name of Sergio Leone’s 1960s spaghetti westerns fame and the quasi-historical King Arthur), is on a quest to find the Dark Tower, the nexus of a trillion different realities, before it is destroyed. Those who stand in his way are summarily killed. But during his travels through time, he meets allies who will eventually make up his ka-tet (a group of people joined by fate): Eddie Dean, a former heroin addict and drug runner from 1987 Brooklyn; Susannah Dean, Eddie’s wife, a civil rights activist with joint personalities from the when of 1964; and Jake Chambers, a sixth-grader from 1977 New York. Together, they battle the evil forces trying to topple the Tower and bring about Apocalypse.

Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah picks up immediately after the events of Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. Roland and Eddie, via the Unfound Door, travel to 1977 Maine in search of a rogue bookstore owner with an invaluable resource to be used in the quest. Meanwhile, Jake and Father Callahan, another key figure in Roland’s quest, are thrust into 1999 New York City to find Susannah, who is not only possessed by a demon but also pregnant with a baby of mysterious origin. The unborn baby is "perhaps the most important child to ever be born . . . including Christ, including Buddha, including the Prophet Muhammad." This child, aptly named Mordred by the demon inside Susannah, is prophesized to destroy Roland. Can Jake and Callahan find Susannah before she has her baby? And more importantly, can they keep the baby out of the hands of Roland’s nemesis, the Crimson King?

King drops a bombshell of a plot twist at the conclusion of Song of Susannah that will force readers to re-evaluate their take on the entire saga and leave them tottering on the edge of the mother of all cliffhangers. Fortunately, readers will only have to wait a few months to find out what King has in store for the final installment in his chronicle of the gunslinger and his quest.

Hauntingly surreal and almost supernaturally enthralling, King’s Dark Tower saga is a monumental work of fantastical fiction created by a master wordslinger. The series is historically significant for a number of reasons—the eye-popping retail sales figures, the equally eye-popping value of first editions, etc.—but perhaps its most important (and fascinating) attribute comes from its prominent place in the author’s extensive and storied canon. Not unlike legendary British fantasist Michael Moorcock’s Skrayling Oak, the enormous tree that holds his entire Multiverse in its branches, King’s Dark Tower is the thematic hub around which many of his other novels revolve. The Stand, It, ‘Salem’s Lot, Insomnia, The Talisman, Bag of Bones, The Eyes of the Dragon—all have strong connections to the Dark Tower. (For example, Father Callahan was also featured in ‘Salem’s Lot as the priest investigating the horrific deaths of his parishioners.) Longtime fans delight in piecing together the incredibly elaborate mystery that is King’s Dark Tower universe, and the series has lengthy printed concordances to help readers keep everything straight.

And to think it all started with this unassuming sentence: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer in Syracuse, New York.

Laurie Marks’s rich and affecting new novel Earth Logic is the second book in her Elemental Logic series which began with Fire Logic (warmly reviewed here in May 2002). Thirty-five years ago, a refugee Sainnite army invaded the land of Shaftal. However, without reinforcements, which aren’t coming, the occupying army won’t be able to hold on much longer. Because they have maltreated the Shaftali, they now fear reprisals.

Karis, an ex-blacksmith and one-time drug addict, is the long-hidden Shaftali leader. She is a huge woman and has power within her to listen to the earth and to shape objects. She has gathered an odd family around her: Zanja, her lover; Leeba, her daughter; a Sainnite deserter army cook; the former Shaftali general; and a Sainnite Seer who is unable to drink tea or liquor or eat anything rich for fear of unbalancing his mind. This small group must fight the Sainnites, an outbreak of plague and even their own countrymen who want war.

One of the most affecting sections is when Karis’ group finds a hidden library and an old printing press. They use the press to publish a book that reminds the Shaftali that they unlike the occupying Sainnites are a hospitable and generous people. This is one step on Karis’ path to the nonviolent defeat of the Sainnites. As Emil, the former Shaftali general says, “War cannot make peace.” The nonviolent choice is a strong and difficult one, and not everyone in Shaftal supports it especially those who have lost family and friends in the occupation. However, it is what Karis wants, and in earth logic “action and understanding are inseparable,” so, although it seems impossible to overcome the warring factions, she is determined to make it happen.

Earth Logic is a thought-provoking and sometimes heartbreaking political novel which absorbingly examines the dynamics between two groups of people. Good bread, wine and friendships alone may not save the world, but they make the doing of it much more palatable. Gavin J. Grant is co-editor of The Year’s Best Fantasy ∧ Horror, to be published this summer by St. Martin’s.

Dark fantasy writer Laurell K. Hamilton already a favorite for her books featuring vampire hunter Anita Blake raised her reputation another notch with A Kiss of Shadows, the 2000 bestseller that launched a sensual new series about the faerie world. Now Hamilton returns with an eagerly anticipated sequel, A Caress of Twilight , which takes detective Meredith NicEssus back into conflict with the supernatural and deadly Unseelie court. In the alternate reality where Meredith dwells, the royalty of the faerie kingdom have emigrated to the New World. Part human and part faerie, Meredith is a self-exiled princess of the royal family trying to make a living as a private detective in Los Angeles a difficult task since her rival for the throne is trying to kill her.

In this violent and unpredictable world, Princess Merry needs both her powers and her wits to figure out why people in Los Angeles are dying in throngs. The dark force rampaging through the city may be after Merry herself. Even with three faerie warriors at her side (and in her bed), Merry finds it tough just trying to survive, much less making sense of what’s going on around her.

A supernatural Kinsey Milhone, Hamilton’s Meredith NicEssus is full of spunk and daring, yet plagued by self-doubt and worry about the future (of course, Sue Grafton’s famous detective never has to cope with multi-headed demons). The erotic and daring adventures of the sexy red-headed protagonist should draw even more readers into this growing faerie circle.

<B>Jordan’s Wheel of Time springs eternal</B> From its title, <B>New Spring</B>, the new Robert Jordan novel might prompt fans of the best-selling fantasy author to wonder if he has simply expanded on the short story, "New Spring," that appeared in the 1998 anthology, <I>Legends</I>. As luck would have it, though, the short story is merely the final chapter and epilogue of the novel. That leaves 25 other chapters of pure, fresh Wheel of Time excitement, chronicling a climb by Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche (characters familiar to series fans) to the shawl of the always-respected and often-feared Aes Sedai. The novel also reveals much about Lan Mandragoran’s past, most notably why he has a right to the throne of the dead kingdom of Malkier and how he became Moiraine’s Warder (a man of great capability pledged to an Aes Sedai). Although some of the recent entries in the series have been disappointingly sluggish, readers who had a hard time slogging through <I>Crossroads of Twilight</I> will be pleased with this new pre-Rand adventure. This is The Wheel of Time at its best: political intrigue, powerful characters, dangerous magic and even more dangerous secrets, a book sure to win new loyal followers for Jordan’s epic series.

After four books in the Thursday Next series, Jasper Fforde has turned his unique imagination to the inspired joining of familiar nursery rhymes and modern detective novels. Those who remember the first and are familiar with the second will derive the most entertainment from The Big Over Easy. A working knowledge of popular British culture won’t hurt either, but the jokes and puns are so varied and numerous that anyone with a good sense of humor is bound to enjoy the chase. If you miss one joke, there’s another one coming in the next sentence, or maybe even later in the same one.

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, fresh from the failure of the prosecution to get a conviction on the three pigs in the wolf’s death, and his newly assigned assistant Mary Mary who has passed the Official Sidekick test and was hoping for something better than working in the under-budgeted and much maligned Nursery Crimes Division (NCD) are investigating the death of one Humperdinck Jehoshaphat Aloyius Stuyvesant van Dumpty, aka Humpty Dumpty. Jack, happily married to his second wife after his first wife died from eating only fat, of course with a blended family and the laziest cat that had ever lived, ever, is an admirable character, devoted to his unit, and nowhere near as bitter as he could be over the antics of former partner Friedland Chymes, who took all the credit for cases Jack solved.

One of Fforde’s best running jokes is the names of the detectives who belong to the Guild of Detectives and whose exploits are recounted in the popular Amazing Crime Stories. They include Inspector Moose of Cambridge and Inspector Rhombus from Edinburgh. It took me a lot longer to get Friedland Chymes, despite being a fan of Jeffery Deaver, but I was thrilled when I did, and discoveries like that are part of the joy of reading Fforde’s latest creation.

Joanne Collings writes from Washington, D.C.

English writer Charles Stross, whose books burst with pop-science ideas, intrigue, strong characters and even romance, continues his Merchant Princes series with the release this month of The Hidden Family. The series, launched just last December in the U.S. with the publication of The Family Trade, perhaps more accurately could be titled the Merchant Princesses, since the novels focus on journalist Miriam Beckstein and her cadre of mostly female co-conspirators.

Beckstein, who grew up an orphan in the Boston area, previously discovered she had an unknown identity as a long-thought-dead heir on a parallel Earth. This pre-industrial other world is ruled by aristocratic clans who can walk between their world and ours. Beckstein’s reappearance throws a wrench in the plans of a number of the clans and she is almost immediately targeted for assassination. To make things worse, everyone she meets seems to have a second, or even a third, allegiance. However, she also discovers that the clans have a secret enemy, a family of world-walkers who have been fomenting inter-clan war.

Working with her best friend from our contemporary world and two young family aristocrats, Beckstein tries to stay alive, works on the mystery of who murdered her mother and investigates new ways for the clans to use world-walking to their financial advantage. Their wealth has been predicated on being able to move goods without going through customs, but dodging the law only works when everyone involved is on the same side.

Stross is an energetic writer (with another much-anticipated science fiction novel, Accelerando, due next month) who creates page-turning reads. If his endings don’t quite hold up, it is a minor drawback that doesn’t spoil the fun. Readers will be relieved to learn that there is a lot to look forward to in The Hidden Family, including a finale that is all Gothic romance: regrets, a ball and a happy reunion.

Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press in Northampton, Massachusetts.