Canadian writer Sean Russell spent years purposefully and successfully avoiding the Tolkien-type of grand fantasy that has ongoing characters and plot elements. He had two persistent ideas, however, that eventually led him to attempt a fantasy on a large scale. The first idea derived from Huckleberry Finn was of a group of characters traveling down a river by raft. The second was of two families fighting for power, somewhat akin to the Montagues and the Capulets. When Russell realized these two ideas could be linked, he found himself with the basis for a traditional fantasy, one that would have a motley group of characters traveling through strange and distant lands on a quest to save their homeland. The Swans’ War series was launched last year with The One Kingdom. The second entry, newly released, is The Isle of Battle, and it includes a dense four-page section, “What Went Before,” to help new readers to catch up.

As befits the mid-book in a trilogy, The Isle of Battle is a dark book. The land between the mountains is on the brink of war as the two ruling families (the Rennes and the Wills) use politics, games and marriage to try to take the throne. At the start, Elise Wills has thrown herself in the River Wynnd rather than give herself up to a political marriage. But she has not died, as her broken-hearted father and friends suppose; she has made a deal with Sianon, a nagar or dark river spirit, to live on and share her body and mind.

The Isle of Battle is mostly questing and chasing, as various groups of warriors hunt the three nagar: Sianon; Hafydd, Sianon’s murderous brother; and Sainth, their half-brother, who inhabits the body of a wanderer named Alaan. The chase leads into lands that exist side by side with the land between the mountains, where the only hope of exit is Sainth and Sainth is very much in danger from Hafydd and his men.

Russell keeps the characters moving, the tension high and the quest arduous. The politics are complicated, the relationships even more so. When one young lord swears he will spy for his enemies in the hope of future peace (and familial gain), it is difficult to remember who he can safely talk to, and who he can’t.

The Isle of Battle will please Russell’s earlier readers and bring him many more. He has taken up the mantle of a traditional fantasy writer and is producing strong, highly readable tales. Gavin J. Grant reads, writes and publishes science fiction in Brooklyn.

Like every world-class (“universe-class”?) story set on a distant planet ages hence, the true marvel of Jim Grimsley’s novel The Ordinary lies not in its technological wonders or its fully imagined alien landscapes and cultures, though there are these aplenty. The magic radiates, rather, from the way we identify with the characters, who see and feel things that flatly had no existence before the author conjured them into being.

“Magic” is just the right word for this story of conflicts and hidden connections between technology and wizardry. When Jedda Martele travels through the strange new Twil Gate from Senal to Irion from her technologically advanced, war-ridden home world to a world where there seem to be no sophisticated machines of any kind she believes she is going to a simple place as a simple trader and linguist. But the goods she acquires in magical Irion and the language she eventually learns there so far exceed her original conception that she must, in the end, trade far more than her textiles: She must exchange one idea of reality for another, surrender her former understanding of language for a new knowledge of the power of words.

In Irion (the site of Grimsley’s fantasy novel, Kirith Kirin, winner of the 2000 Lambda Literary Award), language wed to music has developed into a kind of magic that can change consciousness and alter the course of events. The ambassadors from Senal (for whom Jedda serves as translator) arrogantly presume that they can overwhelm Irion with their military might, but they have not reckoned the overwhelming force of Ironian magic wielded so effortlessly by the beautiful Queen Malin.

Jedda and Malin are women of different worlds, beings of different orders yet they are destined for each other. For many readers, the Sapphic grace of this love affair will be one more way in which Grimsley has opened a new, alternative reality of unanticipated beauty. Their “ordinary” love that is, ordained for every possible twist of fate literally transcends time, for Irion is not only the name of a world, but the name of its most powerful wizard, a wondrous demigod who sweeps Jedda through time to help him “change the sky” and discover the source of his own magic. Grimsley’s own wizardry could be put in almost the same terms: He sweeps us through time and space and changes our sky. By bringing two alien worlds together, he brings them both to us. It is a gift of unearthly power. Michael Alec Rose writes from Nashville.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, Forty Signs of Rain, is a convincing story of weather disasters in the not-too-distant future. Already a Hugo and Nebula award winner for The Years of Rice and Salt and his Mars trilogy, Robinson pulls his latest tale straight from the headlines. As a result of global warming, the Arctic ice shelf is melting at an alarming rate and millions of coastal dwellers are in danger.

At the center of the action are Charlie and Anna Quibler, a typical Washington, D.C., power couple. Charlie is a stay-at-home dad who works part time as a science advisor to a popular senator, and Anna is a full-time researcher for the National Science Foundation. Charlie and Anna are struggling to get the government to take global warming seriously while the administration’s only concern is surviving the next election.

Anna’s co-worker, Frank, is a scientist who prides himself on his emotional detachment, but he loses his comfortably distanced view of the world when he meets a group of Buddhist diplomats from a low-lying island nation. The monks blow Frank’s mind by pointing out that a single-minded devotion to one aspect of life (such as science) makes the mind unbalanced. Frank is unexpectedly open to this life-changing idea.

Forty Signs of Rain is all about balance, whether it’s love or work, spirituality or politics. There are flood warnings throughout (beginning with the Biblical reference in the title) but the blinkered D.C. politicians won’t pay attention until the rising water is lapping at their doorways. Robinson skips between the domestic, scientific and political spheres without missing a beat and delivers a hot-topic page-turner that leaves the reader gasping and stranded at high tide, eager for the next book from this science fiction master. Gavin J. Grant writes from Northampton, Massachusetts.

<b>A journey into India’s future</b> Ian McDonald’s faithful readership will be well rewarded with the publication of his new novel, <b>River of Gods</b>, which represents imaginative, extrapolative science fiction at its best. Already nominated for a Hugo Award, McDonald uses his latest work to transform the energy of today’s Indian economy and explore such familiar themes as man’s inhumanity to man and the limits of our imaginations.

Subtitled August 15, 2047 Happy Hundredth Birthday, India, <b>River of Gods</b> tells the stories of nine people whose actions will change the lives of the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the subcontinent. The novel begins with Shiv, a small-time gangster, dropping a woman’s body into the River Ganges in Varanasi (the city of Shiva). She is the unnamed victim of an ovular egg-harvesting operation gone wrong (as well as a stand-in for the crowded streets and unending hunger of India’s vast cities), whose death is about to lose any meaning it might have had. By the time we return to Shiv’s story and discover why the woman’s death was meaningless, the reader has been given a quick tour of India 40 years from now, as well as a glimpse of the U.S. and even outer space.

In this near-future world, artificial intelligences (AIs) above a certain complexity have been declared illegal by United Nations decree. AIs are valued for their many uses, but above that level the U.S. government fears AIs will outstrip their makers and perhaps destroy humanity. Mr. Nandha is a Krishnacop whose job is to enforce this law using software of his own to incapacitate or destroy the rogue AIs.

The survival of these high-level AIs who can be seen as symbols for any discriminated group is at the heart of the book. But on a broader level, this is an action-packed meditation on the future from an exciting and fresh angle. Science fiction readers should be happy to follow McDonald down the river of his imagination. <i>Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press in Northampton, Massachusetts.</i>

British author Karen Traviss’ debut novel City of Pearl is the first entry in a fast-moving science fiction trilogy. In the intriguing near-future world that Traviss creates, Shan Frankland is a 23rd-century English beat cop who has moved up the police force to lead an Environmental Hazard group. Just before she retires she is asked to go on a mission to the second planet of Cavanagh’s Star (CS2), which is 75 light-years from home. Frankland takes the mission, but she doesn’t know why. She is given a “Suppressed Briefing” so that her orders will only come to mind when she is in an appropriate situation. Traviss builds her societies and characters slowly. Frankland is very tough and very proud of it. She has scars from the police front line and she prefers open arguments or fights to unspoken concerns. She meets her match in Aras, a wess’har, warrior and environmental defender, blessed (or cursed) by a parasite with the ability to live forever. The wess’har are extreme environmentalists and will do anything to maintain biodiversity and balance. They don’t understand that humans eat other “people” (animals) and they are determined to protect the sea-going inhabitants of CS2, the Bezer’ej.

A third alien race, the isenj, is in some ways the most human of the three. Having overpopulated their own planet, they want to make CS2 accessible to their people. This led to war 500 years before, and if the humans are not careful, they might find themselves caught up in a new struggle. City of Pearl is a strong first installment and marks the debut of a writer to watch. Traviss takes what could have been a rote collection of characters (marines, cops, religious extremists) and slowly adds depth, complexity and color, so that by the end, even Frankland has a new appreciation for the shades between black and white. Gavin J. Grant is the co-editor of The Year’s Best Science Fantasy ∧ Horror, to be published this summer by St. Martin’s.

Patrick O’Leary often wanders around his office at a large Michigan advertising firm humming to himself. His co-workers might think he’s a bit weird, but if they read his books they would discover that while humming (somewhat tunefully) he’s probably considering parallel worlds, our place in the universe and the hard choices we sometimes must make in our daily lives.

In his third science fiction novel, The Impossible Bird, O’Leary has crafted a page-turning story about "alien invasion, resurrection and brotherly love." But he also uses the book to delve into serious and timely issues. When we talked to O’Leary recently at the World Fantasy Convention in Montreal, he had this to say about the question at the heart of his new novel: "It comes down to this for me individuals facing facts and making a difference." Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to talk about The Impossible Bird without giving away the huge secrets at the heart of the novel. There are conspiracies within conspiracies, so that what starts off as a relatively simple chase novel quickly becomes a multi-level tale where reality may not be all it’s cracked up to be. The novel begins in 1962 when two brothers witness a Roswell-type event. We follow the brothers through their divergent lives: one goes on to a successful career making commercials, while the other becomes a college professor. Having lost their parents at an early age, the brothers were very close as children, but now they’ve grown apart. How and why they are brought back together is only the beginning of this exciting and thought-provoking book.

O’Leary began the novel in 1995 with one line that "moved and haunted" him. It was to be the last line of the book: "I’m watching my brother’s heart. I’m watching my brother’s beating heart." Although this image sustained him through the "first 50 drafts," in the end he did not include it in the book. "In hindsight," said O’Leary, "I see it was a controlling metaphor," and that the brothers’ relationship was "the focus of the story." After studying journalism in college, O’Leary began to publish poetry in literary magazines. He later published a couple of short stories and then made the decision to write a novel. At the time he didn’t realize what a major commitment this was: his first novel, The Gift, took 22 years to write, his next, Door Number Three, took seven, and The Impossible Bird took six. His first two novels were well received and, after years of slogging away on his own, O’Leary suddenly found himself receiving validation and acclaim from science fiction readers and writers. For The Impossible Bird, O’Leary says he used his experience in advertising to consider how a small group of people might go about trying to secretly control the public’s perception of events. Before I can ask how much behind-the-scenes work at controlling society goes on at advertising agencies, O’Leary says his job led him to conclude that "it’s nearly impossible to get 12 competent and intelligent people to agree on and implement anything much less keep it a secret. But it is such a comfort to believe someone is in charge, someone has the answers." O’Leary’s novels, despite their twists into alternate realities, conspiracies and alien invasions, come down to one thing, "a personal struggle in each of our lives for consciousness, for truth." Therefore in The Impossible Bird, reality and the fate of the players are "essentially in the hands of two ordinary guys stuck in an extraordinary plot. Their choices are messy and hurtful and well-meant." It is O’Leary’s belief in ordinary people making the right choices in difficult situations that continue to make his books so appealing.

Gavin Grant lives in Brooklyn, where he writes and publishes speculative fiction.

British writer Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of eight novels, is just beginning to make a splash in the U.S. His reputation will be enhanced by the appearance here of Effendi, a smart, exciting thriller that marks the second entry in his Arabesk series.

Effendi will appeal not only to science fiction and fantasy readers but also to fans of mysteries and police procedurals, as the series takes place in a very recognizable world of police corruption, dirty politics and the clash of Eastern and Western cultures. However, the 21st-century city at the heart of these multifaceted tales isn’t a noir favorite such as New York, London or Berlin; it is Iskandryia, the center of the still-extant Ottoman Empire, which rules the world.

Ashraf Bey, a young man with a troubled past, has been dropped into the job of police chief. Bey is an outsider in the city and so is somewhat immune to the web of deceit and polite lies the city’s rulers live by. But Bey is drawn into the city by (supposed) family ties: he has to take custody of his computer genius niece, Hani. Soon, the tabloids declare him fair game after he refuses to marry the daughter of one of the city’s most powerful industrialists. Add German assassins, a pirate radio station, a summer power failure and the burgeoning fallout from a Children’s Crusade in Africa and you begin to get a taste for the addictive world of the Arabesk.

Grimwood keeps readers on their toes by starting with a grand jury proceeding, then cutting back to the days leading up to the trial. The back and forth is superbly handled, and readers willing to be caught up in the intrigue will be well rewarded with this highly original tale of an alternative universe. Gavin J. Grant runs Small Beer Press in Northampton, Massachusetts.

This month, fans of acclaimed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury receive a long-awaited treat: more than 50 years after he created the Elliots, a novel about this very peculiar family is being published by Avon Books. From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance is like many of Bradbury’s books actually a collection of short stories disguised as a novel. The first story, Homecoming, was published in Mademoiselle in 1946. The editors liked the story so much they used it as the centerpiece of a special Halloween issue and commissioned Charles Addams (of The Addams Family) to illustrate it. Bradbury and Addams hoped to produce a book about the family, but (amazingly) no one was interested at the time.

There’s been nothing quite like the Elliot family then or since. Perhaps because, as Bradbury says, They’re all related to my family. There’s Uncle Einar who can fly; Great Grandmere, the mummy; Cecy, who lies in the attic and travels all over the world; and Tim, the foundling child, who grows up among them and whose job it is to keep the family records. Bradbury is the author of many acclaimed novels (such as Fahrenheit 451) and short story collections (The Illustrated Man). Among his many awards, last year the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Even though he is recognized as the dean of American science fiction writers, Bradbury isn’t sitting still. He’s working on screenplays for two of his books and has a collection of stories coming out next spring.

Do you ever wonder if we are living in the last great age of freedom? Credit card companies, merchants, utilities, insurers and the government have always collected data on citizens, but the databases weren’t linked. With the explosion of the Internet, surveillance cameras, global positioning satellites and supercomputers, those days are over. John Twelve Hawks’ tautly strung and disquieting page-turner, The Traveler, drops us into a dystopian near future where information technology (which he calls the Grid ) threatens personal freedom though the average citizen doesn’t realize it. A shadowy group called the Tabula has focused for years on integrating all the data and assuming the role of puppet master to the masses. As Tabula plan architect General Nash says, most of us would gladly give up a little privacy in exchange for security. Sound familiar? Certain gifted individuals, called Travelers, have the ability to escape their bodies and travel to other planes; they also tend to introduce new and unsettling ideas into society, making them the Tabula’s natural adversary. Historically, Travelers were protected from the Tabula by a ronin-like group called Harlequins. Two brothers, descended from a Traveler, appear on the scene, as does one of the few remaining Harlequins, and the race is on. If either brother possesses the gift and can be turned to the dark side, the Tabula could achieve their hegemony. The stakes couldn’t be higher should the Tabula accomplish their goal, 1984 would collide with Brave New World in an ugly union. The Traveleris the latest major acquisition for The Da Vinci Code editor Jason Kaufman, and it offers readers the same winning combination of breakneck pacing and paranoia-inducing conspiracy theory. Twelve Hawks is a pseudonym for an author who jealously guards his privacy he uses a satellite phone so his calls can’t be traced and won’t pose for publicity photos. Pitting brother against brother, Tabula against Harlequin and freedom versus security this anonymous writer has concocted a brilliant, if alarming, summer read. Thane Tierney is a record executive in Los Angeles.

Sheri S. Tepper returns to her favorite themes human overpopulation and man’s inhumanity to man and all other creatures in her latest novel, The Companions. Tepper has rung similar warning bells in previous novels, including the wonderful The Gate to Women’s Country, where men and women live separately, and The Family Tree, where humanity pays a horrible price for exerting dominion over animals. Here, Tepper puts us into a future where the Earth is so overpopulated that the few remaining animal species are being killed off to provide more space for people. Paul Delis is one of the top linguists on Earth. Despite personality quirks for which he would probably be jailed in our time, he is well regarded and often hired for prestigious jobs far from Earth. His sister, Jewel, whom he regards as hardly more than his personal maid, is an “arkist” part of a secretive group attempting to ship the remaining Earth species to other planets. Jewel travels widely with Paul, and her natural empathy with animals and aliens enables her to become the conduit for a number of interstellar diplomatic treaties. The best parts of The Companions focus on the eons-old relationship between dogs and humans. Tepper looks at the widely held supposition that dogs adapted to living with humanity and, in a lovely fictive twist, turns that theory on its head.

The Companions is packed with challenging ideas, strong and strange characters, and enough alien diplomacy, treachery and war to keep the reader intensely interested in the future world Tepper creates. Gavin J. Grant writes from Northampton, Massachusetts.

ne small book for man Adrian Berry likes to think ahead. The Englishman’s 15 books include such titles as The Next 500 Years and even The Next Ten Thousand Years. In his new book, The Giant Leap: Mankind Heads for the Stars, he takes readers on a journey of science-fictional scope into the sky above. Berry, who has also written several science fiction novels, took the title for his book from Neal Armstrong’s famous line that his small step onto the surface of the moon was a giant leap for mankind. From the first moment Berry combines the flair of a novelist with the insights of a scientist. He begins with a compelling account of the Inquisition’s trial and burning of Giordano Bruno in 1600. The Church had declared the philosopher a heretic for speculating that other stars had planets. As the first to make this assertion, Bruno became for many people the unofficial patron saint of astronomy and space travel. Berry’s story leads the reader through surprising terrain. He discusses the role of the printing press in the dissolution of religion’s iron grip on Europe, the growth in speeds attainable by vehicles and even attempts to police the Internet. None of these subjects is tangential to Berry’s central theme. What he is writing about is the evolution of society and its inevitable move beyond our home planet.

Not that everyone is cheering for space travel nowadays. Incredibly, after visiting the moon a few times, the human race has apparently decided it would rather stay home and watch television.