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BOOK REVIEWS
updated 26 August 1998
Over 400 very short Book Reviews are found, listed in chronological order by year, in this related web site
Norman E. Hartman book review column plus some nonfiction articles Dear Friends and Fellow Science Fiction/Fantasy Enthusiasts; For a number of years, I have written book review columns for science fiction and fantasy magazines. The last couple of months have been spent gathering these columns together for your perusal on the Internet. I am proud to announce the completion as of January 24,1997 of my Internet home page, whose linked files include all of the book review columns which I have written to date for the following magazines: Science Fiction Review - Midnight Zoo - Tails of Wonder - Space and Time - Heliocentric Net My future columns will be added to my web page. I have also included several short articles on various subjects. The address of my home page is: http://www.teleport.com/~nhartman/normsnotes.html My sincere thanks to Dr. John Cramer, who has graciously allowed me to use the web page containing his Alternate View science columns from Analog Science Fiction/Fact Magazine as a model for my presentation. Any comments, criticisms or spotting of typos will be gratefully received. All my best,Norm Hartman Norman E. Hartman OLD address of book review column plus some nonfiction articles
NEW: Lisa DuMond, full name Lisa DuMond Trexler: Member of Science Fiction Writers of America since 1998: "I would be thrilled if you would stroll through my own humble site. I think you'll find it to your liking..." Have you been to Lisa DuMond? Knock on the front door. Take a left. Take a right. Where will you end up? Trust me. Maybe in Cold As Hades, featuring: DARKERS The future looks scary... Enjoy a sample of this new, as yet unpublished novel. Visit a space station that isn't quite as friendly as the name implies. A neighbourhood where some of your neighbours are probably undead. And one of them is making sure a selective few stay dead. Ah well, there goes the galaxy. Ask Phillip Lew, he's just hoping to get out alive. Or, perhaps...The new part of town, MEviews: All of my reviews from SFSite, SFZine, and Source SF collected in one convenient location. Just what you've been yearning for all this time. Stop in. Sign the guest registry. Or drop in to sample one of my book reviews and enjoy an impressive site." Books reviewed on this site include: Science Fiction: * Steve Aylett: Slaughtermatic * Ben Bova: Moonwar * Michaela Carlock: Planet Dreams * Marc Cerasini: Godzilla 2000 * Tom Cool: Secret Realms * Marie DesJardin: For The Time Being * Greg Egan: Diaspora * Carolyn Ives Gilman: Halfway Human * Phyllis Gotlieb: Flesh And Gold * Jacqueline Harpman: I Who Have Never Known Men * Peter F. Hamilton: A Quantum Murder * Gwyneth Jones: Phoenix Cafe * Gwyneth Jones: North Wind * Nancy Kress: Maximum Light * Jonathan Lethem: Girl In Landscape * Sean McMullen: The Centurion's Empire * Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens: Icefire * Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Alien Influences * Melissa Scott: The Shapes Of Their Hearts * Rick Shelley: Officer-Cadet * John E. Stith: Reckoning Infinity * F. Paul Wilson and Matthew J. Costello: Masque Fantasy: * Stella Atrium: The Goulep * Stepan Chapman: The Troika * Tony Daniel: Earthling * Jeffrey Ford: The Physiognomy * Sarah B. Franklin: Daughter Of Troy * William Hill: California Ghosting * Paul J. McCauley: Child Of The River * Donna Jo Napoli: Zel * Christopher Priest: The Prestige * Jane Routley: Fire Angels * Midori Snyder: The Innamorati * Sean Stewart: Clouds End * Sean Stewart: Mockingbird * Sheri S. Tepper: Six Moon Dance Horror: * Steven Barnes: Iron Shadows * B. A. Chepaitis: The Fear Principle * Elizabeth Forrest: Retribution * Charles Grant: Black Oak #1: Genesis * CaitlÆn R. Kiernan: Silk * Martin Schenk: A Small Dark Place
"Folklore" monthly book reviews Monthly reviews of Science Fiction/Fantasy books, authors, and series, from 50-year-old "classics" to current best-sellers. Includes forms for inputting viewer reviws, besides those of regular critics "Tooner" (who likes Fantasy) and "TJ" (a Heinlein enthusiast). This site just "went live" in March 1997. Books are rated from 1 to 5 "worlds." The March featured author is David (and Leigh) Eddings, and the featured series is "The Sten Series" by Alan Cole & Chris Bunch (del Rey Books).
Sphere: Fantasy virtual community, free, with dozens of links to fantasy authors; sells titles hrough Amazon.com; reviews new and forthcoming fantasy books; has a graphical fantasy chat every Sunday at 7:00 p.m. EST; Publisher: Pesach Lattin; Editor: Kenneth Santema; Columnist: Kimberley A. Hitchens; claims 25,000 visitors since 1 Feb 97
Kevin Kruger's site set up for book reviews on Science Fiction and Fantasy. Includes special monthly articles on Authors and Anthologies.
BOOK TITLES
This section seriously needs to be expanded and updated! Please e-mail me with suggestions.
SEND YOUR INFORMATION/URL/LINK to THE ULTIMATE SCIENCE FICTION WEB GUIDE. We will review your information and add it to this list if appropriate.
The UFO Contact Handbook
Dragon Fantasy Novels
Generation (6 chapters of novel)
Fiction Page (list of novels on the web) to be done
The Physics of Star Trek (excerpt) Regarding John G. Cramer's hard SF novels: short descriptions of his two SF novels "Twistor" (now out of print but to be reprinted next year) and "Einstein's Bridge" (in the Avon pipeline for publication 6/97), plus links to review excerpts and comments, are on the Web at: John G. Cramer's novel abstracts/excerpts/reviews Forthcoming books: stuff about John G. Cramer's new SF novel "Einstein's Bridge": John G. Cramer's forthcoming novel
Extreme Zone Simon & Schuster's new sci-fi book series, "Extreme Zone" It is a young adult series by author M.C. Sumner, but the website is spectacularly interactive and well-designed. The series is about two high school seniors who are thrown into a ring of supernatural dangers and shadowy organizations -- some of them are from other centuries or other planets. Access secret files! Ferret out further information and chat about the unexplained phenomena and supernatural dangers threatening two high school seniors in the hot new book series, Extreme Zone.
The streets of Hyde Park are woven into a twisted entanglement. You can travel from obscene opulence to pathetic privation without hitting a stoplight, much less change street names. Two worlds. The same South Side Chicago neighborhood. Like Hyde Park, Jonathan Cleary, Public Defender on the Cook County Murder Task Force, is split between two worlds. Days on the job are spent in the harsh world of criminal violence. Nights are given to the peaceful quiet of his own anxieties. When one world seeps into the other, the result is a nether world that defies all sensibilities. When Cleary must defend Leonard Henley against the accusation that the elder university professor blew his beautiful young wife's head off with a stick of dynamite, he finds himself trapped in that nether world. There, he meets MarySue, a femme fatale no man with a full set of hormones can say no to. MarySue becomes his guardian anti-angel as he struggles to prove Leonard's innocence in a crime so obvious even Cleary's partner is sure of Leonard's guilt. By the time Cleary's figured out that the victim, the murderer and his new paramour are one in the same, several more people are dead, including his partner. Proving Leonard's innocence takes a back seat to staying alive as he is hunted by a mega-intelligent killer with a high-tech weapon and an equally high-tech desire to kill Cleary. I wrote "The Thing Speaks for Itself" with the same hard-boiled, seen-too-much-reluctant-hero flavor of Chandler and Hammet. Still, the story takes place right out of the headlines of this morning's Tribune. "The Thing Speaks for Itself" is the fifth novel of my authorship. "The Council to Save The Planet" (NPI, ISBN 1-56901-189-3), was published in 1994 and distributed nationally through both Ingrams and Baker & Taylor. My curriculum of study in college was journalism, I hope you are piqued enough to consider the manuscript for review. The first chapter of "Thing Speaks for Itself" can be found on my Web page, along with other samples and some hypertext experimentation: Conrad Lawrence Stories on the Well Conrad Lawrence: Conrad Lawrence Conrad Lawrence * What if 6 scientists set out to save the world by destroying it? * * ---------------------------------------------------------------- * * THE COUNCIL TO SAVE THE PLANET * * ---------------------------------------------------------------- * * Speculative fiction by Conrad Lawrence * Available online through AMAZON.COM
If you review prehistoric-related science fiction as a professional critic, you are invited to review my book, THE PLEISTOCENE REDEMPTION. It will be in stores soon from Cypress House and has ISBN 1-879384-32-9). It is promoted at THE PLEISTOCENE REDEMPTION. -- Dan Gallagher
Steven Burgauer: author of four books. The newest * In the Shadow of Omen is a Mars colonization story. Each generation there is a new burst of Mars novels, and we are midst of one such episode right now. Beyond that, Steven Burgauer's timing is flawless, as on the 4th of July 1997 there will be -- for the first time in years -- a new robotic Mars mission on the planetary surface. Combined with the debate about human exploration of Mars, sparked by Dr. Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" proposal, and the excitement of the increasingly confirmed evidence of former life on Mars, Mr. Burgauer has a chance for cross-over marketing success. Best of luck, Steven! REVIEW: Steven Burgauer's IN THE SHADOW OF OMEN is a masterfully crafted story based on the universal human conflict between the desire for order and the desire for freedom. That Apollonian-Dionysian struggle is centered on Mars in 2433, and the stakes are high, especially when an asteroid is sabotaged and directed toward earth with the possibility of doing the same kind of damage as the one that theoretically wiped out the dinosaurs centuries ago. Will the sabotage be discovered in time, and can any action be taken to avert the disaster? Burgauer's insights into the human condition and his understanding of human behavior result in characters who are as believable as people whom we encounter in our own lives. For example, we meet a character named Inda, who is "self-important to the point of exhaustion." But in Samuel Matthews, Burgauer has the perfect character to educate the readers, to teach us about the origin of words and the significance of the game of chess, as well as lessons of history that we should never forget. In Carina Matthews, Sam's daughter, Burgauer gives us a heroine whose concern is for the future and who believes that she will be the origin of a new race of humans. This strong, beautiful, and bold-thinking woman is sought as a lover by several male characters, but only after her imprisonment in a gulag and an Entebbe-style rescue does she discover her true mate. In Fornax, Burgauer has created a very human hero. As he is undertaking the dangerous task of trying to re-direct the asteroid, Fornax admits to himself that his idea of being a hero did not involve an early death. Fornax is competent, wise, dependable, and keenly aware of his own mortality. He reminds one of the Gregory Peck character in THE BIG COUNTRY, that extremely rare human being who has achieved the kind of self-knowledge which enables him to master himself and to know what is truly important in life. That Fornax is in the background in much of the novel is a confirmation of his self-knowledge, for his experience in space has taught him the proper humility that every human being should have, especially those who will lead mankind into space. --Loren Logsdon...Editor, Eureka Literary Magazine ----- BIOGRAPHY: Avid hiker, Eagle Scout, founder of a successful mutual fund, winner of the coveted Mathematics and Science Award from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Steven Burgauer lives in Illinois with his family. A graduate of Illinois State University, Mr. Burgauer currently writes science fiction and teaches Business Finance for Eureka College, the alma mater of former President Ronald Reagan, and for Bradley University. CREDENTIALS: In addition to writing science fiction, Mr. Burgauer has written extensively on business topics in the fields of investment management, finance, and economics. His science fiction titles include: FORNAX (1994), THE BRAZEN RULE (1995), THE LAST AMERICAN (1996), and IN THE SHADOW OF OMEN (1997). A short story of his has appeared in the Eureka Literary Magazine, and his work has been mentioned in both LOCUS and SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE. INVITED GUEST TO THESE CONVENTIONS: American Booksellers Association, Chicago, Illinois (1995) Conscience/Baltcon '95, Stockholm, Sweden (1995) Quincon Gaming Convention, Quincy, Illinois (1996/97) Illinois Library Association, Peoria, Illinois (1995) Illinois Center for the Book Authors' Day, Springfield, Il (1995/96) MidSouthCon 15, Memphis, Tennessee (1996) Science Fiction Research Association, Eau Claire, Wisconsin (1996) Rivercon 21, Louisville, Kentucky (1997) INTERVIEW GUEST OF: WYPL's "Book Talk"--a nationally syndicated half-hour public radio show sponsored by the Memphis Public Library WGLT, Normal, Illinois, and WCBU, Peoria, Illinois--public radio WEEK and WMBD, Peoria, Illinois TV stations Cable Channel 22's "Information Please" WJBC, Bloomington, Illinois--AM radio ----------