Matthew Hunter

Legends is a collection of short stories by noted authors: Stephen King (The Dark Tower), Terry Pratchett (Discworld), Terry Goodkind (The Sword of Truth), Orson Scott Card (The Tales of Alvin Maker), Robert Silverberg (Majipoor), Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea), Tad Williams (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn), George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire), Anne McCaffrey (Pern), Raymond E. Feist (The Riftwar Saga), and Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time).

In case you are ever hit by the supernatural version of a meteor strike out of a blue sky and magically bound to a succubus and an angel, there are a number of steps that really should be followed as soon as practically possible: Have a lot of sex with the succubus. Duh. Convince the angel to join in. Move out of your mom’s basement That last step can get tricky when a werewolf wants to mate with you – as forcefully as required, two witches are worried they are getting left out of the fun, heaven is threatening to demote your angel, and the vampires have an all-points-bulletin out on your ass.

If the Anita Blake series is Hamilton’s talents in full flower, then Nightseer is little more than an amateurish first novel that attained publishable status by virtue of the author’s later success. It is not so much a bad novel as it is an embarassing one; clumsy and awkward and heavy-handed like a teenager’s first dates, the occasional moments of skillful writing are not worth wading through the adolescent wish-fulfillment. Only a completist should consider this one.

There’s not a lot that can be said about this movie. It’s probably the best of the prequels, but that’s not saying much. In fact, the best thing that can be said about this movie is that it doesn’t suck. I enjoyed most of it, although some moments were severely wince-inducing. The lightsaber battles were a minor disappointment, with camera tricks and plot events being used to “explain” the outcome rather than actual skill, but they weren’t awful.

If an allusion to Tolkien is the most common way to praise a new fantasy author, “Heinleinesque” has got to be the science fiction equivalent. The description certainly applies to Peter Maxwell’s Ride the Rising Tide, which contains equal doses of space, adventure, and 60’s science fiction nostalgia. It has a space navy, a plucky young protagonist eager to rise through the ranks on the strength of exceptional abilities and a sense of destiny explained only by the invisible hand of the author shaping the plot.

Let me begin by setting the stage a little, and telling you about me. There’s not much about me that’s relevant to a movie review, but because Serenity originated from a television series, this preface is necessary: I don’t watch a lot of television. Perhaps that doesn’t get the point across. The last television series I followed regularly was Babylon 5, which ended in the last century. Cable news programs persisted until 2 years ago, but they also reached the end of my patience.

Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders series opens with this book, Ship of Magic. Once again the author provides an unusual and emotional story. Readers already familiar with the Royal Assassin series will recognize the world, but the areas we know well are distant places while those we see up close are new and fresh. With one significant exception, the level of magic has been dramatically reduced from the earlier trilogy, and the result is a human tale of desperation rather than a fantasy adventure on the high seas.

The latest book in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Dive series, Skirmishes interweaves three plots together: a past encounter at the Room of the Lost Souls, the beginning of Boss’ attempt to dive the Boneyard and recover more working dignity vessels, and a confrontation between Cooper’s two working dignity vessels and a larger force of ships from the Empire. Readers will want to be caught up with the earlier works in this series, because it will make absolutely no sense standing alone.

This is the follow-up to Smoke and Shadows, and while much of the prior criticism remains the same, there are some good points this time around. The plot is something one would expect to see in a really bad horror movie: while filming an episode of the vampire detective show in a haunted mansion, the crew gets trapped inside by some evil power, and must survive until sunrise. Another formula plot, though the author pulls it off as well as can be expected.

Smoke and Shadows is Tanya Huff’s attempt to resurrect her Vicki Nelson Investigations series. This time, one of the bit characters from the earlier series is faced with a supernatural threat while working odd jobs on a movie set, and he must manage to respond to it without the benefit of Vicki’s experience. His only ally is Henry, another of the original characters, and Henry has a problem with daylight…