KEY POINTS:
1. Magic For Beginners By Kelly Link (Harper Perennial $27.99)
Sometimes I despair of New Zealand science fiction and fantasy publishing. You still can't buy Kage Baker novels here. Lois Macmaster Bujold's last three books? Not for sale locally. But, finally, cult American fantasy sensation Kelly Link
is to be found on New Zealand shelves. This collection of brilliantly surreal short stories is her second. (The first made Village Voices best-of-year list, but, naturally, it never got released here). It draws on standard fantasy and horror ideas - zombies, fairies, etc but, trust me, it's like nothing you've ever read. Blackly funny. Wildly inventive. Utterly insane.
2. Sorcerers Moon By Julian May (Voyager $36.99)
Third and last of May's Boreal Moon sequence. The dense plotting means you absolutely need to start with book one, Conqueror's Moon; fortunately, there's much fun to be had by doing so. A complex inter-species dynastic war is rendered Byzantine by the intervention of the magical Beaconfolk, whose purposes and limitations finally become clear in this volume. May's Pliocene Exile saga was one of the 80's seminal science fiction series. She's never written to that standard since, but this trilogy is the closest she has come. The literary equivalent of a solid B-movie: no pretentions, no lofty aspirations, but plenty of narrative grunt.
3. Glasshouse By Charles Stross (Orbit 26.99)
It's always a good day when a new novel from Charles Stross comes out. This one is a lesser beast than last year's astonishing Accelerando, but it still rates as one of the most enjoyable hardcore science-fiction rides of the year to date. A man wakes up in a clinic minus most of his memories. He's told he agreed to have them wiped in exchange for not being killed. As our hero tries to find his feet in this gloriously strange future world, it quickly emerges that the memory wipe was a bad deal: because someone is still trying to kill him. Highly intelligent thrills.
4. Heart-shaped box By Joe Hill (Gollancz $36.99)
An aging heavy-metal idol sees a ghost for sale on the internet and buys it on a whim. The perfect lifestyle accessory. Well, no: because this ghost is real. And so be advised are the horrors in this entirely non-ironic, genuinely frightening first novel. Joe Hill has come up with a perfect high concept - a man who plays at death and darkness being brought face to face with the real thing but this is not a high concept book. Real characters, real suspense.
5. The Best Of The Best: VOL 2 Edited by Gardner Dozois (St Martins Press $45)
Dozois' award-winning Years Best Science Fiction anthologies have been required reading for me for nearly 20 years. The first of his retrospective volumes offered the best stories from the past two decades. This one focuses on novellas: 13 short novels, between one set of covers, by some of the best writers in the field. I could quibble over some of his selections - the Ursula Le Guin novella he's chosen is only my second or third favourite, for instance but really, this is an excellent selection and excellent value.
- Canvas