PSYCHOHISTORICAL CRISIS
by Donald Kingsbury
Tor, $27.95 (hc)
ISBN: 0312861028

The dialogue between different writers’ visions of the future, swapping ideas back and forth, used to be commonplace in SF, especially among writers whose careers were conducted in John W. Campbell’s Astounding (later Analog); Asimov himself did it. Here, Kingsbury takes on the question of psychohistory’s doctrine that its principles need to be kept secret from the masses, so the outcomes of its predictions won’t be subverted by people acting to prevent them. Here, a group unhappy with being herded to a future they never asked for works to subvert the Pscholars (as Kingsbury’s psychohistorians are known) by learning psychohistory on their own.

At the unwitting center of the plot is Eron Osa, a young scholar whom we meet at the moment when his fam–a sophisticated computer linked directly into the nervous system–is destroyed as punishment for crimes against Psychohistory. Kingsbury then jumps back to Eron’s youth, as he acquires the souped-up fam, learns the rudiments of mathematics and history in school, apprentices to a high-level Pscholar, and embarks on the project that finally gets him in trouble. Along the way, we get a richly varied and humorous portrait of galactic society in the 148th century after the founding of the First Empire. Kingsbury shows us everything from the decadent human homeworld Rith (Earth), now reduced to the ultimate tourist trap, to the com-plex capital world of the galaxy, Splendid Wisdom. Pscholar Konn, Eron’s mentor, is a fanatical recreator of ancient battleships, including a replica of a B-17 he builds and flies (despite his engineers’ misgivings) during his stay on Rith.

In parallel with the story of Eron’s education, we follow his attempts to discover what crime led to the loss of his fam (no easy job, now that he’s reduced to his own animal mental resources). Kingsbury keeps the reader amused by tossing off little satirical bits and deadpan cracks about the educational system, bureaucracies, science and superstition, social hierarchies, and SF in general. Curiously, while much of his material is well outside Asimov’s usual range of interests, the book as a whole is a surprisingly close fit with the Foundation universe. Asimov fans are likely to be particularly entertained by the glancing references to various episodes and characters in the original Foundation series.

A striking tour de force, perhaps the best proof to date of the enduring impact of Asimov’s vision on the work of his peers. A treat for fans of hard SF in the classic vein.

ANGELMASS
by Timothy Zahn
Tor, $27.95 (hc)
ISBN: 0312878281

Zahn’s newest is probably best described as high-class space opera. FTL travel has allowed the colonization of many worlds, most of which are united in a sort of Terran empire known as the Pax Comitus. One outlying group of worlds, the Empyrean, has held out steadfastly against incorporation into the Pax. Now the Pax has plans to seize the recalcitrant colonies by force, and as part of the preparation sends a young academic named Kosta, trained as a secret agent, to infiltrate the Empyrean.

The Empyrean’s politics are shaped by "angels"–mysterious particles emitted by a nearby black hole, which have the surprising property of enforcing ethical conduct by those in their proximity. Every elected official in the Empyrean wears an angel, as a way of ensuring honest government. The Pax suspects that the angels are alien artifacts intended to subvert the Empyrean for ultimate invasion; Kosta’s job is to determine whether the evidence substantiates that theory.

The other main focus of the plot is Chandris, a young woman best described as a con artist. On the run not only from the law but from a former mentor who has turned against her, Chandris convinces an eccentric older couple to take her under their wing. Shortly after she discovers that they are angel hunters, she hooks up with Kosta, who has begun to develop strong suspicions as to the actual nature of the angels and the reason for their influence over human behavior. Meanwhile, we are introduced to Forsythe, a High Senator of the Empyrean, who has reservations of his own about the role the angels are playing in the political sphere. And shortly after that, the Pax’s invasion force arrives, precipitating the main plot crisis.

Zahn does a good job of setting up a group of interesting, engaging characters and throwing them into a crisis that they must escape by their own wits and initiative. And while Chandris, for example, is strongly reminiscent of quasi-outlaw characters elsewhere in popular fiction, her portrayal is sharp enough and convincing enough that she doesn’t come across as just another in the list. Likewise, the ultimate explanation for the angels’ power over humans who remain in their vicinity is sufficiently based in the real physics of black holes that it seems logical, rather than a last-second deus ex machina.

Zahn has built a strong following with his "Black Company" series and with his Star Wars tie-ins. This very solid, very readable SF novel delivers the essential kick of the best work in the genre, and it would be encouraging if that larger audience picked this book up as well. It certainly delivers all the qualities of the best SF adventure writing. Recommended.

KUSHIEL'S CHOSEN
by Jacqueline Carey
Tor, $27.95 (hc)
ISBN: 0312872399

This is the second in Carey’s fantasy series set in a world in which a polytheistic religion takes the place of Christianity in a society strongly reminiscent of Europe in the late middle ages. The protagonist is again Phedre n¢ Delaunay, a young woman trained as a prostitute and a spy in a society with far fewer sexual taboos than our own. In the previous volume, Phedre was instrumental in the preservation of Terre D’Ange (the equivalent of France) from the conspiracies of Melisande Shahri-zai, who escaped to exile in the city of La Serenissima (Venice). When Phedre learns that Melisande continues to spin her plots, she goes in search of her–and finds a new series of adventures.

As in the first book in this series, Phedre’s journey takes her through a series of exotic milieus, beginning with the noble circles of Elua, the capital city of Terre D’Ange. La Serenissima is convincingly decadent and machiavellian, dominated by a hereditary oligarchy and by the worship of Venus. Phedre’s next stop, as the captive of a group of pirates based in what is in our world the Balkan region, takes her to a more primitive society, though not as barbaric as some of those in the first book of the series. And eventually her travels bring her to Crete, where another ancient pagan religion retains its power, and where she undergoes a cleansing mystical vision before the plot circles back on a return journey through La Serenissima to Elua.

Carey is mining a vein very similar to that of Guy Gavriel Kay’s most recent work, where the fantastic element grows out of an alternate history in which Christianity either did not come into being, or lost out to one of the other contenders for religious dominance in the late classical era. The emphasis, then, isn’t on magic or on fantastic creatures, but on cultures similar to those of our past but based on premises different enough to allow the unexpected. (And of course, like all religions, these have their legends and miracles to offer, which the reader can interpret literally or figuratively according to taste.) Best of all, Carey’s acute eye makes her courtesan/spy a convincing and ultimately much more likeable character than any bare-bones description might suggest.

The conflict here is somewhat lower-key than in the first book in the series, although there are plenty of pitched battles, abductions, rescues, and other adventures to keep the reader turning pages. The spotlight is on Phedre, and on her canny observations of people and societies. And while she has grown up some in the interval between books, she is still far from jaded by her experience of the world around her. Very enjoyable fare if you’re in the mood for a big, plot-heavy fantasy.

THE HOUSE IN THE HIGH WOOD
by Jeffrey E. Barlough
Ace, $14.95 (tp)
ISBN: 0441008410

Barlough’s debut novel, Dark Sleeper, introduced the alternate world of an America in which various Ice Age creatures still survive, and where some cataclysmic event has apparently destroyed European civilization after the colonization of the New World took root. This time, the story takes place in Shilston Upcot, a hill-country town where the local squire, Mark Trench, is entertaining Oliver Langley, a writer with whom he became friends in college.

The big news in Shilston Upcot is the arrival of a new family in Sky-lingden, the old mansion that sits on the hills above the town. As in most small towns, the newcomers are inevitably the focus of everyone’s attention, especially the inquisitive village lawyer, Thomas Dogger. Along with the vicar, the doctor, the innkeeper, and various other eccentric local notables, he speculates on the slim evidence concerning Bede Wintermarch and his family, the new tenants of Skylingden. But lacking any hard evidence, they arrive at no solid conclusions.

Meanwhile, in between translating the epigrams of a forgotten Latin poet and walking about the countryside with his host, Oliver Langley slowly begins to learn some of the history of Shilston Upcot and the surrounding area. There is some dark story associated with the former tenants of Skylingden, although the exact details remain unclear. There are reports of an enormous owl that seems to make its home in the huge manse, and rumors that the disappearance of a young girl a generation ago was somehow connected with the house.

As before, much of the interest here is in the fascinating cast of characters–almost Dickensian in their eccentricity and variety–that Barlough has turned loose in his little town. That is all to the good, because the external events of the plot build rather slowly, with more suspense than action for much of the length of the book.

When the squire and the poet discover the deep secret that lurks behind the sinister history of Skylingden, the plot goes into high gear, with a frantic pursuit through the village and surrounding countryside, leading to a quiet if unsettling conclusion that, looking back, seems all but inevitable from the book’s basic premises.

Barlough’s previous book was compared to Lovecraft in its use of the tropes of the local color story to create a sense of supernatural horror lurking behind the surface of everyday reality. Here, the local color is every bit as strong, and the use of a new setting within the same alternate history adds to the sense of building a world. It will be interesting to see what further details of this curious blend of prehistoric fauna and Victorian culture are yet to be revealed. A very interesting new voice, well worth checking out if you missed his first book.

J.
by William Sanders
iPublish (Warner), $14.95 (pod)
ISBN: 079550123

Sanders’s latest is a variation on the alternate worlds theme he has handled with considerable flair before. Here, three women move between three parallel worlds, trying to salvage something from the catastrophes that have befallen each of them.

The first we meet is Dr. Ann Lucas, a mental patient put on an experimental drug that her doctor hopes will counteract her dreams of indescribable violence. In a parallel reality where civilization has all but collapsed after a nuclear war started by Nixon, a half-feral woman named Mad Jack is living out the violence that fills Ann’s nightmares. In a shootout following her ambush of a group of men bent on raping her, Mad Jack is caught in an explosion and thrown into Ann’s world–where Ann, having taken an overdose of the new drug, is fighting off an attempted rape by a brutal orderly.

The two join forces, and in another jump between planes of reality, find themselves back in Jack’s world, where Ann begins to learn to shoot and defend herself–and where, after falling in love, the two realize that they are the same person, shaped by the different circumstances of their environments. Then a gang of outlaws raids the town, led by a pair of men in high-tech armor who make it clear that they have come to capture the two women. In a running gunfight Ann and Jack escape and are thrown into another parallel world. . . .

In which a burned out SF writer, Jay, has gone to a friend’s home in rural Arizona to dry out and work on a new book. The "cure" lasts until she opens a suitcase and pulls out her supply of liquor. Then, Jack and Ann land on her doorstep, and Jay becomes a third in their gang–just as the two strangers in armor suits show up again. Sanders keeps the plot momentum moving, while at the same time making the story an interesting exploration of the nature/nurture argument. A solid performance, with plenty of flashes of the biting wit and outrageous twists on our own history that have been Sanders’s trademarks ever since his hilarious debut SF novel, Journey to Fusang.

THE AGE OF SCIENCE
by Gerard Piel
Basic Books, $40.00 (hc)
ISBN: 0465057551

A former publisher of Scientific American takes a look at the century just past, summarizing its contributions to our understanding of the natural world. A brief introduction describes how Scientific American, one of the oldest American magazines still being published, was revived after World War II as a science magazine for the general reader.

The twentieth century may represent the pinnacle of scientific innovation, thanks in no small measure to the development of instruments and methods that allowed scientists to explore the world in previously unimaginable detail. While the telescope and microscope have been around for centuries, it was only recently that scientists became able to study very small or very distant objects in frequencies beyond the visible spectrum. X-rays, discovered by William Roentgen in 1895, made possible not only modern medicine but the ability to analyze phenomena ranging from the fine structure of molecules to the energy output of distant galaxies. As the power and scope of those instruments has increased, the universe has become both clearer and stranger.

In the twentieth century, relativity and quantum theory brought elements of the paradoxical into the seemingly hard surface of reality. The astronomers’ investigation of deep space, in wavelengths invisible to the eye, revealed vast energies at play and huge vistas of time. And the light shed by the new physics on the processes of chemistry gave birth to molecular biology, above all the discovery of the DNA molecule’s role in the nature of life on our planet, and the ability to manipulate genetic material at a previously unknown level.

Piel reminds us that, to most scientists, the relevance of a discovery or theory to the world at large is a non-issue. The act of understanding and explaining how the universe works ought to be justification enough. Most of us have wondered how the universe began, how life originated, and how it will all end. From the beginning, science has offered answers. The hard part has been to derive those answers from strict scientific principles: the necessity of observation, the rejection of the metaphysical, and the need for verification of results by independent observers.