This multi-faceted novel takes place in and around the state of Alaska. Part of it is a multi-generation saga of one family over the last 150 years. It starts with a young woman named Sara Spencer Peek, part of a westward-bound wagon train in the mid 19th century. Back in the present, Bob Thornton is a Wall Street superstar, who, one day, walks away from everything, and heads for Alaska. He's not totally sure where he's going or what he'll do once he gets there, but there has to be more to life than Wall Street. While hitchhiking, he is picked up by Ruben Sanchez, self-educated philosopher. They do a lot of talking about philosophy, most of it centered on the book Moby Dick.

Adam Whitehead is a world-renowned physicist doing his best to drop off the face of the earth. Both his parents died of complications from Alzheimer's Disease, and, being of the age where such a thing is a major concern, he is terrified that he will be next. Should it happen, he will end his own life before he ends up in some nursing home. James Tall Tree, the Presidential Science Adviser, calls out the Alaska State Police in almost-desperate search for Whitehead. His theories have led to a mjor discovery that is about to be released to the public. Tall Tree wants to officially acknowledge Whitehead's contribution.

It has become possible to go back in time and watch events as they happen in real time. Going to any coordinates, as long as it was outside and there was no cloud cover, it is possible to go back as far as the cavemen and watch it 'live'. Access to this system will be freely available to anyone with an internet connection. The repercussions for all of human society, especially fields like history and archaeology, will, of course, be cataclysmic.

I really enjoyed this book, but it's not for everyone. The reader had better like home-grown, self-educated philosophy, because there is a lot of it in this book. Otherwise, it works as a science fiction novel, as a Jack London-type adventure novel, and it will give the reader plenty to think about. It's very much worth reading.

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In the 1930s, Donald Wandrei was one of the most famous science fiction pulp writers. Before the lines were drawn between fantasy, science fiction and horror, he wrote with a dark vision of the cosmos and a poet's sense of language. This book is an attempt to bring back some of his short fiction, largely un-reprinted.

This was a time when scientific plausibility had not yet become a central principle of science fiction. Plot and mind-blowing concepts were more important. On story in this book is about two men, rivals for the same woman, who follow each other on one-way trips to the year 1 million. One of the men makes a tiny, but huge, error in his calculations and arrives almost 2,000 years "late." The woman, kidnapped by the other man, is long since dead, but the later man finds that a cult, practically a religion, has grown up around his arrival among her descendants, the last people on earth.

What if it could be determined that the entire universe was nothing more than an atom in some incomparably larger universe (and what if that universe was nothing more than an atom in some much larger universe)? A man builds a spaceship capable of traveling thousands of times the speed of light and aims to find out. There are also a number of tales of the end of mankind, in all sorts of interesting ways.

In 1938, John W. Campbell took over the editorship of Astounding Science Fiction, where many of these stories first appeared. He forced scientific plausibility and extensive rewrites on his authors, and thereby on the rest of the field. Wandrei found that he could not adjust his writing to suit Campbell, and, by the 1940s, Wandrei basically gave up full-time writing to concentrate on running the specialty publisher Arkham House, which he co-founded. While it introduced authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith to a new generation of readers, Wandrei basically forbade the republishing of his stories.

This is a gem of a book. It's quite good as a bit of science fiction history. Sometimes it's good to read stories full of up-to-the-minute science, and other times it's good to read stories like these, about the destruction of humanity or trips to the next universe. It gets a strong recommendation.

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America in 2070 is not a pleasant place. Any sort of dissent can earn a person a one-way trip to a reeducation camp. The public face of the camps show them as happy places full of well-fed people. The reality is very different. Midnight arrests inside one's own home are common. As part of the plot, a group of D.I.'s are intercepted on their way to a reeducation camp and put aboard the starship.

Traveling at 20 percent of the speed of light, the trip will take over 200 years. Through a computer malfunction (or is it?), one of the crew, Leslie Gillis, is prematurely brought out of stasis. The computer will not let him return to stasis. To keep from going insane, he plays chess against the computer, he writes a magnum opus of a fantasy novel and he finds some art supplies and paints giant murals all over the ship. He spends the next 32 years totally alone, until he dies in a fall.

Their new home, Coyote (actually a moon of a gas giant planet) doesn't have separate continents like Earth, but is all land, crisscrossed by rivers. The native plants and animals are edible, but hardly delicious. The colonists find out, the hard way, that they are not top of the food chain. In a bit of adolescent rebellion, a group of teenagers go off on an expedition of their own. There is tension among the colonists between those loyal and not loyal to the Republic.

Many years later, several ships full of colonists from Earth arrive, but this is not an occasion for celebrating. The hijacking of the Alabama was the beginning of the end for the Republic, but it has been replaced with something equally repugnant. The original colonists have a hard choice: accept 5,000 new neighbors or fight.

Told in a series of unconnected novelettes, this is a strong, well-done piece of writing. It works as a political novel and as a planetary exploration novel. You won't go wrong reading Coyote.

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That's because there are no Earth defenses. The Commonwealth Council, led by a man named Fair Daryl (all of the humans have names like that) is at a loss as to how to respond. Fat William, a resident of a Custodial Care Center (a place for misfits and others who don't fit into society) and a student of military history, has a bold idea. Using mankind's considerable technical knowledge, create the most spohisticated android ever; one that must be able to eat, move and bleed like a human. The android will be programmed with the personality of General George Patton. Only a few people will know that he isn't human.

Snow Rose, his "creator," falls in love with Patton. While he is away for long periods of time, building an army from nothing, Rose lives in his apartment. She totally neglects her own work and becomes more and more emotionally unglued. One day, after Patton rejects her, she totally loses it and tells him that he's not human.

Despite this, Patton continues with his plans against the Paranians. Mankind is slow to respond, both technically and in terms of building an army, but eventually gets going. With new types of weapons and tactics against them, the Paranians find themselves nervously looking over their shoulders, wondering when and where the next attack will occur. After the war ends, Patton plans on continuing into space, not returning to Earth. He knew that if he returned, he would get shut off, like any other machine.

Fans of military science fiction will really enjoy this novel. For everyone else, this belongs somewhere in that large gray area of Pretty Good or Worth Reading.

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Jahmelle is the product of a very brief marriage between Edrick and the daughter of the chief of the Moldori. They are a race of fearsome warriors who fight like alley cats when insulted (which happens very easily) and are into ritual face scarring. It's up to the King's Champion, Sir Christopher Evergild, to bring Jahmelle back to assume power, and to keep her from suffering an "accident" along the way.

Meantime, back at the castle, the throne is not empty. Benifaz, one of the King's Ministers, has declared himself Regent, charged Evergild with treason and called Jahmelle an impostor. He has also stripped the Ruford Seneschal, a senior member of the castle staff, of his position and put him on the equivalent of Death Row. He escapes with much help from Dagger Jack Tarragent, a former noble and kin of Edrick, until he was forced into a life of crime. Jack is an expert at getting into places where he is not welcome, then getting out with no one the wiser.

Knowing that they are being sought by Benifaz's men, Evergild begins to look on his escorting of Princess Jahmelle as more than just a duty. Even though she remains veiled through the entire trip, Evergild begins to fall in love with her. The thought of marriage between a person of royal blood, like Jahmelle, and someone not of royal blood, like Evergild, is very rare, but not impossible.

I really liked this story. It's good, lighter, summertime-type reading that also has a few things to say. It's very much worth reading.

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As a child, Gunnhild learns the ways of withcraft from a Finnish concubine of her father, a powerful Norse chieftain. She also notices Eirik, son of their king. Growing up, Gunnhild keeps her eyes open and learns the relationship between the powerful and the weak. But she doesn't want to stop there. She becomes a spaewife, a master in witchcraft and sorcery, a knower of the Gods.

She marries Eirik, and things are wonderful for a while. She gives him seven sons, all of whom become great warriors, and one daughter, Ragnhild. Forced into a political marriage, Ragnhild gets a reputation as someone whose husbands tend to die before their time. Eirik's strength and Gunnhild's craftiness and knowledge of sorcery make them formidable foes.

Haakon, another son of Eirik's father, has an equally strong claim as Eirik to be King of Norway. This is a time of building alliances for both men among the groups in that part of the world. The fortunes of Eirik and Gunnhild start taking a turn for the worst. They are forced to flee Norway and live for a time in York, England. Anotherv time they flee to the Orkney Islands, part of present-day Scotland. Eirik dies in battle, as do his sons, one by one. Meantime, Christianity comes to that part of the world. Haakon embraces this new religion, partly because his best friend becomes a priest. He expects those in aliiance with him to do the same. But, there are those, including powerful people, who are not happy with the old gods being tossed aside.

This is a great novel. It's a big novel, both in size and in scope, so it is not easy or quick reading. Once again, Anderson shows why he was a master of the genre. The style of writing gives the impression that it was actually written a thousand years ago. Recently translated, it was mispackaged as Fiction instead of History. I know of no other contemporary writer in the field who can consistently do that like Anderson.

This book will take some patience, but it is highly recommended.

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Unaware of each other's existence, the connection between them grows stronger. Sapphire does some rock climbing, and Opal has a dream about rock climbing, something she has never done before. Both girls are very much into art, the sort of art that is far beyond the abilities of the average teenager. Sapphire takes private lessons from Mr. Sukosi, who recently lost his only child, Sandra (also Sapphire's bext friend), in a bus accident. Both girls have their paintings shown in local art galleries. They deal with the usual growing-up issues, like friends, parents and school. Opal is being stalked by a couple of older people (rumors of a satanic cult), and Sapphire has attracted the attention of Ben, a young man of dubious reputation. Both girls go to the same place (on their respective worlds), a set of cliffs high above the ocean, for some seashore painting. Unfortunate things happen, and Opal and Sapphire both fall off the cliffs, but they don't die. While still in the air, and in front of witnesses, both girls disintegrate into nothingness.

Their souls (essences?) are taken to a higher state of consciousness on a planet called Lamartine. They are combined into one being, along with a famous figure from Greek history called Sappho. Another being from Lamartine, a former human called Branicor, is sent to Earth and Zamora to reassure both sets of loved ones that their daughters aren't exactly gone, but that their terrestrial existence is over.

An openness to New Age thinking, like crystals and Eastern philosophy, is a requirement when reading this book. For those people, this is a special story and a must read. Part one of a trilogy, it is a very heartwarming piece of writing.

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A young woman named Evana, fresh from Earth, is kidnapped by a group of masked men and forced to help them kidnap Blord and get him out of the way, permanently. As an inducement, Evana is injected with a seven-day poison. Blord finds out about the plot, and lets himself be taken to a nearby planet. Living in the ruins of an impenetrable castle is the Skal, a 50-foot-long telepathic lizard with a real hatred of humans in general and Artur Blord in particular.

Blord's enemies have conspired to get rid of Blord by taking over the Star Patrol, the legal government of the Ridge Stars. They are being very thorough by doing it not just on a few planets, but on every planet of the Ridge Stars, which comprise almost 200 light years of space. They then impose a 25 percent tax on all transcations of the Artur Blord Holding Company. When he refuses to go along, the Star Patrol then orders the immediate seizure of all of Blord's assets.

In other stories, Blord comes up against liquid metal R, a substance that can eat through anything, even the outer hulls of spaceships, and horribly mutated former humans called zilths. He also starts to get the feeling that (to use a cliche) the thrill is gone. Even on mankind's newest frontier, everything is predictable and boring.

This is really good. Van Vogt was one of the masters of space opera, and this is no exception. It's weird, it's exciting, it's very well done and it is well worth the reader's time.

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Andros meets all sorts of beings on his journey, only some of whom are human. He meets old women in isolated cottages more than willing to put him up for the night, and to comfort his fears. He meets tree people who tell him, more than once, that the Ash-tree is his enemy, and is to be avoided at all costs. He frees a young woman from a block of marble by singing her free. He gains a shadow, the sort of shadow that damages or destroys everything it touches. Exploring a huge, and nearly deserted, castle, Andros reads the tale of a man named Cosmo.

A student at the University of Prague, Cosmo lives by himself in a single room in an old house. One night, he brings home an old mirror whose frame is full of strange writing. He is stunned to see the living image of a young woman in the mirror. She is not actually in Cosmo’s room, just in the mirror. The woman is obviously in some sort of emotional distress, but she is unaware of Cosmo’s presence. He quickly falls in love with this woman whose voice he has never heard and whose name he doesn’t know. Suddenly, one night, she doesn’t show up. Cosmo succeeds in using magic to bring her to the “real” world. She tells him that she is a prisoner of the mirror and only its destruction will bring her freedom. After she and the mirror disappear, Cosmo scours the city looking for the mirror, ready to break it if he ever finds it. Meantime, in another part of the city, a princess is at death’s door with an illness that has baffled the medical profession. Suddenly, she leaps out of bed, shouting, “I’m free! I’m free!”

The writing in this book is lyrical and richly descriptive, but it also does not have much in the way of a plot, so reading it will take a lot of patience. For anyone who wants to get away from the usual quest and sorcery fantasy novels, and get back to a real fairy tale, read this and you won’t be sorry. It’s really worth reading.

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