SF/Fantasy/Horror Notes

The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century, edited by Harry Turtledove with Martin H. Greenberg, musters 13 tales by such top brass of this popular subgenre as Orson Scott Card, David Drake, George R.R. Martin, Arthur C. Clarke and editor Turtledove, who provides an introduction. SF military addicts won't need a direct order to seize a copy of this one. (Del Rey, $18 paper 560p ISBN 0-345-43989-9)

In William R. Eakin's poetic and unusual Redgunk Tales: Apocalypse and Kudzu from Redgunk, Mississippi, the predictable lives of the smothering backwater's residents are touched by shadowy supernatural events. A lonely shop clerk is unwittingly adored by a sentient yet immobile curiosity-shop exhibit in "The Secret of the Mummy's Brain." (Invisible Cities [www.invisiblecitiespress.com], $14.95 paper 290p ISBN 0-9679683-4-8) It's Judgment Day, and Lisa is swept up to heaven as the love of her life, Charlie, languishes on a stricken Earth in Derek Savage's (Sweet Revenge) Hell's Nightmare. Derek's fate is up in the air as locusts and violence abound, and he faces the hardest test of his life. (Savage Books [www.savage1.com], $14.95 paper 282p ISBN 0-9673000-9-6)

The inhabitants of Collier, Ga., are watching a fireworks display when something falls from the sky that changes their lives forever. Cut off from communication with the world and mourning the loss of dozens of people, the townsfolk summon the courage to face top-secret government forces, alien visitors and the constant threat of imprisonment and death in James A. Moore's (Under the Overtree) Fireworks. (Meisha Merlin [meisha.merlin@usa.net], $16 paper 384p ISBN 1-892065-40-1)

The land of Elan falls under the tyranny of Searr, who alchemically restructures all dissidents into followers of his master plan, and he begins his war on the dragons and faeries. Brin Williams, the unwitting Chosen One, is whisked from Earth to Elan, and with the help of a dragon, a dryad, an Elfanian and countless other creatures, he fights to save his homeland in William Hill's (The Magic Bicycle) Wizard Sword. (Otter Creek [www.otterpress.com], $29.95 800p ISBN 1-890611-08-5) Correction: The author of Summerblood (Forecasts, April 2) is Tom Deitz, not Tom Dietz.