BIT & NO PIECES

Life, as sometimes will happen, interfered with today's post...but at least there was a boatload of Incoming.

 Incoming:

• Roger MacBride Allen, Isaac Asimov's Utopia.  Science fiction, the third novel ina trilogy by Allen exploring Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and Caliban, the No Law robot.  "In danger of imminent climate collapse, the partially terraformed planet Inferno needs fixing fast, and junior researcher Davlo Lentrall has what seems to him a brilliant solution.  Carve out a couple of channels to connect the Southern Ocean with the landlocked northern polar region, thereby causing it to flood.  Tropical waters can then warm the pole, and polar waters, flowing south, will cool the southern regions, moderating and stabilizing the planetary climate, as well as increasing rainfall throughout the naturally desert world.  But how to do it?  The job is too big and too expensive to achieve with conventional digging equipment.  To the brash young scientist, it's a simple matter.  He intends to drop a comet on the planet.  Needless to say, his idea is not received with enthusiasm.  If something goes wrong, millions of people will die.  The mere thought of it will create enormous stress in Inferno's vast population of Three Law and New Law robots -- sentient machines heavily programmed against harming humans.  But the plan, for all its dangers, may be the only way to solve Inferno's desperate problems.  Problems compounded by Prospero, a dangerously unstable New Law robot whose only match is a robot with no laws at all -- the infamous Caliban."
• Poul Anderson, Maurai & Kith.  Science fiction collection of five stories, three from his Maurai sequence and two from his Kith sequence."After Armageddon the People of the Sea created a new kind of civilization, one based on the integrity of Life and the moral as well as pragmatic necessity of conservation.  But the Sky People live by a different vision, and they have come to enforce it..."
• Gordon Ashe" (John Creasey), A Life for a Death.  A Patrick Dawlish thriller.  "The unbelievable message flashes across six continents to a shocked and dismayed world:  'Patrick Dawlish Murdered!  Shot on Rome's Famous Spanish Steps!'  It seems impossible, but the facts are clear.  Dawlish, the world's number-one policeman,. dead by an assassin's bullet, was about to reveal the plans behind one of the most incredible, worldwide conspiracies of the century.  Dawlish's colleagues in the international association, known as the Crime Haters, were aware that he had been privately investigating an underworld organization called the Farenza, but they had no knowledge of his findings.  In an attempt to find even the slightest clue as to Dawlish's activities, Felicity, his grief-stricken widow, is asked to recall any chance remark her husband may have made in the weeks prior to his death, little realizing that this was a move that squarely placed her own life in gravest peril."  The ever-prolific Creasey published 51 Patrick Dawlish novels between 1939 and 1976.
• Mike Ashley, editor, Arthurian Legends.  Collection of 27 Arthurian stories, both traditional and new.  The book "brings together many of the traditional stories about King Arthur, along with several new interpretations of the legend, to provide a complete picture of his birth, adventures, romance, and fate.  It traces Arthur's exploits to gain the sword Excalibur, the conflict with his half-sister Morgan, the  birth of his bastard son Mordred, and the shadowy influence and fate of Merlin. This collection also follows that adventures of many of Arthur's knights, including Sir Balin, Sir Lanval, Sir Marrock, Sir John, Sir Tristan, and of course Sir Lancelot.  this culminates in the mighty quest for the Holy Grail, the break up of the Round Table, and finally the usurping of the throne by Mordred and the death of Arthur at Camlann."  Sheesh!  What to spoil the ending, Mr. Blurb Writer!
• Art Bourgeau, Wolfman.  Thriller.  "A mysterious, sadistic killer is on the loose in Philadelphia.  A cannibalized body has been found in the park, the victim's finger apparently chewed off.  While detective Nate Mercanto investigates the  murders, Loring Weatherby -- cool of demeanor, a financial advisor, from old money -- seeks the counsel of psychoanalyst Margaret Priest.  He is, he is ashamed to say, obsessed with the notion that he is, literally, shrinking...Margaret Priest, having no notion that her patient is the killer, Helps Mercanto set up a psychological profile of the killer.  Only gradually does she come to suspect her patient.  And she is torn between her concern for him and her growing fear of him.  Although she is unable to violate a doctor-patient confidentiality, she can hardly ignore the danger that Weatherby presents to an unsuspecting public and herself.  Woven between her deep fears is the one she shares with Detective Mercanto -- that Weatherby is not just a psychotic killer, but a lycanthrope, a genuine human werewolf."
• Dan Brennan, One of Our Bombers Is Missing.  War novel.  A critically praised World War II novel.  John Betjeman wrote, "Brennan's novel is really remarkable.  I shall not lend it to anyone who has a son in the Air Force.  I is too unnerving.  It would tear their hearts pout.:
• Alfred Coppel, A Little Time for Laughter.  Mainstream novel.  "This is the story of six young Americans as they span the generations from the beginning of World War II to the present.  Against the backdrop of youth, innocence, and passion, this touching, nostalgic tale brings alive our own past and awakens the hidden violence that lies beneath the surface of all our lives."  Coppel was a prolific genre writer in the 1950s and 60s, best known for his action thrillers and science fiction.
• "James S. A. Corey" (Daniel Abraham & Ty Frank), Leviathan Wakes.  Science fiction, the first novel in The Expanse series.  "Humanity has colonized the solar system -- Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond -- but the stars are still out of reach.  Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt.  When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted.  A secret someone is willing to kill for -- and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew.  War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.  Detective Miller is looking for a girl.  One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks.  When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that the girl may be the key to everything.  Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations -- and the odds are against them.  But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can shape the fate of the universe."  I tried to get into the television series and bailed during the first episode (probably my fault), but the books are mega-popular.  I'll probably dip into this one sometime in the future.
• John Creasey, The Famine.  A Dr. Palfey thriller.  "The Lozi were small, intelligent, vicious...and insatiably hungry.  They sprang seemingly from nowhere; one day the world was quiet, peaceful, the next Lozi colonies were discovered in every major nation, and on every continent.  They built their cities beneath the surface, away from prying eyes, and it wasn't until the food began to disappear that they were discovered.  Only one man stood between the end of the world and the Lozi...Dr. Stanislaus Palfrey.  But this time it seemed that even the resources of Z5, the international organization he headed, must fail..."  Creasey published 34 books in the Palfrey series from 1942 to 1979 -- many of which took a scie3nce fictional tone as be battled to save the world from aAmageddon...again and again.  Creasey's son Richard contributed tow further books to the series after his father's death, a novel and a collection of three stories.  Go Away Death.  A Gordon Craigie-Department z thriller.  "Bill Loftus, number two man of England's secret Department Z, had very personal reasons for tracking down the men who were using international blackmail to rupture relations between Britain and the U.S. and undermine the NATO Alliance.  They had murdered his fiancee.  But although Loftus was seeing red, he had to use all his professional cool to unravel the plot which entangled America's most powerful industrialist, three British peers of the realm and agents of unknown powers.  In a violent, surprising climax, Loftus finds new love just before he shakes hands with death."  Creasey wrote 28 novels about Craigie and Department Z between 1933 and 1957.   The Sleep.  Another day, another threatened end-of-the-world adventure for Dr. Palfrey.  "The first victim had been asleep for more than three years.  The best scientists and doctors were unable to find out what was wrong with him, and at last they gave up, letting his wife take him home to sleep away the rest of his life...or die.  Then  an entire African village was seized into a frenzy of mad dancing that stopped only when the villagers collapsed into that same sleep...and Dr. Palfrey and the agents of Z-5 found themselves confronting one of the most terrifying threats to the world they had ever known!"
• Loren D. Estleman, The Witchfinder.  An Amos Walker mystery.  "In seventeenth-century New England witch-finders were the bearers of false witness -- and were paid handsomely for their lies.  In twentieth-century Detroit, the pickings are easier, and the pay has gone through the roof.  Now, a world-renowned architect, a man though to be dying in a Los Angeles hospital, has called Amos Walker to a hotel room at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, to find the person who engineered a heart-breaking lie -- and cost the architect the one woman he truly loved.  It began with a photograph that Jay Bell Furlong didn't recognize as a fake.  It turned into a smashed love affair, with the master builder fleeing to the West Coast and the lonely world of fame, money, and megalomania.  As soon as Walker gets the photograph in his hand and hits Detroit's heat-soaked streets, the doctored photo becomes a passport to murder.  In a world of tycoons, blackballers, socialites, cops, and crooks, Walker is turning over rocks in Detroit's best and worst neighborhoods.  What he finds are a lot of people who had plenty of reasons to hate Jay Bell Furlong -- from his long-suffering kid brother to an embittered ex-wife and a glad-handing son.  But it takes two murders and a bullet for Walker to realize who he's really up against:  an ex-Vietnam sniper and an all-around solid citizen who has made killing his career."
• "David Farland" (Dave Wolverton), editor. L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume 38.  Annual presentation of writing and illustrating contest, this time from 2022.  Thirteen stories from the WOTF international writers' program, three short stories from Farland, Hubbard, and Frank Herbert, essays on writing and illustration by Dian Dillon, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Frank Herbert, and L. Ron Hubbard, and illustrations by winners in the Illustrators of the Future international illustrators' program.  This has always been kind of an iffy series for me.  The stories tend to be amateurish, ranging from good to meh, but some of the past winners have gone on the bigger and much better things; time will tell if that happens to any of this year's crop.  The contest does try to divorce itself nicely from Scientology (for which I'm thankful), but it also tends to lionize Hubbard -- something I'm not happy with.  (Hubbard could be a good and effective pulp writer, but Xenu knows he had more than his share of faults.)
• Nicholas Freeling, King of the Rainy Country.  A Van der Valk mystery, winner of the 1987 Edgar.  " Inspector Van der Valk was doing some quiet, undercover investigating -- nothing criminal, no foul play, just the odd disappearance would be a better word, of a wealthy man.  Cause for worry, but not -- yet -- cause for alarm.  But the investigation had another disappearance.  the chase for the two persons led to ski resorts, carnivals, a small village, and past  murder (or suicide?) until Van der Valk uncovered some astonishing facts and a solution to the problems.  Or so he thought."
• Vic Ghidalia, editor, The Oddballs.  Science fiction/fantasy anthology with nine stories.  Authors are H. G. wells, Robert Silverberg, Algis Budrys, Fritz Leiber, Nelson Bond, Robert Bloch, Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Jerome K. Jerome.  Ghidalia edited eighteen science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies from 1969 to 1977, mostly for lower-tiered paperback houses. 
• Michael Halliday" (John Creasey), Runaway.  A non-series mystery.  This was the first novel Creasey wrote while in America.  "When he knocked on the door of Arne Manor, little did Bob Curran know that upstairs the old man lay dead.  When the police came in on the case, the relatives gathered round like vultures, eager to profit from the old man's will, eager also to frame the tall American in the murder inquiry."  Two Meet Trouble.  Another standalone mystery.  "The wail of the siren declared that a convict had escaped from Dartmoor prison.  And Gabrielle Melson was all alone in the cottage she shared with her brother...Suddenly a strange face loomed at the window.  But once inside the cottage, Michael Cranton seemed reassuringly normal and pleasant -- until he admitted that he'd helped the prisoner, Sam Peek, to escape.  Reluctantly, Gabrielle agreed to hide Sam while the hunt was under way.  And it wasn't until her brother returned with his friend, Klimmer, that Michael Cranton revealed the awful connection between Klimmer and Sam Peek..."  Creasey published 54 novels under his Michael Halliday pseudonym between 1937 and 1976, mostly standalone novels, but also four novels featuring Martin and Richard Fane and ten novels featuring Dr. Emmanuel Cellini.
• Alex Hamilton, Beam of Malice.  Horror collection with 15 stories.  "Alex Hamilton is one of the absolute masters of the sunlit nightmare, the tale of insidious quiet and relentless menace." -- Ramsay Campbell
• Nancy Holder, Angel:  City of.  Television tie-in, a novelization of the series premiere, based on the teleplay by David Greenwalt & Joss Whedon.  "Buffy the Vampire Slayer was Angel's first true love, but the relationship was doomed from the start -- a moment of true happiness would cause Angel to lose his soul forever.  so he left -- Sunnydale, Buffy, and everything else meaningful to him. 'Alive for 244 years, I thought I'd seen everything.  Then I came to LA.'  City of Angels.  run by powerful forces, agents of pure evil.  It's a city hard on its human population.  If Angel wants to save himself, he's going to have to save them...somehow.  With the help of two unlikely allies -- a half-demon and an ex-May Queen -- he's going to set up shop...And keep watch over his city."  Yeah, I'm a big Buffy and Angel fan.
• Charlie Huston, Caught Stealing.  Crime thriller, Huston's first novel.  "Henry 'call me Hank' Thompson used to play California baseball.  Now he tends bar on Manhattan's Lower East Side.  When two Russians in tracksuits beat Hank to a pulp. he gets the clue:  someone wants something from him.  He just doesn't know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn't have it.  Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, playing hide-and-seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.  All because of some Russian hoods and a flat-out freak show of goons.  All because once, in another life, the only thing Hank wanted to do was to steal third base -- without getting caught."
• Alexander C. Irvine, Asimov's Have Robot Will Travel.  Science fiction, an Asimov's Robot mystery. following a trilogy written by Mark W. Tiedemann.  "Exiled to the colony Nova Levis, roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess have tried to make their best of their situation, after exposing an anti-robot conspiracy on Earth five years before that cost them their jobs and their freedom.  But all that is about to change...A human has been murdered on Kopernik, a space station orbiting the Earth, and all the clues point toward a robot as the killer.  But how can that be, when robots are programmed to never bring harm to humans?  It's a familiar situation for Derec and Ariel -- the sort of mystery that led to their current status as political pariahs.  Still, not even an exiled robot expert can turndown an opportunity to add his expertise to the investigation, and before too long, Derec is on his way to Kapernik.  Ariel, meanwhile, has a mystery of her own to unravel.  With the help of old friends -- and potentially new enemies -- Derec searches for the identity of a killer, unaware that Ariel is walking directly into the center of the web of intrigue..."
• John Jakes, Secrets of Stardeep.  Science fiction.  "The faster-than-light ship that simply wasn't there!  FTLS Majestica, with Lightcommander Duncan Edison in charge and 2,000 crewmen aboard, had vanished without a trace only moments after leaving the planet Stardeep.  Seven years later, no one had yet been able to discover what had happened to Majestica, and to most people it was a long-forgotten tragedy.  but not to Rob Edison.  rob knew his father wasn't responsible for the disappearance of the FTLS, and he would go clear across the galaxy to Stardeep to prove it.  But Rob wasn't the only one looking for something on Stardeep.  and what started as a private search for the truth soon became a dangerous encounter with invaders out to steal Stardeep's greatest treasure."
• William Katz, Death Dreams.   Horror novel.  "It began, like most horrors, without warning...Her return to life brought with it knowledge of life-after-death, of another world where the ghost of her child wanders until her death is avenged.  But her death was only the beginning...It would take more than a year to pass.  Before it was over it would fascinate a nation, terrorize a town, and consume a family."
• "Murray Leinster" (Will F. Jenkins), Outlaw Sheriff.  Western, originally published as by Jenkins.  "Determined to save his brother, Ted, from a long prison term and possible lynching, Dave Gilmore tangles with the law and flees from the state with a price on his head.  Seeking the elusive evidence necessary to prove that Ted is innocent, he plunges into the midst of a sinister range war and is appointed official deputy sheriff of a small town who befriends him but is also worried over Dave's strange behavior.  With the law hunting him, the lawless hating him, and the law-abiding suspecting him. Dave pits his skill and flashing six-guns against the world.  Ranged against him are independent rustlers, a rancher who considered him bought and another rancher who hated him because he could not be bribed.  The enthusiastic readers of Murray Leinster's Guns Along the Mexican Trail will find this new yarn packed with hard-riding action and terrific suspense"  The copywriter here goofed because the book referred to is simply titled Mexican Trail (A. L. Burt, 1933, as by Jenkins), but I have no doubt that if or when I find a copy of it, I will be an enthusiastic reader.  Leinster's westerns are nothing more or nothing less than readable pulp stories following typical pulp templates -- nothing major, but always entertaining.  The vast majority of books by Leinster reprinted over the past fifty years or so have been science fiction, with a scattering of adventure tales.  Surely it is past time for some enterprising publisher to begin mining his many western novels and short stories.  I, for one, would buy them in an instant. 
• John Lutz, Double Cross.  Something a bit outside my normal wheelhouse: a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle mystery with an original story by Lutz. And just to be mean, there is no picture of what the puzzle looks like to use as a guide.  I suspect it will take me many days to complete the puzzle, that is, if the cat doesn't knock it off the table and the dogs don't eat the pieces.  But it is Lutz, so the effort should be worth it.  UPDATE:  The best-laid plans...Got up in the morning to find that Jolly the Golden Retriever had eaten over 100 pieces of the 1000-piece puzzle, including the entire lower edge.  Makes doing the puzzle an exercise in futility now...At least I have Lutz's story, with the solution printed out in mirror type.
• "John Lymington" (John Newton Chance), The Night Spiders.  Horror collection with 28 stories.  Originally published as a British paperback in 1964, it had never been reprinted and never appeared in America.  However, one of Lymington's science fiction novels, three years after the collection appeared, was also titled The Night Spiders in its US edition, but had no relation to the collection; it did muddy things up, bibliographically speaking, though.  The novel was published in America by Doubleday and is surely a retitling of a British novel, although a cursory check online has not confirmed that.  Anyway, I have been looking for an affordable copy of this collection for many years, and now a number of Lymington's works are currently being reprinted, among them this collection; I preordered the Kindle version, which is due next week.  The stories are probably pure schlock (Lymington was a sometime effective, but not highly skilled, science fiction writer), but it will feel good to finally get to read them.
• John D. MacDonald, No Deadly Drug.  True crime.  "Dr. Carl Coppolino was indicted by the state of New Jersey for the murder of retired Colonel William Farber.  Coppolino had been having an affair with Farber's wife, Marjorie.  Did Coppolino kill Marjorie's husband and his own wife so he could marry Marjorie?  If he did, he may have regretted it, for Marjorie Farber became the prosecution's star witness, claiming her former lover had hypnotized her into becoming an unwilling accomplice in the death of her husband.  Famed defense attorney F. Lee Bailey led the defense and concluded that Marjorie Farber was a classic case of a woman scorned.  Did the jury agree?  Bestselling author John D. MacDonald chronicled the proceedings in the Coppolino case.  No Deadly Drug is a work of impeccable journalism -- detailed, unbiased, even-handed, and thorough -- tempered with the inimitable MacDonald insight, subtlety, and thoughtfulness." 
• "Larry Maddock" (Jack Owen Jardine), Agent of T.E.R.R.A. #2:  The Golden Goddess Gambit.  Gosh! Wow!  Gee whiz! SF adventure.  "When T.E.R.R.A.'s Resident Agent in ancient Crete discovered a mysterious inscription written in a language which wouldn't exist for another thousand years, he immediately suspected time-tampering by the minions of EMPIRE.  Special Agent Hannibal Fortune and his partner, the alien symbiote Webley, were assigned to investigate.  But when they put a time-tracer on the artifact, they found that it had originated far earlier than even the semi-legendary Crete -- fully ten thousand years before that, and far to the west, on an unknown continent in the Atlantic.  There T.E.R.R.A. agents encountered a thriving civilization ruled by the enigmatic god-king named Kronos --and the ultimate secret of Kronos could shatter Earth's time-line forever!"  There were four novels in this series, plus an additional three stories about Webley.
• "Anthony Morton" (John Creasey), Hide the Baron.  A John Mannering (a.k.a. the Baron) thriller.  "The solitary evening walk on the grounds of her employer's estate had been so quiet and beautiful.  Beneath the branches of the pine trees, lovely Joanna Woburn can see the last of the evening sunlight brushing the green of the meadows with gold.  Then she hears a screech that comes again and again, that seems to tell of acute pain.  Running towards the anguished cry she comes upon a small dog caught in a viselike hold of a fox trap.  But there is something even more hideous nearby -- George Morrow, the arrogant young nephew of her employer, is held by the ankle in another viciously gripping steel trap.  Following closely on the mishap that almost costs George his life is a murderous attack on Joanna's employer, the aging millionaire recluse Jimmy Garfield.  In his last moments of consciousness, he begs Joanna to find John Mannering and deliver to him a small black box kept hidden in the seat of his wheelchair.  Thus begins a devilish nightmare for Joanna and Mannering, for possession of the box makes them the next targets for murder."  Black for the Baron (reprinted as If Anything Happens to Hester, under the Creasey byline).  Another John Mannering adventure.  "Hester Vane becomes a murder suspect when a middle-aged male acquaintance of hers is found dead on the grounds of Horton Hall.  As she flees from wicked accusations and evil implications, THE BARON is thrown into her frightening web of danger.  His life is in the balance, especially IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HESTER."  Creasey published 49 books about the Baron -- a reformed jewel thief turned high-end antique dealer --from 1937 to 1979.  For reasons known only to the publishing gods, the character's name was changed to Blue Mask when the first eight books were first published in the U.S.   (The Baron was also a British television series starring Steve Forrest from 1965 to 1966.  The show, which lasted for thirty episodes,  was developed by Terry Nation, best-known for creating the Daleks and Davros for Dr. Who; Nation also worked on Blake's Seven, The Avengers, The Persuaders, and The Saint.)
• Mel Odum,  Angel:  Redemption.  Television tie-in novel.  "When their investigation agency books a walk-in client, Angel, Cordelia, and Doyle couldn't be happier/  Whitney Tyler is a beautiful, widely adored actress who plays a vampire on a popular television series.  Trouble is, a cult of viewers seems to think she's a real vampire, and has made attempts on her life.  Cordelia has got stars in her eyes now that she's rubbing elbows with Hollywood's elite, and Doyle's just relieved to have signed on a case that didn't start with a vision -- and a blinding migraine.  But when Angel lays eyes on Whitney he's astounded -- she's the spitting image pf a young woman warrior whom he encountered during his early days as the scourge of Europe.  As the attempts on Whitney's life continue, the trio uncovers a symbol that links the perpetrators to an ancient cadre sworn to battle creatures of the night.  But what could connect Whitney to someone that Angel once knew -- almost two centuries ago?"  Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel:  Cursed.  Television tie-in novel.  "Skulking around the Slayer in Sunnydale, the vampire Spike has often run into demons intent on punishing him for throwing in with the White Hats.  But when there are hints of a more organized campaign dedicated to vanquishing the vampire with a chip in his head, Spike sets off on the trail of whoever's pit a hit out on him.  Meanwhile, in the City of Angels, the vampire with a soul finds that the search for a mystical object is tied to his days as the vicious Angelus.  Then Spike -- his former partner in carnage -- arrives in LA.  Each nursing a grudge, and with the specter of Buffy in both of their (cold, dead) hearts, the two vampires reluctantly work together...until their torturous past catches up with them!"
• "Ellis Peters" (Edith Parteger), The Will and the Deed (also published as Where There's a Will).  Standalone mystery.  "It was just like the great lady of the stage to bow out of life with a spectacular grand finale.  Even before the curtain of death began to descend, Antonia had personally set the scene for a dramatic climax, calling to center stage all her ex-leading men." 
• Ian Rankin, Strip Jack.  An Inspector John Rebus mystery.  "when respected MP Gregor Jack is caught in a police raid on an Edinburgh brothel and his flamboyant wife Elizabeth suddenly disappears, John Rebus smalls a set-up.  And when Elizabeth's badly beaten body is found, Rebus is suddenly up against a killer who holds all the cards."  The title refers to the popular card game Strip Jack Naked.  A word of warning:  You do not want to google the term "strip jack,"  no, no, no.
• Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish.  Fantasy novel, introducing The Witcher.  ""Gerlat is a Witcher, a man whose magic powers, enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin.  Yet he is no ordinary murderer:  his targets are the multifarious monsters and vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent.  But not everything monstrous looking is evil and not everything fair is good...and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth."  Sapkowski is a winner of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
• Isaac Bashevis Singer, An Isaac Bashevis Singer Reader.  A collection of fifteen stories, four memoirs, and the novel The Magician of Lubin from the Nobel Prize winner.
• Philip Van Doren Stern, editor, The Pocket Book of Modern American Short Stories.  1943 anthology of 18 classic American stories.  Authors are Stephen Vincent Benet, MacKinlay Kantor, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Ring Lardner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Conrad Aiken, Erskine Caldwell, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, Jerome Weidman, Albert Maltz, Katherine Anne Porter, William Saroyan, Sally Benson, and Eudora Welty.  An important entry in the history of paperback publishing. 
• H. Douglas Thomson, editor, The Great Book of Thrillers.  One of those doorstop anthologies of mystery, detective, and supernatural stories that were so popular in Britain in the 1930s.  The original 1935 edition contained 50 stories; the 1937 Odhams edition (which I have) contains 46 stories in 765 pages, dropping six stories ("A Spanish Ghost Story" by Anonymous, "Stanley Fleming'a Hallucination" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Phantom Coach" by Amelia B. Edwards, "The Dilemma of Phadrig" by Gerald Griffin, "The Bowmen" by Arthur Machen, and "The Doctor's Ghost" by Norman MacLeod), and adding two stories ("The Shadow Man" by Edgar Wallace and "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood).  A further abridged edition with only 41 stories was published anonymously as an "instant remainder" in 1991, titled  Great Tales of Terror.  Authors included in the 1937 edition were a mix of classic authors and those well-known at the time -- many of whom may be unfamiliar to present-day audiences:  A. J. Alan (and when will some ambitious publisher reissue Alan's delightful stories?), Michael Arlen, W. E. Aytoun, Honore de Balzac, E. F. Benson, Anthony Berkeley, Algernon Blackwood, Marjorie Bowen, Agatha Christie, G. D. H. and M. I. Cole, Wilkie Collins, Freeman Wills Crofts, Catherine Crowe, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Sheridan Le Fanu, Jeffrey Farnol, J. S. Fletcher, Gilbert Frankau, R. Austin Freeman, John Galt, Theophile Gauthier, L. P. Hartley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Hogg, Washington Irving, W. W. Jacobs, Herbert Jenkins, Maurice Leblanc, Walter de la Mare, Frederick Marryat, Prosper Merimee, E, Phillips Oppenheim, Baroness Orczy, Eden Philpotts, Edgar Allan Poe, John Rhodes, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sir Walter Scott, H. Russell Wakefield, High Walpole, Samuel Warren, H. G. Wells, and Oscar Wilde.  Some good reading then, some good reading now.
• Mark W. Tiedemann, Asimov's Mirage.  Science fiction, an Asimov's Robot mystery.  "At a crucial conference uniting the Spacers, the Settler, and representatives of Earth, Senator Clar Eliton of Earth and Senior Space Ambassador Galiel Humadros od Aurora are advocating the restoration of positronic robots on Earth, repudiating years of fear and resentment.  It is a dangerous stance to take.  As the Spacer delegates arrive on Earth, conspirators assassinate Senator Eliton.  Ambassador Humadros is cut down, too.  Both are failed by their robot protectors.  Special Agent Mia Daventri -- part of the security force assigned to protect Eliton -- is the only member of her team to survive the attack, and is rushed to the hospital.  Expert roboticist Derec Avery is called in to investigate what may have caused the robot bodyguards to fail at the most critical hour.  But his inquiries are stonewalled, and an attempt is made on Mia's life.  Derec and Mia must join forces with Calvin Institute attache Ariel Burgess to penetrate a conspiracy that sprawls across Terran, Spacer, and Settler worlds and threatens to bring war to them all."
• Robin Scott Wilson, editor, Clarion III.  Science fiction anthology of fiction written by attendants of the Clarion science fiction workshop, along with articles from various instructors.  The young talent attending back then (1973) included F. M. Busby, Mel Gliden, Mildred Downey Broxon, John Shirley, Gerard F. Conway, J. Michael Reaves, and Lisa Tuttle.  Among those contributing articles were Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight, and Harlan Ellison.  Clarion, now bi-coastal, is still going strong.