Books of the Week

Science Fiction/ Parallel Worlds
Sawyer, Robert J.
Hominids
Tor 0765345005

Scientists working in a nickel mine far below the earth because of its particular isolative properties are shocked when someone appears within their large globe of heavy water. The man appears to be a Neanderthal but has a high tech device imbedded in his arm and is wearing very unusual clothing. Meanwhile in another world a prominent scientist disappears and his partner is accused of murder. Two sets of scientists working in two parallel worlds at the same time on completely different projects have created a temporary passage. In the world Ponter Boddit is from Neanderthals are the dominant species and have pretty much bred criminal tendencies out of their gene pool. Sawyers exquisite world building creates a world with complex familial relationships and culture. Men and women live apart. Individuals can have partners of both sexes living with the same sex partner for the majority of the month and the other sex partner for 4 days when "two become one". If Adikor Huld who was accused by Ponter's late female partner's female partner cannot prove his innocence while in the midst of his own grief he and all who share 50% of his genetic makeup will be sterilized. Meanwhile in our world, Ponter, who does not have immunities to our diseases becomes deathly ill while the media descends like vultures. Definitely a great choice for the Hugo award. It is the kind of science fiction readers yearn for, amazing what if? ideas, a satisfying plot peopled by complex characters with diverse motivations, and a richly imagined parallel world setting.

Crime / Police Detective / Game Warden
Box, C.J.
Winterkill
Putnam 0399150455

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett's third mystery puts him in the middle of the epic battle between the federal government and the radical right after the local forest service administrator is murdered while in his custody after massacring a herd of elk. Box captivates the spirit of the West as he enters into an uneasy alliance with rough-edged, rugged, raptor trainer Nate Romanowski who is wrongly arrested for the murder after an insane federal bureaucrat descends on the blizzard ravaged community to wage war against those she sees as anti-government. On the homefront, Joe's family is threatened when foster daughter April's bio-mom returns to town with a caravan of the "Sovereigns" a militant separatist group. Box has created a modern hero with family man Joe Pickett who personifies Western values.

Science Fiction/ Humorous/ Genetic Engineering
Moore, Christopher
Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
Morrow 0380978415

Outrageously hilarious tale of whale researcher Nate Quinn who discovers a bizarre secret of a humpback whale he is stalking as he tries to puzzle out the meaning of whale song. A dreadlocked rasta white boy from New Jersey, an accomplished underwater photographer with a saucy school teacher girlfriend, and a mysteriously pale research intern whose credentials don't check out round out the likeable cast along with the whaley boys who must be read to be believed. Laugh out loud fun for those who find a combination of Carl Hiaasen-like hilarity and absurd science fiction enticing.

YA/ Science Fiction/
Lubar, David
Flip
Tor 0765301490

It seems amazingly hard to believe that skater Ryan, barely passing and always in trouble is the twin brother of overachieving Taylor. When Ryan sees a burst of light one night and finds some bizarre gunk at the crash site that turns out to be an alien's advertisement for entertainment disks of Earthly legends his life not to mention that of his sister and several other middle school kids will change forever. Finding the disks and then rescuing them from the school bully starts Ryan on an adventure that takes him into the lives of Babe Ruth, Spartacus, Queen Victoria, and others and gives him a different perspective on himself and his dysfunctional family. Lubar's previous novel, Hidden Talents, has been more popular with my middle school readers than Sacher's Holes. Flip is sure to win more fans.

YA/ Fantasy/ Sword and Sorcery
Douglass, Sara
Beyond the Hanging Wall
Tor 076530449X

Garth a teen apprentice physician goes into the Vein, the dismal mines manned by condemned prisoners, when his father has to serve his mandatory three weeks doctoring the prisoners. Garth who is strong in The Touch discovers that one of the prisoners is really Prince Maximilian who had disappeared at age fourteen and been assumed dead.

Literary Fiction/ Mainstream Fiction/ Coming of Age
Tucker, Lisa
The Song Reader
Downtown Press 0743464451

Tucker's debut novel is the good kind of li-fi. It is not only beautifully written featuring finely crafted true-to-life quirky characters, it tells a story and tells it well. The narrator is Leeann Norris who lives through adolescence under the guardianship of her elder sister Mary Beth. When Leeann was five-years-old their father disappeared and when she was ten their mother died. While Mary Beth supports them with her waitressing job her real career is that of song reader/ life healer. It says so right on her very own business cards. A song reader uses the tunes that run through people's minds to discover the truths they may be hiding even from themselves. As Leeann proceeds through her teens she finds her mentally different father, uncovers the truth about why he left, and stands by Mary Beth while she rejects true love and then faces the consequences of a reading that leads to tragedy. Even though Mary Beth is the Song Reader this is very much the story of Leeann a mature before her time young woman who has much to offer the world.

Fantasy/ Alternate History Detection/ Private Investigator/ Female Detective
Robins, Madeleine E.
Point of Honour
Forge 031287202x

Sarah Tolerance is a member of the Fallen, that odd sorority of women in an alternate Regency era that are of gentle birth but no longer acceptable to society. Sarah has, as a teenager, run off with her brother's fencing master. Now in her late 20s following the death of her lover, Sarah has returned to London and rather than taking up prostitution, the usual occupation of a young woman who has been cast off by family, she sets herself up as an "investigative agent." Hired to find a missing Italian fan, she meets many other women of all ages who are in the ranks of the fallen. Her skill with a short sword is an asset as someone repeatedly tries to kill her and does kill an elderly woman she has questioned as well as a friend of hers who wore her great coat when running an errand for her. When she finds out who is actually behind her search she unwillingly falls in love but finds that her count is not all that he should be. Edgy, intriguing, and fascinating.

YA/ Contemporary/ Outsiders YA/ Issues/ Life is Hard
Koja, Kathe
Buddha Boy
Farrar, Straus And Giroux 0374309981

The new student at Justin's mostly affluent high school is Jinsen who refuses to fit in and is called Buddha Boy by the kids who rule the school and torment him. When Justin is assigned to work with Jinsen on an Econ project he discovers the the strange shaven-headed boy is an incredibly talented artist who has a complicated past. Koja's Straydog (2002) was a terrific YA debut for the award winning horror author but with Buddha Boy she proves that she is a force to be reckoned with and an A list writer for teens.

Fantasy/ Magic / Alternate Formats/ Epistolary
Wrede, Patricia C. & Caroline Stevermer
Sorcery & Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot
Harcourt 0152046151

The spring of 1817 sees best friends and cousins Cecelia and Kate separated when Kate and her sister Georgie go to London for their season and Cecy is required to wait another year. Kate enters into a sham engagement with the mysterious marquis who is imperiled by two powerful magic wielders. Cecy does find excitement in the country when Dorothea, as beautiful and pursued as Georgie had been visits the neighborhood and enchants all the young men. She is totally dismayed when her stepmama, Miranda writes that she is arriving to take Dorothea off to London for the rest of the season. Meanwhile Kate has had her own run in with Miranda in London. It is wonderful to see this delightful epistolary novel back in print. Not to be missed. Fans of Jane Austin and Georgette Heyer who do not usually read fantasy should be enthralled be this letter-perfect Regency.

YA/ Science Fiction/ Virtual Reality
Vande Velde, Vivian
Heir Apparent
Harcourt 0152045600

Receiving a gift certificate to an arcade, Giannine is trapped in a fantasy role playing game when a band of zealots opposed to fantasy games for youth storms the arcade and causes damage. The only way she can escape is by winning the game. A little bit Groundhog Day, a little bit futuristic, and a lot medieval fantasy this will be a hit with younger teen readers.

YA/ Issues/ Life is Hard
Caletti, Deb
The Queen of Everything
Simon Pulse 0743436849

This is the second book this year to portray the death and destruction caused by a parent's affair. Jordan likes living with her rather bland optometrist father much better that she liked living the the laid back bed and breakfast run by her hippie-ish mother and artist step-dad. She isn't even thrilled when Kale, the attractive school bad-boy decides he is in love with her. She likes the strange neighbor who plays the bagpipes but his sister, her best friend, would be appalled since she thinks he is such a freak. Jordan does have some wonderful loving people in her life including Big Mama, a woman who puts life in terms of fish. This is my pick for the "Dog Was Star" book of the year won previously by the backwardly eponymous Rats Saw God, Tangerine, Breathing Underwater, and Born Confused. "The Dog Was Star" Award winner is the best book of the year by an author I haven't read before. It is named for the first book to win the award and because I read backwards and forwards I always had trouble with the title since it made the same amount of sense when read backwards or forwards.

YA/ Fantasy/ Humorous
Pratchett, Terry
The Wee Free Men:A Story of Discworld
Harpercollins 0060012366

A nine year old witch named Tiffany teams up with the wee free men, blue tattooed pictsies in kilts, to rescue her little brother from the Queen of Fairyland. Read an interview with Terry Pratchett. Readers of this will definitely enjoy Pratchett's last Discworld novel for young adult readers The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

YA/ Mystery and Suspense
Springer, Nancy
Blood Trail
Holiday House 0823417239

When Booger is heading home after a visit to the local swimming hole, his best friend Aaron, tells the 17 year old football player that he is scared and asks him to telephone him in 10 minutes. When he does telephone the answering machine picks up after several rings but he knows Aaron should be home so he calls back and gets Aaron's much smaller twin brother Nathan on the line who tells him that Aaron is not at home. When police cars go past Booger knows that something has happened at Aaron's house. Arriving he discovers that Aaron has been brutally slain with more than 70 stab wounds. He talks to the police but withholds the name of who Aaron was afraid until he is called back in for a lie detector test. When he admits that Aaron was afraid of Nathan it ends up on the news and he becomes a pariah with people in the community decrying him for further hurting Aaron's family when surely it had to have been some deranged sociopath or something who was the murderer not Aaron's own twin. With the help of his sister Booger comes to realize the truth.

YA/ Issues/ Pregnancy and Teen Parents / Contemporary/ Coming of Age
Johnson, Angela
The First Part Last
Simon & Schuster 0689849222

Flashing back and forth in the Bobby Morris's seventeenth year is somewhat disorienting but then so is Bobby's life. On his sixteenth birthday his girlfriend Nia tells him she is pregnant. In alternating chapters we see him fathering his baby girl Feather and really being a man and how he got to that point. Bobby was a character in Johnson's Heaven. Johnson is incredibly good at bringing her characters to life, making them and their situations so believable that they resonate with truth.