Welcome to Concatenation's summary guide to forthcoming UK publishing releases. With author, title, and in nearly all instances the ISBN number, this listing will enable our UK and western European regulars to order these titles from their bookshop and (re-prints and format changes excepted) be among the first to read them. Most of these are hardback or trade format paperbacks, but where we know for certain that they are standard paperback (pbk) we have indicated this.
North American regulars will be able to ask bookshops to import European originals but we advise using large specialist bookshops that regularly stock European imports so as to avoid heavy postage costs shop owners have to pass on.
The lists below will help keep you ahead of the pack and we will properly review many of these titles in the months to come.
[Science Fiction | Fantasy & Horror | Science Fact and Non-Fiction | TV & Film tie-ins]
Science Fiction releases
Kevin Anderson - Hidden Empire: The Saga of the Seven Suns. Earthlight, £10.99 (pbk). ISBN 07-4322045-5. A space opera epic.
J G Ballard - The Complete Short Stories. Flamingo, £12.99. ISBN 00-0713812-1. It is not clear from the brief pre-publicity how many of these stories are speculative fiction. However he is a cracking writer.
Stephen Baxter - Phase Space. Voyager, £16.99. ISBN 00-0225952-4. Short story collection. Baxter's hard SF is Britain's answer to Greg Egan (or is it the other way around?).
Stephen Baxter - Evolution. Gollancz, £17.99. ISBN 05-7507341-1. A tale spanning 115 million years of a species' evolution.
David Brin - The Kil'n People. Orbit, £6.99 (pbk). ISBN 18-4149152-7.
Gardner Dozois (ed) - The Mammoth Book of Best Science Fiction 15. Robinson, £9.99 (pbk). ISBN 1-84119586-3. Collection of shorts.
Alan Grant and Carlos Ezquerra - Strontium Dog: A Portrait of a Mutant. Titan Books, £11.99 (pbk) Graphic novel. A classic collected re-print of the Starlord comic character who went on to bigger and sometimes better things in 2000AD.
Peter F Hamilton - Mispent Youth. Macmillan, £17.99. ISBN 07-1814464-3. A 73 year old undergoes a medical trial for the World's first anti-ageing therapy. (Will Hamilton ever learn to tell a story in under 100,000 words? We doubt it, but the man has talent and his door-stoppers have a following.)
John M Harrison - Light. Gollancz, £10.99 (pbk). ISBN 0-57507026-9. According to the advance publicity this is a quantum physics tale. However as John M. is not noted for his hard SF we are a little cautious.
Robert A Heinlein - Between Planets Robert Hale, £17.99. ISBN 0-70907138-8. This is a reprint of a 1951 novel from the late great SF grandmaster. Time for seasoned buffs to check to see if your collection is missing this one. A must-buy for serious newcomers to the genre.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson - The Butlerian Jihad. Hodder, £18.99. ISBN 03-4082330-5. The latest in the Dune prequels (as if there could be any further improvement on the original novel by the original author... Still, it will sell.)
Ken MacLeod - Engine City. Orbit, £16.99. ISBN 1-84149148-9. The final story (apparently) in his Engines of Light series.
Robert Rankin - The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. Gollancz, £9.99. ISBN 0-57507313-6. We occasionally review Rankin's zany works (see our books review index). Mainly science fantasy, he has an off-the wall sense of humour with a predilection for dire puns. He is for some an acquired taste and even with such a taste his books can take a little while to get into, but once in you are stuck with the man for the ride. And what a ride.
David and Leigh Eddings - Regina's Song. Harper Collins, £17.99. ISBN 00-0713033-3. A psychological cum ghost, murder mystery.
Stephen Jones (ed) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 13. Robinson, £6.99 (pbk) ISBN 18-4119540-5. Collection of shorts.
Stephen King - From a Buick 8. Hodder, £17.99. ISBN 03-4077069-4. A horror story concerning a truck. (This might be King's way of working out his feelings arising from his recent road accident.)
Dean Koontz - By the Light of the Moon. Headline, £17.99. ISBN 07-472703-2. Standard Koontz fare so it will sell well.
Terry Pratchett - Nightwatch. Doubleday, £16.99. ISBN 03-8560264-2. The latest in the Discworld series. 'Nuff said.
Ian Watson - Draco, Harlequin and Chaos Child. Three paperback novels about the hero Draco from the Games Workshop imprint, Black Library.
Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart - Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life. Ebury Press, £17.99. ISBN 00-9187927-2. We can say with confidence (because our very-own Jonathan Cowie was a manuscript reader for the principal author) that this one is mainly a Jack Cohen offering. SF fans will delight in that there are numerous genre references and boxed book synopsis. Biologists however may disagree with the take Jack has taken on exobiology: Jonathan does. However as there are no right answers in exobiology (only well thought out guesses), Jonathan's concerns need not worry the reader. This is a must-buy for science fact & fiction buffs, and many bioscientists would not be harmed by exercising their technical critical prowess on this one.
Lois Gresh and Robert Weinberg - The Science of Super Heroes. John Wiley and Sons, £14.99. ISBN 04-7102460-0. Could superman leap tall buildings? This light-hearted exploration of super heroes powers uses a 'what-if' science approach. Shades of Larry Niven's Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.
John Gribbin - Science: A History. Allen Lane, £25. ISBN 07-1399503-3. The title says it all and John Gribbin is an excellent science writer. The big question for SF loving scientists will be whether John has managed to include some interesting slants and, of course, whether he includes the oft overlooked non-science technologies. Irrespectively, this is a must buy for non-scientists into science.
Steve Jones - Y: The Descent of Man. Little Brown, £14.99. ISBN 03-1685615-0. An exploration of the male side of sexual dimorphism from the British geneticist. Jones is usually good (so don't be put off by his having sold out with that aweful TV car advert a few years ago).
Marie O'Mahony - Cyborg: The Man Machine. Thames & Hudson, £14.95. ISBN 05-0028381-8. A review of recent advances in biotechnology and the creation of artificial life. There has been considerable work in this area so this could be good. Having said that, according to Concat team's resident bioscientist, there has been quite a bit of woolly thinking in the related area of the origins of life so much will depend on the author's ability to analyse scientific papers as well as cover the necessary academic literature.
Terry Pratchett - The New Discworld Companion. Gollancz, £12.99. ISBN 05-7507467-1. An updated and revised version of the non-fiction guide to Discworld.
Harriet Swain - The Big Questions in Science. Jonathan Cape (price and ISBN not released at time of preview). Could be that someone is treading on Jack Cohen, Jonathan Cowie and John Gribbin territory?
Colin Greenland - Finding Helen. Black Swan, £6.99pbk. ISBN 05-5277080-9. Billed as a quest for lost dreams and a life gone awry, we thought that Concat regulars might be interested in the author of Take Back Plenty's departure from overt SF/science fantasy.
Battlestar Galactica: Rebellion from ibooks at £14.95 by Richard Hatch and Alan Rodgers. ISBN 0-74341326-1. Co-written by the actor who played Captain Apollo, this release might be something to do with a possible Battlestar Galactica re-make - as if the first time around was not bad enough. (Still, the cylons in the series did sound like Robert the robot from Fireball XL5).
Buffy the Vampire Series from Pocket Books (pbk)The Terminator 2: The John Connor Chronicles by Russell Blackford. iBooks, £5.99 (pbk). ISBN 07-4344511-2. It is not clear whether or not this ties in even vaguely with the forthcoming Terminator 3 film.
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