Baen Books

Bookwatch, The, July, 2005

Baen Books

PO Box 1403, Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

Each month Baen produces a mere handful of science fiction titles--but what riches, for readers who relish alternative history and military science fiction! This month's arrivals are no exception to the rule of fine productions: Eric Flint compiles and edits Howard L. Myers' The Creatures Of Man (074349900X, $7.99), set in a distant future where humans no longer need spaceships but journey the stars propelled by bodily implants, facing battles for galactic dominance; Flint joins with David Weber in Crown Of Slaves (0743498992, $7.99), beginning a new series set in Weber's 'Honorverse' where restless alliances between star kingdoms drives a queen to send her envoy on a dangerous secret mission, and Jack L. Chalker's The Return Of Nathan Brazil (0743-499018, $7.99), telling of a hive intelligence which infects humans and takes over their minds--until a powerful weapon threatens a supercomputer's control of time and space itself? these are winning paperworks. New to the hardcover line: another fine alternative history collection edited by Harry Turtledove, Alternate Generals III (0743498976, $24.00) gather stories about John Paul Jones, Napoleon, and other famous generals now set into alternative scenarios; Andre Norton's Dark Companion (0743498984, $26.00), providing a combined reprint of two previously interrelated novels Dark Piper and Dread Companion, about a girl who faces her charge's seemingly imaginary but all-too-real invisible companion, Travis S. Taylor's The Quantum Connection (074-3498968, $24.00), telling of a computer hacker whose life changes when a swarm of huge meteors fall on the planet, shattering his family and his life. His involvement in video repairs and gaming involves him in politics which reveals the truth of the meteors which orphaned him. David Weber and John Ringo's We Few (07434-9881X, $26.00) tells of one Roger Chaing McClintock, a spoiled playboy prince who grows up watching his bodyguards die to protect him. Murderers have changed his family and spark revenge even as the Empire hasbeen told he himself is a traitor. Fast political action ensues.