Review: "The Overneath" by Peter S. Beagle

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise in “The Overneath” ($15.95, Tachyon Publications), Peter S. Beagle writes about a few unicorns. But there are a few other nice surprises in this short story collection, as well.

We’ll get the familiar ground out of the way first. Of the 13 stories in the book, three deal with unicorns of various stripes, and two focus on his bumbling magician Schmendrick.

First up is “The Green-Eyed Boy,” which tells the tale of how Schmendrick came to be apprenticed to the wizard Nikos prior to Beagle’s most well-known tale, “The Last Unicorn.” It’s a fun and funny story that should please fans of that book. Though less funny, the same could be said of “Schmendrick Alone,” in which we learn about the first time that the wizard summoned a demon that he couldn’t control.

Review: "The 5th Wave" by Rick Yancey

The invasion of the world from space comes not with laser beams and strange alien creatures in Rick Yancey’s “The 5^th Wave” ($18.99, Putnam), but by much more chilling and seemingly insurmountable means.

When the mothership appears glowing over the Earth, speculation runs wild. Reactions vary anywhere from panic to optimism that the visitors come in peace and will bring valuable knowledge to help us. That optimism fades as soon as the First Wave hits – a massive electromagnetic pulse that knocks out electricity and disables vehicles and communications. With the Second Wave, the alien invaders drive a spike into the ocean floor, setting of tsunamis that wipe out most of the coastlands and concentrate people in the central part of the continent. That’s where the Third Wave can do the most damage – a violent and virulent plague that wipes out the majority of the remaining population. Perhaps most fiendish is the Fourth Wave, humans that have been taken over by the invaders, sowing mistrust and paranoia among those that remain.

But it gets worse. The Fifth Wave is coming, and it’s by far the most sinister.

Review: "Only You Can Save Mankind" by Terry Pratchett

Best known for his massive Discworld series, Terry Pratchett has also occasionally ventured outside that milieu for a book or two. One of those was the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy in the early 1990s. The first book, "Only You Can Save Mankind," ($15.99, HarperCollins) has just been re-released with a few, very minor updates.

Life hasn't been good to 12-year-old Johnny Maxwell lately. His parents are going through Trying Times, and the Gulf War is plastered on his television screen every night. One of his favorite escapes is a game, pirated by his hacker friend Wobbler, called "Only You Can Save Mankind." Unfortunately, this time when he logs on to blow away the invading ScreeWees, the aliens want to make peace with him. They surrender and ask for his protection.

When he falls asleep that night, Johnny finds himself at the helm of the fighter ship leading the ScreeWee fleet back to its homeworld and protecting it from other gamers. Soon thousands of computer users around the world are turning on the game to empty screens where there should be attacking aliens. Gamers aren't happy, and neither are some of the aliens aboard the ScreeWee mother ship.

On the surface, Pratchett's tale is a fun story of a boy living a video game adventure. It's not exactly a new premise. It's been around since video games first started popping up in the early 1980s, but how many of those stories have you read where the aliens surrender, changing the boy's world view?

And that's what sets this apart from the average children's science fiction novel. Anyone who has ever read Pratchett knows that he's an excellent satirist. While the satire here is a little more obvious than in his usual work, it's just as effective. The constant backdrop to the story is the 1991 Gulf War, which with the smart bombs and other technology was a lot like a video game itself.

Pratchett uses the story to illustrate the dangers of that kind of war and how easy it is to forget that we're shooting at other people. In video games, no one gets hurt. Right?

"Only You Can Save Mankind" is enjoyable for younger readers, but there are plenty of jokes for those of us that remember Atari 2600s, too. I particularly enjoyed a thread on the burned out hulls of Space Invaders that Johnny and the fleet pass. If you missed this one the first time around, now's a good time to check it out.

Review: "The Visitor" by Sheri S. Tepper

Killer meteors hurtling toward the Earth were big at the theater a few years ago, but with her latest, "The Visitor" (EOS), Sheri S. Tepper puts a new spin on the tale.

In a society not much more advanced than our own, astronomers spot a strange object sailing through space, on a collision course with our own world. Scientific minds prepare for survival, thinking they can preserve the human race. The religious turn to prayer, thinking Armageddon is at hand. They're both wrong.

While the world changes and millions upon millions die in what comes to be known as the Happening, the human race survives - but it's greatly changed.

The result is a future that neither the coldly scientific nor the faithful religious could have predicted. A new mythology is born with tales of rebel angels and a Guardian Council - both of which will soon return to the world. Many have heard the story, but few suspect they're real.

Disme Latimer is a descendant of one of the scientists that sheltered in hopes of preserving humanity. Since her brother and father died, she's lived with a wicked stepsister who takes pleasure in causing her pain and anguish. But her stepsister Rashel has her own secret to keep.

Disme lives in Bastion, a society of the Spared, who believe they are the only true humans. She knows she's different from the others around her, but even she can't guess the destiny that awaits her when the Visitor begins to move from its perch at the top of the world.

"The Visitor" is part "Armageddon"-style sci-fi thriller and part "Cinderella" story. It's a book that merges magic and science effortlessly into a new kind of post-apocalyptic world.

Tepper has created a place where magic and science are almost indistinguishable from each other - and both do exist. A place where concepts from our own world are skewed to fit this new frontier. A place as intriguing as it is horrifying.

The story in "The Visitor" is another incarnation of the age-old science vs. religion argument. The difference is that in Tepper's world, neither side is truly right. The reader is forced to face some facts with a cold, analytical mind, while at the same time taking other facets of the story on faith.

Even though I suspected the true nature of the Visitor, the revelation of the mystery was a bit disappointing. Not because of its identity, but because, after a long and thought-provoking novel, Tepper didn't let the readers draw their own conclusions. Instead, she takes the soap box for a few pages - in the guise of the Visitor, of course - and tells us exactly what we should get out of the book. It's a heavy-handed approach that didn't do much for me.

That being said, it's not enough to ruin the book. The story up to that point and the conflict that follow are more than enough to make up for a little bit of preachiness.

In the end, "The Visitor" is an excellent tale, one of the best post-apocalyptic novels I've ever read. Tepper has created a world of endless possibilities, a world that I wouldn't mind visiting again.