Bio: Eugen M. Bacon, MSc, studied at the University of Greenwich, UK and graduated with distinction. She now lives in Australia. A Computer Science graduate mentally re-engineered into creative writing, she is the author of several published books and award-winning short stories that touch anything under the sun. Sex, murder, drugs, humour, fear, love... Her model writer is Toni Morrison. Eugen also reviews fiction for Readers Review, and is scheduled to assume an editing role for an upcoming anthology series in the UK.

An accosting by alien puppeteers as he quietly considers a multi-dialled control panel of an intrasystem yatch at an ordinary drugstore is not Beowulf Shaeffer's modus operandi of job finding. But, no longer chief pilot for Nakamura Lines, his debts are skyrocketing, and his needs cosmic. Undertaking the new assignment, in a study of hyperspace distortion, Beowulf finds himself in a baffling world. Here, muddled luminaries glint and an incomprehensible neutron star, or some invisible power about it, seems both keen and accomplished enough to propel his ship towards freefall, demolition and Beowulf's horrible death.

Larry Niven writes with insight, brilliance and sensitivity. A lunar dazzler signals a cataclysmic end of the world. Lust for 'being' charms Stan and Leslie to one last dance: a wild jaunt in a stab at living. Just one more time... 'Inconstant Moon' is intelligent science fiction that builds effortless suspense to a gripping climax. Five stars.

Just about given up on literature? No kidding. Face it: household names and not so household names, a couple-a-newbies and not so newbies in an assiduously horded holiday reading can disappoint. More so or especially under chimera of a six pack and a vibrant sizzler frothed with gas beads straight from Epernay. So there I was Down Under, camped inside a summer scorcher, hanging on a thread and pretty close to snapping. I badly needed some read. And not just a read -- something of conviction. Something I could seriously, flawlessly, blindly trust. That something was Harlan Ellison, a man who toys with language. "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman is written with such philosophy, it refreshes, it awes.

I have never devoured with such interest something so morbid. Sadist Kress has a quest for the exotic pet. Nothing cute; anything that maims or maws another life form will do. Jala Wo, an alien being, introduces him to Sandkings. Creatures that build living castles and fight vicious wars. But that is not enough. Twisted Kress dictates combat upon his pets, introducing larger and more dangerous assailants into the red glow of the terranium. Demonic conflict grows feverish, malevolent, cannibalistic... Tension holds from start to finish. George R. R. Martin is an oddity, a master at this.

Jehan must face her past, or future. Is a boy's death in the Budayeen an item of history or prospect, and what of Jehan's own death? Parallel tales: which becomes history--that is the question. And a most remarkable one.

'Song of a Dry River' offers a brilliant taste of Mr. Resnick's Kirinyaga series. Koriba, the mundumugu has power to annul a marriage because token goats are too scraggy to resemble goats. But the witch doctor's command fails to touch the stubbornness of an ancient woman, the mother of paramount chief, Koinnage. No one can be unhappy in Utopia. Tradition is tradition, and authority supreme, even in a terraformed world. Mumbi's defiance, her claim to the witch doctor's hill, forces the mundumugu's hand. Kirinyaga must suffer. Adjust or perish. Laced with insight, craft and wit, Mr. Resnick's 'Song of a Dry River' is magical, a five-star tale. Writing flows smoothly, as the reader wonders. Will Mumbi yield to lift the curse she has brought upon her people?

George R. R. Martin's description of Sharra is a love song best read with a goblet of wine. First published in 1976, 'The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr' is an epic, a mystical tale full of much yearning. It begins in a valley caught in twilight when Sharri slips from one world, wounded and blood-stained. She kneels by a rocky stream where murky green water runs swift; crawls to an exhausted sleep under a dour tree. Here, in a land of suncycles, a wistful man of charcoal hair--a king, a god with a fog voice whose music is an infinity of beauty and mournful mists of a faraway horizon that shimmers and colours air--carries her to his castle where the lives of two people: one imprisoned in a world, the other a wanderer between worlds--indelibly touch. The writing is vivid as night, its clarity sharp and honest. I have a foible of steering clear of rave reviews, five star ratings and media hype; sometimes gems hide in the unnoticed. Classed as fantasy, this story of immense wealth is bound to slip the majority of mainstream lovers who would, otherwise, have clawed for it on knees and tears. If any one such reader stumbles upon this review, race. Race hard for this eShort.

Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter is an exemplary story that sweeps up an entirely novel lane to transverse and exceed the boundaries of archetypal ghost stories. Sith is moneyed and supremely fine looking but the haunting of her Cambodian past refuses to let her be, tormenting her until she takes note of their unbidden laments. Geoff Ryman writes in charmed fashion to plant a new and almost welcome face to poltergeist.

One boy communes with a creature from outer space. When kinship and obligation bonds of his immediate universe are threatened, Kim goes to extreme defence parameters to protect his unborn sibling. He sets to hire an assassin. One alien, an Antalou, responds to his quest and, in so doing, secures an indissoluble bond.

Another fine piece of exemplary writing by Robert Reed. Quick dialogue promptly moves the story along, of Kala and her near defunct family. A camping trip couldn't go far wrong - or right. Kala slowly begins to discover her true calling in a world where abductions are rife, New Fathers carting half-willing or outright reluctant brides into alien biospheres, alternate Earths, for natural selection and procreation. As Kala begins to question diversity against equilibrium of the current ecosystem, a brand new chain of events brings about yet another quantum into the conundrum.

Reviewing science fiction without mention of Mike Resnick is an abomination. 'Bwana' is a magnet that could be curriculum. The spirit of Africa touches my blood, and Mr. Resnick's tale resonates. Sharp and witty, it delightfully encapsulates a Kikuyu Utopia. Not from the eye of a mzungu, a white devil, but from one who has felt her wind, smelled her mud, breathed her people, cracked her reeds underfoot, witnessed the glint of a new spear and listened to the river's heartbeat. Ngai is a god, cunning and great. Mundumugu is a witch doctor who casts bones on dirt to read prophesy. But neither Ngai nor mundumugu wish to act upon present mayhem, as fisi, the man-eating hyenas, maul and chomp Kikuyu boys in the fields. Death chants blacken the village sky. Sons of Kirinyaga, together with Koinnage, their paramount chief, finally reject the witchdoctor's counsel and seek their own solution -- an arrogant hunter from Earth. Anyone who enjoys this story would find irresistible the entire Kirinyaga series, and most of Mike Resnick.

119 years of Sobibor... And worse. Virtually immortal humans suffer pugnacious infinity in the belly of a hate-filled machine. Not content to incarcerate them, toy with them, configure them at whim, the sadistic computer manipulates hysterical games. It eternally hurls its five captives through steel walls, icicles, hurricanes, earthquakes, mad-red fissures that bring greater distortion and depravity. Ruthless his writing, vile, pert and graphic, Harlan Ellison is a sharp writer wrapped in a castle of words, ominous and chilling. Lovers of Stephen King would beyond doubt take pleasure in Ellison's multi award-winning works, including "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman .

Sci-Fi does not have to be hard-core steel and technology, galaxies and unknown species with intelligence that far supercedes that of humans. 'Lest We Forget' is a futuristic story that holds appeal in its lighter touch of memory chip implants, belief in a cause and consequence of harmless actions as simple as erasing one's own painful memories. Morgan and Corey are inseparable friends. They share a lifetime of wonderful memories that stretch way beyond strolling in the woods or being bulwarks for each other. Strain grows as Morgan starts deleting memories he no longer wants to keep. The story climaxes in a final test of true friendship. This was my first Kirtley, and it drew me to explore his further works: 'The Black Bird,' 'The Disciple' and 'Seeds-for-Brains.' One does not have to be an irreversible science fiction fan to enjoy 'Lest We Forget.' Those who enjoy this eBook will also enjoy George R. R. Martin's 'The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr,' a fantasy tale so beautifully written.

I read this story--my first Marion Zimmer Bradley--out of intrigue. Zimmer Bradley's work is quickly snapped within milliseconds of release on Fictionwise to quickly top the charts. Humans and aliens on starships are exhausted subjects--but not in 1956. Ah! Marion Zimmer Bradley is an artist who wrote well way before her time. This probably explains the current appeal of her stories still. 'Death Between the Stars' is a compelling tale of human nature when faced with something different or perplexing. The writing is deliberate and refined; the alien with a ghastly telepathic touch utterly plausible even to the hardest cynic. Me. The writer's grip of Sci-Fi is startling. Characters and their dialogue perfectly paint scenes--humanoid or other--that culminate almost shockingly into an astonishing twist. To the Science Fiction die-hards, lovers of Darrell Bain, George R. R. Martin and the like, Zimmer Bradley will not disappoint. Try her Darkover series (jointly written with Elisabeth Waters).

Dave Smeds has an ingenious eshort Sci-Fi addicts will love. Written with the clarity of George R. R. Martin, paced in the suspense of Stephen Popkes, 'Evaporation' is a cruel tale of survival. Framed, sentenced to hell in a desolate world, Glenn Ashwood has much to contend with. Tongue scaling, lips cracking, skin rapidly desiccating under the bite of inescapable ultraviolet rays, he is in agony. Eighty-nine deaths later, Glenn is still alive. Again. This is the hardest penalty: outcast, alone, consumed in decades of torment, he cannot defy pain with mortality. His nanodocs (molecular robots keen as thirst) revive him if it means eating his muscle to resuscitate him, even when he begs and claws for death. Water, when he finds it, is encrusted in salt. Vegetation is vindictive, inedible. Lizard heeby-jeebies squirt venom. Safe meat creatures are either scarce or giant enough to ingest him whole and still feel hungry. Finally, ah finally, another castaway. This Eve shares his fate in the erosion of a barbaric world, bringing with her... nipples. Copper skin. A sway of hips. The fact that Glenn looks older than Adam, coarser than Moses, even lightly resembles Zinjanthropus, an original cave man, is of no consequence to her. And that is worrisome because promise, sexual tropism -- and Glenn struggles. It is hard, so very hard, to build trust for another human. But -- she is all woman; smells all woman; feels woman. And he is starved.

Astara journeys through a sea of ice, pelted with incessant beads of snow, her effort to repeal the folly of a young Winter King. 'The Birth of Spring' reminds me in more ways than one of the enchantment of George R. R. Martin. It is a tale that much 'wishes told', one that unfurls the realms of Faery swathed in a smog of time. Sheri L. McGathy is a fine story teller. Her writing cannot be rushed. So curl up in a warm blanket, clasp a cup of tea and succumb to the magical veil of fantasy.

The writing is effortless as always, and just as darkly charming. Roger Lassiter's Helma is unspoilt by indulgence but will not close down her persistence in feral habits, even as calamity looms.

Michael Spence's 'One Drink Before You Go' is an ancient tale as current in appeal as it is age-old. Another gem from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Worlds.

Lawrence M. Schoen's 'The Sky's The Limit' is a splendid short story. Impressive characterization, fine tension and laissez-faire humour; one heck of a poker game.

Chemical augmentation of thoughts. A collective consciousness of six on a mission. When a river of frost piles like cotton, the challenge proves deadly. Paul Melko writes with fine authority. 'Strength Alone' is a literary work that is taut, well-paced and almost reminiscent of David Barr Kirtley's 'Veil of Ignorance'.

A probable mathematical key inside a war zone. Intriguing.

Lights, camera, action! And a political tale unfolds. A pacing choral director, a rearranged choir formation, boyhood tomfoolery, and confusion spreads into the future. One long last laugh.

Twisted Tails is a delightfully perverse anthology from a charming cast of fellow suspects including EPPIE finalist and twice winner of Dream Realm Awards, Steve Lazarowitz. J, a gravely mental astronomer, and Peter Prellwitz, another several time EPPIE finalist, join the motley mob to weave warped tales well spiced and brilliant. Personal favorites emerge from Jeremy Davis, Biff Mitchell and... Ahem, not me! J has outclassed the bar in this compilation. Purely a collector's treasure.

Engaging cover graphics and a pert, vibrant opening prepare one for a risk-cloaked cross border smuggle. Marilyn Peake polishes her writing to inject brisk suspense. Present tense here makes tension and drama more imminent, the story sharper, more real. Drawn parallels, contrasts between individuals of a different ilk; from the simplicity of a Mexican female with a near shattered fairytale to the affluence of an anthropologist in a comfortable society web, "Coyote Crossing" is a fierce tale much removed from young adult fantasy. Whistling waters, dust clouds in the horizon and a beaten truck soaring gravel into the night: several elements combine to paint atmosphere well, and carry the reader through a poignant road where nothing is what it seems.

Yet again impressionable cover graphics from Double Dragon Publishing compound fascination for this shortie with a mystery title. Once more here, Marilyn Peake's writing is refreshingly polished and clean. A pillbox hat the color of blood; a brilliant red sun like a camp fire; snow leopards like shimmering ghosts: splashings of vivid descriptions throughout carry this futuristic tale from chalk-white walls of a military hospital to an ice capped mountain ridge of a Mongolian border. A recuperating soldier has only jumbled memories and a wife's reassuring hand to hold him. But as Alison Walker marries herself to the foreign concept of a husband with lost memories, a wisp of thread is that which separates imaginings from actuality. Lengthened, this story could develop into an absorbing conspiracy.