Bisson and Yolen

I have two reviews in the mid-February issue of SF Site.

Numbers Don't Lie by Terry Bisson:

In Numbers Don't Lie, Terry Bisson offers three tall tales underpinned by some suitably weird physics (which I assume is genuine, though it hardly matters). Irving, our narrator, has no head for science, so he can't understand how the Moon could be inside a mechanic's shed when it's clearly still in the sky; or why a previously deteriorating car seat cover is now improving by the day; or what's making planes and trains arrive on time all of a sudden. Luckily, his friend Wilson Wu is (amongst many other things) a mathematical genius, and he knows what's going on -- and he has the equations to back his ideas up...

The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen:

In this box set, Jane Yolen takes us to the desert world of Austar IV. Once a penal colony, the planet's economy is now based around its native dragons, whom the human settlers breed to battle each other in Pits. There is a two-tier social structure of masters and "bonders," the latter wearing bags which they must fill with money before they can buy freedom and become masters themselves. Our protagonist is Jakkin Stewart, a young bonder at the nursery of Master Sarkkhan (all descendants of Austar's original convict population have a double-K in their names), who plans to steal a dragon and train it himself...

Further links:
Terry Bisson
Jane Yolen
Tachyon Publications
Harcourt

The Elastic Book of Numbers, ed. Allen Ashley

Here we have the second anthology from Elastic Press, following on from 2004's The Alsiso Project. Like its predecessor, The Elastic Book of Numbers is based around a single broad theme; as its title suggests, all the stories in the volume are connected to numbers in some way. The resulting tales are highly varied, as I hope to illustrate...

Continue reading at SF Site.

Further links:
Neil Williamson
Charles Lambert
Jeff Gardiner
John Lucas
Allen Ashley
Elastic Press