The rather odd title of this slender book reflects the fact that it collects two independent novellas, linked only by their intimate connections to Africa and their shared theme of outsiders trying to recreate African societies in their image. Science fiction, as a genre, has always been relatively tolerant of novelettes and novellas, giving them a home in magazines and incorporating them without complaint into collections like this one. It's gratifying for fans, since SF seems to generate its fair share of stories that are best told at lengths somewhere between a short story and a novel. These two by the prolific and talented Mike Resnick are excellent examples.

"Bwana" is a long entry in Resnick's cycle of stories about the planet Kirinyaga, inhabited by a band of Kikuyu colonists from Kenya who hope to create a utopia built around their traditional culture. Like the shorter entries in the series (collected in the book _Kirinyaga_), it uses Koriba--the colony's founder, wise man, shaman, and keeper of the old ways--as its viewpoint character. Like the shorter pieces, it presents him with a threat to the integrity of the restored Kikuyu culture that he must resolve without doing lasting damage to the colony or inflicting unnecessary hardship on his people. The threat, in this case, is a professional hunter brought from off-planet to deal with a rapidly growing hyena population. It's a mark of Resnick's skill as a writer that he makes the hunter both an odious adversary for Koriba *and* a thoroughly modern man whose sentiments about the would-be utopia many readers will share. Like the other works in the Kirinyaga Cycle, it reflects Resnick's subtle-but-firm iinsistence that even cultures we might not wish to live in deserve our understanding and respect.

"Bully!" is an alternate history tale about ex-president Teddy Roosevelt going to what was then the Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo) after leaving office in 1909. Accompanied by hunter-trader John Rowe and a colorful company of hunters, adventurers, and ex-Rough Riders, he sets out to take the colony away from the Belgians (on the grounds that they don't really want it anyway) and turn it into a U. S. protectorate where democratic government, Western education, and self-determination can flourish. He wants, in other words, to make it a thoroughly modern but thoroughly black-African nation. The first three-quarters of the story details how he sets these plans in motion, drawing on his boundless self-confidence, bottomless energy, and considerable political ingenuity. Just when you think it's *just* an alternate-history romp, however, the last quarter brings TR face to face with the consequences of his actions. Whether the resolution (and thus the story) "works" for you will depend on your interest in Resnick's ongoing exploration of what happens when vastly different cultures collide.

"Bwana" and "Bully!" are readable and enjoyable as SF stories in their own right, but (as the introduction to this book makes clear) they're also part of Resnick's ongoing use of SF to explore the collsion of European and African cultures. They're of a piece, therefore, not just with the rest of the Kirinyaga stories but also with _Ivory_ and the _Paradise/Purgatory/Inferno_ trilogy, among other work. Read as stand-alone stories, they're good entertainment. Read as part of that larger discussion, they're also thought-provoking.

Dead Witch Walking, the first book in the Rachel Morgan/The Hollows series of novels by Kim Harrison, is one of the many urban fantasy books on the market these days. What makes it stand out for me is that Rachel, a witch living in an alternate history version of the world (we never went the the moon and humans are terrified of tomatoes!), isn't the typical bad-ass, smart-ass, know-it-all, uber-sexy heroine that seems to have become the annoying norm in this genre thanks to the likes of a certain un-named vampire hunter. Oh no! Rachel gets her butt kicked (often), hassled (all the time) by her fairy sidekick/partner, Jenks, and it's made quite clear that Rachel isn't always the smartest person in the room.

And I love that.

There are three main threads woven through the fabric of this story and, despite some problems with language (no one seems to swear except Jenks and he substitutes foul language some times but not others) and pacing, Harrison handles the job well. I'm definitely looking forward to diving into the second book in the series.

I dare you to read the first two pages and not want to finish the rest of the book.

Part Victorian murder mystery, part fantastical alternate history with a liberal dash of lexigraphical acrobatics, The Somnambulist combines a labyrinthine plot with haunting characters and an unreliable narrator which coalesces into an unexpected crescendo no one could anticipate.

The Somnambulist is a bald, mute giant of man who when pierced with swords does not bleed. His almost constant companion is Edward Moon, often referred to as the conjurer, with whom he conducts a magical act and solves the most mysterious of mysteries. When drawn into the enigmatic and horrifying deaths of two lechers, seemingly unconnected except for the implausible nature of their deaths, these crimes, however, and their monstrous solution are just the first strands in unraveling the gordian knot that is threatening the city of London.

At times like taking a midnight stroll through densely fogged streets and hearing ominous footsteps behind you, or standing slack-jawed at a bawdy freak show, or laughing raucously at a local pub Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist is reminiscent of authors of such note as Mary Shelley, Neil Gaiman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe and Michael Chabon.

This books is essential for all you Word Nerds out there as I learned 9 new words during the course of the book! [coruscating, sybaritism, postprandial, risible, penury, cognoscenti, minatory, ratiocination, eldritch] Their inclusion is not abrupt as in a Mad Lib, but fit seamlessly into the otherworldly elegance of the prose.

A solid 4 and a half, with its only caveat being that the end leaves you thinking "What the Deuce?!"