VZSciFi SF Merchandise Releases: October 2000

US Comic Book Releases: The completed release list is posted weekly, usually Tuesday evenings, at http://www.comiclist.com and other places. You can receive this list each Tuesday via e-mail by following the instructions at the web site, or you can email NCRL-subscribe@egroups.com
Additional Doctor Who Release Information : Go
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OCTOBER AUDIO CD
• UK: Doctor Who: The Shadow of the Scourge
Big Finish Audio CD featuring 7th Doc, Ace and Benny
A four-part story starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, and featuring Lisa Bowerman. The Pinehill Crest Hotel in Kent is host to three very different events: a cross-stich convention, an experiment in time travel and... the summoning of the scourge. The Doctor, Bernice and Ace find themselves dealing with a dead body that's come back to life, a mystical symbol that possesses its host, and a threat from another universe that's ready for every trick the Doctor's got up his sleeve. This time, has the Doctor gone too far?

OCTOBER DVD
• UK: Doctor Who: The Robots of Death
BBC Worldwide. Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela.
Featuring an audio commentary by producer Philip Hinchcliffe and scripter Chris Boucher, plus picture gallery and some unseen studio footage.

Anime
• US: Escaflowne Vol. 1: Dragons & Destiny
On sale: 3 October 2000 Distributor: Bandai Entertainment
Rating: 13up DVD BiLingual SRP: $29.98
VHS DUB (FOX Version) SRP: $14.98 VHS dub (Unedited) SRP: $19.98
Hitomi Kanzaki is a typical high school girl, with typical high school problems. But when a vision of a young man battling a dragon becomes a reality, her life changes forever. Drawn into a strange vortex with the swordsman, Van, Hitomi is thrust into the strange world of Gaea. Entangled in a struggle over life and death, Van must learn to master the suit of armor, Escaflowne. Chased by the Empire of Zaibach, Van and Hitomi will encounter both allies and enemies in an effort to unlock the secrets within Escaflowne. Hitomi's heart, stirred by love and adventure, but at times aches with sorrow. But why was she sent to this world? Her journey as just begun. Created by Shoji Kawamori (Macross Plus) á Character Designs by Nobuteru Yuuki (Record of Lodoss Wars, X)
• US: Blue Submarine No. 6 Vol. 4 Minasoko - The Ocean Floor
Bandai Entertainment. Rating: 13UP DVD BiLingual SRP: $19.98
Directed by Mahiro Maeda á Utilizes the latest in 2D/3D CG Animation á Voted BEST U.S. Release - SPJA: Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation
The poles are shifting and most of the EarthÕs land is now underwater! The scientist Zorndyke has seemingly turned his back on humanity, creating a race of beast people to challenge the humans for global supremacy. MankindÕs last hope is the Blue Fleet and its state-of-the-art flagship, the Blue Submarine No. 6. With the final battle at hand, Hayami and Kino must confront Zorndyke and stop his plans for destruction. But who is the real enemy - Zorndyke and his undersea army, or humanity itself? The climatic end to one of the biggest anime releases of the year!
• US: Jubei-Chan the Ninja Girl: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch Vol. 2 Basic Ninja Training
Bandai Entertainment. Rating: 13UP DVD BILINGUAL SRP: $29.98
The Legend of Yagyu Jubei continues as the reluctant Jiyu Nanohana comes to terms with her dual identity as a normal junior high student and the reincarnation of legendary warrior Yagyu Jubei. Now, Jubei must fight even more deadly assassins, including on who bears more than a passing resemblance to her late mother! Action and comedy collide in this outrageous series! HIGHLIGHTS: á Created by Akitaroh Daichi á Character designs are by Takahiro Yoshimatsu ("Slayers", "Trigun") á Produced by MADHOUSE Studio ("Ninja Scroll", "Trigun")
• US: Outlaw Star Vol. 1 DVD Collection 1
Bandai Entertainment. Rating: 13UP DVD BILINGUAL SRP: $44.98
Created by Takehito Ito ("Angel Links") Original Story by Hajime Yadate ("Gundam Wing", "Escaflowne") - Special Premium DVD 9 Episodes on a 2-disc set!
"Outlaw Star is cool. Very Cool!" - EX: Anime & Manga Online "A good mix of lighthearted comedy, adventure, and action." - Animerica
Gene Starwind is a man with a past. Working as a part time mercenary, bounty hunter, and bodyguard, Gene works within the law and sometimes he works...around the law. Piloting an experimental ship, Gene and his crew must uncover the secret behind the Outlaw Star and their mysterious crew member, Melfina, before the Pirates Guild and the mystic Tao priests catch up to them. Roaming the galaxy with a with an inexperienced crew, chased by ferocious felines, and cut-throat outlaws...No matter how fast they go, danger always manages to catch up to them.

OCTOBER GRAPHIC NOVELS
• Will Esiner's Minor Miracles
by Will Eisner. Publisher: DC Comics Edited by Karen Berger
Hardcover: $29.95 Softcover: $12.95
New York City. It may be the toughest city on Earth in which to survive. The endless flow of people, the break-neck pace. But, amidst the glistening skyscrapers of Manhattan are the neighborhoods that are the city's heart and soul. They are places filled with love, death, betrayal, spiritual longings, and earthly poverty. Places of miracles large and small.
Minor Miracles is the first original work for DC Comics by master storyteller, comics innovator and legend Will Eisner -- following the recent Last Day In Vietnam graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics -- as he returns to the New York City of his youth, proving miracles can happen everyday in unlikely places to unlikely people.
Minor Miracles, the latest addition to the Will Eisner Library and available at the same time in both hardcover and softcover versions, is a collection of four remembrances of the apocryphal stories or "meinsas" that filled the air of the tenements and streets of the Dropsie Avenue of Eisner's youth (the same neighbourhood found in Eisner's A Contract With God and Dropsie Avenue).
These are stories of outrageous fortune and unlucky coincidence that, like memories themselves, are subjective and often unreliable -- but ultimately, miraculous. Eisner's graphic storytelling is as brilliant as ever. While he weaves these four stories against a specific backdrop, the power of this new work, like that of his past masterpieces, is in the universality of his themes. Like the tall tales still told in neighborhoods everywhere, the stories in Minor Miracles provide people something to share, something to cling to, and something to believe in. Most important, they give one hope and wonder.
• Little Lit: Folklore and Fairytale is a treasure and a treasury! Innovative cartoonists and renowned children's book artists from around the world have gathered to bring you the magic of fairy tales through the wonder of comics. The stories in this 64 page, hardcover book range from old favorites to new discoveries, from the profound to the silly. A treat for all ages, these picture stories unlock the enchanted door into the pleasures of books and reading! Little Lit: Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies is a RAW Junior Book with Joanna Cotler Books/an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.The book was edited by Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, and of the best-selling children's book Open Me...I'm a Dog! Fran�oise Mouly has been the art editor of The New Yorker since 1993. Together they created RAW magazine, making comics a literary genre.

OCTOBER MAKING OF BOOKS
• Tim Burton
by Helmut Merschmann. Titan Books. £14.99. Paperback. Published October 2000.
From the acclaimed 1982 short Vincent to 2000's smash-hit Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton has created a dream world that cannot be matched. This book explores the meaning behind the motion pictures, examing everything from the director's animated projects Frankenweenie and The Nightmare Before Christmas to big-budget extravaganzas Batman and Sleepy Hollow, plus his work with composer Danyy Elfman.
• Wonder Woman: The Complete History
by Les Daniels. Titan Books. £24.99. Hardback. Published October 2000.
Author Daniels and award-winning designer Chip Kidd return with this stunning celebration of the world's best known superheroine, published to celebrate her 60th birthday. Tracing her evolution through comic books, graphic novels, televsion (who can forget Lynda Carter?), toys and associated merchandise, the book includes interviews with a host of the most famous Wonder Woman comic writers and artists. Fully illustrated, including original character designs.

OCTOBER MAGAZINES
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer #14 (Titan Magazines, UK & Eire only)
• Dreamwatch#75
• Star Trek Monthly #72 (Titan Magazines, Australia, New Zealand, UK & Eire only)
• Star Wars Comic #32 (Titan Magazines, UK & Eire only)
• Xena #13
• X-Files#53 (Titan Magazines, UK & Eire only)

OCTOBER NOVELS
Hardcover
• UK: Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror
Edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton. VGSF. Hardcover. Published 19 October 2000.
Hallowe'en draws near and tales of ghosts, ghouls and witches will abound. This is the time of year people want to be scared and what could be scarier than tales grounded in reality. The kind of tales that will quicken your pace as you walk home at night or paralyse you with fear on hearing the strangest noise as you lie in bed, the kind of tales that will never let you look at a stranger the same way...
Authors include Peter Straub; Michael Marshall Smith; Rasey Campbell; Brian Stableford; Kim Newman and more.
• US: The Dastard
by Piers Anthony. Publisher: Tor. Hardcover. Published October 2000
• US: The Chick is in the Mail
ed. Esther Friesner . Baen Books. Hardcover. Published October 2000
• US: Dune: House Harkonnen
by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd). Published 3 October 2000 Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson continue their tales of spicy space politics. This time, the focus is on the greedy, manipulative Harkonnen family, whose wicked schemes in this book lay the groundwork for the unforgettable story of Frank Herbert's Dune.
• US: The Legend that was Earth
by James P. Hogan. Baen Books. Hardcover. Published October 2000
• UK: Year of the Griffin
by Diana Wynne Jones. Victor Gollancz Millennium. Hadcover. Published £16.99. Trade paperback £9.99
Set in the fantastic surroundings of a Wizard's University in disarray Diana Wynne Jones, one of Britain's foremost childrens' fantasy authors, returns with this sequel to her award-winning novel The Dark Lord of Derkholm. Diana Wynne Jones' latest story of magic and mayhem is both hilarious and enchanting.
• UK: The Flightless Falcon
by Mickey Zucker Reichert. Victor Gollancz Millennium. Hardback £16.99. Trade paperback £9.99. Published 19 October 2000.
Tamison is a flightless falcon: a worthless man who cannot even work to feed his family. Once a miner like the rest of his family, he lost his nerve after a cave-in which trapped him and killed his father and brother. Now he's reduced to occasional menial labour and scavenging for food. In desperation he breaks into a hunters' guid to steal meat, is caught and imprisoned...

• US: A Storm of Swords: Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3
by George R.R. Martin. Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd). Published 31 October 2000
George R.R. Martin's six-part Song of Ice and Fire series is shaping up as a fantasy legend--a dense, intelligent epic played out on a vast historical field, with magic playing a small, meaningful part. The third book, A Storm of Swords, continues the epic story of the divided Seven Kingdoms and the children of the usurping king.
• US: The Amber Spyglass
by Philip Pullman. Knopf. Hardcover. Published 10 October 2000
The Amber Spyglass is the final book in Philip Pullman's masterful trilogy, His Dark Materials. Within strange, parallel worlds, our young heroes, Lyra and Will, struggle to find one another. Meanwhile, an interdimensional rift threatens the lives of beings on all planes. If you haven't discovered these recommended books yet, start with the first, The Golden Compass.
• US: A Hymn Before Battle
by John Ringo. Baen Books. Hardcover. Published October 2000
A first novel of alien invasion by a former US Army paratrooper.
NEW AUTHOR • US: The King's Peace
by Jo Walton. Publisher: Tor Hardcover. Published October 2000
Sulian ap Gwien was seventeen when the Jarnish raiders came. Had she been armed when they found her, she could have taken them all. As it was, it took six of them to subdue her. She will never forgive them.
Thus begins her story - a story that takes her back to her family, with its ancient ties to the Vincan empire that once ruled in Tir Tanagiri, and forward to Caer Tanaga, where the greatest man of his time, King Urdo, struggles to bind together the squabbling nobles and petty princes into a unified force that will drive out the barbarian invader and restore the King's Peace.
Ringing with the clash of arms and the songs of its people, rich with high magic and everyday life, The King's Peace, Jo Walton's first novel, begins an epic of great deeds and down-to-earth people, told in language with the strength and flexibility of sharpened steel.
• US: New Jedi Order: Balance Point
by Kathy Tyers. Ballantine Books. Published 31 October 2000
Kathy Tyers takes on the Star Wars legend in this, the second in the New Jedi Order series. In this exciting episode, the Solo family must face a terrorist group that threatens the New Republic. Jacen Solo's fate hangs in the balance -- how he chooses to use the Force will decide everything. New to the series? Start with R.A. Salvatore's Vector Prime.
• US: Zeitgeist
by Bruce Sterling. Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub (Trd). Published 31 October 2000
Bruce Sterling's keen observations of how culture and media collide in the postmodern world are legendary. Professional culture-hacker Leggy Starlitz creates a teen phenomenon with his fake girl-band, G7. Leggy walks a dangerous line between politics and pop culture in the millennial Mideast, but when his own daughter shows up to meet the band, things get really interesting.

Trade Paperback
• UK: SF Collector's Editions: Dark Universe
by Daniel F. Galouye. £9.99. Published October 2000
• UK: SF Collector's Editions: The Wind's Twelve Quarters
by Ursula K. Le Guinn. £9.99. Published October 2000
• US: Accidental Creatures
by Anne Harris. Publisher: Tor Trade Paperback. Published October 2000
• US: King Rat
by China Mieville. Publisher: Tor Trade Paperback. Published October 2000
• UK: SF Collector's Editions: Way Station
by Clifford Simak £9.99. Published October 2000
• US: A Door Into Ocean
by Joan Slonczewski. Publisher: Tor Trade Paperback. Published October 2000
• UK: SF Collector's Editions: The Dreaming Jewels
by Theodore Sturgeon. £9.99. Published October 2000

David Drake, author of Servant of the Dragon, released in paperback this month, was born in 1945 in Dubuque, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1967, marriued and then entered law school.
From there Drake was drafted into the army where he was trained and sent into Vitenam and Cambodia as an interrogator with the 11th Armed Cavalry Regiment. David is probably best known for his military SF novels and fantasy, but he has also written thrillers and space operas.

Paperback
• US: Xone of Contention
by Piers Anthony. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published October 2000
• UK: Angel Fire East
by Terry Brooks. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published 5 October 2000
The final volume in Brooks latest trilogy. As a Knight of the Word, John Ross has struggled against the tireless dark forces of the Void for 25 years. A wanderer scarred as deeply by the magic he wields as by the unspeakable horrors he has witnessed in its service, Ross is driven by dreams that show the world reduced to blood and ashes by the Void and its minions. But for all his powerr, John Ross is only one man, while the demons he battles are legion...
• Sten 2: The Wolf Worlds
by Chris Bunch & Allan Cole. Orbit. Paperback. £5.99. Published 5 October 2000.
The second in a fast-paced SF adventure series, full of action, adventure and intrigue. The Eternal Emperor ruled countless wolrds across the galaxy. Vast armies and huge fleets awaited his command. But when the Emperor needed to pacify The Wolf Worlds, the planets of an insignificant cluster that had raised space piracy to a low art, he turned to Mantis Team and its small band of miltant problem solvers...
• UK: Servant of the Dragon
by David Drake. Victor Gollancz Millennium. Paperback. £6.99. Published 12 October 2000
The young King Garric is faced with all the burdens of kingship. Guided by the ghost of King Carus and the help of the sorceress Tenoctris, Garric should have few problems. But a threat emerges from the past -- the Wizard Purlio seeks to conquer the future with an army of the dead. And Garric's sister Sharina has gone missing, abducted through time itself by a gigantic bird. And if Garric hopes to defeat the dead, he must become one of them...
• UK: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 3: Circus of The Damned
by Laurell K. Hamilton. Orbit. £5.99. Published 5 October 2000
• UK: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 4: The Lunatic Cafe
by Laurell K. Hamilton. Orbit. £5.99. Published 5 October 2000
• US: The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus
by Harry Harrison. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published October 2000
• US: There and Back Again
by Pat Murphy. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published October 2000
• UK: The Proof House: Volume 3 of the Fencer Trilogy
by K.J. Parker. Publisher: Orbit. Mass Paperback. Published 5 October 2000
Colours in the Steel and The Belly of the Bow, the first two volumes of the Fencer Trilogy, introduced a remarkable new voice in fantasy fiction. The Proof House is the final volume in K.J. Parker's series, described by SFX as "a tour de force of black humour and Yes, Minister-style political machinations."
After years spent in the saps under the defences of the apparently impregnable city of Ap' Escatoy, Bardas Loredan, sometime fencer-at-law and the betrayed defender of the famed Triple City, is suddenly a hero of the Empire. His reward is a boring administrative job in a backwater, watching armour tested to destruction in the Proof House.
But the fall of Ap' Escatoy has opened up possibilities for the expansion of the Empire into the land of the plainspeople, and Bardas Loredan is the one man Temrai the Great, King of the plains tribes, fears the most...
• US: In Legend Born
by Laura Resnick. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published October 2000
• US: Earth Final Conflict: The Arrival
by Fred Saberhagen. Publisher: Orb. Mass Paperback. Published October 2000
• UK: The Last of the Renshai
by Mickey Zucker Reichert. Victor Gollancz Millennium. Paperback £6.99. Published 12 October 2000.
For centuries, four wizards have held the delicate balance of power in the troubled Northlands. But balance is shifting and squabbling human tribes are dragging the mortal world towards the long foretold Great War. The Gods of Valhalla watch and wait as the ancient name of Renshai brings a sentence of death to each of the tribes...
Colbey Caltinsson is the Last of the Renshai and seeks bloody vengeance for the genocide of his race -- a genocide the by Rache's mother knew was coming when she dragged him from a fatal attack. On Colbey's fate, and that of the untried boy Rache, hangs the preservation - or the damnation -- of the entire world.