Reviews

Keepers of the Gate, Jacket copy: “Am at large on Eridani, Destruction of Earth by Proteps imminent, message sent from captured A.S.N. ship Hound. Hiller.” Jared Hiller hopelessly transmitted the message through the eleven light-years long tunnel of space between Eridani and Earth. Eridani was the Earth’s nearest inhabited star system, and Hiller had become the unfortunate intermediary between the two races––which were now attempting to annihilate

each other. The ordeal began when Hiller, a forcibly retired spaceship captain, encountered a former acquaintance whose arm had been severed in a freak accident. Now, twenty-five years later, the man not only had grown his arm back, but had not aged a day. After intensive investigation and with the assistance of a mysterious female newspaper reporter, Hiller discovered the man was doing surveillance work for the inhabitants of Eridani, the Proteps.

This ancient race, whose lives spanned twelve million years, had perfected the ability to rejuvenate limbs and attain immortality. What’s more, Hiller learned the Proteps were secretly destroying all vestiges of proof that a long-forgotten superior race of men once existed. To find the rest of the answers, Hiller must crash through the guarded gateway to Eridani. Once there, he would find secrets more terrible than he had ever imagined. . . .

The Psychopath Plague, Jacket Copy: Something is happening to the minds of Earth’s people. Outbreaks of irrational violence are occurring all over the world in epidemic proportion, the colonies have quarantined Terra’s citizens, and the computer in Commissioner Tulley’s

office has announced that it will take only seven weeks for the “Psychopath Plague” to turn the planet’s population into bloodthirsty maniacs. Tulley cannot piece together the vague clues

and in desperation calls on an old friend, Elias Kane, a drifting dilettante with an eidetic

memory and a reputation of brilliance in solving mysteries. Kane suspects that there is some connection between the plague and the beautiful socialite Beth Tyson and her bizarre

entourage of alien beings. His suspicion causes him to chase a hunch to an alien planet light-years away from earth, but not before he discovers that something is happening to his mind. . . .

The Janus Equation (in Binary Star #4), Jacket Copy: Two Novels in One: Legacy by Joan D. Vinge––Dartagnan licked enough boots to outfit a centipede in pursuit of his one big chance–– then, on a frozen outpost of Heaven Belt, he was asked to throw it all away... for someone else's doomed dream. The Janus Equation by Steven G. Spruill––Essian's work could change the future––and the past––and to capture it, the world's largest corporations pursued him with bribes. . .and with killers. But the secret of the Janus Equation was far more fateful than Essian dared to conceive. . .

The Imperator Plot, Jacket Copy: Unknown forces in the twenty-first century initiate a series of assassination attempts on the Imperator of the Terran Empire, Gregory Amerdath. In one attempt, his body is totally destroyed––but his head and brain are kept working by the advanced technology of the Terran scientists. That he continues to live and rule is a tribute to his physicians’ skill––and to their loyalty. For although Amerdath has brought Earth to its highest level of power and civilization, there are many who might gain by his death: a coalition of rebellious colonists led by their urbane viceroy, Richard DuMorgan; the inscrutable alien Manoster, emissary of the Moitians; the Empress Eunice, who is jealous of the Imperator’s

many mistresses; the Princess Briana, a cold and scheming woman whose passion is to rule

her father’s empire. Though he trusts his chiefs of security and intelligence, Amerdath wants Elias Kane to direct the investigation into the attempts on his life. The hunt becomes something more than a duty when Kane’s fiancee dies, and its conclusion is something more complex and disturbing than he, or anyone, had imagined.

“Truly a super book, with intrigue, humor, pathos, and wonder, all wrapped up in an sf detective novel. . .The characters are full-blooded, the plot refreshingly unorthodox, and it all meshes beautifully and seamlessly. The Imperator Plot is a novel that will touch every reader.”

F. Paul Wilson

The Paradox Planet, Jacket Copy: Elias Kane: Ex-Space navy, gambler, private investigator

. . .and hero. Kane always felt that being a hero had been an accident. He’d saved the life of the Imperator, Gregory Amerdath. Billions of citizens on dozens of worlds saw Kane as the consummate hero. But Kane would have given up the fame, the adulation, the glory––even the warmth and friendship of Amerdath’s daughter and the new Imperator, Briana, if it would have brought Beth Tyson back to life. But the death of his beloved Beth, and his subsequent triumph of solving the mystery of Amerdath’s near assassination, was irrelevant. Briana had sent for him to give him a mission on Cassiodorus, the colony planet where the rare and valuable beta-steel was mined. So far, three imperial inspectors in a row had disappeared while inspecting the mines. However, Kane’s task on the high-gravity planet was more than an investigation of possible murders. He also had to try to discover if rebels were stealing the ore for use in building a fleet of dreadnoughts to fight Earth’s own. Once there Kane, his friend and resourceful ally, the giant Cephantine named Pendrake, and Martha Reik, a doctor and scientist with whom Kane was falling in love, become the targets of the nameless rebel murderers who felled the inspectors. But what they discovered about Cassiodorus and its powerful inhabitants was far more deadly than any murder weapon. The evil they uncover could prove the undoing of more than one planet and, possibly, the empire.

Hellstone, Dallas Times Herald review: It is science, espionage, psychology, history, romance, but above all, it is an exquisite tale of terror and intrigue. Hellstone records an ill-fated expedition to Scotland to view the elusive Loch Ness monster by means of experimental electronic photography. What the crew finds exceeds the wildest imaginations, but to disclose any of the story would be to ruin its impact. Suffice it to say that without qualification this novel is the best of its kind.

Hellstone, Amazon.com five-star review: “When I picked up this book for a couple bucks at a Half Price Bookstore I really thought it was going to be a typical monster book. The cover artwork is goofy, and you just don't expect too much from a book with a cover like that. However this book proves you can not judge a book by its cover. The story begins in Roman times with a band of Druids being pursued across Scotland by a band of Roman Soldiers. Best first chapter ever. The minute you read the last line of the first chapter––I dare you not to be hooked on this story. To tell you anything about the story after that would ruin it for you. The book's big mystery and the reveal as to what is actually going on at Loch Ness for the last thousand years is just too creative and fun to tell you. I love this book. I have read it four times and enjoyed it every reading. Recently I got rid of most of my library. Out of 2500 books I kept about fifty––and this was one of them. I encourage anyone who gets the chance to read this book.” Eric Bottos

The Genesis Shield, Jacket copy:

Washington's Dulles Airport--

Inside a darkened van, unaware that his conversation is being monitored, an agent of

Voyevoda, Russia's super-secret intelligence service, sets a plan in motion that will leave America a radioactive wasteland... in only twenty-five days!

Ridgetown Research Center--

Deep in the heart of this fortress-like Army radiobiology lab, a frantic search for America's salvation has produced an extraordinary solution: Dr. Peter Morrissey has created L-6 -- the Genesis Shield -- a serum that not only neutralizes the effect of nuclear fallout, but prolongs human life!

L-6 has one devastating side effect. And before Morrissey can warn the nation of its horrifying secret, the serum becomes a deadly tool in a reckless bid for power. With doomsday drawing ever closer, Morrissey must risk his family, sanity, and survival -- to expose a friend now transformed into a fiendish enemy, and stop his creation from altering the human race forever.

Painkiller, Review from Library Journal

Something odd is going on in Adams Memorial Hospital's mental ward, but the patients aren't the cause. A statistically significant number of the mental patients check out of the hospital and then disappear--forever. Only Sharon Francis, a feisty second-year psychiatric resident, notices that anything strange is happening, and she fights (literally) to solve the mystery. She must deal with disbelief, hostile doctors, a masked attacker, and even the possibility of her own insanity to expose the criminals. If the idea of a female doctor ferreting out a medical plot all alone sounds vaguely familiar, that's because this book is similar to Robin Cook's Coma ( LJ 5/15/77). As with Cook, some of Spruill's story lines stretch credibility, but the relentlessly suspenseful plot and the undercurrent of terror will keep readers turning the pages quickly until the very end. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.

- Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, Ind.

"In Painkiller, Steven Spruill creates suspense the best way––by making you believe his characters." ‹Tony Hillerman, Author of Talking God.

“Painkiller has all the ingredients of a smash bestseller. . .sinister. . .icily plausible.” John Farris, Author of The Fury.

Before I Wake, Starred Review in Publishers Weekly: In this first-rate suspense novel from the author of Painkiller, physician Amy St. Clair, the widowed mother of two young children, has several problems. The cost-cutting officials of her New York hospital want to shut down the emergency operating room she heads, and she is being followed and threatened by a mysterious man. The affair she has begun with the psychologist who is treating her brain-damaged brother is complicated by the appearance of her long-lost first love. Amid indications that someone is prowling her home at night, she is haunted by nightmares that suggest she is repressing an awful memory. After the father of a friend from prep school unexpectedly dies of a heart attack in the ER, Amy learns that her friend has been having the same nightmare; soon she begins to suspect that her own wealthy father might be a candidate for a similar "heart attack." Spruill mixes these elements and many others, including a missing Aztec statue, into a marvelous tale of mystery and menace that neither telegraphs its secrets nor falters in its pace.

Before I Wake, Library Journal Review: Amy St. Clair, head of Hudson General's emergency room, is experiencing a recurring nightmare. She wanders dark woods, a child again, as a voice demands, "Tell me what you see." She is also being stalked by an unknown man. Meanwhile, officious hospital administrators threaten to close her unlucrative Emergency Room, just as

she notices a disturbing trend in cardiac deaths among men who all fit the physical profile of

her own father. The similarities point to a serial murderer, though Amy can't imagine how the deaths are being caused. Struggling with these seemingly unrelated crises, Amy is faced with

a romantic one, too, when an old sweetheart joins Hudson General's staff. Though he is as loving as he was in high school, his years in Vietnam have given him a dark side which Amy cannot fathom. His appearance now may be one coincidence too many. An excellent suspense novel with a strong, intelligent heroine, Before I Wake (by the author of Painkiller, LJ 4/1/90) is sure to be popular with readers of medical and psychological thrillers.

- A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib., Washington, D.C.

My Soul to Take, Booklist review:

Few heroines of recent novels have nearly been done in by a polar bear. This is not the only unusual event in this tightly written, fascinating yarn in which clinical psychologist Spruill shows

he knows how to portray people and develop a story naturally. Aspiring neurosurgeon Suzannah Lord gets tossed out of her residency by an arrogant chief surgeon, Roland Lancaster, after refusing to have sex with him. She had been helping the pioneering Lancaster in an NIH project that involved planting microchips in the brains of patients with visual problems. By accident, one

of the recipients, a CIA agent, discovers a major side effect--the ability to foresee the future--that

he and his superiors keep a secret and contrive to give to several of their most efficient agents by having chips implanted in them; their aim is to build a potentially threatening oligarchy of seers. A microchip-implanted artist, an investigative reporter, and Lord's naval-officer sister help the good guys fight back. A clever, threefold chase prepares the way for a dramatic climax at the Washington Monument. William Beatty

Nightkill, (written with F. Paul Wilson); Library Journal Review:

This is a dazzling collaboration by Wilson (Deep as the Marrow, LJ 12/96) and Spruill, author of several other medical thrillers. Jake Nacht is a mob assassin who as a youth is shuttled between foster homes and ends up with a sharpshooter named Sarge, who trains Jake to be a crack shot, then betrays him. Jake kills Sarge and takes over the family business as a mob sniper. He is later shot and paralyzed on a fumbled job and wants to die, until risky surgery by the daring Dr.

Graham restores his damaged spine. Love for his rehab nurse, Angel, brings Jake fully back to

life and changes him; after months of wanting to kill his nemesis, he centers the cross hairs on Fredo but has trouble pulling the trigger. There are many satisfying characters, and, despite some jarring changes of viewpoint, the pace is as rapid as an accelerated heartbeat. Recommended for thriller collections. Molly Gorman, San Marino, Cal.

Rulers of Darkness, Starred review in Kirkus: Spruill (My Soul to Take, 1994, etc.) has a grip

on the medical suspense/horror novel far firmer than Robin Cook's. This time out, he sets up

what could be the really well-done kickoff novel of a series about hungry hemophages (bloodeaters). Dr. Katie O'Keefe, a hematologist, must crack the resistance of a fantastic new strain of red blood cells to all forms of attack. Some biter-madman in D.C. is ripping open

women's throats and leaving drained bodies in churches, beginning with the National Cathedral. Pooled in the ear of his first victim is the killer's own fresh blood--blood that doesn't dry or clot.

The medical examiner sees this non-drying blood as beyond his expertise and calls in Katie to run tests for him. Then more fresh blood turns up on later victims--blood that will not die! Detective Merrick Chapman, Katie's ex-lover, knows very well who the killer is: his own son, Zane, whom Merrick hasn't seen in 400 years. Both are hemophages--and Merrick himself is over 900 years

old, although he looks only 30 what with his superblood. Centuries ago, though, Merrick gave up murdering victims, learned to drain out enough blood to survive while putting victims in a trance, and began tracking down and imprisoning in an underground vault all the hemophages he could find. But Zane, who has outwitted his father so far, at last plans to meet him face to face and kill him. Meanwhile, Zane discovers that Jenny, a 12-year-old leukemia victim dying under Katie's

care, is actually his own daughter--and he saves her life by feeding her blood orally. Now Merrick must kill his own son––and granddaughter as well––if he is to wipe out the scourge. But he has

his own young son, Gregory, with Katie, and Zane's threats on Katie and Gregory bring on a Mexican standoff with his father. Terrific plotting––fresh indeed––and the hospital background shines in a seemingly unresolvable love story about a man who has already outlived 16 wives and 43 children.

“Steven Spruill unleashes a hero dark enough and compelling enough to raise the hair at the nape of my neck and have me panting for more.” Janet Evanovich, Author of One for the Money, etc.

Daughter of Darkness, Publishers Weekly review: "The alloy of medical thriller and vampire chiller that Spruill forged in Rulers of Darkness (1995) proves not only strong but durable as this sequel reprises its predecessor's dramatic conflicts. Ten years have passed since detective

Merrick Chapman buried his son, Zane, alive in a concrete vault to stop the murder sprees that threatened to disclose the family's curse of hemophagic leukemia, Spruill's clever medical term

for vampirism. Zane's daughter Jenn, now a highly regarded intern at a D.C. hospital who's in a happy relationship with novelist Hugh McCall, controls her own vampirism by harmlessly

siphoning blood from sleeping people. Suddenly, however, a series of pranks clearly intended to arouse her bloodlust reveals that Zane has escaped and is determined to use her as a pawn against her grandfather. With skill and subtlety, Spruill orchestrates several suspenseful

challenges that force Jenn to walk the tightrope between divulging her true nature to

unsuspecting human associates or throwing in her lot with her father. His credible rendering of supernatural beings as members of a dysfunctional family with conflicting ideas about how to manage their problems shows a delightfully oddball sense of topicality, yet he is never less than sympathetic and balanced in his portrayal. Despite several stray subplots and an ending that leaves the door open for further adventures for its hemophage heavies, this novel is that rare example of a sequel as memorable as its predecessor."

Daughter of Darkness, School Library Journal review:

YA. Fans of both the horror and medical suspense genres will enjoy this tale. Dr. Jenn Hrluska, a beautiful, talented intern at a Washington, DC, hospital, is a hemophage: a genetic defect requires that she feed on human blood to survive. In this sequel to Rulers of Darkness, Spruill tells the riveting story of Jenn's affection for her grandfather, Merrick, who raised her to transfuse blood harmlessly from sleeping victims to feed her hunger. He has decided that he no longer wishes to live the immortal life of a hemophage, so he takes special transfusions that will allow him to grow old with his present wife. As a police detective, Merrick hunted the deadly hemophages, including his own son, but now he is no longer a match for Zane's powers. When Zane escapes from his father's underground prison and vows revenge, Jenn must choose between them. YAs will enjoy this fast-moving variation on the traditional vampire tale and its many subplots. One of Jenn's young patients is dying of leukemia; a fellow intern plants drugs in her locker to get her fired;

Jenn's new boyfriend experiences odd hallucinations that make her fear he may be "phage" as well; and an overly curious television reporter stalks Jenn and almost reveals her family's secret to the world. Perhaps, most of all, YAs will identify with Jenn's emotional turmoil as she untangles

her complex feelings for a father who asks her to return to a "natural" but deadly life with him; and a grandfather who believes that she can transcend that life and care for the children of the world.

Pat Bangs, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Lords of Light, Review by Luke Croll: This is the sequel to Spruill`s two previous novels,

`Rulers Of Darkness` and `Daughter Of Darkness`, in which he introduced the hemophages and the star of this novel, Dr. Jenn Hrulska. She is twenty-five, with a promising career ahead of her. The only drawback is that she is a vampire. She believes that she is destined to a life of solitude, when a new doctor, Michael Avalon suddenly steps into her life. She believes that she is going to lose him, but suddenly, she discovers that Avalon is not a normal mortal and that there may well

be a terrible battle ahead for the lords of light and rulers of darkness. What can the outcome for

the two lovers be? This is a great novel and Spruill does justice to the previous two. If you

haven`t read any of the others, you might find it slightly difficult to start with this book, but Spruill does try to explain everything as he goes along. If you have read the other books, you will have

no problems with this one. He continues to develop the established characters such as Jenn and Merrick and at the same time, his use of the lords of light adds a whole new dimension to this

saga. Spruill seems to have a lot more mileage in these characters yet and may well be able to

get another book out of them. The plot is rather similar to Shakespeare––but modernized a lot. It reminded me of `Romeo And Juliet`, with two people from opposing houses falling in love. It is

very easy to read and I felt like a knife through butter as I went through chapter after chapter. The ending is also an amazing surprise, with sadness and happiness. Overall, this is an excellent

novel and strengthens immeasurably this series.

SLEEPER, Publishers Weekly Review: Set a year after September 11, this taut chiller unfolds

on the Pentagon grounds, as workers return to the remodeling job that was hastily abandoned

after the terrorist attacks. In a remote section of the building, a construction worker finds a mysterious canister behind a wall. When he accidentally opens it, he unleashes a carnivorous

beast that has been lying in hibernation for decades. The task of putting an end to the creature's killing spree falls upon Ed Jeffers, the "mayor" of the Pentagon; Terrill "Terror" Hodge, a Navy

SEAL who chafes at being told what to do; and Dr. Andrea Deluca, the attractive-yet-serious

herpetologist who catches their attention. As the three work with Terrill's fellow SEALs to destroy

the creature and rescue a trapped soldier, Andrea unravels the Cold War origins of the beast.

The novel unfolds slowly, particularly in the flashback sequences, which tell of the creature's

origin. But the protagonists are well developed, and the race-against-time structure makes this a particularly quick read. With a tone that is equal parts horror, sci-fi and Tom Clancy-esque

military thriller, Harriman's debut novel nicely fills the void left by The X-Files.