Some action tales either grab you, or they don't. Anne K. Edwards’ futuristic story, The Last to Fall, intrigued me from the outset not only because of the content, but reading between the lines of this cleverly crafted book I read a message and a warning. One could even think omen if we aren't careful.

The story begins in northwest Washington D.C. set amongst the blackened ruins of buildings. Jeanne and Lester, her buddy, can barely breathe in the thick, yellow, toxic air caused by the constant fires. In an effort to get the injured Lester some help, Jeanne finds a public telephone but the line is dead. Just like all the others. From that point on, this chilling story builds.

Set in New York City in 2060, JD Robb’s Lt. Eve Dallas series (Naked in Death, etc.) offers her usual engaging characters. Along with the usual is the long-awaited arrival of Mavis’s baby. I know that I for one have been anxiously waiting for this book.

This latest installment opens with both Eve and Roarke attending a birthing class with Mavis and Leonardo shortly before the arrival of the baby. There they meet Tandy Willoughby, a single and very pregnant mother-to-be, who Mavis has taken under her wing. A recent immigrant from London, Tandy has few friends in New York, and no family-and she was really looking forward to the baby shower that Eve was throwing for Mavis and her baby.

Could a geek and a streetwise survivor ever find true love? Vicky Burkholder seems to think so, and to prove her case she wrote Prime Time. Only in this tale, the geeks are known as Techies and the streetwise survivors are known as Porters. The light satire of the names is not lost on me. Porters are also the names of people who do all the physical labors in many so-called third-world countries. Techies? Well, that could be just about any American who happens to have a job above minimum wage.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I wrote and read about sweet sixteen year-olds in the first blush of medieval love. However, time passed, pages in my life turned, and the heroines I related to got a bit older and a heck of a lot smarter. The older I got, the older my heroines got--both the ones I wrote and the ones I read. And then something happened--just as a watched pot never boils, a reader never ages--until suddenly he/she...does. One day I woke up, picked up a book with a starry eyed young heroine, and those starry eyes just looked vacant to me. I put it down in shock and I've never gone back.

For a writer, one of the benefits of Futuristic fiction is to being able to allow what is not allowed. The fact that it is Futuristic means that your story-culture can be radically different from what is. Your story is divorced from current reality, and yet you can keep what you choose, and layer over it whatever elements of history you need to create your future world. The story is Futuristic, not Fantasy, so there is a scientific backdrop rather than a magical one. You can look closely at a piece of Futuristic fiction and pick through it to see what elements were chosen, and usually deduce why.

This is my third tale by Kate Steele and I have loved them all. The Orb of Atrios is a sequel to Chosen Of The Orb, and whereas that book told the tale of the first High Chieftain of all the clans, this story takes place many centuries down the line. Incidentally, the hero of this story is a descendant of the first High Chieftain. You will find out when you read this tale that the ascension is not guaranteed by blood but by warrior skills.

For a writer, mythology provides a cornucopia of romance from which to draw. One of the better-known stories is that of Hades, the ruler of the underworld, and Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Demeter and Zeus. Hades steals Persephone to his underground lair, where she eats a pomegranate seed. Having eaten, she cannot leave the underworld. But then, because Hades and Persephone love each other, a compromise is reached. Half of the year, Persephone is with her husband in his underground lair, during which Demeter punishes the earth with winter; and on Persephone's yearly return to the surface, Demeter blesses the earth with spring.

Marcus Sinclair had riches beyond compare, but what he wanted more than anything was a heart for his daughter. He had created Methuselah, a vanity drug that gave the appearance of youth, but which also caused problems in its long-term users, and birth defects in their children. His company was working on a cure, but his eight-year-old daughter was out of time. He had to get her a heart, and knew only one way to do it: to kidnap Tuesday Fitzpatrick, the sprite-like scientist who created the prototype of the artificial heart, because only she could get his daughter on the list.

Laine Tavish only wanted to live an ordinary life out from the shadow of her colorful, con man father, Big Jack O'Hara. To that end, she changed her name and purchased an antique shop in the small town of Angel's Gap, Maryland. Laine enjoyed being an upright citizen and honest merchant, even though she had to constantly re-invent her past into one of stolid respectability. Despite all her hard work, the past stumbled into her shop in the guise of her long-lost uncle.

When six years old, Gray left the planet with his uncle as a captured slave with his uncle, but now he had come back. His uncle had married the Prendarian ruler and on his return, Gray wanted to unite Earth under one government. He had rescued an earth woman from rape his first night in port, and he was completely entranced with her, even though he believed her to be a prostitute. He hired her to be his assistant, to help him with the language, but his truth was that he was falling in love with her and wanted her to be his life partner. Gray's intentions toward his home planet and toward the woman are completely honorable, even noble.

Mitchell Hunter was literally at the top of the world in his penthouse, a man who had everything: money, brawn, beauty. He was smarter, stronger, faster than everyone else, with only one drawback. Only one third of him was still human. He was trapped in his cyber-enhanced body, with a life that felt to him like no life at all, so that he contemplated jumping off his building. But it probably wouldn't kill him. He was cosmically bored. Until the night he wasn't supposed to be at home, and he happened to see the mutant woman breaking into his safe. The mutant woman who couldn't be seen by artificial means. The mutant woman with the blue hair who slid herself directly through the walls of his safe. When it was closed.

Extreme characterization is cartoon. Especially when word counts are crucial, I think many times it is much easier to stick in a cardboard villain rather than to spend the words it takes to build a character. But when you do that, the whole novel suffers. The hero is going to be as noteworthy as his opposition--as my sf reading son once told me when he badgered me into rewriting a fight scene. When you defeat the bad guy-one two three and you're done--it's not exactly conducive to great story.