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Picks of the week, April 13

Mark Graham, Peter Mergendahl and Jennifer Miller, Special to the Rocky

Published April 13, 2007 at midnight

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SCIENCE FICTION

Overclocked

By Cory Doctorow. Thunder's Mouth Press, $15.95.

This collection of one short-short story and five novellas demonstrates the weirdness and versatility of one of science fiction's unique young authors. Doctorow pays homage to Isaac Asimov, one of his earliest influences, in two pastiches,I, Robot, which even uses the same name as the Asimov classic; and I, Row-boat, a tongue-in-cheek tale about a sentient dingy that takes scuba divers to the Great Barrier Reef, only to discover that the reef has come "alive," and it's none too happy about the divers. The best story is After the Siege, about the coming of age of a little girl who must find a way to survive in a future war.

Final word: This is a great introduction to one of the genre's fresh new talents, one of the few who seamlessly mixes the future with the bizarre.

Mark Graham

THRILLERS

Magic City

By James W. Hall. St. Martin's, $24.95.

In this novel, based on real events from 1964, Hall's protagonist Thorn causes enough carnage for three stories. The action revolves around a black-and-white photo of a row of spectators, taken during the Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston fight in Miami in 1964. Forty years later, someone is willing to kill in order to destroy this last piece of evidence putting these people together that night.

The photo falls into perennial beach bum Thorn's hands just as he begins a stint looking after his girlfriend's addled father, Lawton. Thorn and Lawton must decipher the riddle of who's in the photo. Gangster Meyer Lansky is easy to spot, as is the then-mayor of Miami, but others in the photo may hold the real clue as to why people are dying for a half-century-old photo.

Final word: There's enough skulduggery, intrigue and violence here for a half dozen books. Thankfully, Hall writes well enough to accommodate all of them.

Peter Mergendahl

CHILDREN

Barnstormers: Three Kids, A Mysteryand a Magic Baseball, Game 1

By Phil Bildner; illustrated by Loren Long. Simon & SchusterBooks for Young Readers, $9.99, ages 7-10.

Bildner and Long open baseball season with a book series that feels as nostalgic as an old cowhide ball. An amateur baseball team travels cross-country in 1899, hustling exhibition games to raise enough money to pay off the debts of a widowed wife and her children, Griffith, Ruby and Graham. But no sooner has The Travelin' Nine begun to score against the Cincinnati Swine, a fog rolls in that only they can see.

By the fourth inning, a phantom train post rises out of center field, seemingly signaling directions to them, and an invisible train nearly runs them over. Griffith, the oldest boy, is convinced the mirage has something to do with advice his uncle gave him after his father's funeral. "Things will speak to you. In different ways," his uncle had said. But the words remain as puzzling now as they did then.Not even his dad's old baseball, which he and his siblings hold for good luck, can help them now.

Final word: Once again, Loren bowls us over with illustrations that transport our senses. You almost can smell the dust coming off the page as players slide into bases - and vintage tickets and posters add to the charm. With so many mysteries left unexplained, readers will want to stay in the game to see what happens in the next installment.

Jennifer Miller