To Hold Infinity, by John Meaney (Bantam, 556pp, £5.99 in UK)
Meaney's first novel is ambitious and daring; he creates a future world full of technological wonders in which the most advanced caste can communicate directly using a telepathic form of the Web - a literal meeting of minds. Bent on hacking into the network and stealing as many minds as he can, preferably those of beautiful females, is the appalling Rafael Garcia de la Vega, a cross between Tom Cruise and Vincent Price at their most vampiric. The trouble in paradise expands to affect a gallery of Meaney's interesting and original, though not complex, characters; particularly good is Maggie Brown, a hardnosed, hard-drinking earth-based journalist. Meaney does insists on showing off his programming skills by including lumps of pseudo programming code in the text, but one grows used to it and it even adds to the tension in a well-structured and entertaining book.
Otherland, by Tad Williams (Orbit, 943pp, £6.99 in UK)
A monumental adventure story with a heady mixture of virtual reality, mythology and the culture of the South African bushman. The elaborate plot is very cleverly constructed with the many interwoven strands united only at the very end. Williams's writing is crisp and clear and his concept of a true-to-real-life virtual reality "Otherland" is breathtakingly ambitious. Characters are clearly goodies (poor, caring, innocent) or baddies (rich, cruel, cynical) and the reader can't help cheering loudly for the former. After 900-odd pages of non-stop excitement, the goodies are still in very deep waters without much in the way of a paddle and the hooked reader is demanding the next instalment.
Mir , by Alexander Besher (Orbit, 306pp, £9.99 in UK)
Cythera, by Richard Calder (Orbit, 311pp, £5.99 in UK)
Two novels of virtual reality. VR invades the real world, the boundaries become blurred and illusion is hard to disentangle from reality. Mir is the successor to Rim (Besher is economical with his titles) and begins uproariously with a slapstick farce on the French Riviera. Imperious Russian Count Viktor Trobolsky and his indefatigable French mistress, Regine de Pompignac, are comic creations who would grace At Swim-Two-Birds. We are treated to a Luddite group with its very own Web site and an automatic generator of posthumous Philip K. Dick novels. Besher, not helped by two goody-goody central characters, can't quite keep up the insane momentum. As a gang of virus-ridden sentient tattoos run riot amidst a motley crew of outlandish characters, the book, not unpleasantly, implodes. There is unpleasantness, however, in Calder's work. Again, it's VR and an outlandish plot with the characters flitting between earth and an artificial mirror world. The occasional humour is too black for my taste, and there is an unhealthy emphasis on child sexuality. Calder can write well and the many nightmare sequences might appeal to admirers of William Burroughs. Even the plot isn't anchored down and we are left confused as well as upset.
Strider's Universe, by Paul Barnett (Orbit, 436pp, £5.99 in UK)
The redoubtable Captain Leonie Strider and her depleted but sexually active team continue their adventures in this rip-roaring yarn. The feisty, bad-tempered heroine commands a crew of humans and exotic aliens against the tyrannical Autarch. Much of their time aboard ship is spent exploring human and alien sexuality with an endearing curiosity and frankness. The team spirit is reminiscent of the Star Trek crew but Spock and Scottie wouldn't approve of some of the more sensual carry-on. Plenty of humour, great imagination - the aliens are really out of this world - and, above all, a ballsy, no-nonsense captain. Aye, aye madam!
The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 281pp, £16.99 in UK)
Pratchett can be a very funny writer, as in Good Omen, with its affable devil Crowley, who likes nothing better than a gourmet meal and regards Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction as one of his greatest devilish achievement. The Lost Continent isn't up to that standard. In this extended skit on beery, sheepshearing Australian mores, the Disc world wizards are as amusing as ever, but the magic isn't at full throttle - hardly surprising after twenty-two Discworld outings. Pratchett's gentle English humour does produce a few gems, for example when he concludes (regarding the infuriating Ridicully, the head wizard) that 'twere better one beat oneself to death with one's own cv rather than work for a person who proclaims that his "door is always open". Quite.
Tom Moriarty is an Irish Times staff journalist