The Extra
World Fantasy Award–winner Shea takes his 1987 short story of the same name and turns it into a trilogy of which this is the first cataclysmic volume. Imagine the Roman Coliseum expanded to encompass the whole of Rome with the Christians replaced by thousands of extras, who volunteer in search of enough wealth to escape their poverty, and with gladiators replaced by animatronic aliens. All the action in this artificial set designed by the head of Panoply Studios, Val Margolian, is filmed continuously and turned into mega-grossing vid entertainment for the masses. Attempting to survive the chaos and reap bonuses dropped by payboat pilots for alien kills are L.A. book lovers Japh, Curtis, and Jool. They're aided by a group of pilots, who are secretly sabotaging Margolian's spiderlike machines. SF fans and thriller readers alike will go for the furious action on the ground and in the air, with carnage galore, hairbreadth escapes, and heroic sacrifices.(Feb.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.