The San Diego Union-Tribune, like many U.S. newspapers, has cut back on its “Books” section.  Luckily, though, the UT has kept its periodic sf and fantasy column, “Eccentric Orbits,” by San Diegan Jim Hopper, and Hopper every column covers three to five books, two in detail and the others under a more snapshot approach he calls “Random Vectors.”  It gets more authors covered, giving more exposure to the field than he would otherwise.

 Yesterday’s Random Vectors included the following on 2007 Clarion teacher Greg Frost on his latest work, Shadowbridge:

If you’re looking for literal high fantasy, try Gregory Frost’s “Shadow Bridge” (Ballantine, 255 pages, $14), the first volume of a duology. A world of bridges runs high over an ocean world. A puppeteer and storyteller, Leodora, tells an old story to a demigod, who all but gives her an answer before turning back to stone. Forces, it seems, are hunting her, under her performing name, and trouble approaches for her and her little troupe. The prose has an exotic, even ethereal feel, and Frost twines Leodora/Jax’s tales into the body of the story quite nicely. The legends she recounts somehow make this fantastic Shadowbridge place more real, as if it has an actual history among and beyond the tales and myths.