This novel is a version of the “Generation Ship Gone Haywire” variety, but with an interesting format. Most of the narrative involves the main character, Perdit, describing the events of the story to the AI that runs the Ship. In most novels this would devolve into a mind-numbing info dump, but this author is above […]
“Secrets of the Sky Gods” by Ryan McBride
This novel is Epic Fantasy in the most sweeping scope and style, but the book’s true appeal comes from the portrayal of the main character, Runa. Much of the conflict is internal. There are four ways to show personality: what the author tells us directly, what the character says, what the character does, and what […]
“AI Risen” by Endoc Evans
This book has all the elements of a good Sci-Fi story. It discusses the rise of Artificial Intelligence, which is topical these days. It has a detailed future setting with a realistic social order. It has a reasonable amount of hi-tech gadgetry. It has sympathetic and admirable characters we can empathize with. It has a […]
“Dappled Leaves and Dust” by Isabella Wu
Poetry is hard to review, because different types of poets have different objectives in their writing. With my theatre background, I come to poetry from a performance point of view. I gather Ms. Wu comes from a more academic background. There are bound to be disagreements. For example, there is a cute bit of visual […]
“Shamaness – The Silent Seer” by C. C. Jirón
This novel is a Fantasy love story, a coming-of-age tale that becomes a character’s life story, concentrating on her youth and old age but reflecting multiple images of different generations of her family and friends. The fractured plotline could be confusing, jumping back and forth between the girl she was and the grandmother she is, […]
“Little Amani” Chaili Trilogy 1 by Warwick Gibson
First: why you might want to pick up this novel. It’s a good Sci-Fi, “rebels against the empire” tale. It has likeable, believable characters, and the creative dodge is having the rebel leaders mostly women, which brings a refreshing change to the tone of their revolution and the story. The Sci-Fi and historical background is […]
“Unfortunately, I Was Available” by Jon Hart
I’m not too sure how to label this book. Perhaps “Autobiographical Vignettes.” It is a series of short tales taken from the author’s work as a film extra. Part of the draw for this sort of work is the possibility of learning something about an area of our society that is closed to us. Hart […]
“An Enemy’s Gift” by Larry Armstrong
This book shows an interesting approach to creating a novella. Instead of laying out the usual story arc with all the details pared down to minimum, the author simply ignores the beginning of the time line and gives us only the action part. The problem is that in the condensing process, the author has taken […]
“The Elysian Hegemony” by Michael J. Byrne
This novel shows an unfortunate example of a writer who attempts far too much, trying to appeal to too many different types of reader, and ends up satisfying none of them. The book starts out as a Military Action-Adventure. The opening involves a great firefight, full of technical jargon, esoteric weapons, and fast-paced fighting. But […]
“Avalon” by David Barrett-Murrer
One technique of good paranormal writing is to create a distinct magical setting with clearly defined rules. Then the author can set up an effective and believable conflict within that context. One disadvantage of the Internet is that authors have access to a great variety of magical environments, and there is a temptation to dabble […]