This is a freewheeling, action-packed Space Opera, full of spaceships and technology set against a background of interstellar politics. The characters are the usual mixture of races and rogues, well portrayed and sympathetic. There seems to be a disconnect at the beginning, as if the author started the book, forgot what he wrote, then picked […]
“Havoc: Engine’s Game Part 2” by Paityn E. Parque
This second instalment of the franchise has moved even further out of the realm of video games and into the more usual Fantasy realm of magic. As the story progresses it moves more into horror. We are no longer worried about the specific details of the powers of individual players. Now we have a few […]
“Broken World Stories” by Lance Manion
This is a book of short pieces, mostly humorous. I won’t call them stories, although many of them are. What the others are is more difficult to pin down, so I’ll let you figure them out yourself. The work stands out because of its creativity. Examples: An ethnically sourced method of saying good-bye to the […]
“The Hills Be Shaken” by Michael Stewart
This book has an interesting slant on the usual detective procedural/action novel. This one is an engineer’s procedural. Trust an engineer to know all sorts of ways for people to get killed. Especially all sorts of dangerous things you really didn’t want to know that happen inside the generating pod of a wind turbine, 100 […]
“What We Do with Our Hands” by Cynthia Good
Poetry as Therapy There is a place in poetry for working through personal trauma. Some of the best poets are those who have gone into those dark places we all want to avoid. It is the job of the artist to be unafraid to talk about the unspeakable. This often leads to powerful poetry, but […]
“Uncle Jed’s Secret” by Chris von Halle
Here’s a fact of childhood that we should think about. Children aren’t threatened by the monster under the bed. Their worst problem is people in authority over them who set out to manipulate them with evil intent. This story builds suspense from the start, helped by a truly eerie situation. I like plot lines that […]
“Avatar of Death” by S. F. Claymore
This book’s greatest strength is also its worst weakness. The author has spent an incredible amount of time and creativity in fabricating an epic fantasy world, rich in placenames, history, politics and above all multiple types of magic, magicians, and magical beings. The pages teem with them, new types in every chapter, with loving descriptions […]
“How to Suck at Business Without Really Trying” by Marah Archer
This book has a much longer subtitle, but I’m trying to encourage authors not to try to tell us everything on the cover because it spoils the surprise of the book. So, I’m ignoring it. And, as you can already tell, this is going to be a difficult review to write, because this book defies […]
“Offworld Empire” by Scott Billups
This story has all the elements of a Space Opera and a few more besides. In fact, it gives the impression that the author is not too sure who his audience is. But first the positives, especially the worldbuilding. This author has spent a great deal of creativity and effort to create a 200-years-in-the-future solar […]
“The Forgotten World” by Nick Courtright
This is a book about travelling: through the world and through life. I have been to many of the places the poet describes in both of these areas, and I am drawn in by the similarity of our experiences. Travelling brings out inevitable themes of communication and colonialism, the nature of art and the difficulty […]