Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5)

Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5)
By Andrew Leon & Bryan Peddas
(3/5)

I'm not big into serials but this was free so what the heck. When something is free I suppose you can say you got your money's worth no matter what. Really all this does is introduce Tiberius and his superpower of controlling shadows. It's much too short to really get into it, which is the problem of serials. Then there's another story by another author that's set in the "House on the Corner" universe. It would be OK except it goes on and on and on until it's many times longer than what's supposed to be the main attraction, eclipsing it. If you're going to have the story be that long, why not serialize it with the other serial?

Tripler

Tripler
By Neil Vogler
(5/5 stars)

This book features a unique premise:  what if you could split yourself into three--basically creating two clones of yourself?  Would you just use it to get all your chores done?  Would you use it to fulfill all your kinky desires?  Or would you use it to take over the world?  In Tripler we see pretty much all the possibilities in what is a pretty taut thriller.

The basic setup reminded me of Blade Runner a little.  Harry is a "Tracker" who hunts down rogue Triplers, like the Harrison Ford character hunted down rogue androids.  The similarities pretty much end there.  In large part because Harry himself becomes a Tripler, though probably in Ridley Scott's fifteen versions of Blade Runner is one where Deckard is an android.  Harry is kept alive and given some medication to keep him from going rogue by the British government.  If you want to compare it to another movie/book it's like Harry is James Bond and the rogue Triplers are SMERSH/SPECTRE; he even has his own numerical designation of 00.

Except the assignment soon gets a lot tougher once he encounters the enemy agent Osprey, who vows to destroy everyone and everything Harry loves.  As Osprey wreaks havoc, Harry is forced to question pretty much everything.  And there's a nice twist at the end that promises a lot of mayhem for Book 2.

Overall this is a taut, well-written thriller that will keep you guessing.  Even if you're not a fan of science fiction, the sci-fi elements are not so overwhelming that readers of Ian Fleming or Robert Ludlum couldn't enjoy it.  Other than the idea of Tripling, it's a pretty ordinary setting; there are no flying cars or robots or aliens or anything like that.  So if you want a thriller with a twist, give this a try.

That is all.

Shadow Warrior (Mechanica Wars #2)

Shadow Warrior (Mechanica Wars #2)
by Jay Noel
(5/5 stars)

This was a good continuation of the series.  I really enjoyed the first book, so I was glad when I was able to buy the second.  This steampunk series follows a budding world war between the Iberian Empire and Nuhan of the Orient.  In the first book, Nuhan prince Zen went on a quest to find the "Sky Sword" to help his people, but that proved to be a fool's errand.  Now yearning to get retribution on his father, Zen teams up with a group of Shadow Warriors, who help teach him the ways of the Force, or whatever the mystical psychic force is called.  But in the end Zen ends up in a lot worse shape than Luke Skywalker after The Empire Strikes Back, more like his father at the end of Revenge of the Sith.  Since I don't read steampunk I do like to compare the story to Star Wars; I mean there's an evil empire and a band of heroes standing against them, so come on.

Anyway, the narration is taut and well-written and the characters from the first book continue to evolve while some interesting new characters are added.  As I said with the first one, even if you don't read steampunk, this is still a good read.

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Breaking News

Breaking News
by Nigel G. Mitchell
(5/5) stars

The concept for this story reminded me of "Early Edition" a TV series on CBS in the 90s.  That involved a guy (Kyle Chandler who went on to "Friday Night Lights" fame) who got a newspaper a day early and used it to help people.  Only in this case it's a teleprompter that displays news in advance to a jaded anchorman.  Along with his naive new co-anchor they set out to avert disaster.

It's a fantastic short story for sci-fi fans and mainstream fiction fans.

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Operation Masquerade

Operation Masquerade
by Nigel Mitchell
(5/5 stars)

Unlike the author's previous sci-fi stories like "Flying Saucers" or "Call Center of Doom" this is not a humorous story. It's more of a combination of "Starship Troopers" and "Blade Runner."

Humanity has for years been fighting against a race of insectoid aliens called the Chitt'k, but not much is known about these bugs. Jason Locke, a trained commando and actor, is tasked with using a mechanical bug suit to infiltrate an alien ship to find out their secrets.

Meanwhile on Earth, Jason's wife who is also a commando unearths a government conspiracy and winds up dumped in the wilds of old New York, which is pretty much a ghetto overseen by drug lords. She has to escape to try to warn her husband of the threat.

This is a tense, entertaining sci-fi thriller. It has enough twists and turns that you can never be sure what's going to happen next. Highly recommended.

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Dragonfly Warrior

Dragonfly Warrior
by Jay Noel
(5/5 stars)

A caveat here:  this is the first steampunk book I've read.  I'm not a fan of the genre by any stretch.  I guess my main problem is it relies so much on hindsight, people taking stuff we have now and reverse engineering it to 19th Century technology.  I tend to think if they could have made a giant walking spider back then someone probably would have.

My point then is I was prepared not to like this book, but I did.  Since I haven't read any steampunk before what it actually reminded me of is Star Wars.  Zen is like a Jedi in that he has a sword and a mystical ability that helps him fight.  When he goes in search of the "Sky Sword" he meets a scoundrel who also happens to own a very fast ship--sound familiar?  And then they meet a a woman who's very tough and capable--but does not turn out to be Zen's sister.

Thinking of it that way probably helped and also I don't think it took the steampunk to ridiculous extremes.  Not like for instance "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" where they had a fleet of SHIELD helicarriers in the mid-30s.  Say whaaaat?  Although there was (briefly) a mechanical spider thing most of the technology like airships and cars were plausible in the late 19th Century as there were already hot air balloons, rudimentary cars, and even at least one crude submarine in the Civil War.

Besides Star Wars I suppose it plays out like one of those fantasy books where there's a party on a quest.  It just so happens instead of fighting dragons and wizards they're after the "Machine Boy" who to use another Star Wars reference reminded me of young Anakin Skywalker, though less annoying because he didn't go around asking teenage girls if they were angels.

Anyway, it's a fast-paced, action-packed read that's written very well.  There's nothing to dislike, even for someone who doesn't like steampunk.  I'm looking forward to the next book.

That is all.

To Cure the Humans

To Cure the Humans
by Douglas Lewis
(4/5 stars)

At a time when healthcare is big in the news, this book takes a satirical look at the health insurance industry.  An alien named Peter by accident gets an artifact that allows him to cure all diseases in a being.  When he gets to Earth he starts using it on humans, which gets an alien bounty hunter named Cyril on his tail.  A big insurance company also comes after Peter to take the artifact for his own purposes.

Like any humorous story there are some jokes that land and others that don't.  Which do and do not probably depends on your sense of humor.  The writing is solid enough and for a while the story is fun.  It's just way too darned long.  At 456 pages it needs to be about 33% shorter.  Much of this could have happened if all the stuff about Area 52 had been cut out since it wasn't really that necessary.

Anyway, except for the length this is a good book if you like Douglas Adams or similar authors.

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The Sex Gates

The Sex Gates
by Darrell Bain & Jeanine Berry
(2/5 stars)

I'm not going to say too much so I don't get yelled at as has happened before. Suffice it to say the writers have a great future writing for the adult film industry. Like many indie books this has a number of typos; the writers should learn the difference between "succeed" and "secede" for instance. Maybe because of all the graphic sex I found all the characters unpleasant. The first one to go through a gate and change his/her sex was the worst. He goes through the gate and becomes a woman, promptly turns into a whore, and that's pretty much her only function. A main character goes through, becomes a woman, has sex with everyone, and then we skip forward 3 years, so it didn't really add much. 

There was a forehead-slapping moment where that character named Lee goes from a boy to a girl and they all get together and decide to change her name to Li.  What?  I checked this on a couple baby name sites and Lee is listed as a unisex name.  Duh.  Lee would be a lot less confusing than Li, where they'd probably think she was Asian, bringing to mind an old Seinfeld episode involving that scenario.  That was about the moment I lost all confidence in the authors.

At least by the end we sorta find out what the gates are, though it was kind of obvious; I think the various incarnations of Star Trek did it a number of times. I don't understand the decision to set it in the future as that only creates confusion that makes it harder to grasp the impact of these weird gates appearing from nowhere. And I could have done without the Limbaugh-esque junk about those entitled poor people receiving government handouts. I would invite the authors to try to live on Social Security or welfare and see how entitled you feel.

I've probably said too much. Oh well.

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Powered

Powered
by Cheyanne Young
(5/5 stars)

As someone who wrote a series of superhero novels and another standalone superhero novel, I'm always interested in reading the competition. So I eagerly volunteered to read an advanced copy of this book. On the whole I really enjoyed it.

The biggest strength I think is that the author creates a unique world for the characters. In this world there are a bunch of "supers" (ie superhumans) most of whom live in "Central" in the Grand Canyon. The supers have a sort of caste system. There are the Heroes who do all the superheroic stuff like fighting villains and then there are the Retrievers. I didn't fully understand the Retrievers but I take it they pretty much clean up the mess afterwards.

Maci Might is 16 years old, which means her powers have finally reached their full potential. She then undergoes the test to determine if she'll be a Hero or a Retriever. This doesn't go quite as well as she hoped. From there Maci's life continues to unravel as she alienates her friends and family and has to take refuge in South Africa with a cute researcher named Evan. Probably too much time was spent on Maci and Evan hanging out before we get to the final showdown with the villain.

My main criticism is that I think the villain could have been stronger. Almost half the book goes by before we even find out who the villain is and then another quarter of the book goes by before the villain really becomes any kind of threat. Superhero stories are defined as much by the villain as the hero, like Batman vs. the Joker or Superman vs. Lex Luthor or the Scarlet Knight vs. the Black Dragoon.

The only other criticism would be that for what I presume is a YA book there's some gore in there that even made me cringe. The part where Maci suffers a severe head injury had me literally yelling, "Ewwwww, Gross!!!!" So it's probably not best suited for the younger end of the YA spectrum.

(One other technical note is people don't ride donkeys in the Grand Canyon. They ride mules, which are only half-donkey and half-horse. The stuffed mule I bought from the Grand Canyon gift shop wanted me to note that.)

Still, on the whole it's a brisk, fun read. And of course there's plenty of room for Maci's adventures to continue.

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The Turning

The Turning
by Mark Barwell
(2/5 stars)

This book was recommended to me by Amazon, mostly because I've already published a book with a similar concept (Chance of a Lifetime).  My book focuses only on one man who becomes a woman, like Virginia Woolf's Orlando or Yann Martel's Self, whereas this focuses on a mass event like the comic book series Y the Last Man.  Hard-core feminists steal an experimental drug in Australia and disperse it into the air, causing the entire world's population of men to become women, a few at a time.  Chaos ensues.

Now obviously since I've written a book on similar lines I'm willing to buy into the concept, as ludicrous as it may seem.  It does stretch my disbelief to think a single airborne particle could have such a radical effect.  It really stretches my disbelief to think there are no symptoms exhibited a male "turns".  And it shatters my disbelief to think a man can turn into a woman overnight without ever being aware of it.  I mean come on, when your entire body is rearranging itself like a human Transformer toy, you'd have to be in a lot of pain.  There's no way you'd sleep through it and wake up the next morning like, "Hey, what the heck?"

But my biggest issues are what happens after the turning.  There's something very misogynistic and a little homophobic about what happens to these men after they become women.  One of the first ones to turn is taken shopping for women's clothes by a female friend and instantly falls in love with women's clothes and shopping.  And she instantly knows how to walk in high heels and how to do her hair and makeup.  Say whaaaaat?  Rearranging body parts and increasing the amount of estrogen in the body would not be able to change behaviors at the drop of a hat.  Only 1950s comedians thought women innately possess all those behaviors.  In the real world, changing your DNA would not instantly change your behaviors.

Then within a couple days this new woman is hitting on men and shagging them as they'd say overseas.  At that point the suspension of disbelief has completely disintegrated.  Because again, rearranging body parts and changing chemical balances can't instantly erase psychological behaviors.  If you were attracted to women before, you wouldn't instantly be attracted to men.  Even if there are physical symptoms of attraction, there are a lot of mental hurdles to overcome.

This why I said there's something a little homophobic about it.  Pretty much all the men who turn are instantly attracted to the opposite sex.  It's as if being attracted to the same sex is impossible.  That's in line with what all those religious pundits who say being gay is a choice rail about.  According to people far more in the know about this subject, that simply isn't true.  You're born liking men or liking women and that's not going to instantly change because you've lost a Y chromosome.

The other thing that bugs me is the 14-year-old's fascination with sex and breasts.  It seems almost everyone who turns is super hot with huge knockers.  Is this supposed to be erotica?  Then I suppose that would make sense.  As I've previously indicated, the author introduces the sex early on.  Far too early really.  It reminded me when I watched the movie "Being John Malkovich" where ordinary people find a way into the famous actor's mind.  Almost immediately the people used it to seduce women and from there the story really had nowhere to go.  By the same token in this book you have the newly turned woman shagging by the 20% mark and the roommates (one turned and one not) shagging by 45% then you've pretty much left yourself with few options to escalate things.  It's like if a country launches it's nuclear weapons right from the start; there's really nothing more you can do at that point to escalate the conflict.  Maybe that's why it felt so dreadfully long.   

The end features first a gap in logic the size of the Grand Canyon and then a "twist" revealing the mastermind of the feminist scheme, which was obvious about 2% into the book.  All told I disliked this book on a lot of levels.  But I think it could really work as a movie vehicle for Adam Sandler or Seth Rogen, though I think Rob Schneider beat them to it with "The Hot Chick."

That is all.

Chet Finley vs. The Machines of Fate

Chet Finley vs. The Machines of Fate
by Eric Filler
(5/5 stars)

Fans of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or especially fans of "Futurama" should enjoy this smart-alec sci-fi adventure.  The eponymous Chet Finley is an ordinary schlub in Newark until the day he uncovers a galactic conspiracy to control--and profit from--humanity.  From there Chet enlists the aid of a surly robot named Ziggy and a shapeshifting assassin named Sadie to find the root of the conspiracy and free humanity.  The journey takes Chet from Newark to a freighter loaded with bootleg DVDs to Monaco and then into the stars.  From there Chet and company visit a library operated by giant birds, a casino in the Horsehead Nebula, to a planet where time itself has stopped.

As with any book of this type you might not get all of the jokes or think they're all very funny, but there are far more hits than misses.  The book is loaded with geek culture references and a good dose of locker room humor to make it fun for grown-up sci-fi fans.  It won't make you forget Douglas Adams, but it's still a fun read.

That is all.

First Contact (Rebirth #1)

First Contact (Rebirth #1)
Eric Filler
(4/5 Stars)

This is some good old-fashioned space opera, even if it's not particularly well-written.  Anyway, the story begins with two starships arriving at an uninhabited planet. (And since this is not "hard" science-fiction there's no explanation of the faster-than-light travel method they use or anything like that.) Captain Lisa Shaw is in command of the expedition, though she feels slighted to be sent out into the middle of nowhere for years on what should be a milk run.

Except things get more interesting than she ever imagined. Not long after the humans arrive and begin surveying the planet, an alien ship appears in the system! Lisa and her crew go through all the standard first contact stuff of trying to send greetings and whatnot, but it soon becomes apparent these aliens are not interested in exchanging messages by musical scales or cave drawings or anything like that.

No, the aliens open fire and within minutes Lisa's ship is destroyed. She's prepared to go down with the ship, but is saved by Ensign Jack Laurants, who assures her she's needed down on the surface. A few others of the bridge crew survive as well, but most of the ship's crew is dead, for which Lisa blames herself.

Not much later on the surface, the human ground soldiers of the expedition come under attack by alien warriors. It's then the alien agenda becomes clear: they want to use the humans as food! Though they aren't carving them up like cattle. The aliens have a much different way of eating, more akin to vampires, though they don't sparkle.

From there the human survivors have to find a way to escape from the aliens and get back to Earth to warn them of the threat.

As I said at the beginning, the writing is not great. It's pretty amateurish and there are of course typographical errors and such.  The story obviously borrows from a lot of other space opera-type things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Robotech, and maybe a little V--the 80s version. It's a fun light read.

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Waking Prometheus

Waking Prometheus
by Paul L. Madden
(4/5 Stars)

This book--more of a novella than a novel--has nothing to do with the Prometheus movie from this year. There is an alien involved, but it's not an acid-dripping monster or some big pasty dude that flies around in a big croissant-shaped ship.

This story concerns one Brent Gallowes in the not-so-distant future. In the prologue Brent's nice suburban life is torn asunder when he finds his wife and child murdered in a mindless, random act of violence. After spending some time feeling sorry for himself, Brent decides to leave Earth and essentially become a space trucker.

When the story picks up in the "present" Brent is captain of a cargo freighter that spends its time going between Earth and various colonies and stations in the Solar System. His life is decidedly unglorious, much of his time spent boozing and still feeling sorry for himself. Brent and his crew find a damaged ship near Jupiter and decide to investigate. That's always a bad idea; just ask those people in Alien. Inside the human ship is essentially a big silver ball of unknown origin. But when Brent touches the thing, he learns there's an alien intelligence inside. From there Brent's life gets pretty complicated.

The alien intelligence claims it means no harm and only wants to go on its way. Meanwhile, there are a lot of very rich humans who would love to have an alien artifact like this to study. If Brent won't surrender the artifact, they might just take it from him. Mixed into all that is Brent's story of redemption through his decisions concerning the artifact. The pace moves pretty briskly as this is definitely on the low side of a novel-length story. It's not exactly hard science but it's not exactly a space opera either. It's a nice light sci-fi read that certainly won't take you very long to get through.

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Monorama

Monorama
by Tony Laplume
(3/5 Stars)

A wide variety of sci-fi stories come together in this short story collection. The first "story" called "Lost Books of Tomorrow" is a series of 32 vignettes I suppose you could say. Each of those could be a longer story in its own right. The one after that about someone whose parachute doesn't open after a skydiving accident is sort of dull and in my opinion the weakest of the collection. a couple of other stories don't have what I'd consider a satisfying conclusion, but overall this is a very good read, a whirlwind of imagination as I called it once.

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Wool

Wool
by Hugh Howey
(3/5 Stars)

This felt really long at times. It probably could have been chopped down about 150 pages or more without losing much. The end is a bit deus-ex-machina as a character who until that point had been relatively unimportant all the sudden saves the day for the main characters. It's the kind of thing where I think, "Gee if you'd done that 200 pages ago this story would have been over." Anyway the point for any of you indie writers out there is don't have some outside character save the day because it's lame.

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Eclipse

Eclipse
by Briane Pagel
(5/5 stars)

Don't confuse this "Eclipse" with that other one. There are no vampires or werewolves in this. Instead, this Eclipse is a psychological sci-fi mystery in the tradition of the old Twilight Zone, 2001, or Solaris.

It's hard to describe the plot, because it's such a mystery that you never know if what's happening is real or if it's imagined. All we know is that it involves a man named Claudius. Did he go into space? Did he pilot a ship too close to the sun and have to bail out? Or is he lying in a prison, imagining everything?

Even at the end it's hard to be sure and that's what keeps you guessing and will have you looking at it more than once.

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The Beginnings of Forever

The Beginnings of Forever
by AL Sirois
(5/5 stars)

"The Beginnings of Forever" is a collection of stories in the old tradition of science fiction like Asimov or Bradbury. It's about the next best thing to watching a marathon of "The Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone" except that a couple of the stories (especially the one taking place in an adult bookstore) are probably a bit more risque than either of those shows. Anyway, the stories are all enjoyable enough, touching on a wide range of topics from a look at the beginning of America's space program to a man who captures a baby thunderstorm. So if you're looking for some good old-fashioned sci-fi, give this a look.

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Visionary of Peace (Vallar #2)

Visionary of Peace (Vallar #2)
by Cindy Borgne
(5/5 stars)

A riveting sequel that expands upon the great world introduced in "Seer of Mars." When last we'd seen Ian, he'd broken away from the evil MarsCorp and defected to GenTech, in large part to woo the gorgeous Kayla. Ian used his psychic abilities to help GenTech defeat MarsCorp and merge with another faction to form Vallar. A couple of years later all of that is threatened as MarsCorp gets a new ally of their own. But MarsCorp gets more than it bargained for in their new ally, which leads to a massive showdown between the Martian factions.

This is a quick-paced read that has a lot of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged. The alternating first-person chapters between Kayla and Ian is a little confusing, but after a couple of chapters it becomes easy to figure out who's narrating which chapter.

There is still plenty of room for more exciting Vallar action, which I'll look forward to.

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Twinned Universes

Twinned Universes
by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
(5/5 stars)

A worthy follow-up to "Lyon's Legacy" this continues the story about 18 years later. When his mother is murdered, Paul Harrison travels to a parallel universe that's over a hundred years in the past--or 1980 to be exact. Paul needs to track down his ancestor Sean Lyon, who is like an American version of John Lennon, to find out who killed his mother and to try and prevent Sean's death. But there are forces at work who want to prevent both of those events.

This was a taut and fast-paced sci-fi yarn that gripped me from beginning to end. Since Paul and his friends are teens, it works for YA audiences and older readers.

Recommended.

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The Spur: Loki's Rock

The Spur:  Loki's Rock
by Mark Ellis
(4/5 stars)

It's a space Western that's more Western than space. It's kind of like those old Star Trek episodes where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to some planet plunged in civil war and despite the Prime Directive wind up getting involved in it. Only in this case both sides of the civil war are evil.

On the desolate world of Loki, Colonel James Crockett and his crew go down to the surface to survey the place since the Federation-type entity in charge lost contact with the colony over a century ago. They find that thanks to numerous earthquakes and such the place is a wasteland. They come to the eponymous Loki's Rock, a kind of Thunderdome-type place ruled by a nut named Bonner.

Bonner's goons harvest human organs to trade to some neo-neo-Nazis who exchange them for supplies Bonner and his people need to survive. But of course Crockett's arrival upsets this precarious balance. There's a final showdown that takes place in a mountain stronghold shaped like Adolf Hitler.

Like I said, it feels a lot like Star Trek. Crockett is Kirk, his second-in-command/science officer Alex is Spock (without the ears and with female parts), and the "Native American" (a term not really applicable since he was born on Loki) doctor Quanrah is Bones. There's also an amnesiac psychic gypsy named Zeda and an android named Syne. It's a fast-paced, exciting adventure but largely formulaic. It lacks the humor of a "Firefly" but is still a fun read.

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