Category: book reviews

All of my book reviews contain Amazon affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase after clicking one of them, I may earn a small commission.

The strength of this book is in its world building. I understand from the author’s note at the end that this is not the first book written in this universe, so it doesn’t surprise me that the world feels real, lived in, and richly imagined.

Pacing issues affected my overall enjoyment. The first third of the book, I was ripping through pages, enjoying this badass space marine uncovering a potent mystery that really grabbed me. After that, Kenai becomes a very different kind of book, and a much slower-moving one.

There’s a space marine thriller in here, which I thought was superlatively written. But that story goes away about a third of the way in, and is replaced with a slow-moving, intellectual first contact story. Fans of that kind of thing, though, will have to go through the space marine thriller opening to get to it.

Another strength is the narrative voice. Jess the person shines through brilliantly at all times, and I feel like I know her now. The heartwarming ending felt like something she deserved after what she’d been through.

Much of what this book is about cannot be revealed without spoiling the mystery being laid out in the first third of the book, that I’m struggling to find ways to talk about some things without depriving readers of the joy of discovery.

Suffice it to say that this book shares a mind-bending sci fi concept with a major Hollywood blockbuster of the last few years, and if you read Kenai, and you make it to the big reveal, you will instantly know which movie I’m talking about.

Grab your copy here.

Do you like science fiction and space opera? Try my Exile War series! The first book, Onslaught, is free on all U.S. retailers, and only 99 cents if there’s anywhere it isn’t free. Prefer mysteries and thrillers? Check out my Sherman Iron Mysteries. The first book, Irons in the Fire, is free on all U.S. retailers and only 99 cents where it isn’t free.

All of my book reviews contain Amazon affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase after clicking one of them, I may earn a small commission.

Any Minor World is awesome! Do you like thrills and suspense? Like action and tough guys? Like superheroes and comic books? Then you’re going to love Any Minor World. I read it as my first semifinalist read of the Self Published Science Fiction Competition, and boy am I glad I chose this first!

The plotting is excellent. Characters are given pasts to overcome, which they do at exactly the right moment. Crucial details are hinted at and set up, yet not given away. At about 75% of the way through the book, I was ready to ding the author for a big spoiler, but it turned out to be 180 degrees off of what I thought was coming. Just grade A top quality writing all the way around. I couldn’t stop turning pages.

And the names! “The Midnight Jury” is a $%#&@* phenomenal name for a Vigilante super hero. Trigger Mortis is just as good for a gun-wielding assassin. And “The Loremonger” for a villain who collects ancient mystical tomes is top notch as well.

On the other hand, Noir York doesn’t work as well. It’s too hard to pronounce correctly.

There are some content warnings. The violence gets gruesome at times, especially toward the end. Mild sexual content. And black magic. A lot of black magic.

I can foresee the possibility that there might be some controversy about this book within the contest. There’s an authentic debate to be had about whether this is science fiction. Urban fantasy? No question. Urban paranormal? Certainly. But whether that is the same thing as being science fiction is a bigger question. I reread Edpools review of it, to see his thoughts. I’m not ready to answer the question yet.

What I do have is a recommendation. Read Any Minor World. This is an extremely good book, and it has something to offer fans of multiple different genres. Click here to grab your copy on Amazon.

Do you like science fiction and space opera? Try my Exile War series! The first book, Onslaught, is free on all U.S. retailers, and only 99 cents if there’s anywhere it isn’t free. Prefer mysteries and thrillers? Check out my Sherman Iron Mysteries. The first book, Irons in the Fire, is free on all U.S. retailers and only 99 cents where it isn’t free.

All posts contain Amazon affiliate links. If you buy anything after clicking, I may earn a small commission.

This deeply dystopian post-apocalyptic story steeped in Nordic mythology centers around a conflict between the Norse and the Celts. It takes place in a future after “Ragnarok,” a cataclysm that involves a string of volcanic eruptions, islands sinking underwater, and many other seemingly climate-centered catastrophes.

Stragglers wander the frozen north scraping together leftovers from “The Time Before” to survive. The Celts hunt the terrain, treated by the POV characters as rampaging barbarians to be feared. Meanwhile those Norse who have escaped the fate of stragglers live in an underwater facility called “Mimameid.”

But Mimameid is no paradise either, and our POV characters, Lysander and Petra, soon find themselves trapped between two warring tribes.

I loved the huge twists and giant reveals in this book. They really whetted my appetite for more. Moreover, the explosive conclusion had me desperately ripping through pages to find out what happened.

On the other hand, pacing issues got in the way. The huge twists and reveals were interspersed with long portions of just “life in Mimameid” that moved slow.

That epic conclusion was robbed of some of its power because I had trouble suspending my disbelief regarding one major character’s heartbreakingly difficult choice.

There’s a love story in here, but not a genre romance. No explicit sex. Profanity is rare and mostly in Nordic or Gaelic languages, so should be a safe read for the family. (Don’t worry, the book is in English, but with the languages of the region thrown in for realism. I liked it.)

Lysander is a good, clean morally upright protagonist for whom I have no trouble rooting. I liked him, I always looked forward to his chapters.

Read this if you: Like post-apoc, like cli-fi, are interested in norse culture and mythology, or are interested in how it might be possible to build an entire society underwater.

Maybe aimed at someone other than you if: you’re an adrenaline junkie in your reading; the doses might not come fast enough for you.

Grab your copy here!

All my book reviews contain Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase from any of them, I may earn a small commission.

This is an elaborately imagined future history telling the tale of the decline and fall and rise and fall (and rise again?) of humanity. It starts off with a good hook and a mystery begging to be solved.

It slows down in the middle, and the majority of the book is flashbacks. That structure, in which an MC in the narrative’s “present” is reviewing records of what happened in the narrative’s “past” robs most of the flashbacks of suspense. 

The ending is heartwarming and hopeful. Grab your copy by clicking here!

All my book reviews contain Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase from a link here, I may earn a small commission.

Any review of Stargun messenger has to start with the prose. Darby Harn is an artist with words. A poet. The language of this novel soars and swirls like oil on canvas, painting pictures and dreaming dreams that go far beyond the simple black and white of words on page. I envy this facility with language. I encourage everyone to take a look at this book just to experience wild flights of writing as an art form.

It’s greatest strength is also is greatest weakness. Stargun Messenger never pauses to explain. Before too long, I stopped actually understanding what was happening. Beauty, loss, love, fear… I experienced emotions guided by the author’s amazing ability to draw feelings out of the reader by an elegant turn of phrase or a word in a never-before-imagined context. But I didn’t understand what was going on.

The plot begins with a superb space opera setup. Our Heroine, Astra Idari, is a Stargun, a garden variety gun for hire who gets a lot of her work from an outfit called the Scath. The Scath have a monopoly on the fuel that makes faster than light travel possible, filamentium. Whenever someone steals it, the Scath pay Idari, or someone like her, to recover it. On just another mission to recover just one more batch of stolen filamentium, Idari, makes a horrifying discovery. Creatures of myth and legend, living stars known as Lumenor, are real. They exist. Idari meets one called Emera.

And the precious filamentium is nothing less than their blood.

The Scath suck the blood of living stars for starship fuel they can monopolize and profit on. And with that, the heroic quest is on.

If you want to enjoy Stargun Messenger, you must leave behind questions like “how does it work” and let the author guide you through an epic poem. Love is beautiful. Resistance to evil, even at the risk of everything, is glorious. Becoming who you were always meant to be is a fountain of joy.

At some point, though, a reader wants to be able to process what’s going on. The reader — this one, at least — hits a stage in this novel where one just wants Idari and Emera to “walk down a hall,” instead of waft on flights of hope until journey and destination merge elegant into singularity.

The Black Moment (Every romance must have a Black Moment, and this is assuredly a romance between Idari and Emera) loses it’s power because I don’t have a genuine understanding of what happened, only that the pain was abyssal anguish.

Judged by the beauty of its language alone, this could be the best book I’ve read in this contest. But in the end, beautiful language alone does not make a book. You must tell a story. Harn definitely did this, but I don’t really know what happened in it. The only thing I can say for sure is how it felt.

The book also has a political message. My review isn’t about that, only about the beauty of the prose and the entertainment experience of the book.

Grab your copy here, and I do believe you should grab one, just to experience such painterly expression with words.

 

This powerful book overflows with suspense so thoroughly that I spent most of the read looking away for a while until I had the courage to go on. It’s a richly detailed world filled with believable characters and tragedies.

Yes, tragedies. The book is called “Gothic” for a reason. The characters, particularly the main character, endure brutal pain almost nonstop from the beginning of the book. Almost everything works out hard for the MC.

Our story begins with the MC living in a world divided between two warring drug lords. She cooks product for one and is hated by the other. Her drug-addicted and abusive ex comes looking for a fix, she has to call an enforcer from her “side” in the war to help, and this kicks off a series of horrors that pursue her until the very end.

Drug gangs, mutants, and a stark divide between rich and poor place this firmly into the camp of dystopia.

I enjoyed the light touch on the romance element. It’s there, but definitely not overwrought.

I wouldn’t normally choose this book. The violence inflicted on and by the MC is too graphically described for me. However, to paraphrase the immortal J. Evans Pritchard, the subject of the book is serious, and the objective has been artfully rendered. For readers who do like grimdark, this book is for you.

Buy your copy here:

As I understand the definition, a character driven story by is one in which the main character’s fundamental traits create the plot. Who she is determines what she does and what happens to her. If that definition is anything close to real, then Red Darkling is as character driven as character driven gets.

The titular character is a lovable screwup. She lives from paycheck to paycheck and, as soon as she gets that paycheck, blows it on booze and cigars. Almost the entire plot consists of tight scrapes that only happened because Red did something shortsighted. Her unerring ability to make the worst possible decision keeps landing her in hotter and hotter water until she finds herself in the hottest water of all.

It’s well-written, and the author has obviously put onto the page exactly, precisely the character she intended.

It slows down in the middle, and changes pace from action to basically action free, which reduced my enjoyment a little bit.

Sex is talked about a lot but not depicted. Some gruesome violence is hinted at but not depicted.

Get your copy by clicking here.

This book is extremely well-written, suspenseful and entertaining. I couldn’t stop turning pages. I really enjoyed the read.

It also came to the #SPSFC3 with a content warning that was basically a laundry list of the worst ills plaguing modern society. Rape, torture, sex, foul language, child endangerment — you name it, it’s in here.

This is going to be a book that I score differently for the contest than I would anywhere else. For SPSFC, I will score it high. The writing skill displayed here is very very good. Rising action, plot structure, obstacles for the MC to overcome… the author is obviously good at his craft, and I don’t think the book should suffer just because it happened to come across a squeamish judge.

That said, I wouldn’t really recommend this to my own newsletter subscribers. Generally speaking, people are repeat customers of my books precisely because they want an entertainment option where they don’t have to read explicit sex, profanity, and graphic torture scenes.

I’ll also add, this is how a political book should be done. The book has something to say about an issue in modern-day American politics, but it addresses it without sermonizing, without forcing characters to say something they wouldn’t, just to deliver the author’s favorite message. For a reader who’s not hyper-attuned to these things, it might even be possible not to be aware that there’s a value statement going on here. I’m pretty sure I disagree with the author’s politics, but it’s refreshing to see someone write about issues and values without descending into blatant speechmaking from one of his helpless character’s mouths.

If you have the stomach for a graphic serial killer/terrorist story, buy Thrill Switch here.

The first novel in Maria Perez’s space opera series really lives up to its billing as a steamy romance. Our heroine Mina is kidnapped from Earth because, unbeknownst to her, she has alien DNA that gives her telekinetic abilities. Taken to a faraway galaxy and trained against her will for war, Mina discovers that part of this alien DNA she never asked for is a powerful attraction to anyone else who has the genes. The end result is a soap opera tangle of men who cannot resist Mina’s charms, set against the backdrop of a rebellion against the evil Lostai empire.

I’m not usually a reader of the steamier end of the romance spectrum, and this got a bit wordy and slow at times. But I enjoyed the elaborate world building and the galactic war elements, and things got really suspenseful at the end. Readers of romance, especially those who like the racier side of the genre, should hurry up and get your copy of The Curse of Sotkari Ta