Luminescence by J.L. Weil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Luminescence (Luminescence Trilogy) by J.L. Weil
First of all this book is a bit out of my genre it seems to be a paranormal romance. Well, on the other hand I seem to end up reading more of these than I used to. I liked this book. I'm not sure yet that I loved it. But we're close.
I usually give a caveat at some point for grammar and spelling problems but I'm also not sure yet because from what I could tell we have mostly style issues with this one. There were a few words that I had to look up because of usage but they really did work in at least one of the definitions given. They were just not words you normally see written in that way. The sentence structure was a bit odd at times and tended to slow things down. Again that's a style decision so those are in an area where you might make note but it's not necessarily going to greatly affect the overall story.
Brianna is far from an ordinary teenager and that's what the reader takes away right away. In the sleepy town of Holly Ridge, North Carolina-somewhere near the coast-she's doing her best to be normal. She lives with her aunt Clara and has two good friends in Austin who is gay and Tori who's family is rich and who is spoiled. And she has your token enemy Rianne who is the one who catapults her into a fit that leads to her meeting Gavin and Gavin's family who are destined to change her world. To be honest her world was never what she thought so Gavin and family have little to do with that, but he becomes her protector and that's what's important.
The story moves the reader slowly dancing around the plot for the first half and almost get's the reader to the point of saying-'just get to the point.' Even the romance seems to wind slowly up as it moves along. Finally near half way we start to see things take a turn as we discover that there be witches in Holly Ridge.
Brianna's character is well defined, but I would have liked to have seen more of Gavin's character other than to be the constant protector at one point. Also the romance seems at one point to hit an unlikely speed bump when Brianna seems unsure that Gavin loves her although as a reader I had no doubts and I was mostly seeing what she was seeing, so again not sure about the likelihood of her not figuring it out. Although there is some small bit of her character that might account for the thickness at that point.
This did have some good climatic points and leaves the reader with a number of unanswered questions because it is a trilogy.
Great fun for a YA Paranormal Romance Fan
Probably one of the better publication from the Nevermore presses.(I have not read them all.)
J.L. Dobias
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The Hunter's Daughter - A C-Shapes Novel by Matthew Fish
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Hunters Daughter (a C-Shapes novel) By Matthew fish
Having read C-Shapes I wasn't sure what to expect from a novel taken from the other side. I certainly was not prepared for the intense thriller that this turned out to be. I've had authors pull me out of my comfort zone now and then but to do that twice in one novel at such strategic points was quite a risk to take. I almost threw the whole thing away about three quarters of the way through the book. And even though I'm not necessarily please about the way the novel ends, I'm happy I finished it and was able to get the whole experience.
As with other novels I will allow this caveat for those who don't like the grammar errors and spelling glitches. This book has 13 that I found and I usually don't find them all. I'd feel bad about not finding them all but editors these days seem to have a problem finding them all.
This is a gritty story of a teenage-young woman who is brought up to become a killer because time and circumstances require it. In the C-shape world a virus has cause a large number of he population to be affected and eventually it leads to an aggro condition that leaves people dead in their wake and so hunters are employed to take out the monsters.
But as with the first novel not everything is as it seems but as it is it's bad enough. Chloe Bartlow has a brother, Aaron, who is infected. Her mother was but she went aggro and her father had to kill her and Chloe had to witness this. She lives in fear of the day that he will have to kill her brother Aaron, but worse than that she fears some day she may have to do it herself.
Her father has given her rigorous training in survival far beyond what is necessary to be a hunter and when the C-Shapes people decide to have her father train people in their main facility they promote her to a full fledged Hunter. Her life changes dramatically and she must learn to become a cold blooded killer. She tries to resist throughout the entire story.
Once again things are not as they seem and Matthew Fish hits the reader right in the gut a couple of time as he tells a twisted tale.
If you look for well defined happy endings this might not be the place. If you like those thought provoking novels with some kick then this will set you to thinking.
I enjoyed this novel along with hating it sometimes; and getting a bit irate with the author other times. The end packs a real punch and it makes this a book well worth reading.
J.L. Dobias
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Perigee by Elizabeth Bent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Perigee by Elizabeth Bent
This is one of those books that defies a few conventions and creates an entertaining read that keeps the reader glued to their seat until the end.
The story starts with Madame Avesta Brunner-Tsu doing a (network) search on Dr. Meridian Woodbury.
It then jumps to Meridian having memories of better times with her husband David who has now passed away. She is in Mescon colony of the planet Ception maintaining the colony's water supply and monitoring for contaminants; basically doing work that any number of other people could do. She's almost doing janitorial work and it's her own hands on approach that almost gets her into trouble.
Meridian is still in mourning for David and despite the efforts of her co-worker Armillaria she is not ready to check out her newest neighbor, Dagan. But when her other co-worker Cern decides to drag his feet with a 'plug' in the system Meridian goes to the source of the problem to remove an unusual pink foam-like ball. This ball happens to be laced with an aphrodisiac which eventually leads to Meridian having her first encounter with Dagan just before he rushes her to the hospital.
Someone is trying to spice up life for the colony by inserting the aphrodisiac into the water supply and Meridian appoints herself to find out who. This person is going to become annoyed with her interference and set out to have her eliminated. Those two parts of the story are going to continually intersect within the whole plot that revolves around Meridian and Dugan as they form a tenuous relationship with each other.
This story seems to be written in some form of 3rd person point of view possibly going for omnipotent. At the begining it annoyed me because it has the reader bouncing in and out of the heads of Meridian and Dugan. It's handy for the love scene and the underlying pins of the entire relationship and it's easy to tell whose head you are in. It's just that the switch back and forth is so often with hardly a warning that it becomes tiring.
The story itself reaches a point of maximum interest about half way through that finally distracts the reader from the back and forth emotional breakdown.
As has been mentioned by others, Avesta is a rather unique character in this story. She's not the central character but she has some qualities that make her a strong and independent female protagonist within the story.
One other problem with the Point of View is that no matter how close it brings us to the character's it still has the effect of keeping us distant. I'd love to be able to better relate to Meridian, but there just isn't the proper type of opportunity.
Also the circumstance and the twists in the plot and Meridians own knowledge of the worst of it made it difficult to sympathize with her predicament. It might be that was what Elizabeth Bent was going for in way she portrayed things.
This is a great mystery suspense thriller with some bits of humor. It's located in a universe that makes it great for SFF fans although maybe more for those less interested in pure science content. It also has some content that is mature adult.
J.L. Dobias
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Light Raid by Connie Willis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Light Raid by Connie Willis Cynthia Felice
I really liked this book and would have given it a 5 star except that I was disappointed that the e-book taken from the Ace original has some major glitches in the punctuation and a couple of obvious spelling errors. I try to be lenient toward self published and perhaps its being a bit mean spirited to pick on the traditionally published authors but I do expect more from them.
The story is excellent with really good world building and some great characters. There were a lot of surprises in the plot and I really did get into the character of Ariadne. I was a bit disappointed in the supporting character Joss but his role is much like the role Carey Grant played in the movie Charade so it's a bit of play acting which might contribute to his character coming off rather weak.
At the age of 16 Ariadne thinks that her world will open up to her and she'll be treated as an adult, instead she gets shipped off with some orphans to make her safe from the Laser wars that are beginning.
The world she lives in is a bit strange. There seems to be a section known as Quebec and one called the Western States and then the Commonwealth. I admit to having gotten confused about how the all are sectioned out. The Commonwealth and the Western States have allied to combat incursions of the Quebec who seem to have laser satellites in the sky and are conducting laser raids on select communities trying to influence the mobility of air flight and ground transportation to disrupt trade alliances. Food seems scarce and Ariadne and her parents have been working at their corporation Hydra Corp in Denver Springs trying to keep the land usable.
Hydra Corp is also being used by the Commonwealth to devise a strain of Hydra Virus that can be used in combat against Quebec.
Victoria is a neutral province and is where Ariadne has been sent; where instead of working on Hydra virus's she's changing diapers and taking care of orphans for the benevolent Mrs. Ponsonby, a retired former employee of Hydra Corp.
When correspondences from her father stop and her mother's correspondences seem strangely different Ariadne begins to worry. She now is 17 and is of age to take responsibility for herself and when a friend of her mother's shows up to visit she becomes more suspicious and runs off to get back home. It turns out that there is a lot more than just her safety that accounts for why she was sent away.
Finding her mother imprisoned and her father reduced to a worthless drunk she's left to her own device trying to unravel the mystery around her. Not knowing if she can trust The Commonwealth's representative His Royal Highness, Miles Essex or Essex's equerry Joss Liddell who keep insisting that her mother is only being questioned and not yet charged with treason.
When they release her mother things get even stranger as she has to decide if blood really is thicker than water. Not only is Ariadne in danger but soon the orphans she helped take care of will be in danger because of her own carelessness.
This again is quite a good story but I have the usual caveat that I put in, which is that there are a handful of grammar problems. Something weird either went wrong with formatting the kindle edition or there are serious problems. several time there are commas that are followed by a period and then more text and a comma and it makes no sense. A couple of time there are words that are obviously spelled wrong although one time it might just be that the wrong word was used because its just a matter of including or excluding an extra consonant.
This is a great novel for SFF fans unless you are overly picky about grammar problems then maybe the hard edition would be better if it's available. You can't tell from the samples because they are all samples of the kindle edition and the error is right there in the sample on the first page of chapter one.
I will definitely read more from Cynthia Felice and I'm already a fan of Connie Willis.
J.L. Dobias
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The Mysterious Madam Morpho by Delilah S. Dawson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Mysterious Madam Morpho by Delilah S. Dawson
I can't remember who pointed me in the direction of Delilah S. Dawson. It could well have been someone on twiter. Regardless I have someone to thank and I've no idea who you are so here it is a big Thanks. There are a lot-LOT-of authors out in the field these days but there are few true story tellers. Of those Story Tellers I count Delilah Dawson as on of the best I've encountered in a while.
This short novel or novella if you must was more than I've gotten from many recent full novels. Delilah has a way of starting you out with the most masterfully crafted characters that drive you right into the story without fully comprehending how she does it.
Madam Morpho (Imogene) shows up at the door of Criminy Stain and Letitia(Tish) The owner of the Caravan and his wife the glancer. Imogene is almost written in the appearance of a Mary Poppins but with the magic of the Caravan and the colorful people within the story reads like a mix of Something Wicked this Way Comes and the Circus of Dr. Lao. Toss in the whole concept of a world over run by blood sucking creatures the Blud and you have an intriguing tale and that's not even mentioning the clock work master Mysterious Mr. Murdoch.
Madam Morpho has an act but she lost her stage and when she demonstrates that she has some very rare live butterflies that can preform Criminy is impressed but not certain if she'll fit and only because his wife takes Madam's hand and reads her does he decide to take the risk. It never is directly mentioned what Letitia whispers to Criminy to make him so certain that Madam needs to be in the Caravan but there are enough clues to suggest that she may have read that Madam was someones soulmate.
The story is rich with language that wraps the small mystery into the plot and creates something that I wanted to feast on just to take in all the wonderful prose. And when I looked at the sample for the first and second books of the series I could see that this is all part of the wonderful voice that Delilah has.
This is a great read for Romance and Paranormal and SteamPunk fiction lovers not just for the strange world she has built or even the people she's filled it with, but for that the language and her voice are pure gold; in my book.
I definitely need to pick up the rest of this series.
J.L. Dobias
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Of Sun & Moon by Bryna Butler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Of Sun and Moon (Midnight Guardian Series,Book1) by Bryna Butler
I'm not sure how much I can express that I loved this novel. It's a bit out of my usual genre, but it grabbed my interest right from the start. Keira Ryan and Colby Hayes have been friends for life. So this seems to start our like one of those romance novels where the reader gets the sense right away that though they each are pursuing someone else they are meant for each other. But this is more than a romance novel; it's a fractured fairytale.(Guardian story.)
Keira has a secret she's kept even from Colby all these years. As a reader we get the sense of this early on, but the big reveal doesn't come till much later. The first third of the novel is spent mostly trying to convince us that they have an otherwise normal teen life going here. Were about to find out how untrue that is.
While Keira pursues William and Colby pursues Brooke we slowly get the sense that Keira is having some conflicting feelings. Of course right away Keira has other issues such as her explosive reaction to people teaching myths that she feels are inaccurate at best. This stems from the fact that she's secretly a tooth fairy-guardian. There are also some mysterious disappearances which will later factor into the whole story. All the while Keira is training with Nana, the woman who has raised her in place of her parents. Keira calls it piano lessens but it's far from that.
There is one thing that is almost annoying about the novel and that's the almost too easy shifting of Point of View. Mostly it's between Keira and Colby, but they often seem like conjoined twins so it actually works for them. There is at least one case where it happens within the same paragraph so I'm pretty sure there are some people I know who will have a problem with this one. Let that stand as a warning to you who know who you are.
The plot gets rather twisted and convoluted at times and surprises abound and I'm pretty sure there will be more surprises as the series moves onward. The characters are well rounded and as I mentioned the only distraction I had was the hopping back and forth between Colby and Keira almost a bit too leisurely, but for my tastes it works just fine because I could always keep track of whose head I was in.
Because of the withheld information in the first half of the novel some things do not make sense until everything unfolds at the end, which I thought worked out nicely.
This is a well written with a great plot and excellent characters good for lovers of YA Romance and Paranormal Fans.
The Tooth Fairy-guardian- as you've never seen him or her.
J.L. Dobias
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The Death of Miss Mind Shift by Jayme Beddingfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Death of Miss Mind Shift (Emerald City Nights) by Jayme Beddingfield
I loved this story almost as much as the previous. There are a few issues I took, but a lot of that is personal and should be taken with grain of salt. What I really enjoyed was the complexity of the character of Ruby aka Miss Mind Shift.
In the previous book Jayme took us through the mundane life of Ruby to introduce us to someone who had been seduced into the criminal way of life. Using her powers to rob and in some case murder. She was beginning to have doubts about that way of life but Madison her now arch foe was her best friend and almost like a mother to her. It was Madison's stepping over the line from petty theft that led to the rift between the two. This led to the death of what few other friends Ruby had left and even the death of someone less involved with her secret life , Charley.
We open this story where the last one left off Ruby is now living in the city with Darcy and Brody and Charley's cat Drizzt. They fight crime while Ruby is waiting for Madison to rear her head again and Ruby is also waiting to die. Jayme takes us on the journey through depression, despair and self-doubt that rivals the mundane of the last novel. It does go on for quite a while but it is handled so well it adds to the depth of the character. Unfortunately it also detracts from getting anywhere close or near the other characters. It's always a hard balance and I think the reader who complains about the depression hanging on too long may be just concerned that the other characters were left as shallow shadows too often.
Along with the depths of despair Ruby has a severe Alcohol, tobacco and pot abuse thing happening. Every-time things get to her she starts into those three and rolls through them all with her family of friends doing nothing better than help it along. To be fair the pot smoking could be considered medicinal because every time Ruby uses her powers she weakens her entire body threatening to bring herself to the brink of death. And it's little help that she has visions of her death all the time and like a junkie she can't quit crime fighting to save herself.
Brody and Darcy are trying to get her to cut back or quit and they say they can handle it all, but things escalate and Madison is back and they need Ruby. Ruby is intent on killing Madison and this further drives her to continue.
The book takes an odd turn toward zombie Apocalypse fiction for a majority of the story adding an element of danger and gore. There was at least one spot that Jayme took me out of my comfort zone. Doing so is not bad, we all need that push out of the comfort zone now and then.
As with last time and with my ongoing efforts to warn those people who have issues with grammar there are over a handful of problems. Mostly missing words, which would work okay in dialogue but not so much in narrative where they were. There were some style issues and a few oddly worded sentences.This one stumped me::
Quote::
My chest constricts in my chest; my throat falls dry.
Beddingfield, Jayme (2013-12-02). The Death of Miss Mind Shift (Emerald City Nights) (Kindle Locations 2629-2630). Sky Portal Publishing. Kindle Edition. ::/Quote Maybe it was supposed to be my heart constricts in my chest- I'm not sure.
This novel seems to target Young Adults but I would recommend Mature Young Adult for a serious number of reasons. This is great SFF for those who like it light but be aware that the characterization is a bit heavy. Those who like complex characters should give this a look for Ruby's character. Also lovers of Zombie Apocalypse should appreciate the novel. There's some seriously good writing in here although the HeMan reference could have been left out.
One great characterization that unfortunately eclipses the other characters.
I'll be looking for the next installment Jayme.
J.L. Dobias
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Ashes of Victory by David Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ashes of Victory ( Honor Harrington Book 9) by David Weber
I enjoyed this novel for what it is and what it is is a large deviation from the normal. This novel is the heaviest tense political thriller to date of the Honor Harrington series. This means that those who love the battles and strategy might be put off. Those don't start till somewhere near the 300th page. That's better than half way through the story. For me that meant that this ended up being a book I kept picking up and putting down depending on how much I could endure of the long political details or in some cases the lengthy explanation of the details of training for use of the new LACs and the Harrington series of ships.
Honor Harrington is sidelined by her injuries from Echos of Honor and In Enemy Hands. While she's mending she spends first some time at her Steadholder estate and then time at her new estate when Manticor's Queen Elizabeth III elevates her to Duchess. This conveniently takes care of all potential problems of the heirs that have taken her place while everyone thought she was dead. To move the story along the Manitoran Navy promotes her to Admiral and assigns her temporarily to Saganami Island Naval Academy to teach. For those waiting for her to go back to battle a forewarning that she see's little action and is in fact being cultivated for a more politically active position.
The People's Republic of Haven is still undergoing dramatic changes as the political landscape is littered with bodies. No one trusts anyone. And there are some devious plans going on that only a few know pertaining to espionage in Manticoran space. This thread is rapidly moving into a demonstration of how they manage to bungle the war efforts.
Admiral White Haven (Hamish Alexander) is rapidly moving toward a special offensive operation which ties in neatly with the training that Honor is putting the students of Suganami through.
On the Grayson political front there is still a conflict with Benjamin Mayhew and the Steadholder Keys and some intrigue that will put Honor and Benjamin and the Queen of Manticor in grave danger.
There are battles, but by the time that they occur David has demonstrated the superiority of the new technology of Manticor and the battles are almost a sure win to further demoralize the People's Republic of Haven.
There are a lot of surprises and suspense but mostly in the way of a suspense thriller with espionage and politics. And this book seems to serve mostly as bridge between Echos of Honor and War of Honor.
One special function of this novel is to fully introduce the sapience of the treecats to a select number of characters.
This novel is great for people who love the SFF Military and Political Suspense novels with the emphasis on Political. I really felt the lopsidedness of the battles made it less of a military thriller.
My favorite quote from this novel is from Peoples Republic of Haven's Commander Shannon Foraker.
"Oops"
You will definitely have to read this to know why this is such a singularly popular quote.
J.L. Dobias
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The Saving Mars Series by Cidney Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Saving Mars Series Books 1-3 By Sidney Swanson
As I mentioned before I love this series and Sidney Swanson's style of writing. Unfortunately its interfering with a goal I had set to make it through at least the first ten Honor Harrington novels by this time. I'm on book 9 of that series and I keep putting it down to read these Mars books. So I might just as well finish these three and move on to Books 4 and 5 before the final novel comes out.
The adventures of Jessamyn and Pavel continue as they draw all variety of people into the web of intrigue; that is the mutual agreement that long ago took place between Mars and Earth.
Jessamyn Jaarda is the hotshot pilot and book worm from Mars who with her brother, Ethan, and a crew of Marsian Raiders set out in the Red Galleon past the star-wars like array that is meant to keep them in their place. The trip comes with a cost as they lose a companion ship the Red Dawn to the laser array that is designed to shoot anything heading away from Mars. Jessamyn is able to use her skills as a pilot to get Red Galleon past the array, but it looks like her cavalier piloting might be part of what lead to Red Dawn's destruction.
The Red Galleon and crew have to take on both missions now the one to trade for fuel and the one to shut down the array of satellites around Mars.
Mars and the Marsians have their problems. Earth has long ago abandoned all efforts to make Mars livable and those who refused to return to Earth were left to die. Political issues between those who stayed and Earth gov escalated combative situations resulting in the array of deadly satellites that are there to keep anyone trying to leave Mars from doing so. The Marsians are trying to finish the job of making Mars livable but it's not going well so every 40 year approximately they take the valuable Tellurium to Earth and trade illegally for ration bars which is the only sustenance that the Marsians have. Somehow the ship they take can contain enough ration bars to get their controlled community through the next 40 years. This time they are early because of an accident that burned most of the remaining rations.
Life on Earth has changed dramatically. In part due to the failure of the Mars Project the Earth has drawn inward and come up with a different solution. Due to a technique that requires lots of Tellurium. The citizens of Earth have technology that allows them to transfer their minds from one body to another. (This is almost sounding like a nod to Edgar Rice Burroughs Mastermind of Mars Where Ras Thavas is the mad doctor who switches out peoples brains with other people and even animals.)Here in the Saving Mars universe we find special rules that everyone is allowed to live out their lives the four bodies with intervals of 18 years totaling seventy-two and then they are retired. (Euthanized) They live to eighteen then two-body out to a fifty-four year old body while they apprentice.(sorry whilst is just one of those fingernail on blackboard words for me.) At seventy-two they three-body out to a thirty-six year old to preform useful work. At fifty-four they four body out to an eighteen year old bodies to enjoy semi-retirement before they are fully retired.
Yes, I can see where this could all go wrong in a hurry, but in this world it appears to work. I say appears because there are some people at the top of the food chain who control this and have been abusing it. This whole plot point figures heavy into the relationship between Earth gov and Mars gov so it becomes critical to the rest of the story.
Lucca Brezhnaya runs the Earth gov- from Budapest; there are others who seem to be above her but she's the one who seems to run things. Pavel is her nephew whom she seems to be preening for a future in the government. Lucca is a part of the problem while Pavel is too naive to be aware at this point.
Pavel and Jess are on a course to a head-on collision of the two worlds. The people of Earth have been led to believe that there is no one left living on Mars. The people of Mars think that Earth has been mostly indifferent to their existence possibly because they don't know they're there on Mars. But past political posturing might tell a different story and when these two collide something will have to give.
Jess will find a lot of time to regret some of her hastily made decisions and their outcomes. She'll also end up losing a lot to complete the mission.
Pavel will have to set his whole world upside down just to begin to believe what the Marsians are telling him.
And Lucca Brezhnaya will be out for blood.
While some elements of the plot are a bit fantastic, that fantastic tends to stay within its own rules while creating a compelling group of players who are all trying to do their parts while following their own hearts.
Book two is primarily Jessamyn's struggle between love and country (planet). There is plenty of intrigue and plotting on both planets. It might be that what seemed like accidents in the past have really been part of a larger plan.
Jess has to fight the system to get a chance to return to save her crew-mates and to try to see Pavel once again.
With a round of great characters Cidney Swanson weaves each of these stories separately into individual stories that stand well by themselves, but they have these left over questions that take you into to the next book. Each book stands well alone. The reading is entertaining and compelling enough that you want to move on to the next book as you finish each one.
This is great fiction for those who like Mars stories and who enjoy books for the characters who people them. Those who like their science (pure/hard) might struggle though there is a reasonable amount of it here. I'd recommend this for SFF fans and romance and adventure and YA book lovers.
For those who like the characters in a book to come flying up out of the pages at them.
J.L. Dobias
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Saving Mars by Cidney Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Saving Mars (The Saving Mars Series 1) by Cidney Swanson
I loved this this book. So much that even though I had purchased it as an individual before the triple pack came out, I went ahead and purchased the tri-pack. It's quite worth it.
I've already read and enjoyed the Ripple trilogy by Cidney and having loved that so much I purchased the saving Mars book 1 to get me started into that group of stories. I had let it set for a while I was doing other things and reading other things, but once I started reading Jessamyn Jaarda's story I couldn't put it down.
I think it's been noted by some that they felt the story has incredible science and I can see how that objection works what with having Mars being reliant upon Earth for food and having the entire population of Earth believing that no one is left alive on Mars, despite the food raids that Marsian's perpetrate every so many years.
Fortunately for me when I read I look for good character development. All the primary characters in Saving Mars are quite well crafted. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating the story including everything mentioned above.
Marsians are shown as more down to Earth type people than the people on Earth but they've had to scrape for their existence ever since the Earth decided to abandon its attempts to change Mars to something livable. The Marsians are still working toward that goal, but until they can do that they have to sneak to Earth to obtain food. Sneaking to Earth is complicated by a network of satellites that might be described as star-wars technology set up around Mars to destroy anything trying to leave Mars. It has long since passed the projected time that Earth Governments expected everyone who remained on Mars to die.
Against the odds and with the food raids they survive and they have developed a school to teach pilots to fly past the barrier to get to Earth to barter for food with Tellurium. Jessamyn is one of these pilots, but she also just an average teen who feels the need to prove herself.
When a fire destroys a majority of the supplies of food Jess and her brother and several others are chosen to break through the barrier and bring back food. But this time they also mean to break into the center that controls the star-wars satellites and bring the barrier down.
On earth there is a strange cultural shock of a sort in that everyone can and is pressured to switch bodies through consciousness transfer which is assisted by the use of tellurium. The transfer facilitates young people to older bodies supposedly for experience and ultimately for older people to gain younger bodies. There is an age limit for everyone to the age of 72. Most of Earth population seem to be alright with this although as the story progresses it seems fraught with peer pressure and in some cases court mandate with criminals. The whole concept seems a bit seedy and invasive with some lingering insidiousness that begins to rear its head.
This is a tightly woven story with a satisfactory conclusion despite that its being a part of a series. There's enough left open to want you to pick up the next book and get started right away. This is typical of Cidney's writing and I expect the best from her in the remainder of the series.
I'm a definite fan and I hope this makes you read this novel and become just as much a fan.
Great YA and Adult SFF with maybe more focus on fantasy; fans of these types of books should really love these. Even Romance readers should like this, though the Romance does not dominate.
If you like immersion into characters then you can't go wrong with this one.
J.L. Dobias
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The Lost Hero by Marcus Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Lost Hero (Book One of the Heaven Saga) By Marcus Johnson
I loved this story and I loved the character of Brian Peterson and despite some of the major road bumps I gave the whole work five stars because I felt that overall the author did well enough toward entertaining me and the final portion of the book was a means of acquitting his transgressions.
That much said not everyone will love this story there are a number of reasons the least of which might be the Heaven Saga part. It's almost misleading in away, yet not at all if one were to accept any notion of Heaven as being mythological. This seem to be written largely from the point of view of someone who is an atheist. This means that all religion though treated as interesting is also dismissed as mythological.
Another interesting aspect of the myth of beliefs is the misguided notion that a democracy by way of the US of A is the only way for people to obtain true freedom, not to mention trying to reverse engineer it through having someone unfamiliar with the concept trying to make sense of the declaration of independence in relationship to deconstructing a monarch. I would at the very least want in future episodes to see how poorly this works and perhaps a stand down and at the very least a healthy look at using the British model for people who are familiar with a monarchies. (I'll grant that the notion is going from a fascist like society to anything with more freedom, but in this case these people obviously have a Queen. I'll give the author benefit in that he's proposing the change over time.)
The next thing might be the cultural backstep. By that I mean that this reads more like a rework of the old ideas seen in such greats of Sci-Fi as Flash Gordon. Male hero swept from Earth into incredible worlds with Bird men no less and with some that are like lion men or cat men. And of course the requisite world of all women. I just recently finish a story where the meter moved the other way with a female protagonist who seemed like a female Lothario. Now I see the wide swing back into the male Lothario in his dream world.
I'm not sure which way I would have preferred to see things. Perhaps I should be happy the author didn't try to make too much of the old trope of all female society with major infighting for possession of the one male. On the other hand it sort of dilutes a whole potential area of conflict to have it look like everyone will be mostly okay with him hopping from bed to bed. Instead we get this kind of hot and cold running theme that almost reaches the edge of the bubble and then backs off. A sort of delicate dance.
The story starts out with the alien Greys and alien abduction from Earth which some people might be getting tired of. What is interesting in this story is the back-story to those aliens. There being a number of higher races that first enter space and create a Confederation of world for those who obtain interstellar flight which all sounds familiar. But since the Greys are one of the advance races in this space race they have opted out of the Confederation. (They in fact have some sinister objective and they seem to be the only ones violating the rule to keep Earth isolated.) Apparently Earth is too violent for these people and has been isolated. No one should be approaching Earth to view or research them. This seems to be a convenient plot point for the Greys who don't feel they have to abide by those rules. Brian the abductee is saved by the Kalaidian's and later he saves a few of them to sort of balance out the scales.
It quickly moves on to more of a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon type story. Brian can't be returned home and as it turns out he looks almost to fulfill some prophecies of their myths. Brian is a good looking and likeable guy stuck on a ship of all females because for some reason the males of the Kalaidian's have all died off. This begins a portion that might put some people off because it just looks like a stack of one trope after another. It's not until later where these things are all sorted out and better explained that things begin to make sense and really get interesting.
Brian has access to a strange phenomenon that is referred to as Berserker. Brian kind-of loses it while in battle and kills everything nearby. There is something that happens with the eyes and by the description its something that happens because of Nanos that have been injected into him by the Kalaidians for both health and strength and the ability to understand languages. The problem with this is that, before the injection, while aboard the Grey ship Brian does something similar that results in his killing all the Greys aboard the ship. This could almost look like a plot hole and maybe gets explained in future episodes.
A big caveat in this book is the Grammar spelling punctuation thing. I was less annoyed than some people by the missing words and sometimes extra words and missing parts of words that cause the sentences to be difficult to read. It definitely looks like this book could use more editing. Most annoying to me was the use of lied for lay there are seven instances that it should have been lay and it would be less annoying if there were not the three instances where lay was properly used at the beginning. It's almost as though the first few chapter received some editing that the remainder didn't get.
Now to get back to what I liked. In the back part of the book as the author hits the action packed climatic scenes he does a tremendous job of drawing the reader into the story and for me that made most of the above become excusable. But that's for me and other readers will have to read this novel themselves to decide what they think.
As for the length of the story; it is definitely novel size and one thing that would be more helpful than the page count would be an approximate word count. Page counts and even location numbers within the kindle tend to be deceiving sometimes. I'm certainly happy it wasn't longer because there is a bit of exposition at the end that reveals the political and religious elements quite strongly that I'm grateful didn't get carried too far. So this is a novel that is probably just at the edge of the best size for this type of novel.
This is a good story for fans of SFF with the emphasis on Fantasy and a leniency toward editing problems.
J.L. Dobias
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Flawed Gods by Angela B. Mortimer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Flawed Gods by Angela B. Mortimer (Flawed Gods Series Book One)
I'm not even certain in what genre I should put this book. It has elements of Science Fiction and Fantasy with a healthy dose of fantasy. Then it has elements of Romance, but more on the end of explicit sex though I have seen worse. Finally I came to the conclusion that the main character Doella is a female version of a Lothario. It's similar to taking The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt and inserting a female in his place.
This is a good read with some interesting ideas and occasionally touching the boundaries of the comfort zone.
One problem I had with it is that just as with Casanova I had a great difficulty feeling anything helpful or hopeful for Doella. Well it's not quite true because I did feel for her at the beginning; since she seemed to be mourning the death of Paul. Of course as the story unfolds that compassion is lost quite quickly.
Doella is masquerading as a human named Louise Baker. We find that she is really an anthropologist for a race of beings living on Varos. They have been tweaking and accelerating mans development not just on Earth but on Earth of several parallel dimensions. She and her people have bracelets that enhance the power they have to travel through these dimensions. Doella is a hands on anthropologist in the worst sense and she has been going native more than she probably should.
To lighten things up we discover that the world of Varos is conducive to promiscuity in the early years of development. Conversely when they marry they marry for life, but they seem to be encouraged to play the field. To this end Doella has been experimenting with love with some of her co-workers and apparently a large number of the subjects of her study. Enough that one character seemed to rightly suggest she couldn't give an accurate number. And it seems that even though she a number of times marvels at the possibility that she might be so beautiful that men would fight over she also somehow seems to have the same attitude as Casanova in that she seems to think she is gods gift to man.
She is engaged to Takos but despite efforts, Simune has rebuked her efforts; while she has engaged in a relationship with Carnos. Carnos has been imprisoned by the Varos in the interlamina, which seems to be the area they travel through between worlds and dimensions. Carnos may have been guilty of causing the humans to become more aggressive, possibly causing most of the current strife on the Earth planets. We later find that his confinement is not being handled quite as everyone thinks.
When they discover that Carnos might have slipped from his cage Doella begins to wonder if he might be responsible for the deaths of many of her lovers on Earth. I mention all of this because there are some questionable things that occur that made me feel uncomfortable with the character of Doella.
Carnos escapes into the dimensions or parallel worlds and lures Doella, because he loves her, and he traps her with him. He takes away her bracelet, which is something that is very important to her as it protects her and gives her the power to go where she wants to go. Somehow she seems alright with this for way too long even though she constantly moans about the loss of the bracelet to herself she doesn't confront Carnos. She does still love him, but this is like kidnapping and with her powers taken away it makes it that much more heinous. Eventually she seems happy to go along with him rather than question his tactics.
When they meet Sark a member of a race of Hyclos she has already attempted relationships with several other men and decides to include Sark. In many cases as this progresses she regains and loses her power bracelet. Since it protects her when she has it, the only feelings and concerns I've had for her is that somewhere along the line she's bound to get a nasty venereal disease.
There finally comes a time with one character where things push Doella too far and she realizes, for at least a while, the error of her ways. Almost coming to a point of redeeming herself. But truly as with Casanova there is no help for her.
Despite the dalliances and promiscuity the story has a plot and it's a fairly good one. I'm not all that sure about the resolution of the main plot, but it does fit the character and the story, so there is that. Though Doella does not come off very likable she is a unique character and a very interesting female protagonist.
Now for the caveats; for those a bit particular about Grammar issues. There are some style issues and grammar problems with long sentences and punctuation and lack of or wrong punctuation. Those are also my own week spot, so if I notice them it usually means something. There are several missing words or in some cases extra words that don't seem to belong (enough of these to go beyond my usual threshold).
This could have used another edit and I would give it a five star.
This is an okay romance for mature adults and a good Fantasy for SFF fans who can tolerate the style choices. It is definitely not hard science fiction.
J.L. Dobias
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Nightmare in Morocco by Loretta Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Nightmare in Morocco by Loretta Jackson and Vickie Britton
I love a suspense story and this one delivered for me.
Noa Parker has a history with Morocco and it's not a pleasant one. The last thing she wants is to conduct a vacation tour there. Of course she's about to be presented with several other last things she wants and it's only going to make things worse.
I loved that this started with her dying brother leaving all his money to her and asking her to take care of his troublesome adopted teenage daughter. Noa begins to suspect that the young girl has been stealing from her father when several valuable possession come up missing when she does an inventory. She reluctantly honors her brothers wishes and takes the girl with her to her home in Spain.
When they return to Spain and then to Morocco for the tour and people on the tour start getting robbed it's not difficult to connect the dots. But it gets complicated when there are several more suspicious dots on the tour. There are enough suspects to fill one hand at least. Soon things become deadly and it looks like someone is trying to murder someone on the tour.
I loved the development of the fragile relationship that Noa has with Cathy and then the strained relationship she has between her and a coworker and one of the tourists when they start making advances toward her. She has a preference but he seems to also be a suspect. There is a point where Noa has so many suspects she doesn't know who to trust.
This novel is definitely a suspense and romance.
There is the caveat that there are some Grammar problems. Probably around a handful that I found distressing and usually these involved punctuation.
Unfortunately within the first two pages there is one sentence where the punctuation effects the meaning of the sentence and I could only guess what the authors meant to say. I think I figured it out but if it was the other way around it would have been an odd twist of the image I thought they meant to make.
This novel is a good easy read for any fan of Suspense and Romance though the romance is probably a bit on the light side.
J.L. Dobias
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Journey of Fate by Tracey Pooler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Journey of Fate by Tracey Pooler
I'm fairly certain somewhere I read that this was science fiction but it's not its fantasy though I could go for some inclusion into SFF with emphasis on fantasy. Needless, I liked this one a lot after making the half way mark.
This is one of those book someone might throw down about halfway through thinking that this is too sappy and fantastic a storybook fairytale with prince charming taking the poor girl away from her horrible life and a force marriage.
Well it's not quite that but it does have the appearance of a fairytale that starts with the protagonist around afire listening to an elder telling them all a fable of a sort. The fable includes the story of the Theos and the Theos warrior with the blackheart and hatred for the Chorikos.
And Cierra's life as we see it from the start is not so bad. Her parents love her and her father even goes so far as to teach her some self-defense which might be considered a bit odd for the mores of their world. But soon a brother comes to fill that gap of a missing heir and when she has reached the age of marriageability her father naturally arranges a marriage. How is he to know its to someone who has threatened her in the past.
In the mean time she's met her prince charming Thymos, whose name she doesn't obtain for quite some time and when she finally gets it she knows it seems familiar but she can't quite put her finger on it. So when she runs away and runs into Thymos she begins the road to a fairytale marriage that is soon to begin a path of strife. Cierra is Chorikos and Thymos is Theos and Thymos' mother won't allow such a marriage.
Worse than that, Cierra soon finds out she may have married the devil himself.
It takes halfway through the book before the magic starts. Both literal and figurative. Anyone giving up on it early will miss all of that. Some things and people are not as they seem and the author has carefully tried to be sure the reader only discovers these at the same time as the main character obtains them. That may have some readers questioning how a person might not know that their good friend whom their mother didn't like was actually a stepbrother.(I'm not sure he didn't it's just that as it is given to the reader the first time it's not all that clear.) There are other revelation like this that come along and if the reader sticks with the story it all starts to make sense.
Overall it's a well told tale though some plot decisions for the storyline leave opening for people to leave the story early before seeing things unfold. Cierra starts out almost looking to be a bit whinny though I was fully empathizing with the indignation about the arraigned marriage and quite on board about avoiding that. And it did become interesting when that went from out of the frying pan and into the fire so Tracy Pooler's path taken to get there is commendable though slightly dangerous toward keeping the reader interest.
Great Fantasy for Fantasy and SFF lovers if you can stick with it.
There are a few grammar problems, less than a handful that I found. But more distressing is that the ebook has scene changes that have no warning and it was extremely jarring causing me to have looked back to figure out where I was in the story.
J.L. Dobias
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Tritium Gambit by Erik Hyrkas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tritium Gambit (Max and Miranda) By Erik Hyrkas
I've said it before and I'll continue saying that humor is subjective and so are novels like this when they are slathered in it. This one also contains a lot of pop references. And the novel itself reads like a redo of Men in Black movies. Add in a little Buckaroo Banzi and Howard the Duck.
The plot if fairly simple; Max and Miranda are the two loose cannons of the Intergalactic Secret Service. They hunt down aliens that land on earth with the intent of causing havoc. They are both in visiting their injured partners and are about to be assigned together because some desk jockey thinks they might just finish each other off.
Captain Johnson is their commander and Wendy is their mission coordinator. And before they can leave the ground they pick up one more member to the team, Tyler, an old acquaintance of Max. Max is not excited about any of this because he'd rather work alone.
The Agent are all non-human or part human with special abilities that help in their work to secure Earths blissfulness at being unaware of alien influences.
The story contains a lot of references to actors and singers and movies and other pop references as it goes along. The characters wear tee shirts with some sort of pop references.
I could have probably given this an easy five star had the characters engaged me just a bit more than they did. I'm not exactly sure why I couldn't get into them enough to really care about what happened to them. If they'd captured my attention it would have made up for some of the uneasiness I felt with the plot. The humor again is subjective and I could catch most of it but sometimes I wasn't sure. There is a place half way through the novel when I feel like it enters some really poorly constructed MMORPG when Max, who has extra life and health, has to go on a quest to acquire 100 special snakes in order to get enough fuel to get them back to Earth.
Overall it was interesting though. And Max is nearly indestructible what with having four hearts and all. Although he could die he still is almost the perfect indestructible character whose only flaw seems to be that he gets all of his partners injured; sometimes fatally.
It's a fun read SFF mostly fantasy that stretches your limits with suspension of reality. If you can catch the pop references and the humor it will add to the enjoyment. (one small spoiler::) It all comes to a satisfactory conclusion leaving room for you to decide when you want to pick up the next installment of the adventures of Max and Miranda.
J.L. Dobias
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Déjà Vu: A Technothriller by Ian Hocking
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Deja Vu (The Saskia Brandt Series Book One)by Ian Hocking
I really truly loved this novel. It started out a bit slow and almost pedantic but that sometimes is the nature of these psychological thrillers. If I were to take Philip K Dick and Lewis Purnell Davies and then throw in a healthy dose of excellent writing skill I'd say we have Ian Hocking and Deja Vu all wrapped up in a neat and tidy package.
The story starts out with Saskia Brandt being pulled off her vacation for special assignment with the European FIB. Only when she makes it to the office she finds herself being framed for her secretaries murder, with the added bonus of using her detective skills to discover that what looks like a frame might be the real thing as she catches herself in an image; committing the crime.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for something that is more twisted and on psychological thin ice that's waiting for Saskia. Add to this her newest assignment of bringing in David Proctor while trying to deal with personal revelations and that alone is wild, but we add in a bit of time travel and some virtual reality.
I found his description of the virtual reality quite interesting:
If a race of intelligent beings had evolved in this universe, and developed science, their physicists would discover that matter is continuous, not discrete. Their astronomers would find that their planet is the only planet, their star the only star. They would correctly place themselves at the centre of the universe. Should they build a computing machine, it would never outrun the computer that ran their universe: and what, indeed, would they hypothesize the limiting factor to be? God?
Hocking, Ian (2011-03-06). Déjà Vu (The Saskia Brandt Series Book One) (Kindle Locations 535-539). Writer As A Stranger. Kindle Edition.
Ian Hocking has a richness of language that shows up often in a peculiar turn of phrase that elicits specific unique images.
Such as:
The mimetic cloud of fines rendered the springy crunch of the undergrowth perfectly.
or
Coffee with memory.
Hocking, Ian (2011-03-06). Déjà Vu (The Saskia Brandt Series Book One) (Kindle Location 635). Writer As A Stranger. Kindle Edition.
At first it's difficult to know what to make of Saskia when we discover that she's a criminal convicted of some unknown crime who's memory was wiped to make room for a second memory from a donor. The first memory is suppressed and the second memory is custom arraigned so that the FIB can use her as an agent. They keep her under their thumb by suggesting that the crime is so bad that she wouldn't want those memories to ever return. They are kept in check by an imbedded bio-chip that contains the custom recollections of the donor. Her handler claims he can blow that chip away anytime she gets out of line. This causes her character to appear one dimensional and It makes it difficult to relate or feel any empathy for her.
But as it unfolds we begin to see the battle raging inside her head and as the story progresses we find that there are many more crimes here than those she thinks she needs to avoid remembering.There's a web of intrigue and lies that mixed with critical traumatic memories that give us that point we need to dig in and get a feel for the real character.
There's a second protagonist in the story, David Proctor. And I would almost swear there is a special pop reference in the text at one point. David is talking to a computer named Ego::
‘Sing me a song.’
‘Which song?’
‘Daisy.’
‘Just a moment.’ There was a beep and David heard a crackle. The earpiece was picking up Ego’s attempt to access the Internet via the wireless telecommunications
‘Alright, forget it.’
Hocking, Ian (2011-03-06). Déjà Vu (The Saskia Brandt Series Book One) (Kindle Locations 1206-1207). Writer As A Stranger. Kindle Edition.
This novel should interest any fan of the Psychological Thrillers and SFF. It's sometimes a slower reading than some because you have to pay particular attention to details, but it's worth it.
Definitely looking for more from Ian Hocking.
J.L. Dobias
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The Moon Stealers and the Quest for the Silver Bough by Tim Flanagan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Moon Stealers and the Quest for the Silver Bough(Book1) Tim Flanagan
I liked this book, not loved and not hated. This could have been a lot better than it was but there were some style decisions that got in the way. I could have let some of that slide if there had been a serious effort at editing the whole work.
This is a sort of Dystopic future horror novel that has a lot of bloody gory scenes like you get from the usual zombie terror movies. It starts out almost like a juvenile fiction but quickly takes that horrible turning twist into something that at the very best is Young Adult. It reads like a parallel story of young adult to juvenile fiction because there are two separate stories going though it that center around the same sleepy little town.
The characters are not greatly fleshed out but they are interesting enough to draw the reader in though it takes a little time for that connection to grow and then the author seems to toss it aside in favor of making room for the tense drama of the horror. The story and plot itself are quite interesting and stand well on their own.
The problem lies in the serious number of awkward sentences. I have read many books that have long sentences and when handled well they can really enhance the flavor of the story. These sentences leave a bad taste in the mind. There are a huge number of comma splice sentences that have trouble keeping the same thought throughout and should have been separated into their respective sentences. The sentences that did carry the thought throughout were often not punctuated at all or poorly punctuated. There might be a handful of other grammar problems but the bulk of the problems are these strangely constructed sentences. I could live with one sentence paragraphs if they were constructed properly but too many times I was baffled by them.
As a side note there is an oddity here that runs throughout and it includes the use of the word whilst. Again had there been some consistency maybe I wouldn't have noticed, but the word whilst shows up 66 times and the word while shows up 22 times. In all instances they are interchangeable so the question is; since we use whilst so often why even bother with while. And of course for me the oddity of it is that I was fully aware of all the whilst while I read but did not notice the whiles so much. Now had the while been used as nouns only then that would have made sense but since both are use in conjunctions and the place within the sentence is mostly the same with the same meaning it just raises a question of why not stick to the one over the other.( This is just me and has nothing to do with the quality of the work.)
So if you like YA dystopic horror with all the gore this will fill the bill but be warned that it seems to fall into that new genre of serial novels that Amazon seems to have spawned and I think that the four books in the series could easily have been two without overwhelming the reader. At least they are each over a hundred and thirty pages which is twice the usual 60 page ones I have seen; that always end poorly.(Cliffhanger-ish)
J.L. Dobias
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Rebel Heart by Lizzy Ford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rebel Heart by Lizzy Ford
I enjoyed this novel and that was quite a surprise all things considered. Though I usually try not to let a cover influence me the cheesy love story cover was a bit of a put off. I was expecting a major romance novel. And that might be a problem for some because the romance is not so much the major part. The story idea was interesting and though the plot plodded along at the beginning there was a break point partway through where it picked up and became interesting.
I'll issue my usual warning that there are grammar issues in this novel. The upside is that there are less than a handful that I found. So if there are any more than that the story does a fair job of hiding it. It could be argued that the character of Lana (Angel) was not well fleshed out but I think that would be in error. She really is well fleshed out and she's just not the heroin that some might expect from today's enlightened media. She's a bit unprepared for battle, but that's what makes her what she is and it's fairly consistent though she does improve near the end, which is all you can really ask of the author.
Brady(Guardian) is the opposite and is everything that we want in a male protagonist although we waffle between his loyalties enough to make protagonist a questionable title. It's mostly amusing to see the dance that goes on between guardian and angel as they fall for each other. (There is one place where Lana might lose some respect from the readers during this romantic battle.)
I will agree that this novel needed more to help flesh it out and that it does suffer a bit in the plot with lack of extensive world building. But it's not hard to follow and the story is pretty linear and though somewhat economic it tracks well enough with the length that it does have. The romance doesn't distract too much though in one place I might have called it a bit cheesy, it mostly adds to the conflict a bit as they do their little dance.(Over all it's more a style decision that makes this a light suspense and if it had been fleshed out more I would have expected more from the suspense and romance and the world building.)
Mr. Tim although mostly a good guy is a big villain here in that he didn't help Lana much by shielding her life to the point that she actually needed the guardian, but at least knowing that, he did make plans. I think once parts of the plot begin to clarify it's easy to see why he trained her for what he trained her for and that puts her in a position of importance and unfortunately one of great danger.
The world of the future has a strange precarious balance between the East and West of the country and everyone is freely blaming the rebels for everything that goes wrong. But the PMF militia are possibly the only people who can save things when someone begins strikes across the east coast.(Even though they have to bear the brunt of the blame.)
While Mr. Tim and the president head west he leaves Lana with the VP. Lana is the main controller of resources throughout the east and it's that position that places her in the right place to find out what is really happening. With nothing but the will to survive she strikes out across a war torn nation to deliver vital weapon control to responsible hands. But she soon has to question who those responsible hands might be.
This novel is for those who like their suspense novels just a bit light and only a marginal amount of romance. There is even the element of Dystopic future here for those who enjoy that genre.
A great light suspense novel with light romance and an entertaining read.
J.L. Dobias
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Echoes of Honor by David Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Echo's of Honor by David Weber (Honor Harrington series Book 8)
As always I love this book even three times around. If reading this in order or reading it by itself I always have to keep In Enemy Hands close at hand. These are a companion set that have to go together and they are the turning point for me for these novels.
As I have mentioned before I got invested in the Honor Harrington Series because I like the character of Honor Harrington. Probably in honesty I liked the idea of the character. This was early 90's and we were already seeing many inroads with female characters by then. This character promised to be something almost unique with, and I have to be honest here, being modeled after a famous male character in fiction, Horatio Hornblower.
Honor may have started out as a comparison to that character but it almost seems like David Weber did a sly trick here by further developing the character of Lester Tourville who is with the Peeps but has a brash personality that almost sounds as calculated and colorful as the person Horatio Hornblower had to create when he was around his men.
Throughout this series the character of Honor Harrington has been always best portrayed to us through those who work and die or live around her. It's difficult most of the earlier books to really see her inner self through her own point of view because of the persona she had to maintain to keep the cool calculated person who always tried to do the best with what she was given. These middle novels give us more insight into Honor and a better look at her from within her head as she has to adapt to the new circumstances of being a prisoner of war and trying to keep her head above water.
Even though she has the title of Admiral she has to work hard to maintain the necessary discipline that it takes to drive a multinational force of ex-prisoners to their top form.
David Weber does a tremendous job of creating a world and all the parts that make it run both politically and militarily. Even for someone who is trying to follow the battles and not trying to make comparison's to famous sea battles or plot-lines from other famous fiction it becomes evident that David has a grasp of his world. (Although it's about this time that he does make the admission that he has begun to find it a daunting task to keep up with.)
The Peeps are still in flux, they just don't know it, rebellion looms. There are many characters who are being brought in with strong character and sound values and starting to twist the reader's view of the Peeps. The Manties still have their split in the political arena, but the military is slowly galvanizing and partly because of Honor having dragged Hamish out on the carpet about his views of the plans of Horrible Hemphill. There is still room for that conflict to rekindle, though.
Hamish Alexander has as much as admitted his love for Honor, to himself, despite his loyalty to his wife. Honestly speaking Honor has been way to busy to dwell on the feelings she'd sensed through Nimitz from Hamish.
With everyone certain that Honor is dead they try to move on and forward. It's difficult to say that some decisions that are later shown to be fateful might have been influenced by this frame of mind, but we do get to see the Honor Harrington Medusa class superdreadnoughts come off the line from the Grayson Space Navy's joint effort with Manticore.
The war is winding up on both sides with all the players being showcased in their good and evil glory while Honor is struggling to get out of Hell.
Superb addition to the Honor collection definitely a great read for any fan of Honor Harrington. It's a given that if you have been indoctrinated to these books to this point they will just get better. You must love the Political intrigue and the military buildup descriptions and have at least some understanding of the universe itself.You either love it or hate it by now and it's all pure David Weber.
As always I suggest a person start at Baslisk Station and go from there. If you make it past the first five in the series you're doomed-in a good way.
J.L. Dobias
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Draykon by Charlotte E. English
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Draykon: Book 1 (The Draykon Series) by Charlotte E. English
I really liked this novel. This is not my genre of choice but I think because I had recently read a few books on dragons this came up as a possible choice. This has a sort of YA feel to it at the beginning, but as it develops so does the writing. It took a while to get into this one and it took a while for the world building.
I thought the character of Llandry was quite interesting. She come off as sort of shy and reserved to almost a point of being debilitated by it. I've met a few of these people and Llandry seemed quite real in her fears and anxieties.
I had some difficulty identifying what race Llandry was (perhaps fairy because she has wings) Her parents seem to be a mix but maybe it was just that some have wings and some don't that made this confusing for me.
Eva seems to be of the human race, at least several times human is the word used to associate with her and those she works with. They are sorcerers and summoners.
I was confused about the realms they lived in.
Seven realms are mentioned in the story and shown by the map; they consist of the Daylands and the Darklands. Daylands are kept under the daycloak and Dark under the night cloak. By the map it would be easy to infer that Irbel, Glinnery, Orlind, and Nimdre are of the dayland though the glossary only mentions Irbel and Glinnery. It also seems infer-able that Glour, Orstwych and Ullarn are of the darklands but that is not made clear by the glossary.
In the text we see this which maybe clears up a bit of how the seven are divided.
[Quote]You of Glinnery are Daylanders, as are Irbel and, as far as we can tell, Orlind. Glour, Orstwych, and Ullarn are Darklanders of the Lowers. Only Nimdre has no allegiance: we live halfway in between, faithful neither to one nor the other.[/Quote]English, Charlotte E. (2011-08-31). Draykon (Draykon Series) (p. 282). . Kindle Edition.
Orlind is otherwise mentioned as mostly closed off from people.
To add to the confusion there are the Upper Realms the Middle Realms and the Lower Realms. From the glossary it might be easy to infer that the Upper Realms and Lower Realms are separate from each other and might be existing in intersecting planes to the Seven Realms but its not absolutely clear that the Middle Realms is another plane or the plane of the Seven Realms and the Middle are not in the glossary.
In the glossary Upper and Lower are referred to as Off-Worlds, which reinforces the thought that the middle realm might be the Seven Realms.
[Quote]Nobody knows whether they originated in the Uppers or the Lowers or the space in between: the Middle Realm, which was once a chaos of conflicting influences from both sides.[/Quote]English, Charlotte E. (2011-08-31). Draykon (Draykon Series) (p. 282). . Kindle Edition.
The plot itself became predictable to me about halfway through. The character of Llandry had some similarities in her obsession with the Gem stones with Gollum of Tolkein's Lord of the Ring Trilogy. It interfered with the romance of the story since it was difficult at times to see that her wish to travel with Devary was equal part an attraction to him and her obsession. Predictably the obsession gets in the way of a lot of things.
The predictability of the outcome of the story is important in this novel. I don't want to hand it out because some people might cry spoiler, but I really think the reader has to pick up on this or they might eventually cry Deus ex machina. This novel is far from that, but you do need to pick up on a few things within the plot as it goes along or it will certainly look that way.
I would really love to give this five stars but I am afraid that my confusion about the Realms has caused it to be downgraded and though this may seem unfair, I can't give this five stars when I went away confused about something that is very important to the plot since there is a speculation about whether the upper, lower and middle were meant to be separated as they are. (That's if the middle is the Seven Realms.)
Great fantasy novel for fantasy lovers with well fleshed out characters for the story and I'm looking forward to the next two novels and hoping that they help resolve my confusion.
J.L. Dobias
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