Reviews
Travel by Star
I read Travel by Star, by Paul Scott Grill, and I’m giving it my first five-star review. Now, what does that mean, “five stars?” For our purposes here, the scale is this: Three stars is a book you could miss and not miss anything. Four is a book you should read. Five is a book…
Autonomous Weapons Division: Intrusion Protocol
I read “Intrusion Protocol,” the first book in the “Autonomous Weapons Division” series by B. R. Keid, and I’ll be honest: I slammed it. Read it in one day, stayed up late to finish. Now, there are a number of ways, as an author, that you can work your way into making up a great…
After Moses
I read “After Moses” by Michael Kane, and it was a delight. This is a good novel, and I expect a good series, to share with your teen boy. The author calls it space western, in the vein of Firefly, but I also got distinct Cowboy Bebop vibes. However, the hero is a very welcome…
The Sapphire Prince
I read “The Sapphire Prince” by Casey West, and it was cute. It also gives me a chance to talk about two subjects which have been on my mind lately. First, the story itself. Book 1 of the “Loyalty Fallen” series (everything’s a series, these days, and I’m just as guilty), here we have a…
Justified
I read Justified by @jondelarroz, and I enjoyed it. Mr. Del Arroz has taken an interesting approach: Crusaders vs Jihadis in Space, and he does not pull his punches, nor adulterate his characters or plot with any anachronistic cultural self-castigation or other idiosyncrasies of our real modern West. The protagonist does suffer a crisis of…
The Water War
I read The Water War (Episode 1) by @ShirleyJwriter, and I enjoyed it. Ms. Johnson’s approach to the peri-apocalypse/fall-of-America genre is delightfully character-centered, and tightly focused on its ordinary folk. Rather than spending any time on the big movers and shakers, any reasons behind the events in question or powerful people exerting any influence over…
Reliquary of the Dead
I read Reliquary of the Dead by @DrDavidAFalk. Overall a delightful novel, and also one that gives me an excuse to talk about two potential pitfalls in fiction writing. The first is that specialists in any field other than fiction writing tend not to make very good fiction writers. They tend to be didactic regarding…
The Healing Stone
I read “The Healing Stone” by John Newton, and it is excellent. I have confession to rant: I hate “Young Adult” fiction. More generally, I dislike any fiction that centers on young people. I hated it when I was a young person. I once read of a YA author asked how YA fiction is made,…
St. George and the Dragon
I read “St. George and the Dragon” by Michael Lotti, and you should read it, too. It is excellent. Among the fallout from Tolkein, in his genius, is that ever since him, dragons have to be suitably epic. The little green dragon which fits under hoof in a medieval painting is no longer sufficient to…
Split Second
I like fiction from which you can actually learn a thing or two. Whether it’s military fiction with enough hard military action that you can actually learn a bit of tactics, or science fiction with enough hard science that you come away with some new knowledge in that field, a book that teaches you something…