Reviews by Writer Dan

Stephen King is one of those authors I continue to pick up despite the fact that I’m frequently frustrated by the way his books end. There’s just too much good he does right to completely sign off and avoid reading his stuff. This is most especially true when it comes to the way his books begin. This book was one that I was really intrigued with and considerably interested in reading because it’s a sequel to THE SHINING (Amazon), which is probably one of the most preeminent ghost stories ever written. A really creepy book. Was hoping for much the same from its sequel.
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I’d missed this book in the lineup of new Science Fiction, and honestly hadn’t thought to look, but was reminded about it when the second book in this series showed up in a new batch of books to read. The relatively short page count and the fact that it was only number two in the series prompted me to pick up this book first so that I wouldn’t be ignorant going into number two. As it turns out though, I needn’t have worried overly much. By way of resurrecting an old review method of mine, here is this book in ten words:

Military man and operatives waltz through mission to supplant dictator.

Immediately after reading it, I read the first few chapters of book two, and I’m having a very difficult time believing that the first eight words of that book’s ten-word summary wouldn’t be identical. Setting that opinion aside for now though, here’s the skinny on this one.
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I don’t mention cover art all that much in my reviews. It’s likely a failing of mine, but for some reason or another it only very seldomly comes up when I’m putting together my thoughts on a book. This time around though, I really have to mention it because it not only introduced the setting of the novel just perfectly (worth a thousand words and more), but also gave me a solid image to build upon while reading the beginning of the book, which was quite good all on its own, but brilliantly set when paired with the cover.
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Some of the main drives, I believe, of the Science Fiction genre are to instill in the reader a sense of awe and wonder and introduce the idea of the ubiquitous question: What if? Sadly, I have to admit that I’ve never really had that experience in my reading of Science Fiction. There are times, however, when I take the opportunity to stop and just stare up into the starry night sky. It is during those times that I have absolutely felt that sense of awe and wonder and have begun to speculate just what might be up there amidst the stars and planets and vast, sprawling majesty of the universe around us. I’ve always wanted that same experience when reading a good Science Fiction book. I just haven’t ever gotten it. Until Alastair Reynolds wrote this book and gave me one.
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This book immediately caught my attention when I first saw it. The bright colors and dark, almost rorschach-testness of the images were immediately arresting, and the summary on the inside cover did even more to get me excited about reading this one. The impression as a whole was one of weird stuff in the modern world, which falls into the category of Urban Fantasy, although I don’t know if it really fits into that subgenre wholesale. Regardless, this book like any other had a job to do when it landed in front of me:

1. Catch my eye
2. Get me to open the cover and read
3. Catch my interest with its premise
4. Start me reading Chapter 1

And it absolutely succeeded on all those levels. If I had been a regular schmoe, bumming around the book store, looking for the next good read, this book would have had some serious mojo for me to try and ignore for it to not end up in my hand when I got back into my car. But past that point, what is it’s job? And how did this one stack up where it really matters: inside the content of the book. Check it out.
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At the time I had no idea how it might be possible, but when I got the email saying that this book was headed my way I was totally taken by surprise. As soon as I got it, I barreled through its pages, loving every minute and was completely impressed when I got to the end. Then, as I sat down to write this review, I casually glanced at the publication date of the first book in this series, THE MECHANICAL, and realized why the follow-up hadn’t even been on my radar: the first book was published in March of this year. Whoa. Then I got to be super impressed because not only had this book really entertained me, but it had been released a paltry nine months after its predecessor.
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It’s been a while since I read a Stephenson book, and I was in need of his kind of storytelling. Smart, funny, character-centric, inventive, informative — his books, for me, stand tall and somewhat apart from so much of the other writing out there. This one pushed a lot of my buttons, but strained my patience quite a bit, too. It’s a novel for our times. A story of very-near Science Fiction that is about an apocalypse that we haven’t read before (e.g., planetary self-destruction, religious fruition). This one could happen tomorrow, and I think, for the most part, it could all feasibly happen. Made it personal for me and fun to boot.
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Today is the day, and so I thought I’d drop this little review for the newest Expanse novella now. But today is the day that the first episode of SyFy’s series The Expanse airs on internet media. It still won’t officially premiere on the SyFy channel until the two-night release on December 14th/15th, but as of today you can watch the first episode on a pretty fair-sized group of online locations. So, if you’re as ridiculously excited to watch this thing as I am, you can now get a little taste of what is to come. But stick around and check out my review of this first, if you will. Cause if you’re a fan, you’re not going to want to miss this story either.
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After getting a taste of all of the excitement surrounding the SyFy production of The Expanse, it came as no real surprise to me that other TV networks might want to try and jump on the proverbial band wagon. CBS recently announced that they are going to be producing a new TV series based on this novel, and thus I was more than a little intrigued to read this one and see just what kind of “competition” CBS would be trying to bring to the table.
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Yet another story that comes at a time just rife with new offerings from the fantasy author after a short hiatus. SAVAGES (EBR Review) and the serial novel THE TWO OF SWORDS (Amazon), are two full novels that were released just a few months apart from one another. This one is something more along the lines of a novella, but it’s also one that I didn’t expect given the recent outpouring of new material. Can’t say that I’m disappointed though. In fact, I was far from it.
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