Category :: Review :: Page 65

Like the hair in your panna cotta, or the blow fly in your bisque, a bad salesman will most often destroy the goodness that surrounds it, no matter how much of that goodness may be available. At least, it will often destroy the idea of large-scale goodness for me. This single idea represents one of the most important reasons why I just couldn’t bring myself to love this most recent read. And yet, I will often pull the fly out and eat the soup anyhow. I mean, who can resist a good soup!

KOP KILLER by Warren Hammond (Amazon), is the third book in his Kop series, but is handled well-enough that it has little problem standing on its own. The story is set on the planet of Lagarto, where the long day and night cycles make for some interesting dynamics, and nearly every inhabitant living there understands that their lives can sink no further than this.
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Emma Bannon is a sorceress in the employ of the Queen herself, tasked with protecting Archibald Clare, an unregistered and failed mentath. Why? Because other mentaths all over Londinium are dying unexplainable and grisly deaths and there’s more to it than a serial killer.

Set in an alternative Victorian England, THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR (Amazon) blends magic and steampunk with enthusiasm. Known for her Urban Fantasy series, Lilith Saintcrow tries something different with a steam-sorcery-mystery tale that threatens Britannia herself.
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Do you know Repairman Jack? If you don’t, you’ve been missing out on a terrific series of books by F. Paul Wilson. The Repairman Jack series has, over the years, grown into one of my favorite series. It has a near perfect mix of horror and thriller elements while managing to inject humor here and there.

Through the series, I’ve always had questions in my mind about Jack. I know what happened to his mom (and his reaction to it), but what did he do after? How did he meet Julio and Abe? What events forged him into the man we meet in THE TOMB? (Amazon)

Those questions start to be answered in COLD CITY.
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Military Science Fiction, oh how I’ve missed you. In the never ending journey to expand my interests I find that I have neglected my favorite of all genres. The recent release of Halo 4 had me jonesing for a military sci-fi fix. Fortunately, around that time the notorious William C. Dietz asked if I would be interested in reviewing ANDROMEDA’S FALL (Amazon), the latest Legion of the Damned novel.

This marks my first Legion of the Damned novel, and it tells the story of Catherine Carletto, a wealthy socialite. In the blink of an eye Catherine’s life is turned upside down when the Emperor’s sister makes a bold power grab. In order to consolidate power and excise the threat of rebellion the newly crowned Empress has the dead Emperor’s friends and supporters assassinated. Catherine’s and her family fall under this category. Orphaned and on the run, Catherine enlists with the Legion under the alias Andromeda McKee.
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Most anthologies contain a collection of unrelated stories from various authors. That’s just the way it goes. Unless the anthology is done by Baen Books and is set in one of their authors’ worlds, the stories are rarely even set in the same universe. Heck, even the anthologies I’ve written for (THE CRIMSON PACT: Vol 2, 3 & 4) have had very few links to connect anyone’s work.

And then I read V WARS. V WARS (Amazon) is a vampire (mostly) anthology edited by Jonathan Maberry. That name alone should be enough to grab your interest. Maberry puts out quality work 1000% of the time. This anthology is about a global outbreak of a virus that converts the “junk DNA” in some people. Depending on their heritage, those affected by the virus turn into vampires and werewolves (which in folklore are traditionally related).

And the best part is every story is set in the same world under the same calamity.
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One of the anthologies that renewed my faith in short fiction was THE NEW DEAD (EBR Review), edited by Christopher Golden. There were just so many fantastic stories that after I closed the cover, I just sat back and said, “Wow!” Since then I’ve been more than happy to tackle any collection of short fiction, and I’ve read a lot of absolutely stellar work. With all that said, it shouldn’t be too difficult a stretch of the imagination to say that my expectations of 21ST CENTURY DEAD (Amazon) were extremely high. Unfairly so, even.
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Nonfiction! What is this black magic? You all must be thinking that I’m a pretty contradictory person. I don’t read books about dragons. I love James Maxey’s GREATSHADOW (EBR Review). I don’t read anthologies. I love ARMORED edited by John Joseph Adams (EBR Review). Now I’m going to tell you that I don’t read nonfiction. Ever. But it turns out that I really liked AMERICAN SNIPER (Amazon), written by Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. An autobiography about a Navy SEAL? Well if you’re going to read nonfiction you might as well read the most exciting nonfiction available.

Chris Kyle served as a Navy SEAL during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Kyle and his platoon were part of some of the thickest fighting the US Armed Forces were involved in, from pacifying Fallujah to cleaning out Sadr City. AMERICAN SNIPER is an unapologetic, patriotic, and personal look at the conflict in the Middle East from the perspective of a special forces sniper.
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Garet James is the last in a line of women “watchtowers” who protect humanity from evil–particularly the magic kind. In BLACK SWAN RISING (EBR Review), she had to learn about her unknown powers and save New York City from destruction. She had the help of fairies, goblins, as well as that of the rich and handsome vampire Will Hughes. But he has disappeared, leaving clues for Garet to follow.

If you remember my review for BLACK SWAN RISING, I had a hard time with the love story between Garet and Will. It was sudden and inexplicable and emotionless–it’s hard for a romance to be believable when you don’t understand why two characters love each other. So when the second book, THE WATCHTOWER (Amazon) so depended on their love in order to explain Garet’s motivation to follow Will… it didn’t bode well.
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What are they putting in the water down in New Mexico?  Seriously!

There are two books that I’ve read this year (and I really read my share of books) that I’ve gotten to the end and thought, “WOW!”  The first was Daniel Abraham’s excellent THE KING’S BLOOD (EBR Review). THE COLDEST WAR by Ian Tregillis (Amazon) is the second.  The weird thing is they both hail from New Mexico.  They seem to be in the same writing group or something down there.  You can see each other’s names in the acknowledgment section of their books.  Whatever they are doing down there, keep it up.
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The description of MIND STORM by K.M. Ruiz (Amazon) would have you believe that is a story about Threnody Corwin, a soldier-slave of the Earth government. Well, it is and it isn’t. As it turns out Threnody is really more of a supporting character than a primary protagonist. The story is really about Nathan and Lucas Serca and a family feud that has the potential to burn the world to cinder. MIND STORM is what you get when you take the hard-edged, dystopian Science Fiction of Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels and spice it up with some psychic powers.
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