Beta Reading for Peter Orullian
Beta reading is something I’m asked about at least once a week. Either I’m asked to do it, or I’m asked why I do it, or I’m asked how I managed to get the gig in the first place. I’m also frequently asked what I do when I actually sit down to read someone’s manuscript.
Why do I bring this up? Well, because you may have noticed we just published Alan Bahr’s review of Peter Orullian’s novel THE UNREMEMBERED: The Author’s Definitive Edition. The review was extremely positive. If you have been a long time reader of Elitist Book Reviews, you might recall that I personally reviewed the original version of the novel several years ago. Frankly, I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t that it didn’t show promise, it was that it didn’t feel like the final version. It felt like the draft before cutting a bunch and cleaning up the rest. Again, that review was done in 2011.
So now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s story time.
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Poison
Kyra wants to kill the princess.
There was even an attempt, but she missed with her poison dart, and now she’s on the run from the king’s soldiers. She wants to finish the job, but the princess has gone into hiding and Kyra needs the rest of the poison potion she made at her old apartment where her former business partners still live.
Did I mention the princess used to be Kyra’s best friend?
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The Archived
When people die their memories and experiences are archived in a special library that few people know about. But sometimes those memories wake up, the restless and violent kind especially, and someone has to return them.
That’s where Mackenzie Bishop comes in.
Four years ago, when Mackenzie was twelve, her grandfather introduced her to the Archive, where the people’s Histories are stored, to learn about the job of a Keeper and take his place. She’s spent the years since his death doing just that, finding Histories assigned to her by the Librarians at the Archive and returning them to their rest.
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The Baen Big Book of Monsters
For our current book spotlight, I’m going big. It’s hard not to love stories about giant monsters. Seeing this recent rekindling of interest in them has made me a very happy man. THE BAEN BIG BOOK OF MONSTERS , edited by Hank Davis, is a terrific anthology that collects a bunch of classic giant monster stories from legends in the fields of speculative fiction and adds in a handful of new stories from current authors like Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt… and Steven Diamond.
Wait, what? Maybe you are wondering if you read that right.
You totally did.
That’s me, baby. I managed to get accepted into this anthology. I’m super excited.
What this means is that I can’t review the collection. I’ll have someone else here at EBR do that eventually. But I couldn’t help but draw attention to this anthology. I’ve had a number of stories published in small press anthologies, but this is my first published large press story. It’s a big […]Read the rest of this post »
Honor’s Knight
After the exciting events from FORTUNE’S PAWN (EBR Review), Devi has found herself without a partner and several of her recent memories. It drives her crazy that she can’t remember what happened when Cotter died, or why her fingers sometimes turn black, or why little blue critters appear on the ship that others can’t see. But she’s determined to not let any of that stop her from doing a good job. She doesn’t want to give Caldswell a single excuse to dump her at the next available space station.
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Soda Pop Soldier
As an Advertising/Public Relations major and a lifelong gamer, Nick Cole’s SODA POP SOLDIER (Amazon) immediately appealed to me. The premise of the novel revolves around professional matches being waged online over choice advertising real estate in the real world. Told from the first-person perspective by a character known only by the gamer tag PerfectQuestion, SODA POP SOLDIER is pitched as Call of Duty meets Diablo. The gaming segments of the novel deliver on the action packed promise of the book’s description. Unfortunately the sections of the book that take place in the real world lack the same punch.
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Fortune’s Pawn
Devi Morris is a mercenary and she knows how good she is at her job. Her ambitions mean one day becoming one of the king’s own Devastators, but she must prove herself. She signs up for a year-long stint aboard the Glorious Fool, a trader ship captained by the infamous Caldswell, who attracts bad luck wherever he goes. If Devi can survive the year, then her chances of becoming a Devastator are pretty good. There’s also a pretty good chance she won’t survive.
It doesn’t take long for Devi to notice a few oddities. How little Caldswell sells his shipments for. That a clan of alien xith’cal called a blood feud on him. The strange behavior of his daughter Ren. Also odd are his varied crew, from the xith’cal doctor, the bird-like aeon navigator, and a ship’s cook who is unusually strong.
Working aboard the Glorious Fool turns out to be more than she anticipated, and Devi finds herself in more than one fight with terrible odds. But it turns out it’s not the enemy who will test her resolve…
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Edge of Dark Water
I’ve been on a bit of a Joe Lansdale kick lately. He’s become one of my favorite short story authors, and I am continually impressed by how easily he seems to transition between short and long fiction. You’ll recall that I loved his novel THE THICKET (EBR Review), and once I finished it I immediately purchased a copy of his prior novel, EDGE OF DARK WATER (Amazon).
I loved it.
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To Dance With the Devil
In this latest installment of Cat Adams’ The Blood Singer series, we begin TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL (Amazon) with Celia in therapy. Her mother hates her, Celia’s grandmother doesn’t understand their animosity, all the while dealing with her own problem of being part-vampire and hunted by demons. But it’s not the therapy that lands her in the hospital. No, it’s the guys in suits who run her off the road, trash her car, and leave her on a sun-soaked beach to burn alive.
Not really the relaxing weekend she was hoping for.
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Dust and Light
Lucian de Remeni-Masson is convinced it was his indiscretion that lead to the death of his entire family. As a pure-blood sorcerer he is forbidden to even talk to ordinaries–those who have no magic–much less allow one to see him unmasked or perform magic, yet he did.
Years have passed since his college dalliance, but he still fears he hasn’t completely escaped the consequences and finds himself at the mercy of the Pureblood Registry. Despite good behavior and hard work using his talent for magically created portraits, he is contracted to work for a mere coroner drawing the corpses of ordinaries whose identities are unknown. Lucian fears his fortunes have sunk so low that he may never find favor in the eyes of the Registry again.
But it is while drawing the dead that Lucian begins to uncover abilities he thought he’d lost, and as a result the past begins to unfold a narrative that is much more complicated than he anticipated.
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