Category Archives: Books & Book Reviews

Reading and Reviewing

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Last year was a rough year as far as the total number of books I read. This is a very mood based thing for me – but this year seems to be off to a quick start. I’ve managed to polish off 3 books so far – and I’m digging into the 4th already.

Part of this, I’m certain, is the extended time I’ve spent in medical waiting rooms already. I suppose one can put a silver lining in there if you were really working at it.

The first book I finished this year was Planetside… and I just kept forging ahead with the next 2 in the series. Here’s my review of the first one.

Planetside by Michael Mammay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is going to be a spoilerific review ~ fair warning.

I wasn’t certain what I was getting into when I picked this one up. This was a reading group selection for Watch The Skies. It was touted as something military science fiction fans would like. Having powered through this one very quickly, I agree with that.

Around page 45 (ish?) I figured out what happened to the missing Lieutenant. I made a note in the book specifically because I was hoping I was wrong, but I wanted to place that marker in case I wasn’t. I had figured out what happened right then – just not all the specifics of how or why. The guy isn’t among friendlies on the ground and he never gets back into space on the medical ship… that doesn’t leave a lot of choices.

The main character, Carl, has precisely 0 character growth during this story. He does not learn nor does he change at all. His predictability proves to be a significant factor in duping him into making an extremely harsh choice. Firing the missiles/triggering the bombs is definitely a discussion worthy topic.

The secondary characters were well written and believable, but I struggled with the doctor who went from so very strong willed to shooting herself in what felt like an extremely short number of steps. That felt forced and incongruous with her character as written.

Having said all that, I did still enjoy this book. It’s well written and fast paced. It’s a very solid action/thriller style story in space, complete with aliens. I’d love to see this turned into a film.



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SPEAR

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Spear by Nicola Griffith

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


First – I hate beyond measure that no matter what I change the settings to on the Kindle it marks these things as read on Goodreads before I get out here to post things. That is a completely different topic, so to the book review.

Giving this book 2 stars doesn’t seem fair, but the “it was ok” that hovers up is the closest thing I could say based on the super limited star system.

The writing, the language, the way this book came together just drew me in. I was enthralled. I love the way this author uses words. I was reading this magical story and loving it.

I was loving it because of my lack of knowledge. I don’t know they myriad forms that the Arthurian legend carries through history. I’m going to say that’s on me. I went into this book cold, no reviews, no understanding of what it was, no blurbs, nothing. I grabbed it from a publisher I know to serve up things I enjoy. This certainly seemed to fit the bill. Then, about 2/3 of the way through the story Christianity was thrown in. That jarred me hard enough to almost stop reading right then and there. THAT is most certainly NOT what I want in my fantasy stories. There’s more to it than that, but we’ll leave it as ‘bad’ in terms of the story.

Then I started to pull all the parts together and understand this as a King Arthur retelling.

IF you want a gender swapped story from the King Arthur story vein, this is an excellent choice. I still believe what I said about the language. It’s wonderfully written. I may go and look at other works by this author… but I will certainly look into what the story is before hand. My feeling toward the story never recovered after that jarring moment – so I don’t know that I could recommend the book.



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BALTICON – The Panels

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Saturday’s list of panels wrapped up with one on recommendations for reading. I was ready, but also worried for this panel. While I have read a lot, my reading has suffered lately. The volume of words I have consumed has dropped off sharply. It’s been a struggle to read sometimes. The weight of things going on around me has made even the escapism of a good book work. Couple this with the folks on the panel were clearly experts in the field, while my qualifications amounted to being part of a fan group with a long reading list. As it turned out, a really skillful panel moderator made this one run! At the end there was only one request for finding “something else like this” we couldn’t come up with an answer for. At the end of the day, I think I held my own. The things I go back to the most tend to be older works and not the most recently released stuff, but I managed. Here’s the description and the panel notes I had going in.

What Should I Read Next?

While it’s easy for us to be bombarded with automated algorithm-derived suggestions, it’s important to get book recommendations from a dialogue with a real person. Our well-read panelists will listen to what you like and don’t like and suggest something you haven’t heard of… we hope.


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Hope is right – this tends to be a very well read crowd.

I keep a list of books shelved in the dining room. They are books that I go back to over and over again when talking about books. Some examples are:

Magic for Sale (short story collection)
Light of Other Days (Stephen Baxter / Clarke)
Bimbos of the Death Sun (Sharon McCrumb)
Pandora’s Legions (Christopher Anvil)
Song in Stone (Walter Hunt)
Rollback (Robert J Sawyer)
Bureau 13 (Pollata)
Griffin & Sabine (Nick Bantock) series of mysterious letters
Immortal warrior Kane (pulp fantasy series) Karl Edward Wagner
House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune)
Written in Red (Anne Bishop)

Find a small press!

Talk with booksellers (Cupboard Maker Books in Enola PA is my favorite by far!)

Watch the Skies has a 20+ year reading list. You can always jump on and chat with us! Connect with us here!

Which Witch?

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The Witcher of course…

Totally misleading cover too~

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I picked this up to read it because my fan group Watch The Skies picked it as one of our monthly reads. I don’t know if I would have picked it up if not for that – based on the show based off this material.

People who know me, know that I have a fantasy bent and are frequently trying to point out sword and sorcery type things they think I’ll enjoy. I love and appreciate that.

This is NOT one that I’m going to agree with them on. Is this sword and sorcery (aka ‘traditional fantasy’)? You bet it is. Even given that it falls into my favorite genre it’s just not working for me. It feels dated as I read it some 35 years after the initial publication. It feels slightly ‘man centric’. Misogynistic is too strong a word perhaps, but the stories lack female characters with more than passing agency. The book itself, as I understand it, was an assembly of many short stories and the book didn’t feel smooth or well fitted as a story because of that. The stories themselves were all clearly variations on fairy tales of our world (beauty and the beast, snow white, etc.) and that just didn’t land well with me.

All in all, it gets 3 stars, but barely. I’m glad I read it as it gives me more context for the show, but beyond that I don’t foresee me digging into this series / franchise.



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Victory

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Love this color!

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have been meaning to pick up one of the works of this author for some time now. I’m glad I picked this book up and got into it. It took me a minute to get into the story, but once I was in, I finished the book in a day.

The characters were very believable. They were real. I could easily picture them in my mind’s eye. The world building was slightly off to me. I might have missed something early on? I’m not sure. The beacon could easily fit into a ‘current day’ scenario, but I’m not sure this was supposed to be ‘current day’ and that’s where my disconnect happened. It was not enough to pull me out of the story, so I just rolled with it.

I have figured out that heroic stories work for me. I know this about myself and I try to temper my reviews with that understanding. The characters in this story were absolutely heroic… but absolutely not in the old school / traditional sense of the square jawed action man. It was delightful and refreshing to see this in a story. I don’t want to go deeper into the differences for fear of spoiling it for anyone else.

My one and only quibble is something that I understand is completely on me. This does not have to do with the work or the author, just me. The constant pronoun thing was annoying. I know I’m old and this is something that should be part of normal – but it’s not that for me. As I said, minor quibble and all about me, not the work.

This was a fast read, and exciting story and a lot of fun to ride along with. I intend to recommend it to my fan group and hope it makes the selection list!



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Invisible Life

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don’t know if I would have ever picked this book up were it not a book club pick. This book is a fantastic example of why a person should join book clubs. Read something you didn’t think you would, you might find a gem.

This book is exactly that. A multifaceted, shining gem of a story. Making a deal to save yourself only to find out the deal was not so clean and easy as all that. What do you do if nobody remembers you? Are you still you? What power does your name have? This is a fantastic reversal of the old “don’t tell a wizard your name” concept. Tell a wizard your name and give him power over you. And when nobody knows or remembers your name, what power remains?

Along with the concept, the author does an excellent job exploring the feelings of Addie and the ways she has been forced to move over her long, unyielding life. How does it change your feelings when having them no longer has meaning to those around you? What will you be willing to do? How clever do you need to become to get what you need?

I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the characters and the many lives they led. It was also a really well done ending – and that’s something I don’t get to say very often. A satisfying work with an excellent sense of completion. If you get the chance, you should pick this one up.



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Over Hill, Over Dale

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The new book Over Hill, Over Dale is out! Why am I so excited? Because it contains my story Evilution (lucky story #13 in the book). This is a short story collection from the Story Makers class at Cupboard Maker Books.

Check out the cover!

As far as I know – this is an *in person* book – meaning you’ve got to visit the store to get it. (You should totally visit the store). We did a book signing for any of the authors that could make it on the July 4th holiday. The signing seemed to be very successful given how summer schedules normally work out.

It was nice to be back and doing the “author thing” in person. I’m still writing stories, firing them off into the aether and waiting for the inevitable negative bounce back. I think my next author in person event might be a convention… but those plans are still far enough off as to be shadowy and lurking just out of view.

I’d love to hear what you thought of my story in this collection. Grab a copy and let me know!

Unspoken

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The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood

I dig this art


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Unspoken Name is a hesitant 4 stars for me.

The story of Csorwe, the bride of the Unspoken god and sentenced to die is a fantastic journey. I found it refreshing to hear the story of a character with tusks. I know this seems like a small detail, but the smallest diversity struck me as important. I enjoyed the journey from priestess to sacrifice to warrior, assassin, spy and so much more. There was real character growth through the course of the book.

I could have stopped at a couple of points in the story. It felt like there might have been more than one “book” in here… or maybe it could have been broken out into novellas or serialized somehow. It was a minor distraction, but it was there.

I was put off by the list of names up front, but I am always put off by those so this was not unique to this book. I made up my own names for characters as the fantasy names just didn’t hang together for me. Csorwe became Crow – visually close and an easy to keep the flow of the story – is just one example. Some people will struggle with that, some won’t – but I think the ability to actually say the name of the main characters matters.

I enjoyed the world building. Having various worlds connected by the maze was an interesting concept. There wasn’t a ton of detail about the ships, the gates or how the various parts worked but it was enough to spark the imagination and make the story / journey flow.

It was a good story and worth picking up.



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Charred

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The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I don’t think 3 stars is quite right. It might be closer to 3.5. The book gives me a very “Umbrella Academy” feel. The story of an adopted family of children who all gain some kind of special abilities. A minor difference / quibble there being that the children don’t naturally have any of their abilities, they study to gain them.

The world building here was interesting. I say interesting because normally the “real world” as a basis for your story allows for a great many short cuts, but the author managed to give the feeling of things being ever so slightly ‘off’ with the descriptions of time. I had a thorn stuck in my head by this story via the use of a military character. The total time in service for the stated rank and exit from service for Erwin just did NOT ring true. It was really my biggest complaint about the world building – if you’re using the real world army, talk to somebody about it and pick up the details.

The characters were interesting. Some grew to be irritating more than anything by the later stages of the book, but the main ones kept things fresh as the story progressed. I knew the person behind the plot fairly early on, but did not see nor expect what the author did with the ending.

In all it kept me reading to the end. I look forward to our book group’s discussion on this one.



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Good Read

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Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I will restate that I really like this author’s work. I have a bias, know this going in.

At first glance more than 600 pages looked daunting. Then I remembered who wrote it. I’ve plunged through some of his other works at very rapid pace. Then I hit right about the 40% mark of this one and it really slowed down. It was all politics and wrangling of people and just slow. It was all part of building to an ending that made sense and it all fit, but I struggled. I know I generally like what he writes, so I pushed through. I’m glad I pushed ahead. Once I got past the slow bit I dashed across the finish line.

I enjoyed the characters in this story. The world building and magic system was a very big deal in this and it came through. I am still chewing on implications in my head for various aspects of the world.

Was there negative stuff? Yeah, actually there was. This was his first book and there were aspects of the flow and the narrative that felt that way. Perhaps it’s unfair to say that, but I’ve read a number of his other works first so coming back to this made the small things stand out more. One thing that I always find a bit… I don’t know if ‘cringy’ is the right word, but it seems to fit, is when authors give numbers to troops. There’s a non zero number of authors I’ve read where it just doesn’t feel like they’ve got a good handle on how big the army of an entire nation should be. This is one of those books. It’s generally vague, but there are a few mentions in there about troop numbers and they feel like they were just made up. I chalk that one up to my own pet peeve.

This book does a lot of good things too. It avoids certain tropes, and gives real thought to what variations in magic and politics do to the people in the world. The hero isn’t “the chosen one” or “destined to be” or anything like that. He’s a guy that gets handed crap circumstances. The other characters are a priest who questions his faith and a woman that doesn’t like being told what role she’s allowed to have in society. In general I would recommend reading this book if you’re into fantasy. Very enjoyable!



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