Category: Book Review

Posted on

#BookReview: Lost City by David Wood and Matt James

Short, Fun, And Typical Maddock-verse… Without The Full Team. If you’re looking for a short taste of an Indiana Jones / Dirk Pitt type adventure… you’ve found one. This is a very quick read at under 150 pages and features a bit more straightforward of an adventure for one Uriah “Bones” Bonebrake than is typical of the larger Maddock and Bones books with the full team. It will be interesting to see if at least one of the revelations here plays a role within the larger universe, but it is always fun to see Bones in his element, with or without the supporting cast. Just a great, fun bit of escapism to take your attention for an afternoon without demanding too much of your time. Very much recommended.

This review of Lost City by David Wood and Matt James was originally written on September 2, 2020.

Posted on

#BookReview: The Rule Of Many by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders

Excellent Middle Chapter. In this middle entry into the dystopian YA trilogy at hand, we get a solid second chapter that does exactly what a middle chapter is supposed to – continue to build out the world while amping up both the action and the consequences. Here we even get a couple of interesting wrinkles thrown in. And of course the inevitable final clash… that turns out to not be quite so final. Which means it aces the final thing the middle book has to do – get you to come back for Book 3. And in this case, you’re absolutely going to want Book 3 to see just how this gets fully wrapped up. Solidly done in world while perhaps playing a bit to closely to the “rules” of the genre. Very much recommended.

This review of The Rule Of Many by Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders was originally written on September 2, 2020.

Posted on

#BookReview: On Fascism by Matthew C MacWilliams

Better Title: On Fascism I Disagree With. In this text, MacWilliams does something I’ve literally never seen before, at least not this blatantly. He takes the concept of “prooftexting” from Christian nonfiction/ preaching, wherein the speaker (or writer) selectively quotes particular passages in “proof” of whatever point they are making, and uses the same technique using American History itself as his “inerrant” source. And as with all prooftexters, MacWilliams does indeed make a solid point here or there, but specifically in relation to the other St Martin’s Press title whose review spurred this one – Divided We Fall by David French – this book is but a pale comparison at best. To the level that if one can *only* read one of the two, go with French’s text over this one. Yes, it is longer, and yes, it still comes from a particular ideological background. But it is also *far* more balanced, nuanced, and I daresay insightful. Here, MacWilliams blatantly ignores virtually all authoritarianism from the left, including from current Presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden while consistently railing against that of the current President of the United States, Donald J Trump. He further has a very narrow definition of “democratic” and claims that anyone who doesn’t meet that definition for any reason whatsoever is “authoritarian”, seemingly completely unaware that Anarchists exist and fight “democracy” as nothing more than the iron fist of authoritarianism in the velvet glove of being benevolent to the chosen few.

Finally, in an irony that cannot be ignored by myself in particular – as I run a Facebook page called “He Didn’t F*cking Say That” – MacWilliams begins and ends the text referencing Benjamin Franklin’s “a republic, if you can keep it” line… which didn’t appear in the American lexicon until 1906 according to the Yale Book of Quotations, over a century after Franklin’s death. And yet despite this (or seemingly ignorant of the quote being apocryphal), MacWilliams seems to be unaware of his hypocrisy as he decries McCarthy’s butchering of some of Lincoln’s lines during his own quest for power.

On the whole, this was an interesting and at least quick read. But if one is looking for a complete – or even moderately adequate – takedown of fascism and an exploration of its history in America, sadly this is not such a text. Recommended if only for the few salient points it does make and its brevity.

This review of On Fascism by Matthew C MacWiliams was originally written on September 2, 2020.

Posted on

#BookReview: Containment by Nick Thacker

More Police Procedural Than Apocalyptic. This was a strong book in a police procedural vein that opened up the possibility of looking at a more apocalyptic scenario. If you go into this one expecting a truer Apocalypse threat ala Brett Battles’ PROJECT EDEN or Michael Laurence’s EXTINCTION AGENDA series… you’re going to be disappointed. But if you’re looking for a more police/ detective story that happens to include *elements* of Apocalyptic threat, you’ve found an *amazing* book that is *exactly* what you’re looking for. This was my first from this author, and will not be my last. I’m truly looking forward to the next Jack Parker book at minimum. 🙂 Very much recommended.

This review of Containment by Nick Thacker was originally written on September 1, 2020.

Posted on

Featured New Release Of The Week: No Place Too Far by Kay Bratt

This week we’re returning to a world I said just last year that the author could spend the rest of her career in and I would not be disappointed. This week we’re looking at No Place Too Far by Kay Bratt.

On the less-good front, my writer’s block for these posts is continuing. On the not-so-bad front, at least I was (hopefully) able to convey how I truly feel about this book in the Goodreads level review. Basically, I truly love this world and want much more of it.

Amazing Follow-up. I wrote last year of the first book in this series that Bratt could spend the rest of her career in this world, and that I would not be disappointed. Here, she comes back to the world ostensibly to give best friend Maggie her story… that Quinn plays an even larger part in than Maggie played in Quinn’s own story (where Maggie was present enough to be the obvious target of a direct sequel, but otherwise truly a secondary character). Bratt does a solid job of juggling both ladies, it just seems at times here that too much is being condensed into one book. To me, the tale here could have been told over three, maybe four, books rather than one and been more on par with the overall pacing and impact of True To Me. Going into specifics might get a bit too much into spoiler territory, so I’ll simply say that to me, the division is this: Quinn gets a dedicated sequel. Maggie’s story here gets its own dedicated book where Quinn becomes more of a secondary character rather than the co-lead she is here, and Maggie’s own story is then broken up into effectively the first and second halves of the story here.

I know, I know. I’ve complained in other reviews about books being cut in half in almost blatantly obvious cash grabs, but I don’t think Bratt would have done that in the above scenario. I think more time in each of these situations would have brought out much more of the depth of emotion that True To Me had, vs the constant “swinging for the fences” here.

But do not get me wrong: This is still truly an excellent book, one I am very proud to have read, and again, I want to come back to this world many, many more times. This is just me expressing my quibbles over pacing of a truly excellent book that to my mind *just* missed the “I can’t stop crying and my mind is blown” level of amazement that True To Me brought. Truly a great book, and very much recommended.

Posted on

#BookReview: A Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje

Wildly … Imaginative… Reasoning, Close Yet Still Incorrect Conclusion. Most any math teacher (even former ones like myself) have stories of situations where when told to “show their work”, a student somehow has so-incorrect-as-to-nearly-be-incomprehensible reasoning, but somehow still manages to wind up at an answer that is close but still not quite correct. Maybe a decimal point in the wrong position, but the right actual digits in the right sequence, for example. Another example relevant here would be a space mission to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa that somehow launches when Jupiter is at its furthest point from Earth and launches away from Jupiter (or any reasonable path to the planet) to boot… and yet still manages to wind up on Callisto – another of the Galilean Moons of Jupiter with similar properties, though not the originally intended target and not as rich in desired attributes for the science aboard the mission.

This is effectively what Smaje has done here. More conservative readers may not make it even halfway into the first chapter, which is little more than a *very* thinly veiled anti-capitalist diatribe. Even more liberal/ progressive readers will have some tough pills to swallow with Smaje’s ardent defense of at least some forms of private property as the chief means of achieving his goals. And at the end, Smaje does in fact manage to do at least some version of what he sets out to do – make some level of a case for A Small Farm Future. The case Smaje makes here is indeed intriguing, despite being so deeply flawed, and absolutely worthy of further examination and discussion. It seems that he is simply too blinded by his own political and philosophical backgrounds to truly make the case as it arguably should have been made. Recommended.

This review of A Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje was originally written on August 26, 2020.

Posted on

#BookReview: The Cul-de-Sac War by Melissa Ferguson

Freaking Hilarious. For me, this book was the first in a while that had me literally laughing out loud and seemingly nearly literally laughing my tail off. And since it marked book 148 on the year (and thus somewhere north of 500 during the current US Presidency)… yeah, that’s saying something. 😀 Probably not “Christian” enough for the “Christian Fiction” crowd, so attempting to market that direction is probably a misnomer. But for the “clean”/ “sweet” romance crowd, yeah, this will work. I could have done without a particular element of the epilogue. (Seriously, why do so many romances have to go *there*? I’d rather see explicit, hyper-kinky sex on page than *that*.) But beyond that particular quibble (which is probably about as common as my childfree married male in his late 30s status – which is, not very at all), this really was a fun book and a perfect rebound from the hyper-darkness of the book I read before it. Which also makes it a great rebound for whatever you may be feeling when this releases one week after the current US Presidential Election. And yes, that means this is an ARC read, with all that that entails. In the end, truly funny and fun, and very much recommended.

This review of The Cul-de-Sac War by Melissa Ferguson was originally written on August 25, 2020.

Posted on

Featured New Release Of The Week: The Annihilation Protocol by Michael Laurence

This week we’re looking at an intense thriller with an interesting potential pivot point to a young series. This week, we’re looking at The Annihilation Protocol by Michael Laurence.

If you’re looking for a James Rollins / Matthew Reilly / Jeremy Robinson level balls to the wall, barely have time to breathe thriller… you’ve found one. Here, Laurence uses chemical weapons so creatively at times that it is truly hard to imagine him not drawing the attention of various US Federal agencies in real life. He also manages to incorporate one particular WWII era group very effectively into the backstory of this tale, to horrific portent in the actual tale itself.

More importantly for the overall direction of the series, Laurence manages to skillfully introduce what could very well be a key pivot point for the series. While the initial premise of a secret group working to eliminate a large portion of humanity is what drew me into this series and is where I hope the series is allowed to continue to go, to do that effectively the series needs to travel to areas it has yet to go even by the end of this tale. But going *there* could be a bit more problematic than some would like, and so, pivot points are introduced. Let me be as clear as the purest crystal though: I want this series to go in a direction where the bad guys truly try to kill off a large portion of humanity – Thanos level at *minimum* – and the good guys at least attempt to stop them. Those stories don’t get told often enough with the truly global scale they truly need to be effective, and this series even by the end of this tale still hold promise that it could go there and be phenomenal.

But the pivot introduced in this tale is very nearly as interesting, and could in fact be a nice little wrinkle in the overall “extinction threat” genre. Indeed, it could even serve as a way to have a somewhat definitive endpoint similar to the initial target of eliminating or saving humanity, and because of this could serve to help keep the action taut and furious. While I would be a bit disappointed if this option is pursued over the extinction threat, Laurence shows here that this would be but a quibble and that he is more than capable of delivering on a superb tale in that direction as well.

In the end, I’m hooked on this series and I’m gonna follow it as long as Laurence keeps writing them, no matter where he eventually takes it. I hope you’ll join me on the ride. 😀

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
Continue reading “Featured New Release Of The Week: The Annihilation Protocol by Michael Laurence”

Posted on

#BookReview: The Janus Point by Julian Barbour

Intriguing Theoretical Astrophysics. If it wasn’t clear from the description of this book, this book is *all about* theoretical astrophysics and the author’s new theory of the origins and nature of time. If words like Newtonian and General Relativity and Leibniz and thermodynamics are part of your every day lexicon, you’ll probably enjoy reading this. For the rest of us… at least there isn’t much math involved in the actual text here? Specifically of the Calculus variety, which gives even many math-oriented people the heebie jeebies? Truly an intriguing work, but I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t fully follow or comprehend all of it – it is simply that high level. Even though Barbour tries to use narrative examples and structures designed to allow most anyone to have some idea of what is going on, at the end of the day this is still advanced theoretical astrophysics, of the kind that even Stephen Hawking wrestled with. While others more learned in the actual science may find fault here, for what it is I could find none. Very much recommended.

This review of The Janus Point by Julian Barbour was originally written on August 19, 2020.

Posted on

Featured New Release Of The Week: Blood Victory by Christopher Rice

This week we’re looking at the most intense book yet in a series of a super-soldier who hunts down serial killers. This week, we’re looking at Blood Victory by Christopher Rice.

Unfortunately I’m facing a form of “writer’s block” these days that is barely allowing me to write a Goodreads level review, so that is all I have to offer this week.

Visceral. That is probably the singular best word I can think of to describe this book.

Once again, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK WITHOUT READING BONE MUSIC AND BLOOD ECHO FIRST. They are absolutely serial (see what I did there?) and build on each other – you can follow along with the story here easily enough without reading those two first, but major revelations from each are openly discussed here and will thus be major spoilers.

That dispensed with, back to “visceral”. I gotta admit, my sense of dread of what Charley is encountering in this book made me walk away from it at several points. I knew I was always coming back, because this was an ARC, but I had to take a break because the dread was just too much. Fortunately Rice resolves those issues rather quickly in most cases, instead spending time seemingly trying to build up just such a level of dread before releasing the tension and moving on. In the back half of the book, we get much more exposition of the motivations of the killers of this mission, and one of the more grisly uses of Charley’s super strength we’ve seen so far.

All told an excellent addition to the series, and one that leaves the reader ready for the next book. Very much recommended.