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Featured New Release Of The Week: Until We Are Lost by Leslie Archer

This week we’re looking at a (mostly) delightfully dark tale that has some extremely disturbing elements. This week we’re looking at Until We Are Lost by Leslie Archer.

Unfortunately as I write this post in late August 2020, I’m still beset by my “writer’s block” on these reviews, so once again I leave you with the Goodreads review:

Disturbing, Dark, (Mostly) Delicious Drama. Ok, I gotta put this up front: This book has both rape *and* child molestation “on screen”. It works within the story being told, but if you can’t handle those two issues for whatever reason, this book isn’t for you.

Those two things – both fairly deep in the book, with the child molestation around the 75% mark – aside, this was truly a solid, if dark, twisted drama that presents as one thing and then winds up with something completely different. One of the darkest books I’ve read in the past few years, but again, within the story being told, the darkness works well. If you’re looking for a light and fluffy beach read… this ain’t it. If you’re looking for more of a “snowed in, want something that can absolutely consume me for a while” read (ala a deep winter read, when this book will be releasing in Feb 2021)… this is near perfect for that. Overall an excellent tale, with the caveats noted at the top of this review. Very much recommended.

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#BookReview: Spirit of The Violinists by Maddie Evans

Solid Romance That Does What It Must. With this particular book seemingly bringing the story of the Castleton String Quartet to a close, there were certain events that those following this series knew had to come to pass – and when they did, it was utterly heartbreaking. And yet Evans manages to wrap a solid romance around this and even give a Mr. Holland’s Opus finale level sendoff to the series to boot. And since that is one of my favorite musical moments in film *ever*… that is high praise and is a style that is always appreciated by this reader. 🙂 Very much recommended.

This Review of Spirit Of The Violinists by Maddie Evans was originally written on February 1, 2021.

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#BookReview: Driven by Alex Davies

[UPDATE January 6, 2021]
I originally wrote the below post around Easter 2020 or so. At the time, this book was supposed to release in June 2020. Then, thanks to COVID, it got pushed to January 5, 2021. Where it was still going to be a Featured New Release post. Then I came in to actually publish that post and found out that the book’s release had been pushed back *again* to February 1, 2021. Where I already had another book ready for that week’s Featured New Release slot. So now I present a bit more verbose “standard” review than normal, thanks to this particular history.

I also want to note that in the intervening time, I’ve considered this book more and more – and I believe I’ve actually created a plan that can fully automate global logistics from the factory all the way to the retail shelf and/ or delivery to the end user’s location. But I don’t have the mechanical engineering background to allow me to build the physical machines to pull this off. However, I *am* a professional programmer, and I would love to work in this space solving that particular problem. So if anyone that is actually working in this field sees this review and is willing to at least talk to me about my ideas… you can find my contact information in the About page above. 😀

And now on to the original writeup 😀
[/UPDATE]

As I note below in the Goodreads/ Amazon review, I happen to be a professional software developer in “real” life, and I’ve been in the field since 2007 – right around when the effort Davies chronicles here was switching from a DARPA pipe dream to serious efforts driven by some of the biggest corporations on the planet – Google, Ford, and GM among them. I’ve personally built a few systems to automate some business processes, and as of this writing (Easter 2020) am actively involved in automating some systems related to credit card processing. So nothing anywhere near as complex as creating an autonomous car, but enough to have a degree of insight most other book reviewers won’t have.

Honestly, I can’t speak highly enough of this book. With so many nonfiction books, there is almost always some quibble or another, some minute chink that makes it only “very good” rather than damn near transcendental. This book, a debut, has no such chink. It is a stunning 8k portrait of the entire field, from its roots all the way through its current challenges that will be barely six months old at the time of initial publication. If you want to see where the push for self driving cars began, where it currently is, and where the major players hope to take it, reading this book will provide all of that information and provide it in absolute clarity for any reader, no matter their level of technical knowledge.

From the looks at DARPA and its original impetus for attempting to find a solution to this problem to the ongoing profiles of so many of the early pioneers – up to and including the August 2019 arrest of one of them for matters related to this tale – this book gives the complete picture and doesn’t seem to pull any punches in doing so. It highlights so many of the various technical challenges from sensing to actual mechanical issues to even high level philosophical arguments about how best to proceed, and explains each in such a way that most anyone can understand the basics of the issues.

So stop reading this review and go buy the dang book already. 😉

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
Continue reading “#BookReview: Driven by Alex Davies”

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#BookReview: Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny

Nothing Technically Wrong, Readers May Hate It Anyway. This is one of those books by a master storyteller that is at once too cerebral *and* too cliche. It is overall a good story, but there is so much to *not* like here. From the hard core leftist politics that get pretty damn preachy (including several anti-Trump diatribes blaming him for all the ills that have been present in this country since its Founding) to … other events of a personal nature that get too close to spoilery territory to reveal. And yet there is nothing technically wrong here. The story is well edited, it flows well within its frame, it is reasonably researched (and then flung out to left field, X-Files style – though not to a scifi level), the characters are reasonable within the boundaries described in the book (though in real life many of their actions would leave an observer scratching their heads). Ultimately there is enough here to warrant reading the story – and enough here that no matter your politics, you’re probably going to want to throw it down in disgust. And yet there is no objective “this is bad” thing to hang removal of so much as a single star on. And thus, this book is recommended.

This review of Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny was originally written on January 26, 2021.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: This Is The Voice by John Colapinto

This week we’re looking at an amazing examination of the science of the human voice. This week we’re looking at This Is The Voice by John Colapinto.

Phenomenal Discussion, Perhaps Marred by Blatant Political Preferences In The Closing Chapters. This was a truly phenomenal discussion of all things related to the human voice: its physiology, evolutionary development, and impact on all areas of human life. However, the ultimate “taste” of the book will likely be more based on whether the reader agrees with the author’s fawning over former US President Barack Obama and blatant disregard of current US President Donald Trump. Even in these sections of the book, however, where Colapinto is discussing the actual voices of the two men and how they are created and perceived, the book continues its phenomenal look at an oft-overlooked topic. The “YMMV” bit is more concerned with where the author steps away from a strict analysis of the voice and instead veers into editorializing over which man is preferred and why. Still, ultimately a well written and researched book, and very much recommended.

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#BlogTour: We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a solid Book 1 of a potential new superhero fiction series. For this blog tour, we’re looking at We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen.

This is a book that feels very much at home with the kind of superhero world the CW’s Arrowverse has built out – and indeed this world could fit in right alongside that renowned universe.

Here’s what I had to say about it on Goodreads:

My First Foray Into Superhero Books. As much as I’ve read scifi for literally decades, this is actually my first foray into the actual superhero fiction genre. Yes, I’ve read a few comic books in my day and am a big fan of most of the major franchises, but this was my very first superhero fiction novel. And y’all, I found it quite compelling – even as a 38 yo married male reading about two people closer to that Young Adult / New Adult category. While the Arrowverse inspirations for this project were quite clear in so *very* many areas, Chen still managed to create an intriguing and interesting story that could plausibly hold its own against any of those shows – and maybe even be better than some of them. This book definitely feels like a Book 1 for a potential new series, and this reader for one would be down for that. Very much recommended.

Below the jump, we have an excerpt from Chapter 3 of the book along with all of the relevant information from the publisher. 🙂
Continue reading “#BlogTour: We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen”

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#BookReview: Forgiven by Garrett Leigh

Forgive the Low Star Reviewers, For They Know Not What They Do. Apparently I had a *completely* different experience with this book than most of the other ARC readers, because while this thing wasn’t mind blowing in the slightest, it was a solid romance with a crap ton of sex, characters who both despised and loved each other, and a solid concept for at least a short series. Really, it was fairly standard ish romance – which is all that I really expected here. If you’re looking for LGBT romance, this isn’t it – and never claims it is, despite the author being more well known in that space. If you’re looking for sweet or clean or tidy… this isn’t that either. There is a lot of hard core, rough, passionate, hate filled sex – because that is the space these characters are in after the way life has treated them over the last decade, and the last thing either of them wants to be dealing with is the one that got away all those years ago. And yes, there is an out and proud gay brother – and another brother whose sexuality is less clear in this text – who will be the foci of the next book in the series. Which alone merits reading this series, as *extremely* few authors have the balls to combine different sexualities into the same series – or even write books outside a set sexuality. I’ve actually already started the other book, since I’m also reading it early – for a blog tour, in fact – and so far it continues in the same tone as the others.

Ultimately, I would’ve read this one from the hate filled reviews alone – just because when a book gets *so* heavily panned, I find myself reading it for myself just to see if indeed the hatred is warranted. It wasn’t in the most personally-famous case of me doing this (reading DIVERGENT trilogy because ALLEGIANT got this same level of hatred over its ending), and it isn’t in this book either.

This book, and so far this series, is a refreshing change of pace in so many ways, and is therefore very much recommended.

This review of Forgiven by Garrett Leigh was originally written on January 22, 2021.

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#BookReview: Palmetto Passion by Christina Benjamin

Premium Presentation. This is a solid start to a new series from Benjamin, and one that does its job of telling a compelling romance, creating a new world, and introducing the remaining series leads. The romance here is a tad trope heavy (billionaire heir questioning family legacy, woman on the run), but it works well even so. Overall a solid and fairly standard-ish Christina Benjamin Young Adult Romance – meaning if you’re open to the genre at all and haven’t read her works, this is a good place to start. If you’re a fan of hers already, you’re going to like this one as well. And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing just where the stories go next. 🙂 Very much recommended.

This review of Palmetto Passion by Christina Benjamin was originally written on January 22, 2021.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: What’s Worth Keeping by Kaya McLaren

This week we’re looking at a strong tale of often under-explored topics. This week we’re looking at What’s Worth Keeping by Kaya McLaren.

And here’s what I had to say about the book on Goodreads:

Strong Look At Often Unexplored Topics. Glancing through the other reviews (as I generally do before writing my own, fwiw), it seems that so many people miss what I happen to see as the overall point of the book: Exploring how individuals can find themselves again and discover what they feel is worth keeping in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Here, McLaren uses three primary characters: A mother who has “survived” cancer, including a mastectomy and radical hysterectomy, only to have to piece back together her sense of self and whether she is still attractive. (A battle, it seems, that the author herself went through in real life.) A father who began working as a cop in order to provide for his then-young family, and who was one of the first responders shifting through the rubble behind Timothy McVeigh trying to save as many people as possible after the bombing of the Alfred P Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City – a tragedy that still haunts him all these decades later, at the end of his career. And a daughter who learns that her mother’s cancer is to some degree hereditary, causing her to question any future she may have even as she graduates high school.

In these situations, McLaren points to tragedies and situations that are relatable to many of us, and paints a story that even across roughly 500 books read in under three years, I’ve rarely if ever seen. A story of survival (which is common, in and of itself) and of finding love (also common), but these particular wrinkles of the overall story have often been overshadowed in the stories by other, “flashier” topics.

While I am genuinely sorry that the author lived through at least some of this, I am exceedingly happy that she was able to use those real life experiences to craft this tale in this way. It is a story that needed to be told, and it is a story that needs to be read by far too many. And for that reason, it is a story that is very much recommended.

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#BookReview: The Way Out by Peter Coleman

Conflicts as Advanced Mathematics and Theoretical Astrophysics. I gotta admit, as a more “hard” science / numbers guy, when I saw that Coleman’s solution here was based in the realms of advanced mathematics and theoretical astrophysics – gravity wells, complexity theory, etc – I was astonished to see someone put into words ideas I’d long thought of in conflicts in my own life. Though the way Coleman is much more systematic and systemic about them is simply phenomenal bordering on the profound. Yes, the man is an admitted progressive and yes, some of his throw away level comments are solidly from that perspective, but if you’re of a type who would normally throw a book down in disgust just over those points alone (or if you’re the type who would do those if he were an admitted conservative making similar comments)… you’re pretty well exactly who needs to read this book anyway. 😉 Pretty spectacular, and a *needed* read pretty well right this second – I write this review at the beginning of US Presidential Inauguration Week 2021, nearly six full months before the book’s scheduled publication at the beginning of June. Something tells me the book will be at least as relevant as it currently is at that point, and you should absolutely read and strongly consider Coleman’s points as soon as you can. Very much recommended.

This review of The Way Out by Peter Coleman was originally written on January 17, 2021.