Tag: adventure

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#BookReview: Improbably Yours by Kerry Anne King

Get Lost In The Wonder. This is another Kerry Anne King book where she manages to take a delightfully flawed protagonist and spin a tale of wonder (and wander) around her. Set in the apparently lovely (if all the house buying shows I’ve watched on Discovery+ are to be believed, I’ve never been within 1,000 miles of the location) San Juan Islands of Washington State, this book shows off a small island town bound to its tourism cycle remarkably well. Along the way we get a touch of a pair of romances, some mysterious-yet-light happenings, a pair of tragedies, and a treasure hunt to end all treasure hunts. Truly a great tale of adventure and finding yourself in unexpected places. Very much recommended.

This review of Improbably Yours by Kerry Anne King was originally written on October 15, 2022.

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#BookReview: Emerald Dragon by David Wood

Solid And Short Maddock Adventure Perfect For Longtime Fans And People New To The Universe. Much like Golden Dragon a couple of books prior to this one, this is another short adventure – though at 120 pages, it is nearly double the length of Golden Dragon. It also has seemingly slightly fewer connections and references to other pars of the Maddock universe, though it has several connections to Golden Dragon – which is why readers should make sure they read that book first. (Seriously, buy both and you’ll likely finish both while waiting at the doctor’s office. :D) Here, we’re in Ireland and when you’re studying cryptids and ancient mysteries in Ireland… you get St. Patrick. And dragons. And lots of green stuff. And pagans. And old libraries and castles and crypts. When you’re *Maddock and Bones* virtually anywhere, you know there are going to be fun chase and hand to hand combat sequences, with a few guns going off here and there to boot and maybe some interesting mystical objects that turn out to be weapons of various forms. So pick this book up, have a couple of hours of relaxation and fun… and then go back to whatever awaits you in the “real” world, happier now that you’ve had the break. Very much recommended.

This review of Emerald Dragon by David Wood was originally written on September 2, 2022.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: Extremophile by Rick Chesler

This week we’re looking at arguably the closest Rick Chesler has come to date of telling a tale one would nearly swear could have been written by the late great Michael Crichton. This week, we’re looking at Extremophile by Rick Chesler.

Here’s what I had to say on Goodreads:

Welcome To Our Ool. Notice There Is No “P” In It. Seriously though, after reading this book you’re never going to look at getting into a pool the same again – and certainly will be particularly careful about any sudden urges to just urinate in one. 😉 Overall a very fun, nearly Crichton-esque, adventure tale of a biotech CEO desperate to save his company and willing to go literally anywhere in the world to do so. And that ending. It won’t be for everyone, but dayum I loved it. Great, fun near future scifi adventure and a relatively short read at 230 ish pages. Perfect for a bit of summer thrills and escapism. Very much recommended.

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#BookReview: Deep Green by Rick Chesler

Breathless Adventure With A Ripped-From-The-Headlines Hook. This is one of those adventure tales that doesn’t sound like it would be an adventure tale… until you read it and realize it is an adventure tale. 😀 Ostensibly, this is a near-future tale of the race to find a full-on *cure* for COVID-19. Not just a drug or vaccine to alleviate some symptoms, but an actual cure for the disease. Along the way, we get quite a bit of real-world commentary smoothly rolled into the overall plot so that even while it really *is* kind of preachy… it doesn’t actually *feel* like it is kind of preachy. There is quite a bit within these sections that some readers will be more familiar with than others, but which anyone outside of academia generally and Big Pharma specifically will likely learn a touch about how things actually work. Which is always interesting to see in fiction. Ultimately the single star deduction here was not for the quality of the tale – it really was excellent – but instead because Chesler uses the race for a *COVID-19* cure, rather than literally any other disease. It is an excellent attempt to tap into the current zeitgeist (though one might argue a race for a cure would have been even more buzzworthy in 2021, prior to full vaccine rollouts), but I am waging a personal war against any book that mentions COVID for any reason at all, and the automatic one star deduction is really the only tool at my disposal in this war. Very much recommended.

This review of Deep Green by Rick Chesler was originally written on May 6, 2022.

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#BookReview: Eden Quest by David Wood

Tropical Adventure Turns Mystical / Fantasy. This is one of the rare books from Wood (in this series, he does have a pen name that is more pure fantasy) that has any level of actual fantasy in it, and even here it is more of a mystical bent that *could* be read as more scifi – though it is certainly on that boundary, in a similar place as roughly half of Ted Dekker’s Circle Quadrilogy.

What starts out as a tropical vacation quickly turns into a race to find and obtain priceless artifacts which leads to the mystical/ fantasy payoff – meaning that prior to the fantasy section, this is a pretty standard Maddock Adventures book, with the usual elements – various people showing up from prior adventures, Bones showing up where he isn’t “supposed” to be, Bones wise cracking and cracking bones, Maddock outsmarting most everyone and being all chivalrous while doing so, etc. The things that long time fans know and love, but done in a way such that newer readers won’t be lost – but will be enticed to go back and read about these prior adventures with the various connections.

Overall a fun and quick – just under 200 page – read, and thus a good actual beach read. 😀 Very much recommended.

This review of Eden Quest by David Wood was originally written on May 16, 2022.

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#BookReview: Golden Dragon by David Wood

Another Great (And Short) Maddock Adventure Perfect For Longtime Fans And People New To The Universe. This book is pretty much exactly what I said in the title here – long time fans are going to enjoy this new Maddock tale, and at not quite 70 pages it is about as minimal an investment as it gets for people looking for a new world to explore. And if you do like it… there are a LOT of books to read after this one, including several adventures referenced within this tale with varying degrees of spoilers (for those concerned with such things). Fun, satisfying, and quick ride -the literary equivalent of a theme park rollercoaster, in other words. 😉 Very much recommended.

This review of Golden Dragon by David Wood was originally written on February 18, 2022.

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#BookReview: The Anomaly by John Sneeden

Fun Read That Veers Close To Christian Fiction. This is another quick and fun adventure/ scifi read that long time fans of this series will enjoy, and yet still works on an “episode” basis for even new readers to come into the series. (Fairly minimal connective tissue here to prior books. This is mostly a Zane tale with a couple of appearances from Carmen.) The action mostly revolves around a possible mole in the mission, with a bit of creature feature thrown in to pay off the build up to that very event – and the ending seems to set the next book in the series directly in motion. A couple of characters in particular have conversations almost never seen outside of a church, weekly church attendee gatherings, or Christian Fiction books, but those are generally no more than a page or two, and likely barely 5 pages – of the 308 here – contain these discussions. So if you’re someone who is hyper-opposed to such talk for whatever reason, know up front that it is here… but also know up front that it is nowhere near a main focus of the story, and can be fairly easily glossed over the few times it does come up. Overall a great new episode in a truly excellent series. Very much recommended.

This review of The Anomaly by John Sneeden was originally written on November 11, 2021.

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#BookReview: Alamo Gold by David Wood

Another Fun Bonebrake Conspiracy / Action Tale. Secret societies. Texas history. Haunted graveyards. A Knight’s Tale reference. Battle inside a Duck Boat. And even some cave diving to boot. Seriously… what more do you want in 120 pages of fun action/ adventure? This one has it all, including a couple of hot/ steamy scenes… both in the naked sense and the literal one. 😉 Another wild romp, this time through a fair swath of Texas, and featuring Bones’ usual witty banter and bone-shattering physicality. Very much recommended.

This review of Alamo Gold by David Wood was originally written on August 27, 2021.

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#BookReview: The Last Monument by Michael C Grumley

Excellent Adventure Starter. For those who like their adventures to be Indiana Jones type – including both going into the jungle and facing down Nazis – well, have I got a book for you. This combines that basic style with Grumley’s usual science/ science fiction bent to produce much more nuanced characters who have much bigger personal stakes than his “breakthrough” series, to great effect in the closing moments. About the only negative is that the final confrontation… isn’t really there. At least not what could have been the *really* cool parts. Still, while I’m not as intrigued about this new series as I was in BREAKTHROUGH by the end of its first book, I definitely want to see where Grumley goes with this. Very much recommended.

This review of The Last Monument by Michael C Grumley was originally written on August 1, 2021.

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#BookReview: Legends by David Wood

Action Packed Quick Hits. This is a collection of short stories and a novella that work well to both allow long time fans of the series to have a bit more fun reading about the team’s adventures (mostly alone or with just Maddock and Bones) and to allow new readers a chance to sample the overall style of the universe without necessarily committing to an entire book to get a complete story. Overall truly a fun, quick read and great for when you maybe only have a few minutes at a time to read.

A note for those familiar with Wood’s other recent book, SERPENT: VENOM is the novella here, which features the same creature as SERPENT… except it is the same creature in name only. The entire characterization of the creature, from the way it looks to the way it behaves to the secrets behind it, are entirely different between the two tales, and indeed really the only similarities at all are that Bones is in both, they are both set in the same general place on the planet, and they feature a giant snake they both use the same name to denote. So don’t be afraid to read *both* stories. 😀

Excellent collection, and very much recommended.

This review of Legends by David Wood was originally written on December 16, 2020.