Tag: 3 1/2 Stars Page 31 of 41

by Shaun Hume
Series: Ewan Pendle, #1

Kindle Edition, 496 pg.
Popcorn & Rice Publishing, 2012

Read: August 1 – 2, 2017d

Yeah, so this is a MG Fantasy about an orphan boy with horrible foster parents being recruited to go to a private school where he’s trained in mystical arts and gets in all sorts of adventures. But it’s totally not Harry Potter. Clearly inspired by that series by Rowling — but others as well, don’t get me wrong (Riordan and Mull leap to mind as examples) — but Ewan Pendle and the White Wraith is its own thing. Every now and then its non-Harry Potterness gets in your face and is a bit distracting. At the same time, focusing on how Hume zags when Rowling zigs, or how they approach the same convention differently displays the strengths of this project while making it appealing for the reader missing the Hogwarts crew.

Ewan and the others at his school have the rare ability to see all sorts of mythical Creatures, and as such, are trained to deal with them and other exotic threats. Classic boarding school-type hijinks ensue, Ewan makes a couple of really good friends, and a few others. He and Mathilde and Enid, his two best friends, come across some information which they believe indicates that graduates, officials and at least one student are involved in an attempt to kill the Queen. They bend, break, and ignore rules to investigate and try to stop this plot.

Meanwhile, they have all sorts of interesting studies — there’s a class involving swords, one hand-to-hand combat, one involving making potions (of sorts), one involving the Creatures (of course), and things of that nature. That’s pretty fun.

The relationships between Ewan and his two closest friends, as well as those between the other students and some of the teachers are just great. I can easily see fan favorites emerging from among the student body as the series continues. There’s a couple of kids in his class that have an irrational hatred of Ewan and his friends. Those two are a little too underdeveloped now, they might as well have mustaches to twirl. It won’t take much in book 2 to develop them into something interesting.

On the whole, an entertaining, heartfelt, and quick fantasy novel that’ll please the MG crowd. The plot is solid, ditto for the characters, and the world is both familiar and foreign. I’d like book 2 to deepened everything a little, but given the worldbuilding and plotting that one had to establish that it won’t, that should be easy. Give this one a shot.

Disclaimer: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for this post and my honest opinion.

—–

3.5 Stars

Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin

By HCNewton

On July 25, 2017

In Fiction, Ian Rankin, John Rebus, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Mortal Causes

by Ian Rankin
Series: John Rebus, #6
Hardcover, 310 pg.
Minotaur Books, 1994
Read: July 15 – 18, 2017

When he’d washed his eyes last night, it had been like washing behind them as well. Always it came to this, he tried to do things by the books and ended up cooking them instead. It was easier, that was all. Where would the crime detection rates be without a few shortcuts?

Before Rebus gets to his shortcuts, he’s called to investigate a homicide. A particularly grisly one, reminiscent of some that Rebus saw in Northern Ireland when he was serving there.

It’s his familiarity with that execution that gets him loaned to a special squad also investigating the homicide, especially as it seems tied into some gun smuggling. Rebus isn’t pleased at all to be the new guy — much less, the temporary new guy — on a team, as much as he seems to appreciate some of the individuals on the team (while others make him think more fondly of Chief Inspector Lauderdale). The investigation takes him to Northern Ireland to collect some intelligence, to a dangerous neighborhood, and he brushes up against an American who’s funneling guns of all kinds to (and through) Edinburgh.

In the midst of all of this, Rebus has some drama in his personal life — nothing involving his tenants or brother, but things with Patience Aitken aren’t going as smoothly as one might want (are they ever?) — and there’s another woman who has Rebus in her sights (the guy isn’t a catch, from what I can tell — how does this happen so regularly?).

Throw in an appearance by Big Ger Cafferty while the bodies are piling up and you’ve got yourself a story.

I’m not sure why I don’t have much to say about this one. Maybe because we live on this side of the Good Friday Agreement? But that doesn’t seem to ring true. Rebus is Rebus, Clarke is Clarke, Holmes is Holmes, Farmer Watson is off the wagon, but still pushing his bad coffee . . . the new squad ha some interesting characters, but we don’t spend much time with them. There are some great and colorful characters we brush into during the investigation, too. I don’t know. I liked it, but I can’t think of anything to say beyond that.

There’s a lot to commend in this novel, from great lines like: “He’d had wrong hunches before, enough for a convention of the Quasimodo fan club”; to the wide-ranging sources of trouble for Rebus; to the horrible history and equally horrible present behind the crimes — this is a solid and haunting novel. Something about this was a little off, I’m not sure what — at least as I think back on it, it doesn’t seem as fully developed as the last two. But in the moment I was gripped. I’m not saying that this isn’t fine, I just know Rankin can do better.

—–

3.5 Stars
2017 Library Love Challenge

The Mask (Audiobook) by Taylor Stevens, Hilary Huber

By HCNewton

On July 24, 2017

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Mask

by Taylor Stevens, Hillary Huber (Narrator)
Series: Vanessa Michael Munroe, #5

Unabridged Audiobook, 13 hrs., 54 min.
Random House Audio, 2015
Read: June 1 – 6, 2017

I spent a lot of time being annoyed with Michael in this novel — more time being annoyed with Miles, however. Well, that’s not true — events keep Miles off of the board for most of the book, so let me say that I spent more time annoyed with him while he active. I get that communication is hard for them, and I guess it was good to see that Miles was human, too — even his ability to understand Michael’s needs and desires has limits.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So Michael’s got her head on right after The Catch and goes to join Miles in Japan. He’s there in a strange corporate security consulting gig that he really won’t clue her in on. They spend a few months together, him working days and her trying not to get bored and learning Japanese. The latter of those two works a whole lot better than the former. She needs something to do — and not in the “I’ve gotta kill someone or take drugs” kind of way she did back in The Vessel. She just needs something to occupy her time while he’s putting in 15 hour days. Which isn’t dong their relationship any good. Before she can have it out with him, he gets arrested for murdering someone at the tech company he’s working for. If she had tried to talk, if he’d explained himself a little better — if they had communicated at all . . . so much of this novel wouldn’t have happened. Too many books/movies/TV shows rely on this poor interpersonal communication to force plots forward, it really gets on my nerves.

First, we get a little lesson in Japanese jurisprudence, which by itself was enough to convince me that I don’t want to end up arrested in Japan (not that I really want to be arrested anywhere). Then Michael goes to work to clear his name, no one else is going to. The hoops she has to jump through make her previous adventures seem easy — sure, she was in more peril in most of the previous books, but it seemed easier for her to get around and get the information she wanted. Cultural and corporate protocols are tougher to beat by bribery, sensuality and violence than other things, I guess. Throw in some underworld figures and you’ve got yourself a thriller worthy of Monroe. I really enjoyed this story once Miles got arrested and things got moving — Stevens is getting better at plot intricacies.

There’s a great corporate espionage plot throughout with an operative that could probably sustain her own novel if Stevens ever got around to it. I’m not sure I can say more than that without messing something up. But as despicable as I find (some of) her methods, they made for good reading.

About the time that I’d given up on Michael doing more than outwitting her opponents, she got sucked into a very violent confrontation. I didn’t spend a second thinking that she was in trouble, but man, she had to work hard to eliminate these guys. There’s that scene in The Vessel where Stevens cuts away from the action, and we don’t get to see Michael kill her captives, we just know she’s about to do something and then Miles comes along later and finds the aftermath. This fight scene was probably pretty similar to that — but there’s no cut. We get the whole thing.

I should take a moment to talk about Hilary Huber, but I can’t say anything about her narration than I’ve said before. Now that I’m caught up with these, I’m going to have to track down some other books that she’s narrated.

I never expected a happily ever after scenario between Michael and Miles — but I expected something better than this (not that this is in any way, shape or form the end of their relationship), and that took some of the shine off this book for me. Otherwise, this was very entertaining, gripping, and so on — a Michael Monroe thriller that tops its predecessors, and deepens our understanding of Michael. Not much more to ask.

—–

3.5 Stars

One by One by Robert Germaux

By HCNewton

On July 20, 2017

In Book Tour, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

And so we bring this Book Tour stop to the point where the material wasn’t pre-made, here are my thoughts on the novel. Short version: I enjoyed it.

One by One

by Robert Germaux
Series: A Daniel Hays Mystery, Book 2
Kindle Edition, 342 pg.
2017
Read: July 12 – 13, 2017

Daniel Hays and his Special Assignment Squad — a Major Crimes squad set up to help smaller cities in the county around Pittsburgh — haven’t had a lot to do since being formed. That changes when the chief him Hampton Township has a strange homicide show up. He doesn’t need the help necessarily, but is concerned that the strangeness of the murder indicates that there could be something “big” coming. Another few homicides (at least) with the same strange element.

There’s a note left on the corpse, it reads “Blue is Better” and has a big, red check mark underneath. Daniel and his partner agree, they probably don’t need to be involved, but should be familiar with the investigation, just in case.

Good thing, too — because one week later in a very different part of the county, here’s another murder. With another note. Now things are getting serious and the SAS has to jump into action.

There’s no connection between the victims that they can find, no clues, no anything for them to go on. Just the notes, and repeated homicides on Fridays.

From there, we get an interesting twist or two there, some wrong turns, until after a lucky stroke, all the pieces fall together.

The characters are nice to spend time with, professionals who get along and work for the common good. They could possibly be a little more interesting if they were a little less professional, if there were a glitch or two in the teamwork. One by One falls into something like a “blue-sky” drama on TV — like NCIS, Burn Notice or White Collar, not the grittier Homicide, The Wire, or Bosch. This is not a dig at One by One to compare it to those shows — people love them, I’ve watched every episode of NCIS and enjoyed over 87% of them. But readers should go into this with eyes open — just because it’s a detective squad working multiple homicides, don’t go in expecting Michael Connelly, Owen Laukkanen, or Ian Rankin — expect Chris Grabenstein, David Rosenfelt, Aaron J. Elkins (check my archives, you’ll see that I’ve really enjoyed all those authors — again, this isn’t a knock, this is me describing where this belongs on a spectrum).

That said, Germaux could’ve given us a little more sense of urgency, had the characters seem less casual in their approach to this work. They did a lot of run of the mill, interviews with people that didn’t get them anywhere — even just showing more of that, would’ve been something. Maybe all of the smaller departments weren’t as cooperative with the task force. It wouldn’t have to be much, the book could’ve used a little something to intensify the drama. This was a good read, a light and enjoyable mystery; it’s thiiis close to me saying it’s a must read, but instead, I’ll leave it as a good read. You will enjoy it.This is a quick, easy story with a nice puzzle and some charming characters. I planned on reading the previous novel in the series, Small Talk, I just hadn’t got around to it — I’m going to work a little harder on that now.

If nothing else, read it for the recommendation on your new favorite version of “Over the Rainbow.” Wow.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my participation in the Book Tour.

—–

3.5 Stars

Saul by Bradley Horner

By HCNewton

On July 17, 2017

In Uncategorized

Saul

by Bradley Horner
Series: The Great Curve, #1
Kindle Edition, 182 pg.
2017
Read: July 13 – 14, 2017

It just wasn’t fair. This whole fucking situation was downright ironic. The last eighty years had been a non-stop panic about righting all of their ancestor’s wrongs, a comeback after the nearly complete catastrophic dieback right before the turn of the last century.

Hadn’t they’d re-seeded the plains and the oceans? They had tried to make amends, hadn’t they? And apparently, the Earth was just a tiny bit slow on the uptake if this an attempt to punish them, that no, they weren’t forgiven, and no amount of flowers would ever be accepted. It was like the Earth was out to destroy their gardens just because they’d destroyed hers.

It turns out, no matter what kind of political, economic, scientific, or social utopia you create, the natural world around you isn’t obligated to pay attention or cut you some slack.

Saul describes what Saul Rothe goes through in the 28 minutes where the Earth experiences an earthquake more widespread than anyone’s experienced, resulting in devastation I can’t describe. Saul’s basically wrapping up professorial duties for the day, chatting with his wife while she’s at work, checking on his daughter and preparing to go home when the quake hits. Basically, at this point, the infrastructure that humanity depends on fails, all of it.

Saul does everything he can to get to his daughter and ensure her safety, but just before he can, their apartment building collapses with her in it. Saul, who’s been coming from a tower far above throws himself down, following her, doing what he can to save her. Ignoring the wide-scale destruction and suffering all around him (maybe even adding too it unintentionally). To do so, he has to pull out every technological/future science trick he knows, invent a couple of new ones, violate standards, regulations, etc. By doing all this, he becomes a global celebrity and example to others — leading many to mount their own rescue attempts to save those around them from the calamity.

Clarke’s Third Law states, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We’ve all heard that a million times, and while reading this book, I realized how handy that is for SF writers (I’m sure I’m not the first to realize this). You just imagine a technology impossibly advanced, and you can use it like magic. That’s precisely what Horner does here — and it works out pretty well for him.

Saul does so many things that defy physics (well, as I understand them — apparently, Montgomery Scott was wrong, and you can change the laws of physics), especially time. I had so many notes along the lines of “too much talky-talk, and not enough rescuing here,” only to see that a couple of seconds had passed — part of the tech allows Saul and others to have long conversations about . . . . well, all sorts of things, while he falls, taking no time at all.

The world-building was amazing — it’s very easy to see, from the world he describes, the language he uses (much of which is defined in the very necessary glossary), to the technology, to . . . seriously, everything. There are very few SF novels with as fully-realized worldbuilding as Horner has pulled off here. That said, he could’ve done a better job communicating it all (or even a substantial portion of it all) to his readers. I’m not saying I need pages and pages, or even multiple paragraphs, detailing the history of why object X developed in this way. But a line or two here and there just to fill out our understandings would’ve been nice. Could I follow it enough to stick with the story? Yeah. Could I easily describe it to anyone else? No.

In the end, the SF story just wasn’t my cup of tea — I got it, well most of it, anyway — but I just didn’t like it. The Science was too abstract, too . . . “sufficiently advanced” for me to really enjoy. However, and this is the important part, the story about a father throwing everything he had at saving his daughter — not caring for his health, reputation, safety, future, or society as a whole’s health, future, safety — I absolutely liked. There are going to be scads of people that eat this up — and plenty of people that will muddle through the Science-y bits for the really good characters and story.

Give this a shot folks, it’s worth the effort — and, while I always want to hear what you have to say about a book, I’m extra curious about what others think of this one. Let’s fill up the comment section.

—–

3.5 Stars

Dark and Stars by J.B. Rockwell

By HCNewton

On July 11, 2017

In Fiction

Dark and Stars

by J.B. Rockwell
Series: Serengeti, Book 2
Kindle Edition, 406 pg.
Severed Press, 2016
Read: July 6 – 7, 2017

I could’ve done a better job of keeping track of details, but I really thought that Serengeti was on her own a longer than we’re told here. My issues aside, the important thing is that her time alone is over — her sister ships have found her and have brought her to a spaceport for repairs.

She is soon reunited with a crew, and informed about the state of the Alliance Fleet — which is worse than you might think. Following the devastating defeat in Serengeti, the Fleet turned in on itself, spending the intervening years in-fighting, neglecting its mission and the people it’s supposed to protect.

Serengeti‘s recovery has provided the motivation for some to come up with a real solution to the problems within the Fleet. The primary movers here are the ship AIs, with only a little help from the captains/crew. I’d have liked to see more action from humans that aren’t part of Serengeti‘s crew — but, honestly — I barely thought of that until after I was done with the book. Anyway, these ships have a plan that’ll take care of the problems within the Fleet and enable them all to return to what they’re supposed to be doing.

If they can just pull it off.

Next to McGuire’s Aeslin mice, I’m not sure there’s a cuter or more delightful character than Oona, the robot that was created in the last book. Not only is she adorable, she’s very, very clever. Sign me up for a novel about her. The rest of the characters — AI or human — are well-drawn, engaging, and — typically — fun. The Fleet’s admiral and the spokesman for the stealth ships are just dynamite. Maybe, just maybe, we could’ve gotten a little deeper with some of those not aligned with our friends — but the story didn’t require that.

The action is solid, the more imaginative SF aspects are told in a manner that you just buy, with little regard for plausibility or anything (I don’t know, maybe the technologies depicted are plausible). Rockwell takes the solid foundation she laid down in Serengeti and builds on it with a strong adventure story. While I enjoyed all of Serengeti, the most likeable parts were early on, when her crew was still on board. This book gives us that from start to stop (well, with a quick break), with plenty of action and intrigue. There’s still the heart, the great characters — but add in the excitement, camaraderie and intrigue, and this one tops its predecessor.

Disclaimer: I received this novel from the author in exchange for this post — I really appreciate it, but I made up my own mind about it.

—–

3.5 Stars

Death Without Company (Audiobook) by Craig Johnson, George Guidall

By HCNewton

On June 28, 2017

In Audiobook, Craig Johnson, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Walt Longmire

Death Without Company

by Craig Johnson, George Guidall
Series: Walt Longmire, #2
Unabridged Audiobook, 9 hrs. and 51 mins
Recorded Books, 2007
Read: June 7- 12, 2017

Everything to do with women is foolish, and, therefore, absolutely essential.

This novel picks up a couple of weeks after The Cold Dish, with Walt still trying to get his head on straight — and it’s not going to well. The major impetus for him now is the impending arrival of his daughter, Cady, for a visit over the holidays. There was enough of a gap between the time I read the first two installments in this series that I missed a lot of the ties that connected the two. I appreciated a lot of the little nuances this time through the novel that I’d missed the first time.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with what I said before:

The atmosphere of the book, the relationships between Vic, the Ferg, Henry, Cady and Walt are effortless, they feel like coworkers and friends. So even when the bodies start to pile up, the external pressures mount, and answers are in short supply, there’s an ease to things that make the book more entertaining than it could’ve been. Even as Sheriff, Walt still comes across as deferential and secondary to his former boss Lucian Connally (though he doesn’t hesitate to put his foot down when necessary).

When Lucian tells Walt in no uncertain terms that a death in the retirement home he lives in is not from natural causes, he has to investigate. Even if he’s not entirely convinced. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Lucian’s right — otherwise, we wouldn’t have a novel to read. Which takes Walt on a journey through the murky history of both one of Walt’s oldest friends and the area he calls home — this time with a different minority group as the focus (though the Rez and its inhabitants are always lurking around in the background).

There’s a new romantic interest in these pages — as well as a couple of new deputies for Absaroka County (the particular skill set of one of these is a bit too deus ex machina-y for my tastes, but he’s so likable, who cares?). Throw in the kind of snow storm you can only get in rural Wyoming (or areas like it) and some brushes with Indian spirituality, and you get a distinctive kind of mystery novel, making the adventures of Walt Longmire and his cohorts the kind of story you can get nowhere else. It won’t take me as long to come back to this series next time.

Guidall took awhile to grow on me in the first book — but now he’s just what Walt sounds like (I imagine when I read a Longmire book the voice in my head will be some sort of blend between Guidall and Robert Taylor). I thought he did a great job all around.

This novel took the foundation that Johnson laid and started building on it so that it could become the series we all love. I’m glad I got a chance to revisit it, and recommend those that haven’t tried it yet to come on down to Absaroka County.

—–

3.5 Stars

Collared by David Rosenfelt

By HCNewton

On June 27, 2017

In Andy Carpenter, David Rosenfelt, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, P-U

Collared

by David Rosenfelt
Series: Andy Carpenter, #16

eARC, 336 pg.
Minotaur Books, 2017

Read: June 13 – 14, 2017

I know I take dog-loving to a somewhat absurd degree, but what he just said pleases me. Someone who doesn’t care about dogs, or this one in particular, would have said, “It’s about the dog being found.” But he said Cody instead of the dog, which to me is a sign of respect and caring.

I may need to get out more.

Cody has been assumed to have been one of two victims of a kidnapping — the other was the baby the dog’s owner had recently adopted. It’s been two and a half years, with no trace of either. The mother’s ex-boyfriend and ex-employee has been convicted for the crime, on some pretty flimsy evidence. Now Cody has been left at the front door of The Tara Foundation. Naturally, once Andy is told about this, he brings in the police and the dog’s owner (a friend of Laurie’s, as coincidence would have it). The question at the front of everyone’s mind is: can the dog somehow lead to answers about her son?

Jill, the boy’s mother and Cody’s owner, asks Andy to look into this for her. Almost as soon as he begins, Andy uncovers some evidence that leads him to become Keith’s attorney and get him a retrial. Andy is pretty clueless (as is everyone) why someone would kidnap the boy and the dog (and return the dog), not to mention frame Keith for the crime. But while he can’t answer that, he can chip away at the evidence that put Keith behind bars — the only hope the boy has is that by doing so, someone may stumble on an explanation for what happened to him.

Along the way, Andy’s associate Hike has to go down to North Carolina to do a little research. While there, something happens to him — I won’t ruin anything for you, but it’s a lotta fun for people who have been around since Hike’s introduction — you will enjoy it. Laurie does what Laurie does, ditto for Marcus (who might be his most-Marcus-y here) and Sam. I do worry that Rosenfelt isn’t doing much with these characters beyond their regular heroics and chuckle-worthy antics, but we got some good Hike material this time, maybe it’ll be someone else’s turn to shine next. I don’t think the addition of Ricky to things added that much to the series, and that’s the last major change since Hike came along.

I really would’ve appreciated a little more courtroom action, but I’m not sure what else could’ve happened. It just seems like less time is being given to the courtroom lately — maybe I’m wrong. I can’t imagine that Andy would approve of someone doing the work to determine if I’m right or not — he sure wouldn’t — so let’s just assume I am.

I sound like I’m complaining about the book — that’s not really my intention. I wouldn’t expect so much from it if I wasn’t such a fan. Collared has a clever mystery, some funny moments, a nice twist or two, and we get to spend time with characters that readers have come to know and like. For a series 16 books in, that’s pretty good. Where else are you going to get a friend of the protagonist describe a potential suspect like this?

“Because Kaiser is a bad guy—-a very bad, very dangerous, very evil guy. He might even be a Cardinals fan.”

It’s a fun read — from the moment that Andy assembles the family to help him decide if he’ll renew his law license to the party at Charlie’s, Rosenfelt keeps you turning the pages with a smile on your face.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley in exchange for this post — thanks to both for this.
N.B.: As this was an ARC, any quotations above may be changed in the published work — I will endeavor to verify them as soon as possible.

—–

3.5 Stars

Love, Murder & Mayhem by Russ Colchamiro, ed.

By HCNewton

On June 22, 2017

In Book Tour, Fiction

Love, Murder & Mayhem

by Russ Colchamiro, editor

eARC, 385 pg.
Crazy 8 Press, 2017

Read: June 20 – 21, 2017

This is the strongest collection of stories that I can remember reading in the last few years — 15 stories and only 1 that didn’t work for me (it was fine, I just didn’t think it took advantage of the SF setting). I really would like to post a few paragraphs about each story — but wow, that’s too much to write and/or read. Especially when you can just go buy the book and read them instead. Each of these stories, all some sort of Science Fiction — some space opera-ish, some hard SF, some goofy, some super-hero based — involve the three things mentioned in the title: love, murder and mayhem (all of which can be interestingly defined, but they’re there). Despite knowing this about them, I wasn’t expecting some of the stories to take the turns they did — especially the murder part, which frequently showed up when I wasn’t expecting it (or at the hands of someone I didn’t expect). Check out the Spotlight post I did earlier today for more details.

So let’s focus on a couple of the standouts.

A Goon’s Tale by Kelly Meding
It was clear from the early pages of her MetaWars series that Meding knows how to write super-heroes. This story about the insurance agents that have to clean up after them, as well as Super Villains (and their goons). Nice twists and development of the characters.

The Responders by Michael Jan Friedman
So, what happens when a super-hero team breaks up? What if there’s a Yoko figure who may be at the root of it? I don’t know how many Star Trek novels by Friedman I read back in the 90’s (apparently, it was 2 — he only has 2 listed on his website, I thought the number was higher), it was nice to see that he still has that touch.

The Note on the Blue Screen by Mary Fan
I think it was this story that really clued me into the fact that this book was going to be good all the way through — a story about an android that solves mysteries, has a close connection to a human and pays tribute to A. Conan Doyle’s most famous creation worked better than I thought it would as I started it (or than it sounds as I describe it). I would absolutely read more stories about Sherlock.

As Time Goes By by Patrick Thomas This Mortal Coil by Peter David , Kathleen David , and Sean O’Shea
Simply put, there’s nothing that Peter David can’t write, and his co-authors here do a good job honing that. The super-rich and super-responsible are able to get people to sleep and dream for them to maintains high levels of productivity. Great concept and then building on that by asking, what happens when the person you dream for dreams about a murder?

DuckBob: Killer Service by Aaron Rosenberg
What happens when a souped-up version of Alexa gets absolute power. It’s funny, as well as fun and thought-provoking.

I left off my favorite from this list, because I don’t think I could keep things to just a couple of sentences. But all of these stories (well, 14 of 15) have a great hook, some great characterizations and an ending you wouldn’t be able to guess right away. Not a stinker in the batch — I expect that many readers wouldn’t agree with my disappointment with one of the stories, so I’ll go ahead and make that bold claim.

I frequently lament the length of short stories — not any of these, they are full stories, with well=established characters and worlds — I don’t need any more of them. I wouldn’t mind revisiting some of these characters in similar stories or full novels, but I didn’t object once to the length or depth. Just a really strong anthology.

Go read this.

Disclaimer – I received a copy of this book as part of my participation in the Book Tour.

—–

3.5 Stars

The Data Disruption by Michael R. Underwood

By HCNewton

On June 16, 2017

In Fiction, Genrenauts, Michael R. Underwood, Science Fiction

The Data Disruption

by Michael R. Underwood
Series: Genrenauts, #0

Kindle Edition, 68 pg.
2017

Read: May 27, 2017

It’ll come to no surprise to any of my longer-term readers that I liked this — it’s pretty established that I’m a Genrenauts fan. I dig the characters, the world(s), the type of stories Underwood’s telling — the whole kit and caboodle. This story is no exception — I liked it. This takes place just before Leah is recruited, so the team is functioning very smoothly — no growing pains needed — just King, Shireen and Roman doing their thing like seasoned pros.

It’s a pretty straight-forward, classic cyberpunk story (yeah, I’m old enough that cyberpunk can be called “classic”) — notorious hacker, D-Source, has gone missing. Which is causing all sorts of problems for the rest of his crew, and (by extension) all of Cyberpunk world as well as ours. So King and his team (minus Mallery, off in Western world) head out to save the day. They’ve worked with D-Source in the past and therefore have an easier time getting an “in” to the story in-progress. What results is a solid heist story with all the cyberpunk bells and whistles.

Underwood has been modeling this series after TV shows, and wrote this as a “lost pilot” to “serve as an introduction to the series, which I’ll use to invite more people into the worlds of Genrenauts.” Here’s my problem with that — no one watches a lost pilot until the show’s been around for a while, and usually only fans see it. No one sits down to watch “The Cage” (or the two-part version, “The Menagerie”) as an introduction to Star Trek, and for good reason. Similarly, Leah Tang is our point-of-entry character, and to remove her from the equation takes something away from the overall story. Also, there’s something that’s slowly revealed over the course of the first few books that’s just blatantly stated. I just think that works better the way that Underwood originally wrote it.

Still, Underwood knows what he’s doing, and if he thinks this will work to bring in new readers, I hope he’s right.

Putting that aside, I’m supposed to be talking about the story, not Underwood’s plans. The story worked really well. It was a little too short for me — but it’s supposed to be short, so I shouldn’t complain. Besides, I almost always complain about short story length — even I’m tired of that. While the story was told in its fullness, I just would’ve liked to see everything fleshed out a little more — also, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with my friends. Fast, fun, with good action — celebrating what makes a cyberpunk story work — and winking at the genre at the same time.

Still, any time with the ‘Nauts works for me. Good story, decent intro to this series that I can’t stop recommending — and a great price (free). Still, reading this after the sixth book would be my recommendation after starting with The Shootout Solution.

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3.5 Stars