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LITERARY LOCALS: A Q&A About Writing in Idaho with Taylor R. Gray

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On November 28, 2023

In A Few Quick Questions With..., Literary Locals

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It’s time for the next (and hopefully not last) Q&A I arranged after the Boise Library! Book Faire. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Before we get into things, why don’t you give the reader a brief introduction to you and your work.
My name is Taylor Gray and I’m a software engineer turned author. I’ve always had an interest in sci-fi, fantasy, and superheroes since childhood. My urge to write stories first began in high school when my friends and I would pass around a notebook to write our own sci-fi fantasy story. Since then, I had been writing off and on, primarily focusing on my profession. Finally, in 2019, I decided to dedicate the time to sit down and finish my first novel which became the first book in the Trials of Incomplete Heroes series. Every book in that series is entirely self published. In 2022, I finally landed the attention of a publisher and, as of this year, published Mercury Snow.

Trials of Incomplete Heroes is available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L9J28Z4

Mercury Snow is available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Snow-Taylor-R-Gray/dp/1961093057 or Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mercury-snow-taylor-r-gray/1143603816

I do have a Facebook page for my books here: https://www.facebook.com/TrialsOIH

Are you a native Idahoan? What is it about Idaho that keeps you here?
I’m a native Idahoan, born and raised in Boise. In my high school years, I used to hike around the White Cloud mountains and camp at various lakes. The varied landscape of Idaho is fascinating. We have mountains, forests, deserts, lakes, rivers, etc… We just don’t have an Ocean. Why leave when I could have any scenery I wanted in this state already? Also, at heart, I’m a homebody who doesn’t like crowds or travel.

That last sentence sums up my primary reason for sticking around, too. 🙂

Why risk going somewhere you might not like to deal with crowds if you don’t have to. Idaho is a perfectly fine place to be. 🙂

Are you tied into some sort of local author/bookish group/culture? If so, tell us about it and how it helps you as an author. If you’re not, is there a reason for it?
In terms of local author groups, no. I am, however, a part of an author group through my publisher and we still meet at least once a month online. In the past, I attempted to join a few Facebook groups which I don’t think exist anymore. I was also going to form an in person group with a few local friends, but none of us ever got around to it. As both a software engineer and an introvert, joining or creating social groups is outside my expertise.

That’s a good point—particularly post-COVID, an online group seems like a no-brainer. Is this a critique group, a mutual encouragement time, or something else?
My publisher calls it a “mastermind” group where various other authors under this publisher get together to read segments of what they’re working on. The goal is to provide feedback from the standpoint of a reader such as:

  • How did this segment make you feel?
  • What questions did it leave you with?
  • What narrative or plot loops did it open that need closing in the future?
  • Did it make sense?

It’s effectively a group to workshop your books.

What kind of events in the area do you attend—either to sell/promote your books or to network with authors? Are there any outside of this area that you hit regularly and wish we had something like it here?
The Boise Book Fair was really the first real event of this sort I’ve attended. In terms of other events, I’m in talks with my publisher for some online events at their discretion. In terms of events that I would like to see, it seems as though the online interview/podcast is becoming increasingly more valuable. Having videos on Youtube of recorded zoom or discord interviews of various people seems to be popular these days.

So, did the Library’s Faire live up to expectations? That is, if you had any. Did you learn (from your experience or talking to others) what to do more of or not to do at your next event? In general, what was your experience like?
I didn’t really know what to expect from the Book Fair. Part of me expected more people to show up and more books to be sold. I gathered from others a the event that this was typical of these events where most of the interactions are just to spark interest. Most people will take a card or a flyer, but will rarely walk out with a book at that time. As long as information on my book gets out there, I’ll be satisfied. I vastly oversubscribed on the number of books and cards to bring. However, I now have the supplies for other events. I would also like to have too much of something rather than not enough.

The fact that I have two different pen names, one for my self published series and one for my traditionally published book, also seemed to hamper me. People would walk up to me and want to talk to me about Mercury Snow, then want to talk to my assistant about my self-published books, believing he was T.G. This was not their fault as I separated things out and his chair was directly behind the Trials of Incomplete Heroes section. In the future, I will have to do a better job of making it clear both T. G. and Taylor R. Gray are me.

The other thing I learned was how important it is to have non-cash payment methods. It was only at the last minute I decided to have a Venmo option for payment. Venmo accounted for half of my two total sales. Several other people had card readers which is something I’ll need to invest in if I continue to do these sorts of events. In general, I’d say it was a good experience.

What’s the breakdown of your audience—do you have a strong local base, or are your readers from other parts of the world?
The vast majority of my audience at this point in time is local to Idaho. I am making sales (numbered in single digits) worldwide including a few from the United Kingdom and even India.

Have you gotten any feedback from the UK or India? Any idea how you’re received overseas (by the ones of readers you have or otherwise)?
One of those sales was from a coworker I work with in my Software Engineering job, so the feedback is biased. Amazon doesn’t give me a clear view of where ratings come from, just that I have ratings. Feedback in general is positive.

Do you think there are particular challenges or advantages to being a writer in the Treasure Valley? (possibly both)
I do think that one of the disadvantages to being a writer in the Treasure Valley has to do with finding a decent publisher. Most publishers are in New York or California these days or in large cities. In the online era this isn’t necessarily an issue until you realize you’re competing with celebrities and everyone else in those areas for the publisher’s attention. When you do find a publisher that will talk to you, they often want to insert New York or California ideas/ideals into your story. There’s also fewer people in a place like Idaho when compared to New York or California. I myself enjoy having empty spaces and fewer people and crowds around. However, more people also means more customers.

I do think there are also advantages to being a Treasure Valley writer. We experience most weather patterns and have varied landscapes we’re familiar with to pull from as settings for our own works. There’s also plenty of space to get away to think and write if we need to. Another interesting feature of the Treasure Valley is we have both a decently large city in Boise and extensive farmlands. It’s easy to gain perspective for both rural and urban lifestyles, often within a short walk from each other.

That second paragraph brings up a few things that no one else in this series has mentioned and is a great way to look at it.
Idaho has plenty of advantages for an introvert who doesn’t like crowds like me. If you were to ask me if I’d prefer to live in a city in New York or California so I could have a better publisher, I’d say no. I’ll stay here every time. Even presuming I could make millions in big cities, I’d be miserable there.

Do you bring Idaho (or some sort of Idaho-sensibility, assuming one exists) to your work? Whether or not anyone else sees it, can you look at some aspect of your writing and think “That’s Idaho” or “I would do ____ differently if I was a Kentuckian or from Illinois?”
It’s difficult to say. I don’t base my stories in Idaho and I try to write so anyone anywhere can understand and enjoy it. If I were to point to something that is directly inspired by Idaho is probably the varied landscapes within my stories. The main character in Trials of Incomplete Heroes is from a middle sized town surrounded by open fields and forests. Much of the action also takes place in a larger city near a mountain range and a sprawling woodland. It’s also possible my main characters have more of a Midwestern/Idaho attitude and moral compass. As an example, in both Trials of Incomplete Heroes and Mercury Snow, the protagonists don’t swear and they try to be polite and hospitable where possible.

One final question, is there a book (or two…or 18, if you get really carried away), that embodies Idaho/the Idaho spirit to you to recommend to my readers?
To be honest, I don’t really read or write through that lens. Most things I enjoy and write are science fiction or fantasy which could feasibly take place anywhere.

However, my uncle, Dale M. Gray, is also an author and an archaeologist who is fairly familiar with Idaho and the surrounding area. He has written two books that may be interesting to your audience.

His first book is about the history of the Cathedral Pines campground in Idaho titled, A Holy Place in Idaho: A Centennial History of Idaho’s First Church Camp. It can be purchased from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578474069

His second book is about his life and various adventures as an archaeologist in the area titled, The Zen of Dale: Tales of a Free-Range Historian. It is also on Amazon and can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVPLD4B7

Cathedral Pines played a big role in my early years, I’m definitely going to pick that up. You should get your uncle to give you a commission.
I’ll be sure to tell him to remember who his favorite nephew is this Christmas. 😉

Thanks for your time and participation! Hope you enjoyed it!

Be sure to check out the work of T. G. and Taylor R. Gray and see if anything sparks your interest (I’ll be at least dabbling in both ASAP).

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Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty: Not the Sequel I Expected, but the Sequel we Needed

By

On November 13, 2023

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

Chaos TerminalChaos Terminal

by Mur Lafferty

DETAILS:
Series: The Midsolar Murders, #2
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 384 pg.
Read Date: November 3-9, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s Chaos Terminal About?

A contingent of humans is about to arrive on Eternity—a mix of scholars wanting to interact with all the alien races on board, a couple of tourists, a couple of spies, the detective who had Mallory in his sights for years, and the new ambassador to Eternity. Sadly, they arrive at a bad time—Mrs. Brown, the new host for the sentient space station has left for some training on how to be a better host, leaving Eternity functional, but not optimally so. Mallory has been left as the primary contact for Eternity (which only Mrs. Brown and Eternity seem to think was the right choice)—but she’s not quite herself once these humans arrive.

Now, as is wont to happen around Mallory, one of this group is murdered. Something is going on with the Sundry that no one can quite understand. The Gneiss outside of Eternity aren’t happy with what Tina and Stephanie did in the concluding chapters of the last book—and just might attack the station to express their displeasure. Oh, and among the newly-arrived humans are two people Mallory has had zero contact with for years—her High School BFF, Amy, and Amy’s brother, Parker. Parker is Mallory’s long-lost unrequited love, and it’s pretty clear that he’s never really put the torch he carries for her down anywhere.

Adrian

After what happened to him in Station Eternity (and what he did before that), I really thought we were done with the former ambassador, Adrian. Alas, I was wrong—he’s still around. For a guy who’s not a villain or a real antagonist, he’s really unpleasant as a character. I really wish he was something other than “the annoying human on the station.”

He’s toned down a little bit after his recent experiences, but at his heart, he’s still an arrogant twit who doesn’t contribute much of worth to anyone. At least that I can tell. I really hope that now that his replacement is on board he decides to head back to earth.

(or, fine, Lafferty does something really interesting with him in the next book would be preferable to losing him—she really didn’t this time out—but it’d have to be quite interesting not to get on my nerves)

The Killer

I want to start out by saying that I really don’t have sympathy for the killer and think things wrapped up justly for them (that’s a fairly spoiler-free way to put it, I think).

But once it was revealed what led up to the murder—and how things spiraled out of control afterward—I kind of felt bad for them. They were unknowingly wrapped up in things and fell victim to bad assumptions because of that. Yes, their reactions were utterly wrong—but I can understand how they got to the point where murder seemed like a solution. That understanding lasted until they started taking the next steps to cover up the crime and everything that ensued.

I do appreciate that Lafferty set things up that way for the killer—the alien cultures, the intrigue around the killer and the trip to Eternity, and the least-sympathetic murder victim I remember reading this year—help the reader to be ambivalent about the killer’s actions (at least initially). Not enough writers do that.

So, what did I think about Chaos Terminal?

The one thing I wish Lafferty had done differently was the humor in this book. Not that Station Eternity was a yuk-fest by any means, but there was a fairly steady stream of humor throughout—either in character moments, misunderstandings between the aliens and humans, or just the preposterous nature of Mallory’s abilities and what she did with them. The humor in Chaos Eternity was almost entirely centered on Tina. She was a walking, talking (and/or yelling) embodiment of chaos and slapstick. So much so that it started to be too much a few times (but Tina and Lafferty won me over each time I was tempted to give up).

I do wish Xan had a little more to do, too. But he was integral to so much of the plot, but not in an overt way—I remember him playing a bigger role in Station Eternity than he did here. He was almost as important as Mallory before, and he was demoted to the fourth-most integral character. Here’s hoping that’s not a permanent thing.

While I was engaged, very curious, and entertained throughout—I wasn’t having as much fun as I did with Station Eternity and I will admit I wondered if I misjudged the other book. Then two things happened—1. Mallory and Parker had a good conversation where they both communicated* and 2. The killer was revealed. After that (or in the midst of that) everything clicked into place and almost everything that had me on the fence about this book went away.

* There was nothing wrong with the scenes earlier where they failed to actually communicate, both were distracted, unsure if they could trust the other, getting over baggage, and thinking they could delay the conversation.

I did say “almost everything” there. I’m not wholly on-board with everything Lafferty was doing. I really haven’t had as much time to think about this book as I wanted to between the time I finished and the time I wrote this post—I assume that if I had, a lot of what I’m uncertain about would make sense to me. I really don’t understand some of the relationships in this book, why some of the interpersonal conflicts existed, and just why Lafferty decided to take up so much space with all that. However, most of that provided a couple of red herrings—or at least things that distracted Mallory from what she needed to focus on—which was likely a large part of the point. It could be as simple as Lafferty was using everything possible to add to the titular chaos.

None of this detracts from everything that (eventually) worked about the novel, but it keeps me from raving about it. It’s not really what I expected from this sequel—and that’s such a good thing. What happens in the last few chapters ensures that Book 3 won’t be anything like this or Station Eternity. I’m not sure what’s going to happen—nor am I going to bother trying to guess (although it’s probably safe to assume that a new group of humans will visit Eternity and one of them will be murdered). I will trust Lafferty to come through with a satisfying conclusion however.

And, boy howdy, did this conclusion satisfy. Everything was wrapped up fairly nicely—those things that weren’t really only served to set things in motion for Book 3.

As the dust settled with the book’s events—and as the dust settles in my mind about those events and Lafferty’s plotting—I’m left satisfied and impressed with the way it all went down. I had my doubts, but they were quelled and assuaged, leaving me able to say that those who enjoyed Station Eternity would do well to pick this up—more importantly, those who like a good mystery in an even better SF setting, in the years soon following First Contact should grab both books in this series and prepare for something great next year (or so).

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.

4 Stars
This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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PUB DAY REPOST: Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama, Jeffrey Angles (Translator): Obliterating Everything, Incinerate a Renegade

By

On October 3, 2023

In Fiction, Science Fiction

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainGodzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

by Shigeru Kayama, Jeffrey Angles (Translator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication Date: October 03, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 256 pg.
Read Date:  September 18-20, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

The Background of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

The movie producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, brought some ideas (largely adopted from a Ray Bradbury story) to the novelist, Shigeru Kayama, and asked him to turn them into a story for a film. This story, in turn, was developed into a screenplay by Ishirō Honda and Takeo Murata (the director and assistant director) and became the movie Godzilla.

Godzilla was such a success that Tanaka had Kayama come up with a follow-up story, that became Godzilla Raids Again (although Godzilla Counterattacks is a better translation, that’s not what the movie’s title was originally titled in English).

About that time, Kayama was done with the movies and what they were doing to his idea about the monster—but he was helping to launch a series of books for young adult readers and adapted his original ideas for the movies into novellas for that series. These novellas came out around the time of the second movie’s release. Now, they’re being translated into English for the first time.

What’s Godzilla About?

The testing of some nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean has disturbed a long-dormant dinosaur/monster. Not only is it now awake, it may have mutated by the bomb(s). Angry and confused, it stumbles onto the Japanese islands and wreaks havoc on the people and cities it encounters.

The beast kills and destroys multitudes and seems invincible to every weapon that the nation has access to. But one scientist has been developing a new kind of weapon, that he doesn’t trust any government to have access to—but he might be forced to unveil it to stop Godzilla.

What’s Godzilla Raids Again About?

It was theorized when Godzilla showed up in the first novella that he might not be the sole monster/dinosaur/kaiju to have been awakened by the tests. A pair of pilots* working for a fishing company stumble upon another Godzilla on an island near Japan—while they’re trying to escape from that Godzilla, it’s attacked by another monster/dinosaur/kaiju, later identified as an Anguirus. The two pilots manage to escape following the fight between the two monsters.

* One of those pilots is named Kobayashi, and any good Star Trek fan knows bad things are about to happen as soon as that name is seen.

They rush back to warn the Anti-Godzilla Task Force who begin to strategize a defense against the monster—they cannot access the same weapon used last time, so they’re going to have to come up with something better, and quickly.

The Supplementary Materials

In addition to the novellas, the book has some additional material—the first (and most useful) is an Afterword, “Translating an Icon,” by the translator (obviously). These 30± pages contained answers to almost every question I had while reading—including a few things that I think would’ve been helpful knowing going into the book (the relation of the novellas to the films, the extent of Kayama’s involvement with the creation of Godzilla, why he published the novellas, etc.).

But there’s a lot of information that I’m glad I didn’t know going in—the critique of the U.S. nuclear testing, why it had to be so subtle, why the films didn’t include it as much as the novellas did, where (and why, sometimes) the films and novellas diverge, and the meaning of some of the more emotional moments. There were points where it was clear that something important or meaningful had happened, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was—Angles helped a lot.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in a perfect world (at least perfect for me), we’d have gotten a foreword as well the afterword—but like just about every writer out there, Angles wasn’t writing to satisfy my whims. And as an Afterword, he could really get into spoilers and things it’s best to have explained after the text.

The whole thing was so interesting I could’ve easily read something twice the length (and something tells me that Angles could’ve done that without much effort, it was probably harder for him to leave out ideas and details). The part I enjoyed the most was his discussion of a few translation issues, for example, the excessive (for a contemporary English reader, anyway) use of onomatopoeias throughout the book—but particularly in the battle scenes, or scenes when Godzilla is angry and taking it out on human structures and devices. Those pages read like the Batman TV series from 1966—full of Bams, Pows, and the like. And Angles describes how he cut many of them by translating them somewhat differently. He also discussed how he chose to spell the roars of Godzilla and Anguirus, and I really enjoyed that.

There were some things that he wanted to do a more accurate job of translating, but given the history fans have with the films, etc. he chose to stay consistent with the films, so he wouldn’t have to fend off accusations of bad work from those fans. I absolutely get why he’d make that choice, and feel so bad for him that he had to make it.

I’d noticed that there was a Glossary of Names, Places, and Ideas at the end of the book, but completely forgot to use it while reading the novellas. I don’t know that using it would’ve helped me too much during the reading—almost always the context was clear enough to get the meaning across. But reading it afterward helped clarify a thing or two, but by and large, those were minor details that not knowing them didn’t detract much from the text. The things I really needed (and some I could’ve guessed at) were in the handful of footnotes throughout the novellas. The Glossary was pretty interesting to read, I should note.

So, what did I think about Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again?

Before I get into this, I want to take a moment to say how cool it was to get to read a book about Godzilla. From the time I can remember this monster has been something I’ve been aware of in some way. The old movies, cartoons about him (and his goofy nephew, Godzooky), the toys, the newer movies, and everything in between. He’s just been one of the coolest creatures in my pop culture awareness—there’ve been few times that I’ve clicked on “Request” so hard on NetGalley. Now, I do have to admit, it’s been decades since I watched the original films—I’m much more familiar with the Gamera movies than Godzilla. So I had to wait until the Afterword to know what was different between what I was reading and what audiences saw in the 50s (it was certainly different enough from the Emmerich movie from 1998, that I remember more of than I want to).

I did think some of the dialogue was pretty stilted, and some of the character reactions seemed overwrought (and some underwrought). It actually reminded me a lot of the Gamera films and other English-dubbed live-action shows/movies I’ve watched—and while reading the book, I frequently thought that I owed those who wrote the scripts for the dubbing an apology—their work felt a lot like Angles’ translation. I don’t think that the dialogue or characterizations damaged my appreciation of the work, it just underlined for me that this is the work of another culture (and another time). So they’d better not sound like native English speakers, and should probably act/react in ways that don’t seem particularly American. What might be slightly off-putting at first quickly becomes part of the charm of the novellas.

The intended audience for these novellas were young adults, and throughout Kayama would insert asides “You may not understand…” or “You’ve probably seen something like…” to help his reader understand what’s going on, or perhaps the feeling behind it. The first time it happened, it was entirely unexpected, but I enjoyed the idea. I liked each successive one more than the last and was disappointed that we didn’t get nearly as many as I’d hoped. I don’t know if this was characteristic of his writing (I suspect it wasn’t), but for these novellas, it really worked.

We don’t see Godzilla right away, and Kayama did a great job of building the tension until we do—he’s there, doing damage and terrifying people, but the reader doesn’t get an idea of what they’re seeing until we’re about one-third of the way through the first novella. As impatient as I was to see the monster myself, I wish he’d been able to hold out a little longer. Now in the second book, we know what Godzilla looks like, so we can skip the build-up and throw him in right away—and then add Anguirus just a couple of pages later.

I found everything about Godzilla more satisfying than Godzilla Raids Again, but the latter was more fun and action-packed. I can see where some might be put off by the not-at-all-subtle messaging of Godzilla, but I thought it fit the story and the need at the time.

The Afterword and Glossary added a lot to my understanding and appreciation of what Kayama was seeking to accomplish and say, lifting the impact of the book as a whole. The novellas on their own would’ve been entertaining and satisfying, mostly as an artifact of another era (see what I said about the dialogue and characterizations)—but the supplementary material added the necessary context and definition to the novellas so that I walked away with a better understanding and appreciation for the book. Don’t skip those bits.

I’ve said a lot more than I expected to—and have only scratched the surface of what I’d hoped to say. So let me cut to the chase—I really enjoyed this experience—fun novellas, a deeper understanding of the creature and the themes the original movie was trying to explore, and a glimpse into Japan of the 1950s. And, once again, it’s a book about Godzilla, do you really need me to say more? I heartily encourage you to check this book up. Now, I’ve got to go track down some black-and-white films.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from University of Minnesota Press via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.

4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama, Jeffrey Angles (Translator): Obliterating Everything, Incinerate a Renegade

By

On September 25, 2023

In Fiction, Science Fiction

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainGodzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

by Shigeru Kayama, Jeffrey Angles (Translator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication Date: October 03, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 256 pg.
Read Date:  September 18-20, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

The Background of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again

The movie producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, brought some ideas (largely adopted from a Ray Bradbury story) to the novelist, Shigeru Kayama, and asked him to turn them into a story for a film. This story, in turn, was developed into a screenplay by Ishirō Honda and Takeo Murata (the director and assistant director) and became the movie Godzilla.

Godzilla was such a success that Tanaka had Kayama come up with a follow-up story, that became Godzilla Raids Again (although Godzilla Counterattacks is a better translation, that’s not what the movie’s title was originally titled in English).

About that time, Kayama was done with the movies and what they were doing to his idea about the monster—but he was helping to launch a series of books for young adult readers and adapted his original ideas for the movies into novellas for that series. These novellas came out around the time of the second movie’s release. Now, they’re being translated into English for the first time.

What’s Godzilla About?

The testing of some nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean has disturbed a long-dormant dinosaur/monster. Not only is it now awake, it may have mutated by the bomb(s). Angry and confused, it stumbles onto the Japanese islands and wreaks havoc on the people and cities it encounters.

The beast kills and destroys multitudes and seems invincible to every weapon that the nation has access to. But one scientist has been developing a new kind of weapon, that he doesn’t trust any government to have access to—but he might be forced to unveil it to stop Godzilla.

What’s Godzilla Raids Again About?

It was theorized when Godzilla showed up in the first novella that he might not be the sole monster/dinosaur/kaiju to have been awakened by the tests. A pair of pilots* working for a fishing company stumble upon another Godzilla on an island near Japan—while they’re trying to escape from that Godzilla, it’s attacked by another monster/dinosaur/kaiju, later identified as an Anguirus. The two pilots manage to escape following the fight between the two monsters.

* One of those pilots is named Kobayashi, and any good Star Trek fan knows bad things are about to happen as soon as that name is seen.

They rush back to warn the Anti-Godzilla Task Force who begin to strategize a defense against the monster—they cannot access the same weapon used last time, so they’re going to have to come up with something better, and quickly.

The Supplementary Materials

In addition to the novellas, the book has some additional material—the first (and most useful) is an Afterword, “Translating an Icon,” by the translator (obviously). These 30± pages contained answers to almost every question I had while reading—including a few things that I think would’ve been helpful knowing going into the book (the relation of the novellas to the films, the extent of Kayama’s involvement with the creation of Godzilla, why he published the novellas, etc.).

But there’s a lot of information that I’m glad I didn’t know going in—the critique of the U.S. nuclear testing, why it had to be so subtle, why the films didn’t include it as much as the novellas did, where (and why, sometimes) the films and novellas diverge, and the meaning of some of the more emotional moments. There were points where it was clear that something important or meaningful had happened, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was—Angles helped a lot.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that in a perfect world (at least perfect for me), we’d have gotten a foreword as well the afterword—but like just about every writer out there, Angles wasn’t writing to satisfy my whims. And as an Afterword, he could really get into spoilers and things it’s best to have explained after the text.

The whole thing was so interesting I could’ve easily read something twice the length (and something tells me that Angles could’ve done that without much effort, it was probably harder for him to leave out ideas and details). The part I enjoyed the most was his discussion of a few translation issues, for example, the excessive (for a contemporary English reader, anyway) use of onomatopoeias throughout the book—but particularly in the battle scenes, or scenes when Godzilla is angry and taking it out on human structures and devices. Those pages read like the Batman TV series from 1966—full of Bams, Pows, and the like. And Angles describes how he cut many of them by translating them somewhat differently. He also discussed how he chose to spell the roars of Godzilla and Anguirus, and I really enjoyed that.

There were some things that he wanted to do a more accurate job of translating, but given the history fans have with the films, etc. he chose to stay consistent with the films, so he wouldn’t have to fend off accusations of bad work from those fans. I absolutely get why he’d make that choice, and feel so bad for him that he had to make it.

I’d noticed that there was a Glossary of Names, Places, and Ideas at the end of the book, but completely forgot to use it while reading the novellas. I don’t know that using it would’ve helped me too much during the reading—almost always the context was clear enough to get the meaning across. But reading it afterward helped clarify a thing or two, but by and large, those were minor details that not knowing them didn’t detract much from the text. The things I really needed (and some I could’ve guessed at) were in the handful of footnotes throughout the novellas. The Glossary was pretty interesting to read, I should note.

So, what did I think about Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again?

Before I get into this, I want to take a moment to say how cool it was to get to read a book about Godzilla. From the time I can remember this monster has been something I’ve been aware of in some way. The old movies, cartoons about him (and his goofy nephew, Godzooky), the toys, the newer movies, and everything in between. He’s just been one of the coolest creatures in my pop culture awareness—there’ve been few times that I’ve clicked on “Request” so hard on NetGalley. Now, I do have to admit, it’s been decades since I watched the original films—I’m much more familiar with the Gamera movies than Godzilla. So I had to wait until the Afterword to know what was different between what I was reading and what audiences saw in the 50s (it was certainly different enough from the Emmerich movie from 1998, that I remember more of than I want to).

I did think some of the dialogue was pretty stilted, and some of the character reactions seemed overwrought (and some underwrought). It actually reminded me a lot of the Gamera films and other English-dubbed live-action shows/movies I’ve watched—and while reading the book, I frequently thought that I owed those who wrote the scripts for the dubbing an apology—their work felt a lot like Angles’ translation. I don’t think that the dialogue or characterizations damaged my appreciation of the work, it just underlined for me that this is the work of another culture (and another time). So they’d better not sound like native English speakers, and should probably act/react in ways that don’t seem particularly American. What might be slightly off-putting at first quickly becomes part of the charm of the novellas.

The intended audience for these novellas were young adults, and throughout Kayama would insert asides “You may not understand…” or “You’ve probably seen something like…” to help his reader understand what’s going on, or perhaps the feeling behind it. The first time it happened, it was entirely unexpected, but I enjoyed the idea. I liked each successive one more than the last and was disappointed that we didn’t get nearly as many as I’d hoped. I don’t know if this was characteristic of his writing (I suspect it wasn’t), but for these novellas, it really worked.

We don’t see Godzilla right away, and Kayama did a great job of building the tension until we do—he’s there, doing damage and terrifying people, but the reader doesn’t get an idea of what they’re seeing until we’re about one-third of the way through the first novella. As impatient as I was to see the monster myself, I wish he’d been able to hold out a little longer. Now in the second book, we know what Godzilla looks like, so we can skip the build-up and throw him in right away—and then add Anguirus just a couple of pages later.

I found everything about Godzilla more satisfying than Godzilla Raids Again, but the latter was more fun and action-packed. I can see where some might be put off by the not-at-all-subtle messaging of Godzilla, but I thought it fit the story and the need at the time.

The Afterword and Glossary added a lot to my understanding and appreciation of what Kayama was seeking to accomplish and say, lifting the impact of the book as a whole. The novellas on their own would’ve been entertaining and satisfying, mostly as an artifact of another era (see what I said about the dialogue and characterizations)—but the supplementary material added the necessary context and definition to the novellas so that I walked away with a better understanding and appreciation for the book. Don’t skip those bits.

I’ve said a lot more than I expected to—and have only scratched the surface of what I’d hoped to say. So let me cut to the chase—I really enjoyed this experience—fun novellas, a deeper understanding of the creature and the themes the original movie was trying to explore, and a glimpse into Japan of the 1950s. And, once again, it’s a book about Godzilla, do you really need me to say more? I heartily encourage you to check this book up. Now, I’ve got to go track down some black-and-white films.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from University of Minnesota Press via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.

4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel: A Promising Start

By

On September 8, 2023

In Book Tour, Fiction, Science Fiction

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EclipseEclipse

by Herman Steuernagel

DETAILS:
Series: Fractured Orbit, Book 1
Publisher: The Fourth Media
Publication Date: February 7, 2023
Format: Ebook
Length: 300 pg.
Read Date: September 4, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s Eclipse About?

Django and Mikka are just going about their lives like they have been. They’ve never met—and likely never will. Their lives couldn’t be more different. But because they’re the primary characters in this book, we know they will at some point.

How does an agricultural specialist from a space station come across the path of a cargo-hauling ship’s captain?

That’s where the rakish, brash, legend-in-her-own-mind, Abigail Monroe, space pirate comes in. Abigail just being Abigail starts a ripple effect that will end up disrupting the lives of these two and maybe even change much, much, much more.

That’s not much of an answer to the question, let’s take a look at it like this…

Django’s Storyline

Django has a life he’s been contented with. Like his family before him—he works on the agricultural ring of a space station, growing food for his fellow residents and creating the fauna that will help rebuild the ruined Earth below. He likes his work—he’s dedicated to his mission (while he knows it will be his descendants who will actually reap the benefits when they can live on Earth again). But his lifelong friend (and he probably would like more than that) Eventide is leaving the agricultural wing. She’s worked her way into a more prestigious job and he’s feeling left behind as she prepares to fully transfer—including moving to a new ring. I’m not convinced he realizes how much it’s bothering him, but we readers can tell.

The day of his sister’s wedding things start to go wrong—first of all, now that his sister’s wed, the pressure for him to settle down is going to move to him. And Eventide’s move is happening, and then…well. Disaster strikes and part of his family dies. At the same time, Django may have seen something that undercuts his entire life’s work and beliefs. Like any good human, he convinces himself that everything’s actually okay and he misunderstood what he saw. But…his uncle isn’t convinced. In fact, his uncle starts to sound like some sort of conspiracy theorist, even talking about getting off the space station. Django didn’t even think that was possible.

Django can’t wrap his head around it all. Between grief and confusion, he’s overwhelmed. Over the next couple of days, things get worse and Django starts to wonder if he should be leaving.

Mikka’s Storyline

Years ago, there was a space pirate named Jax Luana, who enjoyed some renown. Suddenly, she dropped off the map—with a lot of questions and rumors surrounding that. For reasons I won’t divulge, she got out of piracy, and changed her name and appearance. After a couple of lucky breaks, Mikka is able to get a small ship and a partner and takes on small cargo jobs and the like—see Mal Reynolds and his crew on a good day. Her mother has a long-term—probably terminal—disease, and Mikka pours all her profits into her mother’s care.

After running into Abigail Monroe, the tenous life and reputation she’d built starts to fall apart. That’s not true—it crumbles almost instantly. Like Michael Corelone, she’d gotten out and they’ve pulled her back in. Now Mikka has to become the pirate for her own sake as much as her mother’s.

I could be wrong about this, but I think this storyline doesn’t get quite the same space as Django’s—which I get. But it bugs me, because I really wanted the balance to be different. Honestly, I’d have been fine without him at all, with just a book about a pirate who’s gone straight and is having a hard time staying that way.

* Please note that I’m not saying I didn’t like Django or his story. I also think in future books I’m going to enjoy having both of those characters and their stories to follow. I’m just saying this is how much I liked Mikka’s story.

So, what did I think about Eclipse?

This is essentially a “getting the band together” kind of book, we meet all the players for the series (at least many of them), we get an idea of the political/criminal/social forces at work while they near a boiling point, and put our characters in place for the books to come. We don’t get much more than that—and I think that was an error on Steuernagel’s part. It just felt too much like an introduction without any real payoff. I don’t think we needed much more—another chapter or two leading to a cliffhanger of sorts to propel us into the next book would’ve been enough. The novel’s arcs have resolved, we see that longer stories are in the future, and the metaphorical table is set for more to come, but that’s all we get.

Instead of an exclamation point, the book closes on ellipses.

Along the same lines, I have a whole bunch of questions about what happened on the Eclipse that have nothing to do with Django, and everything to do with Eventide. I don’t know if it’d have helped the novel much for Steuernagel to have taken a moment to fill in some details—but I’d have felt better about it (perhaps the storylines in the future will address it, but I’m not holding my breath).

That said. I did like the book, and will close this post by recommending it. I just wanted to like it more.

Django is a great example of a farm boy being yanked out of his pleasant life to get involved in a struggle involving powers and plots well above him that he’s frankly not all that interested in. We know that kind of character so well because they work so well almost every time we see one—Django is going to be great to watch as he grows and is exposed to things he never thought possible. Eventide will be equally great to get to know as a character herself—we essentially know her as Django’s friend and not much else (but there’s more to her, obviously). The same thought applies to Mikka’s partner/navigator Kiara. As I suggested, everything we saw about Mikka was enough to make me want more of her—as she returns to the life of a pirate, but this time with a mission? She’s going to be something great.

As for the agent of chaos, the monkey wrench in the works, the black fly in your Chardonnay, Abigail? I cannot wait to see her in action. In our Q&A, Steuernagel says she gets talked about the most—and I understand that. I want to be one of those who talk about her a lot, but I can’t figure out how to do that without spoiling a lot. Just know that she’s great.

This is a fun novel that really whets the appetite for more—give it a shot, and I think you’ll be as eager for Book 2 as I am.

3.5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

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EXCERPT from Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel: A Rescue?

By

On September 8, 2023

In Book Tour, Fiction, Quotations, Science Fiction

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from Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel

Chapter 4

Mikka Jenax
The Redemption

“This is taking too long. Why is this waystation so backed up?”

Mikka Jenax paced the bridge of the Redemption, hands behind her back. She was brooding, but she didn’t care. They had been waiting for over an hour, stuck in the queue.

The waystation wasn’t typically a stopping point for regular traffic, which was what irked Mikka the most. If this was the way orbital traffic was going, rum-running through the sector was going to be a nightmare, but it wasn’t as though she had any other career paths laid out for her.

“A wave of leftover debris from the Infinity.” Kiara Ryson strode across the shuttle, assuming her seat in the cockpit. Mikka shook her head as the woman straightened her faux leather jacket and pulled her sunglasses down over her face.

“I know that, genius, but the Syndicate’s had seven years to clean this mess. I’m tired of it backing up the transport corridors.”

“Just sit back and wait it out. We get paid either way.” Kiara’s matching brown boots found their way onto the edge of the console, and she crossed her legs at the ankles and leaned back. With the woman’s short frame, her feet barely reached the panel from the navigation console’s seat.

Agitation coursed through Mikka’s veins, and she couldn’t calm herself enough to sit. Kiara’s laid-back attitude was usually a godsend, an anchor in her spaceport, but right now, with their next round of credits on the line, it was infuriating. Mikka adjusted her own gray jacket and ran a hand through her coarse black hair before reaching under the counter of the navigational console and pulling out a bottle of whiskey.

Might as well enjoy some decent alcohol while we’re waiting. Stars know, there won’t be any once we get to Lunar.

“We’ll get paid for this load,” she said as she poured, “but we’ll be late for the next one. Every hour of delay means credits off our paycheck.”

“And what do you propose we do? There’s a river of debris between the stations we have to navigate around. I’m not about to blow a hole through our engines for a couple chips.”

“I’m not proposing we do anything.” Mikka swilled the drink in her glass, watching as the artificial gravity pulled the droplets against its side, before draining its contents in a single shot. “I just hate sitting around. I’ve got bills to pay.”

“I do too, but you don’t hear me whining.”

“Times are tight. My mother’s not getting any better.”

“Pfft.” Kiara waved a hand dismissively. “Times are always tight. You worry too much.”

Mikka bit her tongue as she poured another drink. She sipped this one slowly, allowing the woody taste of the alcohol to coat her tongue and throat as it slipped down. The amber liquid still bore the grit and metallic tint that Lunar whiskey always held, but it was a hell of a lot better than anything she’d find on the moon’s surface. The whiskey’s sharp fire was enough to distract her for a moment, but only barely. They had just picked up a shipment of computer parts and cabbage from Space Dock Eleven—one of their better-paying hauls. But their delivery window was narrow, and the clock was ticking.

If only we could get through this damn debris field.

The space station Infinity had been decommissioned seven years ago. A year later, some Syndicate fat cat decided it was time to put an end to the ghost station’s misery and pushed it into the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in a series of explosions. Whoever that genius was, they hadn’t accounted for the chunks of metal, plastic, and the stars knew what else had been left behind from the explosion that ripped it apart. Instead of spreading, the fragments that were not drawn into the atmosphere clumped together in a hazardous blob. It usually occupied less frequently traveled paths, but over the past month, it had become lodged in the main transport corridor.

“It’s crazy we still can’t go around. These new space routes are getting on my nerves.”

“Easy, Mikka.” Kiara lifted both hands in a conciliatory motion. “We’ll deliver this shipment, pick up a round of Helium or whatever our next load is, and be on our way again before you know it. You might lose an hour or so of sleep, but no harm done. Chill out now and it won’t matter.”

“Looks like I don’t have a choice, do I?” Mikka slammed her glass down harder than she intended, sending a crack through its side. She grasped her temple between her thumb and forefinger, willing the knots above her brow to melt away. She didn’t have time for setbacks, and she was running out of patience. At some point, life had to throw her a bone.

“Is there any chance we can make up for it by taking a double load back?” she asked, hoping the suggestion didn’t come across as desperate.

“You’re really getting worked up, aren’t you?” Kiara commenced picking at the gunk beneath her fingernails with a nail file. “You know the drill—we can only take back what they’ve loaded up for us.”

The Redemption’s systems beeped and hummed around them, almost as if the ship was eagerly anticipating being allowed to continue on its way.

From where she was standing, Mikka could see a panel light blinking on the communications terminal, beeping in an irregular pattern.

“You expecting a call?” Kiara asked.

“Are you kidding? Who do I know? It’s probably just a patrol announcement.”

Kiara grunted, pulling up the details on her own console. “It’s no patrol. I don’t recognize this frequency.”

“Let’s see.” Mikka pulled up the holo-screen on her own console. The semiopaque projection came to life, hovering above her control pad.

A blinking bar of red lit up, displaying an incoming transmission on a frequency Mikka hadn’t seen used in a long time.

“Whoever it is, they’re using an old pirate channel,” she said. “But it’s one that’s been abandoned for years. The Orbital Guard cracked its encryption, and it’s been useless ever since.”

“Pirates?” Kiara’s tone grew serious for the first time all morning. “One of your old friends?” She stared at the panel, her eyes furiously darting between the readings as if considering whether there was danger in merely answering the hail. She ran her palms through her cropped purple hair. “What are we going to do?”

“Hang on!” Mikka lifted a hand toward her. “It could just be someone else found the frequency. Maybe it’s a wrong number.”

“Hilarious,” Kiara said, her arms crossed.

“A pirate wouldn’t use this channel; the encryption has been compromised. If they were after our ship, they’d use a different means of communication.” Just the same, only a pirate or the Orbital Guard would have access to the encryption.

The console continued to chirp.

Mikka sighed and leaned over the nearest terminal, tapping the screen. The face of a young woman was projected above her datapad. Her hair was white and cut short, except for a single silver braid that hung down the side of her face. Blue and green beads were tied within it, along with a smaller pull decorated with a few grubby ship parts, metallic shards, and white stones.

Not stones. Bones.

Through the static-filled feed, it was impossible to tell if the bones were human or animal, though Mikka had a pretty good idea.

The woman’s eyes— a smoky gray—were as mysterious as the rest of her, as was the scar that curved down through the top and bottom of her left eye socket, as though someone had tried to blind her.

The woman stood, strapped in to hold her from floating around a craft with no gravity. It was hard to tell through the haze of smoke that filled the cabin, but Mikka recognized the markings of the woman’s vessel.

An escape pod.

The woman didn’t even flinch as sparks and bursts of flame surrounded her. The image flashed in and out, and it was obvious the feed might not last long.

“Thanks for picking up, love. I presume you’re Jax Luana?”

Mikka caught her breath.

She scanned the woman’s features for a hint of recognition, something that would tie this woman to her old life. Even if the woman’s hair or eyes were another color, even if her scar was gone, there wasn’t anything about her that struck Mikka as being familiar.

Besides, she was too young to be someone from Mikka’s past. She was twenty at most, and no one had dared to call Mikka by the name of Jax Luana in seven years. That would have made the person projected before her thirteen when Mikka had left her old life behind. Even aboard a pirate vessel, thirteen would have been far too young. It was possible she could have come across a youth at a bar or port city, but if that were the case, clearly the encounter wasn’t memorable.

Yet somehow this woman recognized her.

“I haven’t used that name in a long time.” Mikka gritted her teeth, attempting to hide her disdain. She absently pulled a knife from her belt, fidgeting with it to both calm her mind and send a message that she was still someone who wasn’t to be messed with. “My name is Mikka Jenax. Who are you? How did you gain access to this channel, and why are you calling me?”

The woman glanced over her shoulder as a sharp pop sounded from somewhere behind her. Her eyes bulged as, presumably, she located whatever the source of the noise had been. She raised a finger, unclipped her safety restraints, and floated off-camera momentarily.

No gravity plating in those old escape pods. Her ship must have been a relic.

Mikka rolled her eyes at Kiara, but her co-navigator didn’t meet her gaze.

“Ah, yes.” The woman reappeared, the cape she had been wearing now gone, revealing sweaty but well-toned shoulders. “The name’s Abigail. And, well, as much as I’d love to get into specifics—this deathtrap is about to break apart. I’d love it if you could give me a lift.”

Mikka groaned. Bringing an unknown woman aboard would be a risk. The woman clearly had a connection to Mikka’s past—a past she wanted to avoid. And something didn’t smell quite right.

“Not without knowing anything about you. You’re calling me on an old, encrypted frequency, referring to me by a name that has been dead for seven years. Can’t blame me for being skeptical.”

“Let’s just say, I’m both a ghost from your past and a damsel in distress. I didn’t come looking for you, love, but my circumstances have become quite . . . dire.” Another burst of flame erupted behind Abigail’s head. “I think we could come to a mutual understanding.”

Great. This is just what I need.

“I gave that life up a long time ago,” Mikka insisted.

“Well, even if that is the case . . . could you at least save mine? I’m quite happy with the one I’ve got.”

Mikka cursed. “How much time do you have?”

She knew this was a bad idea, but there’d be no more lives lost because of her. Not if she could help it.

“Um . . .” Abigail’s eyes darted wildly to the surrounding capsule as she punched a few keystrokes on the pod’s display screens. “I’m actually kinda surprised I’m still here. I’m sending you my coordinates. You’re not far.”

Mikka nodded. “We’re on our way. Ping us again if the situation gets worse—but I can’t promise there’ll be anything we’ll be able to do if it does.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Abigail gave a two-fingered salute accompanied by an impish grin as the screen faded to black.

Chapter 5

Mikka
The Redemption

“Are you insane?”

Kiara was on her feet, hands on her hips, marching toward Mikka.

Mikka raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Look who’s suddenly interested. You could have spoken up before. You kind of left me hanging there.”

“I didn’t expect you to be such an idiot! You can’t bring a pirate on board! We know nothing about her!”

Kiara turned to the console beside her and pulled up a holographic display. Kiara was a master at navigating the Syndicate network, but she still impressed Mikka with how quickly she had pulled up the profile of the woman on the escape pod.

Mikka’s eyes flashed. “Remember whose ship this is. I make the calls here.”

Kiara ignored her as she scrolled through the entry. “Smuggling. Theft. Conspiracy. Murder! Shit, I’m not ready to die today.”

Whatever sense of indifference Kiara had presented a few minutes ago had now disappeared. Being delayed on a job wasn’t something to get worked up about but letting a fugitive on board was another matter.

Understandably so, maybe, but . . .

“I don’t care who she is,” Mikka said. “I’m not leaving her out there to die. Not when she’s asked for our help.”

Kiara wasn’t ready to back down. “How do you know this isn’t a setup to lure us in? A trap to commandeer our ship?”

“She launched herself into a failing escape pod with the sole intent of hijacking a decades-old refurbished orbital trader? Is that what you think? There are easier, more lucrative targets out there.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

A fair point, but . . . No, Mikka couldn’t think of any legitimate reason why anyone would want the Redemption.

“I know how her type operate,” Mikka continued. “Our current payload isn’t worth the effort or the risk.”

“She knew you were here,” Kiara persisted. “That doesn’t raise red flags for you? She’s obviously learned enough to make you a target.”

And there it was. Kiara wasn’t implying the ship was the target.

I am.

The woman’s words hung over Mikka like a solar storm. “I presume you’re Jax Luana?”

Kiara was right: it did raise red flags. Huge, monumental red flags.

The only two people in the entire system who knew Mikka used to go by that name were her own mother and Kiara. Not only that, but Mikka had also undergone dozens of surgical procedures to alter her appearance, until she no longer resembled the woman Abigail had named.

Be that as it may, though, her mind was made up.

“I’m not leaving her out there to die,” Mikka reaffirmed, punching in the coordinates into the ship’s navigation system. “You can cuff her in the cargo hold until we get to Shackleton City if it makes you feel better, but let’s get her ass out of that pod before we decide what to do with her.”

“Toss her out the airlock—that’s what we should do with her,” Kiara muttered under her breath.

“We’re about ten minutes out,” Mikka said, ignoring the remark. “Hopefully, her pod can hold together until then.”

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing if we didn’t make it.”

Mikka grabbed the cracked whiskey glass beside her and hurled it across the shuttle. It landed squarely against an empty wall panel, shattering under the force of the impact. A million pieces of broken glass spread out along the hard paneled floor.

Kiara’s eyes grew wide with horror.

“What the hell is your problem?” Mikka shouted. “That could have been me in that pod! Do you think I didn’t deserve a second chance? Do you think I should have died with my companions? With my friends? Because if you do, you can find another ship.”

Kiara didn’t respond, instead looking bashfully toward her own console.

“Damn it, Kiara! A life’s a life,” Mikka said, composing herself. “Everyone deserves a shot. If someone hadn’t taken a chance on me, I wouldn’t be here now. Enough of the bullshit.”

“Fine.” Kiara held her hands up in mock surrender. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She picked up an energy weapon—her trusty SC11 pistol—from beside her station and attached it to her belt. “And don’t think I’m letting her out of my sight. I might help save her life, but I’m not above locking her in the holding cell or calling in a patrol.”

“You call in a patrol and you risk exposing me as well,” Mikka reminded her. “I’m taking a monumental risk here. Don’t forget I have sins I need to atone for, and that pirate’s just admitted she knows more than she should. This is still my ship, Kiara; I may have agreed to split our profit for your expertise, but I’m still the one who calls the shots.”

Mikka tapped the projection before her with a few keystrokes. “I’m sending you the coordinates of the pod. The only thing I’m concerned about is making it back in time to hit our window through the debris field. We’ve got thirty minutes.”

“As long as I’m not the one who ends up out the airlock,” Kiara groused, pulling up her own holographic display. “Just promise me you won’t let her talk you into anything stupid.”

“I’ve got a sick mother to worry about. That’s enough excitement for me.”

The Redemption groaned as it propelled into a lower orbit. The crest of the Earth filled the viewport as the ship flew toward Abigail’s position.

Abigail wouldn’t have to worry about the void of space for long: she would soon enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and those pods weren’t made to withstand entry. She’d burn up long before she ran out of air.

“We’ve got to get off the main route,” Mikka said. “We’re not going to make it in time otherwise.”

“Might catch the attention of the OG if we do that,” Kiara warned. “If we get pulled over by a patrol, we won’t make it, either.”

Mikka cursed under her breath. Kiara was right, but she didn’t see they had any other choice. Plus, the woman was slowly becoming a thorn in her side, so she didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being right.

“We’ll deal with that if it happens.”

Kiara shook her head but didn’t argue.

It didn’t take long before the Redemption’s scanners picked up the solitary pod adrift in the lower orbit, just off the main transport corridor. The gray escape vessel floated among a sea of debris, much of it several times larger than the pod itself. If it hadn’t been for Abigail’s distress call, Mikka would likely have never seen it among the rest of the floating remains, never mind known that there was a person inside.

Her ship didn’t just run into trouble, Mikka realized. It bloody exploded!

Whatever trouble this pirate had gotten herself into was possibly a bigger deal than Mikka had first realized. Orbital attacks weren’t common, especially this close to the planet. If her ship’s destruction was simply a matter of Abigail’s criminal record, there would have been other ways to handle things.

Mikka tapped her communications terminal. “Abigail, we’re descending to your position. Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” the pirate’s voice chirped. “But I’ve lost my video feed.”

“Is your docking equipment functional?” Mikka asked. “Are you able to connect to our clamps?”

“I don’t have any fuel, love. I’m dead in the water. All I’ve got is enough air to see the end of my days as I incinerate in orbit, and enough power to keep this channel open for a few more minutes.”

“All right.” Mikka nodded to herself. “Kiara, how close can you get us to the pod without being ripped apart by the surrounding debris?”

Kiara met her gaze. “Are you doubting me?”

“I’m just asking!” Mikka shot back.

“We can kiss her on the nose if you want.”

“Perfect, but she’ll be coming in the other end. Back her up so we can pull that pod into the cargo bay. I’ll seal it off manually.”

“It’s a good thing we loaded our shipment below deck this round.”

Mikka hit another few commands on her console. “Abigail, we’re going to pull you into our cargo hold. You shouldn’t get banged around too much, but you should probably strap yourself in.”

“Already buckled—and I’ve got nowhere else to go, love. Do what you need to do.”

The Redemption shook again as Kiara decelerated, weaving around some of the larger pieces of debris.

“Hang on,” Kiara said. “I’ll get us in, but there’s a lot of garbage here. It could get bumpy.”

As promised, the shuttle rattled and bounced as it slowed. Mikka did her best to hang on as she pulled each of the four toggles that would seal off the ship’s bridge from the cargo bay and braced herself for the inevitable turbulence. The pressurized seal allowed them to release objects into the void of space, but they didn’t typically try to bring objects in. It was an unusual maneuver, but if anyone could pull it off, it was Kiara.

“I’m opening the cargo door now,” Mikka said.

“Reversing engines to overtake the pod,” Kiara replied.

There was a faint whoosh and a crack formed in the wall behind them. The Redemption groaned as she strained beneath the atmospheric pressure. A thud and a couple of shudders told Mikka their task had been successful, even before Kiara reported the outcome.

“And she’s in. Re-pressurizing the cargo bay.”

Mikka let out a sigh of relief. “All right. We’ve got twelve minutes until the waypoint sends us to the back of the line. I’d rather not miss our window through the debris field. Let’s get back and take this shipment home.”

“And hope the Guard doesn’t want to inspect our ship on the way through.”

“They won’t. The gates are backed up enough already.”

As if in response to her promise, the holo-screens and monitors in the shuttlecraft all shifted. Big, bold text in orange and red lit their screens, and a rendering of Abigail’s bust hovered above the panels.

Emergency Bulletin.

Fugitive Wanted. Charges: Theft. Conspiracy. Piracy. Murder.

Abigail Monroe. 10,000 Credit reward.

Mikka caught her breath.

“Spoke too soon. Looks like we won’t need to kill her,” Kiara remarked. “We can just turn her in.”

 

Interested in the rest? Go grab your copy of Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel now at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B4ZZXSCD/!

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel

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On September 8, 2023

In Book Tour, Fiction, Science Fiction

I’m very pleased to welcome the Escapist Book Tour for Herman Steuernagel’s Eclipse to The Irresponsible Reader this morning! People have been talking about this book on the tour for a few days now, and you’re going to want to take a peek at what they’ve been saying—check out the details in the graphic below. But today’s my turn, so what do I have in store? In addition to this little spotlight post, I’ve got an excerpt from the novel, a Q&A with the author, I’m even going to work in a Friday 56 post with this Tour Stop, and then I’ll post my take on the novel, too. (I’ll update with links throughout the day for those of you who don’t follow this blog). Let’s start by learning a little about this book, okay?

Eclipse_ban.png

Book Details:

Book Title: Eclipse by Herman Steuernagel
Series: Fractured Orbit
Publisher: The Fourth Media
Release date: February 7, 2023
Format: Hardcover/Paperback/Ebook
Length: 300 pages
Genre: Science Fiction
Intended Age Group: Adult
Eclipse Cover

About the Book

When lies crumble, two lives and an entire civilization teeter on the brink of destruction…

Django had everything he ever wanted… now he’s lost it all.

When Django uncovered an unexpected truth, he didn’t know it would end the lives of nearly everyone he cares about. Left only with his sister, his best friend and an uncle who has some unhinged ideas about what might exist outside of the space station Eclipse, he must follow the truth where it leads – even if it leaves him with nothing.

Mikka can’t escape her dubious past… and now must answer for past sins.

Mikka thought she had left her life as a notorious space pirate behind to care for her ailing mother, but the past comes knocking after her ship, the Redemption, answers a cryptic distress call.

Forced to face a deal she made with the devil years ago, Mikka has no choice but to step back into her old life and make another hesitant pact… with an eccentric pirate.

Django and Mikka’s paths collide as they embark on a journey that will shape the fate of a civilization built on half-truths and the backs of others. Rumors of civil war circulate through the Syndicate’s orbital empire, catching both Django and Mikka in the crossfire — where the stakes are far higher than they realize.

Neither is prepared. Neither is willing. But they will no longer be able to ignore the truth.

Perfect for fans of Red Rising, Star Trek and Firefly, ECLIPSE is filled with unwilling heroes, a hidden world, likeable characters, space pirates, a path of discovery and a road to redemption.

See Also:

Dirty Little Secret • Why is the Rum Always Gone? • Sympathy for the Devil

Book Links

Amazon ~ Goodreads

Eclipse will be on sale for $0.99 on Amazon and BookBub for the week of the tour, Sept. 3 – 9!

About the Author

Herman SteuernagelHerman Steuernagel is a science fiction and fantasy author. His internationally best-selling debut Lies the Guardians Tell reached the top of the science fiction charts on multiple retailers in the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Herman grew up with a love of story and science fiction, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with his father. As a teenager he fell in love with The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, and The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

His currently published works are dystopian science fiction that highlight the struggle between humanity and the technology we keep, as well as the motivations that keep us fighting with each other.

Herman currently lives in British Columbia, Canada, While he’s not working on his next book he can be found cycling, running and dreaming up new worlds.

Twitter ~ Instagram ~ Facebook ~ TikTok

My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.

Escapist Book Tours

Proxies by James T. Lambert: The Marx Brothers, Interstellar Threats, a Meddling Mother—Proxies Has it All

By

On September 4, 2023

In Fiction, Literary Locals, Science Fiction

ProxiesProxies

by James T. Lambert

DETAILS:
Publisher: Bert Books
Publication Date: August 13, 2022
Format: Paperback
Length: 246 pg.
Read Date: July 19-20, 2023

What’s Proxies About?

Jair Howard is a tech working to maintain the Faster-Than-Light network. Lambert doesn’t give us a lot of details about it, so I’m going to give you even less. The pilot he works with during his maintenance runs, Merab, is his girlfriend. Or maybe. Jair’s reluctance to commit to starting a family has put things on the ropes.

A bigger—or more pressing, anyway—concern is that during their last trip, Jair found some disturbing evidence of hacking into the security network. He’s having trouble convincing anyone of it because the evidence is largely gone. Jair keeps digging, though, he knows what he saw and anyone who can do what he saw—and remove all traces of it—is someone to worry about. Then some of the evidence reappears, and it points at Jair. Suddenly everyone who doubted what he said about a security breach believes it and is coming for him.

To keep his freedom for a little while longer—and hopefully to find proof of what’s really going on—he needs to get into space and get access to the network. The only way that’s going to happen is with Merab’s help.

Remember When AI Wasn’t the Enemy?

Jair doesn’t work alone—in fact, he doesn’t do most of the work. He has a team of AIs helping him. Jair’s a classic movie fan. Black and White Movies that we consider classics today—he’s far enough into the future that he has to think of them as practically ancient. He’s such a fan that he’s given his four primary AIs the names and personalities of the Marx Brothers.

He spends a lot of time tweaking their personalities and humor to get them to better match the versions he knows from film—and finding a way to get Harpo to be able to communicate what he needs to while capturing the essence of the silent brother. It’s something for him to fiddle with while waiting during interstellar travel or while a report generates and the like.

It’s a fun bit of whimsy in the book—and it felt very strange to read while being hit with headline after headline after headline about the problems with AIs this summer.

So, what did I think about Proxies?

The heart of this book isn’t the threat posed by the hacking that Jair found and then lost, etc. Nor is it the efforts that he and Merab undertook to expose and maybe stop the threat. It’s in Merab and Jair’s efforts to get their relationship to work. The bulk of that is on Jair, to be sure—but Merab has some work to do, too.

That’s about all I’m willing to say about that, although it deserves more—because Lambert did a great job with that. As much as I enjoyed the relationships that the protagonist of his first book found himself in, they didn’t feel as grounded as this one. They were clearly there to serve a story, create conflict, and so on. Here, the relationship is the story—and that makes all the difference. If he continues to grow as an author this way, I’m going to be happy reading him for a long time.

This is a Space Opera, so the details of space flight and other science-y stuff don’t need to be really well worked out or discussed—which is good, because Lambert doesn’t bother to (whether that’s because of the genre, or he went with the genre so he didn’t have to doesn’t matter). And a lot of the detailed work into the investigation can be waved away with “Groucho and Zeppo did a thing and came back to tell Jair the results.” I both wanted to see more of the science-y/investigation bits and was perfectly satisfied with the lack of them, because that left time for all the people-y stuff. (I’m clearly in the mood to talk in generalities today).

If you’re looking for some light Space Opera with a lot of heart—you’ll want to pick up Proxies. If you’re not looking for that, you still might want to try it, it’s a fun way to spend a few hours.

3 Stars

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The Friday 56 for 9/1/23: A Sh*tload of Crazy Powers by Jackson Ford

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On September 1, 2023

In Currently Reading, News/Misc., Quotations, The Friday 56

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it.

from Page 56% of:
A Sh*tload of Crazy Powers

A Sh*tload of Crazy Powers by Jackson Ford

I’ve never been shot before.

I’ve been shot at, more than once. There are quite a few people who want me dead for one reason or another. And yet I have never taken a bullet. Until today.

Can confirm: getting shot sucks.

There’s no pain until I actually see the wound– the horrible, gaping hole in my flesh. Then there’s a whole lot of it. As if my brain goes oh, hey, that looks nasty. Here, have some agony to enhance the experience.

It’s like someone poured kerosene on my bicep and set it on fire. It’s the kind of pain that doesn’t actually let you scream, because it locks your throat up tight. All I can do is make this weird little hissing sound, forcing its way between my clenched teeth. And holy crap, that’s a lot of blood. Are there arteries in the bicep? How long do I have before… before I…

Some Disorganized Thoughts on the Excellence that is Light Bringer by Pierce Brown

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On August 29, 2023

In Fiction, Pierce Brown, Red Rising, Science Fiction

Light BringerLight Bringer

by Pierce Brown

DETAILS:
Series: Red Rising, #6
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: July 25, 2023
Format: Hardcover
Length: 672
Read Date: August 14-24, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

This Post

Yeah, this isn’t going to be my typical kind of post. I know deep in my bones, the way you know about a good melon, that if I tried my typical approach I’d probably finish this in December. And since I don’t have that kind of patience—and this book was due back at my library on August 19. I’m in deep sh…aving cream already.

So, I’m just going to mention a few things I think are worth saying—and hopefully think of a conclusion to wrap it all up (but no promises).

bullet I need to start with the fact that I went into this with a wrong assumption—I misunderstood something I saw Brown say on Twitter some months ago and thought that this was the finale of the series. I started wondering pretty soon how that was going to be the case, but it took me far too long to admit that I misunderstood him and shouldn’t expect any kind of bow to be put on things by the end of Light Bringer. Once I gave that up, most of my lingering questions about pacing and character went away.

bullet Lyria. If Brown had done nothing else impressive with the post-Morning Star books, what he’s done in creating and growing this character would justify the time reading them. I just cannot get over her. At this point, I enjoy her more than Darrow, Virginia, or the rest. Kavax and Sevro are the only characters that compete with her for my affection. Also, Brown did an excellent job of faking the reader out when it came to her character arc after the last book.

bullet Darrow grows more in these pages than he has since…maybe The Institute. Or probably with Lorn. And a lot of that has to do with the right book being given to him at the right time in his life. (maybe my libro-fixation makes me focus on that part, but, I’m right). I want to see this change in action more—but what Brown does here gives me a lot of hope for our hero. Assuming The Reaper is our hero by the end.

bullet I really, really, really, really want to know how long Brown has been plotting out the major events of this novel—has he been building up to them since Iron Gold or before? Or were they things that came into focus when he started planning Light Bringer? It won’t change what I think of them (devastating, brilliant, etc.)—it’ll just help me understand how he works.

bullet The bonds between so many of these characters are fantastic. Particularly between the classmates turned colleagues turned friends turned enemies turned uneasy allies turned brothers. (or relationships that follow similar paths) How these people can be bound up so tightly with each other after all they’ve gone through is something else. So many times I start off thinking, “There’s no way that Darrow/Lysander/Victra/Whoever is going to trust them is there?” And then they do—and I buy it every single time, just the way that Darrow/Lysander/Victra/Whoever does. And I’m caught as off-guard as they are in the significant percentage of times they end up getting betrayed.

bullet I cannot believe how often these people make me laugh—genuinely laugh. In the midst of all of the death, destruction, revenge, societal upheaval, and uncertainty—there’s a core humanity at work in them all.

bullet After all these thousands of pages (especially when I count re-reads and audiobook listens)…how can Brown completely surprise me the way he does? I can’t even count how many double-crosses that become triple-crosses then go awry and end up becoming alliances that are quadruple-crossed in this book alone. (And that’s not a spoiler, if you’ve read the series, you know that’s going to happen—and I likely left off at least 5 backstabbings).

bullet Speaking of stabbing…Brown’s action scenes—particularly when it comes to small groups of people fighting—one on one, two on two, one on five, etc.—are just great. He’s never been shabby at this, but it felt like he topped himself here. (as he has in each successive book).

bullet Sevro, Sevro, Sevro…I felt so bad for him through so much of this book. Even before he inadvertently found out what happened to his family in Dark Age. But you never want to count the Goblin out, right?

bullet Although, the fox Sophocles just might have done a better job of breaking my heart. Not that it’s a competition.

bullet There’s a fantastic potential spin-off series introduced around the mid-way point. I hope Brown doesn’t give it to us (although I’ll read it if he does), I think I’d prefer my imaginary version of it.

bullet The bond that I referred to earlier is seen in loyalty, forgiveness (and the ability to work together when that forgiveness hasn’t been granted), and best of all, a humor based on shared experiences and attitudes. The humor in this book is almost never situational (too grim for that), or physical (outside maybe of Sophocles)—it comes from old friends being rude to one another, making a joke in reference to something that happened a decade or more ago, etc. And it works—you can’t help but chuckle alongside these men—even when they’re likely saying goodbye for the last time, they can make you laugh. Well done, Mr. Brown.

Let’s See If I Can Wrap This Up

I really think I could just keep going flipping back and forth through the pages of the book and coming up with more and more bullet points to ramble about. But who wants to read that? (especially now that I see that I’ve repeated myself)

I really wish I spent time in discussion groups, fan sites, etc. for this series, so I’d have known that this wasn’t the ending before I started. That preconceived notion really skewed things for a while. Oh well. Like I said before, once I started thinking of this as penultimate—everything clicked.

I do think it’s time for Brown to tie this up—as much as I love this series, readers can only take so many Master Plans that go awry when they meet other Master Plans only to uncover someone else’s Deeper Master Plan working against both.

But it’s been—and will be—quite the ride. These characters are so full of honor, and nobility (of various types), that even when they’re “on the wrong side” it’s hard to think poorly of them until they’ve turned into hypocrites or something. Brown gives us a great picture of so many people working for the common good—if only they could agree with what that is. Chess masters vying against one another to help their picture of the best for society to come about. Sadly, their moves aren’t made with game pieces, but with thousands or millions of lives at a time.

I’m, of course, ignoring the few giant vacuums of decency with a hunger for power and destruction that are also running through the pages.

In Dark Age (and I’m going to be vague just in case someone hasn’t read it yet)—there’s a scene when someone holds down a dying foe, cuts out two giant strips from their back to reveal their ribcage and organs—and pour salt on the wounds. There are a couple of scenes in this book that felt like that. (except for the fact that I was in my recliner sipping on something cool while reading). And with at least one of those scenes the person I was having my heart torn up about was a character I either was bored by or didn’t bother to form an opinion of until this book. But over the course of the novel, Brown’s able to get every one of these modified humans to become a person practically as real as any flesh and blood creature you run into.

It took me less than 50 pages into Red Rising to be awed by Brown and thousands of pages later, he’s still doing it to me.

Go read this series.

5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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