Category: Book Review

Book Review: A Doll’s Life

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A Doll’s Life by Alledria Hurt

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First, Alesha lost him. Then she saved him, sort of. Now can Alesha save both of them when it comes down to a game of magical cat and mouse in a world where everyone has been turned into living wooden dolls? Glance, master magician, knows something Alesha needs to finish saving her brother from death, but Glance is not going to give up the information willingly. Good thing getting things no one wants to give up is kinda what Alesha does. If she’s good, and a little lucky, she’ll leave with her own life and that of her brother. If she’s not, she may be in for a doll’s life.

 

MY REVIEW

(Full disclosure – I helped edit this book, but that was way back in 2019. After 5 years, it’s still a pretty good read.)

FIRST REVIEW 6/26/2020
When a traveler in a portal universe step through a gate – or, more likely, desperately jumps through one of the doorways between worlds – they never know what is on the other side. It could be a planet of meat hills, or a silent world under the booted heel of a tyrant, or one where the ice pellets destroy nearly everything agriculture.

Alesha tumbles through one world to another until her final stop. She hopes it isn’t her final stop, but it just might be. The local ruler, seemingly bored by the few visitors that make it to his world, offers her food and shelter and questions – or inquisition, she isn’t sure just yet.

This book clicks off all the wonderful tropes of a portal story, as well as explores the meaning of death, life, soul, and what costs should one pay to keep others alive. You can explore from the action-adventure aspect. Or a book club can have a lively discussion on the deeper meanings. Whatever level you want to read the book at – you can find enjoyment.

SECOND REVIEW/READ 10/17/2023
It’s 2023 and I’m working on knocking out #23for23 – reading 23 BIPoC authors before the end of the year. Being spooky season, I decided to return to this gem – A silent world, a ghost of a brother, faceless giants, spooky castle, and doll people. Spooky, but more adventure than horror. Exactly what I wanted and as good as I remembered.

Book Review (SERIES): Piled Higher and Deeper

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I followed this webcomic for a while and when there was a kickstarter, I jumped on it, getting all six of the comic collections in one swoop in August 2018. Well, life was crazy, then it got more crazy, then still more and so I never got around to reading this particular books even though they were on my bookstand TBR immediately pile at least four years. Well, the time came to read them since I needed a Male Series Book Review. A delightful task! Plus a bonus in nibbling away at my personal goal of reading more BIPoC authors with twenty-four books to be read in 2024.

If you are academia or writing or science, you might really appreciate these humorous stories and comics. They are dated, especially the early ones, over twenty years have passed since the “cutting” edge of graduate school was first drawn, but they also bring memories back of important events and old technologies.

Created by Dr. Jorge Cham

Chapter 1: Piled Higher and Deeper: A Graduate Comic Strip Collection
Chapter 2: Life is Tough and Then You Graduate
Chapter 3: Scooped!
Chapter 4: Academic Stimulus Package
Chapter 5: Adventures in Thesisland
Chapter 6: 20th Anniversary

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for PILED HIGHER AND DEEPER

A collection of the first five years of “Piled Higher and Deeper,” the unique and popular comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in graduate school, as it originally appeared in Stanford University’s “The Stanford Daily Newspaper” and online at www.phdcomics.com “Piled Higher and Deeper” the comic strip is currently published in several newspapers and online, where it is read by grad students from over 1000 universities and colleges in the US and from around the world.

MY REVIEW for PILED HIGHER AND DEEPER

Oh, how many years have I been enjoying this comic? A very long time. This collection is from the early years where the characters are being developed. I enjoy the later years more, especially as Cecelia gets deeper in her thesis writing, but the first book establishes the tone well.

I haven’t really read the story in about a decade – so after COVID and the increasing taking advantage of workers desperate to learn and the debilitating student debt, some of these jokes are hitting different. Humor changes. Not good or bad, but different.

This particular set of jokes were originally written between 1997 and 2002. Therefore 22 to 27 years ago.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for LIFE IS TOUGH AND THEN YOU GRADUATE

This book is the second collection of the popular comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper, which chronicles life (or the lack thereof) in grad school. Includes the popular strip series “Procrastin-X”, “Grad school makes you dumber”, “The Thesis Zone” and Mike Slackenerny’s improbable thesis defense. Bonus features include never-before published strips, author notes and a foreword by Karl Marx. Whether you managed to escape grad school, are struggling through it, or are thinking of applying to it, Piled Higher and Deeper will have you lauging and crying at the same time. Piled Higher and Deeper is published online at www.phdcomics.com, where it receives over 1.8 million page views a month from grad students all over the world.

MY REVIEW for LIFE IS TOUGH AND THEN YOU GRADUATE

For Piled Higher and Deeper comic, Chapter 2 covers year Six (2002-2003) to year Eight (2004-2005).
The cast of our intrepid graduate students continue in their quest for the golden diploma. Cecilia both fears she will never reach it and is terrified of passing the goal. The unnamed main character juggles both a career and research … poorly. Tajel continues her political fire while working on figuring out what her thesis could be. Dee starts grad school. And Mike Slackenerny … he has a baby on the way and a defense to present. Free food will not fill the void between the two forever. After decades, pressure is growing for him to produce something.

PhD continues with the highly diverse cast, with a mix of Americans and imports as often happens in PhD programs, especially in California.

I’m reading the story in 2024, written with 2005 technology … students still procrastinate with email instead of social media. With desktop computers with a single screen, just a few palmpilots to record information. It’s interesting how much the tech has changed over the years but the people haven’t.

If you like the series, you will like the paperback format.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for SCOOPED!

The third collection of the popular comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper, which chronicles life (or the lack thereof) in grad school. Includes the popular strip series “How to write your Thesis title”, “The Scientific Method vs. The Actual Method”, “Valentine Gift Ideas for your Advisor” and many more. Whether you managed to escape Grad School, are struggling through it, or are thinking of applying to it, Piled Higher and Deeper will have you lauging and crying at the same time.

MY REVIEW for SCOOPED!

Chapter 3 of PhD covers years 2005-2007, with the back matter reporting on Dr. Cham’s college tour of 60 campuses (pp. 133-154). The college tour section is interesting to see the author’s illustrations change over time in a manner similar to chapter 1 as he learns a new format and story telling technique.

This is a story of the long journey to the special diploma via making a huge (or minuscule but at least unique, mostly, unless you are scooped and then pivoting on the fly unless you discover they didn’t really do your work, probably) addition to humanity’s knowledge and, for some of our intrepid graduate students, endings. Cecilia’s love of her life ends up being a toss up between her quest for technology and another human being. Mike Slackenerny pressure from wife and child and funding and professor needing to show progress finally culminates in words on screen and paper.

The author continues to grow in storytelling skills and the skits gets longer and more complicated. He has to trade off the consistency of the world-building environment with pushing forward to create new jokes and plotline advancement to maintain interest, which he does well.

Overall, another good steady release for the PhD comics.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ACADEMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

The fourth collection of the popular comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper, which chronicles life (or the lack thereof) in academia. Includes the popular strip series Quantum Gradnamics, ANOVA: Analysis of Value, Seminar Bingo and many more. Whether you managed to escape academia, are struggling through it, or are thinking of applying to it, this smart comic strip will have you laughing all the way.

MY REVIEW for ACADEMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

Another solid addition to the PhD comic collection with Chapter 4: Academic Stimulus Package. This particular volume covers the strips from 2007-2009 – I’m reading and reviewing it in 2024.

I think overall this is the best so far, but it could just be the introduction of so many graphs. As any graduate student will tell you, adding graphs to prose can get you all sorts of upticks with your advisors. Graphs are seductive.

Technology continues to advance and the characters are finally hitting the commonplace stuff we use today (2024). Facebook makes its first appearance as a time waster for our unnamed protagonist’s procrastination. He also adds a second monitor and is thinking about a third. Plus the new monitor is a flatscreen rather than the cathode ray tubes monitor us readers have seen taking up huge amounts of space on the desks of our favorite graduate students.

The back matter, like last time, includes information about Dr. Cham’s book tours. The big difference this time is including comic-strip overviews of dissertations and experiments people shared with him during his travels including working with colliders in search of the Higgs-Boson (confirmed in 2012/2013 at CERN, the very place Dr. Cham visited in 2008), how research time works at telescopes, and using cancer cells to measure uranium leakage into ground water. — This fascinating information providing a jumping off point for Jorge Cham’s later interest of creating scientific fact sharing books like “We have No Idea” in 2017 on top of the PhD comics.

Watching authors evolve in interest and ability always fascinates me.

Best of all – the biggest advancement in the technology – is COLOR!!!!

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for ADVENTURES IN THESISLAND

Life in Academia never seemed livelier than in this humorous take on grant writing, academic dress codes and the many uses for lab coats. Follow the phenomenon known as PHD Comics in this fifth book collection of the popular online comic strip. What would happen if Newton tweeted? If TV ‘Science’ shows were more like real science? If research papers had a comment section? Also included are excerpts from the script of the recently released ‘The PHD Movie’ and author Jorge Cham’s comics journal of his travels and his detention by the U.K. border police.

MY REVIEW for ADVENTURES IN THESISLAND

Collection Five of PhD comics: Adventures in Thesisland continues the wonderful color and presents the years 2009 to 2012. The tech and social media have caught up with modern standards completely, adding Tweets to the procrastination mess. I found this collection the most relatable of the series.

Highlights:
1. PhD made a movie! (Go them!)
2. p. 27 – Why is this still my desktop? I finished my graduate studies fifteen years ago. And when did Dr. Cham visit my house?
3. Thesisland series – Alice in Wonderland side-trip is some of the best art done in the entire series.
4. p. 82 – Can I bottle the statistics on this and send it to all media centers?
5. p. 219-222 – Another of Dr. Cham’s travel log reports. This one is … scary? disappointing? frustrating? prophecy? A report of him being detained in 2009 and nearly not able to make his lecture schedule. When he shared what happened, readers around the UK and the US shared how many non-white academics are being “returned to sender”. Are tensions worsening because of the bigotry or is bigotry worsening because of the actions to avoid tension? “Still, I keep looking over my shoulder for some reason.” – most of what Dr. Cham writes is real life for amusement sake, but sometimes it is just real life.

As always, the series is funny for those who spent too much time in academia. Or in the hallowed and hollow halls of science. Highly recommend.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for 20th ANNIVERSARY

Celebrate 20 years of PHD Comics with us! This sixth collection of comics continues the saga of Cecilia, Mike Slackenerny, Tajel and the Nameless Hero as they deal with tough advisors, frustrating undergrads and writing their thesis. This collection contains exclusive essays by Jorge Cham on why he started drawing the comics, who inspired the characters (including Prof. Smith!), and where all his ideas come from. Other highlights include PHD Comics’ take on Dr. Who, Les Miserables, and Downton Abbey. Want to know how many academics it takes to get a Powerpoint presentation to work? Or where you stand in the lab/department hierarchy? This book has comics for you. It also includes Jorge’s Tales from the Road comics and a handy guide to Academic Regalia.

MY REVIEW for 20th ANNIVERSARY

Unlike most 20th Anniversary Collections, this is not a cherry-pick of the last twenty years of the PhD comic strip, instead it is really Collection Six covering years 2012 to 2014. Note that while this is the last of the printed collections, Dr. Cham continued to make more strips and publish them at his website until 2021. Well, he really stopped sometime in 2019. No new strips were published in 2020 and only six more published in 2021.

In this collection he talks about the births of his son and daughter and how they impacted his strip in his author’s notes -so if the last baby was born in 2014, then 2019 would be having a seven and five year old (guessing) and 2024 (when I am reading this) would be a 10 and 12 year old children – maybe older. He switched to longer form stories, looks like the most recent one is “Oliver’s Great Big Universe”, and his FaceBook page is still active (unlike his webpage which doesn’t even include the 20th anniversary book). He gave us a career, over 20 years, of comics and academia humor; I guess he is allowed to start his second career (or is it third? – did his grad studies count as one?). We have really enjoyed the ride he provided with the comic strip portion of his life.

I loved this particular collection for Cecilia really cracking down on getting her thesis written. As someone in the publication industry, her struggles of getting words on screen is very real. p. 153 – “Ok, I need to transfer my thoughts from my head to this screen. C’mon, Write! — (she brings her head into contact with the computer screen) They’re Touching! Transmit! Transmit!” — I feel this to the depths of my soul every time.

Great collection. Sad to come to the end of this series readthrough. But it is a great collection, and a great collection of collections.

Book Review: The Hummingbird’s Gift

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The Hummingbird’s Gift by Reese Morrison

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What if the gods got it wrong?

When children in Rohahen’s tribe come of age, they receive shifter forms from the gods. Sometimes these forms come with an extra gift: strength-sharers can give mental commands while heart-singers can shape others’ emotions.

Rohahen has been hiding his crush on Tier for fifteen years. For the balance of the tribe, the Chief must marry a heart-singer, not a strength-sharer like himself.

Only Rohahen is starting to wonder if there might be other ways of being a heart-singer. When Tier starts to return his affection, perhaps he can find the bravery to show the world who he really is.

Because the ways of the gods are mysterious. And maybe they didn’t get it wrong after all.

“The Hummingbird’s Gift” is a companion to “Hummingbird and Kraken” and continues the story of one if its primary characters. (It will not make sense as a stand-alone.) It is a friends-to-lovers story with an adorable bison shifter, a uncertain Chief, a heart-singer coming into his own, plenty of heat, and a HEA.

 

MY REVIEW

Most romances focus on the relationship between the two love interests and leave the rest of the world to adjust to them. Love is that powerful a force, or so the fantasy magic of romance tells us.

But community is a true powerhouse in reality, and as a chief, Tier’s duties are to his people and being in balance for them. Any relationship he takes on much consider these duties because they are as much a part of him as his shifter abilities.

Rohahen understands this and has kept his distance, but since the gardener’s abduction Tier is no longer keeping his.

Can they find balance without harming their beloved community?

Although, at times, the dialog is somewhat stilted, overall the story is a sweet (and spicy M-M) short story romance. I always adore a story where the society pressures are based on love, not hate. Reese Morrison delivers again.

While the Amazon blurb indicates that this story should be read after its companion book, I found this short story worked just fine on its own. We are all used to being dropped into the middle of the action and figuring things out from there, right?

(Read through Kindle Unlimited)

Book Review (SERIES): Quincy Harker (Books 5-7 or 15-17 depending on how you count)

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Quincy Harker Series books 15-17 by John G. Hartness

Carl Perkins’ Cadillac (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter Book 15)
Inflection Point (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter Book 16)
Conspiracy Theory (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter Book 17)

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Where do you go when you’ve saved the world but given up everything and everyone you love in the process?

The home of the blues, of course! Quincy Harker has retreated to Memphis to lick his wounds and get started on building a new life for himself. He’s determined to be a normal guy (almost) living a (mostly) normal life working as a bouncer in a (not even a little bit) normal bar. But it all goes sideways when someone asks for his help with a little demon problem.

Harker knows there’s no such thing as a little demon problem. He’s right, of course, because his demon problem includes hellhounds, dragons, djinn, angels, artifacts, secret government agencies, and a high school prom. This could absolutely be Quincy Harker’s most dangerous outing yet, and that’s before we even mention the explosions!

 

MY REVIEW

A lot of action in a longer format for Quincy Harker. It’s nice not to wait between installments – getting a whole plotline at once.

Quincy has gone off on his own – and that may not have been his best decision. You would think after the archangel quest and going to hell-and-back nothing would be out of Quincy’s power range. But he did the quest and hell-basket with a team, his support system of friends and associates. Being on his own leaves his back open and his sides without wingmen (and for a guy that hangs with angels, missing wingmen is a big deal).

Evil has come knocking in the blue’s city of Memphis. Can Quincy knock it back without his normal support system or is a whole lot of people going to die?

 

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His uncle has been kidnapped.
A shadowy government agency is torturing cryptids in his city.
His Sanctuary has been revoked from the one place he could drink safely.
There’s a medusa at the mall.
A fairy princess might have just summoned an Old One in a public park.

Quincy Harker really wishes he’d just stayed in Memphis.

But he didn’t. He came home, to find out that a secret government agency has gone rogue and kidnapped Luke, along with literally dozens of other cryptids, faeries, lycanthropes, and monsters. Now Harker and his crew have to rescue Luke and take down a massive government conspiracy while keeping escaped monsters from destroying Charlotte!

There are times in a person’s life when they know that nothing will ever be the same. This is one of those times.

This is Quincy Harker’s Inflection Point.

MY REVIEW

“Inflection point” is a mathematical term for when the graph changes direction. It is also likely a song – Mr. Hartness likes song titles – and I went searching and there were several songs by this title. I’m going to stick with the mathematical term.

Inflection point where Quincy Harker stops running away from love and its potential loss and accepts Becks. We will see if this sticks – Quincy has had a long history of painful loss, so wincing away from the potential pain is deeply engrained in his personality and may not be removable no matter how much he loves Rebecca.

Inflection point in the change of government relations with the paranormal world. Up until now governmental policy has been hiding the paranormal from the greater community. It’s seemed to have changed to eliminate everyone everywhere. Not the best public relation choice, but genocide has always been preferable and more effective in the long run than hiding the truth on a government scale. Not that I think Quincy Harker and the greater Shadow Council is going to take this change in tactics laying down. Many of the Council members were shaped by times of war – they can slip back to being the monsters of the dark facing off against the monsters in the light if they have to.

Inflection point of rescuing Luke. Whether what is rescued is sane enough to function is a different inflection point. Could Quincy put down Dracula if he had to?

Inflection point of demons and angels as allies and enemies, and things that they love, and things that they fight … together.

Lots of things happening in this story. The new style of full novels instead of novellas hasn’t slowed down the fights per word at all. Or profanity. Or found-family.

Action-packed, Inflection Point does not turn around what you expect from Quincy Harker Demon Hunter. Monsters, Mayhem, and Magic Maxed-out.

 

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There are rogue government agents hunting supernatural creatures all over Charlotte. There’s a bloodbath in the parking lot of a demon bar and a massacre at a shopping mall. There are protests and tear gas and riot cops and somehow Quincy F’n Harker is the one stuck in the middle of cops, monsters, and DEMON agents trying to keep them from tearing his city apart.

And now there seems to be a traitor in their midst. Couple that with the revelation that Harker’s guardian angel might have an ulterior motive, and you’ve got a web of deception and intrigue that can only be CONSPIRACY THEORY.

MY REVIEW

This Quincy Harker gave me chills, and not for the normal non-stop action (which is here) or the monsters (which is here) or the magic (which is here).

It is the torn-from-the-headlines topic of police excessive force during demonstrations in the Charlotte area. I think Mr. Hartness wrote this novel either as (1) a therapy session for what happened in Charlotte in June 2020 or (2) a reminder of what happened so we never forget those who protect may need to be protected from when they go off the reservation.

Thing is fiction has to make sense and the June 2020 riots didn’t. The shooting with paint balls to the face (deadly on normals) make sense against a glowing and invulnerable Quincy Harker. The making people disappear in prison. Police having military level weapons and tanks. The shutting down of peaceful memorials and then herding the people into a kill-zone they could not escape while having tear gas launched at their bodies (not at the feet) and being hit by rubber bullets. All of that has to make sense and build with the story – and the author does this.

I wish the same could be said about the same actions which happened in real life. It been nearly two years and I still remember the horror I felt watching it all unfold real-time on people’s cell phones.

Never forget.

At the same time, the author does a good job of showing that the protectors, police and federal government, also are good guys. The badge on the cover with the black stripe explains the respect and sadness shared over the loss by our men in blue.

As a fictional story, Conspiracy Theory works within the greater history of Quincy Harker and is action-pact demon hunting goodness for the Urban Fantasy fan.

Book Review: Silver in the Wood

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Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

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Winner of the 2020 World Fantasy Award!

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.

When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.

 

MY REVIEW

I don’t believe I’ve ever read a romance story based on the Greenman mythos before, but this works wonders. And Silver in the Wood is definitely a paranormal romance story (M-M), despite being marketed as a straight-up fantasy story.

Rich and layered, this story develops both Tobis and Henry into fully realized human beings, well, at least sentient beings. And follows their paths, both of individual growth and growth as a couple, with barely a kiss exchanged.

Short at 112 pages, it is also a quick read and worth every moment.

(read for bookclub)