Category: Book Review

Book Review: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe

Erin Penn

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A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White

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A crew of outcasts tries to find a legendary ship before it falls into the hands of those who would use it as a weapon in this science fiction adventure series for fans of The Expanse and Firefly.

A washed-up treasure hunter, a hotshot racer, and a deadly secret society.

They’re all on a race against time to hunt down the greatest warship ever built. Some think the ship is lost forever, some think it’s been destroyed, and some think it’s only a legend, but one thing’s for certain: whoever finds it will hold the fate of the universe in their hands. And treasure that valuable can never stay hidden for long. . .

 

MY REVIEW

Book club read.

The last time I read a science fiction story with racing done this well is Piers Anthony’s “Hard Sell”. “A Big Ship” certainly is NOT the pod race from star wars inserted for coolness of the visuals.

One of the focal character is a race car driver with all the selfishness combined with team spirit regularly seen in NASCAR and other racing styles. I love her developing out of a childhood-celebrity isolation into adulthood. Best character development arc I’ve seen in a while.

The other POV (point of view) characters is a washed-up up ex-military who landed on the wrong side of the war. The juxtaposition between their two value systems and life experiences provides tension in-and-of itself. (Adding the Illuminati level bad guys takes the tension to galaxy-spanning levels.)

I also really enjoyed the science-fiction magic world. Everyone is born with one magic gift – some at high levels and some at low levels. The high-level rare types are sought out just like specialized high intelligences in this futuristic tech/magic base.

Great characters, with development, great plot, and great worldbuilding.

Book Review: Changeling’s Fall

Erin Penn

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Changeling’s Fall: The Eisteddfod Chronicles Book 1 by Sarah Joy Adams and Emily Lavin Leverett

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Her Faerie Tale is getting awfully grim.

Deor Smithfield had it all figured out. She had a great education, a new job teaching at a good university, and a plan to move across the country to start her new life.

Then her body betrayed her, and she seemed to be falling prey to the same wasting sickness that killed her mother. When medical science failed her in spectacular fashion, Deor’s grandmother told her that her long-lost father was more than just another deadbeat dad – he was a faerie, and she’s a Changeling, half-human, half-fae.

Now Deor has to rush to Faerie in search of her missing father before his magical parting gift kills her. She’s in a new world with no friends, no money, no job, and only a few days to find her disappearing daddy before she’s kicked back out into the mundane world to die.

Oh yeah, and somebody’s hunting Changelings in Faerie.

MY REVIEW

Nothing like walking into a political battle where you don’t know the players, the rules, or the reasons … and you are the most valuable piece on the board. Professor Deor faces exactly this situation.

Problem for the players – they think she will play their game as a pawn. 

She don’t care who your Daddy is. She isn’t a pawn. And she isn’t playing anything except for Keeps.

A wonderful mix of fantasy, politics, thriller, romance, and anything else the authors – Dr. Adams and Dr. Leverett – could slip in. 

Book Review: Circe

Erin Penn

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Circe by Madeline Miller

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In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child — not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power — the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man’s world.

 

MY REVIEW

Read for Book Club

A coming-of-age story, for someone that takes a thousand years to grow up. While gods might reach adulthood within a few days of being born, they are far from mature. Circe, daughter of Titan and a nymph, is no exception to the rule.

It takes her so looooong to get any agency. That is part coming-of-age, getting and developing agency. And when your family are careless gods who have no bounds, and the child-adult lives in a world where the whim of gods takes agency away from all, cultivating agency can be as helpless as planting seed during hurricane season.

More literary than genre, the book focuses on Circe’s emotional development and back-slides. Lots of mythology is covered from the nature gods to the age of heroes. Beautiful language throughout.

I like to see agency in action, a lot. This story is about developing agency, not using it, so not really my cup of tea. On the other hand, book clubs are great because they make you try new things.

Book Review: There is No Wheel

Erin Penn

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There is No Wheel by James Maxey

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A shark swims through a kitchen. A biology teacher dumps a dead angel onto his grandmother’s dining room table. A billion bees swarm the Empire State Building. In an empty attic, a teapot filled with lizards reaches a boil. Everything is understood when a small town sheriff bites into an eyeball. These are the scenes that draw you into the world of James Maxey. Good luck on finding your way back out.

James Maxey’s award winning short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and over a dozen other magazines and anthologies. There is No Wheel collects his ten most critically acclaimed tales.

(See the full blurb at Amazon by clicking on “There is No Wheel” above. Each of the short stories gets a small breakdown. Since I reviewed each below, the review got a little long and I trimmed it here.)

 

MY REVIEW

A collection of ten of James Maxey’s short stories, “There is No Wheel” is alternately uncomfortable, amazing, demented, inventive, twisted, and jaw-dropping. As the intro by Edmund Schubert, former editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show states: “One thing about James: he pushes boundaries, and he pushes them hard. … James’s stories require a strong mind and strong stomach. They’re freaky weird and hauntingly honest at the same time.”

All the stories are complete, complicated, and crazy.

To the East, a Bright Star: “He should go on, leave her to her own devices. Except he hated people who thought like that…” This line – a gem – encapsulates the story about two very messed up people in a very messed up situation, types of people everyone else would look the other way when they see them, and holds out a moral as a shiny ruby – like a piece of gum on the bottom of the shoe in summer, sticking with you forever. For if ever there was a time to leave a person behind and never face consequences, the addict had it. He faced a choice between his own personal comfort, safety, and dreams, and saving someone else. 

Silent as Dust: Wasn’t sure until the end who was being haunted.

Final Flight of the Blue Bee: Sometimes heroes live long enough to be the villain. And some heroes don’t need to live very long to reach that point. 

Empire of Dreams and Miracles: Getting deeper into the collection, and the connection Mr. Maxey’s works have to reality get looser – and somehow more direct. For what is more direct than death and more unreal than it not having consequences, until, unexpectedly, it does.

Return to Sender: Crystal has been raised by monks with virtually no outside contact meets a home-school guy raised by religious extremists (snake handlers) while delivering pizza. Comparing backgrounds of isolation, indoctrination, and improbable information, she questions if she really is about to save the world or just kill a guy who owns some old books because the monks tell her to. And with Mr. Maxey you really don’t know where this is going to land.

Pentacle on His Forehead, Lizard on His Breath: Customer service is essential for return customers.

To Know All Things That Are In the Earth: That is … the weirdest and wildest post-rapture story I have ever read that still made sense. The least psychedelic story of the collection. Strangely – the more out-there the circumstances of the story, the more real Mr. Maxey makes his characters.

Echo of the Eye: Oh, um. Well, then. 

Where Their Worm Dieth Not: Another story about the consequences of death not having consequences, except when it does. Superhero version. Also a study of evil, judgement, and punishment.

Perhaps the Snail: An erotica with a moist large, one-muscle creature. A commentary on obsession. A study of rock lyrics. One, two or all three or something else entirely? I think I brought up the words demented and psychedelic before in this review while also saying Mr. Maxey writes full-bodied characters. Yeah.

Book Review: Calling All Angels

Erin Penn

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Calling All Angels by John G. Hartness

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From the pages of Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter comes this thrilling new dark fantasy series! They are humanity’s defense against the supernatural. They are the light in the darkness. They are the guardians that walk in the night. They are The Shadow Council.

Joanna Harrison is a freelance editor, working mother, and loving daughter. She is also the great-granddaughter or legendary steel driving man John Henry, and she has taken up his hammer to fight against the monsters that threaten her family and her world. She is Jo Henry, and she packs one hell of a punch.

Jo is fighting like the devil, looking for an angel. She’s on a mission to find the Archangel Michael, give him back his holy sword, and bring his memories back. But first she has to stay alive. Through underground cage fights and demon hunts in the desert, Jo will need all the help she can get to wake up the angel. And when a demon kidnaps her mother and daughter, it’s time to come out swinging.

 

MY REVIEW

A new year, a new four-novella group for Quincy Harker, only this year (year 3) introduces the Shadow Council. First up, Joanna Harrison.

I was not expecting that. I’m so used to Mr. Hartness strong large male bachelor characters, I did not expect a female to be a POV character with a child. Yet it works, very, very well.

Joanna inherited the hammer from her great-great John Henry with a couple twists passing the hammer down the woman line, giving her the last name Harrison, but most of the old members (and some of them are really old) of the Shadow Council call her by the hammer’s lineage – Jo Henry.

Glory lost her wings at the conclusion of last year’s story. Now the council needs to find the archangels to see if they can get her wings back. Jo’s mission is to find the first one.

It won’t be easy. Might break her body. But one thing the Henry steel-drivin’ line doesn’t do is give up.

Well-structured and interesting story. An excellent addition to the Harkerverse.