Category: Book Review

Book Review (SERIES): The Biogenesis War / R is for Richman

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Welcome A-to-Z crowd. Once a month, I review a series. I guess I could have cheated and just said “R is for Review”, but instead I want to push R is for L.L. Richman. The author is an amazing hard science fiction author, specializing in military techno spy thrillers in space with special forces. This is the second of their series I have reviewed. See also Book Review (SERIES): Vision Rising (6/18/2024).

Now back to our normally scheduled blog.

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This is a bundle of the first three books of the Biogenesis War includes The Chiral Agent, The Chiral Protocol, and Chiral Justice following the life of mirror clones Micah and Jonathan as they deal with the Alliance and Akkadia fighting a spy and science cold war, mirroring actions with opposite spins of democracy and authoritarianism.

Where space opera mixes with hard science with a sprinkling of medical thriller and political spy drama mixed in, this multi-POV series will keep you turning the pages.

I have reviewed the books separately below. Considered as a series, I enjoyed these good military science fiction books individually and as a unit. It is best read in order.

The Biogenesis War by L.L. Richman
Book 1: The Chiral Agent
Book 2: The Chiral Protocol
Book 3: Chiral Justice

Related – The Biogenesis War Files: Ambush in the Sargon Straits

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE CHIRAL AGENT

WINNER OF THE 2021 Reader’s Favorite Book Award for Science Fiction

First, they stole his identity. Now, they want him dead.

Shadow Recon pilot Micah Case awakens above an alien world, with no memory of his past and a mysterious voice inside his head. Worse, his own military is hunting him… and he has no idea why.

His genetic code could destroy all life.

The voice leads to a discovery so unbelievable, enemy nations would kill to control it — to control him. Now, Micah must use every skill in his arsenal to secure the stolen research.

The stakes are impossibly high, but failure is not an option. The alternative could mean the extinction of a people Micah can no longer call his own. Humanity.

THE CHIRAL AGENT is a fast-paced, cerebral thriller that’s part hard science fiction, part spy novel, and one hundred percent adrenaline. It’s sure to keep you guessing every step of the way.

MY REVIEW for THE CHIRAL AGENT

The science behind Chiral has always interested me. While the author, L.L. Richman, concentrates on the fiction and military part of the science-fiction military genre, the base for the science-fiction element has a solid reality.

But first and foremost, this is a science-fiction spy thriller – we wake up in a morgue about to be incinerated with our hero and keep moving from there. I really enjoyed the ride.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE CHIRAL PROTOCOL

Countdown to Annihilation

An Alliance asset is found brutally murdered, a deadly biomaterial stolen, and their top scientist kidnapped.

Shadow Recon pilot Micah Case is the only human in existence immune to the viral weapon the Akkadian Empire would unleash on the settled worlds.

It’s up to him to stop them — before millions die.

MY REVIEW for THE CHIRAL PROTOCOL

Chiral Protocol starts by leaping into the fire, then enters a whirlwind when stellar politics and intrigue take over. The Biogenesis War includes bioweapons and all the devastation that entails. The story can be hard to follow as there are three theatres of action: the kidnapped scientist, the political summit, and a cruise ship. But each of far flung location is entangled with the others at a quantum level, needing to be resolved by our heroic Chiral pairing: Jonathan and Micah – plus a ferret and a large dark cat.

Where secrets meet, the microscopic spins everything around. This science-fiction techno thriller delivers on the science, the fiction, and the thriller.

Content Warning: Plague Ship.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for CHIRAL JUSTICE

* 2023 International Book Award Finalist for Science Fiction *

Old enemies never die.

The unthinkable has happened: an Akkadian assassin has helped broker peace between her star nation and the Alliance. Micah Case and Task Force Blue watch the peace talks with guarded optimism—but they know one thing the rest of the settled worlds don’t.

Clint Janus has vanished with the Alliance’s most closely-held secret.

And Micah Case holds the key.

Janus is now allied with Akkadia’s new premier, Asher Dent, and the man is not as peace-loving as he might seem.

It’s going to be up to Micah Case and Task Force Blue to prevent Dent from achieving that which he wants most: total space supremacy over all the settled worlds.

MY REVIEW for CHIRAL JUSTICE

The action-packed conclusion of the Biogenesis War delivers on everything which has gone before. Asher Dent now controls Akkadia, and plans to keep it that way. Pascal now has access to steaks and plans to keep it that way. Micah now has a date with Sam and plans to keep it.

But Clint Janus has disappeared, interfering with some of those plans and helping others. By the end of the mission, politicians will race in the sky, cats will walk on water, and a Chiral will die. Nanotechnology, political intrigue, desert prisons, cloaked spaceships – this exciting series is where hard science meets military space opera. Be prepared to have your molecules spin in a different direction.

While Chiral Justice could be read as a stand-alone, don’t cheat yourself out of maximum enjoyment of this sci-fi goodness. Start with The Chiral Agent and work your way through the whole series.

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for AMBUSH IN THE SARGON STRAITS

It should have been a simple extraction.

Rumors of unrest have caused the Alliance to recall its consulate stationed on the Khufu torus. Elodie Cyr and SRU Team Five are there to ensure it happens smoothly.

But the intelligence geeks’ estimates were wrong — way wrong — and Ell and the team are in for the fight of their lives.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a 13,000-word, 75 page novelette in the Biogenesis War Files series.

MY REVIEW for AMBUSH IN THE SARGON STRAITS

A novella/short story from a series of three novels and four short stories/novella – I picked this one while free and it delivered enough I found the series in a package deal and picked it up.

Standard military science-fiction faire, at least to start. War is brewing on the horizon and an air-force/land-force special-forces mix is sent to extract the consulate from the disputed territory before the war comes over the horizon. In this case, the “air-force” crew a very small space ship and the extraction team has to exfiltrate the consulate from a colony-sized space station. Their sovereign planet, while allied with one side, is not actively part of the coming hostilities nor wants to precipitate the conflict. Problems start when the brewing aggression reaches boiling during the operation. All your favorite tropes delivered in a small package.

80% of the kindle edition is devoted to the short story and 20% is a teaser from the first novel of the Biogenesis War.

(F is for Farrady) Book Review: Resolution: Good Text

Erin Penn 5 Comments

The first Tuesday of the month is my Book Review day. Here is a “F” author.

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Resolution: Good Text by Deana Farrady

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He’s Rafail Slutsky, Olympic medalist. Women drool over his ripped body. He helps charities. He’s a god in a man suit.

I’m Cecily Spangler, geek. I snark. I draw. I huddle in my shell like a turtle. Nobody has ever heard of me.

Do I need to spell out how wrong we are for each other?

Luckily, I’m done with fantasies of celebrities I have no hope of ever meeting. On New Year’s Eve, I resolve to flirt with the nerdy guy I’ve been crushing on over on my favorite forum. I know nothing about him, but I just have this feeling we have a lot in common.

And then, joy of joys, he messages me back.

Before I know it, I’m in deeper than I ever expected. The connection between us SIZZLES. I only hope that if we ever meet in person, I’ll live up to his imaginings.

One small problem: he just sent me a text. He wants to meet me. Now.

I figure the worst that can happen is that we have no chemistry, right?

Wrong…because there’s a lot more to this nerd than I ever dreamed…
—————
It’s the New Year! Time to ring your bell with some hot and hunky resolutions! Join fifteen of your favorite romance authors as their stories get off… on the right foot this year. Champagne corks aren’t the only things popping!

 

MY REVIEW

One from a group of short stories where a sorority president sends out a challenge to members to make real new year’s resolutions. Not the typical “going to lose weight” or “exercise more”. Cecily, an art nerd through and through – to the point of setting up a social media site to draw art, decides to take her up on that and actually INITIATE (gasp!) contact with a person on the social media site. Someone she thinks is male, hopes is male, well, might be male – hoping. Also hoping around her age.

Messaging changes to texting and then to selfie photo trades – of their … well, you need to read the rest.

I think Ms. Farrady captured the challenge and courage it takes when a nerd steps outside their comfort zone. And how hard it is for ANYONE to take a risk, even a hot, hot, hot celebrity. Funny and a little inspiring, while also erotic.

(Read through Kindle Unlimited)

Book Review (SERIES): The MidSolar Murders

Erin Penn Leave a comment

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The Midsolar Mysteries series by Mur Lafferty

Book 1: Station Eternity
Book 2: Chaos Terminal
Book 3: Infinite Archive

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for STATION ETERNITY

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel that puts a speculative spin on murder mysteries, from the Hugo-nominated author of Six Wakes.

From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But outside of a classic mystery novel, being surrounded by death doesn’t make you a charming amateur detective, it makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. Surely the murders will stop if her only company is alien beings. At first her new existence is peacefully quiet…and markedly devoid of homicide.

But when the station agrees to allow additional human guests, Mallory knows the break from her peculiar reality is over. After the first Earth shuttle arrives, and aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, and wondering how in the world this keeps happening to her anyway, Mallory has to solve the crime—and fast—or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board….

MY REVIEW for STATION ETERNITY

If Murder She Wrote’s Jessica Fletcher was Meta aware of the murders occurring around her were Unusual while being a 20-something woman and having the option to flee humanity to prevent being a murder magnet, we get the Midsolar Murders.

Aliens which are aliens. Humans worthy of a kind-of closed room Murder Mystery (when on a space station, no one can step outside easily). A sentient space station Going-Through-Things-At-The-Moment. And a protagonist aware she makes murders happen.

The threads of the mystery are so complicated that halfway through I lost everything. It felt like the plot completely evaporated into chaos and I nearly gave up on the book. I skipped to read the Epilogue before going to sleep (some of the issue of tracking everything could be the 3am hour), but that didn’t really answer anything other than give me some idea of who all makes it through the craziness.

I came back to the read after a couple days, since I bought both books one and two together (I loved previous books by the author; Mur Lafferty is an amazing writer and I was willing to take the financial risk on the series) and, dang it, I was going to read both of them even if Station Eternity was a failure! Then the impossible happens – the tangled knot of everything – like three kittens playing with a yarn project – smoothed out. Does everything get neatly tied off – well, no, there is more to this series – but the mystery gets an ending, all the characters get development (and I mean ALL of them), the world shifts and the foundation worldbuilding proves solid.

Wow.

I did mention Mur Lafferty is an amazing writer, right?

 

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for CHAOS TERMINAL

Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, and fled to outer space to avoid it…but when one of the new human arrivals on a space shuttle is murdered, she’s back in the game.

Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, thank you very much. But no matter what she does, people persist in dying around her—and only she seems to be able to solve the crime. After fleeing to an alien space station in hopes that the lack of humans would stop the murders, a serial killer had the nerve to follow her to Station Eternity. (Mallory deduced who the true culprit was that time, too.)

Now the law enforcement agent who hounded Mallory on Earth has come to Station Eternity, along with her teenage crush and his sister, Mallory’s best friend from high school. Mallory doesn’t believe in coincidences, and so she’s not at all surprised when someone in the latest shuttle from Earth is murdered. It’s the story of her life, after all.

Only this time she has more than a killer to deal with. Between her fugitive friends, a new threat arising from the Sundry hivemind, and the alarmingly peculiar behavior of the sentient space station they all call home, even Mallory’s deductive abilities are strained. If she can’t find out what’s going on (and fast), a disaster of intergalactic proportions may occur.…

MY REVIEW for CHAOS TERMINAL

I don’t know about this one, if it was me or the book that wasn’t engaging properly but I didn’t fall into this book. Maybe it was the murder victim was so unlikeable the general response by everyone was “well, better off dead.” It’s hard to root for a murder to be solved when the question isn’t “who did it” but “why wasn’t it done sooner?” I’ve had run into that sort of victim before, it helps the mystery when everyone has a reason to want the person dead, but this time, for me at least, figuring out the murder was second to everything else in the story. And there is a lot of other things happening!

The Midsolar Murders has another locked room mystery in that on a space station, there is no where to run. The aliens are very alien. The politics has humans still fumbling through first contact add complications. And talk about complications, our heroine’s first love shows up on the station with her only best friend to survive Mallory being a murder magnet.

Mallory is still linked to her wasp-bugs hivemind, so trying to link up with a potential boyfriend is problematic. Added to the fact Mrs. Brown has left the sentient station under Mallory’s care while she goes learn what it means to be the shepherd for an intelligent machine. (BTW Mallory is horrible as a babysitter.) And a new bunch of humans including a new ambassador to replace Adrian. Well, of course her murder magnet will activate.

Lots of things happening in this science fiction story. Which made the murder mystery suffer a breath (hard to breathe in the vacuum of space – or scream, just ask Tina). Good heading towards great but swerved before hitting it.

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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for INFINITE ARCHIVE

Amateur sleuth Mallory Viridian has just about got her bearings aboard the space station she calls home, but now the physical embodiment of the Internet is on its way, and it’s bringing murder with it.

Mallory Viridian has had a quiet few months. Even with the increased influx of humans visiting Station Eternity, she hasn’t seen so much as a bar brawl. Used to people dying left and right around her, the lack of murders to solve has left her unexpectedly . . . bored.

But humanity’s favorite way to waste time is on its way to her sector of the galaxy. A giant, one-of-a-kind data ship called Metis is bringing the entire Internet from Earth—as well as a mystery fan convention. On top of that, Mallory’s literary agent is aboard, and he tells Mallory that she’s the keynote speaker.

It’s almost a relief when a killer decides to strike at the convention. When Mallory finds her agent dead, she knows she has to work fast to find the murderer. With a strange new alien with unknown motives, a ship with impossible abilities, a lonely living, comprehensive Internet, and a deadly crime to solve, Mallory has her work cut out for her . . . .

MY REVIEW for INFINITE ARCHIVE

This book feels more like fan service than a science fiction murder mystery. I mean the whole series has had a little “wink, wink” to it with Mallory being a self-aware murder-magnet, but this takes it a step further, making the Easter eggs be more powerful than the actual plot. That line is thin and hard to spot, but I think we landed on the wrong side of it for making this book the BEST it could have been. It still is pretty darn good.

The in-book reading of another book – the detective noir sci-fi story starring plants as the main characters – both adds and distracts. (and this is like the third time in the last two years I’ve read books with this device) Part of the time my brain was comparing the Murder Mystery Convention on the space ship with the Murder Mystery Convention on a train in the “Everybody on This Train is a Suspect” by Benjamin Stevenson. Also comparing the con to attending conventions now even though this is taking place about twenty years in the future. Then the ship, Metis, is not only a convention but also a physical representation of the internet down to the cat room/videos.

Meanwhile, we continue to have the politics of the aliens, the politics of Earth, human interactions, the addition of the baby Mobius from the last book  and all that entails (remember how in book 2 I said Mallory is an awful babysitter???), and, you know, the actual plot.

A lot is packed in between the pages. Of the three Midsolar Murders, book one was the best. If I didn’t have books one and two for comparison, I would have enjoyed book 3 as a farce – but I wanted more. Oh, and I read the book in one sitting – going to bed at 6:30 am because “one more chapter” syndrome is strong in this book. I wanted more, I wanted the book to be better, and I still couldn’t put it down.

Book Review: Pogue One

Erin Penn Leave a comment

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Pogue One (Anthology – see author details below)

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The purpose of this anthology is not to denigrate pogues. On the contrary, we felt their representation in fiction (military SF or otherwise) a bit lacking. What about the kid with the thirty-pound brain locked away in the vault, like in Gene Rowley’s tale of a lance corporal in the Cyber Corps? The medical ninjas who’re willing to move heaven and earth to save one more life feature prominently in K. Anders’s story. Chris DiNote shows us there are worse things lurking within the depths of the military machine than mere pogues. In “The Troll,” Jim Curtis reminds us that the hardest working folks in the military just may be the apes whose job is to keep aircraft in the sky. Wrapping up our ensemble of storytelling is Liska McCabe, who reminds us that no matter the MOS, we all endure check-out in the end.

 

MY REVIEW

Raconteur Press is single-handedly attempting to bring back the (1) anthology, (2) the pulp anthology, (3) short story goodness. In 2025 they are attempting to publish 25 short story anthologies. If you have been hungering for good pulp anthologies – from fantasy to detective noir to cats in space, they got you covered.

Pogue One feed my particular love of support-staff of the military. Instead of the man in the mechsuit taking names of aliens on a star-flung planet, I want to know about the people that (1) built the suit, (2) maintain the suit in the field, and (3) arrange the logistics to get the suit from point A to the infantry wearing them at point B. Yes the TIP of the spear is interesting, but there is a whole lot of spear and very little tip and the tip wouldn’t reach where it does without the spear shaft. (I really need to write some military-support stories. But fortunately, in the meantime, other people have wrote some!)

Overall, Pogue one delivers as promised. Pogue stories! Being an anthology, some are great and some are good.

Breakdown by story with a short review of each
1. A Dzar Wars Story by K. Anders – Medtech are used to keeping others alive, less so, themselves. (4 star)
2. To the Letter by S.J. Fazekas – Public relations. Love, following orders, and meeting mission goals – you can have any two, but not all three. What is a public relations officer to do? (Loss of stars for weight hate, 2 star)
3. F$%n Guard Guys! – Finances. Nepotism and Old Guard vs. Bean Counters; both combatants waging war through the old boy network and budget line items. Who will win? (3 star)
4. Unsung heroes of Cyber Corps by E.G. Rowley – Computer maintenance. Remember to always report phishing emails to security promptly. (3 star)
5. Big Mama – Logistics usually is about getting shields to the right location; other times they are the only shield between disaster and the civilians. (4 1/2 star). This is the story I want expanded into a full novel and get an expanded ending. Yes, complete story, but I want what is next!!!
(UPDATE!!! – full length novel – A Kiss from Damocles (book 1) is available. Set in the same world, but not the same characters. Still, I get to find out what is next.)
6. Forge of Hephaestus by William Meinert – Analyst (taking all the data collected and teasing out the secrets). The military is always looking for the right tool for the right job, but when technology advances, can old tools be used again? (2 stars – I personally hate the friend zone trope. Other than that, the story is great.)
7. Bits and Parts by Josh Hill – Maintenance Tech. When a gutter rat gets inside the fence, can the Master Gunnery Sergeant save him before the dangers outside the base and the dangers inside the base find out exactly what the rat can do? (5 star)
8. Chow Hall – Installation Techs. They say know your enemy, but it also pays to know your allies. (5 star)
9. The Troll by J.L. Curtis – Machinists. God bless the reservists brining their specialties to the services. (4 star – note, technical heavy)
10. Moto-Morphosis by Liska McCabe – Accountant. Accountability during out-processing can be worse than the enemy. I am amused the last story of the anthology is about trying to turn in the equipment so a military member can leave. (3 star)

Overall, a broad range of skills covered.

Other Cool Blogs: Children Non-Fiction Recommendations

Erin Penn Leave a comment


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Are you looking for children and YA books? Last year I recommended the blog booksyalove.com (May 22, 2025)  for a bunch of YA recommendation from a librarian. I have found another librarian site, this time for children and I love the mix of diverse reads among the options. For the A-to-Z challenge in 2025, Christina Dankert searched out Nonfiction picture books and about half of the 37 books she covered would qualify as diverse reads – and she started strong with “A is for Activist.”

Reading is powerful. Seeing your history unfold in pictures can be lifechanging. Whether Ho’onani Hula Warrior or Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom, a budding scientific dancer will have something new to learn (and maybe the parent as well). The full list of links for the books covered in the challenge can be found in the “A to Z Blog Challenge Reflection 2025” (cut and paste option: https://christinadankert.com/2025/05/03/a-to-z-blog-challenge-reflection-2025/ ). She also covered books for the 2024 challenge.

The extra wonderful thing about a librarian recommending books is it is highly likely the book is available in your local library. I have paged through her 37 recommendations and only one of the ones I was interested in reading wasn’t available through my local library; the other dozen or so have been added to my TBR pile. Yes, they are children books but they will widen my knowledge (non-fiction) without a big time commitment. If you follow me over on GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4918831.Erin_Penn) or StoryGraph (https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/erin_penn), you should see some children picture book reviews pop up throughout the year.