Category: book reviews

The Ballad of Allyn-a-Dale, by Danielle E. Shipley: A Release Day Review

For a delightful and amusing quick read, Danielle E. Shipley’s newest book, The Ballad of Cover and Spine, Ballad of Allyn-a-DaleAllyn-a-Dale, will be hard to beat if you – as I do – enjoy suspending disbelief and going along for the ride. The founding conceit of the story – that Faerie has turned the isle of Avalon into a space where the great heroes of British mythology: Arthur, Merlin, Robin Hood and his band – are unaffected by time and mortality, and that this protected place is further hidden in the 21st century by disguising it as a medieval/renaissance fair – had me hooked from the start.

Allyn-a-Dale, a wandering minstrel of royal blood, falls – literally – into Avalon, blown in from another world by the influence of the Winds. Quickly taken up by Marion and the rest of the merry men, Allyn finds a place in the fair, only to find that he is caught up in a quest to recover the stolen scabbard of Excalibur, the magic item that provides the protection to Avalon.

Shipley writes with a deft and light hand, her characters recognizable as their mythical counterparts but thoroughly of the modern world, if somewhat confused by it. Will Scarlet has the most page time and is the most thoroughly developed character, (and character he is) but others are well represented. This is less true of Arthur and Guinevere, but they are peripheral to the story.

This is not a complex or deep story. The conflicts and solutions are fairly simple, but that suits the light-heartedness of the novel; Shipley is not investigating deep truths and personal angst here, she’s writing a fun tale. It’s the first in a series, and I look forward to the next book.  A good summer read on the deck, and one that is suitable for middle-grades to adult. Four stars.

The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation and Exile, by Satis: A Review

 

Consolation Digital Cover

Exile Digital Cover

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Epic in scale and epic in style, The Redemption of Erâth series by Satis is the story of Brandyé Dui-Erâth. Born in fire, orphaned, raised by his reclusive and private grandfather, Brandyé is not truly accepted in his village. He learns to accept his unchosen outsider status, tempered by his two good friends, Elven, a boy of his own age, and Elven’s sister Sonora.

But there is a locked room in Brandyé’s grandfather’s house…and there are Brandyé’s dreams. Slowly it becomes evident that there is more to Brandyé – and to his grandfather, Reuel Tolkaï. Creatures from myth begin to menace; powerful tools of war come to Brandyé, to be used for good or evil. Rebellion simmers and flares, with unintended consequences. Darkness threatens all Brandyé knows, and Brandyé himself, sending him into exile.

Brandyé’s story is compelling, although the telling of it is detailed and slow-paced. And I use the word ‘telling’ intentionally: the author definitely tells this story; he does not, for the most part, show us it through Brandyé’s thoughts, emotions, or reactions. The voice is usually passive; the action recounted to us. It reminded me – in stylistic terms only – of an old book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales I had a child, which used the same passive voice for most of its re-tellings. The language is mannered and slightly archaic, bordering on the style of Lord Dunsany in his classic epic fantasies. While this almost bardic telling of the story is interspersed with conversations and scenes written in an active voice, the overall feel of the books is detached, the reader distanced from the characters by the stylistic choice. I almost think The Redemption of Erâth would benefit from being read out loud; the language deserves to be heard.  

While the plot – that of the magic child with a difficult road to walk in the saving of his/her world – is a classic fantasy plot – Satis does not flinch from making difficult choices for his characters. The world-building is extremely detailed. Satis is building a complex and finely-drawn world, more finely-drawn than some readers will be happy with, especially when combined with the slow-moving action. (There is also a companion volume, The History of Erâth, which I have not read.) Influences from classic fantasy, especially Tolkein (the name of Brandyé’s grandfather clearly an homage) are obvious.

I found these two books – Volume 1: Consolation and Volume 2: Exile – difficult to rate. The story is compelling if slow in the telling; the style will deter some readers, especially those used to action-based, fast-paced dystopian fantasy. But this is a deeply imagined world, and I will continue to read the next books in this series.Three stars.

Fools’ Apocalypse, by Anderson Atlas: A Review

Fools’ Apocalypse took me by surprise. What started out as, I thought, a techno-thriller concerned with an anarchic leader and his followers targeting the United States in a series of terrorist attacks on infrastructure turned into a zombie story, and a good zombie story at that. The undead, or ‘puppets’ have been spawned by the terrorist attacks, but how? And can the band of survivors, almost all with their own dark secrets, be resourceful enough to outwit the ‘puppets’ and each other?

Anderson Atlas’s strengths are in creating and developing characters. Each character is an individual, with strengths, weaknesses, and motivations that help to make them believable, and each are facing the terrible consequences of choices they made. The plot moves along at a good pace, once the introductory chapters are done; these are a bit slower, as we are meeting characters and learning their roles in the action, but as this is the first book in a planned series, the slower start is understandable. The writing is for the most part competent, although I found a few lines awkward or ineffective in conveying the emotion of the character.

What struck me about Fools’ Apocalypse is that Anderson Atlas has taken two of the great themes of American writing: the river journey, and the band-of-travelers-against-the-wild, and used them to give new life to the zombie apocalypse. Combined with a back story about a mysterious religious relic, and the characters’ growing realization of the effects of their individual actions, the story seemed remarkably fresh, not just another version of The Walking Dead. The illustrations, done in black-and-white, were an unusual but attractive addition.

All in all, I’m giving Fools’ Apocalypse four stars; it gave me several hours of reading enjoyment and left me wanting more.

The Urban Boys, by K.N Smith: A Review

Five teen-aged boys from an idyllic small American town venture into a forbidden forest, and are touched by a mysterious power that enhances their senses. With these heightened sensibilities, they become crime fighters, almost superheroes, at night, battling the destructive forces tearing their neighboring town apart.

The premise of The Urban Boys has potential as a young-adult story-line (I would say especially for a graphic novel) but in author K.N. Smith’s handling of the tale, the potential is not realized. There are several reasons for this: flowery prose inappropriate for the genre and the target audience; convoluted world-building containing far too much detail about issues not feeding the plot, and unrealistic familial relationships.

The author’s bio states she is a ‘passionate advocate of childhood literacy’, and The Urban Boys reads as if the intent was to provide moral messages and/or guidance embedded in an adventure story, aimed, I would guess, at early-teen boys. The characters and their families represent a fairly diverse section of middle America, with students from several races and various family dynamics as the protagonists, providing a range of characters for young male readers to identify with. Action sequences (including an overly detailed football game) punctuate the plot at frequent intervals. But the overwritten prose and the convoluted plot development would, in my experience (twenty-five years of teaching focused on students with behavioral and learning disabilities) make The Urban Boys inaccessible to many of the putative audience.

I found the family relationships in The Urban Boys unrealistic. Although set up to be a cross-section of families: a single divorced mother; a father raising two boys after the death of his alcoholic wife; a twenty-something sister looking after her younger brother after the loss of their mother to breast cancer, there were few real conflicts and too much easy understanding to be representative of what really happens in families. This underestimates the ability of young readers to recognize when a story reflects real life – and even in a young-adult fantasy, the core of the story should be recognizable to readers, regardless of the presence of magic in the world.

If good intentions made a good novel, then The Urban Boys would rate at least four stars. But they don’t, and the best I can give it is two.

The author provided me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Playback Effect, by Karen A. Wyle: A Review

In Playback Effect, Karen Wyle has created a not-very-distant future in which technology has taken virtual reality down a different path, allowing users to experience emotion – whether exhilaration, fear, pleasure or loss – recorded during actual events, through a special helmet. Protagonist Wynne Cantrell, a lucid dreamer, creates and records dreams for this market, allowing customers to experience her emotions and reactions from her purposeful dreams.

When Wynne is a victim of a bomb, planted in a fountain designed by her husband, Hal Wakeman, suspicion falls on Hal and quickly translates to conviction. The punishment in this future world is simple: the criminal is forced to experience, through helmet technology, the suffering of his or her victims, recorded at the crime scene by special technicians. Hal begins his punishment by experiencing Wynne’s emotions, only to be reprieved by the governor.

Hal works to clear his name, reluctantly working with a detective who is not-so-secretly in love with Wynne. But as he does so, he notices his own world-view and reactions changing – or is it just him? Is there an unrevealed side effect to experiencing another’s emotions?

All of could have been the premise for a nuanced and considered examination of how and what we can ever hope to understand with regard to another human being, and what being privy to the true reactions and emotions of another could – for good or bad – mean for human relationships and self-knowledge. While competently written for the most part, I found Playback Effect basically bland. Characters seemed not to have any real difficulties, even in what should have been tense and emotion-ridden situations; too often I felt I was being told what Wynne or Hal – or other characters – were thinking or experiencing, rather than being shown.

After the resolution of the major conflict of the story, the novel becomes a bit disjointed as it attempts to clear up loose ends and create a happy and hopeful ending; the story may have benefited from more time explaining Wynne’s new dream work and its uses. I would classify Playback Effect as a romance novel, using a technological twist and some legal wrangling as the catalysts forcing a reaction in Wynne and Hal’s relationship, not a science fiction novel. Fans of Nicholas Sparks (I am not among that group) are likely to find Playback Effect satisfying. Three stars.

The author provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Devil’s Breath, by Jon P. Wells: A Review

 

Private security consultant Ian MacRae agrees to do a favour for a friend, meeting a low-level informant in Baghdad, a meeting that propels him into a complex and terrifying search for the truth of what happened at Chernobyl in 1986…and a frantic race to stop world annihilation.

Devil’s Breath is an enjoyable thriller, the pace rapid and the writing competent and well-tailored to the genre. Author Jon P. Wells brings together the thirty years’ past events at Chernobyl and modern-day headlines, weaving them together to create a plausible story. Like many of its genre, the plot is a bit dependent on some coincidences and connections, but no more so than most thrillers, and there are sufficient twists and turns to keep the reader guessing.

The main character is attractive: the protagonist, Ian MacRae, specializes in security analysis for non-governmental organizations working in remote and dangerous areas. Other characters are a bit two-dimensional, but again, in a way typical for the genre.  An occasional minor inaccuracy in facts – Dreamliners have two engines, not four, as one example –  could detract from the verisimilitude for some readers.  Devil’s Breath is easily as good as many thrillers available as airport paperbacks, and certainly better than some, and would translate well onto the screen. Four stars.

The author provided me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Parallel Realities, by J.C.: a (short) review

This amusing short collection of stories came my way a few months ago, and I should have reviewed it much earlier. But you’ve likely all read why I’m so behind…so I won’t reiterate the reasons here.

Stories in Parallel Realities are brief, and all centred around The Village. The key to the stories is in the subtitle: The Mundane Reimagined. Looking at the lives of office workers through a satirical lens, author JC translates the everyday happenings of an office into something a bit wilder, a bit darker. This satirical voice is maintained consistently throughout the collection, although some stories are a bit more predictable than others.

A perfect book to have stashed in the loo (as the author suggests in the Amazon description), my only caveat about Parallel Realities is this: don’t read it through from cover to cover in one go, or the comedy may wear a bit thin. I’d also suggest the collection is perfect for reading a story at a time while hanging on to the overhead strap with one hand and fending off the crush of commuting bodies in the train car with one’s knee: the tone fits that reality perfectly.

Four stars to an amusing look at modern office and city life. Reading it made me very glad I took early retirement!

Child of the Light, by D.M. Wiltshire: A Review

Child of the LightChild of the Light is the first book by indie author D.M. Wiltshire. Falling squarely into the fantasy genre, Child of the Light is set in a well-realized world, Gaitan, where north and south have been at war for generations. Cael, the prince of the north, is suffering from an agonizing illness that is beyond the knowledge of the Master Healer, Caldor. The answer may lie in the medical knowledge of the province of Morza, but in one searing moment on the night of the 200 Year Moon, Morza – and all her people – are destroyed by a flash of light: a judgment from the gods, or a celebration gone horribly wrong?

When Caldor and his friend Foe go to investigate, they find two things: the healer Naygu’s book, hidden, safe, and written in a language Caldor can’t read, and the footsteps of a child, leaving the devastated city. Could this only survivor hold the key to the book and the healing of Cael?

Child of the Light is competently plotted and written. The author has woven together familiar constructs from fantasy, but in a way that presents them, not as stereotypes, but as valid and necessary aspects of Gaitan. None of the fantasy aspects felt imposed: there are dragons, not because a fantasy series needs dragons, but because they are simply part of Morza’s culture. The pace is slower than many current fantasy books, but as a reviewer I prefer this to rushed and incompletely realized stories where action takes precedence over character development and world-building. I was still left with many questions about Gaitan and its history and culture, but not in a frustrating way: I am confident these questions will be answered in future volumes. The main characters, Caldor and Foe, and the child Liora, are well-rounded, characters who develop over the story.

This is the first of a planned series, and so while most conflicts and challenges specific to the central characters are brought to a conclusion, other threads of the story are not, and the book ends with a tantalizing hint of future developments.

Niggles? Not many. There are the occasional awkward (to me) sentence or paragraph transition, and a couple of times I thought chapter structures, in terms of how the action developed in that chapter, had some misplaced scenes. A production error in the paperback version I read had one chapter single-spaced where the rest are more widely spaced. Fairly minor issues that didn’t detract from the overall story.

I’m giving Child of the Light four stars. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes true fantasy, or is looking for a change from dystopian futures. The sequel, Children of Sirphan, is in process, and I look forward to following the series.

 

The author provided me with a copy of this book as part of a contest prize.  This is an honest and unbiased review.

Through the Psyche of Ambrosia, Books I & II, by Byron Fortin: a Review

 “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Churchill’s famous description of Russia during World War II also applies to Byron Fortin’s duo of books A Nexus of Numen and A Swain’s Affray under the umbrella title Through the Psyche of Ambrosia. I’m going to be honest and say for a long time I didn’t know what to make of the books; as I worked my way through them – and it was work – at first what I saw was a story of a young man, Ambrosia, raised in a remote location by four women he calls the Mothers, who is suddenly catapulted into a modern world.

Over-detailed and overlong description, of places, of people, of what Ambrosia is thinking, make up a large part of the books, as suggested by the umbrella title. But about two-thirds of the way through the first book, the narrative suddenly changes from Ambrosia’s inner thoughts and reactions to a section that is mostly dialogue. This part read very differently, and it was at this point I began to wonder if there was more to the books than I thought. At about the same time, I began to notice that some of the descriptive sentences actually made very little sense – some read as if they had been translated from another language, some as if they were simply a string of words that almost made sense, but on closer examination didn’t: “Those indigo locks, they trailed the touch of porcelain silk shoulders as the skin she was in absorbed the surrounding world as freckles on the face of her ever abounding glory.” (from Book II, A Swain’s Affray). I began to notice character’s names were frequently those of constellations or stars. I analyzed the words Ambrosia hears calling to him – Natarehs La Mihtrasem – which are – planned by the author or not – anagrams of the names of two Middle Eastern settlements. Hmmm….

There are other examples I won’t give, as too many become spoilers. The question remains: do the books tell an intricate, coded story that is not what it appears, but rather a narrative as complex as the symbolism in a medieval painting, or are all the ‘hints’ of that simply coincidence? I remain on the fence, and in the end not interested enough in wading through the prose to pursue the former interpretation. But it remains a possibility, one that may spark curiosity in other readers with more interest in the arcane, and could certainly form the basis for an interesting book club discussion. Two stars.

The author provided me with copies of the books in exchange for an honest review.

Over the Dragonwall, by H.C. Strom & Dennis Montoya: A Review

At the borders of the land called Delvingdeep lies the Dragonwall, and what lies beyond the Dragonwall is the stuff of legend. When the young monk Oberon (Obi) confesses to his Sovereign that he dreams of crossing that wall, not for gold or riches but to see a dragon, to add to the body of knowledge his order maintains, he is sent to do exactly that.

Obi and a band of friends and new acquaintances, including a half-elven brother and sister, decide to take a short-cut, and – well, this is fantasy, and we all know what happens when short-cuts are taken in fantasy. Suffice it to say that the results of that short-cut, and the ensuing adventures across the Dragonwall, make up the rest of the story.

What came to mind as I finished the book was the quote attributed to Mother Theresa  “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” It sums up this book perfectly. It’s not a great book: the authors’ influences, from gaming to classic fantasy, are obvious – in some ways it’s a bit like fan fiction. The story is not complex. There are a number of production errors in the paperback copy I read. But it has clearly been written with great love, especially for the protagonist Obi.

I’d recommend Over the Dragonwall for young readers of fantasy whose interest will be in the plot and characters, and not in the literary quality of the writing. My review rubric gives Over the Dragonwall 2 1/2 stars, which is 3 stars on Amazon and Goodreads, and for what I believe is its target audience, I think that’s fair. Obi’s adventures will continue in a sequel, and I look forward to it; Obi has rather charmed himself into my heart.

The author provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.