Tag: book reviews

Broken: Book III of the Cage of Lies series by Susanne Valenti: A Review

Broken is the third book in Susanne Valenti’s dystopian Cage of Lies series. Packed with action, the book continues the story of Maya and Taylor in the world beyond The Wall as the battle for independence and freedom intensifies.

Over the series Valenti has found a better balance for the intersecting stories of Maya and Taylor and their new compatriots. The characters have developed and their motivations, strengths and weaknesses are clearer than in the first book. The writing is competent and the action nearly non-stop; there is little time for contemplation or explanation in Maya’s world. As a dystopian action-adventure story, it delivers all the right goods. I found the plot a little predictable – no spoilers, but I’d worked out the end by about half way through.

In my review of Chained I commented that I felt the world-building was insufficient. While more background has been given over the series, I still find myself unclear as to where some of the items these people have access to – coffee, especially– actually come from. But that is a feature common to more than one dystopian novel or series I have read, and actually doesn’t diminish the action unless the reader allows it to.

Overall, 4 stars for Broken. Cage of Lies is an action-rich series that will appeal to many readers of young-adult dystopias looking for entertainment and the challenge of wondering what they would do in the same situations.

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

Stone & Iris by Jonathan Ballagh: a mini-review

Do not pass up this short story by the author of The Quantum Door. Moving into adult fiction from his outstanding middle-school debut novel, Stone & Iris is a haunting look at choice, second chances and consequence in a future world, but one that could well be awaiting us.  Ballagh’s writing rarely falters and some of his phrases are simply beautiful. Stone & Iris can be read in less than an hour and will cost you less than a cup of coffee, and its imagery will remain in your thoughts for a long time. Pour yourself a glass of wine, settle down into your armchair, turn off the phone, and give it the attention it deserves: you won’t regret it.  5 stars.

Stone & Iris is available from Amazon.  I was provided with an ARC of the short story by the author in return for honest feedback.

Sapphire Hunting, by J SenGupta: A Review

sapphire huntingJames is a math/physics student at an unnamed university somewhere in England. He’s likely a genius, or at least a savant; concepts, equations and theories of energy flow come easily to him; he likes the challenge but knows he can find the solutions. Other facets of university life are less attractive, but he’s coping.

But it’s not just the theoretical concepts of energy flow that James understands almost intuitively and without effort. There are other sorts of energy flow, a flux of darkness, destruction, focusing in on his world, something James can sense, something perhaps attracted to him. Others know only the frightening results of this dark power; James is caught up in its forces. Trying to escape, yet strangely attracted to this force, James steps through a doorway into another world, to find he is not alone in his fight against this dark vortex.

Sapphire Hunting is not a typical young adult fantasy novel. Written in a detached, dream-like style, bordering on prose poetry, Sapphire Hunting demands a lot of its readers. Action is fairly minimal; descriptions are long and lyrical, focusing on feelings, emotions, impressions, mood: “…a spark discharged from his forefingers, like winter, into the mantis-shaped thing, the fog, the flying rags looming over.” The words flow and pattern like the energy that fascinates and focuses James.

I read Sapphire Hunting in small chunks, both because it demanded close attention and because I wanted to draw out the experience. The closest other reading experience I can remember was that of reading Joyce’s Ulysses. So, for a reader who is looking for a book where the focus is on the action and the plot, one that reflects others in its genre, this may not be the book for you. But it is one whose imagery and language will stay with me for a very long time.

Did I have any niggles? One or two….there were sentences, that, despite their overall beauty, I would have restructured, changed the punctuation. There were one or two small typos. Neither issue detracted from my overall impression. Is it a young adult book? I wonder: probably for a few – I would have swallowed it whole at fourteen or fifteen – but it might be better directed to the New Adult readership. Five stars for a unusual and memorable book.

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

Prophecy, by Benjamin A. Sorensen: A Review

prophecyThe magical Dragoncrystal has been stolen, and eyewitnesses identify Arana as the thief. Aware of her innocence but terrified of what might happen to her at the hands of the Kaylarian Knights who are seeking her, she flees, with her brother Jard, first into a magical woodland, and then to the city of Marsa, and then onward, as many factions pursue the young farm girl and her brother.

What unfolds is a classic quest story, with the world’s fate in Arana’s untested and untaught hands. Prophecy is set in the world of high fantasy, and it’s a solid addition to that genre. Sorensen’s writing is competent and polished; narrative flow and structure fit the action of the story. Characters are familiar but not usually stereotypical, although I did find myself mentally ‘casting’ various characters from the television version of A Game of Thrones in some of the roles. The plot is complex enough to keep the reader’s interest without being unnecessarily intricate.

I particularly liked Sorensen’s ability to portray Jard’s over-protectiveness and Arana’s varied reactions to it as her abilities and her confidence in them increases. All important characters grow and develop throughout the book, Arana especially. In an unusual twist on one of the oldest themes not just of fantasy but of foundation myths throughout the world, Arana’s fate – and that of the world – will depend on her ability to fully accept herself.

I had very few niggles: an occasional awkward sentence, a few minor points that didn’t ring true to me. Not enough to detract from its overall score, which is five stars. If high fantasy is your genre of preference, then Prophecy will be well worth your time.

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

 

The Nth Day, by Jonathan Huls: A Review

A new virgin birth, and the son of God is reborn into the USA in all its early twenty-first century dysfunctional glory. A premise worth exploring, and a book with quite interesting characters: Justin, the newest regeneration of the Messiah; Cassie, a neglected, abused child on the run; Theodore, a rich-beyond-belief man who lives on the streets; Nick, a drug dealer who has suffered through flames.

My scoring rubric gave this book 3 stars. For once, I’ll give the breakdown. These are my scoring criteria: writing style, dialogue quality, plot development and believability, character depth and development, world-building, spelling and grammar, and production quality. The Nth Day scored well in some of these, and badly in others. Let me explain.

I found the character depth and development the strongest quality of the book. The major characters were than outlines, more than stereotypes. I liked them, and I cared about most of them. The world they inhabited – twenty-first century America, after some rather world-shaking changes – was for the reasonably believable, although I found the effect of the changes perhaps somewhat understated.

Where the book failed for me was in the actual writing. Poorly structured sentences, extremely long paragraphs (which should have been broken up into multiple paragraphs in most cases), and too many word errors – either plain mis-spellings or homophones which spell-check didn’t catch – were a large part of the problem. But along with those issues, some of the content of some of those long paragraphs was gratuitous descriptions of bodily functions in excruciating detail. I’m not turned off by these sort of descriptions when there is a valid, plot or setting driven reason for them – but in The Nth Day, I could never quite work out what the purpose was. Unfortunately, to me, they came across more like the foul-mouth bluster of an adolescent trying to impress or rebel than descriptive detail with a purpose in this narrative.

The author reinterpreted biblical events and stories into the setting and story quite effectively. The major characters were appealing, or at least held my attention (I can’t say Nick was appealing), the premise interesting and the conclusion suitably enigmatic. Further editing would have benefited the novel greatly, in my opinion.

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

The World, by Robin Wildt Hansen: A Review

The World describes the metaphysical journey of Arkin from initiation to Magus through the structure of the four suits and the twenty-two major arcana of the Tarot deck. Arkin, the protagonist, may be schizophrenic; the voices he hears and the obsessions he has may be related to his emerging schizophrenia, or, they may be the manifestations of power that he is too frightened to embrace.

The World can be read allegorically, or it can be read as straight-forward fantasy, although my preference is for the former interpretation. Drawing on Norse, Christian, classical and Yoruba mythologies (those were the ones I recognized, at least), Arkin’s journey through the labyrinth of his neurology, or through the labyrinth of initiation and testing, to his ultimate goal, is written in a mix of prose poetry, stream of consciousness, and straight-forward prose, not always the easiest read but one worth pursuing.

Just before I read The World I had – coincidentally – been reading about the religious experiences of subjects using mescaline or peyote in Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception. There are strong similarities to parts of Arkin’s journey, although I do not think the book is an indictment or an endorsement of the use of mind-altering drugs. Instead, I read The World as an alternative interpretation of differences in perception that the Western world sees as mental illness. I kept thinking of the classic (but very different) work of the 1960’s, Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which also delved into the mind of a young schizophrenic patient, and how she also communicated with gods and angels.

The World will not be a book for everyone. It isn’t, as I said, an easy read, and a knowledge of at least the basic symbolism of western – and other – religions is likely necessary to appreciate Arkin’s journey. I suspect I missed a fair bit, but understood enough to appreciate the roles that most of the beings that appear to Arkin played. The use of the Tarot deck to frame and structure the story is interesting. Many years ago I read – somewhere – that the purpose of a Tarot deck was to help the person for whom the reading was being done to break out of their automatic ways of thinking and search for new interpretations of what was happening in their life – in very simplistic terms, to help them see that what they thought of as a barrier might actually be a door. That interpretation of Tarot and Arkin’s initiatory journey through the card’s symbols resonated for me.

I’m giving The World four stars: there were a few production errors, some awkward sentences, a few run-on paragraphs that I felt detracted somewhat from the narrative. They were not serious, though, and did not prevent me from reading The World in one day, which is a testament to its strength.

Paper Crowns, by Mike Cyr: A Review

I really liked the premise of Paper Crowns, a debut novel by author Mike Cyr. Three late-teenage female cousins, Amy, Carrie and Renee, and two male friends (Mitch and Dean) find their way to another world via a magic mirror. Alice, however, would have nothing in common with these teens; neither are they the noble and polite children of Narnia. These are modern teens from a small town, teens with drinking problems, issues with sexuality, self-esteem problems, and, in Amy’s case, a mother who wrote stories about the world they find themselves in, before self-destructing, leaving Amy in the care of an aunt and obsessed with her mother’s writings.

The talking animals of Ezrantia are also not the talking animals of Narnia. Amy and company soon learn that the crumbling politics and rivalries of Ezrantia are largely due to her mother’s influence: the stories, were, after all, real. And it will be up to Amy and her friends – if they can survive their own dysfunctions – to save the land and its inhabitants.

At times Cyr writes with real skill. Descriptions can border on lyrical, and some of the action scenes are very effective. Characters develop over the book, especially Amy and Carrie, and to a lesser extent Dean. The plot moves quickly – almost too quickly, sometimes: there are multiple Ezrantian characters and multiple side plots which feed the larger one – but at times I found this confusing. I needed more background to fully understand allegiances and motives of the Ezrantian characters. In other places, the writing is awkward: ‘Its surface, rough and flecked with imperfections, quickly melted nice and smooth…” or ungrammatical: ‘..that between the spells he used to stabilize the portal and their eased minds would make this easier.’

One character – Shiraz – is referred to consistently as ‘they’, without explanation. Having only one character using a gender-neutral pronoun seemed odd to me, especially since at one point Shiraz is referred to by another Ezrantian character as ‘she’. This may be more of my problem as a reader than that of the writer, but because only Shiraz was ‘they’, I felt an explanation was needed.

The e-pub version I read was marred by multiple production errors. In a sample of 120 pages I recorded errors on thirty-one of them. Errors mostly resulted from poor editing: ‘Otkwo leaped into action, Yanking Kadesh back..’ and included the misspelling of characters’ names. Unfortunately, this number of errors significantly distracted from my reading pleasure: I found myself looking for errors instead of simply getting lost in the story. A final, critical proof-reading would have improved the reading quality of Paper Crowns greatly.

I would summarize Paper Crowns as a novel with a good premise, a complex world, and interesting, original characters, but also one that would have benefited from more thorough editing. There’s some good creation here: it will be interesting to see what the author produces as he matures as a writer. Three stars.

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

Citizen Magus, by Rob Steiner: A Review

citizen magusWritten with a deft, sure, and light hand, this is the story of Remington Blakes, a.k.a. Natta Magus, a twenty-first century magus who has been transported against his will back to the Rome of 6 B.C. by his magical mentor. Steiner blends action, ethical dilemma, romance, humour and an accurate geographical and physical portrayal of ancient Rome to create a magical romp, that, while mostly light-hearted, also addresses some serious ethical questions.

The self-effacing hero of Citizen Magus has managed to set himself up as an artisan magus, providing finding services (his specialty) for the citizens of Rome. But he has not given up on searching for his mentor, William Pingree Ford, both to stop him meddling with history and to perhaps get home. When an evil, vampire-like creature murders a young woman and kidnaps another, Remington is swept up into a battle to defeat the creatures, which are part of Ford’s plot.

I particularly liked two things about Citizen Magus: the magic, and the setting. Remington’s magic is neither particularly arcane, nor is it matter-of-fact. Almost all people of this alternative Earth of the 21st century have magic. It’s a subject to be studied in university, which Remington has been doing back home in Detroit. There’s a believable explanation of how it works and what energies it uses, and of the laws and vows that govern it. The fact that Remington’s magical regalia includes a Detroit Wolverines baseball cap worn backwards reflects the overall light-hearted tone of the book.

As a writer whose own work is set in an analogue of the post-Roman world of northern Europe, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about, and taking courses on, the Roman Empire. Steiner’s portrayal of the geography, politics, and ways of life (and smells) of ancient Rome and its people added to my appreciation of the book: magic is more convincing when it’s inserted into a world that is otherwise realistic. But having set the book in a well-described Roman Empire, Steiner does not attempt to make the spoken language a direct translation of Latin, or archaic English. People speak fairly standard English, with a few Latin words that are easy to understand thrown in, effectively reminding the reader of the setting without adding difficulties to the dialogue that might detract from the flow of the narrative.

At this point in a review, I usually discuss my ‘niggles’: things that weren’t quite right. With the exception of one error missed in the copy-editing (an ‘it’s’ used when ‘its’ should have been) I found no errors of grammar, spelling or production in the e-pub version I read, for which the author and his editor should be commended.

I’m giving a solid 5 stars to Citizen Magus. I’m looking forward to the further adventures of Remington Blakes, as well as to reading Steiner’s earlier Codex Antonius series: if they are as good as this book, they’ll be well worth reading.

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

Pale Highway, by Nicholas Conley: A Review

Nicholas Conley’s debut novel, Pale Highway, has an unlikely setting: a pale highwaylong term care home. The protagonist is even more unlikely: a Nobel Prize-winning scientist losing his battle with Alzheimer’s. Once hailed as a saviour for developing a vaccine against AIDS, Gabriel Schist is slowly losing touch with everything he held dear, until it appears a new, deadly, virus has arisen, one that only Gabriel can understand and fight.

Conley has worked in care homes with Alzheimer’s patients, and this is clear not only from his descriptions of the environment, procedures, and organization of these homes, but from his accurate, compassionate depiction of the residents. Pale Highway is a science-fiction story, but it is also speculative fiction, speculative in terms of what reality is and might be in the mind of a man with Alzheimer’s.

The major characters in Pale Highway are complex and fully developed, and the prose lucid. The plot is suspenseful, and Conley finely balances the reader’s perceptions: is what is occurring in these pages real at all, or is everything happening within the disintegrating mind of Gabriel Schist? Like Life of Pi, the book questions what constitutes reality.

Gabriel’s struggle to maintain some control over his failing mind, not only to solve the medical crisis facing the world, but to hold on to his relationship with his daughter, is presented movingly and realistically. His current struggle reflects past struggles in his life. The novel jumps between past and present, showing us how Gabriel’s past issues have forged his character and determination.

My only niggle was that I found some aspects of Gabriel’s reality difficult to suspend belief enough to accept. Both how Gabriel is given help to do his work, and his ability to obtain the materials needed, led me to the conclusion that the actions must be taking place only in his mind. But that, I think, is a limitation of my imagination, not a limitation of the story; another reader may come to a different conclusion. Overall, 4 stars, for an impressive debut novel.

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

 

Warrior Lore, by Ian Cumptsey: A Review

‘There shone out from the twelfth shield,

A raven, all in brown.

That carried Richard Ravengarth,

For rhymes and runes he’s known.’

When Ian Cumpstey offered me his book Warrior Lore, translations of Scandinavian folk ballads, for review, I was both intrigued and excited. Intrigued, because I know very little about Scandinavian ballads, and excited, because these exact ballads are important to the book I’m currently writing.Warrior Lore

Warrior Lore is a fine introduction to these ballads and to some of the heroic and historical figures of northern Europe. These are not dry academic translations, but rather lively, sometimes funny, sometimes sad verses which the reader can easily imagine set to music, being sung loudly and lustily in hall full of warriors, flickering firelight, and wide-eyed children. (To increase your appreciation of the verses, read them out loud!)

Cumpstey has organized the book well. Each ballad translation is preceded by a prose description and explanation of the history, characters and events of the verse. Having set the stage, the verse translation follows. While the rhymes sometimes seem imperfect, this is in keeping with the rhymes in the Swedish originals, and the rhyme schemes in the translations also mirror those of the originals. In the end-notes, the author explains that he has used multiple sources for most of his translations, as there are sometimes significant differences from one source to another.

The end result is a lovely introduction to Scandinavian folk ballads. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the area, and to any writer (like myself) who needs source material that is accessible but academically sound. A solid 4 stars.

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