Bitterwood by James Maxey

Title: Bitterwood
Author: James Maxey
Publisher: Quality Press (no website found)
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Bitterwood by James Maxey pub. Quality Press

Erratum:
"…an unjust law may be disobeyed in good conscious" should be "…an unjust law may be disobeyed in good conscience" (page 97)

Well this book is different! I'm not a big fan of dragon stories, but once in a while one comes along and entertains me. Neither am I a fan of series. Call me npc, but I prefer the new rather than the recycled old, so it was interesting to read a story about dragons that had a new approach. The problem was that this novel became really boring about two-thirds the way through, and I lost all interest in it.

There's a prologue in this novel which I skipped as I always do. I've never regretted not reading a prologue and if the author doesn't feel it’s important enough to go into chapter one (or beyond), I surely don’t feel it important enough to waste time in reading. That said, the opening chapter was a grabber. A hunter is sitting by his forest camp fire eating dragon tongue. The dead dragon is lodged in a tree above his head, brought down by his expertly placed arrow, but this dragon has a backpack… Okay, it’s satchel, but wouldn’t a backpack have been way cool? However, this is one of those traditional fantasies, where backpacks don’t exist, so satchel it is.

The satchel shows that this dragon is a sentient being - a scholar, even. The man burns the notebook the dragon had been keeping. He is old and gray, and is headed for a dragon ceremony which the hunter is evidently seeking to disrupt, a sun-dragon ceremony at which the first human to ever witness such an event and live to tell of it, is awaiting its start with anticipation.

Despite being human, Jandra has been raised since childhood by the dragons and fully empathizes with them if not all of them with her. Actually, it was one dragon, Vendevorex, a sky dragon (like the one in the tree), and the king's personal wizard, who raised her. Why dragons would have such institutions as the monarchy is not explained, and I found it most peculiar.

I'm not a fan of monarchies and privilege of birth, but I realize that they are part and parcel of this kind of fantasy. It would be nice, though, once in a while, to see writers step off the path most traveled and carve out some new routes; however, this author certainly takes a half-step, because story is rife with interesting perspectives on dragon-lore, and he doesn’t leave it solely at that.

This story could, in some ways, be described as modeling itself after Planet of the Apes, since there are three types of dragon. The sun dragons, like the chimpanzees, are the nobility. Their guards and soldiers are the earth dragons who fulfill the role of the gorillas. Finally there are the urang-utans, which are the sky-dragons, who are scholars and scientists.

The sun dragon ceremony, which was rudely interrupted, is how a new king is chosen. The king's first-born male offspring is banished from the dragon's presence, and forced to live by their own means until they reach a point where they feel they can challenge the king. If one of them can do so successfully, he becomes the new king. In this case, there are two contenders, but one of them - the more scholarly one - rejects the barbaric hunt of enslaved humans - a frivolous ceremony which precedes the main event. His brother goes after the human as tradition demands - and is slaughtered in the forest from a brutal rain of well-aimed arrows, all from the bow of the lone hunter. "Bitterwood" cries the king, and lets loose the dogs of war. But Bitterwood escapes by means of a sewer cover which lies in the middle of the highway!

Yes, if that grabbed you as it did me, you'll want to know more, but I'm not going to tell you because the rest of the novel conveniently pretends that never happened! I guess you have to go to volume two or three to find out, and I'm not playing that game! I will tell you that one thing I found really odd in Bitterwood was the prologues. I don’t do prologues. I routinely skip them and I never miss them. That ought to tell you plenty.

In this case, I skipped the one at the start, but when we reached part two of the book, there was another prologue! I'm like, "Wait, wasn't part one the prologue to part two? I don’t get this authorial OCD with prologues! If it’s important, then put it into chapter one or later! If you don’t consider it material that's worth including in the body of the novel, I don’t consider it’s material that's worth reading.

This turned out to be great - an original novel looking at the world from the dragon PoV where humans are mere subjects, and I was enjoying it until Jandra quit being a pet of Vendevorex's and became a pet of Petar (Peta?!) Gondwell, who promptly man-handled her and treated her very much like property - and not once did she object or even have qualms about it. So much for a strong female character!

At one point, being brave when others would run, Jandra gets her throat slit. Not her jugular, but her trachea, and there's a lot of blood. When Vendevorex tells her he's going to magically close the wound, she nods her head. WHAT? Her throat is slit deeply and she's nodding her head? I think this is a case of a writer not paying close attention to what it is they're writing!

Oh, and it's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" - not "Origins of Species" as it's rendered on page 207! But by that point I was skimming pages because the story got lost and was not in the least bit interesting to me. I can't recommend this and will not be following this series.

Dress Shop of Dreams by Menna van Praag

Title: The Dress Shop of Dreams
Author: Menna van Praag
Publisher:
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

The title to this novel was what drew me in. It's so frivolous! In this story, Etta Sparks owns a rather magical dress shop which seems almost to repel many customers for no obvious reason, but once in a while, the right customer comes in, and Etta knows she can help them find that missing piece of themselves. The dresses tell her so. Plus she has a magical thread!

After we've met Etta, we're introduced to her granddaughter Cora. Almost a polar opposite, Cora leads a very mundane, if regimented life, following her mathematical mind's dictates, working at the lab, visiting the book store, counting things to an OCD level, early to bed, early to rise. Today, however, is her birthday and she's having a meal with her grandmother followed by a special cherry pie baked with love by Walt, at the nearby book store cum pie shop. Walt seems completely lost around Cora, who in turn seems completely unaware of him as a member of the opposite sex.

Here's a precious quote: "Then Walt stops pacing. He has an idea. An idea so different, so startling and wild, it makes him sneeze with shock." LOL! I loved that. The problem is that Walt's idea has nothing to do with Cora - whose name isn't really Cora....

One thing which felt a bit pretentious to me was the inclusion of a book store. Writers tend to do this as a substitute for intellect. 'Oh, she works in a book store, she must be smart!' or 'Oh, he reads books, he must be a treasure!" Book stores are wonderful, and librarians are every bit the figures which Evelyn Carnahan declares them to be in The Mummy, but it's almost a cliché now to include a book store in this kind of novel.

That said, the novel turned out to be pleasantly surprising. It was very layered and rather complex, with one new item after another being offered for consideration as each chapter flew by. Each of the main characters has a background which is carefully exposed and explored. I liked it a lot and I recommend it.

The Adventures of Blue Ocean Bob - A Challenging Job by Brooks Olbrys

Title: The Adventures of Blue Ocean Bob - A Challenging Job
Author: Brooks Olbrys
Publisher: Children's Success Unlimited
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This is a great little novel and picture book which tells - in poetry yet - of Ocean Bob's adventures on the sea front where he does his darnedest to keep the coast clear (of junk) and help ocean wildlife.

With his best friend Xena the hummingbird always ready to give advice, Bob proves he's a guy who's not afraid to ask for direction (and other forms of help) from his ocean of pals, including Mary Marine (his mentor), Al the dolphin, Doc the turtle, Earl the clam, and Wallace the walrus.

Bob's adventures include lending a helping hand, a pelican's plight, offering safe passage, heeding a simple reminder, and diving deep!

Beautifully drawn and colored, this book is aimed at 6 to 8 year-olds (hey, I'm an honorary eight-year-old! No, I am! That's my story and I'm sticking to it like a limpet to rock...), I was impressed by the warmth, heart, and art.

Doctor Who: Engines of War by George Mann

Title: Doctor Who: Engines of War
Author: George Mann
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Rating: WORTHY!

I was pleased to be able to get a copy of this novel because it covers the mysterious time of the so-called 'war doctor'. In severe withdrawal after the Xmas Doctor Who show, I needed a good fix, and this delivered. It's not the same as actually watching The Doctor on TV I don't think any novel ever could capture that, but it did the trick. In this novel, we hit the ground running. We don't begin with his regeneration, but at a much later point - several centuries later - when he looks more like he did in the fiftieth anniversary special, and not long before he unleashed The Moment.

I have to say at this point that a lot of time travel stories: novels, TV and movies - and including the Doctor Who series - often make no sense. The problem is the time travel. For any Doctor Who episode (or any movie or novel where they have control over their time-traveling), it's completely valid to ask the question: given that the main character typically arrives in the middle of this problem he or she has to solve, why does the character not simply go back in time to a point before the problem began, and nip it in the bud right there?

Obviously the short answer to that is that the show, movie, or novel would be completely boring in that event because there never would be any thrills and spills, but it's nonetheless a valid question. In the Doctor Who series, they limply try to explain this away with vague hand-waving at 'crossing your own time line' and so on, but whatever explanation(s) they've ever given are always over-written by The Doctor himself who crosses his own time line and changes things with impunity in scores of episodes.

In this very novel, the Doctor expresses regret at not having dealt with the Dalek problem when he'd had the chance (in his regeneration as the fourth Doctor), when he chickened out of wiping out the Daleks at their very genesis. His weak excuse was some clueless hand-waving at how communities - even planets - had been brought together because of the Dalek threat, but he never once talked himself out of it by hand-waving at the billions to whom the Daleks have brought suffering and slaughter. The problem here isn't that however, but the war doctor's regret! Why regret it? He has a time machine. He's in a warlike mood! Why not quit regretting it and go back and kill Davros, solving the problem? If he went back early enough, he wouldn't even be crossing his own time-line.

Of course, then there would be no more Daleks, and the BBC would be short of a big crowd-pleaser and revenue-puller. Aye, there's the rub! So in order to enjoy this you have to let that go. You also have to let go the question of why it's been some 400 years of non-stop war when both the Daleks and the Time Lords can travel through space and time.

This brings us to Moldox - a planet reminiscent of Earth in the old Doctor Who story from the second (original) season,and an episode titled The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Moldox is all but destroyed by the Daleks, and is on its last legs, with a few pitiful resistance fighters trying to fight back using purloined Dalek weapons. As one of them, Cinder, thinks she's about to die, The Doctor crash-lands the TARDIS, destroying the Daleks and mutants working with them, and saving Cinder.

The Doctor informs her that he has to go to the nearby city to find out what the Daleks are up to, and despite her extreme fear, she accompanies him. It turns out that mutating humans to create new Daleks isn't the only plan they have. They're also building a weapon which will destroy Gallifrey and eventually win the war. With this information, The Doctor travels to Gallifrey to reveal this news, and Cinder tags along with him.

On Gallifrey we discover that Rassilon has been resurrected to lead the Time Lords, and he has a few dark secrets of his own. One of these involves employing a weapon which is described as being able to collapse black holes. Seriously? Black holes are in a perennial state of collapse. It makes no sense to talk of deliberately collapsing one. Exploding one, on the other hand, would be spectacular if it were possible, but collapsing one? No. Bad science!

There were some other issues with this novel. There always are, especially in a case like this where the novel can realistically never be as good as the TV show because it doesn't have what makes the TV show worth watching every minute: the visuals, the TARDIS noises, the lively companions, the Doctor himself. Novels are simply not the same. That was expected, so this is about issues other than that. I mentioned the absurdity of the black hole collapsing "bomb", but there were other, relatively minor things, but nonetheless important.

For example, Daleks are supposed to have a hive mind, yet we're told they have identification marks on their casing, just under the eye-stalks. I don’t get that. What is its purpose? How would one Dalek not know to which other Dalek it was talking? Why would it even need to talk out loud? Indeed, since it is a hive mind, why would it make a shred of difference which Dalek the other one was? You could have Dalek 'A' working with Dalek 'B' all morning, and then Dalek 'C' replacing Dalek A for the afternoon and it didn’t ought to make an iota of difference to the work being done if they're all linked. No matter with which Dalek you interact, it ought to feel exactly like you're interacting with the same one every time.

At one point some Daleks are described as having guns. I assume this simply means their weapon sticks. It just seemed weird to refer to them as guns. While we're on the topic, there are several new varieties of Dalek introduced here (and some old stand-bys such as the special weapons Dalek from TV's Remembrance of the Daleks during the tenure of the Seventh Doctor. I found myself wondering why. If the Daleks are as fearsome and deadly as they are, then where is the impetus to improve them or create varieties?

A big deal was made on the show where the thirteenth Doctor (Matt Smith, as it turned out, since Tennant's Doctor aborted his first regeneration, and the war doctor was slipped in there between Gann's and McCoy's Doctors) visited Winston Churchill and was witness to the Dalek 'regeneration'. These were to be the new, scarier Daleks, and yet every single show since then, they've been completely absent! I never got the point of revamping them if they're never going to be seen again. But I digress!

The writer did do an excellent job of writing in general, however. He shows us exactly why The Doctor would not have qualms about time-locking both the Time Lords and the Daleks: The Doctor reaches a point where he sees no discernible difference between the two races. Having said that, of course, the time-lock seems to have failed dismally, since the Time-Lords were indeed tied up by it, but not, evidently, the Daleks - not in the least, given how often they've showed up in the rebooted TV series!

However, let's get back to the book, which I recommend for those having the same withdrawal symptoms as me. It wasn't brilliant, and as I've mentioned, had a few issues, but it was worth reading, and I enjoyed it. it was really nice to see a little bit of a largely unknown and intriguing Doctor. John Hurt's incarnation is the only one of which we never had a series, so this book was welcome. Although it;s technically not canon, it did fit into the canon nicely, and was enjoyable.

The problem was, it never cured my withdrawal. I need more! Much more! You know the TV shows used to be almost weekly, in episodic form. Now at least we get a complete show each week, but we get them for only a paltry few weeks of the year. Why? There are scores of good writers out there who would love to write these shows. I demand more! Let's make it at least a half-year's shows - or even one every other week so we can get them for the whole year! We need a revolution! Demand more Doctor Who NOW!

Insanity by Cameron Jace

Title: Insanity
Author: Cameron Jace
Publisher: Cameron Jace
Rating: WARTY!

This novel, which has an astounding 72 chapters (they're quite short), is an oddity in that it's credited on the cover to Cameron Jace, but is actually copyrighted to Akmal Eldin Farouk Ali Shebl. I know! Weird, huh? It's yet another YA novel rooted in fairy tales, but this one also seems to draw at least part if its inspiration from ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland itself a spin-off from Once Upon a Time, a short-lived show featuring Alice as a young woman who spent a large part of her childhood in an institution for the reality-challenged. In that series, Alice is a strong-willed and self-possessed female character who can take care of herself, so naturally the old white men who run things are not going to let something like that flourish. But I digress.

This is also another YA novel told in first person PoV because you know it's not legal to tell YA stories any other person, don't you?! The limitation of this person becomes crystally clear when the author is periodically forced to switch to third person to relate events elsewhere in the hospital. Why this was schizophrenic person-switching was done is as much a mystery as it is irritating. Perhaps to try and convey a sense of insanity? It does achieve that rather spectacularly, but it;s irritating as hell, which is why I didn't finish this drivel.

This novel begins very much the same way as the TV show, with Alice Pleasance Wonder, patient number 1832 (which is the year in which Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born), trying to break out of the institution, and failing as she becomes paralyzed by her fear of mirrors and by her Tiger Lily plant (which is her only companion) abruptly telling her that she's insane.

In that same institution, is held a patient known as Carter Pillar. Evidently some sort of homage to Hannibal Lecter, Carter is a serial killer, who escaped justice by pretending to be insane. Now he's evidently escaped this place, too - but he's done it before and he always returns.

This novel is replete with such sly references to Alice in Wonderland, but some bits and pieces made me wonder, such as, on page 17, "...cold-blooded serial killer disguising as an insane man." I would question the use of 'disguising' in place of disguised'. On that same page we encounter "...because neither the Interpol nor FBI..." which would have read better had it read, "...because neither Interpol nor the FBI...", and then there's "A series of uninterrupted laughter..." which makes no sense at all. This was an added irritant in an already irritating book.

Alice apparently killed all her classmates and her boyfriend on a school bus somehow, and blamed it upon creatures from Wonderland. Is she telling the truth or is she really insane? In the end, I didn't care. It's sad to see such a good idea (even if unoriginal) wasted so badly.

Love, Volume 1: The Tiger by Federico Bertolucci

Title: Love, Volume 1: The Tiger
Author: Federico Bertolucci and Frederic Brremaud
Publisher: Magnetic Press
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

I've often said that graphic novels need a story - otherwise they're just picture books, but in saying that, I don't necessarily mean that the story has to be in words. This is a classic example of one which has no words, but tells a very entertaining story in beautifully painted pictures.

Note that it's not a young children's book - hopefully the cover will convey that adequately! It's a day in the life of a tiger, after all; they're not known for their social work. Indeed, the tiger is not only the largest of the living big cats, but also the most dangerous to humans, having killed more of us than any other mammal.

They're no more friendly towards each other. In David Attenborough's remarkable TV documentary series, Life_Story, episode two ("Growing Up") features three adolescent tigers and disturbingly demonstrates how utterly brutal tigers can be. So, in short: beautiful, but deadly!

The novel is reminiscent, in some regards, of The Jungle Book and is evidently set in Asia, perhaps India, home to literally half the world's remaining four thousand or so threatened tigers. There's nowhere else that you can find the mix of creatures depicted here. There are no tigers in Africa - except perhaps for one mating pair which were released there some time ago according to a documentary I saw.

The one problem with this mix of critters though, was the piranha-infested river. There are no piranhas outside of South America (not in the wild anyway, thank goodness!), so I have no idea what the writers (artists?!) thought they were doing there. not that the piranhas actually did anything, save grin wickedly.

There is no over-arching plan here other than to show wildlife at its wildest, and some of the events are highly improbable, but not impossible, so I didn't let that bother me. Volume one focuses on the tiger. Volume 2, I understand, will follow the fox which we see briefly in the tiger's story.

The tiger stalks a tapir, encounters snakes, crocodiles, panthers, and others, and it eventually gets to, er, man-up and eat. I admit that I had to wonder why - if it was so hungry - it didn't eat at an earlier point when it had a perfect opportunity. I didn't think tigers were that picky!

Overall, very entertaining, very well done, and well worth "reading". I look forward to the next volume.

Dark Engine, Volume 1: The Art of Destruction by Ryan Burton

Title: Dark Engine, Volume 1: The Art of Destruction
Author: Ryan Burton
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WARTY!

Illustrated by John Bivens.

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Baritone voice-over, sounding like molten chocolate: "In a world which has fallen to ruin, where the very air itself is choked with the ashes of the dead, and monsters roam at will, arises Sym, born of alchemy and sent back in time to destroy the very roots of this world's downfall."

Sounds great, huh? It wasn't. I couldn't get into this. The artwork was fine, if on the grotesque side of beautiful, but the story simply wasn't there. it offered nothing to interest me much less to draw me in. Paradoxically, given the premise, there really was nothing new here. We got Mona the Barbarian, but what did that bring us in turn, really?

The worst part for me though, is that I have to really question this idea of creating a female weapon. Why female? Why does a weapon need even a gender? It just struck me as exploitative, and nothing more than a cynical gimmick: one which is neither complimentary to, nor empowering of, the female gender.

I didn't read all of this, so perhaps there were some saving graces towards the end, but that would have been too little, too late for me even had I been able to generate the interest required to read this "story".

I have to mention, in passing, one other issue I encountered, and this was with the iPad Air rather than with this novel per se since I encountered it in more than one graphic novel. The iPad Air uses Bluefire Reader for books I get from Netgalley, and the iPad I have is new and reasonably powerful, but it encounters frequent problems with turning pages in graphic novels - it takes several seconds sometimes, for it to "register" that a page is "there", so if you try to swipe the page (turn the page) or tap the screen to change pages, it can take a few seconds before it notices that you're trying to turn the page!

Or worse, it half turns the page so you get this:

A half page!

This necessitates sliding the page that extra bit, which in and of itself isn't an issue, but when this happens repeatedly, I have to say it's a major annoyance. I expect better than this from Apple Corporation, and I'm not gettign it. I've been rather disappointed in my experience with Apple products - both the Macbook Air and the iPad Air have delivered noticeably less than I'd been led to expect. Just saying!

Steths: Cognition by Karl Fields

Title: Steths: Cognition by Karl Fields
Author: Karl Fields (no website found)
Publisher: Pleated Press (no website found)
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Here's a novel which gets right to the point - a cover, a title page, and then chapter one! Screw antiquated Library of Congress rules and antique publishing methods! You've got to admire that. This is the world of ebooks, not of trays of lead characters pressed together rank and file waiting to be slathered with sticky ink and squished onto a galley page. So off we go!

The world in this novel is one of people who have special powers - not supernatural powers, but enhanced human powers. Devin Chambers, the main character narrates this story, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because it's a first person PoV format - something which I normally rail against. As it happens, it was done well on this occasion, and didn't feel to me like someone was scraping their fingernails down a chalkboard as I read it! That was a major relief.

Devin is known as a 'steth' - short for stethoscope, presumably - because he can detect, at a distance, the faintest sounds of someone's heartbeat which allows him not only to know if they're alive, but to some degree, what they're feeling and whether they're lying. How that works, exactly, goes unexplained. Yes, you can detect a change in heart-beat, or a particular rhythm, but what does that really tell you, and in how much detail? He cannot, however, detect the heartbeat of another steth - and certain other people as will become clear to readers.

He first begins to feel he's really different from others (even other steths) when his school class attends a trial and he's the only one who thinks the defendant isn't guilty. Shortly after this he's visited by a guy, Mickey, who offers him a place at the prestigious Faulkner Academy. His good friend Travis, who's also invited, is pumped about it, but Devin has doubts because the Academy has no athletic program (no, honestly!).

Devin is also obsessed with the innocent guy saddled with a guilty verdict and one day when he goes to the jail to visit him, he encounters a girl, Sarah Shaw, who was already visiting this same guy. He follows the girl, only to discover she's a special, too - but a 'bouncer' who, he learns, is supposedly his mortal enemy. Is this be the clichéd love-hate relationship whereby these two are destined to fall in love? I can't tell you!

The writing in general is very good, with only one or two questionable areas, such as on page 17 where we read: "Shaw, the defendant, who sat beside his attorney in a white jumpsuit..." Who was wearing the white jump suit?! How about, "Shaw, the defendant who was wearing a white jump suit, sat beside his attorney..."? Just a suggestion! Apart from rare happenstances like that, it was well-written, entertaining, and engrossing.

I have to say (and without confirming if I was right or wrong - I'm usually wrong on these things!) I didn't trust Carissa Watson, a fellow student at Faulkner who became involved with Devin. She seemed a little too convenient for me. I much preferred Sarah! I also liked Travis, although he initially seemed to me to be like a victim waiting to happen. Whether that does happen I'm not going to tell you!

It struck me as odd that Devin tells us he couldn't talk about movies with Carissa on their first date because there was no movie theater in town. What, they never saw one on TV or rented a video?! That struck me as strange, but that and some misspellings, such as "planed" in placed of "planned" (which a spell-checker won't find!) were about the worst issues I had with the technical aspects of this story, apart from the one I'll discuss next, which needs its own paragraph!

At one point, about halfway through this novel (which is a surprisingly fast read) there was a really improbable situation where Devin, obsessing way more on a missing photograph than ever he had any reason to, went on a highly unlikely "expedition" to a place he thought it might be. This made no sense whatsoever - first that the photograph would be hidden (and hidden there of all places) rather than simply destroyed, and second that Devin would ever become so focused on it, let alone dedicated to finding it. There was no rationale for it.

Devin had what was termed in the book, Hypersensitive Tympanic Syndrome. This isn't a real disorder as far as I know, but it is the condition which steths are supposed to have. What bugged me about that was that if steths's hearing is so sensitive that they can clearly detect a heartbeat (and from a distance, yet!), then how come every noise out there doesn't drive them crazy or deafen them? This issue is never even discussed, much less explained!

Those things aside, I really liked the characters and the story. It was well-thought out (for the most part!) and interesting. Devin was a really likable character and, again for the most part, the story was believable and made sense. This was a refreshing change from way too much YA 'literature' that I've had to read. Also kudos for having a believable guy as the main character. Devin was an African American, but one who isn't somehow tied-in to gangs or rap! It was such a relief to find stereotyping was absent here: Devin was just an ordinary everyday guy, and I appreciated that. I'm looking forward to the sequel to this novel.

Edged Blade by JC Daniels

Title: Edged Blade
Author: JC Daniels
Publisher: Shiloh Walker
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This is volume 4 in an ongoing series, but there was nothing in the blurb or on the cover to let potential readers know this, so here's yet another series which I came into in progress without having read any of the earlier volumes!

I'm not a fan of series because they're rarely done well and seem to me to be just a cynical way of milking money from hapless readers by means of a second-hand idea rather than making the effort to come up with something really new. This particular story smacked far more of authorial wish-fulfillment and fanfic than ever it did of anything which looked like it wanted to tell an original or interesting story.

Once in a while, an author can make a series work and work well, but more often than not we get something boring, and readers facilitate this by continuing to follow the series even when they really don't like it! I've seen reviewers rate a novel two stars and then announce in the same dismissive review that they cant wait to read the next one in the series! I don't get that mentality. I guess people do this because they just can't stand to leave something unfinished, or they absolutely have to know what happens next even if it's going to be boring or irritating! They become attached to unlikeable or dysfunctional characters because they know no better, or because they cannot adapt to a new genre or author. It's sad.

Some people might argue that it's inappropriate to write a review if you haven't followed the series, but I disagree. Usually series volumes come out once per year or even less frequently, so in addition to revisiting what's essentially the same story, the reader needs to revisit what's already happened either by means of written notes taken when reading the previous volume, or they must simply re-read said previous volume(s). The only other alternative is to rely on the author to give some back-story to help us out. This is a recipe for disaster if it's not done well. Otherwise the reader goes into the volume pretty much as blind as I did with this one!

Be warned that this author gives no back-story whatsoever here! We hit the ground running and there's no guidance at all as to recent events or any character history. It's just blandly assumed that readers have eidetic memory. The main character, Kit (appropriately named, as we shall see) is so shallow that she has only two things on her mind: fighting and sex. At least that's quite literally all that ever crossed her transom in the part that I read. I couldn't make up my mind if it was more boring than pathetic, or the other way around.

Kit isn't an appealing character at all. She lives in a world of shape-shifters, werewolves, and vampires, all of whom are evidently on such a hair-trigger that they're ready to tear out each other's throats in a heartbeat, yet they all happily romp off to a testosterone-slathered Halloween party? Seriously? In short, it's nothing more than the same clichéd quiche of a fantasy that we've read a baker's dozen times before.

Is it needless to say that Kit dresses like a hooker (she's supposed to be Tinkerbell!) and every single male figure at the party lusts after her and tells her she's beautiful? She in turn lusts after her erstwhile date, a were-cat predictably named Damon, who is predictably tall, and predictably strong, and predictably muscular, and predictably insanely protective of her. This is why she's named Kit - she's treated like a fragile kitten and the property of any male who is near enough to put his protective masculine arm around what surely must be her needy, frail, wilting, female body.

We're expected to believe she puts up with this patriarchal crap - indeed, is deemed to need it - even as she's so deadly that she kills a were-cat female effortlessly at this same party! Whiplash much? That particular female was also the property of a guy. All the clans: the witches, the vamps, the weres, live in packs and have an alpha male in control of them. This is not a book that's good for, or complimentary of, or complementary to women. It's a novel which for whatever reason has an inescapable need to categorize women firmly as secondary to, and hand-maidens of, men. I was turned off it at the party and I couldn't stand to read any more.

Wizzywig by Ed Piskor

Title: Wizzywig
Author: Ed Piskor
Publisher: Top Shelf Comix
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This one had me at the cover. Now I'm pissed off that I didn't think of that first! This graphic novel follows closely the real life of Kevin Mitnick, here naming him Kevin Phenicle. I have no idea where that came from unless it's somehow a reference ot Phenic acid. Maybe it's pure invention. The novel tells the story of his initial hacking attempts (the LA transit system, believe it or not, to get free rides!) of his being bullied, and of his subsequent initiation into phone phreaking (the first real form of hacking). All of this takes place at an early age, and is prep school for his alter forays into computer hacking. His best asset was what's known as "social engineering" - finding out secrets from people just by being friendly and sociable towards them. Mitnick excelled at this.

At the time of his arrest in 1995, a pursuit documented in Tsutomu_Shimomura's Takedown (1996, Hyperion Books, which I recommend reading in tandem with Mitnick's side of the story) Mitnick was the most-wanted hacker in the USA. The events have been made into a movie known as "Track Down", which as of this writing I have not seen. The hacker quarterly, 2600 produced a documentary titled Freedom Downtime in response to the movie There has been considerable controversy over these events, and Mitnick's resultant arrest and trial and imprisonment. Mitnick has written his own book (one of many since he was released from jail) about these events including some serious criticism of the story related in Takedown. As of this writing I have not read Mitnick's book. Mitnick now runs his own computer security consulting business.

This graphic novel is done in black and white line drawings, which are skillfully executed but very basic. Dialog is sparse. Contrary to popular media stories of hacking, especially those in film, this novel tells it much more like it really is. The most successful hacks (until those which have been in the news recently, such as the stuxnet business in Iran) weren't done in Mitnick's era by someone using advanced hacking software, but by tried and proven methods of dumpster-diving (finding vital passwords and log on information from discarded business materials), and from social engineering (befriending or becoming an acquaintance of someone on the inside, and using information garnered from interactions with them to derive passwords and network navigation information.

I recommend this graphic novel. It's a really interesting piece of history and it makes a fine tale, well-told.

Gronk by Katie Cook

Title: Gronk
Author: Katie Cook
Publisher: Action Lab Comics
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This graphic novel charmed me completely. I loved it from the cover illustration onwards. It even comes with its own website!. It ran all the time along the border of being too sugary, but for me it never really slipped over sufficiently to turn me off. The author sounds like someone it would be fun to know. Were it not for the presence of the sweet young monster, I could almost believe this was an auto-biography.

In Gronk we learn of an ugly green monster who really isn't ugly or a monster, or even very scary (but who is assuredly green) and who is too sweet and pleasantly-dispositioned to live up to really monstrous standards. She leaves her world and accidentally finds her way into the author's, where she's rapidly adopted, joining the author, who lives in a rather isolated cabin with her pet cat and pet dog (who is more of a 'monster' than ever Gronk is).

From there we follow this family's daily life in a series of Sunday newspaper style comics section vignettes, as Gronk learns about he human world and how to fit into it. Why does the cat spend so much time sitting in a cardboard box? Why isn’t it wise to invite the dog into the box? Should cats be bathed daily by sitting them in the toilet and flushing it? What’s the best way to play Monopoly? Why doesn’t Candyland actually have candy? And so on! These are certainly questions I want serious answers to!

One of the strongest pluses of this novel is that it shows with heart and feeling how different people, different personalities and different outlooks can live together in harmony (aside from an occasional glitch!). I recommend it for that, and for the comfortable and pleasing artwork in full color - artwork that looks more like heart-work it's so warm and cozy. Yes, I went there. Unashamedly! The author takes a page or two at the end to offer an interesting story of how Gronk became a character and then a story. It just goes to show that doodling isn’t a problem - it’s a feature!

Whisper by Crystal Green

Title: Whisper
Author: Crystal Green
Publisher: Penguin
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Whisper is a prequel which takes place before a subsequent volume titled Honey which I have not read. It's published next month. Whisper is very short: 39 pages which makes it rather like a prologue which I typically don't read. I had no idea this was the case, but since I did commit to writing an honest review, here goes! (Why would I write a dishonest one?!)

My first impression wasn't good. The text is very small with wide spaces between lines, making it hard to read, and I was reading it in Adobe Digital Editions on a full-sized screen. I'd hate to try this on my smart phone! The spacing of the lines suggests that 39 pages is an over-estimate of how long this is by about a third, maybe, were it printed in a normal font with regular spacing.

The story begins with Carley Rios receiving a text message on a new phone app called "TellTale". The TellTale messages can come from anywhere, but you can set the radius so that it limits which ones you see. Carley set hers for ten miles - when she lives in a tiny town she just moved to three months ago and where she knows almost no one. Why ten miles? It makes no sense!

The message states "I do anything to have Carley, but she doesn't know I exist". Carley is so clueless that despite the rather ominous wording, she thinks this is a secret admirer. This guy (who includes a background silhouette of himself and lives within ten miles of Carley) doesn't declare his love or admiration. He outright states he wants to have her. Whether that means he wants to own her or to have sex with her isn't clear, but either way it's inappropriate, not admiring.

Carley sends the 'admirer' a message on TellTale which includes a picture of her open bedroom door. She's dumb enough to think this will tell the guy that she's willing to step out of her comfort zone. It never occurs to her that it's telling him she wants to invite him into her bed - a guy she's never met who sends creepy texts and wants to meet her in dark, anonymous places.

Carley's biggest problem isn't taking stupid risks. It's that she's so shallow that she's incapable of having anything whatsoever running through her mind that isn't boys. Not even men, but boys, and it's pathetic. I can't recommend this and have no intention of reading Honey.

Mind the Gap Volume 1 Intimate Strangers by Jim McCann

Title: Mind the Gap
Author: Jim McCann
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Gorgeously illustrated by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback.

Mind the Gap - volume one of what is now a several volume series - didn't leave much of an impression on me! When I came to write a review a few days after I'd read it, I could remember almost nothing about it except for how gorgeous the artwork - by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback - was. It was that kind of a story - or that kind of a lack of a story to be absolutely precise.

One thing which did stick with me was how intransigent this volume was on the iPad in Bluefire Reader. It was really hard to read because it was sometimes all but impossible to to actually turn a page! Sometimes you could swipe and it would slide across, other times it wouldn't move. Sometimes you could tap to the right and it would slide across, but again, other times it would not move.

If you go to the very beginning of the book - which was not, believe it or not, the front cover, and then try to have the menu bar slide down from the top, it will not appear. You have to swipe two pages to the front cover (assuming that works) to get to a point where you can tap the top of the pad to get the menu bar to appear so you can then return to the library! This was not pleasant reading experience at all. It was in fact so frustrating trying to get the pages to turn that it really detracted from the story.

The basic premise is that main character Elle is evidently dead - or perhaps dreaming, or in a coma. Who or what killed her? Elle finds that she can inhabit other people's living bodies but not her own. Why? She doesn't know.

Other than that, there's some random dude wandering around with a cell phone, and random people doing random things. I looked for a story but there wasn't one to be found, and whatever passed for it was forgotten pretty much as soon as I finished reading.

If you want a great picture book, then this is it, but if you want a story, you're wasting your time here. I don't read novels, graphic or otherwise, for the artwork! I like a real story, too, and it's especially important to keep this in mind in the graphic formats.

Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara McNeely

Title: Blanche Among the Talented Tenth
Author: Barbara Neely
Publisher: Brash Books
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Today is Barbara Neely day on my blog! Either that or it's Blanche White day. This is the second of two reviews I'm posting today on books in author Barbara Neely's 'Blanche White' series. I've had a good relationship with Brash Books, so it’s nice to be able to find a book from them which I can positively review! Unfortunately, it's not this one.

I really liked the first volume and reviewed it positively, so I was excited to have a chance to read the very next one. I'm not a fan of book series normally, so it's a joy to find a series that I like. I'd hoped this would be one of them, but I was really turned off this one by the racist diatribes espoused by the main character with which this novel was shot through.

Character Blanche White, whom I liked (with some reservations!) in the first volume, was very nearly ferocious in her grudge against white people in this volume. For a character who outright says at one point that she can't understand why some people are fixated on color, she hypocritically rants about color and white privilege on very nearly every page! She even rants against people of her own race because their skin is lighter than hers! I had issues with Blanche in volume one. In this volume I could not stand her.

I just could not believe how frequently color was mentioned in this novel and I began to think maybe I had just become overly-sensitive to it, so at the point where I quit reading this book (about 50% through), I went back to the start and began a search for the words 'black' and 'white' - only when connected with skin color. The author has one character or another (mostly Blanche) mentioning 'white' in this context on every other page on average. 'Black' is mentioned six times on page one alone, and twenty one times in the first five pages! In the first 90 pages, which is where I quit reading this, the word black as related to skin color appears eighty-three times. There's very nearly on every single page on average.

Who wants to read a metronomic litany of references to skin color? Not me. I seriously began to wonder what the author thought she was achieving with this. This volume was so different in tone from the first one that I almost couldn't believe it was the same author - and this was written only two years after the first volume in this series.

Blanche, the main character, is someone who got herself into money troubles in the first volume, and got herself out when she figured out who was behind a series of murders. She's a smart woman who sometimes does dumb stuff. She's good at heart, but also a racist at heart, and it seems like this condition has deteriorated since the previous volume. I don't mind a book about racial issues. I find nothing to entertain me in a non-stop diatribe or an endless rant.

Blanche is also hypocritical in her obsession with how much attention others pay to skin color given that it’s on her mind all the time, too. She quite literally cannot look at a person without defining them by their skin color - high yellow, redbone, dark, light-skinned, white, yellow! I'm serious: every single character we meet is defined by their color. For me I don't care what color they are, I just want a good story. I can't enjoy a story where no one amounts to anything more than the hue of their skin and the author is intent upon pushing that into the reader's face at every turn.

I have to mention the cover here, too, even though the author has nothing to say about the cover she gets unless she self-publishes. We’re told that Blanche is a size fifteen, so I have to remark that the silhouette of Blanche on the cover of this series seems to me to be exaggerated in an unfortunate direction. On this particular cover there's a second issue, which is the obvious observation that dying of electrocution in the bathtub hasn’t ever been known to turn the water red to my knowledge! The cover goes way beyond realistic into purely sensational. I can't recommend this novel.

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely

Title: Blanche on the Lam
Author: Barbara Neely
Publisher: Brash Books
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

Today is Barbara Neely day on my blog! Either that or it's Blanche White day. Blanche White is a black woman in dire straits. She has two children (who are actually a niece and a nephew) whom she removed from New York City because she wanted them raised in a safer environment, only to discover that it's a lot harder to make a living in a smaller town. When a couple of her employers screw her on paychecks and a couple of her own checks bounce, she finds herself looking at thirty days in the slammer. Being claustrophobic, Blanche blanched at this. Fortunately for her sanity, a disturbance in the court house gave her the opportunity to slip away and go on the lam. I liked this premise!

Lucking into a job almost accidentally, she finds herself quickly whisked away to a rich white family's summer home in the country where she's the sole servant in the household, feeding and cleaning for a dysfunctional family consisting of the wealthy and sickly aunt, two money-grubbing dependents, and a sweet, somewhat intellectually-challenged younger man named Mumsfield. The problem is that there's something highly suspicious going on here and Blanche can't quite resolve what it is. When people start turning up dead, however, she realizes that the price of not figuring it out might be her own life.

I quite liked Blanche as a character in general, although I doubt I'd like her as a person: she has a shady side to her. On the other hand, she's 'suffered for her sins'. She's complex and multi-faceted, and far from a Mary Sue. In some regards she's not the smartest cookie in the jar, but on others, she's sharp as a tack, and always running through her mind like a drum-beat is the need to take care of these two children she's "inherited" from her sister.

On the problematic side, Blanche is rather racist, which I didn't appreciate. This is why I doubt I'd like her as a person. I know some people are racist regardless of their own skin color, and it's perfectly fine to depict them in stories, but to have your main character coming off like that isn't very endearing. Yes, she's essentially good at heart, but alongside that drumbeat to care for her charges, there's a second drumbeat that despises 'whitey' and carries a huge grudge as though it's a trophy!

Instead of focusing on the future, she routinely lets herself get dragged down by the distant past - a past of slavery and abuse. Yes, she grew up in an era during which racism was still prevalent and open, but she talks like nothing has improved. I kept wanting to take her aside and advise her that living in the past isn't going to change anything and that she'd be far better off - as would her children - if she got her head straight and focused on turning her own life around instead of trying to carry everyone's burden and trying to pass it off as the white man's.

On that score, when was this novel set? I have no idea. It was first published in 1992, but there's no indication (that I noticed) in the text to suggest when it actually takes place. Initially, I got the idea that it was in the early 1970's because of a mention of wanted posters for Joan Little (pronounced Jo-an, and misspelled as 'Joanne' in this novel), Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur, all criminals or near criminals at that time. The problem is that the second volume, set in 1994, follows on from this, so the first volume is at best confusingly vague and at worst, misleading with regard to the time-period. I was left to assume it took place in 1992 or thereabouts in retrospect, after having started on volume two in the series!

Those issues aside, the story was well-written, really exploring Blanche's innermost thoughts and feelings. She's not had a good life, and she tries to do her best, but she's a victim of poor decision-making on occasion. On top of this, and even though she constantly thinks of the kids and how she can dig herself out of the hole she's in, I have to add that she really doesn't spend much time with these kids!

Admittedly she's held hostage to circumstances until she can get some money together and so is restricted from visiting with the kids for a while. In a way she's serving her time and ironically (given her claustrophobia) she's tightly confined to her present location. The problem for me was that even after she was able to leave, her first instinct wasn't to go hug the kids, but to go away by herself to Boston (where the sequel begins). That struck me not only as being selfish, but also as betraying her character's mantra throughout this novel.

There really wasn't much sleuthing going on here either. Blanche pretty much fell into her crime-solving through a bit of snooping and eavesdropping, and the villain was rather given away quite early in the story. Because of this, some might find this novel a bit slow and ponderous, but for me it was entertaining, and I recommend it.

Bypass Gemini by Joseph Lallo

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a really great story which I started reading, not knowing if I was going to finish it. It's the start of a series so what kept me going was wondering if the last volume would be titled 'Triple Bypass Gemini'?

It begins with the usual trope for this kind of story, and I'm no fan of trope unless it's really well done and preferably has a twist to it. In this case, it's the standard sci-fi trope: a human (in this case named Lex) who has fallen from whatever grace it was to which he was party (in this case race driving), and who is now eking-out an existence trying to make ends meet and running into serious debt - although what these debts are and how they were incurred is vague and rather glossed over.

After that, things pick up. Lex gets some easy money by ferrying a gangster across town in a rather illegal way so that he manages to catch an important off-planet flight. This pays off some debt, but shortly after that, Lex is kicked out of his apartment (hey, I said it was serious - he wasn't able to pay off all his debts!), but he gets a courier commission (his main job, limo-driving, is a side line) to deliver some documents to another world. Normally everything is sent via Vector Corp, the king of space transportation and deliveries, but the sender doesn't want these documents in Vector's hands - although how Vector would know which package the documents were in is left unexplained.

The fee would pay off everything and leave Lex sitting pretty so he accepts, but soon finds that he's being pursued by a tenacious and vicious agent of Vector. Lex crashes on a planet surrounded by a cloud of meteors and space junk - apparently it's an interplanetary landfill, which makes no sense when you think about it, but there are certain things you have to simply let go in these sci-fi stories if you want to enjoy them, otherwise they just drive you nuts.

Conveniently for Lex, this planet is owned by Karter, who is a reclusive and talented inventor, and a highly-skilled mechanic and engineer. He agrees to fix up Lex's ship (and upgrade it) in return for Lex's eye being cast over some of his inventions. He also loans Lex a ship so that Lex can make his delivery on time while Karter fixes his own ship. But this just leads to more trouble for Lex. Indirectly he learns of a massive plan by Vector corp to garner for itself a complete monopoly over all transportation in the galaxy (again, absurd, but it's sci-fi). Can Lex stop them, and why should he anyway?

I fell in love with the computer (nicknamed Ma) on Karter's world. She was completely adorable. Lex wasn't too bad of a character at all, and Karter is completely insane (and proud of it - he has a certificate to prove it). In fact, Lex is a bit like a mix of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, with Karter as Obi-Wan, and the computer as Princess Leia!

The sci-fi was believable (for the most part!) and well-done in that the author wisely made it look like this stuff would work, but carefully avoided going into what might have been boring and ultimately ridiculous explanations as to why something works or is the way it is - explanations which would have tripped him up, and made him look dumb! In short, it was really well done (for the most part!), and a nice job. This is my kind of sci-fi. There wasn't even a sappy and highly improbable love story either, which was a huge bonus in my book. Unless you count Lex's love affair with the computer, to which I also plead guilty.

I recommend this novel and leave you with a choice quote from the start of Chapter 21, which Lex observes of Karter: "...seeing him with a smile on his face was like seeing a chimp with a butcher knife: very unusual and seldom a good thing."

Tracker by Shannon Mayer

Title: Tracker
Author: Shannon Mayer
Publisher: Shannon Mayer
Rating: WARTY!

This is book 6 in the 'Rylee Adamson' series, and I have not read the others, so this review is based solely on what I read of this one volume. I picked this up because it was free on Amazon and looked interesting, but in the end I find I cannot recommend it.

Perhaps if you've read and enjoyed the previous five volumes, this would be more enjoyable, but for me, having read part of it, I didn't honestly feel it was something I could get into, even starting with volume one, especially if that that one is written in the same breathless young-adult tone which this one was. I really don't get why this one would show up as a free special instead of volume one - surely that volume would be the one to promote if you want to get people into your series wouldn't it?! This particular technique suggests that sales are not quite what a writer might dream of for this series.

I'm not a fan of series. With few and treasured exceptions, it's a lazy way to write, retreading old stories and characters, trying to wring them for more. It's like using the same tea-bag twice. Ugh! I actually didn't realize this was part of a series when I picked this to read. I paid for that in that I honestly couldn't read it after the first few chapters. The writing, as I've indicated, didn't appeal to me. It felt adolescent - more like fanfic than anything else. There was no real substance to it, and nothing in it to really bring you up to speed (with one interesting exception which I will note shortly) or to serve as a refresh for those who are following this series, but for whom it may have been a while since they read the last volume.

The writer seems to have tried to pack this full of every fantasy creature she could think of, and it was too much for the bag to hold. It exploded in all directions, and I just couldn't get into it. This really wasn't because it was volume six; it was because of the writing. It was way too rushed and conversational, with little descriptive prose, and what description there was seemed to have more to do with social interaction, wise-cracking, and love interest than ever it did with life-threatening situations, dire straits experiences, and contingency planning.

It was because of that, that it felt completely inauthentic to me and this is what put me off - this and the fact that out of nowhere, ads were popping up on my phone screen for this novel series even as I was actively reading it! I'm sorry, but that's a massive no-no. Even had I been enjoying this, I would have ditched if after about the second or third time an unwanted add flashed up on the screen.

Clearly this is a new trick (at least to me!), but this novel had a somewhat unusual format to begin with. I've seen many ebooks where you can tap the chapter title in the contents list and go to the chapter, and tap that chapter title to return to the contents. This is a really useful feature. This novel took that idea a step further in that you could tap on a character name marked as a link in the text, and be transported to a glossary at the back of the book, where you could read a very brief description of the character. Tapping the name there takes you back to the text you've just left. Finally, ebooks start to grow up!

I liked this feature, but it really wasn't of much use in bringing me into the story because it was so limited. Yes, it told me briefly who this character was, but that really didn't help in getting up to speed with what was going on, who was whom, and where the story had come from or was headed. Again, this is my fault for not having read the previous volumes, but I expected a bit more help than this even for regular readers of the series.

This is one of the many problems with series - they're typically published a year or so apart, so what are readers supposed to do? Make detailed notes with which to refresh their minds before they read the next volume? Read the previous volume(s) each time before the newly-released one can be read? That doesn't work for me! I'd rather wait until the entire series is out - or until there's only one more volume to go, and then read them all at once. But usually I'd rather not read a series at all. I prefer to find something new each time I open a novel. I like to smell the roses rather than find myself trudging through heavily trampled foliage where there's little new or interesting and rarely anything of beauty on view.

Counterfeit Magic by Kelly Armstrong

Title: Counterfeit Magic
Author: Kelly Armstrong
Publisher: Tantor
Rating: WARTY!

Poorly read by Laural Merlington.

I could not get into this one at all. It's only three disks but I couldn't finish it. The reading by Laural Merlington was limited at best, and the writing was somewhat south of mediocre. There was nothing of interest here.

Why do they insist upon getting actors to read audio novels? Yes, actors are great at memorizing lines and emoting on stage and film, but that's not the same as reading. Not at all. They need to get people who can read, who are not necessarily actors.

The story is set in a modern world, but with magic and sorcery added, yet the writer didn't do anything to account for that addition, or to give it an acceptable place. Nor was there any explanation as to why we have a detective agency. Why is such a thing needed when magic can uncover whatever you need to know? If we have magic and witchcraft, why do we have gambling dens and fight promotions? Can't the witches influence the fight with magic? Can't the sorcerers divine the result and bet accordingly? Can't they magic-up whatever money they need so they don't even need to bet at all?

The story made no sense whatsoever, nor did it even try to, and I sure as hex can't recommend it.

The Last Quarrel by Duncan Lay

Title: The Last Quarrel
Author: Duncan Lay
Publisher: Momentum Books
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This is a very short (~90 pages) novel identified as episode one of an intended hexalogy. I wasn't impressed enough to want to finish this despite its brevity, let alone go on to another "episode'. There was nothing technically wrong with the writing; it was the story itself which failed to stir my interest or pull me in. I was given no reason to become attached to any of the characters or to become curious about their lives and problems, or about what was happening to their village.

Set in a "Gaelland" - a flimsily disguised Eire - we begin in a fishing village, the inhabitants of which are expecting a visit from their Duke overlord. His ship comes flying into the harbor under full sail, with no attempt to slow down, and grounds itself on the beach. When the highly superstitious head villagers go aboard, mumbling nervously about witches and selkies, they find no crew and no explanation for its absence.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere, the King's son and heir watches an innocent woman being burned as a witch without lifting a finger to stop it. She's blamed for the noted disappearance of some children.

It was at this point, about fifty percent of the way through, that I quit reading because I simply could not generate any interest in the story. I just didn't care about any of this or any of the people. Maybe your mileage will be different, but I can't recommend this based on what I read.