THE EIGHTH DAY, republished

Howdy All

After an enjoyable run, I have bid fair winds and a following sea to Bluewater Press. My contract was up and I chose not to renew it. I sincerely wish them all the best in their future endeavors. 

I am excited to announce that my first novel, THE EIGHTH DAY, is now available from Amber Cove Publishing. Amber Cove is the imprint of scifi author Jim Bernheimer, and if you haven’t read any of his books I highly recommend them (for my previously unbiased reviews of his Dead Eye series, see here and here). Already read THE EIGHTH DAY? Please share this post with your friends! (Please. Running a sanctuary for misfit dogs is not a cheap proposition. Your contribution is appreciated :)

Also, a special thanks to Levi K. Banker for his help designing the new cover. Check out his portfolio at http://www.levikbanker.com

Anyway, the Kindle version is live now on Amazon, the paperback should be available within two weeks. And as always, the audiobook is still available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Happy Reading!

-Mike, out. 

Marvel's Black Widow: Forever Red

Howdy folks


Well, after the heart-wrenching true story of Ashley's War, I felt like I needed a palate cleanser. I thought I'd get back to the roots of the blog, reviewing YA action-adventure, and no one serves up action or adventure better than Marvel. Add to that Margaret Stohl's Black Widow: Forever Red has garnered some buzz on some of the other blogs I visit, and services a character that is criminally underused in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (how did we get Ant-Man before a Black Widow standalone movie?) and I though it might be the cure for what ailed me.

I have to say, it was not.

A brief plot summary: Eight years ago, during a mission to cross off the Russian madman who turned her from a regular preteen to one of the worlds most deadly assassins, SHIELD Agent Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) rescues a young girl named Ava Orlova, then promptly dumps her in SHIELD custody and disappears from her life. Ava runs away and ends up living in the basement of a YMCA in Brooklyn, a big chip on her shoulder with regards to both SHIELD and the mysterious woman who rescued and then abandoned her. But the mad Russian scientist behind the infamous Red Room isn't is dead as Natasha thought, and she soon reappears in Ava's life...as does the mysterious boy Ava sees on her dreams.

I'm not saying it's a bad book. It's deeply flawed, to be sure. I'll get to that in a moment. But I think a lot of my disappointment may have been due to my expectations. First off, my view of the Marvel Universe is shaped overwhelmingly by the movie and TV side of it. I've read a few of the comics, but follow the MCU religiously. And some of the other Marvel characters in the book are good approximations of their MCU counterparts. Stohl's Tony Stark is the same wisecracking rogue we've come to know and love, and she especially captures Phil Coulson's deadpan wit. (Side note: Actor Clark Gregg does not get enough credit for turning a bit character in a small independent studio movie into a lynchpin of one of the biggest movie franchises in history).

The one character I found off was Natasha herself. In the movies she's not just an ass-kicking badass, but often has a breezy, sassy air to her and she is perhaps the most empathetic of the Avengers. I found Forever Red's Natasha to be a cold, unfeeling robot for much of the book, and if she feels any emotion it's usually brooding. This might be more true to the comics, I can't say for sure.

The book's fatal flaw, however, is how it handles foreshadowing. There are, in my humble opinion, right ways and wrong ways to handle the foreshadowing of a major character death. Ashley's War did an outstanding job of that, making the foreshadowing so imperceptible at first that you couldn't even put your finger on why you starting feeling this sense of dread. Even within the MCU, there's a good recent example, where the promos for the last few episodes of Season 3 of Agents of SHIELD blared that someone would die, and a flash-forward scene revealed that a necklace would be part of that death. Then in the last two episodes the necklace went from character to character among the show's large cast, always keeping you guessing who it would be. Forever Red goes about this the completely wrong way, telegraphing a death at the end of the book from the very begining (this is done by starting every chapter with excerpts from a SHIELD Line of Duty Death inquiry). As there are only three main characters, and one of them is Black Widow, you have a 50/50 chance of guessing who it will be, and it's not really hard to tell which one of them will bite it in the end. In doing this, the book effectively neuters itself, removing any tension or drama that might otherwise have been present.

The other problem, and this is inherent to all the other standalone MCU movies, is why, if you have a large roster of super-powered friends to call upon in times of need, would you not do that? The book makes the flimsiest of excuses for that, and at one point near the finale, Natasha is even on the phone with Tony Stark, and you can't help but wonder if she's willing to call him for tech support, why wouldn't she just ask him to come over in his invincible flying suit and help her make short work of the Russian and his goons, without needlessly endangering the life of two teenage kids. It's understandable in the movies, they have limited budgets. But in a book, it threatens the suspension of disbelief, even in a universe populated with living Norse gods and giant green rage monsters.

So overall, it kept me entertained, but it failed to meet my high expectations.

-Mike, Out

Ashley's War

Howdy Folks!

Today I am breaking radio silence to bring you a story every American should know, but very few do. Perhaps it is very fitting that I do so over Independence Day weekend. 

I've been on a non-fiction kick for most of the year, listening to memiors from naval commanders past and present, and an inside look at the Military Working Dog program. Then I came across a book by journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon about a group of remarkable soldiers that almost no one in this country knows about. 

If it wasn't already clear, I'm a bit of a military history buff. I can name virtually every variant of aircraft employed by all five branches of the military, and know the name and hull number of half the ships in the Navy. But until I read a news article about this book, I had never heard of the Cultural Support Teams, a group of all-female soldiers who deploy to Afghanistan attached to Special Operations units, typically Army Ranger strike teams but they also work with Green Berets and Navy SEALs. I won't go into a great deal about them, I think you should let Lemmon tell you about them first hand, with all of the thousands of hours of travel and interviews she did to bring their stories to life. 

The Ashley the book's title refers to is Ashley White, a fresh-faced young 2nd Lieutenant in the North Carolina National Guard who, along with a hundred other women, answered the call for a new secret program being set up by Special Operations Command at the behest of no less that Admiral William McRaven himself (McRaven oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and had the CST's been operational at that time I have little doubt one would have accomanied the SEALs on that fateful mission). They are to accompany Spec Ops forces on raids into the lawless border regions of Afghanistan and fulfill a mission requirement only they, as women, can do: search and interrogate the women and children of rural Afghanistan, who are forbidden to speak to men not related to them. Only half of the women complete the grueling selection process at Fort Bragg, then they are rushed through an abbreviated training program and quickly deployed to some of the hottest spots in Afghanistan, where the information they could provide is desperately needed to combat a resurgent Taliban and their associated Al-Qaeda fighters.

We meet many remarkable women in this book, but the story centers on Ashley, who becomes a much beloved figure by her fellow CSTs, her  Afghan-American interpreter, and eventually the Rangers she fought alongside, not only for her extraordinary physical strength but her quiet professionalism and compassion. 

At first the book almost reads like a puff piece, an overly inspirational, hoo-rah tale of the underdogs who overcame prejudice and proved themselves worthy. But Lemmon is a skilled writer, and halfway through she infects the story with a very subtle, almost imperceptible sense of foreboding, and you ever so slowly get a feeling that this story may not have a happy ending. It slowly builds and builds, the tension in the narrative ratcheting up, churning your stomach as it leads up to an inevitable climax you can tell by then is coming and you'd give anything to avoid. But this is not a novel. These are real people and real events and the past cannot be changed.   

When the CST's were first deployed in 2011, the ban on women serving in direct combat operations was still in effect, but it was by then, especially for the CSTs, an exercise in semantics. That, more than anything else, is what led to the ban being dropped and all military occupations were opened to women. It was not out of political correctness or a social experiment, as so many detractors have said. The experiment was already conducted in the mountains of one of the most hostile and unforgiving places on Earth, and by all accounts it was a resounding success. These women proved once and for all they could integrate successfully with America's most elite male soldiers and fight along side them shoulder to shoulder. The weapons caches, insurgents, and booby-trapped IEDs they were able to find, with their unique capabilities, no doubt saved the lives of countless Coalition forces and innocent civilians. 

"I brought my daughter with me to show her women can be heroes too", says a stranger to a grieving mother at the funeral of her daughter. The mother's first inkling of what her daughter was really doing overseas did not come until it was an elite Army Ranger who met them at Dover Air Force Base as the first fallen CST made her long, final journey home, to tell them she would be afforded the same honors as the male Rangers who died alongside her. There are now several women's names inscribed on the Special Operations memorial wall at Fort Bragg, a testament to their sacrifice and a reminder to whoever the first female Special Operators end up being, that their new opportunities were paid for in blood.  

The fact that their story is almost wholly unknown probably doesn't bother the women of the Cultural Support Teams, as they embody the "Quiet Professional" that is the standard among Special Forces. But I think it's something every American should know. So check out Ashley's War, and learn all about this remarkable note in American history. 

-Mike, out. 

Star Wars: Lost Stars Reviewed

Howdy folks

Well, in honor of Star Wars Episode VII, I've decided to take us all to that galaxy far far away....

First off, how cool is that cover? It really sells the book, its themes of divided loyalties, and the promise of some pretty kick-ass action.

Anyway, Claudia Gray's Lost Stars is a YA book set during before and during the Galactic Civil War. It opens on the outer rim planet of Jelucan as the planet is peacefully annexed into the Galactic Empire. There we meet young Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree, who bond over their shared dream of one day flying the cool spaceships they see during the Imperial Ceremony in the service of the Empire that promises to bring new opportunities and a better tomorrow for their backwater world. Thane is part of a second wave of immigrants to Jelucan who shun Ciena's poor valley Kindred, but their different worlds matter little to them as they swoop and dive through the skies of Jelucan together. Their different upbringings, however, will have serious consequences for them later in life. Thane's abusive family makes him cynical and distrustful of powerful people, with a strong sense of justice. Ciena's people value honor and loyalty above all else, and her oath, once given, must never be broken.

Propelling each other, they both make it into the prestigious Imperial Academy on Coruscant. Here the book turns into a mini-Harry Potter novel, if Hogwarts was preparing kids to be evil. Still, none of them see the darkness in the Empire until they graduate. They make new friends, end up having a falling out, but reconcile when they find out their disagreement was manufactured by the Academy staff in a concentrated effort to drive them apart, to strip them of ties to their old world and make them loyal only to the Empire. They even realize there might be more between them than just friendship...and then the Death Star shows up and ruins everything.

It's a credit to Gray that she can make something you know is coming so nauseatingly tense. The obliteration of Alderaan and resulting destruction of the first Death Star are a watershed moment in their lives. From then on, it's as if someone looked at this popular meme...

...and treated it as a serious statement. Thane, Ciena, and their friends are all decent people, watching them struggle with trying to justify what the Empire did to Alderaan is genuinely heartbreaking, though the loss of so many friends and colleagues on board the Death Star leaves no one with any warm fuzzies towards the Rebel Alliance. Ultimately though, the evidence of the Empire's cruelty is too much for Thane and he deserts. Ciena tracks him down, but neither will back down from their position, even as they finally act on their feelings for one another. United in the heart but divided by their ideals, they go their separate ways. It's not until months later, seeing injustice after injustice piled on by the Empire, that on a mission of mercy Thane meets one of the great heroes of the Rebel Alliance (I won't spoil which one but it's my favorite character from the original trilogy so yay!) and is finally convinced that it's not enough to not participate in the Empire's crimes, he must actively oppose them. Yet he's torn apart inside, knowing with every TIE fighter he shoots down, he might be killing the his best friend and woman he now loves. Having spent so much time flying together, Ciena recognizes his flying style during the battle of Hoth and is crushed by the same realization, and furious at his utter betrayal of the oath they both swore. Yet nothing can seem to break the bond between them...

Can these two crazy kids make it work?

Yeah yeah. There's a lot of teen/new adult angst, but it feels pretty earned, especially during the engagements when they know for certain that the other is in their crosshairs. Plus it's fun the way the book weaves through the events of the original trilogy. Thane and Ciena are like Forest Gump, always accidentally crossing paths with the famous (at least in the Star Wars universe). But far and away what I loved most about this book is the way it humanizes the faceless enemy. The original trilogy is a classic tale of good versus evil, but many within the Empire are not evil. Ciena is as much the protagonist in the book as Thane is, and while her disillusionment with the Empire grows and grows, she will not break her oath of loyalty, or break faith with the men and women under her command. It's a common refrain you hear from soldiers the world over. "It's not about politics, it's about the person next to you."

 One of the acolytes given to The Force Awakens is showing us the man behind the stormtrooper mask, Finn. But Finn defects as soon as the movie starts, so he's immediately "one of the good guys". Imagine if, even though he's a good person, his strong sense of loyalty prevented him from leaving. It's not just Ciena, either. Ciena's roommate at the Academy, Jude, is a kind, bookish nerd who perishes on the Death Star. Thane's roommate Nash is a carefree spirit with an infectious laugh, and devastated by the destruction of his homeworld (though oddly it only increases his dedication to the Empire)

One of my all time favorite war movies is The Enemy Below, staring Robert Mitchum as a destroyer skipper and Curt Jurgens as a U-Boat commander. Jurgens' character is disillusioned with the Nazi regime but still fights for his country to the best of his ability, and both captains come to respect and admire each other, with neither being made out to be the "good" or "bad" guy, and Lost Stars ratchets up this dynamic by making the two opposing characters not respected enemies but friends and lovers.

I listened to the audiobook version, and I highly recommend it. Sound effects and music are tricky things for audiobooks, they can add or detract from the story in equal measure so their use must be judicious. This one uses both far more heavily than most, but to great effect. It helps that the sound effects are so iconic (the screech of TIE fighters, the roar of Wookies) and the swells of music underneath are from one of the most memorable and beloved scores in movie history, and they give the production a very cinematic feel.

So check out Lost Stars, and may the Force be with you!

-Mike, out.

The Rules of Supervilliany, Reviewed

Up next is my review for C.T. Phipp's The Rules of Supervillainy. Gary Karkofsky is an ordinary guy living in a world where supervillains, zombie uprisings and kaiju attacks are deemed to be mundane annoyances, though his own life will change dramatically after the Night Walker, Falcon Crest City's longtime protector, dies and Gary finds his magical, sentient cloak. Imbued with superpowers, Gary decides to embark on his life-long dream of becoming a supervillain...if he can get his wife to agree to it.

This book is a fun, funny read (or listen, I got a review copy of the audiobook). It's an ode to geek culture, and the nerd references come fast and furious. Buffy, Star Wars, Alien, and bunch of others I probably missed, not to mention superheros large and small referenced or parodied. The jokes hit more than they miss, with some genuine laugh out loud moments. The casual inclusion of several LGBT characters is also a nice touch.

My one issue with the book is it struggles to find a consistent tone. Gary, AKA Merciless, the Supervillain without Mercy, almost defies categorization. He's not evil enough to be a supervillain, and not good-natured enough to be a superhero, or even a true anti-hero. The way he flip flops from helping the heroes to hurting them and back makes him almost seem bipolar at times. The book is too funny to be serious but too violent and nihilistic to be a straight up comedy. Didn't turn me off to the book, just bugged me a bit.

The audiobook is narrated by the ever-dependable Jeffery Kafer, who is a perfect fit for the sardonic superhero genre, and he does good work here. So if you like superheros (and who doesn't in this day and age), check it out!

-Mike, out

SNEAK PEAK: The World I Woke Up To

Hi boys and girls!

It's National Novel Writing Month. and in honor of that I have a special preview of my next novel, The World I Woke Up To. It's still very much a work in progress, I'm just over halfway through the first draft. I hope to have it done and published by this time next year.

Here's a brief description:

Kaylee Crawford has always been more comfortable in the company of animals than people, and when neglectful owners dump a big black dog named Beast at the shelter where she volunteers, she feels a special connection to the remarkable animal...one that will come in very handy when, in a horrifying instant, it's not the animals she has to worry about biting her...

As the world collapses around her, she must fight to survive and keep her younger brother safe. As they and new companions both two and four legged embark on an perilous journey to escape the carnage and find sanctuary, Kaylee is forced to wonder: is anywhere truly safe in this brave new world?




Elizabeth City, NC


“What’s going on?” Danny called out behind her.


“Tammy says there’s a marina on the other side of this bridge, if we can get the bridge down we might be able to secure a boat and get the hell out of this place. We have most definitely overstayed our welcome.”

“How are we going to get the cages on the boat?” Danny asked, skeptical of this new plan.

Kaylee sighed. “Cross that bridge when we come to it.” She gestured to the open bridge span. “So to speak.”

They walked up to the door to the bridge control station. Beast walked up first, sniffing. He didn’t seem to be alarmed, and that gave Kaylee some confidence that the coast was clear. She twisted the knob and the door creaked open on rusty hinges. Both trained their guns out in front of them as Kaylee used the flashlight app on her phone to scan the area. The room was clear, so they made their way to the control panel. To their shared dismay, neither saw anything resembling a mechanical backup to the electrical system used to raise and lower the bridge.

Suddenly she heard barking. “The dogs on the trailer,” she thought out loud. A shot of panic ran through her veins. They’d left the vehicles and the two people least able to defend themselves with only a pistol and a sword. Forgetting about the bridge, she ran back out the door onto the road, looking for signs of danger. She stopped to get a better look, but the world around her was pitch dark and the light from her flashlight had impaired her natural night vision.

Danny quickly caught up to her. “See anything?”

“I can’t see shit. Too damn dark.” She switched on the the NVG’s and held them up. She gasped. In the glowing green light she could see figures standing on the roofs of the buildings across the street. All perfectly still, all watching them intently.

“They’re on the roof,” Kaylee said quietly, fighting the fear rising up in her.

“What are they doing?”

“They’re...they’re just standing there. Watching us.”

“Well, if they’re playing it cool we will too. Walk slowly to the truck, start it up, and get a move on. We’ll cover your exit, and be right behind you.”

“Why are they..why aren’t they attacking? There’s at least a dozen of them up there.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I just want to get the hell away from them.”

They made their way back to the cars, trying not to look up at the roofs too much. Kaylee climbed into the cab and started the engine.

“What’s going on? What’s got the dogs all worked up?”

“The rooftops of the buildings immediately behind us are crawling with infected,” Kaylee said as calmly as she could manage.

“So they don’t see us yet?”

“Oh, they see us all right.”

“Then why aren’t they attacking?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question now, isn’t it?” She backed the truck and trailer up, or tried to at least. It took her several frustrating tries to get into a position to continue straight on Water Street. She saw the 4-Runner start to follow along as she picked up speed, then watched in fascinated horror as figures began falling from the sky. They jumped from the two story rooftops and landed in crouching stances, then got to their feet and started after the two vehicles. Why now!? Why did they wait til we left to attack? This made no sense…

Well, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more updates, and look for my next book review, The Rules of Supervilliany, coming up in the next few weeks.


-Mike, out.

The Last Ship, reviewed.

And now for something completely different...

Today rounds out my literary tour of the apocalypse. We've seen the improbable alien invasions and the laughable army of mantis men, and now we take a sharp detour into the terrifying specter of a nuclear war, a prospect perhaps more pressing now than any time since the end of the Cold War, with US and Russian combat aircraft now operating on opposing sides in the war-torn clusterf**k that is the Middle East. So with that happy thought, welcome aboard The Last Ship, by William Brinkley.

I usually save my reviews for young adult fiction, though I read plenty of adult fiction too. Can't honestly say why I've decided to add this book in here. I suppose it is a book that will make you want to talk about it. Regardless, this book is very far from being YA, both in difficulty and subject matter. 

In the closing years of the 20th century, the nuclear-powered destroyer USS Nathan James is on patrol in the Barents Sea when something both unthinkable, and yet, felt by many of her crew as inevitable, happens: they receive orders to launch some of their nuclear-tipped Tomahawk missiles at their target city of Orel in Russia. This they do, and then proceed out of the Barents Sea to find the world in ashes. Their war lasted four hours, and that was the easy part. They will now embark on a nearly year long voyage around a world they no longer recognize, where deadly radiation has turned the land to poisonous wasteland, and turned the few survivors they find there, both human and animal, into the walking dead, already decomposing even though they will live on for a few more days or weeks. With their homeland presumed lost, their mission now becomes finding some bit of uncontaminated land that will support them before their nuclear fuel runs out and they become a ghost ship, forever lost at sea. 

The book's narrative is told from the perspective of her captain, Tom (given the last name Chandler on the TNT series, here never named), and he is a vividly sketched character. We see him whole, his decisive outward demeanor and inward neuroses and vanity, his strengths and weakness, hopes and fears. We see him growl at a mutinous subordinate, "Get off my ship." We see him cry after sex (which, fair warning, we see in graphic and rather crude detail. I'm not opposed to depictions of sex in fiction, but I've noticed that male authors, as a general rule, seem to have a lot of trouble writing it well.) 

In fact many of the characters in this book are rich and well drawn, as is the world they inhabit. It's a very immersive book. At first you may have some questions about Captain Tom, given the admiring, almost leering way he describes the physiques of his male crewmembers, and how he "knows nothing of women" and was initially horrified when he learned he would be commanding one of the first mixed crews (the book was written in 1988, shortly after the Navy first opened sea-going billets to women). Tom changes his tune fairly quickly once they are aboard and quickly prove themselves equal to their male peers. One in particular will become especially important. More on her later. 

Captain Tom is also very long winded and has apparently decided to preserve every single word in the English language. If you know me IRL, you know I have made a fairly lucrative career of making myself seem smarter than I really am with the use of a very large vocabulary, so it's been a very long time since I've read a book that sent me reaching for a dictionary so often. One reviewer said that Brinkley never uses a fifty cent word when a two dollar word can be found, so if you're not a fan of big words, or small, difficult words, steer clear. It's also strange, the manner in which he narrates and how everyone speaks. Captain Tom in particular sounds like an 18th century sea captain, more than a digital age Navy man, like a Patrick O'Brien book that swapped sailing frigates for guided missile destroyers. The book is also over 600 pages, the audiobook version weighing in at a crushing 30 hours. None the less, I found myself not being particularly anxious for it to be over, so engrossing the was the story. 

The book is often very poignant, this mostly due to the interaction between the James and the Russian missile submarine Pushkin, which they first encounter off the coast of France. The ease at which the two crews, from nations that just destroyed each other, integrate and come together to eventually form a single community, a single crew, highlights how pointless and unnecessary the war was. You keep expecting tension or outright conflict, but it never comes. We never find out what started the war or who fired first, and both captains seem to agree it doesn't matter. Everyone lost. 

Tom's chief concern, sometimes it would seem more than nuclear fallout or diminishing fuel and supplies or mutinous crew members or violent storms or even a serial killer among ship's company, is the rather lopsided ratio of men to women, and the fact the surviving crew of these two ships may very well constitute the only hope for perpetuating the human race. The book spends an inordinate amount of time working out the logistics of what the crew comes to term "the arrangement", and it's a little off-putting. 

A slight detour into rant territory: At one point during the voyage a female crew member is subject to a violent assault, sadly not that uncommon in real life among women in the military, nor, rather shockingly, even among men. The captain's reaction, however, is diametrically opposed to what typically happens in the real world. In real life these incidents are often squashed, swept under the rug, the perpetrator going free or perhaps a slap on the wrist. They are never marooned on a highly radioactive island, left to die a slow horrible death of radiation sickness or avail themselves to the .45 service pistol the captain so thoughtfully left him. In fiction you often see these violent revenge fantasies towards rapists, yet in real life this is almost never the case. I find this dichotomy puzzling, though I have no explanation for it. I was also put off by the fact the offending sailor is never named, though it makes sense from the Captain's perspective, not want to attribute humanity to a person he has condemned to such a fate. 

One other rant. As I mentioned, many of the characters are well drawn, and perhaps none more so (besides Captain Tom) than Lieutenant Gerrard, the ship's supply officer and highest-ranking female officer aboard (and while we get to know her, ahem, intimately, I don't recall ever hearing her first name. Regardless she is one of the most compelling, best-written supporting female characters I've ever read in fiction...right until the end when Brinkley completely throws her under the bus, in a shocking act so out of character and so inexplicable it nearly ruins the whole book. I got to the finale and wanted to flip a table.  

But while I can't quite forgive that, and for all its other flaws, I still really enjoyed this book. I can't say I truly enjoyed my time at sea, but it surely had its moments, and this book often made me nostalgic for having a steel deck under my feet, watching the sunset over the water from the bridge wing. 

Like the other two books in my apocalyptic book tour, this one has also been been adapted to the screen, though as a TV show and not a movie. While I have come to enjoy the TV show in its own right, if you have come to the book by way of the show, understand they are nothing alike, and the show took only the title and the name of the ship, and the first name of the captain.

-Mike, out.  

Grasshopper Jungle, reviewed

"Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing that test indefinitely. Good news is we have a much better test for you: fighting an army of Mantis Men. Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. You'll know when the test starts." -Cave Johnson, Portal 2

Author Andrew Smith's personal mantra is "Keep YA weird." Mission accomplished, Mr. Smith. Singlehandedly, I might add. This is one weird book, like few I've ever read before. If that quote from Portal 2 seems random, it is, yet it still sums up the overall plot of this book as well as anything I could probably generate on my own.

The basics are this. The book is narrated by Austin Szreba, a teenager of Polish descent in the economically depressed town of Earling, Iowa. Like many teens, Andrew is a jumbled mess of hormones, complicated by the fact his best friend, Robbie, is gay and, while he is very much in love with his girlfriend Shann, he loves Robbie too. You would think this seemingly mundane life problem would take a backseat to the six foot tall praying mantises that start hatching out of the townspeople and eating everyone in sight. You would be wrong.

This book is many things, straightforward is not one of them. Andrew interweaves his family history, stories of a mad scientist who created the mantis men, his relationship problems and everyday struggles, even his brother's combat injury in Afghanistan, in a rich, often humorous, sometimes poignant tapestry. It's much more a coming of age story set against a darkly comic (if not gruesome) apocalypse, rather than an end-of-the-world thriller. Not at all what I was expecting. One critic said Smith must have been channeling the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut, and the book is very reminiscent of books like Slaughterhouse Five. The ending, in particular, took me completely by surprise.

It's not my favorite book, but if you don't mind a detour into the eccentric, it's worth the read. Like the last book I reviewed, The Fifth Wave, this one is also being adapted into a movie, with Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Shaun of the Dead) tapped to direct. I think it should be right up his alley.

-Mike, out.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...

Getting back to the roots of this blog, I will be returning to book reviews for awhile. I've been on a post-apocalyptic kick lately, probably seeking inspiration for the book I'm working on now. Three books, all about dealing with the world's end, and they could not be more different. One a very good if fairly standard YA thriller, one a very weird YA book that could have been written by the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut, and a very adult book that reads like a Patrick O'Brien novel if Jack Aubrey traded his 19th century sailing frigate for a 21st century guided missile destroyer.

Today's offering is The Fifth Wave, which asks the question, "What would happen if a civilization that had mastered interstellar travel decided they had a beef with us?", and answers that question with "We would get our asses handed to us, quickly." The book centers  on 16 year old Cassie, one of the very few humans who survived the first four waves of the alien attack, and mostly centers on her desperate quest to reunite with her little brother. Along the way she is shot by a Silencer, an alien in human form who roam the countryside in a "mopping up" operation, hunting the last remaining human survivors. Seemingly miraculously surviving this encounter, she is found by a local farmboy, Evan, who nurses her back to health and seems eager to help Cassie find her brother. But the invader's most devastating weapon is the fear and distrust they have successfully sown among the human survivors, making them wonder who is an alien hiding in plain sight, and Cassie must decide if she can trust Evan, who's obviously hiding something...

The other part of the book centers on Cassie's schoolmate and long time crush Ben, who's been taken along with other surviving kids to a military base, and pressed into service to fight the alien invaders. After a brutal training regiment (that kind feels like a weak rip-off of Full Metal Jacket), Ben and his squad are sent off to strike back at their faceless enemies. But something is off about their mission, their training, and most of all their commanders...

The two narratives finally intertwine in a satisfying and thrilling climax, which sets up the next book in the series. The book is immersive and well written, and there's a lot I like about the Others and the way they attack humanity, and shows more realistically how such an advanced civilization would walk over us without any trouble, and the only reason they haven't killed everyone by the end of the first book is (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) not all the aliens are on board with the "kill all humans" plan.

Overall, I liked this book quite a bit and look forward to reading the next book in the series. It's been well received and also has been adapted into a movie starring Chloe Moretz and Liev Schreiber due out next year.  Check it out!

Profiles in (Moral) Courage

Howdy folks! After a very long hiatus, I'm back! Been a busy almost-year. My epic two-and-a-half year odyssey to move out to the country has finally come to a successful conclusion, and I'm halfway done with the first draft of my next book! Working title The World I Woke Up To, it is apart from the world of The Eighth Day, though once again it will center on a group of young people about to have a very bad day :)

(Note: the following post contains spoilers for The Eighth Day) 

So Bruce Jenner is a woman now.

I don't know how you all feel about that, I know that it's so far down on my list of things to worry about it hardly bears mentioning. Personally I don't care. In my humble opinion people ought to be free to live the way they want, as long as they're not hurting anyone else. I kinda thought that was the whole point of America. But the conversations it has started have certainly been interesting to observe.

A lot of people seem up in arms about Caitlyn Jenner's ESPY award. I saw a lot of social media posts outraged that the runner up was a wounded soldier, and they were incensed that she could be called brave in light of what he had done. Let's ignore for a moment that the meme was bullshit and there are no “runner-ups” for the ESPYs....you know what, let's not ignore that. I'm awfully tired of people making shit up to push their agendas. If you find you have to lie to further your cause, you need to take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I really the good guy here?” (Hint: No. No you are not.)

But back to my main point. There are different kinds of courage, and physical courage is no more important than moral courage. In fact, I think physical courage is far easier to come by. It's rarely more than a few blocks away, at your local fire station, police preceint, or military base. Men and women who signed up to kick open a door, no way of knowing what was on the other side; a roaring inferno, a deranged gunman, a booby-trap IED.

It's been said the average person fears public speaking (and, more to the point, public judgment and scorn) more than death. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but from reading dozens of aviation and maritime accident reports I know that some people literally did fear speaking up more than death, and death is what they got. They knew something was wrong, that bad decisions were being made, that they could die as a result, and still they kept quiet. 

I've tasted fear a time or two, battled it back, and moved on with the task at hand. In the end, it didn't seem like that big a deal. What I wish I had was more moral courage. To be able to rock the boat, confront head-on the rampant racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia I find myself surrounded by on an almost daily basis, and not from behind the relative safety of a keyboard. That, I feel, takes a great deal more courage than putting one's self in harm's way. I'm proud of the one time I stood up to a bully for a friend, but the pride in that one shining moment is outweighed by the shame of all the times I could have but didn't. 

I've known lots of people we might call brave, for putting their lives on the line for one reason or another. Yet I can only truly recall witnessing one person who continually displayed moral courage. I was very privileged to serve under a commanding officer who on several occasions stood up to his higher ups when they pressured him to sacrifice the safety of his subordinates for the sake of financial or political expediency. I can't say with certainty that this was what ended his career, but it certainly didn't help, and I wouldn't bet otherwise. And considering I was one of those subordinates, I am eternally grateful. I hope he sleeps soundly at night in the knowledge that he brought all of us home safe. What he did requires a special kind of bravery that I think is far harder to come by than physical courage.

In THE EIGHTH DAY, Kathy Winters never flies or jumps out of a plane, or disarms a bio-weapon, and just barely escapes the two physical altercations she's involved in. Yet I have long considered her the bravest of my protagonists, and the real hero of the book. It is the moral courage she displays at the beginning of the story, standing up for Jay in the most public way possible when he becomes the ultimate outcast, that will ultimately allow them to save the world. She could have easily staid quiet, or even offered support in private. Most of us would have probably felt behind-the-scenes support would be effort enough for a friend in such a situation, but if that's all she had done, he would have gone to jail, and the Last Triumvirate's conspiracy would have continued, undetected and uninhibited until it was too late. Especially for a teenager, who generally doesn't deal with life-or-death situations and at an age where social ostracism can indeed be the worst fate life can dole out, I think her actions are even braver than her male friends (particularly when considering she doesn't know the stakes of inaction, where as they are keenly aware of what the respective outcomes will be if they don't act).

I don't know Caitlyn Jenner personally and can't speak to her motivations for conducting her transition in such a public way, but the scorn and bile already directed at her has only proven her bravery, and if she can use her celebrity status to help see that trans people are treated with the same respect and dignity every human being should be afforded, then I say Bravo Zulu, Caitlyn.

-Mike, out. 

I continue to punch dead people...

So I've made a pretty sizeable dent in my reading list (some down time whilst traveling helps), and I'm here again with yet another author request review.

You can read my review for the first book in Jim Bernheimer's Dead Eye series, Pennies for the Ferryman. I enjoyed that one, but was really impressed with the second book in the series, The Skinwalker Conspiracies. It's a rare sequel that improves on the original in almost every way. The narrative was tighter, and while the first book sometimes seemed like a collection of (appropriately titled) episodes, the episodes in this book feel more connected and seem to do a better job of advancing the story and creating the feeling of an overarching story arc.

It helps that protagonist Mike Ross has somewhat settled into his role as the Ferryman at this point and now, rather than just learning about his new found powers, he's a man on a mission. Because of that, there's an element of suspense and urgency that permeates The Skinwalker Conspiracies that didn't really show up until the last act of the first book. Plus it still retains the sardonic gallows humor and even more wild takes on the (after)lives of the rich and famous.

Probably the best addition is instead of a collection of increasingly difficult "boss fights" Mike gets into in the first book, there's a Big Bad who looms over the entire story. I won't spoil who it is but again, students of history will enjoy these books.

This is the first audiobook I've heard read by Jeffery Kafer, and I really think he was a perfect fit for the book. For some reason his voice and performance reminds me of Nick Offerman, just at a somewhat higher pitch. He really nails the tone you would imagine the character having.

All told I really enjoyed this audiobook and highly recommend it.

-Mike, out.

Freaks and Greeks

Up next for review by author request is My Lady Olives: Maiden of Migraines by Mandy Oviatt. The lady in this case is college junior Olisbeth Mason, and no, that is not a typo. “Olives” as she is known to her friends due to her affinity for olives (the Greek references and imagery in the beginning of the book are not subtle), starts off her junior year crossing paths with a pair of twins that will do much to shape the coming events in her life: her roommate Phobe and eventually Phobe’s enigmatic brother Arthur, with whom she will become romantically entangled. Olisbeth’s primary nemesis is her severe and frequent migraines, along with a snobby college professor. But nothing in Olisbeth’s life is what it seems, not even her frequent headaches. Eventually she will learn she has the power to send her migraines telepathically to those she deems more deserving of them…and that will be the least surprising thing she discovers. 

As much as this book telegraphs a lot of the revelations, it still manages to hook you into it. A lot of this stems from dramatic visions the Olisbeth will eventually learn come from past lives. And despite the heavy foreshadowing, it still pulls off some good plot twists. Olisbeth and Arthur are probably a little to perfect as far as people go, even for Greek gods made flesh (most of us would go a little drunk with power if we could give migraines to people), but the other characters are a little more engaging. Even the romance between Arthur and Olives turns out to be less a romantic subplot and more an intricately intertwined part of the main plot.

This book’s real Achilles’ heel (yes, pun intended) is a lack of professional editing and formatting. Awkwardly worded sentences and internal monologues that aren’t clearly defined abound, particularly in the beginning.  I don’t think you have to be a grammar Nazi to be a good writer, but you’d better have a friend who is (or be willing to fork over some cash for a good professional editor). Also I tried downloading the .mobi for Kindle verision and it kept not displaying pages in the right order, so I ended up only able to read it on the Universal Book Reader app on my phone. (The UB reader app on my computer also had some issues). Self-publishing may well be the way the industry is going but this book kind of highlights some of the issues that self-published writers face and why there is still some stigma attached to it. It reads less like a polished commercial product and more like a good rough draft.

So between those two issues there were a few times I almost stopped reading the book, but the plot kept drawing me back in. Greek mythology is a considerably under-utilized source for storytelling nowadays, considering the rich universe they inhabit. The only real place I see it happening is the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan.

So anyway, if you like new-adult paranormal romance and Greek mythology (and can get past the editing and formatting issues),  Oviatt’s entry into the genre is worth your time and a few bucks for the e-book.

-Mike, out

Truth is stranger than fiction....

Well, I had originally planned to put this on THE EIGHTH DAY's Goodreads page under trivia but it didn't really fit there so I decided to post it here.

I've been reading some reader reviews of the book (my favorite comment so far is "a big dumb summer blockbuster movie in book form. I can't help but like it". I'll drink to that. Now if it could only become a big dumb summer blockbuster movie in movie form, I'd be in business). I won't defend the book's wild implausibility, I think that's part of the appeal of fiction is that we're not necessarily bound to reality.

That said...sometimes reality seems implausible too. And the book's most ridiculous sequence was inspired by not one but three true stories that are almost as ridiculous.

In October of 1944, 20 year old USAAF pilot Bruce Carr was shot down over Czechoslovakia. Knowing there was a German air base nearby he headed towards it, intending to surrender to the Luftwaffe rather than risk capture by the Gestapo (the Luftwaffe tended to treat downed Allied pilots reasonably well). Upon finding the airbase he noticed a lone FW-190 fighter plane being serviced by a ground crew. They left as night fell and Carr snuck over the fence and climbed into the cockpit. As dawn rose he tinkered enough with the plane that he was able to get the engine started, and had figured out enough of the controls (even though he couldn't read the German labels) to get it airborne. He drew fire from Allied positions the entire flight back to his base in France, where he belly-landed it before the base defenders could shoot him down (he had no radio to tell them he was friendly, and they likely wouldn't have believed him anyway). He was surrounded by MP’s until his CO came out, shocked to see him sitting in the cockpit of a German fighter, reportedly remarked, “Carr, where the hell have you been?” Carr would go on to score 14 kills and become one of the top-ranked aces of WWII.

"Man, I forgot to get the supplemental insurance" 

On May 28, 1987, 18 year old Mathias Rust, an inexperienced private pilot from Germany, flew a Cessna 172 into Russian airspace and boldly landed it in Red Square in downtown Moscow. Miss-communication and confusion prevented Soviet air defenses from intercepting him, and the embarrassment led to dismissal of many high-ranking officials and may have hastened the end of the Cold War. Rust was tried for “hooliganism” and served several months in prison before being released.

'sup, comrades?

Almost exactly 2 years later, 26 year old Russian air force pilot Alexander Zuyev, seeking to escape the Soviet Union (and his soon-to-be-ex-wife) drugged his squadron mates with a cake heavily infused with sleeping pills and walked out to the flight line. A mechanic saw him and tried to stop him, they struggled and Zuyev eventually shot him with a pistol, wounding him. He then hopped into his MiG-29, fired it up, and flew 150 miles to the NATO base in Trabzon, Turkey, before anyone could pursue him. He was granted asylum by the United States and immigrated to San Diego, and died in a stunt-plane crash in 2001

"You can't just fly away from your problems, Alex!" 

But he totally could, and it was awesome. 

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

-Mike, out. 

I punch dead people...

And now for something completely different…

Code Name Verity was a great book, but man, what a kick in the feels. So today I come to you with some much lighter fare. Today’s review is Dead Eye: Pennies for the Ferryman, the first book in Jim Bernheimer’s Ferryman Series.

Protagonist Mike Ross is born to lose. Growing up poor and eventually fatherless, his fortunes don’t improve in adulthood. His stint in the US Army is cut short by an Iraqi IED, but his troubles have barely begun once he arrives back home. To repair his damaged eye he’s given a cornea transplant, and he’s rather dismayed to find out his new eye allows him to see the dearly (and not so dearly) departed. Mike eventually learns he’s a Ferryman, someone who can see, speak to, and interact with the dead (and “interact” in this case usually means “get his ass beat”). Some of these spirits just want to cross over, and Mike is happy to help…for a small fee. Others just want to cause trouble, and trouble seems to follow Mike wherever he goes. Along the way he collects an odd assortment of allies (and enemies), from battered housewives and dead Army buddies to Union Army Generals and Supreme Court Justices.

Pennies is a fairly straight-forward story with a few good plot twists sprinkled throughout, and it’s a very  fun read. Mike has a very sardonic sense of humor, and it’s always easy to cheer for an underdog, which he’s been his whole life. He’s a Ghostbuster on a shoe-string budget; no fancy proton packs here, just a trusty pipe wrench, some iron filings, and a mean right hook. History buffs will enjoy the historical characters, from the Poe family to Union Army officers and soldiers like John Reynolds and Strong Vincent. I really enjoyed this book (and it was a nice palate cleanser after Verity), and if you like adventure fiction with a dose of the paranormal, you probably will too.

I got the audiobook for the second book in the series, The Skinwalker Conspiracies, so stay tuned and I’ll post a review of that one as well when I finish.

Pennies for the Ferryman is available on Amazon for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible. 

-Mike, out

"I have told the truth"

Wow.

Bear with me, this may be a long and rambling post disguised as a book review. It is rare to read a piece of fiction that can strike such a chord with you, but every once in a while…

About a month or so ago I found a promotion for several audiobooks, offering the chance to download one for free. I picked Code Name Verity, the story of two young women during the middle of the Second World War.

If this sounds familiar on this blog, it is. I read Violins of Autumn earlier, and like that book, this one also centers on the British Special Operations Executive and its agents, but the two books could not be more different. Verity is the book Autumn only wishes it could be.

Codename Verity tells the story of Julie Beaufort Stewart and Maddie Broddart, two young women who could hardly be more different, yet quickly become the closest of friends. Both are members of the Royal Air Force’s Women’s Auxiliary, though both eventually find their way to the roles they were meant for: cool, aristocratic Julie (a Scot descended from no less than William Wallace (Braveheart)), who can effortlessly be anyone she wants to be, is recruited into the British SOE. Maddie, daughter of eastern European Jewsish immigrants, is one of the few pre-war women pilots in England and is eventually allowed to join the Air Transport Auxiliary, Brittan’s answer to the US WASP program. One fateful night they find themselves on an ill-fated mission to occupied France.

The first half of the book is told through a diary written by Julie as she is interrogated by the Gestapo. Her mission in France was over before it began, bailing out of a burning plane and quickly captured by the enemy, but even by these meager standards she has fared better than Maddie, based on the pictures of the wrecked plane and its remaining occupant her Nazi interrogators show her. The diary is supposedly for the Gestapo captain in charge of her interrogation, but mostly it’s a meandering narrative about her and Maddie met, and how their friendship grew, and perhaps most of all, how Maddie came to fall in love with flying.

The second half of the book comes totally out of left field and it’s an emotional roller-coaster. You’ve written off both of these girls from the very beginning, Maddie in the plane crash and Julie marked for execution, and with D-Day more than six months away you know there’s no cavalry coming. Yet the plot twists come fast and furious and author Elizabeth Wein could give a master class in suckerpunching your readers. You have forgotten that Julie is a spy, and in a spy’s world no one is who they say they  are and nothing is what it seems.

This book is a wonderful piece of genuine literature. It is beautifully written (and if you get the audiobook, which I highly recommend, beautifully narrated). I’ve heard it said that even the most articulate American sounds crass by English standards, and this book kind of makes me think whoever said it might be on to something. Though Wein is American by birth, it should come as no surprise that she’s spent much of her life in England, Scotland, and other places with significant British influence.

It should come as even less of a surprise that Wein is a pilot herself. I don’t think any non-pilot could have truly captured the love Maddie has for flight, or how magical, beautiful, exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying it can be.

I have thought much about flying lately. I’ve had a few chances to go this year, only as a passenger, but better than not being up there at all. I met a young airline pilot at a party earlier this year and realized how much I missed being surrounded by peers who share my passion. I also recently rented How to Train Your Dragon, and found it odd that it captures just how magical the notion of human flight is so much better than most of the aviation movies I’ve seen. I also now understand the people who saw Avatar and became very depressed because Pandora is not a real place, I feel the same about Toothless. As an animal lover and an aviator I would love a pet that combines the loyalty of a dog, the playfulness of a cat, and the maneuvering characteristics and firepower of a F-35 J

About a month ago I was manning a recruiting booth for the Coast Guard Auxiliary’s Aviation program at a local Women Can Fly event, and I thought of Maddie as I saw these young girls stream in and out of the building. You could quickly tell who had just been up for a ride, see it in their faces. One girl and her father came up to talk to me, she couldn’t have been more than a freshman in high school, and said she wanted to be a pilot in the Coast Guard when she graduated from college. It is heartening to see how far we have come; yet disheartening to see how long it has taken. Women have been pilots for almost as long as there have been pilots, yet they still make up less than ten percent of the pilot population. They even today, in 2014, face outright sexism that would not be tolerated in virtually any other arena. People seem to think there is some magical quality one needs to be a pilot, and while they’re wrong about the specifics, they’re not wrong in general. It’s a quality that transcends race, sex, creed, or religion: It’s love. Love of flying.

“But it ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I'm about to say.”

“I do. But I like to hear you say it”

“Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.”

(-Malcom Reynolds and River Tam, Serenity)

I’ve flown with men who have flown in places I have only read about in the history books: Guadalcanal; The Chosin Reservoir; Hanoi. I have flown with men who have flown counter-narcotics in Central America in a 4-engine piston plane, where 100 feet above the ground was considered “too high”. I have flown with men who have flown rescue aircraft into superstorms so others may live. Yet probably the best pilot I have ever flown with was a young woman, just a few years older and a few hundred hours more experienced than me. She was one of my instructors at school, and it was her passion for flying that showed through in every aspect of everything she did. That passion was relentless, and it made her relentless. When she wasn’t flying (6 days a week weather permitting), she was in the maintenance hanger, soaking up every bit of knowledge about each of the different types of aircraft we flew. She was very demanding, of herself and her students, and that meant sometimes she was a royal pain to fly with and learn from, but I never learned more, or was a better pilot, than when I was flying with her. Yet despite all her professionalism and just generally being a hard-ass, there was no hiding her exuberance that came from flying, like her giddiness when we (flying a light piston twin) received ATC instruction to reduce speed to follow a Citation private jet on approach (“Dude! We just got told to slow down to follow a jet!”)

My point in this rambling mess is that aviation should be the most, not the least, inclusive community in the world. We have all looked up at the sky, at the birds, and wondered what it’s like in their world. Those of us who know have been granted a special privilege, and we should extend a welcome invitation to all who want to join us.

Also, Codename Verity was a very good book and you should go read it J

 -Mike, out.

THE EIGHTH DAY is coming to Audible and iTunes!

Hey All

UPDATE: The audiobook is now available! Check it out at Audible, Amazon, or iTunes! You don't need to be an Audible member to buy it off Audible but there is a discount if you are. In two months I will be starting a promotion for anyone interested in an Audible membership, check back for updates!

Big news! I inked a deal yesterday with Reel Audiobooks to produce the audio book version of THE EIGHTH DAY! I love audiobooks and am very excited about this project. Reel has produced books for authors like Homer Hickam (October Sky) and Jason Mott (The Returned, which Brad Pitt's production company Plan B adapted for television, now showing as ABC's freshman drama Resurrection). Narrator Robert Martinez brings over 20 years of voice acting experience to the project, and I loved his audition tape! You can listen to a sample below:

The project should be completed mid summer. Check here for updates! 

-Mike, out.

Offworld, reviewed

The first four people on Mars end up being the last four people on earth in Robin Parrish’s Offworld. On the way home from their successful mission to Mars, the crew of the Ares mission mysteriously lose contact with Earth two months out from their arrival. Barely surviving a harrowing re-entry, they are shocked to discover….nothing. Not one living thing, human or animal, at the entire Kennedy Space Center complex. Security footage shows that one second everyone was there…and the next they were gone.

What follows is a harrowing journey across country towards Houston, Texas, where satellite imagery shows an inexplicably bright light emanating from, something that must be connected to the disappearance of the whole world. And as the obstacles between them and their destination grow more treacherous, they soon realize they’re not as alone as they thought…

I liked this book. It’s an imaginative spin on the post-apocalypse genre, and it’s very quick paced and action-packed. It will also keep you guessing until the very end. The book has religious undertones but they are done with expert subtlety, it feels very organic to the story and never gets preachy. In fact there’s a line I particularly liked in the book that goes something along the lines of “Everywhere I look in the world I see poetry. And the thing about poetry…it doesn’t write itself.”

My one complaint is that that the four main astronaut characters seem flat. Can't put my finger on exactly why, they just seemed kinda bland. The book was a fun enough read I didn’t really care, but for some reason I just found them hard to get invested in.

Offworld isn’t a YA book but it’s an easy enough read that high schoolers should have no trouble with it. It’s available for Kindle and in paperback. 

Katya's World, reviewed

Tonight I review my new favorite YA book:

 

Fifteen year old Katya Kuriakova is a resident of Russalka, a water covered planet colonized several centuries into the future exclusively by people from central Russia. Since it’s covered by oceans ,the inhabitants live entirely in underwater settlements and move about by submarine. Russalka is one of several planets colonized by Earth. The Terrans (people from Earth) and the Russalkans had a falling out that led to a short, brutal shooting war that ended abruptly when the Terrans suddenly and mysteriously disengaged and left.

Katya is a fledgling navigator on her uncle Lukyan’s transport sub when they are commandeered to transport a suspected pirate, Haviland Kane, to prison. But there is much more to Kane than meets the eye, and they will all have to form an uneasy alliance to survive the dangers of the deep. Because in the uncharted depths of Russalka, here be monsters. Possibly man-made….possibly not…

I loved this book. Nevermind it’s a whole planet populated by Russian submariners, the action is non-stop, the world-building well-done, and characters decently fleshed out. Kayta has no love interest, in fact she’s the only non-adult in the book. The science is very accessible and reasonably well grounded.

If you’re a human being who can read and like action-packed stories, you’ll probably enjoy this book. I know I did.

Mike, Out.

The Violins of August, reviewed

Howdy all

Well, in honor of Valentine's Day, here's a book with a teen heroine and a love triangle set largely in the City of Love:

In The Violins of Autumn, Adele and Denise are two young women visiting Paris and the surrounding countryside, taking in the sights, visiting French cafes, and falling in love. Doesn’t sound like my usual fare, does it? Well, all is not what it seems. The year is 1944, and Adele and Denise are members of the British Special Operations Executive, a paramilitary force that served behind enemy lines in World War II. They are tasked with aiding French resistance fighters hindering the German forces prior to the coming Allied invasion at Normandy, and when Adele isn’t torn between a French resistance fighter and a downed American fighter pilot, she’s tearing the Nazis a new one via espionage and sabotage.

Violins of Autumn isn’t particularly memorable, but it’s an enjoyable way to kill a few hours (it’s a very quick read). Author Amy McAuley seems to have done her homework, and the book celebrates some unsung heroes, the few women who fought behind the frontlines against the Axis for the Western powers (there were 55 female SOE agents, 13 of whom were KIA or died in captivity).

-Mike, out.

FAKE ID, reviewed

Howdy all

So, a little over a week ago I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed when a sponsored post appeared, advertising a local YA author's book launch at a nearby Barnes and Noble. The book, FAKE ID by Lamar Giles, was advertised as part YA mystery thirller, part family drama, and I admit the premise alone intrigued me. Plus, as I thought to myself, no one ever came to the book signings I ever did, so I should go to either comiserate or see what he's doing right.

As it turns out, Giles is doing a lot of things right, most important among them writing a taunt, action-packed YA thriller that should have plenty of appeal to guys and gals alike. FAKE ID grabs your attention from the begining and doesn't let go until the very end, keeping you guessing until the last twist that you never see coming.

The basics: Nick Pearson and his mom and dad have just moved to Stepton, Virginia. Except Nick Pearson isn't his real name. Nick and his family are in Witness Protection, after Nick's dad turned state's evidence on his boss, gangster Kreso Maric. With Maric on the run, Nick and his family have been moving around the country under federal protection for the last 4 years, and his dad just can't seem to stay out of trouble.

But trouble has a way of following Nick, starting with a run-in with the school bully on his first day at school. Rescue comes from an unlikely source in the form of Eli Cruz, the school's resident journalist. But in a month's time Eli will be dead, and he won't be the last to die. It falls to Nick to unravel the mystery, and all he has to go on is the codename of Eli's last investigation....Whispertown.

I think one of the hardest part of writing YA fiction as an adult is making everything feel authentic and organic. Giles makes it look easy. I can't quite describe his writing style, but I like it. The book flows very well, and in addition to being an entertaining story, it's very well written. I highly reccomend it.

FAKE ID is out now for Kindle, in hardcover, and as an audiobook.

-Mike, out.