More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Let’s Give a Big Welcome Back to L. E. Modesitt! Solar Express Review

by Leave a Comment

Finally, after his last 3 books that were glacially paced, with wooden dialogue and peopled by stock crews of greedy (and stupid) businessmen, corrupt (and stupid) political leaders, weak-kneed (and obtuse) co-workers,  plus one resourceful hero, Modesitt delivers a good story with interesting people, genuinely worrisome situations, awe-inspiring settings and a plot.  Welcome back!

Modesitt set Solar Express 100 years from now where not much has changed in terms of politics or people.  The US and Canada (and maybe Mexico) are now Noram; China plus unknown other countries are now the Sinese; India is a world power and Europe is one big agglomeration with strong Russian leadership.  African, Middle East, Australia and South America are smaller powers with the African/Middle East/Australian grouped into a union nominally allied with India.

Modesitt writes excellent hard science fiction, which this is, and good to excellent fantasy like the Imager series.  He has three major habits that you either need to love or be able to ignore in order to enjoy any of his books.

  • Politics with head-shaking cultural observations and wooden dialogue
  • Slow pacing
  • Rinse and repeat characters.

As usual Modesitt can’t resist declaring his political beliefs in Solar Express.  He imagines a news outlet, Hot News! that combines accurate reporting, innuendo, celebrity watching and political acumen. Hot News! stories cover global warming results, environmental havoc in polar regions, flooded cities and ravaged coasts and speculation about the Sinese intentions and the apparent inability for the Noram leaders to do anything.

The more interesting snippets are news articles and memos from the Noram government leaders that present facts that align to some Hot News! speculation with just enough to tease us readers.  I wanted to know a lot more than Modesitt gave us!

The pace varies between really slow and slow with a touch of zip-bang.  The pace fits the subject – neither pilot Chris Tavoian nor astrophysicist Alayna Wong-Grant can exactly hurry their work along – and is countered by the fast-moving Solar Express and geopolitical events.   I got a little antsy about a third through, but the Hot News! punctuated the crawling science.

One pleasant change was the characters.  Yes, we still had evil, greedy people who lust after power, but none appeared in person.  “Colonel Anson”, Chris Tavoian’s superior officer is well-meaning and effective (many Modesitt superior officers are either venal or incompentent) and the minor characters Kit and Emma are warm and interesting.  Chris and Alayna are interesting people, a bit reserved, but with feelings and interests.

Modesitt is one of the few authors who successfully write fantasy and science fiction (Bujold and Dave Weber are two others) and some of his science fiction has fantasy-seeming elements (Empress of Eternity and Hammer of Darkness).  Solar Express is unusual in being set so close to today, with technology and politics we can easily extrapolate to.  It made it easy to follow.  Even if you don’t agree with his extrapolated climate, political and cultural changes you can visual them happening.

In Solar Express Modesitt slipped in a fourth annoying habit, dumping complex geographic and political backgrounds early, explaining some later and some not at all.  For example, page 15 in one sentence he introduces:  FuxEx burners (apparently the standard shuttle/small freighter), DOEA (Department of Off Earth Affairs, a government agency charged to oversee space), Policia Espacial (never re-introduced, likely the South American security force), Sudam (South American government), magline (OK, that’s pretty easy, basically a train on the moon), ONeill Station (believe the main transship point orbiting the moon, run by Noram), the elevator (moon to space elevator), standard climber (likely a car that runs on the elevator), main station (terminus for the elevator).

The next page gives us fusionjet (similar to the FusEx?), vasimr slowboats (never explained, likely just what they sound, a s-l-o-w way to move cargo) and Hel3, otherwise known as a helium isotope.  I wouldn’t mind the dump if he gave just a bit of background first or omitted altogether if never revisited.  It is not wise to make your readers feel stupid, especially when the author’s entire body of work holds up thinking as a great virtue.

The Amazon reader reviews for Solar Express are split, about 2/3 positive and 1/3 negative and almost no 3 stars.  Modesitt in his blog attributes this to too many fantasy readers who were turned off by the science fiction aspects.  Several readers complained about the characters communicating by delayed message vs. real time in person (as they would in fantasy series).  However other readers noted the slow pace and abundant political commentary as turn offs so I think the criticism was more than reaction from disgruntled fantasy fans.

Overall, Solar Express is an excellent addition to Modesitt’s novels.  4 Stars.

Nasty Ghosts and So So Book – The Spookshow by Tim McGregor

by Leave a Comment

The blurb for The Spookshow: (Book 1) describes the plot: Billie Culpepper accompanies her friends to an abandoned house with dark reputation.  What the blurb leaves out is the rest of the story.  First they find a long-dead body surrounded by satanic markings and secondly, the nastiest ghost goes home with Kaitlin, the instigator of the let’s-explore-the-haunted house visit.

The book was so-so.  I didn’t care for any of the characters and the story was boring.  There’s no conclusion; the book just stops.  Two stars.

As the title implies The Spookshow is the first book of a planned series.  I won’t read the others.

Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas – Is This Funny?

by Leave a Comment

Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas was on BookBub and sounded funny so I got it.  It’s one of those books that tries so hard to be funny you lose track of the story until you reach the end and think “Is that all there was?”   The plot is ridiculous.

Bubba Snoddy, grown son of the current Snoddy matriarch, lives at home with his mother in the decrepit Snoddy mansion near a small Texas town.  Bubba’s cousins from Louisiana are visiting with an eye to appropriating anything in the house that may have value.  Bubba wants to date gorgeous sheriff deputy Willodean but lacks courage to ask her out.  Oh, then he finds a corpse dressed in the Santa suit in the city’s Christmas display.

Of course the local police chief assumes Bubba is the murderer, arrests him with a concussion, then spends the rest of the novel chasing around for clues to prove Bubba killed the Santa, the older lady, assaulted the sheriff and is after Bubba’s mother.  Everything ends up tied neatly with a bow at the end except the chief still thinks that if Bubba didn’t commit this murder he’ll surely commit one next week.

The book could have been so much more.  The interplay with the covetous cousins and their 10 year old active, intelligent son Brownie was fun to read and could have been the focus of the story instead of a nonsensical murder rampage.  Bubba reveals a more complicated character during the book than the one-dimensional redneck he seems initially.  Had author C. L. Beville spent more time on the family and less on too-neat murders it could have been a good book.

I noticed the reviewers on Amazon mostly liked the novel with under 10% giving it low marks.  I would give it 2 or 3 stars; it wasn’t good enough that I want to read more Bubba books, but it wasn’t so bad that I stopped midway.  It’s a fast read with some funny scenes interspersed with bad word plays and incredibly stupid-acting police and villains.  I’m not a fan of making fun of people who talk funny or believe and act differently and didn’t enjoy the redneck cliches.

Five Days in May by Ninnie Hammon. How Do You Face Your Last Days?

by Leave a Comment

We’ve all read about terminally ill people and how they face death; we may have known friends or family who bravely lived their last days on earth, knowing they were their last days. Five Days in May: A Novel by Ninnie Hammon brings us Princess, a barely educated woman facing death in 5 days via the electric chair.

Five Days in May is set in Oklahoma in the early 1960s, before DNA evidence, before women would be believed when they said rape or molestation or assault.  With an enormous tornado fast coming we have four people whose lives mingle:

Jonah whose beloved wife Maggie has advanced dementia.  Maggie swears and smears excrement all over and has become violent.  Jonah has a prescription for sleeping pills he intends to use to over-sedate Maggie in what he sees as an act of love, not murder.

Mac MacIntosh is a successful pastor whose wife died and now his faith is dead too.  He contemplates suicide or resigning from the ministry.

Joy MacIntosh is Mac’s daughter, 16, pregnant and scared.  She decides to get an abortion.  Joy is adopted but doesn’t know it.

Princess, aka Emily Prentiss, not quite 30, convicted of murdering her toddler sister and sentenced to death.

Princess asks for a minister and the prison warden asks Mac to step in.  Princess is barely literate but gifted to know things she should have no way to know.  Things like Joy’s pregnancy, an accident in a guard’s family.

The novel walks us through all four people’s pain and with the tornado of the century bearing down on them, how they each respond.  Princess has a deep secret which Mac manages to figure out, but he has time to save only one person, not two, before the tornado hits.  Will he choose Joy and Joy’s unborn child, or Princess?

Jonah could leave Maggie outside for the tornado but risks his own life to bring her in.

Gift for Character

Ninnie Hammon is incredible at building real people, not characters in a novel.  The people act as you would expect them, even Princess who faces her imminent death with peace.

Hammon’s gift for people extends to the other characters:  The villain, Princess’ supposed step father, is bigoted, ignorant, nasty and as mean as a person can be.  He too is believable.  We can visualize the minor characters such as the warden, prison guards, Joy’s despicable boyfriend because they too are people, not words on a page.

Be Aware

Some of the characters, especially the stepfather, are truly despicable, with cruel vocabulary and thoughts.  The plot is a bit contrived and we can see the twist coming.

Summary

Five Days In May is not an easy read.  Mac, Joy and Jonah hurt so much it is hard to read about them – you will feel right alongside – and the whole murder and execution tale is difficult.  The stepfather is horrible, another person who it is painful to watch and listen to.

Nonetheless it is 5 stars.

 

The Knowing by Ninie Hammon Supernatural Suspense With a Bang

by Leave a Comment

I was skeptical when I read author Ninie Hammon’s description of her novel The Knowing,  it will “grab you in a reality so gripping you’ll decide you can fold the towels later and the lawn will still be out there to mow tomorrow”.  About 50 pages in I realized it was way past bedtime and 50 pages more finally decided to put it down.  It truly is that good.

The author describes it as supernatural spiritual warfare, or a paranormal thriller with a backstory that depends on “scriptural realities, though, that most Christians say they believe–but really don’t”, dealing with demons, hell, foolish and evil people that knowingly invite in the devil.  Despite this there is no religion in it, no preaching, no reason that non-believers won’t enjoy the story and characters.

Characters

Jack is a cop called in to stop a school massacre.  Daniel is a Protestant pastor who lost his belief but has his wife and daughter to care for.  Theresa is an older lady, a crossing guard, whose husband died in the school shooting.  These three struggle to understand what is happening to them, what happened about 20 years before when Jack and Daniel were 14 and best friends, what the evil is that threatens them and their families.

Author Hammond makes her people so real that you feel as if you know them.  She lets us into their hearts and minds as we ride along, as bewildered and over matched as they feel.  She builds sub plots, such as Daniel’s wife’s infidelity and Daniel’s struggle to understand his faith and its loss.

The bad guys are believable too, what appear to be normal (more or less) guys driven by demons.  Hammond shows us what happens today and what happened 20 years before, and we see pain and fear and misery, that Jack and Daniel and the mystery girl Becca.  Now the demons are back and want to pick up where they left off.

Be Aware

The bad guys are racist and cruel.  Know going in you will hear some disgusting terms for people and animal cruelty.  Several characters have horrible grammar; don’t use this book as a guide to the English language.

The Knowing: Book One launches a series, total book count unknown.  You can read this as a standalone novel as it has a beginning, middle and end, but it’s easy to see where Book 2 will start.

I’ve not read anything by this author before and am fast changing that.  She is exceptionally strong at building characters that are people and fast moving plots.  Five Stars.

Sower of Dreams by Debra Holland, Classic Fantasy with Romantic Touch

by Leave a Comment

The cover of Sower of Dreams (The Gods’ Dream Trilogy Book 1) includes an Andre Norton quote endorsing the novel as “outstanding and well presented fantasy” and the author credits Norton’s Witchworld series as inspiring her book. How could I not read it?

Sower of Dreams does not disappoint.  It reminded me of some Andre Norton stories with the enigmatic and never explained portals that terminate in ruined cities on different worlds, and the mood was reminiscent of Norton’s work too, a combination of dreaming, fear, running, love and standing up finally for one’s self and one’s loves.

I enjoyed the simplicity of the character set.  We have major players Khan, exiled from earth to flee his murderous half brother, Daria, princess of Seagem, Thaddis, newly crowned king of ally Ocean’s Glory, Amir, envious half brother to Khan, plus assorted friends and family members.  I appreciate books where the characters have reasonably short, memorable names (as opposed to those with lots of consonants and apostrophes).

Characters and setting were well done as was the romance between Daria and Khan and the tension and fear as they seek ways to build a life together.  I wasn’t altogether pleased with how easily Daria rejected her “god” Yadarius or her father’s charge to be the queen.  Her actions fit the story (better than the alternatives), they just sounded a sour note in the background.

True to the Andre Norton spirit author Holland constructs lovable creatures, monkey bats Shad and Shir, who become friends with Khan and Daria.  Also true to the Norton spirit, the author presents both villains with an opportunity to choose the wise and moral path and both villains spurn the choice.

Also like Norton author Holland left some dangling pieces to use in follow up novels, whether separate series or sequels.  One is Khan’s earth friend Jasmine escapes via the mysterious portal in the middle of the earth desert to a foggy, shadowed land.  Another is the political fallout and restitution between Ocean’s Glory and Seagem once Thaddis’s soldier Boerk takes Thaddis back to Ocean’s Glory.  The last string is the missing Pasinea, a nasty lady whose “power is temporarily depleted”.

The book is not complex nor challenging, a gentle, enjoyable read with interesting characters and familiar mood.

As the title notes, Sower of Dreams is the first in a trilogy.  The excerpt for book two, Reaper of Dreams, shows us that Daria’s beloved oldest brother Indaran still lives, a prisoner of an evil “god”.  It would be interesting to see how Holland ties the Jasmine and Pasinea strings into the Indaran story.

Four stars if you are in the mood, three stars if  you want something a bit meatier.

The Galaxy Chronicles – Contemporary Science Fiction Short Stories

by Leave a Comment

The Galaxy Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) is a collection of science fiction short stories by several newer authors. The stories have a contemporary feeling to them, with characters that behave much as Americans do today, and with themes that we can extrapolate.

As with any anthology there were stories I like better than others.

Enjoyable Winners

Keep Off The Grass by Felix R. Savage has a young Catholic man of Japanese ancestry mining (aka poaching) on a water-bearing comet.  His primary, exterior missiion is to bring the Gospel to the solar system, but desperate to bring water to his home on a Venus Trojan where the water recycling unit has broken, he lands on a comet and begins to gather water.  The other group on the comet is an apocalyptic bunch who expects to reach the Oort cloud eventually.

The story moves along and the characters are interesting and well done.

Earth Fall by Raymond L. Weill is the only story in the bunch where I had previous experience with the author.  I enjoy just about all Mr. Weill’s books as he tells a great story, moves it along, has fun and interesting characters and settings.  My quibble is that dialogue sequences with aliens tend to be wooden and good guy/bad guy straightforward.

I hope he develops this into a full novel or series.

Ser Pan Comido by Matthew Alan Thyer is very different from the usual sci-fi adventure.  The main characters are a trio of poor street kids on a planet ruled by despotic oligarchs, the secret police captain and the pilot attached to/time locked into star ship.

Pretty Good

The Stars that Bind by Nick Webb is set in the far, far future where man has spread to thousands of galaxies that are united and whole.  It’s so far in the future that the universe expansion is causing pieces to fall off, too far to reach.  The idea is intriguing.

Multiply by Nicolas Wilson also has an intriguing story line.  Comet and Walter are AIs charged with preparing a base for their humans.  Sent off from the main ship they crash land on an asteroid and must build from scratch.  I liked the characters.

The Imortals:  Kronis Valley by David Adams has a terribly wounded military man nearly disintegrate upon return home.  The author did a fine job with characters.

The Rest

All the stories were readable with interesting characters or ideas.  They didn’t catch my imagination as did the ones mentioned.  I am not fond of stories that turn assassins into heroes, which is why a couple of them dropped down here.

Summary

If you enjoy science fiction and like to discover new(er) authors then I highly recommend The Galaxy Chronicles (The Future Chronicles).  Right now it’s available only as an E book ($1.99 Kindle).

Renovating for Fun and Profit – Bricking It by Nick Spalding

by Leave a Comment

Have you ever built a house or done a major remodel?  Do you enjoy This Old House and similar house makeover shows?  Do you like a funny book?  Then get a copy of Bricking It by Nick Spalding and get ready to relive your shudders and that horrible feeling as the costs creep ever up.

Danny and Haley Daley inherited a derelict farmhouse deep in the Hampshire countryside from their grandmother.  (Their parents got cash.)  The house had woodworm, critters, critter droppings, mold, sagging walls and floors, an attic floor that’s so rotted Danny falls through, plus the to-be-expected damaged kitchen, bath, subsiding foundations, overgrown shrubbery, and so on.  Neither has any money or any home Do-It-Yourself skills.

But…  Haley found from the local realtor that the house would sell as-is for about 160,000 pounds or – get this – if renovated for about 600,000 pounds.  They could expect to pay about 160,000 pounds for the renovation work (and we who have been through this know that will inevitably increase), but they stand to make over 300,000 pounds when selling the house.  That’s a big amount, enough to make anyone reconsider.

They agree to proceed.  Bricking It is not This Old House or Rehab Addict in written form and it doesn’t cover all the work hammer nail by hammer nail.  Instead it touches on what Danny and Haley do and feel.  Some of the vignettes are pretty funny as when Danny burns a bunch of big green weeds in the back corner and gets high on the marijuana smoke; some are gross as when Danny has an internal emergency while up in the rafters; some are fun as when Haley realizes she is more concerned with her house than with the bomb disposal squad that’s removing the WW2 bomb in the yard.

Overall the book does a reasonable job on characterization, both Danny and Haley grow and manage to get out of nasty personal ruts.  Danny even discovers that a girl’s beautiful outside doesn’t make up for a boring inside!  Spalding does  good job on minor characters like Gerard who is filming this as part of a British home improvement show, Fred the contractor and of course Pat The Cow.

It does not capture the horrible feeling one gets when trapped in a sea of construction debris and debt; instead the characters and episodes are positive and the ending is a bit over the top.  I didn’t care for the coarse language and potty humor – there is plenty of ordinary humor in any building project that Spalding didn’t need a couple of the potty events – but discovering their grandmother had run a brothel for a few years was priceless.

Overall I’d give this 4 stars. Bricking It is easy to read and rather fun.  I didn’t enjoy it enough to look for more by Spalding but this was worth reading if you have a couple spare hours – and are considering whether to remodel or just tear it down and move.

I got a copy of Bricking It for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Phoenix Ring – Fantasy Novel by Alexander Brockman

by Leave a Comment

The Phoenix Ring (The Thunderheart Chronicles Book 1) uses the standard fantasy plot “Boy Discovers He Is a Wizard and Saves the World” and mixes in some fun elements and characters.  Aiden, the hero (who discovers he is a wizard) has help from Timothy, a normal wizard from a normal wizard family, and from Aaliyah, a magic-resistant amogh.  Aiden leaves home for the big city to join the King’s Rangers but gets recruited/forced into the wizards and sent to their school Fort Phoenix to learn wizardry.

Besides the character count and school background The Phoenix Ring is not much like Harry Potter.  Aiden is angry, as in furious, all the time, although we readers don’t see much to be angry about during much of it.  The anger helps fuel his magic and he is powerful.  He masters some elements of magic immediately and takes the Phoenix Ring that had been Marcus Thunderheart’s until Marcus left physical existence 63 years earlier when fighting Macommmer and his renegade wizards and dragons.  We then get a bit of whining, a trip, a few side trips and then conflict with the renegade Edwin.

Good Points

There are some fun plot twists and the book is an easy, extremely fast read (about 2 hours and that includes stopping for tea).

The subplot with Timothy and goblin Grogg is excellent and author Brockman could have done more with it.  The Phoenix Ring would have been richer and more complex and enjoyable had Brockman added more subplots like this one.

Bartemus and the other adult wizards appear sparingly during the novel which is a shame as they are interesting characters.

Not So Good Points

There is almost no transition between points of view and even between physical locations and times and this gets confusing and tiresome.  Even if the author didn’t want to say “meanwhile back at the ranch…” he could indicate a change in viewpoint by typography, a line of asterisks or similar.

Character development is spotty.  We don’t see why Aiden is so angry nor learn much about Timothy.  Aaliyah is a cipher.

The characters live in an interesting world and I’d like to see Brockman do more with the setting, the back story and the magic system.

Summary

As the title shows, The Phoenix Ring is the first book in a fantasy series.  I don’t expect I’ll buy the next books in the series as this was just a bit better than OK, a solid 3 stars.

Amazon lists this as for older teens, which is probably right.  As an adult I found the book a bit too slapdash and lacking in the rich detail and conflicts that make fantasy believable.

Paranormal Chaos – Third Book in an Interesting Series

by Leave a Comment

I started Paranormal Chaos (The Shifter Chronicles) one evening when I was pretty tired and not feeling much like a challenge.  The book starts with a chase scene, Marcus and side kick Steve the Minotaur, running for their lives from a herd of centaurs.  Once they escape we flash back to Marcus’ thoughts on being asked to take on the mission to keep the Minotaurs, and by extension the centaurs, in the treaty between paranormal and normal humans.

I almost quit at this point.  Marcus and the Council do not get along.  This sounded familiar, the Harry Dresden series, the Alex Verus series, but dressed up with Minotaurs and centaurs.  I decided to keep on for a few more pages and I’m glad I did.  The book is a solid read, entertaining with interesting flashes to Greek mythology and glimpses of Root’s excellent world building.

Somewhere around page 50 it dawned on me this was likely the most recent book in a series, but that in no way inhibited reading.  Paranormal Chaos has its own adventures that do not rely on the prior novels.

Plot Summary

The backstory is humans and magically-endowed humans signed the Reformation Treaty about 20 years before and invited all the non-human sentient magical creatures – centaurs, Minotaurs, elves, Bookworms and more – to sign on too.  Now the Minotaur leader sent notice to the Council they are withdrawing from the treaty.  Council sends Marcus Shifter to bring them back into the fold.  Steve convinces best friend Steve to help.

Since this is a fantasy novel Steve is revealed to be the son of the Minotaur leader, the Alpha, and her expected heir.  There are disagreements among the Minotaur around how they should engage with every other species.  The Alpha wants to be hands off, leave everyone alone; Steve wants to adapt to the modern world and engage as a normal person; a faction led by Makha wants to re-establish the human/Minotaur cooperative domination (and tyranny) described in ancient Minotaur books and art.

Steve and Marcus discover Makha’s plans and run back to alert the Council and other species of impending attacks.  There is a short, brutal war which ends with most species agreeing to try again.

Fantasy Roundabouts

Several events in Paranormal Chaos don’t make a ton of sense but they help build the story.

  • Minotaurs remain fascinated with labyrinths and their rite of adulthood requires passing a maze with hostile creatures and death traps and emerging alive.  It’s not clear where the creatures and traps come from; we don’t see much (any) Minotaur magic.
  • The Underground was a handy device that you need to accept as part of the story and not try to understand.  (It wasn’t any clearer after I read the previous three books.)
  • Not at all clear exactly how or why the centaurs and Minotaurs ended up in northern Canada.  Both creatures were originally from the Mediterranean; even if one figures they fled when Rome got organized and made it unpleasant it seems odd they would go to Canada.
  • The whole war didn’t make a ton of sense either.  Makha didn’t know much about humans or how we would react if a bunch of odd guys started attacking and killing folks.  Since Minotaurs live in the real world they would be vulnerable to conventional human weapons.  (Makha had his own fruitcake ideas.)

Fun Points

Loved the Bookworms!  Of all the creatures named they were the best.

The ending was excellent, true to people nature.  “Now we figure out how to patch our worlds together.  But this time we do it as friends.”  “We struggled to deal with the shock of how close we’d come to being defeated by Makha.  And how much we all had to lose.”  Even so the Elves declined to do more than show up to meetings and the Vampires didn’t do that.

Summary

Author Joshua Roots did a great job building a compelling story using bits and pieces of myth, standard fantasy-in-a-box tropes, interesting characters and enough magic to make it flow.  After I finished Paranormal Chaos I bought the first two books featuring Marcus Shifter and Steve, Undead Chaos and Summoned Chaos.  They were also excellent; in fact the second, Summoned Chaos, was my favorite of the three.  Highly recommend all three for fantasy lovers.

Note:  I received a free advanced E copy from NetGalley in expectation of an honest review.