Chris Kennedy and James L. Young Present Those in Peril (The Phases of Mars Book 1)

Welcome to the third and final installment of this year's Memorial Day Event, Day Late/Dollar Short Edition. My apologies, but as a Lyft driver in Detroit during the Movement Music Festival weekend, I was wiped by the holiday and, seeing as I hadn't done my review ahead of time the way I had planned it out months ago, I ended up sleeping when I should have been writing. I assure you I hadn't intended for that to happen, but I also had slept an average of about four hours a night for three days in a row and, when I got home from a memorial service on Memorial Day I sat down for "just a minute" and woke up five minutes after I should have left for work. Oops.

At any rate...

Today's review (that should have happened yesterday) is Those in Peril, and anthology edited by Chris Kennedy and James L. Young. I did Chris's Bio on Sunday and I'm extremely lazy, so you can feel free to look there if you want to know more about him. If you haven't read it, you probably should. He's an impressive guy.

The other editor of the anthology is James L. Young. He served in the Army after completing his degree at West Point. He served from 1997 to 2003. He was an armor officer, attaining the captain at the end of his career and was the Executive Officer of the First Stryker Brigade (C 1/14). He says he was stationed in both Korea and Germany. I wonder if he got any cool electronics for cheap, being that close to Japan. I would have if it would've been me.

Oh, and just to take note, the following authors of stories in Those In Peril are veterans or currently serving:

Kacey Ezell (her bio is actually here) is active duty US Air Force.
Stephen J. Simmons is a veteran of the US Navy.
Joelle Presby is a US Navy Veteran.
Phillip Wolrab is a veteran of the US Army.
Doug Dandridge is a veteran of the US Army.
Philip S. Bolger is a veteran of the US Army.
Justin Watson is a veteran of the US Army and a West Point graduate.

If I missed anyone, it is because I didn't see a reference to your service in your bio and I didn't do any real research. If this happened it is totally my fault and I apologize.


So first, a few thoughts on Those in Peril as a whole: I really enjoyed it. Then again, it's an Alternate History anthology featuring navies and naval combat and I've loved Alt Hist since I was first introduced to the concept. With the exception of the first story, it appears to have been set up in chronological order. I loved that about it. There is no continuity per se as each story has a separate Point of Departure and they don't work as a continuous story. That's okay though, and it's a lot easier to follow a bunch of different stories if they're in a definable order and you can get your brain to follow things in a logical order, if that makes sense.

Anyone who follows this blog ought to know that I'm a big fan of the Dama. She's one of the main authors in the Four Horsemen Universe and I'm a member of the fan club.  So when Those in Peril opened with "Naked," a story by Kacey Ezell I got excited, especially since I really liked Minds of Men, the first book in her Pscyche of War series and this is a story set in the same universe. I was not disappointed. Psychic women and warfare go together like peas and carrots or Forrest and Jenny. I read this one twice just because I could.
her Pscyche of War series and this is a story set in the same universe. I was not disappointed. Psychic women and warfare go together like peas and carrots or Forrest and Jenny. I read this one twice just because I could.

Up next is "Captain Bellamy's War,"by Stephen J. Simmons. a story in which the English pirates in the Bahamas declare independence and found their own nation. You can't beat a story that includes the phrase "Admiral Blackbeard." It's just not physically possible. But...

But...

It's a short. It needs to be a novel.

I WANT THIS TO BE A NOVEL.

*POUT*

*SIGH*

I guess Mick Jagger was right.

I can't always get what I want.

*WHINE*

NOT FAIR!!!

Well...

If Stephen J. Simmons gets it written and published, I promise him one guaranteed sale.

After that, we get "A Safe Wartime Posting" by Joelle Presby. It's the story of a guy sent out to keep the president's nephew from getting himself in trouble and features a setting with the US and Germany allied in fighting World War I. I really enjoyed this one. I could totally see Woodrow Wilson pulling a stunt like this, too.

"Beatty's Folly" by Philip Wohlrahb is another story about the US fighting against the British during World War I. It features an angry Theodore Roosevelt and that's a concept that should be more than a little bit frightening. It's predicated on the fact that France assisted the South during the US Civil War and kept the fighting going until 1867. The US supports a rebellion in Ireland. Lots of stuff goes boom. It's a good time.

"Martha Coston and the Farragut Curse" by Day Al-Mohamed is the story of Martha Coston and her invention of signal flares. I like this story because it brings up a good point about naval warfare and history in general: It is often the usung person that saves the day. In this case, it's a woman who knows a lot of chemistry. It also helps that she's no one's fool and pays attention to what is going on around her. Hold on: Could I have enjoyed this story so much because I like sciency females? Nahh...

"The Blue and the Red: Palmerston's Ironclads" is another story about the English and Americans trying to kill each other on the water, only this time with a twist: The main character is a reporter who gets captured. I had fun  with this one. Often in military history and/or fiction we read about the bond between all warriors but something that nearly always gets left out is that people outside the military form bonds too. This is a story (at least in some ways) about the bond between reporters. It features plenty of fighting to keep your bloodlust sated too.

"Far Better to Dare" by Rob Howell is the US vs. Spain ala the Spanish and American War only later in history and with better technology. We get a view from the deck of an American battleship. I find it interesting as well that they Americans in the story are able to identify only the class of their enemies and not the exact ships. It's the type of thing I'd seen in Star Trek a million times but I hadn't considered that it would work that way in the real world. That's a good bit of added realism that was really cool.

"Off Long Island: 1928" by Doug Dandridge is the story of a British and American war set in the late 1920s and a particular battle contained therein. I like this story a lot, both for the action and because the author included a conversation at the beginning that really helped place this story in context of a war that never actually happened. I really wish that there was a novel to go with this one.

Ahoy! A new Sarah Hoyt novel has been sighted off the port bow! That has me excited because I'm a fan and it's been awhile. "For Want of a Pin" is the story of a young girl from Portugal (where Hoyt grew up) fleeing an invasion by France and headed to Brazil. It's more character driven than combat driven, but I've always liked that about Hoyt's writing and this story is no exception.

"Nothing Sufficient Can Be Said to Describe It" by Meriah Crawford is the story of a man and his Grandaughter conversing about a battle he has been researching. Maybe it's just the historian in me, or maybe I'm going soft in my old age, but I really enjoyed this one. This story really has an episodic feel to it because of the letters and the breaks between them. I enjoyed it.

"Corsairs and Tenzans" Philip S. Bolger is the story of the US and Japan united in Alliance against Nazi Germany. I find the concept of an "Oahu Pact" to be fascinating. This is another one I'd like to see turned into a novel. I don't really like Germany's chances in a naval war against either country, quite frankly, but it'd be fun to watch them get taken down. Yamamoto Isoroku having a conversation with Chester Nimitz gave me goosebumps.  Well done Bolger!

"For a Few Camels More" by Justin Watson is the story of a Japanese submarine and her crew doing mercenary work after the end of the Second World War. This one has plenty of suspense and intrigue to go along with some actual combat. I have a soft spot for mercenary stories to begin with but this is a good story because of more than just that.

NATO Capitalist Running Pig-Dogs versus the Soviet Red Menace! "Per Mare Per Terram" by Jan Niemczyk is a story of the fight I wanted as a kid. It is also the story of the fight I feared would come as a kid. I'm from Detroit and we were a major industrial target. The thought of extreme heat followed by a mushroom cloud was on that freaked me out from way before I was old enough to actually be thinking of any such thing. Niemczyk may have set his story a couple of decades later, but it still scratches that itch for me.

Reading the blurb after the story, I realized that this was part of a novel. I went to Amazon to buy said novel. Then I realized that it wasn't there because it's a web novel, so I clicked the link. I couldn't get access. Does anyone know how I can access this novel? I need to know how it ends.

Anyone who reads the blog knows that I'm a James Young fan. Stories like "Fate of the Falklands" are why. The Falklands War is not something that is well known by American audiences but it should be. The fight doesn't turn out the way you'd expect (I mean, it's alt hist right?) but this is a damn good story. I've read it twice. I'll probably read it again.

All in all I really enjoyed this anthology. There may have been a few more stories centered around a war between the US and UK than was technically necessary, but I think that's just me whining because it made the work harder to review. (Seriously, two stories about the US and UK fighting are easy to differentiate if you've read the whole story. They're not so easy to differentiate in a paragraph as part of a review. Hopefully I did a decent job.) That much having been said, it's still a great book that's worth your time and money. I'm really looking forward to To Slip the Surly Bonds, the next anthology in the series.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Sixteen Inch Shells

Those in Peril (The Phases of Mars Book 1)
Chris Kennedy and James L Young ed.
Theogony Books, 2019

Those in Peril (The Phases of Mars Book 1) is available for purchase at the following link:

James Young's Aries' Red Sky

So what happens when two groups of humanity that have been separated by so many years and so much distance that they're unaware of each other's existence come into contact with one another? What if one group thought their territory was being invaded by aliens? How would the other group react? If you're not sure (or maybe if you just want to read a good story) ask James L. Young. I'm sure he'll smile and sell you a copy of Aries' Red Sky. He promotes his stuff at cons all the time so I've got to believe he'll have a copy handy. It's worth the price too.

And let's face it. I know it's the holiday season, but pretty soon that'll be over. Your options will be to paint the walls or read a book and you JUST GOT that gift certificate. So I'm here to tell you how to spend that  gift certificate and a few hours of your time and why. And you should spend that time and money on Aries' Red Sky. Keep reading, and I'll tell you why.

Aries' Red Sky is the best kind of Military Science Fiction: It was written by a real veteran, in this case a West Point graduate, so it's got a real military feeling to it. Mil-SF, when written by non-veterans often has one of two flaws: Either the people play second fiddle to the weaponry or they're all just a bunch of paper cutout asshole warmongers. Young, predictably enough for a veteran, gets it. Members of the military are really real people with real people problems, thoughts and emotions. It shows in his work. Yes, his characters have a "proper military bearing" but they also have moments when they're just like anyone else.

But that's not to say that the hardware gets short shrift. Young's warships are built to make war and have all of the fancy little doodads that make them better at it. Aries' Red Sky is a war story plain and simple. It takes place in space so technology is needed and it's there. There is a bit of a conflict between design philosophies and that makes sense too. Anyone who has studied naval warfare during the Twentieth Century can certainly tell you all about the battles between battleship admirals and carrier admirals fought in planning rooms worldwide. It makes sense that different navies would build differently in centuries to come as well.

Speaking of philosophy, the two sides on this war find themselves with very different philosophies. There had to have been a temptation to make one side of the philosophical debate the good guys and the other the bad guys but Young avoids that. Don't get me wrong. Anyone who follows this blog knows that I love heroic heroes and villainous villains. Sometimes though, wars are fought by people just doing their job. That really is the case in Aries' Red Sky.There are times when the two sides in the war see each others actions as barbaric but at the end of the day, the characters are doing what's right according to what they've always believed. It's an interesting dichotomy. A lot of the tension in the book comes from philosophical differences and it just works.

Aries' Red Sky is also a work of Space Opera. You get all of the romance your little heart desires. If some of it ends up in a bunk, well... These are adults and I did mention something about people being people earlier, right?I once heard a Navy veteran talk about "friggin' in the riggin'." And, while there is obviously no rigging used in space, the phrase does seem to fit here. It's not just sex though and that's an important difference. There is romance here.

It sometimes amazes me how little Mil-SF authors skip over other real people things like time with family. Listen, we all know that members of the military frequently get deployed and can't see their family like they want to. The fact remains that I've never met, talked to, or heard of a member of the military who doesn't like to see their family whenever duty allows. Young included that in here and it's good to see.

Of course, in any war story there need to be fight scenes and Young is a master. The space battles in this thing are epic. There's plenty of boom-boom and bang-bang to keep that atavistic streak of yours going. We get both fleet engagements and marines in action so it's varied enough to keep things interesting too. It's not pretty. Every one of the combat sequences in Aries' Red Sky is graphic in the extreme. This is good. Bad things happen in war and they should be given full their full weight in fiction. That much being said, if you're like that one chick I dated back in the Nineties who almost passed out at the mere thought of blood, maybe you should try watching House Hunters or something and leave the action and suspense to the people who can handle it.  As for me, I'll be over here watching things explode.

I'm guessing that Young has read some actual military history. There is a lot going on in Aries' Red Sky that works in a historical setting but not so much in the here and now. That said, it works in an interstellar setting as well. I'm not making sense. Let me try it this way. In the real world, Planet Earth in 1814 the Battle of New Orleans was fought. It was the last battle in the War of 1812. It was also fought after the war had ended. How is that possible? It's possible because the Treaty of Ghent (that's the one that ended the war) was signed overseas and word hadn't reach the North American Continent in general or the city of New Orleans in particular in time to stop it. American General Andrew Jackson (yes that Andrew Jackson) and British General Sir Edward Pakenham were fighting what could have been a vital battle without orders because they had no way to receive any. Aries' Red Sky is the first in a trilogy and I'm wondering how that's going to effect the story moving forward. I can't wait to find out.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Dropped Rocks

Aries' Red Sky
James Young
Self Published, 2018


Aries' Red Sky is available for purchase at the following link:

James Young's An Unproven Concept (Kraken Edition)

I've been in the mood for a rocking Space Opera for quite awhile now. Don't get me wrong. Near future SF is awesome when it's well done. My first love is fantasy and always will be. I've read a lot of good stuff lately. That much being said, there's still something visceral about unknown aliens attacking because who knows why and ships exploding. Yes, a nice uplifting story is nice but nothing beats a rip-snorting good page-turner that finds me cracking a book open before I can open my eyes far enough to see through my eyelids. Love scenes are awesome when done right (Yes, I admit it. I'm a Robotech fan for the love of Bob.) but nothing beats that moment of "Oh shit, where did that come from? And why is is shooting at me?" And if you're looking for a little bit of suspense, a lot of excitement, a big fight or two with an alien thrown in here and there and maybe just a smidge of a romantic element, then you're looking for James Young's An Unproven Concept.

Before I get to the story itself, I want to mention a couple of things I really like about the book that weren't, strictly speaking, part of the story. Young has thrown in a couple of important things that might be of use to a person who likes SF/F but isn't all that familiar with nautical terms: One is a drawing at the beginning of the book showing the different parts of the ship (bow, stern, etc.) and directional terms used by sailors such as ventral, dorsal, etc. Being a landlubber myself I liked this part of the story a lot. There is also a glossary at the end of the book for anything that still leaves the reader confused. Some of us can really benefit from this type of thing. Seriously. If you're looking at getting into the works of a guy like David Weber this may be a good place to start. Young can teach you the basics and give you a great story. Then you can go forth and use your knowledge for no goo... err... to enjoy other things as well. The best kind of knowledge is that which doesn't hurt to get and that can be reused for free. Oh, and there were a few other illustrations in the book that I loved that weren't necessarily educational as well.

Young's story revolves around a passenger liner that is someplace it shouldn't be. It gets attacked by alien and the humans in the book, many of whom are either military or security personnel, or both, fight back to try to save their own skins and the lives of the civilians around them. The aliens appear out of nowhere and things get ugly quickly. The fact that no one quite knows who they are adds spice. The fact that no one knows where the came from might just be what leads into the rest of the series. I haven't read it yet so it's hard to say, but I'm definitely looking forward to more. There is a lot of story here still to be told.

What is here is awesome though. Survival is guaranteed to no one in this tome. When a passenger liner full of civilians and retired military gets boarded things get ugly quickly. Young's aliens make pretty good but not perfect (more on this later) villains. They're ruthless and intelligent but not all knowing and annoying. They can fight but apparently have a skilled technical caste as well. I don't want to spoil the book but there are times when they do something completely unexpected and it works. Our heroes are always on their toes and they have to be.

Young's heroes aren't always heroic in the sense a lot of other writers' heroes are. That's because he portrays them as doing what's necessary instead of what feels good. Young's characters are not James T Kirk. There is no overacting, no aha moment and no miraculous ending. This does start to look like the Kobayashi Maru, but there is no cheating here. When one of Young's characters is given the choice between defending a group of innocents or acting to save the entire ship he makes the militarily right decision. It's not easy for him and he pays the price later but he does his duty. Young's captains do their duty when they know what the cost is likely for the same reason This type of gritty realism is hard to pull of but Young does a damn good job of it. Young is retired military and it shows, although I'm still trying to figure out how an Army guy ended up writing Navy and Marine stories has me a bit perplexed.

There is a lot of political intrigue in this work. It's obvious that Young has been hard at work on his universe and that there is a lot out there left to be revealed. It's politics at all levels as well: Fleet politics, interstellar politics and office politics all appear in the story and they all matter. When the shooting pauses, the politics go full tilt. Unless there is some other form of personal drama going on. This is Space Opera and, while the romance does not by any stretch of the imagination take over the book, it's there and well done.  One moment in particular is the kind of thing that will stick with you forever once you've read the book.

I only have one major complaint about this work but it's one I've had about a lot of others. The aliens in the book are inhuman and enigmatic. That's OK. Aliens don't have to be human because they're aliens. They're almost complete ciphers though. At no point do we get a scene with an alien point of view. We never find out what their motivations are. They just show up and kick ass. Granted, the book focuses on the humans and their reactions but AUC could have been even better if we knew why the aliens were doing what they were doing. Here's hoping that future volumes will reveal more about the enemy. His motivations matter too and can make for some good reading. There's a reason that Yellow Eyes is my favorite of John Ringo's Legacy of the Aldenata series. That much being said, this book still rocks and it's not like there was any great need in the plot to throw this in there.

Bottom Line:4.75 out of 5 Gas Giants

An Uproven Concept
James Young
Self published, 2014

An Unproven Conceptis available for sale here:

James Young's Acts of War

It's almost Memorial Day here in the States and what is a SF/F reviewer to do? How about reviewing an alternate history set in World War II? It works for me and I am, after all, the blog owner. Maybe next year I'll do some space marines, but this year it's James Young's Acts of War. Oh, and yes, Alt Hist IS a facet of SF, at least on this blog. Honestly, I may be cheating a bit because I love Alt Hist but it most definitely has a speculative quality to it and the S in SF/F often does refer to Speculative right? So yes, this stuff has a home on my blog and this was a good one to start on. When Young asked me to review this, he specifically asked if I considered alternate history to be SF, so I thought I'd mention it. I never knew there was a controversy here. I mean, I've been finding my Harry Turtledove books in the SF section for almost twenty years now.

Acts of War takes place in a world where Germany forced Great Britain into an armistice before the United States enter World War II. This somehow results from the umm, "accidental" isn't quite the word I'm looking for but it will have to do, death of Adolf Hitler when a British Bomber dropped a bomb on him. Changes in Germany's government led to the gassing of London by the Luftwaffe. Germany uses the "peace" to rearm. Britain does nothing to improve its military. Japan is talked out of antagonizing the United States and doesn't bomb Pearl Harbor until spring of 1942. New countries join the Axis. Things look bleak for the United States, which is fighting the war with only the members of the British Commonwealth at its side.

Under no circumstances would I present myself as an expert in naval warfare, but I have done a lot of reading (both fiction and non-fiction) on the subject. Some of the earliest history I read on my own were non-fiction accounts of World War II naval battles and I'm a huge fan of David Weber and others who have written works of fiction that include naval combat. Tora Tora Tora and Midway were both movies that I have watched many times and own on DVD. They're both entertaining and have been praised by experts on the period for the historical accuracy.  That much being said, the battle sequences in this book are pretty epic. Young has clearly done more studying on the subject than I have and it shows. When he tells the story of a battle it all hangs together and just works. I could picture the shooting, the explosions, the bombs falling, the torpedoes moving toward the water and the gruesome injuries cause by all of the above.

Young also shows the best and worst of the US military. His heroes are heroic. More than one of them gets decorated and it's not hard to believe it. They fight hard. Some of the others, well... Every military force has members that have gotten their position through politics and family connections and Young's US Navy is no exception. The good news is that at least one of the bastards gets precisely what he deserved. The other good news is that Young managed to make me hate that guy badly enough to want him dead. An author's job is to provoke an emotional response and he has done that.

 The family ties in the book are excellent and something that I've often seen left out of this type of story. The majority of the tome follow the exploits of the Cobb family, many of which appear as members of the military. Their sister is also a central figure, as are many of their girlfriends. The romances don't always go as planned, but that's something we've all lived through, military or not. The effects of war on those left behind gets heavy treatment and that's a good thing.

Not everything here is wine and roses though. There are a few things which honestly confuse me. For one, the point of historical departure (that's where an Alternate History story diverges from the real world timeline) takes place in Europe when Hitler dies, but most of the action centers on the war in the Pacific. Either way works but both together creates a cognitive dissonance for me. After the first twenty or so pages Europe gets mentioned only sparingly and is nearly forgotten until a briefing near the end of the book. I just don't get that. Also, there are times when the portions of the book that don't involve combat drag a bit. It definitely gets better the longer the book goes on, but it's there. There is also a huge twist regarding the British government that doesn't get resolved and seems to be beside the main thrust of the book. Oddly enough, this volume reads almost like two separate books to me as well, with the run up to the start of war being one story and the prosecution of it afterward reading like another one. Don't get me wrong, they're both enjoyable but I remember being about halfway through this thing thinking that there was a mistake in the page count on my Nook.

Acts of War appears destined for a sequel and I'm hoping that when it comes it will clear some of this up. AoW is the second in a series and appears to be setting up something bigger to come. I want to read it because I'm hoping that a lot of what got left out here will find its way into the new one. There are a lot of threads left hanging at the end of this one and I can't wait to see Young tie them up.

Bottom line: 4.25 out of 5 sinking battleships

Acts of War
James Young
Createspace, 2014

This work can be purchased here: