Daniella Bova's Tears of Paradox

I should wait until tomorrow to write this review but I'm going to write it now to try to get some of this out of my system. Daniella Bova has managed, in her book Tears of Paradox to write what amounts to pretty much my worst nightmare. The book is entertaining, gripping and relentless. Bova reminds her audience of the need to protect our rights from our government. Tears of Paradox is the first in the series. I have not read the second one yet. I won't spoil the ending, except to say that it's a cliffhanger. I will say that this tome creeps me out worse than any horror flick I've ever seen and I've seen a metric crap-load of them.

Bova's work is the story of Jason Wallace and his girlfriend, eventually wife, Michelle. It follows them from when they first started dating and through their marriage. The two have their trials. They go through good times and bad times. They deal with issues with their extended family. They worship God the same way. They're there for each other when they need to be. And oh my Lord do they need to be. Not only do they have problems beyond what most married couples do in a very important part of their marriage (I won't spoil what) but they are dealing with the descent of the United States into a Marxist abyss. Things start out bad and get worse.

Bova does a phenomenal job of presenting every Conservatives fears in story form and making it entertaining. We see the loss of personal liberty, the persecution of Christians, the slide into moral decadence and the loss of freedom. She details the fall of the Second Amendment and the rise of "doctors" who quite frankly don't give a rat's ass about what happens to their patients as long as the paperwork is right. The effects of Marxist polices on everything from health care to the economy are exposed and found wanting. Every Rightist who knows a Leftist that has been asked what we're afraid of needs to buy them this book. Every Leftist who would ask the question needs to read this book. Note that Bova doesn't do much with race. That makes sense. Race is not a primary concern for the Right in this country and she did well to leave it out.

There is a strong Catholic theme to this book. It reminds me that I never finished my RCIA and I need to get off my duff and do it, but it's more than that. Bova does an excellent job of portraying Catholics and, by association, Christians in a totally different light than a typical Leftist would. Her Christians are good people with a belief system that they draw strength from. Unlike a lot of authors in the hear and now, Bova portrays her Christians as  warm, loving, caring people who know they're not perfect and simply strive to be the best they can be. They don't agree with much of what's going on around them but they have their reasons and they don't back down. It's not about hatred. It's about their beliefs and a lack of willingness to violate them simply because someone else disagrees with their stance.

Having said that much, you can consider this your trigger warning. If you find a realistic portrayal of religious people offensive you're better off reading something else. If you tend to be the whiny type, unable to read something you disagree with or to be tolerant of someone who disagrees with your point of view maybe you should try something else. I hear there are good vegan cookbooks out there. That's not offensive to you, right?  Have fun with those.

The author's portrayal of the media as a bunch of Leftist propagandists spouting approved doctrine hits home with me. With a few exceptions, it fits the real-world media to a "T". While outlets like Fox News hold the line to a certain point, even most hometown news that I'm aware (and certainly here in Detroit) has a strong Leftist slant to it.

Bova seems to have a good sense of the history of Socialism and the existence of informers. In any truly Leftist society they will be everywhere. Family members, co-workers, it's all been documented, especially with opening of the East Germany archives. Bova impresses me with her ability to make everything uncomfortable. The characters in this book know that someone out there is willing to inform on them. Whether it's the doctor, a co-worker at the pharmacy or the idiot nephew they know where the threats are.

As much as I'd like to say otherwise, this book is not perfectly crafted. Even for someone who agrees with the politics of the book, it comes across as a bit on the heavy-handed side. Message oozes from this book like lava boiling out of the top of a volcano. I mean, I get the fact that this is a political book and I agree with its moral but I do wonder if perhaps a bit more subtlety would not be in order. The characters in Tears are not politicians by any stretch of the imagination but they do talks politics a lot. They agonize about politics regularly. It affects everything they do. It's not that it's an inaccurate portrayal. It's more the ham-fisted approach to making her point that is the problem.

This is also certainly not a book for the faint of heart regardless of religious and/or political persuasion. There is a lot of loss in this book. There is one scene that is bloody to the point of being slightly nauseating. (It needs to be but that's not the point I'm making here.) This thing has the potential of giving me nightmares. It starts about five minutes from now and that is part of the problem. Even with something like The Hunger Games you can kind of blow it off as being nightmarish but ultimately unrealistic. Tears of Paradox is too realistic to be simply shrugged at. Bova brings us face to face with something that could really happen. Indeed, her scenario is one that could already be in motion. It's enough to make you nervous.

That much being said this is still a good book. Bova ends her work with an afterword about why she wrote the book but I don't think it's really necessary. It exists, it reads well and it makes a definite point. I will read this again and I plan on acquiring the second book in the series, The Notice in the near future. I like to think and Bova has my brain working.

Bottom Line: 4.25 out of 5 Rolls of Toilet Paper (read the book, you'll get it)

Tears of Paradox
Daniella Bova
Self Published, 2014

Tears of Paradox can be purchased here:

Jeb Kinnison's Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars is both a thoroughly entertaining read and a primer on modern day rightism from a member of the rightist movement. Highlighted are the true beliefs of those of us on the right, and not the slanted, stilted cries of RAAAAAAAAACISM!!!! that often come from those on the left. As a matter of fact, I would absolutely recommend this work to anyone on the Left who is interested in taking a look at the rightist point of view as explained in our own words and not as we are slandered by mainstream media outlets like CNN or MSNBC. I don't want to go too far down this road though. Red Queen is, at its heart, a story of Science Fiction and rebellion and one that does a terrific job of entertaining first and delivering message second.



When we meet our hero, Justin Smith, he is hard at work in a computer lab running a simulation of the evolution of a planet full of life. The life in the simulation is, at this point, incredibly basic. It's a concept we'll come back to throughout the story though and makes a good metaphor for the advancement of the plans of Justin and his friends as the story moves forward. As their movement expands and becomes more complex so does the life in the simulation. I'm not entirely certain I'm doing a good job of describing what it adds to the story, but there is definitely something here. It is entirely possible that there was something here that I missed as well, as the interpretation I made at the beginning may have been overridden by later developments. I'll leave it to the sequel to see if I was right or not.



This novel is not the quickest to start, but given the fact that it is the first in the series that is hardly surprising. As a matter of fact, I debated about reviewing it at first because the SF part of the story doesn't really come into play until we meet Steve Duong and find out what he's building. Once it does though, it's off to the races and the plot starts moving very quickly. Our friends find their involvement in things illegal and semi-legal deepening at every step. Government monitoring starts and is gradually increased. A couple of our heroes are arrested and make the kind of escape only possible in an SF novel. Another planet is visited using a method that I won't reveal here, except to say that it is similar in some ways to a spacefold in Robotech and also similar to the method of travel seen in Event Horizon yet totally different in that it doesn't actually involve a ship.


The story eventually turns into one of a revolution aborning. The problem with a story like that is that there is no way that a group of college students could pull off a revolution without making some fairly major mistakes. Kinnison's solution to the problem is to let them make those mistakes in ways that are both believable and entertaining. Sometimes it's a small thing, like a password left written on a notepad. At other times, foul-ups come as major issues like the siren song of another man's woman. Regardless of how they happen, they never fail to move the plot forward and keep things interesting.


The story is not perfect. Kinnison frequently injects political statements into conversations that run a bit longer than they really need to. It seems to me that the characters in the story are a little too quick to understand all of the potential uses and consequences of the quantum computer in the story. Steve Duong picks up on something monumental off-screen and does it in seemingly less time than it takes to talk about it. That much being said, all of these are forgivable as well as probably being plot-necessary. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well written story and is prepared to either enjoy or accept some political content to go with it.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 quantum computers


Red Queen: The Substrate Wars
Jeb Kinnison
Jeb Kinnison Publishing, 2014






On Sunday: Something Hunger Games related. I'm not sure what yet