Tom Kratman's A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex

(Welcome to Day Four of Jimbo's Memorial Day Extravaganza: You Can't Court Martial me for Being AWOL Because I'm A Civilian Edition. What's two weeks between friends, right? Seriously though, my apologies to both of the authors whose reviews came in late. 

Today, we honor Lieutenant Colonel Tom Kratman, US Army, retired. He served for a total of thirty-two years, primarily in the infantry but also in the Inspector General's Office and Public Affairs. He was deployed to Panama, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Egypt.If you don't follow him on Facebook for his stories of serving in Panama, you're dead wrong.  He was awarded both the Combat Infantry Badge and the Ranger Tab. He has also been married for forty-four years, has four daughters and a bunch of grandchildren.)

First off, the disclaimer: The Colonel, despite being an amazing author, has the tendency to put things into a story that will probably put about seventy-five percent of the populations knickers in a twist at some point. If it's not his blatant disregard for the point of view of Transnational Socialists (who he styles as "tranzies") it's the rampant sexuality often expressed by those same people in his books. Things can get pretty explicit. If we're being real with each other, I may be tempted to point out that I love his books for those reasons among others, but if you're the easily triggered type, I'm sure that there's a Sweet Valley High book out there for you somewhere.  My sister liked those when she was about thirteen. Or maybe you could go all Dumbledore and peruse some knitting patterns. Either way, buckle up when you pick up a Kratman novel, because things are always interesting and the man just Does. Not. Flinch.

Anyway...

I'm reviewing these two books together because when I contacted the Colonel for his interview (and thank you to him and all the other authors who have replied over the years. I really have been blessed.) he mentioned that they were intended to be one book but he went a little long. I'm okay with that. I had a lot of fun with them.

The series (I think it's called the Carrera-verse) starts out on a planet named Terra Nova on their version of September 11, 2001. It brought back a lot of that day for me, even if the details were (necessarily) different. What our hero, Patrick Henessy (later restyled as Patricio Carrera) goes through that day is unthinkable. It changes him, and he was already leaning on the harsh side as I remember it. He crawls into a bottle for a bit, but once he comes out, look out!

A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex are both books about training and equipping a force to fight a war and then actually fight the war. Kratman's military experience shows here. He has the expertise to know how to train a force to fight effectively. These novels live and breathe authenticity. They also live a breathe a certain attitude.

Kratman would not be a good guy to go to war against, and neither is Carrera. Some of the methods that Carrera's troops use, both in and out of combat, do not meet up to the standards of the Geneva Convention. That's okay with me though, because the people he's fighting are not privileged combatants under the Convention and don't enjoy it's protections.  A Desert Called Peace is one of the very few (maybe the only) books where I would encourage a reader to read the notes at the beginning. There is something there that is very pointed and which would be well taken. I know I went back and read it AGAIN to make sure I got it right the first time I read these books. And then I read it a third time when I re-read these for the review. Seriously, it's shorter than any of my blog posts, but it lets you into the head of the author.

Wait.

I feel like I'm forgetting something. Is there something else I should be writing about?

OH YEAH! THE PLOT OF THE BOOKS!!!

Listen, Carrera goes from a retired gentlemen to a general leading an army in all but name quickly. It works though. I really got the feeling that it was something he was born to do and it just took him longer than it should have to realize it. He has more than enough motivation to do so once he gets going after a shock worse than many people could have survived. Carrera comes up with a plan, finds people to help him bring it to life and moves with alacrity to get involved in a war that is maybe a little more personal to him than it should be for a leader.

Seriously, just about every decision Carrera makes sense in context but, taken as a whole, I'm not sure the guy is exactly sane. The thing is that he's crazy like a fox. He seems a bit obsessed at times and approves things that I'm not sure I ever could, but he gets the job done. I would compare Carrera to Ben Sisco from ST:DS9 on one of his worst days. I mean, Carrera never actually did anything that would kill every human on the planet, but he LIVED on the planet he was fighting on. 

Then there's his other side: Carrera does absolutely everything he can to take care of his troops. Granted, he's the commander of a mercenary unit and doesn't have to force things through the legislature ala the Veteran's Administration in the US,  and that does make it easier, but he does whatever he can. Whether it's medical care, a pension for those wounded in combat, or even an extended version of the GI Bill's educational benefits. Speaking as the guy with the history degree, the first US president to not do enough for his soldiers was Washington, and there hasn't been a president that got it right since. 

And Carrera, like Cisco, is not a heartless monster. He loves and protects not just his men, but his family. It's the loss of his wife and children that push him into action and lead him to found the Legio del Cid to begin with. Carrera is a more complicated, fully formed human being than almost any other protagonist I've read.

And I  haven't even touched the action in ADCP and Carnifex. I could read these books for the action sequences alone and be satisfied. They're gritty and realistic. What they are not is a World War II propaganda film. Kratman's action sequences are ugly and violent, they way they should be. He has been there and done that and doesn't spare the details. 

Of course, there's also the politics. Hennesy/Carrera starts out in the Republic of Balboa, which is totally not Panama. Obviously. It's on another planet, see? But when he starts a mercenary army in the heart of the country, he attracts some seriously negative attention. And then there's his relationship with the Federated States of Columbia, who should never be mistaken for the US. Nope. Not at all.  

And of course, there is politics on the other side, with the United Earth Peace Fleet (not the UN) and the actual enemy, an army of Islamofascists that may remind an uncharitable individual of Al Qaeda. Kratman does a good job of showing both sides, although he has an obvious rooting interest. I'm okay with that though. It matches mine.  

In short, if you want to read something that is entertaining, believable, action-packed and believable read A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex. It's that simple.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Legitimate Reprisals

A Desert Called Peace
Tom Kratman
Baen Books, 2013

Carnifex
Tom Kratman
Baen Books, 2013

A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex are available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

D.T. Read's Ganwold's Child The Sergey Chronicles: Book One

(Author's Note: So I know I reviewed this previously, but a new edition just hit the 'Zon yesterday and I had to let everyone know.  Read had these self-published and resold the series to Chris Kennedy Publishing/ Theogony books. And yes, I've read the new edition. I got an Advance Review Copy awhile back. As much as I enjoyed it before, and I gave it five stars last time, it's better this time. The story is largely the same, but some of the language has been cleaned up and Ganwold's Child reads like it was written by a more experienced writer. If you've followed any writer for long enough, you either know what I mean, or you need to go back and read their first published book and their latest and tell me there's no difference. I'll wait....

Thank you for admitting that I'm right. Now, go read this book. And keep your eyes peeled, because books two and three of The Sergey Chronicles will be along here shortly.

I haven't changed much of the review below, except to update the cover (and OMG is that an awesome cover) buy links and bibliographical data, but it's a good review. Read it again. I would.)

(Welcome to the Third Day of Jimbo's Memorial Day Weekend Extravaganza! Yeah, I know I'm two weeks  late, but like Papa Heinlein once said, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by." Yeah, I suck. I know. My apologies to both remaining authors. 

Anyway...

Today, we're honoring Lieutenant Colonel Diann Thornley Read, an Air Force Veteran with twenty-three years of service. She was an intelligence analyst, providing briefings to officers with much higher rank than hers. She served in Korea, Bosnia, Iraq, and Italy. She was awarded a Joint Service Medal Commendation and told that she "was the only American the multi-national coalition could understand."She says that, given the chance, she'd do it all again, too.

She states that she used a couple of locations where she was stationed for inspiration for her stories. I think that's probably where that air of authenticity comes from.)

Ganwold's Child by Diann Thornley Read (who can totally feel free to confuse with DT Read that I've reviewed previously, because they're the same person. You'd have to ask her why she uses both. Any confusion you may be feeling regarding that is totally my fault though, because Jimbo.) started off just a wee bit confusing for me. We're introduced to an alien race with its own language and idioms right off the top and I found myself scratching my head. It only lasted a few pages though, and then things got really, really good. 

Our main character is a guy named Tristan Sergey and he loves his mama. She's sick, the aliens he lives with don't have the tech to help her (based on symptoms, I'm guessing cancer but if the disease is ever mentioned by name, I missed it.) and so he sets off to save her due to a sense of Jwa'lai or duty to his mother. I find this concept fascinating, because it makes so much sense. One should always do as much as one can for his mother. On the other hand, although Read does a good job explaining what it is, I feel like I'm missing some kind of deeper cultural thing. If you've ever taken Anthropology, you know what I mean. That's really impressive. It hits just the right note. So off he goes to meet his father, who he can't remember because he's been stranded on this planet without contact with other humans since he was in diapers. He hopes that dad will help him - assuming Tristan can find the man in the first place.

Tristan is one impressive dude, too. The tech level he starts off at is basically stone age or a bit higher, and by the end of the first book (this is part of a trilogy) he's flying space fighters. He can also take a beating better than just about any other character I've read, and I loved Ben Raines from The Ashes series by William W. Johnstone. This is one bad dude. I don't want to give too much away, but don't give up on this kid. And a kid, by the standards of my forty-six year old self at least, he very much is. This works to his advantage at times. Young people recover from physical trauma more quickly. It can also sometimes work against him.

When Tristan finds his way (along with his friend/brother Pulou) from the alien village he was born in to the technologically superior human settlement nearby, he finds out how little he knows the hard way. He has not sense of history and knows nothing about politics. This is a dangerous situation for anyone, but even worse for him for reasons that would be spoilers. You'll have to trust me when I say it's not a good look for him, at least until you buy the book, which you should do immediately. I'll wait. 

...

...

...

...

Are you back yet? Good!

The political intrigue in Ganwold's Child is well done, layered and hints at a much bigger conflict than what we're shown here. I'm waiting to find out what's still out there, but I won't be waiting long. I'm going to buy the next book.

See how that works? SUPPORT YOUR AUTHORS PEOPLE!!

Anyway...

Tristan's quest starts off bad, gets worse and then, well..

Read the book.

Read has built an entire universe here and it kind of makes me sad that she's only written three books in it. Her worldbuilding is excellent. There are some things going on here that make sense in context and you learn a lot going through the book, but you hardly notice what's going on. I love that about it. Tristan is not stupid, but he is inexperienced and naive, and I learned a lot along with him. What I got ahead of time was necessary for the story and kept the intrigue level high.

And I guess that's the thing about Ganwold's Child. There is a lot of physical action. If you like fist fights, shooting, dog fights and, of course, splody stuff this is definitely a good book for you. The cool thing about Read though, is that she included all of that without turning it into a Michael Bay-esque disasterpiece with special effects and no story. When something happens in Ganwold's Child it matters. The reader cares, and not just because they have to, but because the characters get our attention and hold it.

Let's face it. Read knows more about building up a babyface than the WWE ever will. The other characters drew me in almost as much, though. Ganwold's Child is full of both heroes and villains. Some of the heroes are a little more likely than others, but they all deserve the title. And the main protagonist, the wolf in sheep's clothing, is very easy to hate. Read did a good job with him though. He thinks he's a hero and that everything he does is warranted.  

It's worth mentioning that I was a bit concerned about Ganwold's Child. I write a bit of fiction myself here and there and my older stuff is not as good as my newer stuff. That makes sense. Writing is like anything else. You get better at it with experience. This is Read's first (published) novel, and I was kind of thinking...

Yeah, nevermind. 

My mama told me I shouldn't think because thinking always gets me in trouble. She would've been right here, too, because Ganwold's Child is a damn good book. If I were to go searching for differences between GC and her Seventh Shaman series, I would only say that the language in the newer series feels a little more relaxed and, honestly, who gives a rip? A good book is a good book. 

I'll let you all know when I've gotten to the next two in the Sergey Chronicles, but I will be getting to them. I need to find out how this ends. The first hit may not have been free, but it got me hooked. Read is an author worth following and I'm glad I got on the bus early in her career. Let's see where she goes from here.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Peimu

Ganwold's Child
D.T. Read
Theogony Books, 2023

Ganwold's Child is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

William S. Frisbee Jr.'s The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One

(Author's Note: Welcome once again to Jimbo's Memorial Day Event,  where I publish four reviews of four science fiction or fantasy books written by veterans in four days, all over Memorial Day Weekend. It's my way of saying thank you to the people who risked their lives to protect mine. And yes, I get that Memorial Day is actually about those who fell in the line of service but I can't find an author who fits that description. 

Today'author is  William S. Frisbee. Corporal Frisbee served four years as Rifleman in the Marines. He says he got to play with ALL THE GUNS, including the M19, by which I think he means the Mk 19, a grenade machine gun. 

After growing up in Europe and living just two hours from the Soviet Union he was deployed to the Middle  East for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Okinawa, South Korea and the Philippines, earning the Kuwait Liberation Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and Southwest Asia Service Medal. Frisbee states that he got out of the military "Because he was stupid." Of course, being the nerd who stay in the barracks studying the tactics and techniques of other militaries on Friday nights.

Now-a-days he has a wife, a daughter, two dogs and a ferret. He also runs the website MilSF.com which you should totally check out. I'm disappointed that I didn't know about it sooner, but it's all about writing military science fiction and it's pretty awesome.) 

Somewhere out there, in the nerdiverse, there is a beginning more heartbreaking and poignant than a married couple on patrol in deep space that spots a task force that promises to end both of their lives and the lives of the people they're out there protecting. Somewhere out there is a story with a couple that is more endearing than a wife who won't swear, her husband who will and their absolute and utter dedication to each other and their cause. Somewhere out there, is an author who can make my heart bleed worse than William S. Frisbee did in the first couple chapters of The Return. I mean, I'm not sure who that person is, but they're almost certainly an asshole if they'd do that to their audience. I'll give Frisbee a pass just this once because The Return kicks ass, but the opening to this one hits pretty hard.

And it keeps rocking along. The Return is not for the faint of heart. The action is intense. It seems like there's always something happening. It could be human/alien, it could be human/human, I think at least once it was alien/alien, and well...

Whatever. Just know that boredom will not be a problem while reading The Return. Even down time can be exciting, because you never know what is going to happen when or from where. Or to whom for that matter. Seriously, keep your head on a swivel, because a feeling of safety is often misleading, especially in the beginning of the story, when you haven't really learned the rules yet.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure The Return is set in a new universe and I love that about it. We get to learn the rules and the characters as we go. And it's really cool because there is a lot here, and not a lot of bottom dragging while the author tries to make us understand his creation. Don't get me wrong, we learn a lot as we go along, but Frisbee does a damn good job of Heinleining in the details instead of navel gazing. 

Our hero is a guy named Luke, and he has been through some things. He fights for humanity in a part of the universe where there aren't many of us. He has a tactical style similar to that of Will Riker and the bedside manner of Dr. Gregory House. His ship is crewed by robots because he doesn't like having people around. Actually, that's not fair. His robots, some of them anyway, are people.

I'm guessing Frisbee read some Asimov at some point, because the robots in The Return are a lot like the robots in the Robots series, only without the Three Laws of Robotics and like ten thousand times the personality. Seriously, Daneel and Giskard were both brilliant and dynamic, but Frisbee's robots have pizzazz. Think HAL except not murderous, at least to humanity. Seriously, watch out for that martial arts instructor.

Of course, Luke is inevitably forced to work with fellow human beings and he does not like that turn of events at all. Apparently, emotions are hard for him to deal with and he's got heartbreak issues...

Yeah, he's in need of some counselling, I mean, I feel him. I've been there. I didn't get it when I needed it either.  And he ends up not really knowing how to deal with what he's got to deal with because he hasn't. Fortunately, things go a bit better for him than they did for me. 

It's when Luke and his group of human people encounter other human people that shouldn't be there (IE they're from Earth, which is on the other side of a wormhole) that things really start to pick up. It seems that bad things have happened back home, and if things don't go right humanity could end up being wiped out to the last person. So it's once more unto the breach with some people that he doesn't know all that well and doesn't want there and, oh yeah, his robot buddies. 

And Luke goes through a bit of a character arc. Training new subordinates, feelings starting to function again, he's caught off guard by all of it. It's like he's been on his own fighting for decades (and, since the world has an aging treatment similar in effect to prolong in The Honorverse, he has) and not dealing with human beings has stunted his emotional growth and made him unused to feeling much. It's almost like losing someone important and shutting out the rest of the world had a poor effect on him personally, even if it work for his career. Who woulda thunk it?

So he ends up taking on the real challenge: Fighting is easy. Emoting is not. Granted, I've never been a deep space warrior intent on saving the human race, but I did take karate as a kid and I've had to deal with feelings and, well...

Kicking something in the face is really a lot easier than dealing with a lot of what Luke has to deal with. I'm pretty sure he'd agree with that. Or course his workouts are a lot more intense than mine were, but he has better medical facilities than I did. I mean, humanity has colonized the Solar System and moved out into space through a wormhole, so obviously they have better medical tech than we had thirty years ago. This leads to him getting fixed up after some pretty serious hand to hand training sessions, which ends up putting him out in harm's way much faster.

Of course, this leads to more conflict, which leads to more action, which leads to...

The end of the book.

I wasn't ready for that. I mean, why didn't someone warn me that it was coming? I didn't want the book to be over. 

I was really kind of upset that there was no more to read. The good news is that there are two more books after this one. I can't wait to get to them, and I wouldn't have...

Except, yeah, Memorial Day. Three more veterans/authors to go!

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Rag Dolls

The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One
William S. Frisbee, Jr
Chakram Publishing, 2014

The Return: The Conglomerate Trilogy, Book One is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you,

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

So listen, your humble host, Jimbo, writer of Awesome reviews (in his own mind at least) is, and has been for closing in on forty years now, a Green Lantern mark. See, when I was a wee little Jimbo, much younger and thinner although not as good looking because, let's face it, I get better looking every day, one of my neighbors came over with a box of comics that his nephew was throwing out because he was too old, or too cool or some crap for them. I don't buy that, but thanks, guy! Because I had never read a comic before that. It's too bad I lost that box of comics along the way too, because it had some good stuff in it, most notably a Transformers #1 and a GI JOE #3, albeit both in well-loved condition. Also in that box, though, were a few Green Lantern Corps comics. I didn't learn about the much loved Green Lanterns of Sector 2814 until later, when I became old enough to ride my bike to The Antique Paper Shop in Hazel Park, Michigan. It's gone now, but they used to sell grab bags of back issues for a buck and I'd pick through them until I found one that had a Green Lantern comic visible from the outside. Sometimes I even got two.

I saw the Green Lantern movie. It was very pretty. The special effects crew did a damn good job. The writers tried to stuff two complete story arcs into one two hour movie when you'd have been lucky to do justice to either one in that much time. That didn't really work, but it was cool. I got a dirty look sitting in the audience and reciting the Green Lantern Oath during the movie, but hey, get over yourself kid. I've been reading this stuff since before you were born.

Anyway...

I was unaware of The Animated Series when it came out, probably because I was married and going to grad school at them time. I decided to take a look at it recently though, because I found it on streaming. And you know what? I loved it.

Okay, first off the disclaimer: Starting off with a fight with the Red Lanterns was a bit weird to me. I mean, I get the whole In Media Res thing, but I don't know if that was the way I'd have done things. Then again, they did a good job with it. We end up segueing into the War of the Light ala the Blackest Night crossover event (without, it has to be admitted, many of the crossovers) and they followed things fairly closely. They didn't get all the way through it, they didn't really even get into the Black Lanterns, but it was fun.

The animation was a little cheesy, but that's okay. It's a cartoon. It worked. And the constructs were cool. The best thing about a Green Lantern (other than the part where they can travel through space with no ship, and speak every language) is being able to build awesome stuff out of light just because you want to. Seriously. How freaking cool would that be?

And yes, they do all of the cool stuff with the ring and make all the things and go all the places...

And Larfleeze is still a turd. That's good though. It made me feel grounded when he was a stinkpot. I get the fact that he's an Orange Lantern and that greed is their thing, but hey, he still sucks and I hate him. That's okay though because he doesn't really exist. Or sumfin'.

Speaking of older characters:

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

Kilowog is everywhere in The Animated Series and you're a poozer. Sinestro makes an appearance, although as a member of the Green Lantern Corps and not the Sinestro Corps which makes no sense for where they are in the timeline, since the Sinestro Corps War had already ended, but hey it was fun to see him. We got Ch'p, Tomar Re, Carol Ferris, Guy Gardner and more. I was really happy to see Ch'p because he's my favorite. It's too bad what happened to him in the comic, but that's the life of a Green Lantern I guess. Guy is still his annoying, cocky self. They got that character perfectly when they wrote and acted him.

Seeing Hal Jordan arguing with the Guardians was good for the soul as well. It's a part of his character that gets lost sometimes, but it's been part of the comics on and off for years and it needed to be there. I'm still trying to figure out why Paralax was there, as it was the wrong time for that as well. 

And that, my friends, is my biggest beef with comic book movies, and TV shows. Stop trying to cram in everything all at once! Let things play out, especially in a series. And, let's face it, Paralax killed Hal Jordan in the comics, there's no reason to show that in the first season of a TV show anyway. 

All in all though, it was a good binge. I had just finished The Sopranos and I was looking for something fun. I found it here and I'll probably binge it again at some point in the future. 

I read somewhere that the reason the show failed was because of poor toy sales, and I blame all of you for that. It wasn't my fault. I was still married when this came out and I got my ex-wife to buy a bunch of the stuff for Christmas. I had it set up all over my computer desk. It didn't really match. Most everything else was done in knights and mythological creatures, but no system is perfect and fandoms don't always go together. That's totes not my fault. At all. 

And anyway, I needed a bigger basement for my Battletech stuff and my GI JOE stuff, too. Unfortunately, I've lost it all since. But that's neither here nor there.

Whatever.

Just go watch the show.

Bottom Line:  5.0 out of 5 Power Rings

Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Warner Brothers, 2012

Some Green Lantern related items are available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

The System Apocalypse Series by Tao Wong

 

It seems like every time I read a LitRPG book, I think about how I should read more LitRPG. I love it, but I guess it came to be too late in my life to be a default like Space Opera and Epic Fantasy.  Every once in awhile, though, something will gain my notice and I'll feel the need to check it out. That's precisely what happened with Tao Wong's series The System Apocalypse. I think I picked the first book, Life in the North, up because it was in my Facebook feed and it caught my eye. I had never heard of Mr. Wong so I was a bit cautious at first but The System Apocalypse grabbed my attention from page one.

The System Apocalypse starts with our hero, one John Lee, on vacation in Canada's Yukon Territory. It's cold, he's camping and a little blue box appears in his vision. From there the whole world changes literally (well, fictionally literally) instantly, not just for him but also for the rest of the human race and anything else that lives on planet Earth. Animals and plants begin to mutate, people start dying in job lot quantities (think nuclear war levels of casualties only there are no actual nukes launched. Then it gets worse.) and no one and nowhere is safe. And yes, I've played Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games in the past, but in The System Apocalypse, there are no respawns.

The series goes through a few different arcs, starting out with straight-up survival. First John has to survive long enough to find another human being, then he takes part in helping others to survive. It's not as easy as it should be, either. Even with help, he loses people and on many occasions almost loses himself. John is a ball of rage and he doesn't always use common sense but even when he does the wrong thing it's usually for the right reasons.

The cast of characters he gathers around himself is long and distinguished. Most are human. A few are alien. They are, for the most part, all honorable beings who want to do what is best for themselves and for others. It's well thought out though, and they all seem to have their own motivations, even if it's only leveling.

If you're familiar with roleplaying games, whether online in games like World of Warcraft, Everquest, Eve Online or City of Heroes, on old-school platforms ala Wizardry and Shining in the Darkness, or tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, Heroes Unlimited, or Shadowrun, then you know how important leveling is. The higher a character's level, the more powerful they are. The more powerful they are, the better they can protect themselves against increasing threats. The more fighting they do, the higher their level gets. Well, for Combat Classers. The System also has classes in areas like crafting (artisans), growing (farmers), politics (duh) and even the media (one of my favorite side characters is a reporter named Harry). Everyone needs to level, but it is both easiest and most important for Combat Classers.

Also part of leveling, and one of the reasons it's easier to make/grow that new product or defeat that new monster, is gaining new abilities or spells or feats or...

Every game calls them something different and, in a lot of cases, there are different labels applied to different things in the same game. It can be a wee bit confusing until you get the hang of the game. The System is no different. There are a ton of abilities, skills, spells, affinities and probably some other thing that I forgot about. The System is actually pretty crunchy if you grok the term. If not, it just means there are a lot of rules and usually a lot of math.  It can be confusing to our heroes and definitely to the reader, at least at first. Just have patience and remember your first time playing your favorite roleplaying game. We were all confused and something Wong does well is have his characters share what they're learning with the rest of us.

Probably the most unusual thing about The System and it's leveling progression is the tier system. Most people start out with a basic class. That might be Farmer, or Construction Worker, but it might also be Soldier or Hunter or some other combat class. Fifty levels in a basic class opens up an advanced class. A Soldier might become a Sergeant. Fifty levels of and Advance Class opens up a Master Class. A Sergeant might become an Officer. Fifty levels of Master Class opens up a Heroic Class. An Officer might become a General. Fifty levels of a Heroic Class opens up a Legendary Class. That General might become an Emperor. It doesn't get any higher than Legendary, but few ever make it there.

Opening up new tiers is exciting as it leads to massive increases in abilities. One Advanced Classer could mow down an entire mob of low level Basic Classers fairly easily. A Heroic Classer might be able to take your planet over singlehandedly. Legendary Classers, especially if they're Combat Classers, probably run empires or command a bajillion troops and are not just deadly themselves, but make all of their followers even more effective. This is an amazingly well built system and I just hope I did a good enough job explaining it.

Speaking of leveling and Class Tiers, there is a moment in the series that almost made me quit reading it. I'm not going to go into details, but trust me when I say you'll know it when you see it. Wong promises to write what's missing in the Afterword and, while I believe we're still waiting, I trust him. But it did leave me seriously frustrated at the time. At the end of the day, I'm glad I kept reading because it is a truly awesome series, but I was more than a little bit shaken.

Once John learns how The System works at the most basic level and figures out how to survive and even thrive in the face of what his planet has turned into, we get into another arc. In this one, John and lots of others try to unite the Earth and elect a planetary ruler. It's not easy and the fact that there are aliens (John calls them "Galactics") all over the place just makes it harder. Then we get to watch John and Earth figure out their places in the universe. 

The final arc is probably my favorite, and not just because that's where all the fighting is. I love it because it is the struggle to find out what The System is and where it came from. Why does it exist? Is there a point to it or is it just there? I'll be honest, there is a lot of technical stuff here, but it all makes sense across a twelve book series in ways I can't begin to duplicate in a single review. 

The ending itself is satisfying in a way that I hadn't seen coming, even if it didn't give me quite everything I wanted. It works for the series and wraps things up in a way that leaves no loose ends. 

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Spirit Companions.

The System Apocalypse
Tao Wong
Starlit Publishing 2017-22

Life in the North: An Apocalyptic LitRPG (The System Apocalypse Book 1) is available at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Life in the North: An Apocalyptic LitRPG 

J.A. Sutherland's Alexis Carew series

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Seriously, if you're an Honor Harrington fan and you haven't read J.A. Sutherland's Alexis Carew series, what are you doing with your life? And if you're an Alexis Carew fan who hasn't read Honor Harrington, what's wrong with you? 

Or sumfin' 

I mean, the two series are far from identical, but they have a lot in common. The plucky young woman who takes a position of authority in the navy, the career growth, the love interest, a certain willingness to do what  is necessary even if it doesn't -strictly speaking- match up with the exact wording of their orders as given, etc. 

 The thing is, we get to meet Alexis younger and follow her career sooner and that means, potentially at least, more death rides than Honor got to have. We all love that, right? The charge directly into fire, the blasting away, the shooting, the carnage, horror, it all works for those of us who like a particular kind of literature, and it's all here. This is combat in its gritty, horrible detail, and yet...

It's not what you'd expect from a typical work of Space Opera. I mean that. And the reason is because of how the combat and interstellar travel are conducted.

Combat in the Alexis Carew series is closer to that of the Age of Sail than David Weber ever dreamed of for his Honor Harrington series. Stop laughing. I'm serious. When Alexis charges into battle, she's not loading a missile. She's loading a cannon. Granted it's a cannonball coated in Gallenium to decrease the effects of Darkspace (keep reading, I'll get there) but it's a freaking cannon, on a rail that has to be loaded from the muzzle and fired over open sights. When Ms. Midshipwoman Carew goes into her first boarding action, she's not just armed with a flechette pistol, she's carrying a cutlass. Yes, just like pirates used to use. And she's not afraid to use it. She actually does really well with it.

Space travel is so Age of Sail that it hurts. Real space transits are made to Lagrangian points, where the ship transitions to Darkspace. This is where the Age of Sail thing really takes over. It works out that Darkspace is filled with dark matter, which flows and creates "winds" that ships can sail on. It also collects in places and creates dangerous "shoals" that ships can founder on. So it is really close to real life travel on the high seas circa the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. The ships are actually three masted (sticking off the sides and top of the ship one hundred and twenty degrees apart) so you get people actually working the masts. The best of the crew are referred to as "topmen" because they handle the highest sails. Add in the fact that dark matter causes shots to curve and drop like what would happen when firing a normal cannon on planet Earth and if it wasn't for the loss of oxygen and need for suits, you'd never know you weren't in a real world naval battle two hundred years ago. Sutherland did some serious research to write this novel and it shows. I don't know that John Paul Jones could have wrote a more accurate and entertaining account of combat at sea than Sutherland has.

Alexis Carew is not a character for the squeamish or for those of you who will rise up screaming about political correctness and strong female characters. Alexis is a teenage girl with a girl's smaller physical frame and more powerfully displayed emotions. She also starts out stuck on a world where she cannot inherit her grandfather's lands and political power due to her gender. That's why she takes to the stars. She is strong, proud, smart, tough and brave. Her guts get her through when nothing else will. l wanna buy this chick a drink, only I can't because she's too young. Also because she doesn't really exist, but nobody's perfect.

Alexis finds herself in a world where she is doubted by the provincials that she has chosen to protect. She puts them all to shame, not with her words but with her actions. This is a woman that I would gladly follow. She has the grit, the determination and, above all, the intelligence to lead a crew into their duty. That's not to say that she's the nicest person ever. Her job is to fight wars and wars are fought by killing people. It's that she understands her job and that mistakes on her part will cost lives on her side. She is also forced to accept that doing the right thing will sometimes lead to the deaths of her "lads". I won't say she's happy about it, but she doesn't shy away from it. Well, for the most part.

This is a series of books that goes much further toward showing the true costs of war on the people that survive it than anything else I've read. Alexis looks the horrors of war straight in the face...

And blinks.

Hard.

It almost ruins her. She struggles with the guilt of giving the orders she had to give. She feels the weight of every crew member she loses in combat. That's not a small amount, especially for such a young girl. She attempts to balance some of the losses against some of the lives she's saved, but it's not easy. There may be a bottle involved...

It gets ugly.

Let's face it though. War is ugly. What war does to people is ugly. This is a fairly accurate depiction, which means it's going to be ugly. Kudos to Sutherland for the hard work he put into creating a character that acts the way she really would. And no, I don't say that because she's a girl. Men act like this too and it's time we acknowledged the cost. 

There are six books to this series so far and I've read them all. Of course, I would read more but there aren't any more to read and I find myself somewhat vexed by that. Now, it happens that Sutherland had a somewhat rough 2020 (he's err... not the only one by the way) and didn't get any novels completed last year. I'll give him a pass because 2020 was pretty terrible, but still I've subscribed to his newsletter and I keep hoping to see an update about a new novel coming soon. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm confident that it will. The ending of the last novel lead me to believe that more was coming and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Cutlass Blades

Into the Dark/Mutineer/The Little Ships/HMS Nightingale/Privateer, The Queens Pardon
J.A. Sutherland
Self published, Various Years

The Alexis Carew Series is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage of your purchase at no additional cost to you.

Nathan Lowell's The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper

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Listen folks. I have, indeed, been known to wax poetic and speak eloquently (in my mind at least) about works of fiction with major space battles with huge body counts, gigundous missiles and massive blowuptuations that render entire star systems into piles of spare parts. I have praised authors for their talents in describing battles and the bonds of those who fight side by side. Let's face it. I like that stuff. Having said that, there is room in science fiction and fantasy for works that don't center on  violence and it’s practitioners. A world where a peaceable man can do his best to make a buck by honest trading and working his way up the ladder and across the space lanes. A series that takes an honest look at the people who sail the high seas in the real world, only putting the story IN SPACE so we’ll all read it.

Nathan Lowell has written that story. It’s called The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper.  It’s a really awesome series about a guy named Ishmael Wang and his journey from a raw youth just trying to survive to a ship owner (and no, that’s not really a spoiler when the title of the last book is Owner’s Share). It’s a story of personal struggle and sacrifice and love, both between and his ship, a man and space and a man and a woman. 

The series was recommended to me by a good friend with similar tastes in books, but I was still a bit skeptical when I found out that there were really no battles, no derring-do and nothing a hardcore action junkie would expect. It turns out that I was dead wrong to be concerned. There is plenty going on here. It’s just non-violent. Seriously, one of the most important moments in pretty much every book in the series is the first time Ishmael makes coffee. Yeah, I know that sounds lame but it’s true. When the coffee starts brewing, so does the story. Trust me here. It works.

The story is richly woven and surprisingly well rendered. It’s weird how little of this series I was able to predict and how much sense it made. Nothing went quite the way I wanted it to but I was happy with how things turned out. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s true. This series would have gone very differently if I had written it, so maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t. Lowell finds ways to make things work that make tons of sense after they’ve unfolded. It’s pretty obvious that he spent a lot of time planning and editing to make it all work, but it had to have been worth it for the story to turn out this well. 

Of course, Ishmael isn’t alone in his mad dash (or slow poke) across the stars. He has friends along for the ride and maybe one or two people he just doesn’t seem to get along with. The friends all serve a useful role in the story and the one or two enemies may serve a bigger one. Watching who a man associates with is always useful in telling what kind of person he is, but seeing what he’ll risk himself to oppose may tell you more. Ishmael Wang is the kind of guy I sometimes wish I could be. He does the right thing even when it may technically not be the smart thing. This is one character I can respect.

Ishmael’s first friend is a fellow youngster named Pip. Pip is unstoppable, irrepressible and just a fun dude. He comes from a long line of spacers and knows more about interstellar trade in the  Golden Age series than anyone besides Nathan Lowell, who probably spent a long time thinking “I wonder what Pip would think” while trying to make his universe work. Pip’s ideas are not conventional, but they seem to work and it’s weird how well that mimics some of the things I’ve studied in history classes.

You have to really read the series to get a sense of the character arcs present. Along the way, things move kind of slowly and you never quite notice how much our heroes are changing. But then you finish Owner’s Share, the last book in the series, and reflect and it’s just like “Wow, how did THAT KID do THAT?!?!?!?!” I mean that in a good way though. It makes sense if you followed the story but when you try to consider it all together it’s just like “WHOAH”.

Uh-oh. Lowell quotes famous works of literature throughout the series and I just quoted Joey from the 90s sitcom Blossom. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be very proud of me right now. Whatever. I loved that show when I was in the right age bracket for it to be relevant.

At any rate…

The method of space travel as described in the Golden Age series is not at all reminiscent of Trek  or Wars or anything else you’ve read. The term space clipper really does apply here because there are elements of technology that were common during Earth’s Tall Ship Era that are in play while traversing the stars. Throw in a bit of jump technology ala Battletech and you’ve got a pretty close match for how things work. It was fun and the fact that it takes a bit longer to get places than it would in many other franchises works given the internal logic of the setting and also helps set up some things that wouldn’t make sense in other universes. Longer trips provide more opportunity for tension and thus drama and entertainment.

My only complaint really is that Nowell likes to start off each book with a line directly lifted from a literary classic that is no longer subject to copyright. This threw me for the first couple of books, but once I got past the first sentence I was good. Most of the other literary quotes throughout the books are spoken directly by Ishmael (his mother was a literature professor) and make sense, but those were a bit weird. All in all though, if my biggest complaint is about six sentences in a six book series, I suppose I should get over myself. Oh, and if the lack of action has made you feel put off of the series, just trust Lois. And if you don’t know what that means READ THE BOOKS.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Precious Cargoes

Quarter Share/Half Share/Full Share/Double Share/Captain’s Share/Owner’s Share

Nathan Lowell

Durandus, various years

The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper books are available at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage of your purchase at no additional cost to you.

Vanessa Ravencroft's Eric Olafson: Midshipman

(First a bit of housekeeping. I've started a Facebook group for this blog. Please join and tell your friends!)

I love a good space opera. It's pretty much impossible that I wouldn't. I mean, I grew up on Star Trek: The Original Series and then got into every iteration that came after. It's in my blood. That much being said, I'd like to say this: Thank you, Vanessa Ravencroft, for upholding my faith in my favorite sub-genre of Science Fiction. Seriously. Eric Olafson: Midshipman knocked it out of the park. I'll get to why in just a bit, but for now the disclaimer:

This is the eighth book in the series. I was able to follow 95% of it easily. It was all entertaining. I'm really only mentioning this because I know some people (and I happen to be one of them) prefer to start a series at the beginning. If you're looking for book one, it ain't here. If you're looking for a rollicking good time though, look no further. This one owns it.

Eric Olafson is not your typical midshipman/cadet. He has decorations that many senior officers don't, including the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  He seems to be beloved by just about every race of aliens in the galaxy, including the mysterious ones that no human seems to understand. And believe me, no one who is not a Narth really understands the Narth, but they love them some Midshipman Olafson. Seriously. That's really cool though because we get to see all kinds of alien races. With apologies to the Honor Harrington saga, the best Space Opera always includes aliens. Trek, Wars, Green Lantern, etc. It's an old tradition and it gets carried on here.

I want to praise Ravencroft for something else as well: Many authors have characters that are either gay or have some kind of weird gender but very few get it right. Ravencroft does. EO:M is a story about a person named Eric Olafson who has two genders (I may be describing this wrong, I'm not an expert on the subject) but the story is about his second and third years at the United Stars Naval Academy. This is not a story about someone having a mixed gender, it is the story of a mixed gendered person. It's a good story. Very rarely have I seen books with mixed gender and/or gay characters that actually managed to tell a good story but Ravencroft pulled it off. Kudos to her.

There is something else that works with the whole mixed gender thing. Eric thinks that no one knows but everyone does. They just don't care. He's in the closet for no reason. I like that. Most people have no problems with a person being mixed-gender and/or homosexual in today's society. A lot of the supposed transgressions committed by those of us who are not gay (although certainly not all) are more a matter of the way things are perceived. Ravencroft seems to get this.

The story of Eric Olafson: Midshipman focuses on the titular characters second and third years at the naval academy. Olafson and his friends get into more trouble than the Harry Potter gang. Really. These guys could walk into a Kool-Aid tasting and walk out with a collection of black eyes and scalps. It makes the book fun. If you're looking for action look here because you'll find plenty.

Olafson alternates between extremely humble and a take no shit attitude. It fits though. I want to know how Ravencroft pulled this off. One minute, Olafson is like "Aw shucks" and the next he's like "Yes, I am an officer and I earned these medals. Follow my orders, dammit!" It's impressive.

The book offers several interludes. These switch point of view and location of the narrator. This is a good thing. This is the exact technique used by just about every movie or TV show ever. More authors should do this, because it gives the reader a much better understanding of what is going on in the wide world without necessarily informing the main character or something he doesn't need to know. And let's face it: We all love to squirm when the MC acts without knowledge that we have as readers/viewers. It just works.

Some of the gadgetry in the book is just plain cool as well. Every Space Opera ever (I may be exaggerating) has a device that produces a pressed uniform on command, but only the Galactic Chronicles has a device that will put your outfit on you. The power armor in the book includes rockets so that Marines can work/fight in space. The list goes on. I like SF doohickies. Chalk this one up as a win.

I'm confused though. This book is clearly labeled as eighth in the series, but there is only one other book available. I want a chance to read the rest of these books and I'm willing to pay for them, but I can't. That's frustrating. I want to give my money to read the books. This should be a fairly easy thing to negotiate. I mean, I know some authors get frustrated with the whole "Shut up and Take My Money" thing but damn. Where are the other seven books?

While I'm kvetching about things that have nothing to do with the story... I received this book as an ARC for review in e-book form. Yet, when I check Amazon I don't get a link to an ebook. I have nothing against a hardcopy release but I'm confused. The work has already been done. Why is there no e-book available? It seems to me that she'd make more money selling both for whatever that's worth.


My only complaint about the actual story is one that has been made over and over about heroes in stories. Olafson is way too good at, well, everything. He doesn't seem to have a weak spot. He out battles one of his friends who comes from a race that is supposedly invincible in hand to hand fighting. He commands the biggest starship in the fleet on his first day as a cadet and gets through his first combat almost perfectly. He boards another ship in combat and comes back alive and victorious. I mean, this guy couldn't mess up if he tried. Oh, and he's a diplomatic wiz too. The various alien races in the book all recognize Eric as one of their own, even though he is clearly human. Overall though, the story was awesome and the flaws forgivable.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Auto Dressers

Eric Olafson: Midshipman
Vanessa Ravencroft
Createspace, 2017

Eric Olafson: Midshipman is available at the link below:

Hugos, Puppies and Left Wing Whiners

For the second straight year a Hugo Controversy has erupted. This is the fourth iteration of the Sad Puppies movement, the second year of the Rabid Puppies and yet another year of many when SJWs and other assorted vermin thought that they had the right to lock anyone out of their awards if they didn't have the right, by which I mean Left, politics. Here's the funny things: As nerds and geeks we don't give a rat's ass what you think about us as people. I've been called names since before I knew there was a Right and a Left. I'm used to people like you and the bullshit they spout. Bring it.

Look guys, we tried being nice. Yes, for Sad Puppies One, Larry Correia got himself nominated because he knew you would all freak out. You did. Then came Sad Puppies 2. Correia decided he would nominated one work in each category based on entertainment value instead of Social Relevance and you got a little more pissed. How dare this misbegotten son of a conservative and his flea-bitten followers violate your safe space. And then, Sad Puppies 3 appeared over the horizon.

Sad Puppies 3 had a new leader. Brad Torgersen appeared over the horizon and he wasn't screwing around. This time he accepted suggestions from others for his list and came up with a bunch of nominees in most categories. He had the temerity to suggest that people read what was on the list and make their own decisions. You Leftist types were outraged. I get it. Free thought is anathema to those of you who wish to control decisions. How can the rest of us be forced to think as you do if you can't control the information we absorb? I get it. It was an approach that worked for Stalin, Mao and Hitler and now the Left in the United States wants to use the same approach. This is just one battlefront.

I've written here about the types of tactics the left is using in the United States and who pioneered them. TL:DR Berntards and Black Lives Matter types are using the same techniques Mussolini and especially Hitler did by committing violence to their enemies and attempting to rewrite history. And no, the SJW types in this country haven't quite burned the books that they hate, electing so far to either rewrite or ban them. I'd give even money as to what tomorrow holds. Make no mistake, the SJW types that want to ban alternate political views from their awards are using the same techniques.

Here's the thing folks: It is not possible to compromise with totalitarians. The only workable options are to rebel or submit. I choose to rebel. It's time to burn it all down. If you believe you're too good to share your awards then maybe you don't deserve to have them. What is happening here is not just a fight over awards, it's a fight over the only type of diversity that matters: The diversity of ideas. 

The Puppy Kickers would have you believe that we are the Nazis. Not so. Irene Gallo was one hundred and eighty degrees away from the truth. Let me tell you a story to illustrate my point:

Once upon a time there was a man. He believed in a cause. He railed against social injustices carried out by a race of people that controlled the money, the power, the press and even international banking. He blamed them for all of society's problems. He believed that the lives of people like him mattered and the lives of those he hated did not. He banned all ideas except his own and banned "degenerate" works. In other words, he removed the right of anyone to disagreed with him.  His name was Adolph Hitler. Although he is best known for hating and killing Jews, they only make up six million of the twelve million people he murdered.

As a matter of fact, when the concentration camps first opened, they weren't meant for Jews or Gypsies. The first people put into the camps were political prisoners: Those who committed the crime of disagreeing. That's why the gates of Auschwitz read "Arbeit Macht Frei." That translates roughly as "Work will make you free". The Jews weren't going to be released and everyone knew it. The point of the sign is that the political prisoners could eventually make it out... if they did as they were told and didn't step out of line. That's pretty much what the Puppy Kickers want from us.

Look, I'm not saying that the gas chambers are about to open for conservatives or that it's the Puppy Kickers who would do the gassing if they did. What I'm saying is that creating a precedent of banning people from things because they disagree with you is a dangerous step to take but it's one that WorldCon seems incredibly comfortable with. Refusing to vote for someone who deserves an award because of a possible political association between them and the people who nominated them is a symptom. If the Kickers want totalitarianism and unity of thought they're welcome to seek it, just not in my country or my genre.

The next question then becomes what to do with Vox Day because, let's face it, he's no different than the people that he hates. The SJW types and Vox want a war with each other with us caught in the middle. I say a pox on both of their houses. We're SF fans right? How many of you have read The Ashes series by William W Johnstone? In one of the books, and I can't remember which one in particular, Rebel leader Ben Raines is faced with fighting a group of white supremacists one on hand and a group of white hating blacks on the other, so he does the intelligent thing: He incites a fight between the two groups. He lets them kill each other. When they're too hotly engaged to effectively disengage from each other he cuts loose with the heavy artillery and kills both sides. I'm not advocating actual physical violence here, but if the two sides want to metaphorically beat each other to death it's only smart to let them. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy and nothing more, yet there is an opportunity here. Let them burn each other out. Once we've cleared the field of both sides we can help pick up the pieces and support stories that entertain rather than "inform."

Listen people, I have a degree in history. I understand the importance of academic presses and their mission of increasing the knowledge of humanity. The fact remains that houses like Baen, Tor and even Castalia do not exist in that capacity. They exist to entertain a mass audience, not to support one side or another politically. The big publishers in the genre keep complaining about how their market is shrinking even while Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Deadpool break box office records. Pull your head out of your ass people: Make the genre fun again. Make the award fun again. That's how you'll attract more attention and more readers. That's how you'll expand the genre. That's how you'll make more money for the dirty capitalist business owners that sign your royalty checks and provide you with the means to feed your family or at least live more comfortably. It's time to get over yourselves people.


Some Hugo related items can be purchased below:

Joseph J Madden's The Starhawk Chronicles

Some say that all Science Fiction should be in the form of a Spaghetti Western. I'm not convinced that it's a necessity, but when  it's done right it's a sheer joy. The Star Trek franchise was, after all, created by Gene Roddenberry who had written for many Westerns before turning to SF. When he redid the pilot, he was told to make it a Western in space. So, if you're Joseph J Madden, there is probably nothing better that you could emulate. The Starhawk Chronicles is in many ways an emulation, yet it stands on its own.

This is Space Opera done right, with heroes we can admire and villains we can hate. There is no moral ambiguity, no whiny melodrama. Yes, the heroes are given an extermination order when they track down the villains but it's well deserved and they don't waste their time mooning over what is necessary. Of course, it helps that they have a score to settle and that just adds to the fun.

This is the first in what promises to be an excellent series moving forward. Madden has lain the groundwork for an epic adventure. The crew of the Starhawk, led by Jesse Forster, aka Captain Kid, is a group of bounty hunters. They lost one of their own last time out and they're not happy about it. (Un)fortunately, their prey, the dreaded Nexus Gang, has escaped from captivity and slaughtered a bunch of people in the process. Now it's time for another, bigger showdown. Both sides know that neither is going is going to give. Add in a crooked politician (Boss Hogg anyone?) and things get interesting quickly.

Add in the surprise appearance of a freelance bounty-hunter after the team is assigned the case and a big plot twist and things build even further. I hope I'm not spoiling too much, but she's a woman and Forster is a man, and this is a Space Opera... Ok, I'll let you figure it out from there. Say what you will, this is Space Opera and this needed to be there.

When the Nexus Gang returns to the scene of the crime, things get crazy fast. Some of this was a little bit stomach turning as the violence ramps up and gets a bit graphic, but that's to be expected. This is a Space Opera, not a knitting manual. (And let's face it, any knitting manual I bought and tried to follow would probably end in blood as well.) More importantly though, Madden worked my heart strings. By the time things came to a head there was no doubt in my mind who I was rooting for and why. The Nexus Gang was made up of bad people of various species, this is a Space Opera after all, that did terrible things. I wanted to hate them and I did. Our heroes have been wronged, but they're not a bunch of sniveling victims. They're out for payback and they're determined to get it, come Hell or high water.

The hand to hand/blaster to blaster combat is solid. It's Old West style ala Gun Smoke or The Rifleman. Quickdraws, fast escapes and sudden rescues rule the day. And, if we get an old school TV Trope there is a good reason for it. Let's face it; If something becomes a trope it's because it works and it works here. Every good book needs at least one "Oh shit!" moment and this one delivers.

The best part of any Space Opera is the ship to ship combat and it's well done here. Action abounds. There are no unexplained miracles. It's well thought out. Things go boom when they should. An outclassed vessel is legitimately outclassed with no miracle weapon to save it. It's up to the crews brains, guts and luck to see them through.

My only real complaint about this book is that it's a little predictable. Tropes are good. They're like comfort food when you're reading. Sometimes though it can be a little overdone.  The love interest angle could not have been telegraphed any better by Western Union. The ending is a typical Western trope also, granted that it's one that I love and that was totally fitting to the ending, it was still exactly what I expected in general even if I wasn't sure exactly how the details were going to work out.

Also I have to wonder why The Starhawk Chronicles is the name of the book and not the series. I really shouldn't say much as I fight with putting a good title together for my own work but I found it a bit confusing. I guess it worked for Star Wars as well, but I couldn't help but get confused. I was looking around for the actual title of the book for the review, not realizing that I already had it.

Having said that much, I really enjoyed this book. It was good to kick back with a Rock-em Sock-em good read and cheer for some people I could really get behind. I'll be looking for more from Mr Madden, starting with his upcoming sequel: The Starhawk Chronicles II: Rest and Wreckreation. That sounds like my kind of carnage. I hope I get to review that one too.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 DNA Samplers

The Starhawk Chronicles
Joseph J. Madden
Self Published, 2013

The Starhawk Chronicles is available for purchase here:

Clusters: Case of the Missing by T.M. Williams

Just a few days ago I posted a request for some help finding some research materials for one of my current WiPs. I was almost immediately told that I should do my own writing and not write at all if I didn't have an imagination. I took the criticism in stride and did my best not to get all butthurt about it. The thing is I know that research makes better novels from my experiences as a reader. I won't speak for T.M. Williams and where she came by the same knowledge but she obviously knows the benefits of research because Clusters: Case of the Missing is not only well written, it's also well researched. More on that in a minute. It is also a highly entertaining SF meets detective novel cross-genre mash up that just kind of works.

Our story is about a reporter - Ethan "Call me Franco" Franco- who starts out writing a story about a local disappearance and ends up trying to figure out why they are so common. Along the way he works with a cast of characters, one of which ends up missing and presumed dead. He faces the typical reaction of families with recent losses toward reporters. William's attitude is a bit more sympathetic toward her character than mine was in the same circumstances but I've experienced a loss that was covered by the press. It wasn't pretty and I feel sorry for the guy who got my sister on the phone after my father drowned, but let's just say that scene hit me pretty hard. Others may not experience the scene the way I did. It's an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. In a way it actually enhanced my enjoyment of the story. In another it exposed me to a side of my own personality that I'm not real proud of. Either way it was well written and had to be there.

The aforementioned side characters are well done and act right. I was a bit skeptical at first when Franco walks up to be part of a search (and cover it in the process) because I knew what should happen the second the rest of the team found out he was a reporter and it went down just about right. The thing is, Williams used a fairly predictable occurrence to teach us more about Franco and his dedication while giving the characters around him a reason to trust him. He still had to work hard to gain the trust everyone else got but it gave them a reason to let him in. It just worked. I haven't seen many similar situations handled with the same skill or instinct. Kudos to her.

I was a bit concerned about reviewing this at first because I wasn't sure that there was a real Science Fiction/ Fantasy element to it. It was teased a little bit early but it was nearly two-thirds of the way through the book before there was any explicit SF content. I won't spoil the surprise but I will say that it is there and, while it's not quite what I expected,  it was worth the wait. And honestly, the story was worth reading as a mystery story even if it hadn't been. It's been a long time since I've really considered myself a fan of mystery stories, but if there were more like this I probably still would be.

Interspersed throughout the story are recaps of real life disappearances referred to as True Cases. Williams has placed them to enhance the story by showing us what real life case she used as source material for a given disappearance in the book. At the end are several more. They add to the X-Files like aura of the story.  I also get the feeling that I was deliberately misled by the author at one point. What I had assumed was happening was not what was happening. Once revealed the secret made sense but it wasn't what I thought it would be. That's the mark of a great mystery writer. A well placed red herring set up the rest of the story brilliantly.

There is definitely a government conspiracy at work throughout the book. It's well written and believable. Williams not only shows us the what and why but the how. Left for us to determine- and it's easy because it's painfully obvious - is the who and when people are effected. This is something we've all seen and heard of. The phrase "Conspiracy Freak" is not just a description, it's an epithet. If some things were true, pointing them out would still get a person labeled as a loony in today's society. Williams looks that potential phenomenon straight in the face and calls us all on it. I got a good chuckle from that. "The secret is out" only works if people are inclined to believe you.

Speaking of which, there is definitely room for a sequel here and I'm going to call for one. Williams hints at what the exact nature of the conspiracy is, but never goes deeply into how far up it goes, who knows what or exactly how much danger the conspiracy is protecting us from. At the end of the day we're left wondering if this is something that is going to spread outside of the National Park System or if it will stay there. Clusters reads well as a self contained novel but there is much more story to be told. More questions are raised than answered as well.


Overall there wasn't much to complain about with the book except the lack of definable SF content throughout most of it. This book was a real page turner and, if things didn't go exactly how I wanted them to, at least they went a way that really worked for the story. Williams does mention the fact that often when someone disappears there is a freak storm afterward that obliterates evidence of where they may have gone. The characters in the book speak of freak weather as being part of the mystery. They seem to believe that whatever is causing the disappearances is causing the weather. Then the subject just drops and never reappears. I was waiting for something to tie that conversation to the greater plot but it never happened. In that respect, I guess I was a bit unfulfilled. Other than that though, this was an solid book.

Bottom Line: 4.25 out of 5 Lost Hikers

Clusters: Case of the Missing
T.M. Williams
AZ Publishing Services, 2014

Clusters: Case of the Missing can be purchased here:

20th Century Fox's Firefly

The Earth has been trashed. Everybody left. Other planets were settled. They were "unified" by force. Our main character lost. Now he's an outlaw with his own ship and a crew of misfits. Nothing goes right and even when they pull off their latest caper they can't always get payment. Sound bad enough? Welcome to the world of Firefly. The weird part is that things are so bad, they're good. Well, not "good" exactly. More like entertaining.

I'm pretty bitter about the fact that this show was cancelled just as it was coming into its own. The crew was starting to pull together. The captain and the hook...err.... I mean companion were about to admit to their relationship. The mechanic and the doctor won't far away either. The preacher was about to reveal something momentous about his past (I think. I don't have any inside info, but it damn sure felt that way.) and the crazy girl was about to turn into uhh.. well, got me but it felt like something big was coming. That chick had a hint of some kind of super power to her mixed with mental instability. She was a little bundle of awesome just waiting to explode. And then... It was no more. It disappeared. The network took it off the air just as it was really hitting its stride.

This show crossed two of the all-time most popular genres in history and that's no exaggeration. The show's basic premise is SF based (interplanetary colonization/space travel/space opera) but it is influenced heavily by westerns. Some of the firearms in this show are amazing. The language sounds more late Nineteenth Century US than I would imagine the future sounding but it works. It is obvious that a ton of hard work and thought went into plotting/writing this series.

Think about it. How else do you explain a cast that includes:

A.) A former NCO (Mal) in a losing war who somehow managed to have enough money to buy himself a ship.

B.) One of his subordinates (Zoe), also an NCO, his new second in command.

C.) Her screwball pilot husband (Wash) that she hated on sight.

D.) The sellout/traitor (Jayne) that came over to their side when offered a better deal. Oh, and he also happens to be a hero on a specific planet for the weirdest reason ever.

E.) The worlds greatest engineer (Kaylee) who, by the way, has no training with engines but manages to keep things running anyway.

F.) A prostitute (Inara) who rents out one of the ship's shuttles so that she can peddle her wares all over the system. Oh, but don't call her a prostitute. She's a licensed "companion" and the most respectable member of the crew. And who manages to not battle with...

G.) The preacher (Shepherd Book) who was just starting to signs of being far more than he was letting on when the series ended.

H.) The doctor (Simon) who is on the run from the law because he stole his sister from the Alliance.

I.) The sister (River) who appears to have been a product of some type of experimental brain surgery and is apparently capable of a lot more than anyone expects. She also has an incredibly literalist interpretation of just about everything, including the preacher's bible.

Was everything about this series awesome? Not totally. In particular, the way Jayne joined the crew sounds a little too out there for me. I enjoy the Western aspect of the show, but I find it a bit far-fetched to assume that space colonists adopt a centuries old culture instead of creating their own new one. None of that is unforgivable though and it does create an undeniable hook for the show. Well, that and the fact that Big Government (in the form of the Alliance) is seen as the bad guy and guns are portrayed as what they are... Tools, usable for good or ill depending on the user.

Bottom Line: 4.9 out of 5 good, old fashioned Winchester rifles.

Firefly
20th Century Fox, 2003