Kevin McDonald's A Nation Interrupted: An Alternate History Novel

So, what happens when the Confederate Army finds out that their plans have been intercepted at Antietam BEFORE the battle, changes their plan, wins the war and the Confederate States of America becomes an independent country? How does the future change? World War I? World War II? Think about it: It took the United States and the engineers that built the Transcontinental Railroad to dig the Panama Canal. What happens if the United States doesn't do the work? What then?

ESPECIALLY World War II. What happens when the United States are not united anymore? What changes when the country that needs to save Britain isn't as big a nation and doesn't have the same population, wealth and industrial base? What happens if the United States makes a more tempting target than the Soviet Union? What then?

Those are the questions answered by Kevin McDonald in A Nation Interrupted. It's well written and, in places, terrifying. I could see this happening. He's done his research and it shows. And it's weird because a solid grasp on some of the problems his Germans would face, but he doesn't let that stop him or them. He finds a way around things the same way a real world general would have to. He makes it believable. His grasp on the effectiveness of strategic bombing is spot on as well. 

This is a book with an epic cast, although they seem to all be Americans. That works though, especially in today's day and age where many people would be offended if he had included the German point of view. It does lend a certain cardboard feeling to the villains of the piece but, let's face it, they are literal Nazis. Still and all, things may have worked a mite better if we had gotten an opposing viewpoint. 

On the other hand, it's good to see an author who doesn't kowtow to the Leftist stereotype of Americas as Nazis. The Americans in the book, for the most part, are strong, patriotic and opposed to the assholes that have invaded their shores. (Oh, did I fail to mention that the Germans invade New York city? I guess I should've mentioned that little tidbit earlier. Forgive me. It's Monday.)

McDonald pulls no punches in his depiction of Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish Question conducted on American soil. There are chunks of that part of the narrative that are quite frankly heart rending and more than just a little disgusting. That's why they work. McDonald has done some real research here. He also does his best to resolve a real-world controversy about how the Allies should have responded to the death camps. I like this. First, because it's necessary but also because his resolution matches with my own take on the issue. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that McDonald my have consumed more than one Harry Turtledove novel because A Nation Interrupted has a very similar feeling to a lot Turtledove's work without the repetitive dialogue. The shifting viewpoints, the strategic acumen and the grittiness of the characters and situations remind me a lot of Turtledove, whose work I've been reading for over twenty-five years now. I enjoy Turtledove's work and, honestly, there's not really a bigger compliment that I could pay to an Alt-Hist novel. 

Don't tell him that. He'll think I'm calling him old. Nope, the old dude in this story is moi.

Anyway...

The action in this book is intense. We find ourselves flying along with bomber crews. We find ourselves sneaking past Nazis. The tension level in A Nation Interrupted is sky high and it stays that way. This is a very quickly paced book. It builds and builds and if you you're not squirming in your seat for the majority of the end of the book you're not paying attention. There is a lot here and the possibility of catastrophic failure is never very far away. 

That's once it gets started though. A Nation Interrupted takes a minute to get started. When I first started reading this, I kind of assumed that it was the first book in a series. It's not. It's a standalone novel, but it works well that way. I do kind of feel like McDonald could have slowed down the pace a bit and given us a trilogy here though.  

There are large chunks of time skipped over with a quick overview of the progress of the war. This works because it keeps things moving and tells the reader what they need to know. It is, also, a missed opportunity in my opinion. It kind of feels like McDonald was in a big hurry to finish a story that probably could have made him a bunch more money if he had allowed it to develop further and turned it into a series.

I don't want to take this too far though. My favorite season of Babylon 5 was the fourth season. What made it so great was that J Michael Stracz...

Strazi....

Strazy...

Uhh...

The guy who wrote the series didn't think it would get renewed for its fifth season, so he condensed the last two season into one season and it was freaking amazeballs. When the action gets thick, fast, and furious my eyes light up. There was a lot in A Nation Interrupted and it happened very quickly. I liked that.

And, let's face it, there are a lot of things you can say to an author that are worse than, "Well gee, Mister, I really wish I had more of your work to read, and I would've paid to do it." It's also not like McDonald hasn't published other stuff. I definitely plan to read it. I just kind of wish that it would've been more of this story instead of a completely new one. 

Truth be told though, I'm a little bit bitter. I just read a book that went with one of my favorite books of all time and not only did I spend my whole weekend reading A Nation Interrupted instead of reviewing that, this review forced itself out of my head before I could get the other one written. I blame McDonald for it. As punishment you should all buy his book and make him figure out who to spend all of that money. That'll show him!

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Fiery Crashes

A Nation Interrupted: An Alternate History Novel
Kevin McDonald
Braveship Books, 2020

A Nation Interrupted: An Alternate History Novel 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.

A Nation Interrupted

TS Ransdell's The Last Marine: Book Three

You know guys, not much that I read honestly scares me. I mean, I've read more nightmare images of combat than I care to count. And the depiction of nightmare creatures like vampires and zombies is something I've enjoyed over and over again. Still and all, no dragon, no demon, no fireball casting wizard, no flesh eating zombie or crazed alien hits as hard as this TS Ransdell's The Last Marine: Book Three. This is the kind of book that will keep me awake at night. 

See, the thing about The Last Marine, both as a series in general and when dealing with the third book in particular, is that it's exceedingly possible. This is a story of the American government turning on the American people. It is a story of a so-called "liberal" government that forces its agenda down the throats of the people it supposedly serves. It is the story of  a population that believes what it is told and that everything its government is doing is for the greater good. In book three, the government has seized majority control of the narrative both online and on television in the form of the Office of Balanced Media. 

This is a story of government run amok. It is the story of patriotism being branded as extremism, former and retired members of the military being branded as security threats and children taken from the homes of parents who believe in freedom. It is, in short, the story of what the United States turns into if the extreme left gets their way.

What makes Book Three (and please allow me to voice my wish that the books had more creative titles, but that's all there is.) different from the first two is they were based heavily on recollections and flashback. The primary subject of those books was the Sino-American War (which obviously hasn't happened in the real world) and the way the American government turned its back on its own veterans. They were horrifying and indicative of a particular worldview (which I happen to share, for what it's worth.) but removed in a way from the concerns of the average American. Not so, Book Three.

Book Three is a story that takes place in rural Arizona. Many of the main characters are, themselves, veterans, but most of the side characters are not. The effects on the man in the street are obvious. So are the effects on their children and spouses. In the world of The Last Marine no American goes unaffected. Most suffer. Some profit, especially those with government connections. At the end of the day though, freedom suffers.

Ransdell's Amazon bio states that he has an MA in History. I believe it. I wonder if, and how closely, he has studied Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom. I would guess that he's studied it quite closely, given how closely The Last Marine follows Fromm's thesis: That true freedom comes from freedom to (freedom to speak one's mind, own a gun, conduct one's business with a minimum of government interference) as opposed to freedom from (freedom from hunger, from medical bills, from offensive speech, from global warming, from exploitation by the rich, etc.)

There's more to the book than just the politics of course. The characters in The Last Marine are all easily believable and that just makes it more haunting. Whether it was a corrupt government official, a non-corrupt government official who turns a blind-eye to what's going on around them because they believe the party line, the military veteran who can see it for what it is and refuses to get up, or just some common person who is swept up in the insanity around them, it was easy to get into the mind frame and come to grips with the point of view of the character I was reading. 

The action sequences are well written and exciting. Ransdell is a veteran of both Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I was unable to determine whether or not he ever saw actual combat but, based on the way his action scenes read and how easily things go wrong for the aggressor, I wouldn't be surprised if he had. Either way, things moved quickly and held my attention well. Ransdell is a bit graphic at times, but it's combat and it needs to be graphic. This is not a Berenstain Bears book, it is the tale of a war.

Just in case I haven't made it obvious enough (and Lord knows I've tried.) Ransdell's worldbuilding is amazingly well done. The United States he has constructed feels like it exists. The characters live and breathe, but so does the setting. Ransdell placed the vast majority of Book 3 in rural Arizona. This makes sense as his bio indicates that he's from Arizona, so he knows the place well, but it's more than just getting the details right. The Last Marine is a truly immersive experience. I've never been to Arizona, but I almost feel like I've driven those streets and eaten in those homes. 

The rise of FedAPS, the Federal Agency of Public Safety is, in many ways, reflective of the rise of the SS in Nazi Germany. Scarily, it's also not that far off from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the United States that actually exists. The majority of people in pretty much any time and place will accept the creation of a government entity if they believe that it is meant to protect them from a threat. What that threat looks like changes based on time and place, but the basic drive does not. Mission creep (the Office of Balanced Media is part of FedAPS, as is CSS, the national department of Child Safety Services) is something that exists in the United States now and has since...

Well...

Uhh...

I'm honestly not sure when it started, but we've got it now and it's been around a lot longer than I have. 

Anyway, it's a concept that has a place in any realistic depiction of the US government, and realism is what makes this series so creepy. 

Ransdell has not released any information about whether or not there is another book coming, but there better be. The fight is just getting started. There is a long way to go and it looks like the rebellion is just getting started, assuming FedAPS doesn't snuff it out. And, while it's small enough that the rebellion could fail, I don't think Ransdell would do that to his series or his fans. I'm waiting for the next book (im)patiently. We'll see where he takes it from here.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Head of Stolen Cattle

The Last Marine: Book Three
TS Ransdell
Self-Published, 2022

The Last Marine: Book Three is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and purchase 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,

The Romanov Rescue by Justin Watson, Kacey Ezell and Tom Kratman

 

There have always been times in history where things didn't go the way they should have. Sometimes it's a matter of luck. Sometimes it's a matter of bad actors. And sometimes, sometimes, one or two moments can lead to the slaughter of millions. One of those moments happened in Russia in 1918. The Bolsheviks, led Vladimir Lenin, seized power from the Russian monarchy and, as Leftist governments always do, proceeded to slaughter millions over the next several decades while simultaneously subjecting anyone who voiced an unapproved opinion to at least Cancel Culture and possibly imprisonment. But here's the thing: It didn't have to be that way. And The Romanov Rescue by Tom Kratman, Justin Watson and Kacey Ezell shows an attempt by Tsarist elements within Russia to end Communist rule only months into their reign with the only symbol that could have been adequately used against them; The Romanovs, Russia's royal family.

There is a lot to The Romanov Rescue and I loved the complexity of it.  The authors gave us interpersonal conflict, military conflict, lots of challenges to solve, plenty of action and just a touch of romance. It's all there. The characters feel real. The conflicts that started the mess contained within the pages (IE World War I and The Russian Revolution) both actually did exist and seem to be, as far as I can tell from my limited research into both, dead on. (Now some history professor is going to read this and argue with me about the spelling of a city's name when the original name was written in another alphabet. You only think I'm joking.)

Something that you can appreciate in a tome like The Romanov Rescue is that all three authors are military and this is, like most Alternate History, a work of military fiction. Tom Kratman and Justin Watson are both retired Army officers and Kacey Ezell is a currently serving Air Force chopper pilot and a Major, last I heard. I get complaints from military people on occasion, upset about the lack of a true military feeling in works of fiction written by people who haven't served. You will not have that problem here. These are people who have been there, done that and gotten the t-shirt. When you crack this bad boy open it's going to be the real deal.

It occurs to me that I'm kinda because I didn't review this book for my annual Memorial Day event, but I suppose I should just get over myself.

Something I really like about The Romanov Rescue is that it's not just a shoot 'em up novel. I mean, you get some combat, but there's more to it than bullets and  blowuptuations. We get a good look at what it was like to plan and train for an operation at the end of the Great War. From the construction of ranges, to feeding the troops to finding horses and donkeys to haul stuff around while keeping them healthy and on and on we see the real side of things. Yes, the troops who do the shooting are important but so are the people who get them the guns and the bullets to shoot with. The authors have done a terrific job of making sure that all gets in here. That's not to say that the book bogs down. We get to be in on a few of the discussions and get a solid idea of what's needed to pull the mission off, but we don't have to watch all the paperwork get filed.

I spoke a bit about interpersonal conflict earlier, but TRR features a lot of inTRA personal conflict too. Some of the characters aren't sure about their assignments. Others think their assignments might be changed in a way they find objectionable. It's part of the life and it's in there. It also adds a lot to the characters because members of the military, regardless of whose military, are not simply automatons that follow their programming. They are actual flesh and blood human beings with likes, dislikes and qualms. Yes, the physical challenges are real. The mental challenges are no less real.

It feels weird typing thins, but I'd recommend The Romanov Rescue to any military historian out there. It's not for the works scholarly value but for what it reminds us all of: That people who serve in the military really are people. That's a point that frequently gets lost in historical writing where, at best, you might talk about one or two generals as individuals. Reading something like this every now and again is both a brain massage and a reminder to keep those people in mind. Oh, and war does make for strange bedfellows. I'm just sayin'.

The action sequences tend to be short, sharp, and violent and that's just how I like them. Some of the action takes place as part of training and functions as both entertainment and a warning that training to do dangerous things is in and of itself frequently dangerous. A bit of overt gun-geeking does take place, but in a book about a military operation, it fits. We need to know what the troops are using and how it works. If I actually enjoyed the discussion well, the point of reading the book was to enjoy it, right?

In short, I'd recommend The Romanov Rescue to anyone who likes to read things that are fun and interesting. I mean, if The Scarlet Letter is your thing, I don't see TRR as being for you. Dull and depressing have their place in classrooms, but I like to read things that I enjoy. I found someone I could root for (and if you're not a fan of feudalism I get it, but they were fighting Communists.) I found a group of villains I could root against. I got to spend some time with some people I'd love a chance to meet, if only they actually existed. Then again, I wasn't surprised. I've loved both Kratman and Ezell as authors for quite awhile now and, if this was my first experience with Watson, I think he at least lived up to the company he was in and, from me, that's high praise indeed.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Flashbangs

The Romanov Rescue
Justin Watson, Kacey Ezell and Tom Kratman
Baen Books, 2021

The Romanov Rescue 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 extra cost to you.

T.S. Ransdell's The Last Marine: Books One and Two

Listen, I'm a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I've been an SF fan since my dad sat me down in front of a TV with Star Trek on it. Science Fiction literature had to wait a few years, because I hadn't learned to read by the age of three days.

*SIGH*

It's a failing on my part I know, but can't you cut your boy some slack?

 With fantasy, it started a little later when I first saw the animated version of The Hobbit in like first or second grade. Not my fault that time, I hadn't been exposed.

Anyway...

As a fan, there are some universes you'd love to live in. Star Trek comes to mind, although I would perhaps prefer a place not up against one of the Neutral Zones. There is no such thing as a Harry Potter fan who doesn't want to attend Hogwarts. I'm not convinced that Westeros would be my favorite place, but Valdemar just might. I don't trust Jayne, but I'd love to work for Captain Mal. And, let's face it, I'd run spice with Han and Chewie if I thought I'd make enough to make it worth my while.

But when it comes to the universe that T.S. Ransdell created for his series The Last Marine I think I'll stay home if given the choice. If. Given. The. Choice. The problem being that I may not be. See, the United States of The Last Marine is a wokesters paradise. In other words, it's a Communist Hell.

The society of The Last Marine is divided into Elites (people who have the right politics and express them in ways that benefit the Democrat Party) and everyone else. The Elites get the best food, the best drinks, the best seats on a plane...

You get the idea. It's remarkably close to the Marxist society of the Soviet Union, where the average worker got a tiny apartment and Josef Stalin got five dachas and a chauffeur driven limo because SOLIDARITY COMRADE!!!

Yeah, it's scary because it's so close to coming true.

Of course, we didn't just happen to get there by accident and Ransdell's world-building is amazing.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I hate it when I do that...

The story starts out with a young reporter trying to make something of himself. His name is Joel Levine and he has a mission: He is to interview the last known living member of the United States Marine Corps, one Sean Harris, and show the citizens of the United States, indeed the entire human race, what a bunch of violent, misogynistic, homophobic, racist baby killers the Marines were. 

And yeah, I know I don't do spoilers but this all comes out in the first chapter so it's not reeeeeeallly a spoiler right?

*WINK*

Most of the two novels are told by use of the flashback technique, following Harris's real world experiences through a war and his return home, which was not all that he could have hoped for. There are reasons for that which I don't want to spoil, so let's just say that it ain't pretty if you're a returning GI. I feel bad for these dudes and I'm not really the empathetic type if you wanna know the truth.

 Ransdell's use of the flashback, and corresponding occasional return to the present, is amazingly effective. It's like watching someone's memories in the Pensieve, ala Harry Potter, and then being able to discuss what you've just seen with that same person. He makes you feel like you were there. Harris has been through a lot, having experienced war and all its horrors first hand on top of a rotten homecoming. It's seamless.There were times when I almost forgot that I was reading a book and felt like I was sitting there WITH Harris and Levine. Spellbinding sounds like a good term. I'll go with that. It was spellbinding.

I've taken a look at Ransdell's Amazon biography and it says that he teaches, or possibly taught, history. I'm guessing this guy has studied the time period around the Vietnam War because what he's got here rings true and is reminiscent of accounts I've read written by Vietnam vets. The Last Marine has spots that are enough to make me a bit uncomfortable, so if you lived that mess go in prepared. Oh, and while we're list bona fides, let me mention that Ransdell's Amazon page states that he is a Marine and a veteran of Desert Shield/Storm. This is some slimy civilian who doesn't know what he's talking about. He was infantry and it sounds like he's been there and done that. He gets it right. 

I'll admit that I find myself wondering if Ransdell wrote The Last Marine, at least partially, out of a desire to be the guy who got to interview the vet. Seriously, I have a degree in history myself (albeit only a BA) and I've always wanted to conduct this type of an interview with a vet: Just me and him and his stories about the war. No historian wouldn't recognize the impulse, although many would interview someone from a different occupation, but still: The people who were there are the greatest primary source and Levine gets access to the last one. I find myself a bit jealous of a person that doesn't exist. I suppose I'll get over it. 

I do have one complaint about the works and it's why I decided to review both books together instead of only reviewing one: The first book doesn't really have an ending. I don't mean it ends on a cliff hanger. I mean just cuts off. It was kind of like watching a VHS and having the VCR eat the tape halfway through the movie. It really threw me. In a way, I guess that's a good thing. I didn't know I was at the end of the book and I wanted more, but it really jarred me. That much having been said, it didn't jar me hard enough to make me not want to read the next book. As a matter of fact, thanks to the magic of the internet, I got the Book Two seconds after I had completed Book One. I couldn't wait. That's a good thing in and of itself. But seriously, when you download the first one, download the second one too. It'll be worth your time and you'll be glad you saved yourself the trouble of having to pause in between. Except that there's a sequel on the way and you'll have to pause for that, because it's not out yet.

Bottom Line:  4.75 out of 5 Scarred Faces

The Last Marine: Book One
T.S. Ransdell
Self Published, 2016

The Last Marine: Book Two
T.S. Ransdell
Self Published, 2019

Both books from The Last Marine can be purchased at the following links. 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.

Franklin Horton's Borrowed World Series

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The life of a book reviewer is a hard one. See, for us it's not always the right thing to do if we want to freak out on  a new series or author we just discovered. I have a backlog of books that people have given me that they want reviewed, and if I take time out to read what I want to read, I sometimes feel like I'm letting those people down. But then I get a gift card from Amazon and I'm like...”Wow that sounds good.” Maybe it's a new author and a new series. And maybe I blow almost the whole twenty five bucks on a seven book series.

But if you're paying attention that means I got seven books for less than twenty-five dollars. They were worth it too.

And I have to admit that my discipline broke down twice here. Not only did I get a book that hadn't been give to me, but I found myself unable to review it immediately. Why? Because I couldn't manage to break away from the series long enough to write it. Seriously, pretty much all my free time for the last however long has been taken up by this one series of books.

I don't feel bad about. As a matter of fact, I'm kind of glad I did it. I'm also bummed that there are only seven books available, but whatever. I've only got like a dollar left on my gift card anyway. Oops. I blew the whole thing on one series. Ah well, I'd do it again.

So now, dear reader, I can see the look in your eyes. You're frustrated because that darn Jimbo guy won't tell you what books they are. You think I should just spill the beans already and tell you all what I'm so excited about. I find that entertaining, because the name of the series and its author are the title of this post! You should already have that information.

And seriously, how fun is it to be a blogger if you can't mess with your audience every once in a while?

Ready?

I'm talking about the Borrowed World Series by Franklin Horton. And yes, the story is about a right-wing gun nut named Jim, but it's not like that's it's only appeal. Okay, maybe that added a bit of enjoyment for a Second Amendment supporter named Jim but hey, no system is perfect, right? And his last name is Powell, so it's not like he's totally named after me.

At any rate...

The Borrowed World Series starts off with a novel named... The Borrowed World. (I bet you never saw that one coming, huh?) I don't really do spoilers, HOWEVER...

It starts off with a terrorist attack against the US and its infrastructure. The terrorists hurt us in a big way. They take down the majorityof the Grid that provides electricity to the US as well as a number of our largest oil refineries. In like an hour or so the entire country goes from thriving to screwed, althought it takes a bit for most people to realize how bad it's going to be.

Our hero, Jim, and his co-workers, Randi, Alice, Gary, Rebecca and Lois are caught in a hotel hundreds of miles from home when the Shit Hits the Fan and have to find a way home through the chaos. It's not easy. The story continues from there.

I loved this series, but it is not for the faint of heart. Horton seems to have researched his subject very well before beginning the series. It has a grittiness, a realisticness that a lot of other works lack. I can see things going exactly the way he describes them in the books. Everything from the choices Jim makes in what he puts in his bug-out bag to how he defends his home. But it's not just that. It's the reactions of common, everyday people as the whole country begins to fall apart.

A man will do what it takes to defend his family. Any parent will do what it takes to feed a child. But what if the supply of food is cut off because there is no fuel for trains or trucks? What if the power is out and the gas is off and there's no way to cook? What happens then? Horton's answer, in not so many words, is that it gets scary.

And I don't mean scary in an Eighties slasher flick kind of scary. I mean, I remember being scared out of my wits by Freddie Krueger as a kid. The Borrowed World, however, is totally different because it's so realistic. I always knew, deep down, that no badly burnt, glove wearing whackadoo was going to come to me in my dreams and kill me. Even if some psycho started chopping up kids at a campground, it would be over the FIRST TIME they killed him. It was all so easy to come down from after the show was over.

Reading the Borrowed World Series is not like that. There is absolutely nothing in the story that is impossible or even that unlikely given the circumstances. Jim and friends struggle with the bad guys and at times with each other. The bad guys really just want what the good guys want, only in most cases they weren't prepared for the inevitable collapse of society. Jim was. He's a prepper who has done an absolute buttload of work ahead of time so that when it all goes down he's got what he needs.

The Borrowed World is definitely dystopic, but it's not all bad. I'd actually refer to Horton's work as flat out superversive. Jim and friends don't have it easy, but they work together to overcome whatever is in front of them. If it seems like there's always something, that's life as a character in a book. I feel for them but I wouldn't want the story to get boring. The bottom line is that they never give up and never give in. And if there is a bit of Southern Justice along the way, then that's what's necessary. (I wonder what my odds of getting Franklin Horton and Jack July together for a drink would be?)

Oh, and don't get too fond of too many of these characters. Horton may not be George RR Martin's long lost little brother, but then again, he might be. Not everyone I wanted to still be here is still here. As a matter of fact, Horton killed off my two favorite characters. I'm not going to tell you who they were, but I think you'll like them too. I think you'll like the whole series come to that. And yes, it was worth the heartbreak.

Bottom line: 5.0 out of 5 Go Bags

The Borrowed World Series
Franklin The Borrowed World Series
Self Published, 2015-2019

The Borrowed World books are available for purchase at the following links. If you click the link and buy literally anything off of Amazon I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

Chris Kennedy's Occupied Seattle

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This is the second installation of my Memorial Day weekend binge of reviews of books written by veterans of the American armed forces and featuring the United States Armed Forces in action. Mr. Kennedy is a former Naval Aviator. He flew the A-6E Intruder bomber off of carriers as well as the EP-3E reconaissance aircraft. He flew during the Kosovo conflict and during Desert Shield and Storm. He retired after 20 years as a Commander. Oh, and yes it's more Speculative Fiction than Science Fiction, but who gives a rip? It's a good book.

(Astute readers will notice that this is precisely the same paragraph I used before I reviewed Red Tide last year, almost like it was cut and pasted. What a weird coincidence. Oh, and I just got home from church and need to leave for work in a bit so this may be a little shorter than normal. My apologies to Mr. Kennedy. I hope he doesn't mind.)

WARNING WARNING WARNING: Reading Chris Kennedy's Occupied Seattle before you have to be someplace is contraindicated. It is also a bad idea to think you'll get to bed on time while reading this one. I mean seriously, you might want to contact your significant other and inform them that you'll be missing for probably about half the time it would normally read a book. Why only half? Because you'll be so engrossed you'll be done in half the amount of time that you usually would. Yeah, it's that good.

I like the way the plot works in this one. Speaking as a dude with a history degree who has done a lot of reading of military history, a lot of crap in war happens because something weird happens somewhere. Seriously, the mass bombing of London, and thereafter Germany, during World War Two happened because a German bomber got lost and jettisoned its bomb load over a civilian area (as opposed the the RAF base it was meant for). I seriously doubt that the Pentagon would plan to repel an invasion look anything like what happens in Occupied Seattle but the scenario contained in the book is actually believable.

Equally as important to the plot of Occupied Seattle is the old adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Contingency planning is a good thing, but the other guy gets a vote in how things go too. Neither side gets everything to go right, but the plot hinges on the small things that add up to big ones. It makes sense. War is a very human endeavor and things go wrong all the time. It's good to see a book that uses that very premise.


It's not my first time noting this, and I should probably be used to it by now, but it's always surprising to read a work written by a flyboy that does ground combat this well. The combat in Occupied Seattle is fast paced and frequent. This is the story of the US repelling a Chinese invasion of Seattle. There needs to be fighting. Kennedy does it well. I mean, Asbaran Solutions is still the best written ground combat I've read, but I think Kennedy will be okay with that, since he wrote Asbaran Solutions too. And that's saying something: I'm a huge Tom Kratman fan and he's a former infantry officer. I know good military fiction when I read it, and Kennedy has the technique down.

Of course, you'll get some sea and air combat as well. Kennedy does that superbly, but that's what he's experienced with in the real world, so it's kind of what I expected. That's not to say it was done well; far from it. I enjoyed those parts of the book immensely. I just knew that I would. 

I love the characters in this book as well. Whether it's two twins trying to outdo each other, or a pilot running a ground unit, they're well thought out and make sense. No one is perfect, not even the members of the military in the book. I can think of one particular Master Chief that doesn't quite fit the stereotype too. That's okay. People are people and they don't always fit into neat little boxes.

The civilians in the book act right as well. Americans are not lemmings who would follow an invader to their own doom. They wouldn't take an invasion lying down and they don't. Oh,and of course the American citizenry has a high incidence of firearms ownership and a large number of veterans mixed in. Kennedy nails the attitude of the common man perfectly.

I remember taking a writing class in college and my professor informing me that I used too many characters. I also know I've read a ton of books that had and needed a Dramatis Personae in the back. Kennedy manages to avoid all of that. There are enough characters here to make the story work but not enough to create needless clutter.

And that's it because I was supposed to leave here five minutes ago.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 Expended Rounds

Chris Kennedy
Occupied Seattle
Theogony Books, 2015

Occupied Seattle is available for purchase at the following link:

Chris Kennedy's Red Tide: The Invasion of Seattle.

(This is the second installation of my Memorial Day weekend binge of reviews of books written by veterans of the American armed forces and featuring the United States Armed Forces in action. Mr. Kennedy is a former Naval Aviator. He flew the A-6E Intruder bomber off of carriers as well as the EP-3E reconaissance aircraft. He flew during the Kosovo conflict and during Desert Shield and Storm. He retired after 20 years as a Commander. Oh, and yes it's more Speculative Fiction than Science Fiction, but who gives a rip? It's a good book.)

You know, it's hard to say this, but I kind of wish this book hadn't been written by a veteran. Don't get me wrong, Chris Kennedy is a good author and Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle is a damn find book. It's just that when I read some of what's here (I'll explain in a bit) I'd prefer to believe that the author doesn't have a clue. I'd really like to think that it can't actually happen. When it's written by someone who has been there/done that, it's a bit worrisome on a real world level. I mean, when someone points out holes like this in our national defense I want to be able to reject what they're saying. I can't really do that when they're in a position to know what they're talking about.

Having said that, I really did enjoy this story. It's action packed and has believable characters behaving in a believable manner. I don't remember who it was, but someone posted a question on Facebook the other day inquiring as to whether or not you have to like the characters in a book to make it entertaining. My response was that a character doesn't have to be _likeable_ to be entertaining but I do have to have a rooting interest in the book. Red Tide delivers precisely that. A lot of what happens in the book comes down to people not doing their jobs right. I don't like people who don't do their jobs right. Granted, they don't really have advanced notice that they're not doing their jobs right, but when you're dealing with the national defense not knowing is no excuse. Then again, I do have a rooting interest. I'm an American. I root for the home team.

This is the first book in (I believe) a duology and I've already bought the second one. It's that good. I had to. I couldn't stop myself. Honestly, I should've waited a week because I had just spent a bunch of loot on my munchkins but it wasn't going to happen. *SIGH* I wish I could say it was the first time I spent money on a book that I shouldn't have. I love it.

Red Tide is, as advertised, about a Chinese invasion of Seattle as a distraction for their main thrust into Taiwan. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the US starts this fight off in a bad way. I don't want to give up too much, but yeah, things don't look good for my boys. That's putting it mildly.

The villains in Red Tide are actually pretty villainous while not being the type that cause unbridled hatred. They're Chinese diplomats and soldiers simply doing their jobs. Seriously. They're not the people making the decisions. They're the people following the orders. And follow the orders they do. If they might use a wee bit of subterfuge, well it is a war. That's how things go. If Sun Tzu recommended it, it probably makes sense to use it. I mean, not only is he still studied by every military on the planet, but he was actually Chinese. I get why they do what they do. I'd do the same thing in their situation.

I really like that fact. Kennedy's villains are not just cardboard cut-outs. I mean, I loved Battle: Los Angeles but the people who complained that we didn't know a lot about the aliens weren't wrong. Kennedy gets something I think a lot of authors miss: Everyone is the hero of their own story. The Chinese people in Red Tide aren't dastardly villains cackling in their lairs like Cobra Commander in a bad episode of GI Joe. They have planned well. They follow the plan well. They don't see themselves as bad people. They believe they're doing the right thing. The Americans may disagree, but the Chinese are not interested in the opinions of the Americans.

It's worth mentioning that the Chinese are as humane as they can be. I mean, it's war and people die. The fact remains that they only kill when they have to and several of the steps they take are clearly meant to avoid kill people unnecessarily. These are reasoning human beings who do what they need to do but don't do more than that. I've never met Kennedy personally but he seems to be a warrior with a respect for other warriors. I like that.

My one bitch about Red Tide is that sometimes I felt a bit like I was being talked down to. Kennedy was obviously aware of the fact that he is a Naval Aviator writing for a primarily civilian audience. Sometimes he gives a bit more of an explanation of various terms than I really feel is necessary. Maybe I'm not the best judge of this, I've read military fiction of one type or another for a few decades now and I've studied military history. Someone was actually goofy enough to give me a history degree after I wrote long papers about the security of the Manhattan Project and the involvement of the Heer (the German Army) in the Holocaust so I probably have a better understanding than most. The fact remains that there were times when I felt like I was being talked down to. If I had more time I'd try to find someone who hadn't done all the reading I have and see if they felt the same way.

Other than that though, this is a really strong story. Kennedy's military experience really shines through. There are a couple of aerial combat sequences that just work, and I can easily see why. Kennedy also seems to have a solid grasp of planning and executing an operation from an officer's point of view. It sometimes irks me that the officer is almost always the star of the story, but this time it makes sense. Kennedy himself is an officer so of course that's how he's going to write his books. And maybe I should just stop whining because the other two books I reviewed this weekend centered around and enlisted man and a mustang.

Bottom Line: 4.75 out of 5 AMRAAMs

Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle
Chris Kennedy
Self Published, 2015

Red Tide: The Chinese Invasion of Seattle is available for purchase at the following link:

Warner Brothers Ready Player One

So I went to see Ready Player One today. Fans of my blog will remember that I recently reviewed the book. This time, it's the movie and I kind of have an odd reaction to it. I'm going to try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but a lot of my reaction to the movie was based on where it differed from the book. Basically if you haven't read and seen both and you don't like spoilers...Uhhh.... I've done some other posts you might like, I guess. I'm not saying you're not welcome to read. Everyone is welcome here. I'm just saying you may not want to. Spoilers start in the next paragraph.

If Ready Player One were a standalone movie, it would have been freaking awesome. The 80s nostalgia was was again excellent, even if there wasn't as much of it. Then again, it's just not possible to fit as much into a movie as it is into a book. I get that. It was just kind of weird. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed this movie. It just felt like it was missing a lot of the background.

Actually, let me get this out of my system now. They changed A LOT of the book for this movie. A whole lot. A huge, quivering mass of lot was transformed from what it was in the book to what it became in the movie. I don't know if I can remember it all, but I'll try.

First off is the relationship between the characters. Somehow, Parzival, a lone gunter, ends up in a semi-alliance (not a clan, because "I don't clan up") in the first five minutes of the movie. In the book, Art3mis is a blogger that Parzival (he's our hero) has a thing for. At first she wants nothing to do with him. Then they meet and fall in love in the Oasis. They don't meet until the last couple of pages of the book though. In the movie, they're in each other's physical presence in meatspace for a good chunk of the movie. Daito and Sho work together for the whole book but Parzival doesn't know much about them until they get onto the scoreboard. In the movies they're all chilling on Planet Doom together at the beginning. Aech and Parzival do hangout throughout the book and the movie, so I guess that stays the same.

It's not just the relationships either, although that is probably the biggest thing. Stories are about characters. There are a lot of other differences as well. The wrong character infiltrates the IOI stronghold the wrong way. Odgen Morrow doesn't show up until the challenges are over. That's a major subplot that gets thrown to the wolves.  It drives me bonkers. Probably the biggest problem I have with the movie is what they've done, not to Wade Watts the human, but to Parzival the avatar.

In the book, Parzival is a broke-ass n00b. He has to hitch rides to low level planets to kill kobolds to make copper to try to level a little and get some coins. I really don't see how he could have paid for that Delorean. It really sucks to be him. He wouldn't last five seconds in player versus player combat in a place like Planet Doom. He's too weak and way too undergeared. For all of my WoW players out there (and others who will probably still get the reference) he's basically a level six toon in gear with no gear gifted from another toon and Planet Doom is a max-level battleground. Yeah, deadski. Game over man! Seriously. Parzival is the kind of toon that you would roll up on with your caster and kill with your staff because he wasn't worth the mana. But somehow he has a high enough level with good enough gear to go to Planet Doom to make money off the enemies he kills. The fact that he's able to level up his toon after getting the first key is a major thing in the book. The movie completely cuts it out.

Oh, did I say key? That is another huge change. In the book, the first key has been hidden for five years. No one knows where to go to get it. Parzival ditches his hangout time with Aech when he figures it out and heads to go get the first key. After he gets the first key, he has to solve the clue to the whereabouts of the first gate. He has to get to the first gate and solve the puzzle there before continuing and so on for the next two keys. In the movie everyone knows where to go to get the first key, it's just a matter of doing what needs to be done. Once Parzival gets the key, the gate appears in front of him. He puts the key in and that's it. Credit achieved. It takes a lot of the suspense out of the story. Ok, now I'm done whining.

Wow, I just realized that I totally nerd raged about a movie that I really freaking enjoyed. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

At any rate...

Viewed on its own terms, this really is a good movie. The plot moves. It's action packed. The characters are believable. I'm really getting into SF that goes back and forth between  the "real" world and the online universe. This is the type of thing that makes sense in a modern context. How much time do people in the here and now, Planet Earth, 2018 spend online? How much more time do gamers spend online? Dear lord, how much time have I spent gaming online? It just makes sense that this will continue into the future. I don't see it ever quite getting to the point that it gets to in Ready Player One but it could. With the appearance of Bitcoin, it even seems realistic that online currency would have real world value as well.

Ready Player One is visually gorgeous, except in the instance when it is intentionally ugly. I went and saw it in 3D (which I highly recommend if you can come up with an extra few bucks) and it was stunning. Seriously. Explosions, gunfire, magic, drones, mecha, it all looks wonderful. There is so much here and anything that is meant to be recognized is easy to recognize. Seriously, I saw the 1970s Batmobile, a Gundam, the Iron Giant, Mechagodzilla, you name it.

Not all of the graphics were licensed from other products either. The avatars in the movie were amazing. I-Rok was awesome. Sorrento looked sweet. Honestly, Parzival didn't but he wasn't supposed to. Being broke has its drawbacks after all. All in all though, the unique aspects of the story were amazing. I loved it.

The acting was good as well. When Wade finally got to kiss the girl I wanted to cheer for him. When Art3mis gets taken by IOI the freak out on her face looked real. If that was really Tye Sheridan in those last couple of chase scenes then that kid can take a sick bump.

All in all, this really was a good movie. Others have complained that it was too long but it needed this much time. There really wasn't anything they could have eliminated that wouldn't have made Ready Player One worse by its absence. One of my college professors used to have a saying about a story, "It needs to be like a woman's skirt, long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep things interesting." I think two hours and twenty minutes fits that description to a T. It just worked.

I may have been a bit harsh earlier as well. Although the movie does abandon many of the particulars of the book, it does retain a large part of the spirit of the book. This is still the story of a bunch of plucky freedom fighters trying to keep the corporation from taking over their playground. It still combines danger in the real world and the Oasis. It still holds your attention and won't let go. It's still a great story.

Bottom Line as a Stand Alone Movie: 4.75 out of 5 Easter Eggs
Bottom Line as a Translation of the Novel: 3.5 out of 5 Easter Eggs

Ready Player One
Warner Brothers Entertainment, 2018

Ready Player One is available for purchase the following links:



 

Ernest Cline's Ready Player One

(Author's note: I am honor bound to pre-acknowledge the fact that none of what I'm about to reference in the following paragraph has any historical value whatsoever. Ok, with the possible exceptions of two WW II Flicks, those being Tora, Tora, Tora and Midway.)  

I never thought we'd reach this point. I grew up watching movies and TV shows set in the past. You may think you know a fan of westerns but until you've met my grandpa and my dad, you really haven't met one. You may think you know someone who likes World War II flicks but until you've sat down on a weekend with myself, my father and some popcorn popped in a pan on the stove, you really don't. I'm still wondering why guys like my Uncle Bob who served in Korea never got their movies, but different blog/different day. Later came the Vietnam flicks. For some reason though, I never though my generation would get their chance. I thought that 80s nostalgia would never happen. Well, I guess I need to apologize. Ernest Cline's Ready Player One had me soaking in my childhood. It felt great.

Something I've noticed a lot of lately is the inclusion of the internet in stories. I'm a big fan of this. I don't mean just for googling or checking Facebook. I mean epic battles online, like in Nick Coles CTRL, ALT, Revolt! reviewed here,(and I really need to review Soda Pop Soldier too.) or in Cline's Ready Player One. Not only is it entertaining as all get out, but it makes business sense too. There are legions of gamers out there and this is something that's perfect for them. Seriously. I'm neither a fan nor a supporter of identity politics but I can't deny that it's cool to read a story about someone like me. I'm a gamer. When I read about other gamers, it makes me happy. It entertains me. That's the whole point of escapism right?

The kids in the book are after a prize; the world's most immense forturn.  The greatest game designer in history (James Halliday) has designed an alternative environment online, the Oasis. He charges only a quarter to buy into the environment and does not charge a subscription fee. He does, however charge for certain things online (online goods and space for people who want to create separate environments within his environment for example). When he passes due to old age, he leaves his fortune including control of his shares in the company that controls the Oasis to the person who can solve his puzzle and complete the accompanying requirements. It's not easy but many people become enthralled with the search. 

The Oasis eventually takes more and more of the time of the world to the point that many people only participate in society through the Oasis. Some (but not all) schools are conducted there. There are stores and a currency, which is listed as being the most stable currency in use. It goes so far that our hero, Wade Watts votes in the elections in the Oasis, but skips voting on real world politicians because the real world politics don't effect his life as much as the representatives that are in charge of the Oasis. In the context of the story that actually makes sense.

The part about this book that really makes it fun is the nostalgia though. Ready Player One is a celebration of all of the stuff I remember from when I was a kid. The early video games are here. (Ok, maybe just maybe it would have been more fun with more Intellivision because that's what I owned but  I didn't write it so it makes sense that it wasn't going to be perfect for me personally) Eighties music is here. Eighties movies are here. I don't want to reveal too much because a lot of the nostalgia is essential to the plot but dude.. it's everywhere. The kids in the book (and this is a Young Adult novel) are experts in Eighties culture because they have to be. The clues left to solving the mystery are based on Halliday's 80s pop culture obsession. A lot of the time in the book is kids discussing the same stuff I grew up loving. They're honestly better than me at most of the games I grew up playing, but then again nobody ever gave me a fortune for my performance either.

Ultra sensitive right wing readers may not enjoy this book. The Big Bad is a corporation bent on taking over the Oasis and increasing their profits. There is a surprise gender/race bend at one point in the book. It makes sense in a way, but if you're a right winger that is as easy to offend as the average social justice bully, you're going to get all butthurt over this one. I personally won't feel any sympathy for you, especially since the socjus entry in the book makes sense in context, adds to the story and isn't overly preachy. Your mileage may vary but don't come whining to me if it does. This is a good story with a lot of action and entertaining characters. What little bit of leftism is included in the book does nothing to diminish it to anyone other than the whiner type.

Ready Player One is a celebration. It is a celebration of the Eighties. It is a celebration of gaming. It is a celebration of the courage of a small group of people set against a huge opponent. It is a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. It is a celebration of people who are willing to come together to fight the establishment. It is a celebration of asskickery. That is fitting because Ready Player One kicks ass.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Stars

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

Dark All Day, Inc, 2011

Ready Player One is available for purchase at the following link:

Marina Fontaine's Chasing Freedom

(First off, my apologies to many people. I haven't really been myself lately and my reading/reviewing has been effected. My only excuse is that I had a roommate that kept up at night like a newborn baby and I couldn't concentrate hard enough to read or write. Follow that up with a thousand mile move, a job search, trying to learn a new job in a field I'm almost totally unfamiliar with and a reunion with my young children that  hadn't seen in more than a year and well... It happens. The good news is that I have sufficiently put my brain back together enough to be able to read more that two or three pages at a time. If you're reading this and I owe you a review IT IS COMING. Life has just been crazy lately. I apologize. Now, on with the review.)

America as we know it is dead. All of our freedoms, from the freedom to worship to the freedom to own guns and even the right to eat what we want have been taken from us. People have been forced to live in cities for "environmentalist" reasons. America is a place where cell phone time is rationed and children born with birth defects are immediately put death. Well, at least in Marina Fontaine's Chasing Freedom it is. The crazy part of the story is that it all seems so possible.

The story here, though, is not one of downtrodden people with a boot on their neck sitting quietly. There is a reason Fontaine has work published by Superversive Press.  This is the story of a fight from the shadows against an unforgiving government. It is a story of cyber warfare and sometimes outright violence. It is the story of people fighting the only way they can against a government that has them outnumbered and outgunned. It is, in its way, the story of the plucky underdog. It is also a story of sacrificing safety and wealth for freedom. Chasing Freedom also asks a question that pops up again and again in literature and in history: Was it all worth it? I won't reveal Fontaine's answer, but at the end of the day, I agree with it.

It's easy to see why Chasing Freedom was nominated for a Dragon Award for Best Apocalyptic Novel. It really moves. The characters live and breathe. I couldn't put this thing down. I read it in a day and was left wanting more. That's not to say that the ending wasn't satisfying. It was. It also made sense and was realistic which is something you don't often see in fiction anymore. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Fontaine's work.

You know that whole "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental" disclaimer that comes at the front of most works of fiction? It's there, right on page three. I just quoted it directly out of the book. I am totally not rude enough to up and call bullshit here. Nor will I make comparisons between the self-righteous absolutist attitudes expressed by politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton because then I might be tempted to point out the possibility that such things had been intentionally included and I am far too polite to ever utter such a sentiment. Of course, if someone else were to read the book and make such statements I would probably find myself unable to manufacture an argument to dispute them with, but such is life.

The characters in Chasing Freedom are amazingly well done and believable. From fighting a war, to falling in love, to having children they do what most people do. The leaders of the movement understand their roles and do what they must but never quite feel right in the role. The role players play their roles. Pretty much anyone involved in the movement suffers, some worse than others. Fontaine's cast is made up of not just characters but people. Seriously. If only he existed, I would totally sit down with Randy over a beer. Well, if I could get him away from Julie (his wife) for long enough I would.

The part that I enjoyed most about the book is not its dystopian setting, but the hope and resolve of the characters. They're face with a world where it would be easiest to go along to get along. The United States of Chasing Freedom is not the type of place to engender hope for a brighter future. The fact remains that they do. They don't give up. Nothing stops them and the horrors just pile up. Julie and Randy are forced to leave their oldest child to be raised by someone else to protect him. Another character loses a hand. KGB style torture is in common use by the US government and some break, but most don't. Friends die. Bases are destroyed. The fight continues. The characters in the work are people we could all learn a lesson from.

Fontaine's villains have motivations that, from their point of view, make sense even if, from my point of view, they don't excuse their actions. A man that participates in torture in order to provide a good living for his family is not someone I'd hang out with on a Saturday night. That much being said, men have always done whatever they needed to do to get by and torture and murder are not exceptions, even if they are despicable. The key to writing believable villains is, in my mind, providing them with not just an evil act to commit but an understandable reason for doing so. Fontaine nails it. I can somewhat sympathize with one particular villain while still considering his actions to be deplorable. It may be possible to write a villain better than that. If so, I have yet to see it happen.

I do have one complaint about the tome. We see a lot of government agents at the sharp end of the stick, but almost none at the top. Something I've always enjoyed in fiction is the Big Bad. The concept is not totally missing from CF but is really underdeveloped. The president is (appropriately) set up as the over-arching nemesis but has no "screen time" that I remember. She's just kind of out there somewhere fuming offscreen and appointing evil people. Nor do we get to spend much time with the members of the cabinet that coordinate the battle against the good guys. This is far from a fatal flaw but it does irk me just a bit. Having stated that I really did love the book. Oh, and I just bought an e-copy even though one was given to me for free. I will undoubtedly read it again at some point so it's worth it. It really is that good.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 exploding flash drives


Chasing Freedom
Marina Fontaine
Self Published, 2015

Chasing Freedom is available at the link below:

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:

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: