Cover of The Stars Must Wait Click to read full review
Keith Laumer, in one of his last books, describes a dystopian United States from the perspective of Terrance Jackson, an astronaut awoken from suspended animation after eighty years.
It’s a delicious premise. Just as the spaceship was to launch a colonization trip to Callisto, the launch was aborted with one second to go. There are about a dozen crew members aboard: a full crew and a full backup crew.
All the crew is suspended, but they awake at different times by the computer program. Meanwhile,聽…more
Review of My Undead Mother-in-law. Click to read review and listen to excerpt
Outlandish Fun
Andy Zach continues his unrelenting attack on the horror/zombie genre with outlandish humor. What will society do with the new human zombies after the havoc caused by The Turkey Zombies?!? That was a rhetorical question…so just laugh! 馃槈
Wow! I think my originality meter overflowed! This short story collection includes fantasy and science fiction. Its settings go from post-apocalyptic Mars to medieval worlds where magic reigns. There’s humor and horror, sex and violence, victories and defeats, villains and heroes. Oh, and time-travel too.
Further, many of the stories are set in the same universe and cross-reference each other. At times, they feel like chapters from the same book.
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys originality and creative use of medieval dialect as well as invented alien languages.
I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m biased here; two of my short stories are this book. So you can disregard this review, even though it’s only about the other short stories.
The Last Best Book Reviews
Doctor Doolittle’s Zoo
Hugh Lofting continues his imaginative exploration of the things the good Doctor Doolittle can do through talking to animals. This time it’s a post office run by them. In the fictional West African country of Fantippo.
As usual, the Doctor spends whatever money he gets on animals and people in need. As usual, his animal friends work together to get him more money. Hugh Lofting surprises us with an imaginative riff within his story: how about a series of short stories by animals for an animal magazine?
This was a fun listen! Sam Melvin is a reporter for a small newspaper in a small town. When people start being attacked by turkeys, Sam is on the job! As the first one to report the outbreak of a disease turning the turkeys into zombies, Sam is busy trying to find the flock and let the world know what is happening.
The story follows numerous attacks by the hoard of turkeys and the various ways that people try to fight them off. There is a little romance along the way for a few couples, even in the face of possible death. Add in the backstory of online news and entrepreneurship, a football game turned zombie fight and a great white shark and you have some great scenes!
What a wonderful window into 19th century dime novels! These three novels, ‘The Steam Man of the Praire’ 1860, The Steam Horse 1877, and ‘The Electric Coach’ are steampunk fiction when it was just science fiction. They stretched was was possible with steam and electric power into wild adventures.
The first two novels have the heroes battling warring Indians and bandits, and counterfeiters. The third features Jesse James gang as the antagonists. The heroes are boy geniuses: 15-20 years old, experts in mechanical, steam, and electrical inventions. Their sidekicks are ethnic characters: the pugnacious, drinking Irishman; the wild frontiersman; the clever free black man.
Overall, I recommend these novels for those who love fast-paced adventure without expecting too much sophistication or literary depth. Also, if you’re offended by historic racial or ethnic stereotypes and slurs, don’t read them. But if you want a taste of the 19th-century steampunk before it became old-fashioned, this collection is for you.
With the third prequel of the series leading to the Honor Harrington series, David Weber and his co-authors, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope, have written their best novel yet. ‘A Call to Vengeance’ is the most action-packed and the most riveting characters.
Lead characters Travis Long and Lisa Donnelly continue to progress within the Manticoran navy through innovative thinking and bold action, risking their lives. Meanwhile, shady politics combine with shocking plot twists, and ironic results to make this novel both tragic and comic.
Travis and Lisa face multiple antagonists, from bad guys on their own side to worse foes opposing Manticore, who compete with each other. The authors deftly portray three and four plot threads so the reader can see four points of view and anticipate the upcoming clashes.
This novel and this whole prequel series are must-reads for any fans of Honor Harrington. They portray the development of Manticore from an insignificant system to a dominant galactic power.
Rachel Aaron continues her Heartstriker series about the good dragon Julius Heartstriker and his mortal heartthrob, Marcia. Marcia happens to be a mage with a familiar spirit who appears as a glowing cat, sometimes, and a Roman soldier at other times.
Without providing spoilers to the previous books, let me just say this book is much more action-packed than the previous book with fewer dragon and human politics. Rachel reveals much more about the world and universe of magic, and world and universe ending threats.
Among her charming dragon characters are Qilin, the Chinese dragon emperor, and source of good and bad luck. Amelia, Julius’ eldest sister, dragon mage, and friend introduced in volume 2, ‘One Good Dragon Deserves Another’.
Then there’s Bob, Julius’ eldest brother and a dragon seer who sees the future and seeks to manipulate it for his own good. Interestingly, Julius is the center of all his plans.
Overall, this volume is a rollicking good ride of action and plot twists. Don’t miss it!
Once more, author Rachel Aaron has delighted me with her fifth novel in the Heartstrikers series. The premise is there is one good dragon, Julius, in the midst of the conniving, avaricious dragon race.
Here in the fifth novel, Julius must stop the end of the world–literally. An extradimensional being called Leviathan has been invited into the world and given permission to destroy it. Leviathan is a Nameless End, beings whose purpose is to devour old, worn-out planes of existence.
Julius must gather all the dragon clans to fight it. But they’ve never worked together before. Also, an alliance of Merlins must gather all the world’s magic to hurl at the beast. But it may not work.
I like Julius better in this book than any other, but I like his endlessly scheming older brother Bob even more. He thinks he’s found a way to cheat his own death.
Fans of Rachel Aaron need no convincing to read this book. If you’re starting the series, start with the first volume, ‘Nice Dragons Finish Last’.
Honor Harrington continues her derring-do against Manticorean enemies, small and great. But this novel contains several new wrinkles. You learn much more about the villains from Mesa and their nefarious schemes. There is also a major plot pivot in this story, from Haven to the Solarian League.
As usual, new technology is on display, rendering old technology obsolete. But all the new tech isn’t Manticorean–but their worst enemy now has an edge on them. But which of their many enemies is it?
I previously read this book soon after it was published. On a recent trip, I got to listen to the audiobook version.
It holds up very well as an audiobook! The voice actor performed the characters well and the atmospheric dread of impending doom came through well.
For those not familiar with Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising series, the premise is that history is a series of battles between the Lords of the Light and the Lords of the Dark. Into that is born the last ‘Old One’, as the Lords of the Light are called. Will Stanton is the seventh son of a seventh son and at eleven comes into his power as an Old One.
Throughout history, various objects of power have been made by the Lords of the Light for use at the final battle with the Dark, which is impending. Will, and then three Drew children, are used to find them.
This is a fine Young Adult series that may well become a five-star series. My standard is that the books must still be selling fifty years after publication. I’ll have to come back in 2050 and update my rating. Until then, read this series.
David Weber expands on his Honor Harrington universe. In this novel, Michelle Henke, an admiral in the Manticorean Navy, is off on a detachment to the Talbot sector. The sector recently became accessible to the Manticorean empire through the discovery of a new wormhole, the very valuable interstellar shortcut shaving weeks off distant interstellar trips.
The Talbot sector is on the fringe of the vast Solarian empire and home to corrupt Solarian officials using entire star systems as their personal fiefdoms for wealth. Further, the slavetrading Mesan system, a long-time Manticorean foe is also active here.
Michelle Henke, a superb tactician, and the cousin of the Queen of Manticore, Elizabeth III, encounters corruption, Mesan involvement, and a surprise Solarian super dreadnought fleet sent to punish the uppity Manticore Empire.
In an earlier book, a Solarian captain destroyed three Manticorean ships and all their personnel while they were at a neutral space station. Michelle destroys the cruisers with destroyers. This led to the super dreadnought onslaught.
You’ll have to read and find out how Michelle fairs against overwhelming odds and what happens next.
Mark Batterson caught me off guard with his book, ‘Whisper’. I read his books ‘The Circle Maker’ and ‘In a Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day’, and I thought I had a handle on his writing style. He writes a series of wonderful anecdotes that all tie together and illustrate each point he had to make. He did that in ‘Whisper’–and more.
The added ‘spice’ was his detail research on each point. So each point he made about listening to God’s voice was backed up by anecdotes, the Bible, and scientific research on the brain and how we’re wired. The total effect made each of his points powerful, weighty and meaningful.
If you want to hear God’s voice for the first time, or more regularly, or more clearly, this is the book for you. Mark covers the seven love languages of God and how He expresses Himself to us in them.
I rarely give any book five stars. That’s reserved for books that are still being read after fifty years or more. I gave ‘Whisper’ this rating because I believe people will still read his book fifty years from now.
Outstanding summary of the major analyses of plot structure. Author Wijeratne begins with Aristotle’s three-part story structure and goes in time order through various methods of systematizing plots to our current day.
What really makes this book interesting is how he applies the various plot structure theories to modern, popular works, like The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and Star Wars.
Writers familiar with ‘The Hero’s Journey’ and ‘Save the Cat’ will find them both in here, as well as more esoteric approaches like the Japanese Keshokentetsu.
I recommend this book to any writer of stories.
Book Reviews: The Third
Warning: This next review is R or X rated in subject matter:
Wow! Violence, assassination, sex, civil war, materialism, hypocrisy, decadence: you name it, it’s in here.
For years, I considered this the most depressing book in the Bible, but after my latest re-read, I’ve decided it’s more like a book of fulfilled prophecy. Israel sadly fulfills every negative prophecy about them in Deuteronomy and receives the promised punishment.
One new thing I learned was Israel eerily echoed Sodom and Gomorrah’s behavior of mass gang rapes at night. Another was that Israel in its first civil war copied the strategy it used against the Canaanite city Ai.
This book is NOT for the squeamish and probably would be rated R if it were a movie. If you want your children to read it, be sure to accompany them.
Read 2 times. Last read March 31, 2018 to April 8, 2018.
Wow, what a thrill!
‘Thrill Kings Fragmented Sky’ began very confusingly for me. I was uncertain who would be the protagonist for about two chapters. It took me another couple chapters before I had the main characters straight and the nature of the conflict.
Imagine a multi-dimensional universe and one scientist who’s figured out how to travel between the dimensions. Then throw in a ruthless villain who dedicated to using the scientist’s technology for his own purposes and manipulates people to get what he wants.
What confused me? The kaleidoscopic descriptions of the interdimensional traveling machines, a variation on motorcycles, ridden by humans, modified humans and aliens. Nothing was explained when or where or how I wanted.
Suddenly, in the middle section of the book, everything came together and I got swept up in the plot and the world and finished the last half of the book in one sitting. It closes with climatic, world-shaking events and delivers a thrill on every page.
Your reading experience may vary, but I urge you to patiently work through the first half of the book to enjoy the rollercoaster of the second half.
This book takes you on a roller coaster. You begin with the miraculously born Samuel, the last judge of Israel. He gets Israel straightened out, but then they reject him and God. Samuel takes it hard, but God tells him to pick out a king, Saul.
Saul is huge and humble, at first. He leads Israel to impressive victories over their foes the Philistines. Then he starts disobeying God. Finally, God rejects him as king.
God then selects David, the youngest of his seven brothers. He becomes King Saul’s harpist and then after he kills the giant Goliath, his general and chief warrior. But Saul becomes jealous.
David marries Saul’s daughter Michal and becomes best friends with his son Jonathan. But Saul tries to kill David and he flees to the wilderness. Malcontents and rebels flock to him while he flees from cave to cave. He escapes Saul and spares his life twice, finally hiding among the Philistines. The book ends with Saul and Jonathan’s death, after forty years of rule.
Book Reviews: The Sixth
Andy Zach’s Reviews聽> Living Water: Powerful Teachings from the International Bestselling Author of The Heavenly Man
In “Living Water”, Brother Yun gives an outstanding perspective on Christians, Christianity, and the church from the point of view of a Chinese evangelist who’s endured persecution and torture for forty years.
His bold vision for Chinese Christians is to carry the gospel to all nations south and west of China until they reach Jerusalem. After enduring and escaping torture, nothing fazes him, nor many Chinese Christians.
His book Living Water holds inspiration and correction for Christians of all cultures. Read it and be ready to repent.
Book Reviews: The Seventh
Andy Zach’s Reviews聽> The Bible, King James Version, Book 10: The Second Book of Samuel
Jun 05, 2018聽聽路聽聽edit聽it was amazing聽bookshelves:聽bible
David becomes king over Israel and brings harmony to his nation. He conquers neighboring countries and brings them under tribute. He brings the ark to Jerusalem, after conquering it and dances so vigorously, his first wife despises him.
Then he commits adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, and kills Uriah to cover up her pregnancy. God reproves him not for his adultery, but for killing Uriah and covering his sin.
And that’s just the first twelve chapters! Don’t miss this one: it’s packed with excitement and human drama from the beginning to the end!
The book begins with Solomon’s glorious reign and the building of the spectacular temple. Lined with golden walls inside and two hundred golden shields outside, and two massive bronze pillars stood on either side of the door.
The whole land of Israel prospered under Solomon. Yet, despite God appearing to him and speaking three times, Solomon went astray and began idol worship in Jerusalem. That spread throughout Israel and continued until first Israel and then Judah was carried away into captivity.
This tragedy began in the beauty and glory of Solomon’s reign, just as the tragedy of all human sin began in the garden of Eden. Let the hearer hear!
I have more reviews, but that’s enough (too much?) for one post!
