The Moon Run

Kathleen Contine

Review: This was really not my cup of tea. YA garbage with an amateur delivery.

Shattered Ice

Rebekka Strand

2024

SciFi

Review: Another YA novel set in a narcissistic reality.

Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is about Kaia. Yeah, someone actually went and put a twist on the often used name KAI. Yep, she did that.

Kaia likes to HIYAH! down the glacial slopes in her glacier board because it is so cool and stuff and if she could just save enough money to get in a race while buying her dad a new helmet that would be so rad. But there is evilly peeps around and she is just so mad and stuff. Like when everyone got blown up and she was so in grief and shock but people died cause of her and she will never be good enough so I cried for a long time then got better with sick friends. Not the real sick kind but cool sick.

Rating: 1.2/5

The Warrior’s Shade

Saxen Saga: Book 2

Ingrid Moon

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: Definitely a filler novel. Strung out story line of no consequence that sets up for the final conflict. One of very few novels with Young Adults that have absolutely no experience, saving the day blah, blah that I liked.

Elyon is still not believable as a character so that was consistent. Boone is constantly guilt ridden and scratching at his fuking ear scar. Check. Everyone is mostly Dr. Evil-ish meets Harry Potter. The best thing about this series is the movement and the world building.

Rating: 4.4/5

The Handler’s Gambit: Saxen Saga Book 1

Ingrid Moon

P-Date: 2023

Genre: SciFi

Review: I enjoyed this fast paced novel set in a broad universe with a myriad of opposing factions.

The C.A. want to kill Vindik. Vindik wants to obliterate Boone and Co.. Boone and Co., hate the C.A. Kind of a revenge tribangle. The Sci in the Fi is good yet the Saxen powers verge on the fantastical and take an otherwise gutsy scifi novel to the edge.

Dumbas……er, Elyon is a poorly crafted character. She has been built as an assassin from an early age and gets her jolllies killing indiscriminatly. Then all of a sudden is sullen and crwying hers wittle heart out over someone lying to her. “Oh poor wittle heartwess mwuffins, wet me stwoke your fierwy wed hair and console your bwoken heart”. Huh? Is this supposed to be the part where Elyon is imbued with vulnerabilities and empathy? Elyon is a mash up scene where you try to stuff humanity into a psychopath.

I am no writer but for believabilities sake, why not keep the psycho a psycho as that is all she has ever known, and make Boone her final transcendant reach for humanity / empathy within?

A solid novel that lost a bit in characterization.

Rating: 4.2/5

Secondhand Singularity

Rachel Aukes

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: I really am circumspect about reviewing books that friends on GRs have recommended to me. You have to be cognizant that identities may closely align with their choices in literature and that to impune a work they may be emotionally invested in, is tantamount to a direct slap in the face. This should be an innate response that purveys intrinsic respect for those people you deem worthy of consideration. It is like accepting a family members outburst because you love them despite their shortcomings. Yay dysfunction.

Long story short, a popular reviewer on GR asked me about Rachels work, Secondhand Spaceman and if she would like it. It is not Melville but it is light hearted fun, imo. Sure I may despise myself later for giving a high rating, but sometimes you have to let literary constraints fall and just enjoy yourself. So, later I read their review and phrases like “immature stream of consciousness” and “channeling your inner early teen” were some of their remarks. Wow, FU 2. Let us not forget I have bade the bad horizons adieu with this person when opinions polarize. What pains me to realize, like all my narcissistic familial burdens, is that this person was a friend in name only, does not respect anyone, and love is parceled amongst inner demands for adoration via prose.

Ah, empathy where is thy sting.

This work follows the trials and tribulations of our mighty MC. It is fun without constraint if you allow yourself to go there.

Rating: 4.3/5

Descent

Marko Kloos

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: What struck me initially was the weak reason why the MC was being held in prison. So he was a soldier in the Alliance but refused to go home, where he did his stint and gets three years? Right…. And he is a super soldier that his superiors now think is the best and only one to infiltrate the insurgents whom are defending their own planet? Huh?

I love this writer but this was a trash heap at the get go.

Rating: 2.0/5

Secondhand Starship

Rachel Aukes

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: This was a lot of fun. The author crams loads of interesting action into a novella. Had this been a full length novel, an easy 4-5 stars. But you all know my rule: Max of three stars is the highest rating a novella can receive.

Rachel, write a full length novel so we can enjoy this story for a few days rather than a few hours.

Rating: 3.5/5

Verelion

by Matthew P. Rosenberg

P-Date: 2023

Genre: SciFi

Review: Conflicted, you are. Hmmmm? Well, I really liked the world building for this alien landscape although the story line was borrowed from John Carter. Like Carter, douche noz……er Liam, arrives on an alien planet with superman like powers and helps the sundered and war torn masses, blah, blah. Despite the obvious rip-off, I thought the author did a good job building unique characters.

Overall an average work that trended towards duplicative emotional inner-dialogue. I think every chapter had the brat crying over his lost parents, either in real-time or in nightmares. Wah. “Crash this, crash that”. Fug. Repetitive instances does not a character build. Dom was also built with the tradgedies of his past. Again wah. Overuse of phrasing was in evidence with the “Rolling his/her eyes”.

This author is on the cusp. Let us see if there is a rise to greatness.

Rating: 3.3/5

Calypso

by Oliver K. Langmead

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: Is it ok that I don’t get it? A story line that is bereft of empathy, inter-change, emotion, and communication makes for inventive writing but leaves the reader empty. Emotionally wilted, our MC does not even question her surroundings and the circumstances in which she finds herself. Her motivations are purely self-centered as evidenced by her constant self-recrimination. Maybe that is natural but within this inner conflagration she will suddenly go to a moon or go to a planet and allow weird shjt to happen and then it is never given any thought again. It is like she is in a constant state of short-term memory loss.

The writer creates for themselves a menagerie of prose that is supposed to be creative/clever. In application this prose or poetical writing is perhaps intentionally vacant in hopes that it adds tension. What it really does is annoy this reader. Nothing connects. Not the dialogue, not the scenes, not the instances of exchange between people and definitely not the science part of fiction.

This is a novel of what could have been. Character exchanges were stilted and bland. Saying one word responses to serious questions does not make the scene pivotal. It is intentionally vague to mask the lack of effort it takes to weave some mystery into the work. In short, I just got angrier with every page turned.

I know I am the lone outcast not exhibiting gushing praise because I need to show everyone how connected and hip I am in understanding “eco-prose” and “lyrical” this and that while promoting drivel.

At any rate, I dug a hole for this book and buried a dead racoon on top of it.

Rating: 1.5/5

Through the Lens of Destiny

Ananth ram

P-Date: 2024

Genre: SciFi

Review: A boy and his talking dog…er, or a man and his anthropomorphic shepherd? This has been done, at least thematically, a couple of times. I just got done reading a girl and her dog hunting aliens on another planet. Does this measure up?

Kind of. This is a really short story. Maybe half of a short story. Straight forward writing style with plenty of brevity to keep the reader engaged. No irrelevant details to bog it down. Just straight to the dam point with a little mystery thrown in for good measure. Although not technically sound, this writer knows how to entertain and should seek to expand the world in a lengthier novel.

Rating: 3.3/5