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Title: KTF Part II Series: Galaxy’s Edge #17 Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Military SF Pages: 285 Words: 117K
This series is done. I’m glad. It had sunk to disappointing levels. Even here, Anspach and Cole (the authors) do their best to get rid of every “force” user and divorce this series from its space opera roots. Not particularly happy with them as authors right now.
I do have a couple of standalone Tyrus Rex novels still to read by them. I still haven’t decided if I’ll actually read them or not. I don’t have anything else to say that won’t sent me descending into a rant and I just don’t have the energy for that right now.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
IT ALL ENDS HERE.
Every decision, battle, triumph, and heartache has led the galaxy to this moment.
The Republic is spun wildly into sudden war as Gomarii slavers, in overwhelming numbers, strike on behalf of their Savage allies. The battle is fiercest on a newly rediscovered world: Earth.
But galactic war is only the symptom of an older, deeper, and far more dangerous conflict. Now Keel and Ravi must work frantically to assemble the warriors needed to withstand an ancient threat, and Prisma must wrestle to control her own inner darkness. While on the front lines, Death’s grim specter comes for Chhun and Victory Company.
For once again, a Legion stands steadfast before the void.
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Title: The Web of Spider Series: Spider #3 Author: William Gear Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 668 Words: 241K
This was twice as long as the first book and it was NOT twice as good.
This was very much a religious treatise as much as it was a science fiction “story”. There were pages of Gear using his characters to talk about neo-shamanism and how wonderful it is to serve a god who doesn’t know everything and who is both good and evil.
How anyone could find that desirable is well beyond me.
Gear also takes some heavy handed swipes at monotheistic religions, ie Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Unfortunately, Christianity is the one he focuses on and just ignores the other two.
I wanted to quit several times, but I was reading this concurrently with Neuromancer and that was so bad that I couldn’t tell if my desire to quit was because this book was really that unenjoyable or if Neuromancer was just sucking the reading joy from my life. Looking back now, its obvious to me this book WAS that bad and I should have dnf’d right near the start. One more mark against Neuromancer for destroying my senses in regarding other books.
★✬☆☆☆
From the publisher
Click to Open
THE FINAL CONFLICT!
The Sirian rebellion had proved the catalyst for the rise of two powerful new forces in the galaxy. Ngen Van Chow, leader of the failed rebellion, had fled to a distant world, establishing a base from which he would launch an interstellar holy war of destruction, a war fuelled by the discovery of a long-hidden technology which could transform ordinary men and women into fanatical soldiers of Deus.
While on the long-lost colony planet of World, the Romanans, known as the warriors of Spider, and their Patrol allies – formerly part of the military and police force which kept order among the worlds and stations controlled by the computer network of the Directorate – prepared for civilization’s final stand against this seemingly unstoppable conqueror.
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Title: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Series: June 2012 Editor: Linda Landrigan Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 123 Words: 47K
Slightly better than the previous magazine, but not by much. Weighing in at only 120+ pages, this doesn’t feel like a collection; which to be fair, it isn’t, it is a magazine. But that has made me realize that I’m not a fan of magazine length collections of stories.
Also, these really feel like reject stories that weren’t good enough for anywhere else. My bias is definitely playing a big part of that, but these stories just don’t have the verve, the snap, the creepiness that the stories in the old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents…” books had. Part of that is because the stories are trying to ape those by using the 1920’s through the 1980’s as their setting but with 2010’s sensibilities. You can’t do that successfully and none of these authors did.
I’ll read the rest of what I’ve got available for this magazine, but after that I’ll go deep diving on the dark net and dig up whatever old collection of Alfred Hitchcock’s collections from back in the day that I can find.
I guess this magazine just leaves a faint aftertaste of disappointment in my literary mouth.
★★★☆☆
Table of Contents:
Click to Open
Department: EDITOR’S NOTE: CRIME TIME by Linda Landrigan
Department: THE LINEUP
Fiction: THE SELLOUT by Mike Cooper
Fiction: THEA’S FIRST HUSBAND by B.K. Stevens
Fiction: CUPS AND VARLETS by Kenneth Wishnia
Fiction: LAST SUPPER by Jane K. Cleland
Department: MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH
Fiction: THE POT HUNTERS by David Hagerty
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
Mystery Classic: AFTERNOON OF A PHONY by Cornell Woolrich, Selected and Introduced by Francis M. Nevins
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Title: Last Contact Series: Galaxy’s Edge #15 Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Military SF Pages: 339 Words: 117K
Thankfully, we didn’t spend the entire book with the Legion this time around. But that is the only reason I bumped this up half a star from the previous book. Of course, they immediately do the following and lose that half star.
Urmo is killed by Prisma. Ravi destroys the Dark Wanderer to protect Prisma, and thus the “contract” of the higher beings comes into play and Ravi is out of the picture. Rex is dead. Goth Sullus is dead. Everything that made this Star Wars’esque has slowly been removed and this book really finishes that process. Felt very much like a Scorched Earth way to get rid of elements the authors were no longer interested in.
I am a very disappointed camper right now.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
Wraith discovers crucial intel about the threat that past The Gap, beyond Galaxy’s Edge. Meanwhile, Prisma undertakes and arduous journey and the legionnaires of Zombie Squad search for Masters.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Remains Series: Galaxy’s Edge #14 Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Military SF Pages: 281 Words: 123K
This was exactly the same as the previous book, in that we get one chapter with some of the space opera element and the rest of the book is a Legionnaires military science fiction novel. Not at all what I signed up for. So I’m downgrading my rating because I felt very generous last time. I’m not feeling that way at all any more.
Anspach and Cole made an unspoken compact with the readers in the first series. This was Star War’esque in both it’s tone and story line. That compact has been broken, most thoroughly now, by them in this second series. I wish they had never started this and once I’m done with this series, I’ll be done with them as authors.
Once again, Indie authors disappoint me and let me down. How typical.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
The Legion has landed…
The Republic world of Kima has fallen with shocking speed to the renewed forces of the Mid-Core Rebellion, and General Chhun must lead the rebuilt and enhanced 131st Legion-along with Marines, Dark Ops, Navy, and Kimbrin Resistance-onto the planet to violently check their assault.
But timing is of the essence, and Chhun can’t do it alone. Bear, working undercover, unearths the treachery of a resurgent Nether Ops still working their dark influence from the shadows. Masters has his hands full just staying alive while he evades deadly pursuers. And Keel finds himself swept up in intrigues that may make the planetary takeover of Kima all but insignificant.
The battle is fierce and hard, but VICTORY is always within reach so long as the Legion-remade to its initial purpose-remains to fight.
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Title: Through a Mythos Darkly Series: Cthulhu Anthology #11 Editor: Glynn Barrass & Brian Sammons Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 257 Words: 98K
The title of this anthology is a rip off of the Bible verse from 1st Corinthians, Chapter 13, verse 12 which starts out “For now we see in a mirror, darkly;” so I knew going in that this might very well be quite blasphemous. Thankfully, it wasn’t.
But it wasn’t that good either. I have built up my expectations about Glynn Barrass as an editor and he really let me down this time. I think a large part of that was the inclusion of a bunch of woke buzz words and ideas that shaped the stories into more political screeds than actual good story telling. Plus, several of them were using very modern terms (health care practitioner in the 1920’s, I don’t think so!) in stories where said words weren’t used that way. It just threw me out of the story every time it happened and damped down my enjoyment.
Plus, several of the stories had that “man is evil, man is a monster, man should just destroy himself to make the world a better place” mentality which has nothing to do with cosmic horror and more to do with the author’s thoughts and feelings about humanity. Which if they really believed that, they would put a gun in their mouth and blow their brains out. And we would all be better off not having to put up with their stupidity. But what they MEAN is that everyone ELSE is a monster and should destroy themselves, obviously not them!
The short story “Fate of the World” had a tie in with the King in Yellow in that Carcosa is a real place on Earth and is at war with the rest of world who are under the sway of various elder gods. But that was it and was barely there. The King doesn’t even appear. So it wasn’t what I expected or wanted.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this collection. While not egregiously bad like The Black Wings of Cthulhu, I am actually rating this lower because there wasn’t even one story that really rose above the rest. Everything was grey, mediocre pablum. That is the very antithesis of Cosmic Horror.
★★✬☆☆
Publisher’s Blurb & Table of Contents:
In this Cthulhu Mythos inspired anthology, editors Glynn Owen Barrass & Brian M. Sammons invited their authors to Take a steampunk world, fill it with giant steam powered robots, and have them herding shoggoths for the betterment of mankind. Have them rebel, and have do-gooders set about trying to free them. Fill a world with Deep Ones or Ghouls, or create a world where magic is a part of everyday life, or where America was never discovered because something kept eating the ships, or the Nazis won WWII thanks to outside influences. Perhaps the Chinese built the Great Wall to keep something out other than Mongol hordes. So, how did they do? Fantastically of course.
TOC:
Introduction (Through a Mythos Darkly) • essay by Glynn Owen Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
The Roadrunners • short fiction by Cody Goodfellow
Scrimshaw • short fiction by Jeffrey Thomas
Sweet Angie Tailor in: Subterranean Showdown • short story by John Langan
An Old and Secret Cult • short fiction by Robert M. Price
Stewert Behr—Deanimator • short fiction by Peter Rawlik [as by Pete Rawlik]
To Kill a King • short fiction by Don Webb
The Last Quest • short story by William Meikle
Fate of the World • short fiction by Christine Morgan
Red in the Water, Salt on the Earth • short fiction by Konstantine Paradias
The Night They Drove Cro Magnon Down • short fiction by D. A. Madigan
Sacrifice • short fiction by Sam Stone
Get Off Your Knees, I’m Not Your God • short fiction by Edward R. Morris
Excerpts from the Diaries of Henry P. Linklatter • short fiction by Stephen Mark Rainey
Plague Doctor • short fiction by Tim Waggoner
Amidst the Blighted Swathes of Grey Desolation • short fiction by Lee Clark Zumpe
Cognac, Communism, and Cocaine • short fiction by Nick Mamatas and Molly Tanzer
Kai Monstrai Ateik (When the Monsters Come) • short fiction by Damien Angelica Walters
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Title: The Black Wings of Cthulhu Vol 1 Series: Cthulhu Anthology #7 Editor: S.T. Joshi Rating: 3.0 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 385 Words: 141K
TOC
Introduction
S. T. Joshi
Pickman’s Other Model (1929)
CaitlÃn R. Kiernan
Desert Dreams
Donald R. Burleson
Engravings
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Copping Squid
Michael Shea
Passing Spirits
Sam Gafford
The Broadsword
Laird Barron
Usurped
William Browning Spencer
Denker’s Book
David J. Schow
Inhabitants of Wraithwood
W. H. Pugmire
The Dome
Mollie L. Burleson
Rotterdam
Nicholas Royle
Tempting Providence Jonathan Thomas
Howling in the Dark
Darrell Schweitzer
The Truth about Pickman
Brian Stableford
Tunnels
Philip Haldeman
The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash
Annotated by Ramsey Campbell
Violence, Child of Trust
Michael Cisco
Lesser Demons
Norman Partridge
An Eldritch Matter
Adam Niswander
Substitution
Michael Marshall Smith
Susie
Jason Van Hollander
There was a distinct lack of Cthulhu in this collection. A VERY distinct lack. It would have been better to call this a collection of stories about authors navel gazing as cockroaches ate their belly buttons. At least I would have been prepared for the completely self-absorbed narcissists who wrote these stories. They weren’t all necessarily bad, but without a direct tie to Cthulhu or some of his equally evil and cosmic brethren, they just came across as authors spouting nonsense about nonsense. I confirmed that Joseph Pulver Sr is a blithering idiot and has the skill of an epileptic caught in the throws of a fentanyl withdrawal while falling off of Nakatomi Towers.
I still gave this 3stars because of the ones that did tie directly into the Mythos. And I really enjoyed them. But 3 or 4 stories out of a collection of 21 is not a very good track record. Joshi (the editor of this collection) and I have a very mixed track record. Sometimes I really enjoy what he’s put together and other times I think he’s on drugs and his selections are crap. He is definitely one of those people who think Lovecraft’s mythology deserves “special attention” instead of just playing in the sandbox.
I just looked on Devilreads and there are FIVE more collections of this series. That’s rubbish. I am “almost” tempted to sample them to see if they too are Cthulhu’less, but I’ve got 6 other anthologies to investigate first. Maybe when I run out and am desperate for a Cthulhu fix (as I take a swan dive off of Nakatomi Tower, hehehehe).
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Title: Blitz Series: Checquy Files #3 Author: Daniel O’Malley Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: Urban Fantasy Pages: 622 Words: 250K
Long, bloated, two storylines that didn’t actually have any impact on each other and worst of all, boring. I was bored. The first storyline is dealing with London and World War II and the bombs being dropped on London. The second story involves a woman (who is married to a cop and has a daughter who is a toddler) who joins the Checquy because she can discharge electricity and it is in the present day.
I enjoyed the present day storyline. She was an engaging character with just the right amount of feistiness to keep me from rolling my eyes and she was SMART. She used her brains. Then I would just groan in spirit at the next chapter when we would go back to the stupid idiots who I was forced to read about during WWII. It was nothing more than a boring history info dump about the Checquy and I didn’t care two squats for it. Unfortunately, it seemed to play the bigger part and sucked the life from the entire book.
I actually feel rather generous giving this 2 stars. But it wasn’t bad, so I don’t feel like I can really go any lower. But I certainly won’t be reading any more in the Checquy Files if O’Malley writes any more. I hope he doesn’t because this was bad and I’m going to pretend The Rook and Stiletto are just a duology. Blitz has no business sullying the good literary name of the Checquy Files.
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Title: Jackal of the Mind DNF@2% Series: Tales of Wyverna #2 Author: Madolyn Rogers Rating: 1 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 6/287 Words: 2/106K
Sexuality and sexual preferences are important enough that I refuse to allow them to be perverted and to pass it off as “well, it’s only a piece of fiction”.
I was disappointed but it happens enough now that I think I’m to the point where I can just shrug it off and dnf the book without much regret. Ahhh well, on to another book and another author.
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Title: Predator: Eyes of the Demon Series: ———- Authors: Bryan Schmidt (Ed) Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 298 Words: 111K
★✬☆☆☆
Totally woke bs. The only reason this didn’t get just a half star was because Scott Sigler wrote the final story and it was awesome and was a REAL Predator story. No pregnant predators bonding emotionally with human mothers and the universal bond of motherhood or some other such bologna.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission Title: New Tales of the Yellow Sign Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #5 Editor: Robin Laws Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 143 Words: 51K
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Dead Silence Series: ———- Authors: Stacey Barnes Rating: 1 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 319 Words: 109.5K
Synopsis:
From the Publisher & Me
Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed―made obsolete―when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.
What they find is shocking: the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick search of the ship reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold on to her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
Turns out everything was caused by a machine put on board the ship by a rival company that was supposed to make everyone feel dread and uneasiness. The ship used a new alloy and the interactions between the machine and ship drove everyone insane.
Claire survives as does her loverboy and they get rich and own their own shipping company. The end.
My Thoughts:
I went into this with very high hopes. Both Mogsy and Maddalena had reviewed it and while there were some little things that niggled at me, what they wrote sounded fantastic.
Things started out really great. I’m talking Event Horizon levels of great in fact. Which is exactly what I wanted and was looking for. Then I find out the main character is insane, so I can’t trust a word coming out of her mouth, then the whole “scary” situation gets “scyenzesplained” to me and THEN romance right at the end where the man knows exactly what to do and what to say like he’d read the main character’s insane mind and was pretty much the perfectest man ever.
It blew my mind. In a bad way. I was pretty angry in fact. To go from people ripping their own eyeballs out to scyenze to romance was more than I could take. Stacey Barnes took a space elevator ride straight to my Authors to Avoid list with this book. What gets me is that it DID start out so fantastic. WHY did she have to go and change things and ruin everything? I could smell the hotdog. I could see the hotdog. Then the author gave me a celery stick and acts like it was that all along. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
So if you want a scary story that is ruined by scyenze and romance, this is definitely the book for you. If I cared more, I’d cross post this review to all sorts of other platforms just to give people fair warning. But in about 10 years nobody will ever remember this book, because it truly is that bad. I’ll step aside and let Time be the author’s executioner.
This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Feast and Famine Series: ———- Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SFF Pages: 157 Words: 60.5K
Synopsis:
From the Inside Cover and TOC
In Feast and Famine Adrian Tchaikovsky delivers an ambitious and varied collections of stories. Ranging from the deep space hard SF of the title story (originally in Solaris Rising 2) to the high fantasy of “The Sun in the Morning” (a Shadows of the Apt tale originally featured in Deathray magazine), from the Peter S Beagle influenced “The Roar of the Crowd” to the supernatural Holmes-esque intrigue of “The Dissipation Club” the author delivers a dazzling array of quality short stories that traverse genre. Ten stories in all, five of which appear here for the very first time.
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Feast & Famine
3. The Artificial Man
4. The Roar of the Crowd
5. Good Taste
6. The Dissipation Club
7. Rapture
8. Care
9. 2144 and All That
10. The God Shark
11. The Sun of the Morning
12. About the Author
My Thoughts:
That’s right, there’s a reason I’ve been avoiding Tchaikovsky for the last year or two. While he can tell some good stories, he also really digs the knife into Christianity. Not organized religion, or Buddhism, or Islam, or any other religion, just Christianity. I “think” I could handle it if he were an equal opportunity mocker, but he’s not. He really lets fly with the story “Rapture” and I realized that while the other stories might be interesting that my time with him is done for good now.
If I need any more fixes of Tchaikovsky, I’ll just go and re-read the Shadows of the Apt decology.
