Got involved in a land war in Asia.
Hmmm, where to start. I grabbed So Not a Hero by SJ Delos because I’m going through a bit of a superhero kick at the moment and the story sounded interesting. It is, don’t get me wrong. The story and world-building is solid and enjoyable. The main character has a ton of back-story and issues she needs to work through and you begin rooting for her pretty much straight away. The Blurb: A reformed villain.After serving two years in a...
This was a funny and entertaining book to read. So Gary, our “hero” of the story leads a dull life where he wants nothing more than to be a supervillain. Of course this wish is fulfilled when the magical cloak of the foremost (and newly deceased) hero of the city turns up on his doorstep. Suddenly he gets everything he wants and becomes Merciless: The Supervillain Without Mercy. The tautology alone should give you an idea what this book is...
Yes, I know you’re not supposed to judge books by their covers but I’m talking about my own here so I think I’m okay. I’ve never been 100% happy with the covers of Boneyards or Badlands – the two books of the FTW series, so over the last week or so I’ve been busy reworking them into something I’m happier with. This time I’ve tried to incorporate something that feels more like the world described in the book. Boneyards takes...
A short story this time (just shy of 5,000 words) from a Reddit Writing Prompt. Written as 2nd person (a perspective I rarely read and up to now haven’t written in)… but it suited the “game” theme as many old point-and-click and text-adventure type games would employ this style. It’s written as if they’re scenes in a game. The Prompt: [WP] You are the protagonist of a point-and-click game. The Story: Maze Quest Standing South of the Mansion You are standing...
I very nearly passed this one by but now that I’ve finished it I’m glad that I didn’t. I say I almost passed it by because the way the opening chapters are written didn’t appeal to me. The quick chopping and jumping around between dreams was off-putting, but I skipped past them to where the real story starts. The opening is basically prologue and, thinking back on it now, could be dropped all together. I get that we need to...
Another suggestion by Goodreads and another home run. My profile over there is obviously tweaked to perfection because it’s been recommending a lot of winners recently, and Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers by Tom Moran was no exception. If you were to merge Arthur Dent with Mister Bean and add them to a Sherlock Holmes mystery, you’d get something similar to this book. Walton Cumberfield is a character you can’t help but laugh at and with as he struggles on through...
To Cure the Humans by Douglas Lewis popped up on Goodreads as a suggestion for something I might like. I’ve said it before, but the machines are getting closer to taking over, because they were spot on. I did like it! The story is well paced and filled with a cast of well-developed characters, this rather long novel (456 pages) kept me entertained from beginning to end. It’s funny without trying too hard (for the most part). The length took me...
Life is funny sometimes. I’ve been writing short stories on and off for many years, but only started publishing them in 2016. The first short I published was Storm View. I wrote the first draft a few years ago now, almost a full year (based on the timestamp of the draft) before I ever read the first book in the Hard Luck Hank series by Steven Campbell. Why am I bringing this up? Well, because purely by chance my short...
Had this little gem float through my twitter feed yesterday because it’s available for free on Amazon (at the time of writing this). Judging the book entirely by it’s cover I went and checked it out. It’s the first in a series of shorts, collectively known as The Ansible Stories by Stant Litore. It’s a quick 19 pages and sounded interesting, so I took a break from what I was reading to read this. The Blurb: “Please hear me. We are...
Over the weekend I bought and read “The God Complex: My Adventures in a 300 Year Last Man Standing Competition” by Michael Suskind, based on Amazon’s suggestion. Turns out the machines are getting closer to taking over because they were spot on with this suggestion. So what’s it all about. That’s a tricky one. We’ll start with author’s blurb and then I’ll give you my opinions. The Blurb In 2021, a worldwide Competition of seven billion people — every man,...
